The Outrage - Edge Series 3 (38 page)

‘I was never there that morning, damnit!’ His tremulous voice reached to the highest pitch yet.

‘You pushed Nancy down on the sofa. While Jordan held the knife on her mother. Or was it the other way around? Martha Quinn had to have been threatened or Nancy would never have submitted to a man doing that to her.’

‘I was never anywhere near – ‘

‘Then the rape became a double murder. How did that happen, kid?’ He peered down at the young man who now seemed transfixed on the ledge, his prone body only moving to the extent that he constantly gulped and by turns clenched his fists and splayed his fingers. ‘Way I figure it happened, Jordan killed Martha with that Bowie knife he was so proud of. Hacked the blade at her throat while he couldn’t take his eyes off what you were doing to her daughter. Was so filled with lust while he watched you raping Nancy, his mind so involved in what he saw was going on, that he killed her mother in a frenzy of twisted excitement.’

‘Okay, mister, but it wasn’t me!’ His voice was little more than a croak.

‘He didn’t even know he as doing it, maybe. Then the girl saw what had happened and there was no more reason for her to submit to you having your way with her. And she started to fight back. Tore off your kerchief and recognised you. Which meant there had to be a second murder. And you strangled Nancy.’

Colman regained some control of himself again and found his normal voice: or something that sounded more like it. ‘It wasn’t me! I wasn’t there! But I reckon that’s just about how it could have happened. It makes sense. And it makes sense it was Bob Jordan who killed Mrs Quinn with that Bowie knife of his. Then strangled Nancy. But it wasn’t me that was with him. More likely it was –‘

‘Then the two of you panicked. And were so scared you forgot your plan to steal something before you high tailed it out of the house. But your clothes were stained with blood and sick so you went to Kellner’s shack and stole some of his.’

‘Right!’ Colman blurted. ‘It all sounds almost exactly right. Except it was Jordan and someone else. Why do you keep saying it was me?’

‘It had to be Jordan. Because he forgot to pick up his knife that he’d dropped at the old man’s shack after the both of you changed your clothes.’

‘Sure it was Jordan.’ His tone became a whine. ‘But why me, mister?’

‘I didn’t figure it out until tonight. After you tried so damn hard to kill me. Now it all fits together real fine,’

Colman started to grimace but the expression suddenly changed to a triumphant grin.

‘So what it is does? You can’t prove nothing against me because I never – ‘

‘You had your hair cut,’ Edge put in evenly.

Colman was perturbed and could only blurt: ‘What?’

‘It was dumb of people – including me – not to figure how that was so strange. How you went to the barber shop to get a haircut the same morning the girl you’d planned to marry was killed.’

‘I don’t know why I did that, damnit!’ he spluttered. ‘Lots of people do some real weird things after they’ve been knocked for a loop, don’t they? Except for cold-hearted bastards like you, I guess. So I had a haircut! What’s that got to do with anything?’

‘I think when Jordan realised he’d lost the Bowie knife that so many people knew was his that he panicked. Because he thought he’d left it where the killings were done. He was even more terrified than when the two of you scooted out of the Quinn house. He was running scared. And ran his horse right off the top of this cliff.’

‘I’ve been saying to you all along, mister – sure it was Bob Jordan. Why do you keep tying me in with him?’

‘You were pretty damn frightened yourself. After you’d had a hand in two killings that were never intended. But you weren’t so blinded by terror as Jordan was. You knew the knife hadn’t been left at the Quinn house. And you figured out where it must have been left so you went back to Kellner’s house to look for it. And you saw him and thought he’d seen you.’

Colman rasped: ‘It’s plain you don’t know a damn thing, mister. You’re just trying any way you can think of to get your hands on that reward money Quinn put up. But Crazy Joe’s as dead as Bob Jordan and so you don’t have no proof of none of what you been saying.’

‘It’s the way it had to be, kid. Old Joe knew he’d been robbed of some clothes that morning. But when he went to tell the law about it Meeker and Lacy were too busy with a double murder to bother with a rambling old hermit who drank too much and who most people thought was crazy. So the old timer gave up on the sheriff and came to see me instead.’

‘And if that crazy old bastard said he saw me anywhere near his stinking shack he was a liar.’

‘We didn’t hit it off, kid. I came down hard on him and that got his back up. He had a great liking for the Quinn family though, and he really wanted to nail Nancy’s and Martha’s killers. So he asked me to come to his place to talk again, but not right then. Maybe he wanted me to sweat for awhile. Out of cussedness or more likely he wanted to be clear in his mixed up mind whether or not he ought to ask me for money for telling what he knew. On account of that high regard he had for the Quinns because they’d treated him a whole lot better than most people in Springdale had.’

‘He didn’t have nothing to tell you about me!’ Colman snarled defensively. ‘Sure I showed up at his burning shack just after the crazy old coot got shot. But so did a whole bunch of people from Springdale. You got nothing on me. No proof of any of this stuff you been spouting, mister!’

Edge said evenly: ‘I’ll allow you’re right about one thing, kid.’

‘Yeah, and what’s that?’

‘Kellner had nothing on you. All he did have was the knife that had belonged to a dead man.’

‘Like I been saying all along, you can’t hang any of all of this on me, mister!’

‘But you saw the old timer after you and Jordan stole his clothes from the shack. And you figured he could’ve seen you, right? That was why you got your haircut. And why you started to wear your Sunday best suit around town. Hoping to confuse the old timer in case he really had spotted you out at his place.’

‘Hell, mister, this is getting – ‘

‘Just shut your mouth and listen, kid!’ Edge cut in quietly but firmly. ‘First you had the haircut and then you started to dress real smart. Which you figured might not be enough. So you decided it was best to kill Kellner. Burn him in his shack so it would look like an accident.’

‘You’ve got it wrong!’

‘But he didn’t die and when Sarah Farmer and me showed up you were forced to take a shot at him. But it was over a long range and with a revolver. And you only winged him.’

‘I keep telling you – ‘

‘But you sure put the fear of God into the old man and he went into hiding. Until last night when he showed up in the alley across from the saloon. And I figure he would have come to talk with me. Except I was with Sarah Farmer and he’d taken to disliking her.’

‘Is that right?’ He attempted to sound scornful now but the tone did not match his embittered expression.

‘You left the hotel with your new girl just ahead of Sarah and me.’

‘I can’t argue with that. You saw Rosemary and me.’

‘The streets weren’t exactly thronging with people at that time of night. And after Sarah and me went our separate ways and you’d taken the girl home it could have been you were the only feller around. The only one Kellner knew anyway.’

‘And he recognised me from being out near his shack after Jordan and me took his clothes? So I – ‘

‘No. He knew you as a close friend of Nancy Quinn. And he decided to trust you. Told you he had a knife with bloodstains on it that he’d found at his place after he was robbed.’

Now Colman managed to exude scowling contempt and matched it with his tone.

‘Mister, if Crazy Joe knew me so well how’d I figure to disguise myself with just a haircut and a new suit of clothes, can you answer me that?’

‘You were scared out of your wits that morning after the killings, kid. Ready to try anything and not thinking too straight. You figured if the old timer had just caught a glimpse of you at his shack that changing how you looked by that much might just throw him off if he ever got to suspecting you.’

‘That’s just a heap of horseshit!’

‘Last night Kellner was maybe as scared as you were the day of the murders. A frightened old man who couldn’t trust the sheriff to give him the time of day. And he was worried I might rough him up. So he asked you what he should do about the knife. And somehow you convinced him to bring it out to the Quinn house. Where you used it to make sure he’d never – ‘

‘It was no contest between him handing it over to you or to Sheriff Meeker, mister. Not after I told Crazy Joe you’d be sure to give him some of the reward money in exchange for the knife. He said that at first he never had wanted to take any money for helping to get the killers of Nancy and her ma. But now he thought he might as well take it since you were getting so much from Quinn’s lawyer.’ Colman made the statement calmly as he stared across the chasm again. Suddenly spoke like he had been totally co-operative throughout this bizarre exchange in such outlandish circumstances.

Edge resisted the impulse to demand more admissions: decided Colman was best left to talk at his own pace.

‘The way it was, we had to go to the Quinn house. Because it was near there, out back of the place, that he’d hidden the knife. He really liked that family. After I burned his place he went to live out back of their house in that stand of scrub timber close to where I killed him.’

He tried to wriggle into a more comfortable position but groaned in pain and became still again. Said between clenched teeth: ‘You happy now, mister? I killed Crazy Joe and I was there at the house with Bob Jordan when he killed Mrs Quinn more or less like you said. And after I raped Nancy I throttled her. Now are you going to bring me some help?’

‘You left the knife near the body to make it look like it was Eddie Sawyer with Jordan that morning? In case I just might be able to convince Meeker that Alvin Ivers and Hooper didn’t kill anybody?’

Colman sighed deeply and sounded exhausted as he answered: ‘Yeah. People knew how much Sawyer wanted to get his hands on that knife him and Jordan reckoned had belonged to Jim Bowie himself. Some of the guys even heard him try to buy it Tuesday night at the old mill. And he asked you about it in the saloon after Alice Cassidy brought in Bob Jordan’s body didn’t he? It seemed like a smart move to leave the knife there.’

‘Kellner never did recognise you from being at his place?’

‘No, he didn’t.’ Colman grimaced. ‘So it seems like I wasted my time trying to make myself look a little different from usual. Not too much, in case folks got to wondering. Just like you did, damnit!’ He pleaded desperately: ‘Now will you get me some help? I’m hurting real bad inside and – ‘

‘You’ve confessed to me, kid. Are you ready to tell it the same way to Meeker and Lacy?’

‘We’ll have to wait and see about that.’ He had turned his head so he was full face toward the top of the cliff and it seemed there was the trace of an enigmatic smile starting to replace the grimace of pain on his handsome features. But the expression was stillborn when the Springdale sheriff said coldly:

‘No need for him to do that if he don’t want to.’

The startled youngster on the ledge had seen the shabbily suited, overweight Meeker step on to the lip of the cliff a moment before Edge became aware of the presence of the man standing ten feet to his left. And then he saw another when he looked up to the other side of where he was sprawled on the grass. This was the broader, more menacing looking Deputy Max Lacy.

‘You fellers been listening for long?’ Edge eased cautiously back from the sheer drop and started to rise gingerly to his full height.

Frank Conway, who ran the Springdale stage depot, advanced to offer tacit assistance if the unsteady on his feet man needed it. Edge motioned him away and the middle aged, anxious looking fat man backed off to rejoin the group of a dozen or so other citizens from town. Some of them were known to Edge but if ever there was to be a time to discover if any of them had been involved in tonight’s violent horseplay now was not it.

‘Long enough to hear enough!’ Max Lacy rasped and moved his head to make it pointedly clear his anger was intended to be shared between Colman and Edge. ‘And you can thank your lucky stars we heard it from his own lips, stranger. You aided and abetted a fugitive escape from a legally appointed posse and in Avery County that’s not something the law takes

– ‘

‘Long enough for a man to ride to town and be on his way back here with Doc Sullivan by now,’ Meeker cut across the plaintive denials Colman was starting to make. ‘Even though it seems one hell of a waste of time: taking the trouble to haul that killer up from there to patch him up and then to see he gets strung up: legally after a fair trial, mind.’

Edge had dug out the makings and began to roll a cigarette as he limped toward the fringe of the timber; aware of several sheepish looks directed at him by some in the group of bystanders.

Down on the ledge Colman had reverted to venting whimpering denials. Which were ended when Lacy demanded harshly of Edge:

‘Where do you figure you’re going, stranger?’

‘I got some unfinished business hereabouts.’ He paused beside a young tree, struck a match on the trunk and lit the cigarette, his face averted when he grimaced with pain.