Killing Time In Eternity - Edge Series 4 (19 page)

Edge recalled what Charles Childs had said to Shelby in the saloon about Billy not being much of a drinker. But the boy’s father had also claimed his son was not a womaniser.

Shaver went on: ‘Came from having such a strict upbringing by the doc is my opinion. And things got on top of the kid every now and then. Low down times when he couldn’t see his future being any better than the lousy past. Way he was trapped in a tank town like Eternity in a job that was never going to pay him much more than eating money.’

He spread a determined look across his spare featured face. ‘Let me tell you, mister, I sure as hell don’t plan for that to happen to me,’

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Then he cocked his head, pointedly listening to the slow approach of a wagon that had sounded for half a minute or so, the vehicle creaking and rattling and splashing laboriously up the track from the trail. Next he scowled, picked up the brush he had been using to decorate the wheel rim and dropped it into a small jar of discoloured cleaning spirit. As he replaced the lid on the paint pot, he muttered in a disgruntled tone: ‘That’ll be Lester Hardin and Gus Brady, the two boys that work for me. I was hoping to have this wheel finished before I’ll be needed to give them a hand.’

Shaver’s tone and expression implied criticism of Edge for wasting his time as they both looked out through the gap between the part-open yard gates. And watched as a work scarred, low-sided wagon with two men up on the box seat and drawn by two swaybacked horses started to swing into a turn.

‘Real sorry I had to force you into a smoke break, feller,’ Edge said sardonically as the wagon came to a halt, its rear end aligned with the gateway.

‘It don’t really matter,’ the skinny little man admitted morosely and peered ruefully at the carriage that was in such fine condition amid the clutter of the yard. ‘I’ve got lots of time to finish it, truth to tell.’

The two grey duster coated men climbed down off the wagon and entered the yard, each of them pushing a gate open wider. They were both in their mid-twenties, with muscular builds, weather beaten faces, clear blue eyes and matching moustaches: thick and turned down at either side of their mouths.

One had long and dishevelled, dirty blond hair and the other looked almost bald at first glance, the way his greasy black hair was cut so short. They looked at Edge with a studied lack of interest for stretched seconds then each gave him a cursory nod. The fair-haired man yelled cheerfully: ‘Okay, Troy, let’s get things started. I don’t want to be late getting done tonight.’ He went back out through the yard entrance and dropped the tailgate of the wagon while the second man crossed to a corner and dragged a crumpled black tarp sheet off a heap of filled sacks.

‘You’d never think I was boss of this outfit, would you, mister?’ Shaver asked in an indulgently rhetorical tone as the man with the cropped hair swung one of the obviously weighty sacks up on to a broad shoulder.

Edge said: ‘If I need to talk to you again, I’ll try to pick a better time, feller.’

Shaver rose from the stool, stepped out from the doorway and called: ‘I’ll be right with you, Gus.’ Then he turned to Edge and matched the tone of his voice to his bleak expression when he responded: ‘Seems to me there ain’t any need for a next time, mister.

‘I’ve answered all your questions fair and square. So it seems to be there’s nothing else we got to say to each other?’

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Brady came back into the yard, paused at the harshness of Shaver’s voice, saw the hard look on his boss’s gaunt face and asked: ‘This stranger giving you some kind of trouble, Troy?’

Hardin heard the query, thudded the sack down hard on the bed of the wagon and came quickly in through the gateway, his attitude as hostile as that of Brady.

‘No trouble right now, boys,’ Shaver assured and grinned without humour. ‘But if this guy gives me any grief in the future, I’m sure you’ll look out for your kindly old boss, uh? Like you always have, right?’

The two younger men scowled and each had the physical presence to back up the dangerous glints in their pale blue eyes as they advanced to stand on either side of Shaver.

‘You can bet on that, Troy,’ Brady promised and pointed a dirty nailed, rock steady index finger at Edge when he rasped through gritted teeth: ‘And you better believe that, right?’

‘No trouble, feller,’ Edge told Shaver as he pointedly ignored the two younger men flanking him. ‘Unless you’re the one to make it.’

He turned and ambled to the wide-open gateway, where he paused and looked back.

‘Like I said, if I need to talk with you again, I’ll do what I can to pick a better time.’

Brady sneered: ‘There ain’t never a good time for a man to get the shit beat outta him, mister.’

‘But if you fancy your chances of doing that to us, we’ll be ready any time you want.’

As Hardin augmented the other man’s threat he unfastened his duster to show he packed a Colt .45 in a free hanging holster at his right thigh. And a sudden grin showed some crooked teeth as he smacked a fist lightly into the opposite open palm.

‘I guess you’ve got the message, Edge?’ the confidently smiling Shaver asked.

‘Loud and clear.’ Edge showed a grin of his own and kept his tone as light as his expression while behind the façade he was silently riled at himself for yet again allowing himself to become embroiled in another juvenile trading of insults among grown men. Then he added: ‘I can see why you’re interested in the theatre, feller. The way things can suddenly get to be so melodramatic around you.’

‘But best you keep it in mind that me and Lester ain’t acting, mister,’ Brady warned and his sneer altered into a cold smile of anticipation.

‘Because if you don’t, it could end up being a real tragedy for you.’ Hardin laughed harshly at his joke.

Shaver vented a short laugh of his own that sounded more like an excited girlish giggle and blurted: ‘Sounds like your cue to leave, mister!’

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Edge showed a glinting eyed, ice-cold grin as he turned away and muttered: ‘Right, feller. The grammar’s as lousy as this play, but there’s just me exit left.’

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CHAPTER • 13

_________________________________________________________________________

THE GLOOMY afternoon became even more damply chill as Edge retraced his steps
along the California Trail and trudged back up through the mud of Main Street. But after he turned on to the narrow side street that started between the law office and the
Eternity
Post Despatch
building he saw the chimney of the house where the Childs father and son had lived was emitting a wispy plume of dark smoke. And he quickened his pace in anticipation of the warmth that was promised within the large, two story frame and brick house: giving no thought to who had lit a fire in the home whose two customary occupants were violently dead. And he gave even less consideration to the notion that if Ward Flynt and Clay Warner were in the law office and had seen him as he moved on to the unnamed road, they gave no overt sign of any interest in him,

The plot of land on which the Childs house stood was bounded at the front by a six feet high evergreen hedge with a narrow gateway at the centre and a wagon-wide gap without gates at the far right end. The cement walk that ran from the fastened open gate to the porch was flanked by neatly kept squares of grass. While from the opening at the end of the front hedge a gravel strip led up to and beyond the side of the house, probably to a barn or stable at the rear. The same kind of thorny shrubs that formed the front hedge also provided clear boundary lines at the sides.

Edge saw the slight twitch of a net curtain at the window to the right of the porch as he advanced up the walk, so it was no surprise when the door swung open only moments after his fist rapped against it. He knew the name of the woman on the threshold because he had seen her behind the counter of the notions store he had heard she inherited from her long dead husband.

Mary Whittier showed a tenuous tear stained smile of welcome as he tipped his hat. A short and rotund woman, her body had many surely unwelcome curves and bulges that even the most well cut clothes would never be able to conceal adequately. And today her large bosom, prominent middle and generous hips and rear were tightly contoured by an unbecoming close fitting floral patterned apron. Her naturally flushed face with small brown eyes, bulbous cheeks and rosebud, child-like mouth was the kind on which a smile would fit more easily than a frown. She was between fifty and sixty, her age difficult to estimate accurately because her fully fleshed face and neck were unwrinkled.

‘I saw you coming up the walk, Mr Edge,’ she said in the tone of an apology and gestured toward the lace curtained, partially draped window to the side of the doorway. 103

‘The funeral will be tomorrow and I just know that Charles would have liked the house to be at its best for any mourners who choose to come back here for refreshments after the service. Can I get you a cup of coffee? I’m almost through with the chores. They didn’t take very long, because Charles has always kept house better than many women I know.’

She swallowed hard and fluttered her small hands, abruptly embarrassed as she realised she was talking too much and too quickly.

He removed his hat. ‘Maybe later, Mrs Whittier. I’d like to take a look over the house, if that’s okay with you?’

‘Of course. Why should I mind?’ She was perturbed.

He shrugged. ‘I didn’t expect to find any one here to ask. But I heard you were a close friend of the doc’s, and with him having no next of kin . . ‘

She was clearly anxious to help as she ushered him inside and stepped back. The hallway was cold and smelled of wax polish from the highly shined surfaces of the solid furniture that over-filled the longer than it was wide room: and the faint perfume from two vases of winter flowers that stood on a narrow table to one side. She closed the door and invited: ‘Please feel free to help yourself, Mr Edge. But I’m afraid I only lit the stove in the kitchen so I could make myself some coffee. The rest of the house is really quite cold.’ She gestured up the flight of stairs to where there was a short, gallery-like area at the top and a landing with doors off to either side. ‘The doctor’s bedroom is to the left. Billy’s to the right. At the rear is a guestroom. And opposite there’s a rummage room. Down here – ‘

‘Much obliged, ma’am. I reckon I’ll be able to find my way around the place okay.’

She remained hesitantly where she was, like she would have preferred to be asked to accompany him rather than dismissed to finish off what she had been doing. But Edge’s quizzical expression made her feel more uncomfortable than ever and she abruptly nodded, turned away and moved quickly along the hallway toward a door at the rear. Where, as he started to climb the stairs, she paused to excuse:

‘I’ve done some dusting and a little rug shaking in the bedrooms. But since the mourners aren’t likely to want to go upstairs, I didn’t give that part of the house much more than a lick and a promise of something better later.’

‘I’ll try to leave everything just as I find it, lady,’ he called downstairs as he halted at the open doorway to the room where Charles Childs had slept. Maybe on occasion with the woman who now began to make subdued sounds in the kitchen below. Discovered it had been furnished and decorated by somebody whose taste was for the understated. And he figured it was probably a woman who chose the frilled pink curtains and bed linen, light coloured furniture with delicate scroll trimming and floral pastel 104

shade wallpaper. The walls were hung with several small framed watercolours of rustic landscapes not inspired by anywhere in Kansas plus a strikingly contrasting, vividly bright religious scene in oils painted by Roy Sims. The off-white thick pile rugs were fully in keeping with the rest of the furnishings.

He surveyed the room impassively from the threshold for just a few moments then closed the door, stepped across the hallway and entered the bedroom of a second man whose life had recently come to a violent end. This had a theme that was far more masculine in concept. But its stark ambience lacked personality and reminded Edge of the cheaper accommodation provided by some high-class big city hotel. Washed white walls without any pictures hung on them, basic solid mahogany furniture in the same style as that down in the hallway and two sombre hued rugs and mismatched drapes. As he delved into the contents of the bureau drawers and then moved on to investigate the wardrobe, he wondered what the hell he was doing and what he expected to find. And could only hope that if he was going to come upon some blindingly obvious clue to point to why and how Billy Childs had died and who had killed him – if he was murdered