Walt Langford raised both palms to slow Cole down. The president of the Florida First National had the jowls of a real banker these days, not a trace of those honest cowboy bones showed through the lard. Had him a stiff collar and cravat to go with his new million-dollar smile, which was served up with everything he said. His nails were pink and his honey hair was slicked tight as a duck's wing, ol' Walt smelled like a barbershop and no mistake. But lotion couldn't cover up the reek of whiskey. Walt was a drinker, I knew that, always was and always would be, though he did his best to drink on his own time.
Walt spoke in a hushed-up voice 'on behalf of the victim's family,' glancing at Cole every few seconds to be sure he was making the right speech. He told us 'the most merciful solution' was to 'forget the whole tragedy' as soon as possible rather than 'waste our public money dragging these men through the courts when there was no way justice could be done.' So anxious was he to spit up his speech that he ignored the victim's son, never mind the feelings of my suspects.
Isaac Yeomans hollered out, 'Justice
Walt went red in a split second. 'Oh Lordy, I'm trying to
'Go on home, then,' Isaac Yeomans said.
After the hubbub died a little, I advised the banker and his friend that murder was murder and could not be ignored by law. Orderly steps had to be taken to establish responsibility for the shooting-inquest and grand jury hearing, indictment, circuit court. Right about then, Cole took me by the elbow in that way he had and coaxed me aside as if the pair of us was up to something sneaky. He was wheezing, and as was customary, his breath stank of onions.
'Why not drop it? Just forget it?' Jim Cole said.
'Lee County can't 'just forget' about a murder.'
'It ain't murder if you deputized that posse, Frank.'
'Little late to form a posse, Mr. Cole.'
'Is it? State's attorney owes me a favor, and he won't ask questions about dates. You got my word.'
'Your word,' I said, feeling worn out again. 'How about justice?'
'How about it, Frank?' Cole snorted out a sort of laugh, slapping my biceps with the back of his thick hand to remind me I owed him a favor, too-to remind me yet again that ten years ago, young Frank B. Tippins 'came into this sheriff's office barefoot,' as Cole said.
I came in barefoot, but I came in honest, too. I never asked for Jim Cole's backing. Young Frank Tippins learned the hard way that the cowmen and their cronies ran this town any damn old way they wanted. To get my job done, I had to work around the cattle kings, learning the art of give-and-take, and I reckon I took a little finally, cut some corners. My worst mistake was renting buck niggers off the county road gangs for cheap labor at Deep Lake. Cole fixed it with Langford to pay me nine dollars per week per head, plus fees for Indians to hunt them through the hammocks when they ran away.
Paying chain-gang convicts for their labor was against the law. My idea was to settle when they'd served their time, but very few came pestering me about their money, they just disappeared. The fund was illegal anyway, so I'd borrowed off it some to pay my bills.
Jim Cole would wink each time he brought the money. 'Don't want to catch you giving one red cent to them bad niggers, Frank. Don't want our sheriff to do nothing that ain't legal!' And he'd slap my arm with the backs of his fingers in that same loose way he did it now, to remind me how deep he had me in his dirty pocket, along with the sticky coins and stale tobacco crumbs.
Well, I went back into the courtroom and I swore in every man except House and Smallwood. Nothing was done, then or later, to establish responsibility, since deputizing the shooters made the shooting legal. Langford and Cole were overjoyed to get the case dismissed without a trial-last thing these well-fixed fellers wanted was a scandal-and young Eddie seemed to see it the same way. As for the new deputies, they went home feeling a whole lot better about what was done on October 24th in the line of duty.
The only discontented ones were me and House. He drew off by himself, he fumed, he punched the wall. Then he came forward. In front of the rest, he denounced the tricky way they had ducked criminal charges, when in his estimation no crime had been committed in the first place. He said he'd sooner go to Hell than be deputized in this dishonest way, said he'd damn well go to trial by himself if that was the only way he could get vindicated.
Bill House stayed behind when the others left. At the court clerk's desk where I stood sorting Eddie's documents, he said in an accusing way, 'What's going to happen to that nigger, Sheriff?'
'Key West,' I said, not looking up, to show him I was busy. When he waited there, expecting more, I said, 'Justice.' Finally, I cocked an eye at him and said, 'That nigger's gonna see some justice, Bill.' I managed a wry smile, making a joke of this, but I wasn't in a mood to smile, and he wasn't, either. I held his eye, to warn him, and he stared right back. 'Same justice you gave Watson, Bill,' I said, 'according to your Chokoloskee story.'
For a florid feller, House went a dangerous color. When I said, 'No hard feelings,' and held out my hand, he shook his head, turned toward the door, and kept on going, following the rest out into the sun, down toward the wharf.
Cox had closed the book on Dutchy Melvin, who was the man most wanted in Key West. As for Green Waller, if that was his real name, he was on the books here in Fort Myers as a hog thief, twice convicted back in the late nineties. After that nobody knew what had become of him. Got sick of running and drifted south to the Ten Thousand Islands, I imagine. Ed Watson had plenty of hogs to keep Green happy, and Big Hannah was down there later on to warm his bones.
In the opinion of my new-sworn posse, Cox might still be down there in the Islands, and nobody could say when or where he might show up. They had decided Cox was crazy, Cox would kill again. If E.J. Watson had saved his life by setting him ashore someplace, Cox might stop at nothing to avenge him, might sneak back in and kill some posse members in the night.
At least they had known Watson to talk crops with, at least their women had passed the time of day with his wife and children. For better or worse Ed Watson was their neighbor. Cox was a stranger, known to no one, and strangers were capable of almost anything.
Afterwards, trying to piece it all together, I came up with more questions than good answers. I knew one thing. My witness fooled the men at Pavilion Key by acting the part of a dumb, scared coon after doing his best to implicate Ed Watson. No matter how much I cuffed him in the jailhouse, that smart, hard nigger stuck like wet rice to the second story that he gave Thad Williams, who had messed things up by challenging the first one.
Thad admitted he had always liked 'Ol' E.J.,' and so had his nephew Dickie Moore and all that family. They wanted to believe in Ol' E.J.'s innocence, and they weren't the only ones. But if Watson was innocent, why did the nigger make up that first story, which could only get him in more trouble? Was he really so scared of Cox he couldn't think straight?
In my belief, he told the truth the first time, and he went over to Pavilion Key to tell it. If Jim Cannon and his boy had not passed by on the day that woman rose out of the river, the sharks and gators would have beat us humans to the evidence, and if that nigger hadn't told the truth at Pavilion Key, no man would have ever known what fate befell those three lost souls, never mind the squaw. There would only be more rumors about Watson.
I signed the prisoner over to Sheriff Jaycox for transport to Key West. On the dock Jaycox summed up his understanding of the situation with the prisoner standing right in front of him.
'White woman. Foul-murdered, mutilated and left for nude,' Clem Jaycox said.
'That is sure right.'
'No jury ain't going to stand for that, what do you think, Frank? Don't hardly seem fair to ask the citizens of Monroe County to waste their money on no trial, when we know the verdict 'fore it starts.'
'No, it sure don't.'
Jaycox straightened his hat and waited. I didn't like this much. His prisoner wouldn't sit down on the cargo where I pointed, just stood up straight, hands tied behind, observing us.
'What you looking at, nigger boy?' Jaycox said, real soft and low, hiking his belt.
