Longarm 243: Longarm and the Debt of Honor (18 page)

Longarm had gone and found Dinky Dinklemann's sometime home and hiding place.

How the hell about that, Longarm thought. Dinky must've....

It took him that long before the obvious reached up and whacked him between the eyes.

This shed was where the arsonist hid his things.

And this shed was where Dinky kept his stuff.

Kinda followed, one thing chasing the tail of the other, that Dinky could've been the arsonist who'd torched the courthouse records.

Longarm scowled. That made sense, all right.

But why?

Whyever would a soft-in-the-head town pet like Dinky go to burn the courthouse down?

That made just about as much sense on the face of it as the question of why Dinky Dinklemann would suddenly come up with a gun and try to kill himself a United States deputy marshal.

And dammit, Dinky Dinklemann sure as hell was not the party or parties unknown who'd burned down Norm Wold's house in the wee hours this morning. Dinky had been cold meat on a slab well before that event took place.

Dinky was dead and Norm was in jail, and who the hell did that leave to be running around setting fires? And above all,
why
?

Longarm had no illusions that he was the most brilliant son of a bitch on the face of this earth. But he knew he wasn't exactly butt-dumb either. And none of this was making the least lick of sense to him.

Somebody other than Norm and other than poor dumb Dinky had to be back of this whole mess.

But Longarm couldn't see any hint as to who it would be or why.

The only thing he knew for sure was that every tiny detail of it made absolutely perfect sense to the person who did it.

That was one thing he could count on. Often the oddest, craziest, most purely insane ideas were completely sensible to the person who was carrying them out, no matter how twisted and irrational they might seem to the world at large. To that person, if only to that person, these odd and disjointed events would be more than rational; they would be necessary.

Longarm grunted and reached for a cheroot, remembering too late that all his smokes had already turned to smoke and then to ash. They'd burned up along with Norm's house. One more thing he had to do today, along with too many others, dammit. Oh, well.

If he could just determine the motive for all this, Longarm thought, maybe the rest of it would start to fall into place too.

Was the arsonist trying to protect himself? Or someone else? Was the motive money? Or survival? Either one of those could be powerful incentives to go against the law.

Did someone have a hard-on for lawmen in general, and so target first Norm and then Longarm? Or did one or both of the lawmen somehow threaten the sonuvabitch?

And the question remained, assuming Dinky was the one who'd torched the courthouse, had he later been aimed at Longarm to get rid of Longarm? Or to eliminate Dinky as a possible witness against the instigator of the crimes?

There was just too damn much Longarm did not know here, and not knowing such things could drive a man crazy.

Even more annoying was the thought that not knowing could also lead to a man—himself in particular—winding up dead if he stood back and let someone keep on making attempts on his life.

Why, a thing like that would wreck a fellow's whole day.

Longarm stopped himself from reaching again for the cheroot he so badly wanted, then realized he was pissing time away standing here like this.

He dropped Dinky's spare clothes back into the grain bin, laid the Winchester on top of them, and headed for the town's business district. He still had a world of shit to get done today, including some shopping and getting some food into his belly.

After that he figured he needed to have himself a sit-down visit with Sheriff Jonas Brown and with Marshal—if he still was one—Norman Wold.

Then, well, Longarm would see how things shook out after those little details were taken care of.

Longarm ran into the sheriff on his way to town, and one thing led to another. The next thing he knew he was sitting in the sheriff's office, belly still grumbling over his insistence on ignoring it, telling Sheriff Brown, Norm, and a wide-eyed Jeremy what he'd discovered in the aftermath of the fire.

Brown took it all in silently, paying close attention to what Longarm was telling them. After a bit the sheriff leaned back in his chair to stare toward the ceiling in deep thought. He grunted, nodded to himself, and turned to his deputy. “Jeremy, I want you to go find the mayor and bring him up here. You can tell him what's going on, but don't go into any detail about it. You understand me, son?”

“Yes, sir, of course.”

“Get on now.” The young deputy hurried out, the sound of his footsteps loud on the staircase leading to the street level three floors down. Brown turned to Longarm and said, “I hope you don't mind.”

“Not at all,” Longarm assured him. “I always admire a thoughtful man.”

Brown nodded, satisfied, and the three men passed the time in inconsequential pleasantries while they waited for the mayor to join them. Norm sat with them in an ordinary chair, his jail cell door standing open at the back of the room.

In fifteen or twenty minutes they heard Jeremy and the mayor puffing their way up the stairs. Well, Chesman was doing some puffing anyway. At his age Jeremy probably wouldn't have recognized what a lack of breath meant. Longarm could remember being that vigorous. A while back.

“Thanks for joining us, Mr. Mayor,” Brown said, welcoming Chesman. “Did Jeremy tell you what we wanted to talk to you about?”

“Not really. He did say Longarm has some interesting news for us.”

Without explaining any of that, the sheriff asked, “Do you recall a conversation you had with our friend Longarm about that boy Dinky?”

“Certainly do,” the mayor said, reaching into a pocket for a stubby, rather dark cigar. Longarm sat there wishing the mayor would offer some smokes around to the others, like himself for starters, but the man either did not have enough to go around, or simply didn't think about passing the stogies out. In any event, he lited up alone, while Longarm sat there sniffing the aroma and wishing for this to get over with so he could go buy himself some cheroots. Damn but he did want a smoke right now, despite the fact that he'd had more than enough of the stuff in his lungs not too many hours back. “What is it you want to know, Jonas?” Chesman asked once his cigar was burning nicely and his head was wreathed in circles of pale smoke.

“I believe you had a conversation with our friend about Dinky's clothing?”

“That's right,” the mayor confirmed. “He got me to remembering some things I hadn't rightly paid mind to at the time. Like Dinky's spare pants. Old horse-soldier stable fatigues, they were. You know them. Plain, unbleached canvas, ugly as sin and tough as iron. These pants Dinky had were so old they'd started to take on some color just from all the stains piled one on top of another, but you could still see what they'd been to start with.”

The sheriff looked at Norm Wold and nodded, then grinned. “That sounds mighty good, Norman,” he said.

“Was what I just told you important, Jonas?” the mayor asked.

“More than you know,” Brown told him. “Longarm found those fatigue pants this morning.”

“He found the place Dinky kept his personal things? I'm sure that is all very fine, but what makes it so important?” Chesman asked.

“Dinky's clothes were in the same place where we found the things that were used to set the courthouse fire. We'd seen them there at the time, of course, but nobody connected them with Dinky. We just thought they were some cast-off rags being used to cover over the other stuff.”

“Are you telling me you think now that Dinky Dinklemann set that fire, Jonas?”

“That's exactly what I'm telling you. Norman here is as innocent as the ugly old sonuvabitch said he was. And I will confess to you right here and now that I'm downright glad to be able to say that. It hasn't pleased me, not the least little bit, to have a friend sitting in my jail. This one in particular.”

Chesman grinned and got up, stepping over to grab Norm Wold's hand and pump it enthusiastically. “By God, Norm, that's wonderful. Now you can go home ... oh.” For a moment he looked embarrassed. “I guess you can't go home at that. Lord, I'm sorry about your loss. Pretty much everything you owned was in that fire, wasn't it?”

“That's what they tell me. Still, it will feel pretty good to get out of here soon.”

Chesman looked at the sheriff. “Can we all go to lunch to celebrate this turn of events?”

“Not yet, Marvin. Technically speaking I can't turn Norman loose until a judge says so. I need a writ before I can release him. Which reminds me. Jeremy?”

“Yes, sir?”

“I want you to go over to the livery and take one of the mayor's driving rigs.” He turned to Chesman and added, “This will be at the county's expense, of course. You can bill us at your regular rate.”

“Bill you nothing. For this the buggy and horse are on me. And I'm damn glad to do it too.” Chesman was still grinning.

“Be that as it may, Marvin, we'll worry about the details later.” He turned back to Jeremy. “Right now what I want you to do, son, is take a rig and go over to Jasonville. I believe court is in session there this week. I want you to find Judge Meyers or Justice of the Peace Cumberland, whichever of them has the time available. But you're to get one or the other of them even if you have to grab them by the coattails and drag them away, you hear?”

Jeremy grinned and nodded. Longarm hoped the boy knew better than to take his boss seriously about that little instruction. But then surely he did. Of course he did. Didn't he?

“You're to explain what we need here and have one or the other of them come back with you. It's ... let me see.” The sheriff checked his watch. “It's almost noon now. I expect by the time you hitch up a rig and drive over to Jasonville, it should be fairly late tonight before you can nab one of the judges and have them back here.” The sheriff turned to the others. “Let's plan to handle this first thing tomorrow morning. Is that all right with you?”

The mayor nodded, so did Longarm.

“Fine,” Brown said. “Norman, I hope you don't mind staying over as my guest for one more night.”

“Hell, Jonas, I don't have any better place to sleep tonight.”

“That, unfortunately, is true enough,” the sheriff agreed. “Anyway, we'll all convene here again first thing tomorrow. I'll stop in this afternoon and ask Mrs. Bertrand to come act as our amanuensis. We'll need depositions from you, Longarm, and another from you, Mr. Mayor. I can have a writ prepared this afternoon. Then, as soon as your depositions as to the facts are duly taken and sworn to, we will ask his honor the judge, whichever of the old farts shows up, to sign the writ.” Brown grinned. “And Norman, you old son of a bitch, you'll be a free man again.”

Longarm felt pretty good when he heard that. It was, after all, what he'd come to Kansas to do.

He only wished he had finished the job while he was at it.

Sure, he was convinced now that Dinky was the arsonist who'd actually set the fire downstairs.

But knowing that did nothing to explain who in town had put the half-wit boy up to that crime, or to the attempt he'd made on Longarm's life afterward. Nor did it explain away the arson at Norm's house this morning. Poor, dumb, dead Dinky hadn't set
that
fire, that was for certain sure.

There were an awful lot of loose ends still lying around for folks to trip over. And if nothing else, it just graveled Longarm's gut to know that somewhere there was an arsonist and would-be murderer walking around loose.

Still, that was something Norm Wold and Jonas Brown could look into—and he was sure they would—at their leisure. They would still be here, both of them entirely capable and competent. Longarm's presence was not exactly required. The proper thing ... no, not just the proper thing, the
only
thing ... for him to do now was to get his scrawny pale ass back to Denver where he belonged.

But that would be tomorrow, when all the i's were dotted and all the t's crossed and Norm was free to walk downstairs into the sunshine and fresh air again. Longarm wasn't going to worry about any of it until then.

Except, that is, for getting something to eat and doing the shopping that needed done. Here it was lunchtime already, and he hadn't yet had a chance to surround a breakfast. He stood, stretched, and stomped the sit-too-long out of his legs. “Gents, if you would excuse me, I have some things to do.”

“First thing tomorrow,” the sheriff reminded him.

“Longarm...,” Norm began, then stopped, quite obviously at a loss for words. Longarm had rushed to his defense, dropped everything and come all the way from Denver. And now Norm would be a free man once again thanks to their long-standing friendship.

Longarm grinned at him. “Just promise me you won't get no uglier. You already hurt my feelings every time I have to look at you.”

“Only because it reminds you that ugly as I am, I'm better looking than you,” Norm returned with a huge grin.

Longarm waved brusquely. Hell, if he hung around here any longer, things were gonna turn maudlin. He could as good as see it coming.

He turned and got out of there, his boots clattering loudly on his way down the stairs.

Longarm treated himself to an easy afternoon. With a cheroot clamped between his teeth and a good meal spreading warmth through his belly—pork chops, eggs, and greasy fried potatoes, one of his favorites—Longarm felt pretty damn good.