“Ever since the break-in. But I wasn’t sure and I couldn’t prove it. I didn’t have any real evidence until I found that box under your couch. It’s kind of funny, keeping all those things of hers. Sort of sad, too.”
“Shut up. I don’t want you talking about her. Somebody like you shouldn’t even mention her name.”
He’s crazy, O’Malley thought. He’s crazy as a loon.
“I want the box, O’Malley.”
“I imagine you do. But I can’t give it to you. I’ve already given it to Fargo.”
“Fargo? You’re lying.”
O’Malley supposed it was a pretty pathetic lie. The box was sitting on the nightstand by his bed. The darkness hid it.
The killer brushed past him then. The room was so small that he was able to reach the bed and the nightstand in seconds. His harsh laugh told O’Malley that he’d found the box.
“So Fargo has it, huh?”
O’Malley was turning around in his chair as the killer cinched on his black leather gloves and stepped forward. O’Malley didn’t even have a chance of defending himself. The killer’s hands were so powerful that they snapped the trachea instantly. There was no problem then in finishing the job.
After he was sure O’Malley was dead, Deputy Pete Rule tucked the box under his arm and hurried from O’Malley’s hotel room.
14
As soon as Helen Hardesty heard a horse approaching her cabin, she ran for the rifle she had left leaning against the large oak that stood near the garden she had been tending. At age sixty-four, Helen had survived two husbands and the death of three of her nine children. She lived alone now by choice because in her later years she no longer wanted the complications of human relationships. Even when you loved someone, he or she could be burdensome. Her intimates now were her pinto, her wolfhound and her four cats. She had birdsong for music and magnificent mountain sunsets for beauty.
And until recently she’d had safety and comfort.
If only she hadn’t been tramping through the thin stand of jack pines. . . . She hadn’t meant to see him or what he was doing. In fact she tried to run and hurry away from what he was about to do to the terrified young man she recognized as Clete Byrnes. She had seen him around town when she went in for supplies. He was now tied to a slender oak. She also knew the man holding the gun on him. She knew she could not get involved. He would kill her for sure. She would have to pretend that she didn’t know anything about it. And so be it. She probably didn’t have that many years left and she wanted to live them out peacefully. With her mountain sunsets and her animals.
But as she started away her foot found a hole and threw her into the bushes. The noise alerted the man with the gun. He came for her. He slapped her over and over again until her knees buckled and he had to drag her to her cabin.
“I’m going to take care of some business here, Helen. It’s business that don’t concern you. And it’s business you’d damned well better keep to yourself or I’ll kill you. You understand me, Helen? I’ll kill you and I’ll get away with it, too. And you know I will.”
The funny thing was he didn’t even sound angry when he said all this. He was just stating a fact.
“Now you just sit here and I’ll do it quick and get it over with. And you stay away from that spot by those trees down by the creek. No need for you to see what I done. You understand, Helen?”
“Yes.”
“Somebody’ll come by soon enough and find him. And they’ll come and ask you if you know anything about it and you know what to say. You understand, Helen?”
“Yes.”
“You tell them you don’t know anything about it.”
“No.”
“Because if you did tell them anything, I’d have to kill you. And I think you know me well enough that I wouldn’t want to do that. You know me that well, don’t you, Helen?”
“Yes, I do, Pete.”
And then sitting there when he went away. And five minutes later the explosion of three gunshots. And then a terrible mountain silence.
And now, three days later, nervous every time she heard a horse on the trail that angled by her land.
By the time she could see the rider, she had her rifle up and aimed and ready to fire.
Fargo his name was. The man on the big Ovaro stallion. The man with those striking lake blue eyes. A good man, she’d sensed the other day, but a man who asked too many questions. A man who could get her in trouble. He was golden in the moonlight, a creature of myth as in some of the books she’d read as a little girl.
She shouted, “You better stop right there!”
This was pretty much the same situation Fargo had faced when he’d first laid eyes on Helen Hardesty. The harsh shout. The belligerent face. The rifle.
She whistled. From the shadows next to the house the wolfhound came running, lean and purposeful. He stood next to her. “He’ll kill you if I tell him to.”
“I don’t have much time, Helen.” He walked toward her.
“You stop right there.”
“There could be a lynching in town tonight. An innocent man could die unless you tell me who you saw murder the Byrnes boy.”
“Who said I saw anything?”
“The way you’re acting, Helen. You’re hiding something. Something you’re scared about. My guess is that the killer has threatened you. And you don’t scare easy. So that means he must have some kind of power. He thinks— and you think—that he can kill you and get away with it.”
The night winds soughed in the trees and filled the air with the scent of pine and the snow that had fallen on the lower parts of the mountains. A good night for sleeping in a warm bed. Sounded pretty good to Fargo.
“Who’s the man they’re going to lynch?”
“Ned Lenihan.”
“Ned Lenihan!” she said. “Why, he’s one of the most decent people I’ve ever known. He’s a good man. He was friends with both of my husbands.”
“Well, there’s some evidence against him so I had to bring him in. Now I’m wondering if I should have.”
He moved closer to her. A deep growl sounded in the wolfhound’s throat but it remained still.
“Three men are dead, Helen. Their families deserve some answers.”
“Well, I’m sorry for the families, Fargo. But I don’t have no answers to give.”
An owl flew downwind, elegant against the moonlight sky.
“Maybe you’re trusting the wrong people, Helen.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Maybe you’re scared to tell the truth because somebody threatened you.”
“You’re wrong there, Fargo. I’m not scared of nobody. I didn’t know that body was anywhere near here.”
“Look, Helen, you’ve lived out West a long time—maybe all your life. You know how animals respond to something like a human body. You’ve got a dog and cats and you probably get around your land pretty much every day. Kind of hard to believe that Clete Byrnes could have laid out there without you knowing anything about it. Unless you stayed inside your house for a couple days.”
The rifle lowered a few inches. “I don’t have many years left. I want to die peaceful. Enjoying myself. I don’t think that’s asking a lot.” Outlined in the silver light of the half-moon she looked small and bent. Her usual vigor was gone.
“I don’t think you want to die knowing that Ned Lenihan was sentenced for three killings he didn’t commit. That wouldn’t make for a very peaceful life. You’re too good a woman to live with something like that hanging over you.”
