Weak Flesh (5 page)

"Sir?" His voice was gravel in his throat.

"They're the goddamn enemy, Gage. Take care of it."

The squaw stared at them, ancient understanding in her dark eyes, but not a whit of fear. The coarse blanket twitched again, a shock of hair like black straw poked out, and a chubby brown arm flailed at the woman's chin.

Gage didn't know much about babies, but he could tell this one was nearly brand new. "But the infant, sir?"

Butler rounded on him, his face an ugly purple flush, veins distended at his temple. "You questioning my order, Lieutenant?"

"No sir," Gage answered, sickness churning in his gut. He raised the Winchester.

#

The slam of the outside door jarred Gage back to reality. He glanced through the window to see Pruitt in the outer office, shoving James Wade onto the wooden bench. The man's eyes jumped around the dingy room, the toe of one boot jiggling crazily.

Wiry and on the short side, Nell's latest beau worked as a laborer at the saw mill, and what he lacked in intelligence, he made up for in optimism. Ellen Carver was clearly above Wade in social standing, and yet he'd pursued her unabashedly.

Gage nodded to Pruitt through the glass and the patrolman left.

A few minutes later Gage walked to the front of the Station House, ignored Wade, and perused through a folder lying open on the wooden divider. He let the full force of the law's authority settle on Wade in silent suspicion. Men under pressure often blurted out information they struggled to keep private, and Gage intended Wade to be completely forthcoming.

After another minute of ignoring Wade, who squirmed in his chair and worked his way from fearful to belligerent, Gage looked up in mock surprise. "Mr. Wade? Follow me, please," he said in a voice more command than request.

"About time," Wade muttered under his breath, but he shuffled along like a whipped dog – one that might turn on you if you presented him with your back for too long.

Gage pierced Wade with a hard look while the man shifted from one buttock to the other in the chair arranged opposite the desk. Right now he looked younger than his twenty-three years, more like a small boy who'd been caught with his hand in the till. There was a slackness to his mouth and a shiftiness to his eyes that spoke of weak character.

Although unspoken, the dead weight of accusation hung in the air between them.

"I ain't a idiot," Wade blurted out at last. "If this is about Nellie, I'm keeping my mouth shut. My pap always claimed saying nothing never got you in trouble." Despite the aggressive tone, Wade seemed unable to stop his fidgeting, crossing first one leg and then another.

Gage steepled his fingers and bounced the tips gently against one another. He'd interrogated Wade previously, along with other men who'd kept company with the Carver girl, but nothing had come of those interviews.

Gage's sense of this particular boyfriend was that Wade had rather too high an opinion of himself and his attractions. In addition to the Carver girl, he escorted several other young women around the community, none of whom, however, belonged in the same social class as Nell.

Wade had admitted to seeing Nell on an occasion, but claimed their relationship was casual. Sure, he liked Nell, he'd said, but he went out with a lot of women.

He had adamantly insisted he hadn't seen her the night she disappeared, claiming he'd spent the evening in Dudley's Tavern on Main Street. Even though he was a known frequenter of that establishment, no one had vouched for his presence the night Nell disappeared.

"Tell me again when you last saw Ellen Carver," Gage said at last. Before Wade could speak, he held up his hand palm outwards in a warning gesture. "Be sure that you tell me the truth, Mr. Wade, and account for your every moment from when you left work that night until you returned the next morning."

"I've already told you all that," Wade protested.

"Yes, you have. But this time I need you to produce
bona fide
witnesses to verify your claims."

"Why? What's different now? What happened?" Wade's voice had a scratchy sound like the men who'd worked the mines
out West.

Gage was sure the man had heard about the gruesome discovery at the river by now, and steeled his voice. "What's happened is that Ellen Carver is dead and if you
were
with her the night she disappeared, you may well have been the last person to see her alive."

Wade's face was a parody of horror and disbelief, but he kept his mouth shut.

Gage paused and tried another tactic. "I heard that Nell was spreading it about that you and she were going to get married."  

"What? No, no, that's not right. I liked her a little and went out with her some, but nothing serious, I swear."

"Now, Mr. Wade, you need to be honest with me."

Even as Jim wriggled under the damn Marshal's scrutiny, an ugly but exciting image flashed through his mind. A brief recollection of Nell twisting beneath him, her full breasts heaving while he held her down with one hand around her throat, the fingers digging hard into the pale flesh. He felt the unmistakable swelling in his groin and broke out in a cold sweat, praying the Marshal couldn't read his thoughts.

Jim fancied himself a ladies' man. Although he did manual labor, he felt certain he'd work his way up to the kind of position that required the wearing of a gentleman's clothes. The kind of position that would force Nell Carver's father to respect him. Now it was too late for that.

When he'd been interrupted at work this morning and required to accompany Will Pruitt to the Station House where he'd sat for over an hour, he felt considerably less dapper than he had at nine o'clock – and not at all optimistic.

Jim wasn't a fool. He knew the police wanted to talk to him about Nellie. And right now he couldn't stop sweating like a pig and worrying about the whole affair while the Marshal sat poker-straight like a rod was stuck up his ass.

The whole community had been against Jim from the moment Nell disappeared over a month ago. He hadn't missed the suspicious glances and sly comments they aimed his way. Where was Nell, they all wondered? And what did Jim Wade have to do with her disappearance?

But until her body had floated to the surface of the Pasquotank River, everything was just mean speculation. Nobody could prove nothing.

Wade had been in scrapes from the time he was knee high to a grasshopper, but he'd managed to charm his way out of most of them. The ones he couldn't finagle a way around, he'd used his fists on. He'd rather cajole, but wouldn't back down from a fight, whether he was innocent or not.

He could tell by the flint in Gage's gray eyes that charm wasn't going to work on him, that the Marshal had judged and juried him all within minutes.

"That doesn't sound right," Gage continued in a soft drawl. "Are you telling me you weren't interested in a beautiful girl like Ellen Carver?"

And somehow the sneaky bastard wormed it all out of him. Within ten minutes Jim had confessed to meeting with Nell the night of her disappearance. How the Marshal had wrung the story out of him, he couldn't say.

Jim found Nell down by the Narrows as he usually did, he admitted, their special spot on the banks of the Pasquotank. The Narrows was the small neck of land that jutted into the black waters of the river before it emptied into the Albermarle Sound.

"I went there to break up with her," he sputtered.

Gage crossed his legs at the knees and drummed his fingers on the desk. "Really? First, you say you were just casually going around with her. And then you claim you broke up with a woman like Nell Carver? Do you expect me to believe that?"

"Yes," Wade blustered. "I – I'd had enough of Nell's games. Of her fooling around with other fellows."

"So you were angry with her?"

"Yes – no – I wanted to end our relationship, but I weren't mad at her."

Gage stared past Wade's head through the clear glass that looked into the front room of the Station House. "That sounds like motive, James, pure and simple motive. Are you sure it wasn't Nell who wanted to break off the relationship?"

"No," he mumbled. "No."

"And you became furious with her, things got out of hand," Gage continued as if he hadn't heard.

"No! God, no!" Wade shouted. "I got several women on my string, more than just Nell."

"On your string? Like fish?" Gage sneered and narrowed his mean gray eyes. Jim felt a sliver of fear slid down his spine. "Like fish on a string so you can partake of them whenever your fancy strikes?"

Jim's face flamed. Time to shut yer yap, he thought, but couldn't help himself.

"How did you know she'd be there?" Gage asked after a moment.

Wade shrugged. "I didn't know for sure."

"Come on, Wade. You're not the kind of fellow to pass up a sure opportunity to be with one of your other women for a mere chance that Nell would happen to be at the river that night. Why did you go to the Narrows if there was a possibility Nell wouldn't meet you?"

Jim searched for a believable lie. "I – I knew Nell liked me, so I hoped she'd be there, waiting for me." His voice grew belligerent. "Nell was sweet on me."

Gage paused as a smile played around his mouth, like he knew something Jim didn't, something damning. The Marshal was the coldest bastard Jim had even seen. His voice was mild, but his eyes were hard as stones as he sat in that big chair of his, slowly tapping his long fingers on the yellow lined pad in front of him.

"Did you go to the river every night, then, waiting, hoping Nell might come?" Gage scoffed.

Jim blinked rapidly and stared at a spot behind the Marshal's head. After some time he admitted, "Sometimes I left a note for her, saying when and where I'd meet her."

"Ah." A wealth of damnation lay in the word.

Wade leapt to his feet, angry at being trapped. "But not that night! I swear on my mother's grave I didn't leave Nell a message the night she went missing."

He took several deep breaths, trying to calm himself. "And I ain't gonna answer no more questions!"

Gage raised his brows and spoke mildly. "Sit down, Mr. Wade, unless you wish to occupy my jail for the night."

Wade threw himself in the chair. Sweat dripped from his forehead, but his mouth felt dry as cotton. He'd be damned if he'd let them blame him for this thing with Nell. He wasn't the only one she liked to play her games with.

"So you are claiming you simply went to the river and waited for Nell that night in spite of the fact that you normally left her a message?"

Jim nodded.

"Where."

"What?"

"Where did you leave the note?" Gage asked with barely-concealed impatience. "Where did you leave a message for Nell? How did you get it to her?"

"Under the cinder block beside the side door." Jim was jumpy but the fight hadn't gone out of him. "I sometimes left a letter there. Under the cinder block. But, as God is my judge, not that night. I swear it."

He swallowed hard and sank back against the wall. "I – I decided to break up with Nell."

Bloody sod, Jim thought, staring at him with pure hatred. The Marshal wanted someone to blame, but Jim would swear eternal damnation to keep himself from the hangman's noose.

Chapter 6

"Perhaps you might abandon your detective work while we pay our respects to the Carvers," Meghan's father suggested shrewdly as they climbed into his newly-acquired runabout.

"Father! Nell was my very best friend."

In truth, Meghan was less concerned about the admonishment than the fact her father knew her well enough to suspect her secondary motives in paying this early condolence call. Although she mourned the passing of her friend, her innate curiosity drove her to find the truth.

Altogether too perceptive with regards to his only child, Papa eyed her affectionately and increased the automobile's speed. Meghan enjoyed the thrill of the wind blowing across her face and loosening the knot of her hair. However unladylike, she loved this thoroughly alive feeling of abandonment.

She immediately sobered, ashamed that she should enjoy the crisp coolness of a winter's day while poor Nell lay cold and lifeless at this very moment in the Atterberry Funeral Home. But Meghan was a practical woman, and although nothing could bring back her friend, the truth surrounding her death would ease the mind and comfort the soul.

Tuned to the quixotic turn of his daughter's emotions, Dr. Bailey noted her sudden silence. "Life must continue, Meggie girl. Nell would not want you to grieve interminably."

When she gave back a small smile, he patted her arm affectionately and turned into the driveway. He parked the runabout among several carriages and led Meghan up the stone pathway to the Carver residence. "Looks like several other folks had the same idea," he remarked.

Susan, the second eldest Carver daughter, greeted them at the door. She was dressed severely in black bombazine so stark her normally high color washed from her lively face and made her look like a ghost.

She hugged Meghan rather more warmly than she might have considering Nell and Meg often excluded Susan from their confidences as children. Susan was a mere two years younger than her sister, and at seventeen, promised to be quite the same beauty her older sister had been.

A small crowd had gathered to offer their condolences. Mr. and Mrs. Nolan, who lived two houses down on the corner in a lovely brick three-story home with a luscious garden in the back, had just arrived.

Susan ushered Meghan and Dr. Bailey into the formal dining room where a large buffet was spread out on a long, narrow table set up in front of the bay window. Reverend Jolly and his wife filled small plates from the hot and cold dishes on the table while another couple stood in line behind them.

"Why do people in mourning always feed their guests so sumptuously?" Meghan whispered to her father, who quickly squeezed her arm.

While Dr. Bailey engaged in conversation with Reverend Jolly, Meghan wandered over to the arched doorway into the library where Mr. and Mrs. Oliver Nolan stood speaking with the Carvers. Meg wanted to offer her sympathies to Mrs. Carver for whom she'd always felt a particular fondness. The woman had borne Nell's death egregiously and looked fragile standing beside her blustery husband.