Longarm 243: Longarm and the Debt of Honor (12 page)

Now wasn't that a downright intriguing possibility, Longarm mused as he made his way all the way down the stairs and out onto the street, leaving the courthouse, and the musty records, behind for the time being.

Longarm remained suspicious of Luke Baldwin. After all, the man had claimed a disinterest in Dinky Dinklemann that was quite out of character for most residents of Crow's Point. And he had been observed by Eleanor Fitzpatrick handing an unknown object to Dinky shortly before the boy had tried to murder a federal peace officer.

But Longarm did not intend to reveal his interest for everyone—for Baldwin in particular—to know and to wonder about. Better, he thought, to keep an eye on the town barber without being obvious about it, and hope some clues would arise from the man's behavior.

In the meantime, though, it would arouse no suspicions among the townspeople if Longarm were to inquire even deeper into the beliefs, the habits, and the person of Dinky Dinklemann.

No one needed to know if Longarm's primary focus was not on the murder attempt but on Dinky himself. Could the half-wit youngster have known something that made him a danger to Luke Baldwin? Or to someone else?

Longarm could not put aside the idea that perhaps it was not his murder that was intended the other day, but Dinky's instead.

It would take a clever son of a bitch to work that one out. But then unfortunately, not all criminals were stupid. Most were, it was true, but not entirely all.

Longarm chuckled a little, thinking about the stupidity of the average outlaw. There was, for instance, the one who'd held up a bank in Aurora, just outside Denver. The lone bandit had shoved a note, prepared in advance, at the bank teller demanding all the cash in the drawer. He'd written the note on the back of an envelope he'd gotten a few days earlier with a letter from his mother. The envelope had carried the robber's name and current address written in his mother's own flowery hand.

Then there was the stagecoach bandit in New Mexico who came riding out of the malpais near Folsom to hold up a coach making the run from Raton to Clayton. He fired a warning shot to force the driver to stop. It worked. But he accidentally shot his horse between the ears with the warning shot, and dropped the animal square in the middle of the road, forcing the stage to come to a halt. When the inept outlaw tried to escape on foot, he fell into a crevasse in the volcanic malpais and broke a leg. That was in addition to the cuts and bruises he'd gotten from falling eight or ten feet onto the jagged black pumice of the malpais. Capturing him afterward was more a matter of rescuing the poor bastard than taking him into custody.

Longarm could think of those and a dozen more equally stupid or worse. The simple truth was that most criminals were less than the brightest creatures around, a fact for which most peace officers were permanently, if quietly, grateful.

This gent in Crow's Point, though, seemed to be one of those few who had something more inside his hat than the filler needed to keep his ears apart.

Hell, Longarm still didn't know if Dinky had been aimed at him for reasons having to do with Norm Wold, to cover up an unrelated past crime that a federal deputy might be expected to know about, or for another reason entirely.

There were, dammit, no facts, clues, or even hints available to build on. Just one very dead boy who the whole town swore loved everyone and everything and couldn't have hurt a soul, Deputy Marshal Custis Long being the one tiny exception to prove that rule.

Longarm sighed, lit himself another smoke, and ambled on down the street.

He wanted, needed, to learn an awful lot more about John Dinky Dinklemann. That was first on his list of things to do today. And if he could find out a little more about Luke Baldwin while he was at it, well, so much the better.

Longarm lengthened his stride and headed purposefully toward the livery at the far end of town where the mayor earned his living.

“I've already told you just about everything I know about Dinky,” the mayor said, leaning on the pitchfork he'd been using to muck out a stall.

“Yes, sir, and I appreciate it,” Longarm told him. “What I was hoping for, see, was the sort of thing a man knows but doesn't particularly think about. I mean, I know you already gave me all the important stuff. You, everyone in this whole town has been wonderful. Forthcoming, helpful. I couldn't ask for better cooperation than I've gotten here. What I'm asking about now are, well, little things. What the boy liked. How'd he live? For that matter,
where
did he live? Did he have a room somewhere?”

Mayor Chesman brushed the back of his wrist across a sweaty forehead—the morning was already hot, and there was little air movement inside the barn—and looked just the least bit exasperated with Longarm's persistence. “I thought you already knew that Dinky slept one place, then another. He didn't have a regular home. One or another of us would just sort of take him in. Then after a few days he'd go stay someplace else for a while.”

“Did he ever stay here in your barn?”

“Sometimes, sure. I told him more than once he was welcome to sleep here any time he wanted. I don't stay around at night, so I couldn't tell you how often Dinky took me up on that, but I'd say he was here every now and then.”

That certainly sounded right. Longarm already knew the place was left untended overnight—which certainly said much about the general state of honesty in the vicinity—because he'd ended up sleeping in the mayor's straw pile himself his first night in town.

“You'd see him here occasionally?” Longarm asked.

“Oh, once in a great while I might find the boy still here when I'd come to work in the mornings. Other times I wouldn't actually see him, but I might find the dipper in my water bucket there instead of hanging on the nail where I generally keep it, or I'd see the straw mussed up and scattered just a bit like as if somebody'd come in and slept there without me knowing. I can't swear that it was always Dinky that did those things, but I assumed it was him. I didn't mind really, whether it was Dinky or somebody else. I'm not so hard up that I'd deny a man a soft place to lay down if he's on his uppers.”

“That's good of you, Mayor.”

Chesman shrugged. “I'm deacon in the Methodist church,” he said. “It's a poor Christian who'll pray on Sundays and grab the rest of the week.”

“Yes, sir,” Longarm said. “Tell me, sir, d'you happen to recall if Dinky owned more than one shirt at a time?”

The mayor blinked. “I don't follow you on that one.”

“I mean, when you saw him from one day to the next, was he always wearing the same color shirt, for instance. Or might he wear a red one today—like he had on the other day when he came at me—or maybe a blue one tomorrow, then back to the red one the next day. I mean, sir, did he seem to have changes of clothes available every now and then?”

Chesman wiped his forehead again and laid the pitchfork aside, leaning the implement against the stall railing and reaching into his pocket for the makings of a cigarette. “Mind if we step outside a minute? If I'm not going to be getting any work done, I may as well have a smoke and enjoy myself while I'm being lazy.” He smiled when he said it.

“Sure.” They walked out through the narrow alley separating the twin rows of stalls inside the livery stable, out onto the feedlot at the back of the place where a handful of mules and heavy horses were standing hipshot in the sunshine. Chesman carefully latched the gate behind them, then leaned against the barn wall while he first offered his pouch to Longarm, then began to build a smoke for himself.

“That's the sort of thing I never thought of before,” he said.

“No, sir, there's no reason why you would. But I'd like for you to think about it for a second if you wouldn't mind. See if you can call to mind images of what Dinky would've been wearing when you'd see him on the streets or wherever.”

The mayor grunted and snapped a match afire, dipping his head to bring the tip of the cigarette down to the flame rather than lifting the match to the cigarette. He inhaled deeply and with obvious pleasure, then slowly allowed smoke to trickle from his nostrils while he thought about what Longarm asked. “I think,” he began slowly, “I think maybe the boy did change clothes now and then. I seem to remember seeing him with different pants occasionally. I think ... sure, of course he did. He had this really awful-looking pair of old canvas trousers. You've seen them. Those ugly, baggy things cavalry troopers are issued for stable duty.”

Longarm nodded. He did indeed know what the mayor meant.

“Sometimes when Dinky would come around to hit me up for work . . . which I gave him now and then, of course. Come to think of it I could use him this morning if he hadn't done what he did. Anyway, he'd be wearing those old army britches when he'd come looking for work cleaning my stalls or putting hay up for me.” Chesman took another deep drag on his cigarette and aimed a stream of smoke toward the sky. “He seemed to keep an eye on my loft—on my hay supply, that is. I never had to look for him when I'd buy a load of hay.

“About the time the wagon would pull up ready to unload, Dinky would always manage to be around ready to go to work on it. I always let him help with that. Glad to get the labor, actually. He worked cheap and he was always cheerful, always smiling, no matter how hard the work was or how hot the day. Anyway, what I started to tell you, whenever he'd know he was going to be working in the stable, he'd have on those old canvas fatigue pants. Other times he'd be wearing regular jeans or maybe corduroy pants, whatever. But when he was loading hay for me or cleaning out my stalls, he generally was wearing those fatigues.” Chesman cocked his head to the side to let the smoke from his cigarette drift clear and not sting his eyes. “Why in the world would you ask something like that?”

Longarm smiled. And told him. “Because if he kept changes of clothes, sir, that meant he had a place. Maybe not a place to sleep in, necessarily, maybe not a house or a room or anything like you and me would think of as home, but he had a place that he thought of as a sort of home, a place he could leave his stuff and come back to.”

“I'll be damned,” the mayor said in an admiring tone. “I never would've thought of that.”

“Sure you would have,” Longarm told him. “If you'd been in my line of work for as long as I been. It just isn't the sort of thing an honest man would generally have come to mind, that's all. But a peace officer, or a crook who's used to being on the run, we'd think about it kinda natural like.”

“Live and learn,” Chesman marveled aloud.

“I don't suppose you have any idea where Dinky's hidey-hole might be?” Longarm asked.

The mayor shook his head. “Nope, I sure don't. Sorry.”

“If you do happen to think of anything ...

“I'll find you and tell you, of course. Count on it.”

“Mr. Mayor, I do count on your help and that of the other good folks in this town. I can't usually say a thing like that and mean it, but you people in Crow's Point have been mighty fine.”

Chesman smiled. “With one or two small exceptions, that is.”

Longarm laughed. “Yes, sir. Except for a small detail here and there.”

“I'll think about it, Longarm. I can promise you that. I'll ask around for you too if you don't mind. If any of us can come up with anything, you'll know about it right away.”

“Thank you, sir. Thanks a lot.”

Chesman grinned. “You wouldn't want some exercise this morning, would you? Not only good for your health, I'd pay you two bits on top of the benefit of the work-out.”

Longarm laughed again. “Thanks again, but I reckon there's other things I'd better do right now.”

“Yeah, well, it was worth asking,” the mayor said pleasantly. “Damn that boy for trying to commit murder, though. Now that I need him . . .”

“I'll see you later, sir,” Longarm said.

“Join us for lunch if you like, Longarm. We'll ask all the boys at the table and see if any of them can think of where Dinky might've kept his possibles.”

“Thank you, sir. I'll do that if I get the chance.” Longarm had pretty much developed the habit of taking his lunches in the jail now so he could visit with Norm at least once during the day. But he knew the mayor's offer was sincere, and he appreciated it. “Good day now.”

Longarm left the mayor to enjoy the rest of his cigarette with just the few horses and mules for company.

Longarm leaned against the side wall of a mercantile across the street from the barbershop. His eyelids felt heavy with the lazy somnolence that comes from having too heavy a meal. He should have known better really. But it had tasted so damn good.

Besides, he'd eaten his supper early today, and that change in timing seemed to throw his digestion off a mite also. He'd wanted to finish the meal early, though, so as to be here on the street in plenty of time.

Across the way he saw Baldwin come to the door of his shop, and through the glass front watched the barber push a bolt closed and turn the dangling OPEN sign around to the other side to read CLOSED. Longarm grunted. The front door was bolted shut. That meant Baldwin would be leaving his place by the back door. That was all right too. Longarm had chosen this spot so he could watch the front of the shop, but at the same time look into the narrow alley the back door of the barber shop opened onto.

Longarm tipped his Stetson back and dropped a half-smoked cheroot onto the ground. He wasn't sleepy now. Not the least bit.