Elder.
Quincannon looked up without touching the card. “I can’t say I’m surprised,” he said.
“Somehow I didn’t figure you would be.”
“Marshal, if that is an insinuation that I might have had something to do with Elder’s death, I must remind you that I have only been in Silver City three days. And you yourself said that Elder’s corpse has been in that canyon for close to a week.”
“So I did,” McClew said. “But I wasn’t insinuating anything, Mr. Lyons. No sir, not me. Just trying to get to the bottom of things.” He paused for another spit. “I suppose you wouldn’t know anything about Elder being killed, either?”
“No more than I know abut Whistling Dixon’s death, or Yum Wing’s.”
“I figured not. Tell me, you expect to go on asking questions like you have been?”
“Not if you’d rather I didn’t.”
“Too many cooks spoil the broth, if you take my meaning. Besides, you ain’t a lawman.”
“That’s right,” Quincannon said, “I’m not. Very well, Marshal. I will cease and desist and leave the detecting to you.”
“I’m pleased to hear you say that. How long you figuring to stay in Silver, if you don’t mind saying?”
“Not much longer. My business here is about finished.”
“Well, I hope you been selling plenty of nerve and brain salts. Quite a few folks around here could use some fortifying of both.”
“I’ve been fortunate thus far.”
“Yes you have,” McClew said meaningfully. He watched Quincannon get on his feet. “If you should happen to hear anything I might like to know, or remember anything you might’ve forgot to tell me just now, you come see me again before you leave. I’ll be around for you to find. And I expect the vice versa’ll be true too, if needs be.”
“Just as you say, Marshal.”
From behind the door to the cellblock, the man named Dewey began shouting again for his breakfast. McClew, looking put-upon, was yelling back at him, “Dewey, damn your drunken soul, if you don’t shut your face I’ll lock you up for a week with them women from the Temperance Union,” as Quincannon went out the door.
Chapter 14
From the courthouse he made his way to the nearest saloon for whiskey. McClew was a shrewd man, he though as he drank; there was no gainsaying that. And for all appearances, an honest one. He had been favorably impressed by the man — but he still wasn’t ready to take the marshal into his confidence, not while he was on his own here. McClew’s help could be solicited after Samuel Greenspan arrived. Meanwhile, he would have to be circumspect in how he conducted his investigation.
Quincannon ordered a second whiskey, which was a mistake. It made him woozy; last night’s beating had weakened him more than he cared to admit. Outside again, he stood for a time in the warming wind to let his head clear. Then, still moving at a retarded pace in deference to his bruised ribs, he left the downtown area, crossed Jordan Creek, and went up Morning Star Street.
As he walked he pondered what McClew had told him about Jason Elder. The tramp printer’s death was hardly unexpected; nor was there much surprise in the fact that Elder had been tortured before he was killed. Conrad again? Bogardus? One or the other seemed likely. It was also likely that the purpose of the torture had been to force Elder to reveal the whereabouts of the item, whatever it was, that he had given to Yum Wing for safekeeping. And if Whistling Dixon had been assigned the task of disposing of Elder’s corpse, it would explain how he had come by Elder’s brand new watch: he had simply removed it from the dead man’s pocket before dumping the body.
Some of the pieces were beginning to fit together now. But others remained puzzling, and one of the largest of those was Helen Truax.
He turned off Morning Star toward where the Truax mansion sat on its lofty perch, looking down on the rest of Silver City. As he approached he saw that the buggy Mrs. Truax had been driving last night, with the dappled gray in harness, stood waiting before the carriage barn to one side of the main house; he took that to mean she was home. He opened the front gate, went up the path to the veranda stairs.
But he had only climbed two when a woman’s voice, shrill with anger and loud enough to be heard above the pound of the stamp mills, came from inside and off to the right.
Quincannon stood still, listening. He thought he heard a man’s voice, and then the woman’s again, just as shrill and just as angry; but the words of both were indistinct. He backed down off the stairs, followed another path that paralleled a thick row of lilac bushes along the right side of the house. Halfway back, a pair of French windows had been opened to admit fresh air and the morning sun. The voices were coming from inside there, and when he drew closer he could hear what was being said.
“… tell you, I won’t do it!”
“Yes you will. You’ll do just as I say.”
“I won’t, damn you!”
There was a sharp smacking noise, flesh against flesh, followed by a small cry. Quincannon eased into the bushes on the near side of the window, poked his head over the top of one and peered through the crack where the inner edge of the window hinged outward. At first the only person he could see was Helen Truax, standing next to a mahogany music cabinet with one hand to her cheek and her eyes blazing. Quincannon moved his head slightly, to improve the field of his vision. More of the room appeared — a sitting room, filled with expensive furniture — and finally he saw the man who had struck her, in hard profile a few steps away.
It surprised him not at all that the man was Jack Bogardus.
She said, “You shouldn’t have hit me, Jack. Not in my own house.”
“Your house. Hell. None of this is yours; it belongs to that fat son of a bitch you married.”
“You shouldn’t hit me,” she said again, in the same cold, angry voice.
“I’ll hit you any time I please,” Bogardus said. “Here or anywhere else.” He smiled at her without humor. “Besides, you know you like rough handling.”
“I don’t.”
“You do, Helen. Same as you like me coming here while your pig of a husband is at the Paymaster. Same as you like what we do while I’m here.”
“Don’t talk that way. I don’t like vulgar talk.”
Bogardus laughed, as if she had told a particularly funny joke. He put his back to the window, went to where a cut-glass decanter and matching glasses sat on a sideboard, and poured himself a drink. When he turned again, to look at Helen Truax, he also faced the window at something of an oblique angle. Quincannon lowered his head, even though Bogardus’ attention was fixed on the woman.
“Well?” Bogardus said. “More argument?”
She folded her arms across her heavy breasts and hugged herself as if she might be feeling a chill. “I don’t like it, Jack. Hasn’t there been enough of that already?” The anger had faded from her voice; now she sounded nervous and perhaps a little afraid.
“Yes,” he said. “Too much. But it can’t be helped.”
“Why do I have to be the one?”
“We’ve already discussed that.”
“It has to be tonight?”
“The sooner the better.”
“I don’t have to stay at the mine, do I?”
“Why not? You might enjoy the game.”
“Damn you, Jack…”
Bogardus laughed again. He finished his drink, put the glass down, and moved over to stand in front of her. Still smiling, he slapped her a second time — not hard, but hard enough to sting.
She flushed and started to slap him in return, but he caught her wrist. She said, “What did you do that for?”
