The Outrage - Edge Series 3 (19 page)

Edge said evenly as he stepped out across the threshold: ‘Feller, what I think is funny is how you figure you’ve got any kind of sense.’

CHAPTER • 12

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THE GROCERY store, like most of the other businesses in town, was closed up by the
time Edge left the law office. So he rode out to the Quinn house, spent the night there and returned to Springdale some time after sun up the next morning.

The well stocked, aromatic store was open but empty of customers at a little after nine at the start of another fine Texas day. And the taciturn man behind the counter served him quickly and efficiently: uniquely in this town seemed to be totally uninterested in anybody’s business but his own. He twice counted the bills Edge gave him to pay for his purchases and double checked the change he made before handing it over: which was yet another of the man’s traits of which his customer approved.

When he got back to the big house there was a piebald mare hitched to the rail at the foot of the steps to the terrace and the front door stood open. Then the first thing he was aware of as he entered the sun-bright hallway with the sack of groceries clutched in both arms was a pleasant smell of fresh furniture polish. A moment later his decision not to be concerned by the open door he had locked when he left for town was proved a wise one when a woman greeted warmly:

‘Good morning to you, Mr Edge.’

Muriel Mandrell appeared at the head of the stairway and started down, her slender body encased in a wrap-around grey apron and her too brightly yellow hair held back off her slightly sweat run elfin face by a green ribbon. She clutched a cleaning cloth in one hand and a can of polish in the other.

‘Ma’am,’ he responded with a nod as he dismissed from his mind the inconsequential thought that he seemed destined to come across all Springdale’s womenfolk involved with domestic chores.

‘You said you thought that Mr Devlin the lawyer would pay for me to clean the house the same as I used to?’

‘No sweat. You just go ahead and do whatever you think is expected of you.’

‘I can get you something to eat if you want? Because unless you’re neater than any man I ever met before it don’t look like you made yourself breakfast before you left to do your shopping.’

‘Much obliged but I’m not hungry.’

‘A cup of coffee then?’ She reached the foot of the stairs and turned to go along the hall toward the open kitchen doorway. ‘There’s a pot just about ready on the stove. Me and Mrs Quinn, we always took the time to drink a cup of coffee together when I was doing my cleaning chores at the house.’

‘Coffee sounds good.’ He followed her into the kitchen that it was clear she had already cleaned and sat at the pine table, relishing the smell of freshly made coffee after she took the sack off him and began to stack the groceries away.

‘You don’t go in much for luxuries in the way of eating do you, Mr Edge?’ she said when she closed the final cupboard door and brought some fine crockery to the table.

‘Supplies you’ve just stowed are the kind I’d buy for the trail. But I’ll be just as happy to get by on what’s here if I don’t leave Springdale for awhile.’

She poured coffee from the pot off the stove into two delicate china cups set on matching saucers: then sat down opposite him, eager anticipation glowing in her soft brown eyes.

‘Something, Mrs Mandrell?’ He thought he could guess what she wanted to hear from him.

‘Have you heard if there’s anything new about the shooting in town last night?’

He shrugged. ‘It seems clear cut enough. Floyd was a prisoner of your local lawmen. He made a run for it so the deputy shot him dead. Nobody else was involved.’

Irritable impatience flared for a moment in her eyes as she prompted: ‘You being hired on to find out who it was killed Mrs Quinn and Nancy, I reckon you’d know if Vic Meeker arrested the Ivers boy for the murders.’

‘The kid claims he and Hooper didn’t kill anybody.’

She sighed and nodded glumly.

‘You figure he’s guilty, lady?’

She shrugged her thin shoulders. ‘I got no idea. He’s always been a trial to his mother I know that. And that Floyd Hooper was a bad lot and no mistake. But I ain’t one to accuse nobody of nothing unless I know for sure. I’ll get on and finish upstairs now. Already done the spare room you been sleeping in. Not much else left to do. Then I’ll be through here.’

Edge remained seated at the table, relishing the coffee after the woman went out of the kitchen. She had hardly touched hers that had obviously been poured as part of the ploy while she attempted to mine some solid information from him.

‘Oh, Mr Edge!’ she shouted down from the top of the stairway. ‘I almost forgot! There’s a letter for you. I found it pushed under the front door when I got here. It’s on the mantel in the parlour.’

‘Much obliged.’ He finished the coffee and set the tiny cup down in the saucer. Went to a shelf where some large mugs were aligned, filled one of these from the pot and carried it through into the parlour that was as neat and clean as the hallway and kitchen, the air in there as redolent with the same aromatic polish.

The letter was propped up against one of a pair of silver candlestick holders on the mantelpiece: a square envelope of poor quality with
MR EDGE
printed in block capitals across the front. He tore open the sealed flap with a stiff forefinger and unfolded the sheet of paper from inside then scanned the letter that had no salutation, the writer eager to make a point.
What’s wrong with that house so many sinners live there? It’s like a filthy
bordello seems to me. I know what that young harlot did for them boys the other night.
And I know why she did it. I know Mr Quinn never went away just for business. There
was plenty of funny business too. And it could be Martha Quinn wasn’t so lonely all
them times he was away. Under the evil influence of that house maybe. You ought to
be ashamed to be going with that woman, sister of a whore. No good will come of it you
mark my words. Even if it is natural.

Edge pursed his lips and whistled softly and tunelessly as he read the letter again then refolded it back into its creases, put it in his shirt pocket that was already bulged by the one from Nicholas Quinn. Then he sat down and started to drink the more substantial second cup of coffee.

Muriel Mandrell knocked tentatively on the open door of the parlour and remained on the threshold when he looked up. ‘I’ll be off now, Mr Edge. Unless there’s anything else I can do for you?’

‘Nothing at all,’ he told her but she continued to wait in the doorway. ‘Is there something I can do for you?’

‘No.’ She directed a surreptitious glance toward the mantelpiece. ‘No. I’ll maybe see you next time I come out here to the house?’

‘Maybe.’ He nodded as the woman turned and left; clearly still disappointed she had not learned any information she could put to good use on the Springdale gossip market. The parlour clock began to chime and struck a final tenth note as the woman called fearfully: ‘Mr Edge! Mr Edge, there’s something wrong!’

He thudded down his mug, put on his hat, moved with long strides into and along the hallway, stepped out on to the terrace and halted beside her

‘Down in the valley!’ she said unnecessarily and pointed in the direction he was already looking. ‘There’s a fire!’

Black and grey smoke was rising high into the sunlit sky in an almost perfectly vertical column until it was captured in a thermal and swirled into dissipation.

‘It’s in Avery Valley Woods, Mr Edge. I ain’t completely sure but it looks like it could be Crazy Joe’s place that’s alight.’

Edge locked the house door, strode across the terrace and angled down the steps to where his gelding was hitched alongside the woman’s mare.

‘Do you know how to get out to where – ‘

He swung into the saddle. ‘No sweat. You want to tell the people in town?’

‘Sure, I’ll do that, mister. But I doubt many of them will give a damn about that crazy old coot.’

He left the unperturbed woman making no great haste to get astride the piebald while he rode fast out to and then along the Old Town Road. Sometimes headed toward the column of smoke and sometimes veered away from it because of the twists and turns of the trail. Reached the clearing beside the ravine with the shallow creek at the bottom, reined in his mount and swung to the ground. Saw that Sarah Farmer, dressed for teaching school rather than a cleaning chore, had got there just ahead of him and was hitching her horse to a clump of brush: the animal skittish because of the acrid taint of smoke in the sunlit air. Her attractive features expressed deep concern as she blurted breathlessly:

‘I was on my way out to visit Joe and saw the smoke.’ She started to move quickly down the steep incline in front of him and despite her laboured breathing still seemed to feel a compulsion to talk. ‘I bet he knocked over his lamp. While he was drunk again, most likely. I’m forever warning him to be careful with that awful lamp. Especially when he’s the worse for drink. It’s old and rusty and battered and won’t even stand up straight. I bet he was drunk and tipped the damn thing over. All that junk he keeps in the place makes his shack into the worst kind of firetrap.’

‘Why would he have a lamp burning in the middle of a morning bright as this?’

She snatched a glance over her shoulder at him and the concern in her wide green eyes was momentarily tinged with guilt. ‘I never got around to cleaning the windows before Joe came back yesterday. It was as dark as the bottom of a mine in there but he more or less threw me out. The reason I was coming to see him today was to try to work out the differences he seems to think we have.’

She almost stumbled in her frantic hurry but managed to stay on her feet and plunged ahead even faster.

‘Lady, you’d better slow down or you’ll – ‘

‘Poor Joe,’ she pressed on as if she hadn’t heard his voice behind her. ‘I was always nagging him.’ There was a husky catch in her throat like she was talking to keep from sobbing. ‘And he was always warning me off. Told me countless times he didn’t want me to come to his place anymore: either to clean it up when he wasn’t there or to help him with his reading even. He only ever wanted me to visit to give him lessons really. He put up with my tidying and cleaning but he told me he couldn’t hardly stomach me nagging him to look after himself and the place better.’

Edge recognised he was listening to the kind of high-strung ramblings that required no responses from him. And guessed she wouldn’t hear anything he said anyway while she concentrated on her headlong rush down the path through the timber and continued with the babbling talk: that kept her mind from contemplating the fate that may have befallen the old man.

They emerged from the densely growing trees into the clearing that surrounded Kellner’s shack and saw at close quarters the ferocity of the flames that were consuming what was left of the ramshackle building. Then had a first glimpse of the old timer who was wailing his misery above the low pitched roar and sharp crackle of the fire and the occasional muffled explosion when something combustible succumbed to the high heat at the searing centre of the blaze.

‘God, please don’t let him be burned!’ Sarah pleaded. And she plunged forward with a sudden burst of speed that took Edge by surprise.

He powered after her, gripped her upper arm and jerked her to an abrupt halt that almost toppled her.

‘Get back woman!’ It was the old man who shrieked the command from where he stood, half turned in front of the burning building, certainly within painful reach of the intense heat. ‘Ain’t nothing to be done for us now!’

Edge looked away from Kellner as the ranting man again faced the leaping flames and saw that Sarah had one hand pressed to her mouth while the other clutched at her throat. Glinting tears trickled down through the beads of sweat on her cheeks. He released his grip on her and snarled as he stepped away: ‘Stay here!’

But she reached out and grasped his wrist in a hold as strong as his had been on her a moment before. ‘It’s no use!’ Her voice was commandingly shrill and he peered back at her anguished face as she insisted: ‘He means it!’

‘He said
us!’
Edge jerked free and lunged toward Kellner who stood outside what had once been the doorway and was now just a gaping hole in the half collapsed wall. ‘I can only see him so that means – ‘

‘Him and his home!’ Sarah shrieked, wringing her hands. ‘That’s what he means! Joe and his God awful shack!’

A gunshot sounded sharper than any crack that came from the burning building. The bullet took Kellner high in the back and the impact of the lead drilling into his flesh caused him to stagger awkwardly forward toward the smouldering threshold. Then he pitched hard to the ground.

Edge had instinctively dropped a hand to his holstered Colt and started to draw the revolver, his head snapping from side to side to search for the source of the shot. Then abruptly it was a matter of priorities and getting to Kellner was of greater urgency than locating who shot him: because the old man was sprawled face down among flames.

‘Stay there!’ he snarled at Sarah Farmer and gave her a powerful shove. She gasped and was sent staggering to the side, tripped over her own feet and tumbled hard to the ground beside a rotted tree stump. And Edge powered forward; aware of distant shouted but incoherent words from many throats. But he ignored the voices and all else as he stooped, grasped a bony ankle and jerked on it to drag the struggling Kellner clear of the fire.