Longarm 243: Longarm and the Debt of Honor (9 page)

“I see your name on there, Norm,” Longarm said. “You aren't still shooting a Henry rifle, are you?”

“Nope. Used to. Back when the Henry was the modern, up-to-date ticket. Traded that old gun in, oh, ‘67? '68? Sometime along about then.”

“Why would you need the rimfires if you don't have a Henry?” Longarm asked.

“Got me an old cap-and-ball revolver that I had a fellow in Dodge City convert for me back when I used to work as night marshal there. This was just after the Eastern Unpleasantness, right after Dodge City was formed as a town.” He smiled. “Some town too. A man needed a gun on the streets at night whether he was a lawman or not. And that old loose-powder revolver was a pretty fair gun too. Outmoded now, of course. Has been for years. But I got some memories attached to the old thing. And hell, it isn't worth anything. Wouldn't bring two bits if I was to try and sell it, I suppose. So I've kept it laying around. I bought those shells off Cy, let me think, a couple years ago it's been, I'd say. Ran across the old gun and wondered if it still shot as true as it used to, so I got me a couple boxes of rimfires from Cy and took it out one day to play with. Had a pretty good time too, busting clods of dirt out of the air and rolling stones along the ground. It still shot true. I don't suppose I've touched the old gun again since, though. Cleaned it up and put it away and the shells with it. Do you want it for anything, Longarm? Evidence or whatever?”

“Hell, no, Norm, I was just curious. It didn't seem likely to me that you'd still be carrying anything that out of date.”

“Not me, but don't make any assumptions about Jonas here. I'm not sure he knows yet that those old guns are out of date,” Norm said with a laugh.

“You're just feeling cocky as hell today, aren't you?” the sheriff said.

“You would be too if you were up three games to none.” Norm grinned.

Their banter was interrupted a moment later by the sound of Jeremy's boots on the stairs.

“Lunch is served, gentlemen,” the young deputy called out as he entered the jail bearing a basket that had some mighty tantalizing odors seeping out of it.

There were the expected sandwiches, true, but Dottie had also slipped in a small crock of beans baked with molasses and the best part of a steaming hot peach cobbler. Of the two, Longarm couldn't make up his mind which smelled the better. And a few minutes later, he had equal difficulty trying to decide which tasted better. That Dottie could cook with the best of them. That much he could state without equivocation.

Longarm belched. His belly was full, and there was a nice warm feeling flowing through his whole being from the meal. If it hadn't been for his friend Norm's predicament, locked away upstairs inside a damn jail cell, Longarm would have counted himself pretty contented right now.

As it was, he came down and poked his head into the clerk's office. Schooner was gone, presumably to lunch, and the big room was depressingly empty. Longarm didn't know which records to look at next with Schooner not there for guidance. And anyway, the whole truth of it was that he just plain didn't feel like spending the rest of the day cooped up with a bunch of musty, soot-stained record books. He'd had more than enough of that lately. Another long and boring afternoon of it sounded more like a sentence of punishment than an opportunity to learn something new.

Longarm told himself he might do better by going out into the town and poking around for opinions about why Dinky Dinklemann had wanted him dead.

It wasn't that Longarm didn't trust Jonas Brown's or Jeremy's investigative abilities. It was just that no one else could do as good a job as Custis Long could. Not on something as personally involving as an attempt on his own life, they couldn't.

That was more than enough of an excuse for Longarm to continue right on down the steps and out the courthouse door.

He started across the street at the hardware, and asked his questions on down the block, at one store after another.

The fifth place he came to was a millinery. There was a familiar face behind the counter.

“Ma'am,” Longarm said, taking his Stetson off and holding it in both hands.

“Good afternoon, Marshal,” Eleanor Fitzpatrick said. Then she smiled, the effect of it lighting up the interior of the store in much the same way a sparkling summertime sunrise could light up the mountains. Lordy, but this was one fine, handsome figure of a woman.

Longarm glanced around. The shop was empty save for the two of them.

Mrs. Fitzpatrick followed his gaze and nodded. “It is all right. We are alone. You can speak freely.”

“Actually,” Longarm said, “there's nothing I wanted to ask you that I couldn't talk about in front of strangers. It's about the Dinklemann boy.”

She frowned. “Oh, yes. I heard what you did. What Dinky tried to do, that is. I know you had no choice but to defend yourself. Still, it was a terrible shock. Everyone in town knew him. I daresay we all loved him. Such a nice boy.” She shook her head. “I could hardly believe he would do such a thing.”

“You knew him too then?” Longarm asked.

“Certainly. We all did. He did odd jobs for just about everyone in Crow's Point.”

“You too?”

“Yes, of course. He would come in two or three afternoons a week to help out. I would go to the door to close the shop, you know, to lock my door and pull the shade down so I could close up and go upstairs—I have a small office up there—and Dinky would be standing there with that sweet, gentle smile. Not coming right out and asking if there was work for him, but being there, offering himself if I needed anything. Naturally I would let him in whether I really needed help or not. He would sweep the floor for me, doing any lifting or straightening that needed done. Take the trash out back to burn. Things like that.”

“You paid him, I suppose,” Longarm said.

“Yes, but not much actual cash. Most of us, I think, preferred to make sure he had food to eat and a place to stay. He had little use for money. Once in a while I would give him a few dimes or a quarter. Seldom anything more. Others gave him odd bits of clothing when whatever he was wearing became torn. I myself washed his things now and then. Whenever I would be about to wash something of my own, you see, it would be no trouble to throw something of his into the basin along with my own laundry.”

“You do your own laundry?”

“Does that surprise you, Marshal?”

“Yes, ma'am, I guess it does. A lady like you . . .” His voice tailed away. He wasn't quite sure how to finish that train of thought.

Mrs. Fitzpatrick tilted her head back—damn, she did have a soft and pretty neck, white and tender and, well, a perfect place to put a kiss was the way Longarm was thinking of it—and laughed loud and long. “Thank you, Marshal. I believe I should take that as a compliment, don't you?”

“I reckon you could at that,” he agreed.

“Good. I shall do so.” Her body still jiggled some with her amusement. “Do you think me that prim and proper, then, that I should ask others to do my menial tasks for me?”

Longarm thought about that for a moment, then said,

“Not so much as you'd demand it, ma'am, as that others would want to offer it. An' do I think you're a powerful handsome an' high-class lady? Well, yeah. I expect I'd have to say exactly that.”

“La, sir. I do thank you. You've made my whole day, I assure you.”

“Then I'm extra glad I happened in,” Longarm said gallantly, stepping back to give the lady a half-bow and a wide, low sweep of the Stetson to emphasize it.

Mrs. Fitzpatrick laughed again. There were other responses Longarm might have enjoyed even more than that one. But amusement would do nicely enough, he supposed. Anything that pleased her.

Trying to get back to business, Longarm asked a few more questions, but like all the other business people in town, Eleanor Fitzpatrick could offer no reasonable explanations as to why the Dinklemann boy would have wanted to shoot Longarm. Or more to the point, who would have—or could have—talked Dinky into an action that was so desperately out of character for the town's soft-witted pet.

Longarm might have gone on making excuses to stand there talking with the woman, but a customer came into the shop to browse, and soon after her, another pair wandered in. Being trapped in the midst of a hen party wasn't Longarm's idea of a splendid afternoon, so he quickly made his apologies and went to make his way through the remainder of Crow's Point's business district.

At one store after another, though, he found only the same answers to his oft-repeated questions. Yes, everyone knew Dinky. Certainly everyone was shocked by what the boy had done. But no, no one had any idea whatsoever who or what could have prompted such outrageous behavior.

Longarm kept at the questions doggedly but without any expectation, and at the end of the day was grateful for an excuse to quit and go get some supper.

Longarm stood outside the saloon listening to the thin, brittle sounds of the piano. There was gaiety inside. Bright lamps, bonded whiskey, unmarked cards, and a better than merely fair free-lunch spread.

He just didn't damn well want to go in and enjoy any of that.

It wasn't like him to be in such a sour mood, but the truth was that right at that moment he felt mean and grumpy and would have welcomed any excuse to lash out at somebody—anybody would do—to vent his ill humor physically.

But what the hell did he have to be mad about?

It was frustration, he finally decided. He was just plain frustrated.

And why the hell shouldn't he be? This whole thing with Norm wasn't adding up. Or anyway, none of it was playing out in a predictable manner.

Generally speaking, when Longarm conducted an investigation, he could count on facing and having to overcome evasiveness, misdirection, surliness, and downright lies. Witnesses and suspects alike hated to have anyone, particularly someone with a badge, poking into their private lives. Longarm understood that. He and every other peace officer dealt with it every day of their lives.

So what was he finding in Crow's Point? Why, friendliness, that was what. And cooperation. Smiles and a healthy, hearty helpfulness.

Everybody he talked to was the same, from the county officials right on down to the folks he passed on the street.

“G'day, Marshal; hope you're doing all right, Marshal; how can I help you, Marshal?”

So why the hell wasn't he
getting
anywhere? A body would think that with that attitude surrounding him, he would already know every secret in town. Instead, dammit, he was finding nothing. Not one damn thing worth knowing.

Everyone liked Norm Wold, and hoped he would be proven innocent despite the evidence against him.

Everyone liked John “Dinky” Dinkelmann, and found it impossible to understand why the boy had done such a terrible thing. But everyone expressed deep sympathy and understanding about it too.

Of course the marshal had had to shoot the boy; he hadn't had any choice about that. Oh, it was such a terrible thing that Dinky had tried to kill him, and how awful it was that he'd had to kill Dinky in order to defend himself, but thank goodness Longarm was all right. And is there any way we can help? Any records you want? See for yourself; feel free; go anywhere you want; ask anything you wish; the people of this community are behind you foursquare and all the way, Marshal.

Longarm should have been delighted. He knew that. Instead he wanted to puke.

Hell, he almost wished someone else would step out and try to shoot him. At least that would be something Longarm could understand, something he could deal with.

Yeah, he thought sourly, it was frustration that was fouling his mood. And he didn't really know what to do about it.

One thing he was sure of. He didn't want to spend the evening drinking whiskey that he didn't want and poring over cards that he wasn't interested in.

He took the last few puffs off his after-dinner cheroot and flicked the wet, chewed-up butt into the street, then headed for Norm's little house on the edge of town.

And every step of the way he was hoping someone would try, just try, dammit, to lay an ambush for him or jump out of an alley with a cudgel or . . . or something. Something, anything, that he could face down and do something about.

Longarm's bad luck was that right at this moment nobody seemed all that interested in killing him.

“What a shitty turn of events,” Longarm grumbled to himself as he made his way through the darkened streets of Crow's Point.

Longarm wasn't halfway through the doorway before he heard Mrs. Fitzpatrick's soft voice in the darkness. “Don't be worried. It's just me.”

He closed the door behind him and glanced around to make sure the blinds were drawn before he felt his way slowly into the parlor. At least he was beginning to know his way around the place well enough that he didn't make a fool of himself by tripping or knocking something over. Then he struck a match.

Eleanor—Mrs. Fitzpatrick—was seated in Norm's reading chair, as she had been before. She was dressed as she had been in the shop earlier, in a tailored dress of some slightly shiny dark material. Longarm didn't much care what the garment was made of. What interested him was how it emphasized the lady's figure. She had—he took a deep breath and reminded himself sternly that this was his old friend Norm's woman.

“Nice to see you again,” he said noncommittally, dropping his hat onto an end table and taking a seat on the spindly-looking loveseat that was tucked away to one side of the room like a just-for-company afterthought. The only man-sized piece of furniture in the place was already occupied. Of course it looked like it might accommodate two. But Longarm suspected that that might be pushing things just a bit much. He settled for the loveseat, which at least had a fine view of the room's major attraction, Mrs. Fitzpatrick.