“I still don’t understand.”
“Let’s not get into that, all right?” Henry pleaded. He opened the firebox door on his range and added wood to a low-burning fire there, then lifted the lid of a pot left warm on the stove surface. A beefy aroma rose enticingly to fill the room.
“Damn, that smells good,” Longarm said.
“My housekeeper,” Henry explained. “She is a better-than-average cook. There is more than enough for two.”
“I wasn’t dropping hints. Honest. I ate on my way over here from the train station.”
“Even so-“
Longarm shook his head, but so as not to be impolite said, “Is that coffee I see there? I’d take some of that if you was to offer.”
“Give it a minute for the fire to build up. It will be hot soon.”
Longarm nodded and helped himself to a seat at the table, while Henry dished up a bowl of rich, chunky stew for himself and took a tin plate of crusty rolls out of the warming oven. “Are you sure you won’t join me?”
“No, thanks.”
Henry began eating, but gave his attention to the report Longarm presented, such as it was, on what little he’d learned down south. Halfway through Henry excused himself to fetch coffee for both of them, then once again concentrated on listening.
“An’ that’s about it,” Longarm concluded. About the only thing he had neglected to mention was the time he’d spent with Spotted Fawn. That was none of the government’s business, nor Henry’s either.
Henry nodded. “You say this fellow Smith recognized you?”
“He damn sure did. Even remembered the assignment I was given. He’s sharper than I thought. Don’t underestimate him. Nor Jones either, I suppose. The two of ‘em seem to run in a pack, an’ I’d guess one is likely as good as the other. Which is a sight better’n I gave them credit for to begin with.”
Henry sighed. “I suppose that is why the acting U.S. attorney decided to rely on them to run the investigation instead of using our own people.”
“Even if it did make sense, dammit, I’d still resent it. Billy was our boss and our friend. These Washington boys are total strangers that never even met him. We got the right, Henry. God knows we got the right to be in on the hunt for his killers.”
“I am sure the acting U.S. attorney is doing what he genuinely thinks is best.”
“Bullshit. You don’t think no such thing. You think just like the rest of us. That Cotton is playing politics with this investigation. Wantin’ to make himself look good to the attorney general back in Washington City. That’s why he put Smith an’ Jones in charge. He wants them to give him high marks when they get back home, never mind what they do or don’t find out here. Cotton wants the U.S. attorney’s job permanently. Finding Billy’s murderer is secondary now that there’s a vacancy that needs filling.”
“I have every confidence in the acting U.S. attorney and his motives,” Henry declared, perhaps a trifle too firmly for credibility.
Longarm just grinned at him and said, “Bullshit.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Henry, you’re transparent as a pane of glass. You can’t abide the son of a bitch. I bet if you had to shake hands with the man, you’d run right away an’ wash yourself just as quick as he was outa sight.”
“Whyever would you say-?”
“Because,” Longarm replied, cutting him off, “you can’t hardly bring yourself to call the man by name. It’s ‘acting U.S. attorney’ this and ‘acting U.S. attorney’ that. I don’t think you’ve once called the man by name, always by title. The whole damn mouthful. Is he really that bad, Henry?”
Henry looked like he wanted to deny the obvious, but after a moment he capitulated with a slump of his shoulders and a sad frown. “He is a complete prick, Longarm. And of course you are right. I can scarcely stand to be in the same room with him. To think that I have to take orders from him now after working so many years with a fine man like Marshal Vail.”
“You could resign,” Longarm suggested.
Henry gave him a scathing look. “Not until the killer or killers are brought to justice. Not one second before that time, I swear it. I owe Marshal Vail that much.”
“Yeah,” Longarm said, draining the last of his coffee and pushing back away from the table. “You an’ me both.”
“What will you do next, Longarm?”
“Talk to the driver an’ footman that was on the coach that day. Maybe one of them will have seen something useful. They did survive, didn’t they, the both of ‘em?”
“Yes.”
“You wouldn’t have their names, would you?”
“At the office. Not here. And no, I don’t happen to remember them off the top of my head.” Henry pursed his lips in concentration for a moment, then said, “It wouldn’t do for you to be seen in the Federal Building. After all, you are officially in Utah right now, and we don’t want the acting U.S. attorney to know his instructions are not being, shall we say, adhered to with full confidence. He has quite a temper, and if he started looking into the whereabouts of all our people, he might find a rather large number of surprises. Worse, we might find ourselves cut off from any opportunity to conduct the investigation the way we think it should be done.
“What I want you to do, Long, is to meet me tomorrow morning. At that cafe on Colfax … Maxwell’s, is
