The Outrage - Edge Series 3 (15 page)

He jerked the thumb of his good hand to signal the Colman family had once let rooms in another of the large, two story stone built houses in the best residential section of Springdale.

‘Course, Nancy and me were little more than kids back then. But I still had an idea that one day we’d be married.’

‘And that’s what you were going to be?’ Edge asked rhetorically.

‘We sure were, mister!’

Sullivan finished probing for and pulling fragments of glass out of Colman’s hand and massaged the small of his back as he straightened up. Then he reached for a roll of bandage beside the bloodstained kidney dish on a nearby stand and said as he began to dress the wound: ‘The whisky will stop the threat of infection. Yes, people used to say right at the start that it was likely they were a couple who seemed destined to end up married.’

Colman growled: ‘Yeah that was what split us up back then. We were only sixteen and seventeen, but we were old enough to know our own minds. And that kind of chattering . . . ‘

His face became firmly set in a resentful frown. ‘Well, our parents didn’t like it, us being so young. And neither did Nancy. So we stopped going around together. We made other friends, lots of them, and hardly spoke a word to each other.’

His expression eased briefly to a near smile. ‘Until last Christmas. Which was when we got back together again. We were older and more sure of ourselves and didn’t give a damn about what the town gossips were saying. I was getting ready to ask Nancy to marry me.’

‘Did you get to screw her, kid?’

‘No!’ There was sudden deep anger in the snarled denial and overt aggression in the way Colman folded his back up off the couch and jerked his hand violently away from Sullivan as he slammed his feet to the floor.

‘Stay still, boy!’ the doctor commanded. ‘It’s the obvious question. If put rather crudely.’

‘All right,’ Colman muttered sullenly and let Sullivan continue to dress his injured hand.

‘I know what people have said about Nancy! But none of it was true, I’m sure of it.’

Edge asked: ‘What did people say about her?’

‘It was all lies!’

Sullivan supplied. ‘There was a time when Nancy Quinn had something of a bad reputation in Springdale. For a couple of years she went through a wild phase. Such as many young people do, of course. She acted recklessly and it was quite a trial for her parents.’

Colman was obviously about to spring to the girl’s defence then realised that it would be pointless. Remained submissive while Sullivan expertly completed dressing his wound and said: ‘She started to mix with a mean crowd, mister. And there were stories about her doing just about anything for some fun. But that was all she was doing – enjoying herself, damnit!

When you’re young – before you settle down and get responsibilities – that’s what you’re supposed to do, ain’t that right?’

Neither man offered to answer the rhetorical question. Instead, Edge asked:

‘Her fling was over when you started to pitch woo to her again?’

‘Yeah. How it happened . . . It was just before last Christmas . . . A couple of guys and Nancy got crazy drunk on her pa’s good bourbon. I don’t know what would have happened if Scotty and me didn’t come by at the right time.’ He stood up from the couch but needed to grip it with his good hand and lean the backs of his legs against it because he was still unsteady on his feet. ‘That’s Ed Scott who works at the telegraph office. He courts Blanche Mandrell who was a good friend to Nancy. Well, Scotty and me saw off those two guys who were fixing to . . . Chased them off and brought Nancy here to see the Doc and got her sobered up. Guess what happened that night could’ve been what scared her into changing her wild ways.’

‘She certainly became a different young woman after that incident,’ Sullivan agreed pensively as he began to gather up his unused instruments and dressings to pack away.

‘Who were the two fellers?’

Colman shook his head. ‘I can’t remember their names. They were just a couple of drifters who did some work for awhile out at the Cassidy place. They took off sometime that night and haven’t dared to come back here since.’

Edge asked: ‘Was the girl raped?’

Colman chewed on his lower lip, dropped his pained gaze to the floor and shrugged. Sullivan sighed deeply. ‘The girl said not. I wanted to check her over, of course but she refused to allow me to examine her.’

Edge looked at the morose Colman. ‘If she was, would it have been the first time a man went with her?’

The young man’s mood reverted to anger. ‘Look, I don’t have to answer these kinds of questions about Nancy! I just want you to know that I sure never – ‘

Edge cut in: ‘Yesterday morning the girl was raped for sure. And she’s dead so she can’t tell me anything. What’s the point in beating around bushes? You said she was out for any kind of pleasure for awhile. Did that include screwing around?

Sullivan expressed shock.

Colman blurted: ‘Damnit, no!’ He was helplessly lost for words then blurted: ‘Hell, I don’t know about way back when! I wasn’t part of that crowd. How can I know anything like that?’

‘You said you were getting ready to propose marriage to her. You ought to have known her pretty damn well.’

‘Look, Nancy and me never went past kissing and touching, mister! I’ll swear that on a whole stack of Bibles. I sure never came out and asked her about something like that, but I’ll bet a million bucks she never did anything beyond that with anybody.’

‘But you wanted to go beyond it, kid?’

‘No! No, I didn’t! Not until after we were married! I was brought up decent, mister. To treat Nancy and all ladies in a proper way and – ‘

‘I’m not accusing you of doing anything wrong,’ Edge cut in evenly. ‘It’s natural for a boy of your age to want to bed a good looking girl.’

‘Damnit, no!’ He shook his head violently and took a step away from the couch. ‘I don’t have to listen to this. You’re saying what a lot of people in this town are! That I couldn’t get what I wanted out of Nancy so I went to her house and did those terrible things to her and Mrs Quinn!’

‘Okay, you didn’t do that,’ Edge allowed in the same neutral tone as before. ‘But do you have any idea who did?’

‘What? No, how could I, damnit?’

‘You know a lot of other young fellers your age in Springdale, I guess? Who knew Nancy?’

‘Yeah, of course I do. I’ve lived here all my life.’

‘But the rumours are only about you?’

‘Yeah, because her and me were courting.’

‘And as far as you know she was as pure as the driven snow piled up against heaven’s gates?’

‘What I know for sure is that I never . . . ‘

Edge paraphrased the end of the unfinished reply into another question. ‘You never screwed her?’

Sullivan expressed shock again and complained with self-righteous indignation: ‘I’m not sure I want to hear such language spoken in my home, sir!’

‘So let’s step outside, kid.’ Edge moved to the door. ‘There has to be some straight talking done because what I’m
sure of is that I’m getting weary of polite chit-chat. That I figure is covering up some lies.’

‘I’m not lying!’ Colman challenged.

‘Are you normal, kid? Do you really like girls?’ He learned against the wall beside the door.

‘I know what you’re getting at, damnit! I’m no swish! Yeah, I like girls real well and I’m totally normal!’

Edge shrugged. ‘So how come you never tried to go further than spooning with a good looking young woman like I hear Nancy Quinn was?’

‘All right, damnit!’ Colman snarled. ‘I did! I did try! There were lots of times I tried. But she always told me to cut it out.’ He switched his wide-eyed gaze between the two men on opposite sides of the room, tacitly pleading to be believed.

‘That made you feel pretty damn frustrated, I guess?’ Edge asked evenly.

‘What?’ Colman swallowed hard.

‘It’s a natural reaction in that kind of situation, Matt,’ Sullivan said as he collected the kidney dish and moved toward a sink in a corner of the room.

‘What?’ The young man’s anger rose again. ‘Damnit, doc, now you’re trying to make me admit to something I never did! What others have been saying! You’re trying to make me say I got so damn mad at Nancy for turning me down all the time that I went out to the house. And then I killed her after I got what I wanted. Her and her mother!’ His good hand streaked to grasp the butt of his holstered Colt as he demanded: ‘Is that it?’

Sullivan dropped the metal dish of blood stained glass fragments noisily into the sink and said tautly: ‘Don’t be a fool, Matt!’

Colman countered thickly: ‘That’s what he’s trying to make me say, ain’t that so, mister?’

‘What I’ll say right now is the same as the doc,’ Edge murmured icily. ‘Don’t be a fool with that revolver, kid.’

Colman looked down at his gun hand, vented a low groan and snatched it away from the butt of the .45: like he had gone for the draw in an unwitting reflex action and was dismayed to see what he had done.

Edge continued with the same line of questioning as if there had been no interruption with the side issue. ‘You felt bad the girl wouldn’t come across, kid?’

‘Yeah, sometimes I did.’ He was sullen now.

‘What else did you think about it?’

‘I figured that Nancy would never do it until we were married.’

‘But you didn’t stop trying top screw her?’

He shook his head then hung it, like he was exhausted. ‘Yeah! I mean no, I didn’t!

Like I told you, I’m normal that way.’

‘Did she want you to stop?’

He jerked his head up, expressed something close to relief than suddenly nodded vigorously. ‘Yeah, mister. That’s just it. I figured Nancy didn’t want me to stop trying.’

‘Why?’

‘What? I don’t get your drift, mister?’

‘Was it just that she was a pretty girl and she liked being asked? Just so she could say no?’

He shrugged. ‘She led me on, that’s for sure.’

‘How did she do that?’

‘Whenever . . . When the time and the place were right and she felt . . . When Nancy felt right about it, she encouraged me to try.’

‘Made promises?’

‘No, she never did that. She never said for sure she would or she wouldn’t.’

Sullivan was almost as uncomfortable as the now crimson faced Colman when he asked:

‘Do you mind telling me what you’re getting at, Edge? It seems to me Matt has answered your questions honestly and obviously he can’t say what was in the mind of Nancy Quinn.’

‘I’m trying to figure out what kind of girl she was, feller. If she treated her regular beau that way and he went along with her, it maybe means she was the same with – ‘

‘All right, Nancy could be a tease when it took her fancy!’ Colman blurted. ‘She always could be. She used to have a reputation for leading boys on and then backing off from them. But that was in the old days . . . The other boys, I mean. Since Christmas when we – ‘

‘Okay, kid. I’m much obliged.’ Edge straightened up, swung away from the wall and opened the door.

‘Is that it, mister?’

‘Yeah.’

‘You don’t think I did what people are saying I did? And you’ll tell them so?’

‘It doesn’t matter what I think, kid. Or what I tell people. In my experience of small towns like Springdale if a whole bunch of folks get an idea fixed in their heads it’s not so easy to shift it.’

‘In this case the only way is to show that it was somebody else who went out to the Quinn house yesterday morning,’ Sullivan said. ‘Do you think you can do that?’

Edge put on his hat. ‘I can think of lots of reasons for finding out who did the killings, Doc.’

‘Uh?’

‘Every one of them a dollar.’

Colman said bitterly: ‘I don’t care why or how you do it, mister, I just want – ‘

‘Let it rest for now, Matt,’ Sullivan advised. ‘And try to ignore what the gossips are saying. For a start, don’t let them drive you to drink. And even more importantly, leave that pistol at home.’

Colman was shamed faced. ‘Yeah, I’m sorry. And you, mister.’ He held up his bandaged hand. ‘Thanks for taking the trouble to bring me to the doc’s place after I made such a damn fool of myself in the saloon.’

‘No sweat, kid. I’ve been in plenty of trouble myself when either a woman or liquor was at the root of it. There’s one thing could help you in future.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Have everyone call you by your full given name of Matthew.’

‘Uh?’

Edge showed a wry grin before he turned to put his back to the room, started along the hallway and took out the makings as he said: ‘They hear you getting called Matt all the time some people might get to thinking they can walk all over you.’