Burnside fleeing from the scene of the crime than it was to picture a seven-year-old boy as a murder-rapist, with a cowhand who hadn’t raped anybody seriously lying to cover up for the kid. But damn it, Bubblehead Burnside had been playing in the dirt like an even younger kid when the posse had ridden out to his sister’s hog farm.
Longarm got up to go pay for another beer and help himself to a salami on rye and some boiled eggs as he muttered, “Sure. Bubblehead Burnside was a fiendishly cunning criminal who was only pretending to be a Mongoloid idiot so that nobody would suspect him of being a sex maniac. The way they decided at the hearing was the most sensible way it works and that’s that, dad blast it!”
Then he carried his beer and free lunch back to the table to go over it all some more, dad blast it.
Chapter 12
The inquest that afternoon was just a formality, and would have been over sooner if it hadn’t been for Longarm. Doc Forbes congratulated him on his marksmanship, and the county prosecutor, who turned out to be that older cuss in the stylish white deerskin jacket and Buffalo Bill face hair, declared there was no call to present a fair fight the loser had started before the circuit court, even if it had been in session.
Everyone seemed satisfied except Longarm, who got to his feet when the coroner asked if there were any objections to quitting while they were ahead.
Longarm said, “I’ve been going over the transcript of that earlier inquest, Doc, and no offense, that young Timmy Sears was questioned once over lightly when you consider how serious his testimony was.”
There came a confused murmur from the panel, and their audience as well. Doc Forbes asked, “What in thunder might Timmy Sears know about the late Porky Shaw slapping leather on a federal lawman with a rep? The child was fast asleep on the far side of town at the time!”
Longarm nodded, but pointed out, “He was crossing the churchyard the day Mildred Powell was assaulted and murdered. On the face of it, his few recorded words back the tales told by the grown men who say they found her lying in a pool of blood and accusing that retarded boy. But I’d feel better if I could have a few words with young Timmy as well.”
The county prosecutor snapped, “Thunderation and Sweet Jesus, the case of the People versus Howard Burnside is moot! Whether Bubblehead done the deed or not, the Minute Men strung him up. So what else might there be to say about it?”
“Who done it if Howard Burnside didn’t,” Longarm replied in a voice of calm reason. “That’s the trouble with lynching folks before they can stand trial. I agree it looks as if that retarded boy made a play for his Sunday school teacher, stabbed her when she told him not to be silly, and ran out the cellar door the way Timmy Sears seems to say he did. I still want to talk to Timmy Sears.”
The town law, Pronto Cross, called out from the back, “It’s almost supper time. What say I rustle young Timmy and his folks up in the morning and have them over to my office for you to interview around nine or ten?”
Longarm allowed that sounded fair. The county prosecutor gussied up like a cavalry scout said he’d be switched with snakes if Longarm could show him anything they’d done wrong the last time they’d questioned the kid.
Longarm said, “I just said I’d read over every word you all took down. The first time you read over it he seems to be certain a boy he knew as Howard because you weren’t supposed to call him Bubblehead came out of that church cellar about the time Timmy heard Miss Mildred screaming for help. But when you read it over more than once … Let’s just say I’d like to go over it one more time with the boy, hear?”
Pronto Cross said they had a deal, and Doc Forbes declared his inquest into the death of Porky Shaw closed. So all rose to get on home or over to the Red Rooster before supper time.
As he was waiting for the crowd to clear, a mighty handsome gal brushed past him wearing her red hair in braids under a black Spanish hat, with a Schofield .45 in a tooled leather holster on either seam of her whipcord riding skirt. He couldn’t tell if she noticed him or not. No man could have. Gals who carried their noses that high in the sky could pass between a train wreck and a Roman orgy without letting on they noticed either.
Longarm turned down an invitation to supper from Doc Forbes, and told the county prosecutor and town marshal he might see them over at the Red Rooster later. So they left together without pestering him further. He was about to leave when one of those gents he’d seen the other day in the barbershop sidled up to him to say, “Before you cloud up and rain all over me, Deputy Long, I am only passing on a message from a cuss who said he was in too much of a hurry to talk to you personal.”
Longarm cocked a brow and dryly replied, “I’ve had such messages relayed to me in the past. They do that more often down Mexico way. Who sent you, the Minute Men or this Fox Bancroft I’ve heard so much about?”
The cuss from the barbershop said, “I don’t recall. I’m only trying to be helpful. I was told to tell you there’s a southbound combination passing through this evening. That gives you time to have supper, settle up with anyone you owe here in Pawnee Junction, and be safely on your way by sundown.”
Longarm asked, “What happens if I’m still here after sundown?”
The townsman looked sincerely worried and asked, “Who’s to say? I ain’t armed and I ain’t threatening anybody with shit. I’ve only told you what I was told to tell you, see?”
Longarm nodded thoughtfully. If he shoved this worried-looking older cuss against the wall and shoved a .44-40 muzzle up one nostril, he might or might not get a true name or more out of him. But after that, as they’d long since noticed down Mexico way, it could be a waste of time trying to follow a tangled thread from one mere lickspittle to another, and worse yet, that was sometimes exactly what they expected you to do. He’d walked into a swell ambush in Sonora one night trying to find out who’d sent Pancho to tell Juanito to tell Hernando. So he contented himself with: “Tell your pals I’ll take their railroad timetable under advisement.”
Then he lit a smoke out front, and circled the courthouse to duck between two buildings and sneak over to the library and catch little Ellen Brent just as she was fixing to close for the afternoon.
She let him back inside when he allowed he’d like her to. As she shut the front door after them she said, “We missed you at dinner. That hardware tycoon, Remington Ramsay, took your place under the grape arbor and ate enough for the both of you. What are we going to do about him, Custis?”
Longarm smiled uncertainly and replied, “Didn’t know we had any call to do anything about him, Miss Ellen. I asked him to come over and give me an estimate on the damage from that gunplay in the wee small hours.”
Ellen shot the bolt of the door as she said, “I fear you may have created a monster. He was still there when I had to get back to work and leave poor Mavis to his mercy!”
