The Outrage - Edge Series 3 (32 page)

The flattering term she applied to him was maybe merited because the immaculately dressed and ornately bespectacled and bejewelled woman was over seventy, maybe older than eighty. He tipped his hat as he said: ‘I’m sorry, ma’am. I didn’t mean to.’

‘I prefer
miss
,’ the white haired, heavily wrinkled old lady said. ‘There is a particular rule of this hotel. And you are fortunate the Wexler woman did not know you were in Mrs Cassidy’s room.’

Owen Wexler appeared at the corner of the landing and hurried to explain: ‘Elizabeth knew about Mr Edge visiting with Mrs Cassidy, Miss Cantrell. There were special circumstances in this case.’

Edge recalled that Violet Cantrell was the owner of the Grand Hotel. Which explained Wexler’s deferential nervousness that was even more obsequious than when he was at risk of riling his wife who could only deny him his marital privileges. This old lady could threaten their joint livelihood.

‘I’ve been here all the while to ensure that nothing happened that might damage the fine reputation of the Grand, Miss Cantrell.’

The elderly lady, who had a stoop from midway down her back and moved with practised caution as if she suffered painful rheumatics, allowed a brief smile to turn up the corners of the thin lips in her pale complexioned, angular featured face. Then her bright, green-eyed gaze shifted from Wexler who stood no higher than five and a half feet and weighed maybe a hundred and fifty pounds to the far taller and heavier Edge. And said wryly:

‘For a woman who usually takes such a practical view of life, Mr Wexler, your wife does on occasion display a great deal of faith in notions what would seem to be fanciful.’

Wexler kept bobbing his head while she spoke then said anxiously before he spun around and hurried off along the landing: ‘I think it’s past time when I should be back at the desk.’

Miss Cantrell made a dismissive gesture toward him then asked of Edge: ‘Are you a gentleman friend from Alice’s past, sir?’

‘No, lady. I’m hired on to find out who killed the Quinn mother and daughter.’

She nodded sagely. ‘Ah, so you are the northern stranger who came to town with Nicholas Quinn on that awful day that the dreadful outrage was discovered.’

‘I’m him,’ Edge admitted.

She shook her head and fluttered her hands. ‘Terrible, truly terrible. You know I do believe that if the kind of business the Cassidys formerly operated in New Orleans had an outlet in Springdale that such a despicable crime may never have been perpetrated here.'

‘You could have a point.’

‘Yes, I sometimes do make valid points, young man. Based upon opinions I form while I wait patiently for the end. There is not much else to occupy somebody like me nowadays. Beyond peace and quiet in serene surroundings, a little well cooked food and some high quality liquor in moderation.’ She sighed reflectively. ‘Time to reflect upon life and form reasoned opinions about the good and bad that it visits on all of us. Yes indeed. And, of course, stimulating conversation with a good friend every now and then.’

She raised one slightly tremulous hand in a gesture of farewell and used the other to turn the doorknob and let herself into Alice Cassidy’s room without knocking. And as Edge started along the landing and went down the stairs it seemed obvious to him why Violet Cantrell felt able to take such a liberty. Was surprised he was neither shocked nor disgusted by the unlikely pairing: nor even mildly interested in its ramifications now he had fulfilled his purpose in coming to the Grand Hotel this morning. Decided fleetingly that this had something to do with the age factor.

Down in the lobby Owen Wexler pretended to be deeply engrossed in his pulp novel and ignored Edge when he reached the foot of the staircase. But the man’s dour faced wife emerged from the restaurant where clearly she had been waiting to intercept him. She warned:

‘I must tell you, sir, that there will be no repeat of – ‘

‘Reckon I can guarantee that,’ Edge answered absently as he tipped his hat to the red faced, irate woman. ‘For awhile there it did seem like I’d maybe bitten off more than I could chew. But after a couple of hiccups it wasn’t so hard to swallow.’

CHAPTER • 20

___________________________________________________________________________

EDGE LEFT the grey hitched to the hotel rail and was largely ignored as he moved
along a street now busy with morning commerce toward the office of Andrew Devlin above the bank. But the door at the top of the outside stairway was firmly closed and a piece of card with a neatly written message on it was securely tacked to the upper panel:
OUT OF TOWN –

WILL RETURN TOMORROW – A. DEVLIN.
After he made the assumption that the lawyer had not returned to Springdale and then left again he reasoned the message was out of date. And he was uneasily reminded of the familiar adage that tomorrow never comes. For a few moments he considered forcing open the door to check for signs that the lawyer did not intend to return to his business premises. But as he lit a newly rolled cigarette he decided that doing so would not be worth the pained shoulder he was sure to get in the process. For if Devlin had gone for good it was not yet any skin off his nose. The man’s absence didn’t concern him because, unless he found out who killed Nancy and Martha Quinn –

if the killers were not Alvin Ivers and Floyd Hooper – then he had not earned a cent. And he had to admit that he was no nearer to doing that than he had been when he started to carry out the final wish of a doomed man.

As he slowly descended the stairway he reflected how, with the mostly reluctant help of people on the fringes of what Violet Cantrell had called the outrage, it was some can of worms he had opened. But he could not see anything of any substance in the writhing, wriggling mass of passions, jealousies and hatreds he had discovered: nothing to point clearly to the fact that Ivers and Hooper had not killed the Quinn mother and daughter. Nothing, either, to conclusively prove the pair had committed the crime. But, lured by the enticing prospect of a big money pay off he had tried his damndest to do the job that legally and morally was Vic Meeker’s responsibility.

So why was he still hanging around in this town peopled by southern bigots: with time running out as inexorably as his patience? For, as he sat down on the lowest step at the rear of the alley beside the bank, he knew what he had always known since he allowed the stage to leave without him: that he was a totally free agent who could buy a horse and ride for Austin whenever the impulse to do so struck him. So he was still here because he felt indebted to the Quinn family: for the generous hospitality Nick Quinn had shown him during the stage ride from Pine Wells and the way he had made so free with the comforts of their house after the man was dead.

He wondered as he lit another cigarette if he could get a clearer picture of events were he to talk things over with somebody. Sarah Farmer maybe? But not right now, since the good-looking woman was busy teaching morning lessons at the school. The sheriff? Who was deeply involved in looking into the series of violent events? But would Vic Meeker be receptive to the idea? He had seemed pretty damn adamant about sticking with the one dead and one captive suspect he had. And if Meeker’s sour tempered deputy was anywhere around at the same time . . . Battering his head against a brick wall had less appeal that crashing a shoulder against a locked door.

Or was it locked?
Hell,
he had not even tried to open it in the usual way,
damnit!

He dropped a second cigarette butt to the ground, rose stiffly and went wearily up the stairway again, trying not to ask himself what he thought he was doing. But inevitably the question imposed itself on his troubled mind and he spread a mirthless grin across his face as he supplied the answer: acting on impulse was what he was doing. Ever since he took the initial decision to let the Austin-bound stage roll out of town while he delivered a man’s forgotten valise, coolly considered actions had been thin on the ground. So he may as well finish this thing the way it had gotten started.

When he turned the knob and pushed, the door swung easily open with a dry hinge creaking, on to a room that smelled musty from being shut up for so long during the hot Texas days while Andrew Devlin was gone. Gone from a twenty feet by twenty feet office adequately furnished for one man to carry out his business as a small town lawyer. A desk with one chair behind and another in front of it, a row of free standing cabinets against the wall to the left and a couple of tables opposite. A mixture of framed pictures and diplomas hung on the walls and a square of carpet spread on the centre of the floor. None of it new but everything reasonably well cared for during day-to-day use.

On the desk and tables were small piles of printed and hand written documents along with some books and ledgers, all of them neatly stacked. There was a covering of undisturbed dust on flat surfaces but no more than would have accumulated in the time Devlin had been gone.

Edge sat down behind the desk in the comfortable black leather chair and leaned back, feeling no curiosity about the papers and ledgers that had nothing to do with him. For even if, as he strongly suspected, Devlin had left this office with no intention of returning the disappearance would become of interest to the man presently seated behind the lawyer’s desk only if inspiration were to make a sudden lightning strike. Or the killers showed up to make a contrite confession.

Meanwhile this was a good enough place, comfortable and private and filled with peace and quiet, in which to while away some time. So he sat there, whiling away time, smoking two more cigarettes and running through his mind a review of the events he had been a part of since he met Nicholas Quinn. A stranger who was happily drunk and totally contented with his lot on the morning of the day in which everything was to come to a sudden and tragic end for him.

There was no flash of inspiration. And nobody, least of all a couple of penitent murderers, came in through the open doorway at the top of the outside staircase. While a distant clock struck regularly and he remained indifferently unaware of the precise passage of time. Knew for certain only that the clock on the office wall had stopped because it had not been wound since Devlin left

Hunger drew him downstairs after he had eventually counted the muted by distance chimes that signalled the hour of noon. When school was out and Sarah Farmer would be free to listen to him? If he chose to talk to her: but he didn’t choose to go in search of her. And as he once more sat alone in the hotel restaurant eating another of Elizabeth Wexler’s plain but well cooked meals he finally reached a decision.

The missing lawyer was gone for good, he was sure of that. And the circumstances that preceded Devlin’s disappearance were such that it seemed like the man’s departure was most probably triggered by the violent deaths of the Quinn family. Over whose affairs he had power of attorney – the affairs of a wealthy family, just a small portion of whose fortune Edge would earn if he completed the job for which he was hired. He had tried his best and failed during a time when he could have expected to collect a two grand reward. But now he was sure there would be no money available to pay him – either because his late employer’s lawyer had absconded with the family’s wealth or Devlin’s mismanagement of Quinn’s affairs was about to be discovered. In which case he was not going to any further trouble on account of the letter he still carried in a shirt pocket.

As he rode out of town he saw Agnes Ivers emerge from the law office, a crestfallen expression on her life wearied face: looking smaller and more pathetically beyond help than ever as she surely dwelt on the fate that awaited her imprisoned son. She half raised a hand and seemed about to call out to the rider on the slow moving horse but then averted her red rimmed eyes and hurried away: maybe to acknowledge a sudden conviction that Edge could not be of any help to her.

A little later as he turned off the Austin Trail on to the spur that led to the Quinn place he gave passing thought to the fact that there was the house and its contents. But he did not intend to wait around in Springdale for as long as it would take for a newly appointed lawyer to complete the legal processes necessary to realise cash money on the property and personal effects of the dead family.