Wilde West (28 page)

Grigsby inhaled on the cigarette, exhaled. Silently, he stared at Ruddick.

Ruddick shifted in his chair, uncrossed his legs, then recrossed them, left knee over right. “I had a few drinks and I got a little bit tiddly.” He smiled now as he stared levelly at Grigsby. “That's probably why I don't remember much.”

Grigsby flicked his cigarette ash into the ashtray. “You sure you didn't make yourself a friend?”

A frown, as though genuinely confused. “What do you mean?”

“A friend,” Grigsby said. He smiled sociably, man to man. “Look, son. I ain't especially interested in your personal life.” As far as Grigsby was concerned, the less he knew about that, the better. “I don't care whether you favor women, men, dogs, or rattlesnakes. I'm just tryin' to clear up a killin'.”

Ruddick sat back and for a moment he stared at Grigsby. Finally he smiled a small bitter smile and he said, “
Son
? You're going to be my
father
, is that it?”

“Come again?” said Grigsby.

“Look, Mr. Marshal, if I wanted a big, brave,
manly
father, I'd use my own. Why don't we just admit that you're not especially fond of
me
and I'm not especially fond of
you
, and just leave it at that.”

Grigsby frowned. “It don't matter here who likes who. I need to find out where you were last night. Can't you see that the best thing you could do for yourself is tell me?”

Ruddick smiled. “And what if I don't? What happens then,
Dad
? Are you going to
beat
it out of me? That's what fathers are
supposed
to do, isn't it?”

“It's an idea could grow on me,” Grigsby said.

This was a mistake; he knew it as soon as he said it—from his smile, the boy took Grigsby's admission as a vindication, as a personal victory.

Grigsby said, “Okay. Let's stop fuckin' around. Who was it?”

Ruddick smiled again. “I guess that's for me to know and you to find out.”

Grigsby sat up and stubbed out his cigarette. He looked at Ruddick. He said, “Now you listen to me. I told you, we're talkin' here 'bout a murder. Some sonovabitch sliced up a hooker, and I'm tryin' to find out if it was you. I don't give a damn about anything else. I don't give a damn if you whacked off every goddamn cowpoke at the Palace. What I wanna know is, who you were
with
, and how
long
you were with 'im, and if you don't goddamn tell me, and tell me
now
, I'm gonna sling your ass in the lockup.”

Ruddick was staring at him, lips compressed, face flushed.

“Lockup'll be right up your alley,” Grigsby said. “Got a guy in there name of André. Trapper. Ripe as a dead skunk. 'Bout seven feet tall, mean old fucker with a dose of clap, picked it up from some Cheyenne dog soldier, and young fellas like you are his meat exactly.”

The threat of the lockup (a threat which was pretty much as empty as the lockup itself) hadn't worked with O'Conner, but it worked like a charm with Ruddick. Looking directly at Grigsby, the boy said, “Dell Jameson.” He spit out the name as though it were a piece of tobacco caught on his tongue.

“Dell
Jameson
?” said Grigsby.

Ruddick smiled coldly, viciously. “You wanted to know who I was with. I was with Dell Jameson.”

Grigsby exploded. “He's
married
, he's got
kids.
He's a goddamn
fireman.
”

Ruddick's brief little laugh was brittle and shrill. “I met him at eleven o'clock,” he said. “You can ask at the saloon, at the, Palace.
They'll
tell you. We left around twelve and went to my room at the hotel.” He smiled a hard, nasty smile. The poisonous little shit was enjoying himself. “Poor Dell was a bit nervous about being seen, so I let him in through the service entrance. It didn't really matter, because the desk clerk was asleep. He stayed until two.” He smiled again. “It's the truth. You can ask your friend Dell.”

Grigsby lifted his glass, took a swallow of bourbon. “You leave the room afterwards?”

“No.”

But he knew about the service entrance.

“Is that
it
?” said Ruddick. “Can I
go
now?”

“Yeah,” Grigsby said. He waved a hand. “Take off.”

As Ruddick, sauntering again, reached the door, Grigsby said, “One thing, Wilbur.”

Ruddick turned.

Grigsby said, “I'm gonna be watchin' you. All of you. Like a hawk.” But Grigsby's heart wasn't really in the threat, and it didn't sound, even to him, particularly threatening.

Apparently, it didn't sound too threatening to Ruddick, either. He only shrugged, and then he turned and flounced from the room.

Grigsby stood looking down through the window at the street below him, a shallow brown river dimpled with raindrops, shivering beneath gusts of wind. The storm was easing up, the clouds were feathering away. A few people, most of them in flapping yellow slickers, dashed along the sleek black sidewalks.

Poor Dell
.

Poor Dell was right.

Grigsby had known Dell Jameson for nearly fifteen years. He was a good man, hardworking, dependable, and a good father to his kids. And brave as a bull—three years ago he had gone barreling through a burning house to grab old Mrs. Cartwright and carry her out to the street. He had come staggering onto the sidewalk and set her down soft as silk on the ground, then taken a step or two back toward the house and keeled right over.

Jesus Christ. Dell Jameson.

How the hell was Grigsby supposed to handle this?

Hey, Dell, how's Barbara, oh, and by the way, about what time last night you finish cornholing the lulu-belle from San Francisco?

Grigsby frowned.

Goddamm it, Dell. How could you
do
this to me?

He sighed.

Well, shit. Maybe it was time to pack it in. Let Sheldon and Greaves take over like they wanted to. Looked like they were about to do that anyway.

He frowned again.

Greaves. Who had gone whining to Greaves?

Wilde.

It had to be Wilde. Couldn't have been von Hesse or Ruddick, because Greaves had known too soon. If it'd been O'Conner, he would've told Greaves about the shooting, and Greaves hadn't mentioned that. Henry had no reason to talk to Greaves, not that Grigsby could see. It had to be Wilde or Vail, and Vail and Grigsby had struck a deal.

So. It had been Wilde.

Grigsby tried to work up some anger at the Englishman, and discovered that he couldn't do it.

He really didn't care anymore. About much of anything.

It was beginning to look like he'd never get to the bottom of this Molly Woods thing. The whole business was a mess. Greaves and Sheldon butting in. Nances coming out of the woodwork, everywhere you looked. (Including, Jesus, poor Dell Jameson.) Drunken reporters and crazy German officers. French countesses.

French countesses. Grigsby remembered the round breasts, the pouty mouth, and felt a familiar tingling tightness in his crotch.

Leave it be, Bob, that one's too classy for the likes of you.

Right about now, Grigsby would've given his left arm for an uncomplicated shoot-out. Two drunken cowboys drawing down on each other for the simple satisfaction of blowing each other off the face of the earth.

Someone knocked on the office door.

Grigsby turned. “Yeah?”

The door opened and Carver poked in his head. “Doc Boynton is out here, Marshal.”

Sitting opposite Grigsby, Boynton raised his glass of bourbon in a hand that was small and stubby and yet somehow delicate. “Health and wealth and pretty women, Bob, and the time to enjoy them all.”

Grigsby raised his own glass and smiled. “Too late for all of it, Doc.”

The doctor was short, round, and bald. His eyebrows were bushy and gray and so was his mustache. His cheeks were red; his eyes, behind shiny round spectacles, were light brown. He wore—as he had always worn, for as long as Grigsby had known him—a gray three-piece suit. Only the lower portion of the trousers were wet, so he must've worn a slicker and hung it up on the coat rack out in the anteroom.

Boynton sipped at his glass, sighed happily, lowered the glass to his shelf of stomach, and held it there between his fingers, daintily, like a spinster careful not to spill a drop of sherry. He lifted his head slightly and sniffed at the air, then turned with a grin to Grigsby. “Are you wearing toilet water these days, Bob?”

Grigsby smiled. “Tryin' to improve myself.”

Boynton grinned at him. “Or maybe you've got a fancy woman hiding in the closet?”

“Wish I did. Okay, Doc. What can you tell me about Molly Woods?”

Boynton frowned. “Well, for one thing,” he said, “she couldn't get any deader than she is.”

Grigsby smiled bleakly. “Yeah. I reckoned she wasn't gonna be makin' no recovery.”

Boynton shook his head. “Jesus Christ, Bob. I've been a doctor for more years than I care to think about, and I've never seen anything like that. Have you? Ever?”

“Nope. When do you figure she got killed?”

“Sometime early this morning.” Boynton adjusted his spectacles. “Probably not much earlier than two or three, I'd say.”

Which meant that any of the men in Wilde's tour could've killed her. Including Ruddick, after Dell Jameson had left his hotel. Which meant that maybe Grigsby wouldn't have to talk to Dell Jameson after all.

“What's the latest time it coulda been?” he asked Boynton.

Boynton shrugged. “Four or five, maybe. Not much beyond that.”

Grigsby nodded—any later than that and there would've been people up and about, even in Shantytown. “There were some parts missin' from the body?”

Boynton looked at him. “How'd you know about that, Bob?”

“Molly Woods wasn't the first hooker this sonovabitch has cut up.”

Boynton frowned, thought for a moment, took a sip of whiskey. “That doesn't really surprise me. It seemed to me that he knew what he was doing. He knew what he was looking for. Who else has he killed?”

“Three others. Not here in Denver. What do you mean, he knew what he was doin'?”

“He knows his anatomy, Bob. He cut out her uterus, cut it out and took it with him when he left. And did a fairly neat job of it, too.”

“You sayin' he's a
doctor
?”

Boynton took a delicate sip of bourbon. “I'd be inclined to doubt that. The wound was neat, but it wasn't professional. And a doctor would've used a scalpel, probably. The knife this fellow used had a narrow blade, about seven inches long. Single edged, something like a carving knife. Very sharp. He takes good care of his tools.”

Grigsby smiled bleakly again. “So how come he knows about anatomy?”

Boynton shrugged. “If he's done this three times before, he's had plenty of opportunity to practice. And the uterus isn't a difficult organ to locate.”

Grigsby swallowed some bourbon. “Why do you reckon he's cartin' away pieces?”

“Mementos?”

“Mementos? Somethin' to remember the hookers by? That's pretty fuckin' sick, Doc.”

“So is your killer.”

“But why the uterus?”

“I couldn't say. Did he remove the uterus from any of the others?”

“From all of em, looks like.” Grigsby frowned. “How much time would he need to do that to Molly? Everything he did?”

“An hour at least. Closer to two.”

Two hours of hacking and slicing. “So what can you tell me about him, Doc?”

“Well.” Boynton smiled faintly and adjusted his spectacles. “I'd say that he's not very happy with women, or at least with prostitutes. The others were all prostitutes?”

“One was a storekeeper's wife, but maybe she was hookin' on the side. Somethin' else, though. All of 'em had red hair.”

Boynton shrugged. “Then I'd say that he's not very happy with redheaded prostitutes.”