The Best American Mystery Stories 2014 (34 page)

“Why’d you have to stab him, Jess? Couldn’t you whip him with your hands if you had to?”

“I guess not, Mr. Carter,” Jess said, and went on resentfully. “There were three of them, Mr. Carter, three of them hitting me with a lead pipe.” His fingers twitched nervously on his thighs. He had large, sinuous veins that spilled erratically over the backs of his hands. “I guess you didn’t know that, did you?”

“No, I didn’t. Simpson and Suggs said they found you fighting in the alley.”

“They didn’t find me,” Jess said, with a low, mirthless laugh. “They were
there
.”

Carter said nothing. Jess gazed ahead for several moments and then turned abruptly.

“I don’t carry a knife. Here, Mr. Carter. Here, look at this!”

And before Carter realized what he was doing he had torn his shirt free from his trousers and had clawed open the buttons to reveal a thick, wide calico strip girdling his bare waist just above the hips. A thick wadding of gauze had been stuffed underneath on one side, but the blood had soaked through anyway in three places, one dark blot and two very faint stains, and it was impossible to tell whether it had flowed from one wound or many. Carter was horrified.

“It wasn’t my knife that cut him,” he heard Jess say.

Carter stared down at him with amazement, letting his eyes dwell sickly on the awesome sight, growing sicker and sicker with what they saw until he thought he would vomit. It was right over the kidney.

“Doesn’t it hurt?” was all he could say.

“Yes, suh, Mr. Carter. It hurts.”

Carter let another minute pass and then made up his mind, and he slammed the brakes on as hard as he could, hurling himself forward and banging Jess up hard against the front. He whirled immediately to speak, but the car had skidded through a dry patch and the wind caught the harsh dust and rammed it fiercely into his face, blinding and choking him, so that he was reduced to coughing and clutching helplessly at his eyes.

“I’ve been lying to you, Jess,” he gasped, when he could finally speak. “You’re in trouble and there isn’t much time. Get out and run, and for God’s sake, hurry!”

Jess remained perfectly still. Carter shook him roughly.

“Do you understand, Jess? The Wilson boy is dying. They want you for murder!”

Jess spoke very softly. “Yes, suh, Mr. Carter,” he said, staring intently down into his lap. “I knew I hurt him pretty bad.”

Carter gaped with astonishment. “Then what are you doing here?” he cried frantically. “Why did you come?”

“I guess it’s best this way,” Jess continued, in a sad and steady voice. “Maybe they’ll leave the rest of us alone.”

“Jess,” Carter asked, with hoarse wonderment, “do you know what will happen to you?”

“Yes, suh, Mr. Carter.”

“And you still want to go?”

“Yes, suh, Mr. Carter.”

“I can’t take you,” Carter decided, his confusion rising into a muddled despair. “I told your father I’d bring you back. No, I can’t take you.”

“He knew you didn’t mean it,” Jess said.

“He knew also?”

“Yes, suh, Mr. Carter. We all knew it was pretty bad. We had a meeting last night and decided I was to give myself up if the police came for me alone. I’m glad it was you, Mr. Carter. I don’t like the police.”

“Oh, God,” Carter realized, with an overpowering shame. “They all knew I was lying.”

“You did it for the best,” Jess said.

“Shut up, Jess,” Carter pleaded. “For Christ’s sake, shut up!”

Jess looked down humbly.

“It’s none of my business!” Carter exclaimed. He banged his hand down on the steering wheel, hurting himself but not feeling the pain until later. “I’m washing my hands of the whole thing. You get out here and do what you want. I’m not having anything to do with it.”

He waited, breathless and furiously distraught, until Jess reached for the door.

“Jess,” he asked, almost whispering, “what are you going to do?”

“Walk into town, I guess.”

Carter gazed at him and went limp with a sense of futility. The resistance drained out of him, leaving him hollow, cold, and numb.

“All right, Jess. I’ll take you.”

Jess sat back, and in silence they spiraled down through the hills toward the level ground. They passed Perkins, the solitary plowman watching them ride by, and soon came to the bridge. After the bridge the town was before them. Carter stared ahead tensely for a sign of motion on the road. It was empty. A few minutes out, he brought the car to a stop and put the top down. He rolled each of the windows up tight. A flock of crows went winging overhead.

“I’m sorry about the school, Mr. Carter,” Jess said when they were driving again. “Pap and the other men, they didn’t like it, but we liked it fine.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” Carter said.

“I tried not to fight, Mr. Carter. I thought if I kept my hands down they’d stop hitting me, but they kept after me like they’d beat me to death. I had to do what I could. I had to try to save myself.”

“Sure, Jess. Of course.”

Carter turned off before he reached the first buildings and circled the outskirts so as to come up behind the police station. He entered town finally, driving slowly now, and as they rode past the comfortable white houses, all with their fine shade trees and spotless picket fences or stunted hedgerows, the bell in the church steeple began to sound. It tolled eight times. Jess smiled grimly.

“I guess we’re both going to be late for school.”

“There won’t be any school today,” Carter said.

In another minute they were there. An atmosphere of excitement filled the area. People had collected in small groups on both sides of the street. Others were streaming up. Mercer and Beeman stood together at the top of the steps. They came hurrying down as soon as Carter appeared. Mercer got into the car. He had shaved and washed, and he looked hard now and wide awake.

“Any trouble?”

Carter shook his head.

“You can decide,” Mercer went on rapidly. “There’s still time to take him out, but they’ll sure as hell get after the whole bunch if we do.”

“He wants to stay.”

“Do you?”

Jess nodded. He was beginning to look frightened. Mercer gave him no time.

“Walk fast when we get out.”

He took hold of his arm and pushed the door open. Beeman fell in on the other side, and they moved quickly across the sidewalk and into the building. The people near the door began crowding forward, and then Beeman stepped out to face them.

That was all Carter saw. He had put the car in gear and was rolling forward, and it all vanished behind him like the macrocosm of a turbulent dream. He crawled forward aimlessly for a few blocks, wondering dully where to go, and then turned at the crossroad and drove slowly toward his house. He was tired and sick, and there was nothing for him to do now but sleep.

FROM
Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine

A
S THE TRAIN
chugged across the Galveston Bay Bridge toward the Virginia Point station, Wendell Asquith made a show of touching the watch pocket of his vest, then patting his frock coat’s other pockets. “Of all the deuced luck!”

His wife, Amelia, remained focused on her embroidery. “What is it, my dear?”

“In the rush to leave for the station, I forgot my pocket watch.”

Amelia looked at him, surprised. “It’s hard to imagine you ever being without that watch.”

“Imaginable or not, it’s happened.”

“I’m sure you can secure a temporary replacement once we reach Fort Worth.”

“That won’t do. It’s my lucky watch. My father sent it to me when I started my first business, engraved with his best wishes. I can’t just leave it behind.”

Amelia stuck her needle into the stretched linen and set down the embroidery hoop beside her on the bench seat. “What do you propose, Wendell?”

“I’ll jump off at Virginia Point and take the next train back to Galveston. You continue on with the servants. I’ll catch the afternoon train and meet you in Fort Worth tomorrow.”

Amelia sat forward, her face troubled. “Must you? I fear there’s a bad storm on its way.” She glanced out the window and shuddered. “Those clouds.”

Wendell remembered the bizarre clouds that had greeted the dawn on that second Saturday of September. Luminescent pink they were, though shards within the clouds caught all the colors of the rainbow. Soon enough they changed into the black-and-gray thunderheads that often traversed the sky above Galveston. While threatening, those clouds were reassuringly familiar.

“I have my umbrella, and should it worsen I’ll put on a rain slicker at home. I’ll be fine, Amelia.”

“Rain’s not the worst of it. The streets will flood again.”

“I’ll take a cab from the station. But really, anyone who can’t take getting their feet wet shouldn’t live in Galveston.” The streets of the town were notorious for flooding, since the island Galveston occupied rose less than 9 feet above the sea. The city fathers had raised the sidewalks to 3 feet above the plank-paved roads to help keep people dry, but apparently they’d forgotten people had to
cross
the streets. Soggy shoes and socks were the rule whenever it rained.

“Why don’t you have Arthur accompany you? I’d feel better, knowing you’re not alone.”

Wendell strangled a sharp retort.
There’s no place in my plans for bringing along witnesses, especially my own butler
. Instead he smiled at his wife.

“I can certainly handle such a minor task by myself.” He slid forward on his seat and took hold of Amelia’s hand. “Besides, darling, I’ll feel much better knowing Arthur’s watching over you.”

A blush blossomed on Amelia’s cheeks, and once again he thanked the stars that this gorgeous woman had accepted his proposal. Even after ten years and giving birth to twin daughters, Amelia’s beauty had not faded. If anything, the journey from twenty-year-old bride to thirty-year-old pillar of society had sanded away youthful immaturities and left a polished, poised woman.

She was
his
wife, and no blackguard would take her from him. He would see to that.

When the train halted at the station, Wendell stood and grabbed his hat, a slate-gray bowler that matched his frock coat. A quick glance in a mirror confirmed that his diamond stickpin was still centered in his ascot. After a tug on his maroon brocade vest, Wendell turned back to Amelia and again reached for her hand, this time bringing it to his lips.

“Don’t fear, my dear. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Do say goodbye to the twins, dear. They’d be horribly distressed if they found you’d disappeared.”

Wendell grabbed his leather toiletries case from the rack above him and secured his umbrella between the handles. As he slid open the compartment’s door, he glanced back at Amelia, already engrossed in her embroidery again.
This is for you, my love, though you’ll never know what I do this day
. With that benediction, Wendell left the compartment.

After hugs and reassurances to Isabel and Charlotte, his seven-year-old twin girls, that he’d meet them in Fort Worth, Wendell left them with their nanny and made his way to the end of the coach. Instead of stepping off onto the platform, he swung down from the Pullman on the side away from the station and moved along the final car in the train. The initials of the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe line were painted with gold highlights on the car’s side. Wendell snorted briefly. As a member of the line’s board, he knew the name was a fiction. The company was in fact fully owned by the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe, yet it was listed as a
subsidiary
of the larger line since Texas law dictated that the owner of a business had to reside in the state. The board was a sham, but it kept everyone happy. Wendell couldn’t use such a deception himself, so he remained a resident of Galveston in spite of his far-flung business interests. On the plus side, the law meant that by that year, 1900, Galveston had as many millionaires residing within its boundaries as that northern enclave of wealth, Newport, Rhode Island.

Past the caboose, Wendell cut over to the far side of the right-of-way, close to the border of live oaks and brush. Moments later the train pulled away from the station in a cloud of steam while its whistle tooted.

As he walked briskly toward Galveston Bay, Wendell reached into his trouser pocket and withdrew his watch and chain: 10:32 A.M. The next inbound Galveston train was due around one. He needed to cross the channel and manage his mischief, then reach the terminal close to that train’s arrival. He’d spin the same fiction for the station agent about his watch and arrange for a ticket outbound that afternoon. That would account for his time should the police make inquiries, though he doubted they would. His and Amelia’s departure for Fort Worth had been announced in the
Galveston News
. In a town like Galveston, even the police read the society pages. But Wendell had become a millionaire by planning for every eventuality and analyzing every risk before pursuing an endeavor. He was cautious in planning, ruthless in execution.

The approaching storm was unforeseen, but Wendell realized it was a blessing. The rising wind and bursts of billowing rain beginning to fall would drive most people inside. He could dash anonymously along the sidewalks with the umbrella low over his head.

He slid the umbrella from between the handles and unfurled it. When he reached the bridge approach, Wendell shuffled down the loose stone incline to the beach. Ahead of him, a sailor was guiding a compact Bermuda-rigged sloop toward a dock. Running forward, he waved his bag back and forth to catch the man’s attention.

The sailor stood up in the boat’s cockpit. His face was deeply lined and most of his white hair had migrated from his crown to his chin, forming a luxuriant beard that flowed down to his chest while his head was left bald.

“Ho, there,” Wendell called out. “I need to get back to the city immediately. Could you take me?”

“There’s a blow a-comin’,” the sailor shouted back. “Best gets away from the water.”

“I’ll pay you well, sir.”

A wily look crossed the man’s face. “
How
well?”