Killing Time In Eternity - Edge Series 4 (11 page)

She offered: ‘I’ll be here all day if there’s anything more I can help you with. Or just for another coffee?’

‘I’m much obliged.’

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‘Like I said just now, I wish you luck. Whatever your reasons for – ‘

He tipped his hat as he cut in: ‘There was a time I used to be quite a gambler. And I learned then not to expect too much in the way of luck.’

She sighed. ‘I know what you mean. It’s so unfair, the way some people seem to have more than their fair share while all the rest of us can do is wait and hope that our ship comes in some day.’

He smiled wryly. ‘I’m weary of waiting and a long time out of hope for that, Sue Ellen. And I’m pretty damn sure that if mine ever does, it’ll dock at San Francisco while I’m waiting in the port of Boston.’

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CHAPTER • 7

______________________________________________________________________

THE OFFICE of the railroad depot manager was twice as large as the one Edge
had just been in at the theatre. But the stove in here had been burning longer and the spartanly furnished, bare walled room was a deal warmer.

Travis Hicks was a short, thin, pale complexioned man of fifty or so with a quick speech delivery that he accompanied with many seemingly nervous darting hand gestures and rapid eye movements. He wore a blue serge uniform, the fabric shinier than the tarnished brass buttons of the jacket and was scowlingly engaged with a pile of paperwork behind a heavily scarred desk when Edge entered. Clearly he was pleased to be interrupted and he waved a bony, ink stained hand over the cluttered desk as he exclaimed:

‘Dockets! It gets worse every damn month! Them pen pushers over at head office got nothing better to do but shove papers around and dream up more kinds of dockets for us guys working in the field to fill out! In duplicate and triplicate to send every damn which way wherever!’ He straightened in his chair with a wince, like he had been too long in the same position. ‘But that’s enough of my everyday problems. What is it I can do for Eternity’s newest storekeeper?’

‘Like to talk to you about Billy Childs getting killed.’

The railroadman winced again as he rose and the expression became a fully-fledged grimace as he moved around from behind the cluttered desk, gestured for Edge to have one of the two ladder-back chairs before the stove and himself dropped on to the other one. ‘I heard how the guy who gunned down his old man and the New York lawman tried to do the same to you.’

Edge sat in the offered chair.

Hicks asked: ‘Sue Ellen sent you over to talk to me, I guess? I seen her and you come in from your early morning ride and go into the theatre.’

Because of the task he had set for himself Edge knew he needed to curb his usual disgruntled reaction toward this brand of inquisitiveness. For he was aware that the way small town people sought to discover as much as they could about the mundane business of their fellow citizens may very well help him to nail the killer.

‘She made mention of how Billy Childs socked you, feller.’

He uttered an embarrassed grunt and asked: ‘Did you get some coffee over at the theatre?’

There was no pot on the stove in the depot office.

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‘I got coffee,’ he said and had a fleeting image of some well-done toast spread thickly with fresh churned butter.

Hicks touched fingertips to an area below his left eye and winced at remembered discomfort. ‘Yeah, Billy landed a haymaker on me, sure enough. He’d been a real pain in the rear for a while. Which wasn’t so bad for me because usually him and me didn’t have too much to do with each other.’ He encompassed the office with a hand gesture. ‘Even in the working day he only needed to come in here when he had a message concerning the railroad. And I had no call to visit his office unless
vice versa
.’ He fidgeted into a more comfortable posture. ‘Plus him being such a young feller and me pushing on through the years more than somewhat, we didn’t have too much in common. So we didn’t socialise a lot. It was the gap in our ages that led to the boy giving me the black eye.’

‘How was that, feller?’

‘See, I’ve reached a time in life when I reckon I got a right to respect from young people. And other older folks should get treated likewise. Especially my wife, who I’ll tell you is a couple of years down the road more than me if you don’t let on I told you?’

Edge concealed his impatience and nodded in response to the rhetorical question.

‘Well, what happened, Annie came over here to the depot with my lunch. Like she always does when a train’s due or is running late and I can’t get to the house to eat at the usual noon hour. Well, she brought my grub into the office here and left. But she didn’t head for home right away. Instead she stopped by at the telegraph office.’ Hicks felt it necessary to point to the front doorway his wife had gone through. ‘She told me later that she had planned to find out what was wrong with the boy. Why he’d changed from being a nice young feller into such a sorehead all the time. But he up and told her to mind her own business.’

Edge pointedly cleared his throat.

The uniformed man peered uncomfortably around the office and shrugged. ‘Which I have to allow it wasn’t. I guess there ain’t really any polite way for anybody to say that to somebody. Billy though, he put a few more words into the sentiment and they were a long way from being polite. And he yelled them real loud, so Annie didn’t have to repeat them to me. Even if she would ever allow herself to speak that kind of language?’

Edge tried to hurry things along. ‘And you went to the telegraph office to – ‘

‘To do what any decent husband would do if he heard a man cussing at his wife that way! Did it without thinking, which is a bad way to do anything! But in that kind of situation, a man don’t always do . . . ‘ He sighed and shook his head ruefully. ‘Well, in the heat of the moment I forgot about being so much slower than him. And how I sure as hell ain’t so strong as I used to be. So I just charged in like an old fool and threw the kind of 58

wild swing that a few years ago would’ve knocked that kid into the middle of next week. But he got in the first punch.’ He grimaced and touched his recently damaged cheek again.

‘Only damn punch to tell the truth.’

‘To tell the whole truth,’ a woman said firmly as she entered through the rear doorway of the office, ‘it wasn’t even a punch. You have to admit that, Travis dear. Billy just jerked up his arm to keep you from hitting him and you smacked your face into his elbow.’

‘Annie,’ Hicks muttered disconsolately.

His wife was a diminutive, grey haired, kindly looking woman of sixty or so with a heavily wrinkled face that suggested her life had not been without much trouble and sadness. But in her clear grey eyes was the resigned look of one who had learned to endure her misfortunes without surrendering to corrosive bitterness.

‘I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, Mr Edge,’ she explained as she hung her husband’s worse-for-wear topcoat on a stand in the corner. ‘It’s surely gonna get colder today and the old fool left home without it.’

Edge remained seated but took off his hat, hung it over a knee and acknowledged:

‘Ma’am.’

‘Did Travis tell you the important part? Or has he spent the whole time trying to prove what a knight in shining armour he tried to be?’

‘Annie, I – ‘

She smiled indulgently at his disgruntlement and it seemed to Edge the expression was honed by many years of mutual understanding between the long-married couple. ‘And that’s what he surely did try to be. The way he went for Billy, not caring a hoot he couldn’t possibly give that young man the hiding he maybe deserved for the language he used in front of a lady.’

‘What important part, Mrs Hicks?’ Edge reminded.

She went to sit behind her husband’s desk. ‘I reckon you’re fixing to find out who tried to kill you behind the old Roy Sims store last night?’

‘It interests me a lot, lady.’

‘Be the same one who killed poor Doc Childs and his big city lawman friend and no mistake. The New York guy who was maybe going to try to uncover the truth about Billy’s death?’

‘There’s every chance it was the same feller, I figure.’

‘Somebody who didn’t want the truth about how and why Billy died to be found out?’

‘Do you have a good reason to believe the kid was murdered, Mrs Hicks?’

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Her husband made to say something but she held up a hand and he remained reluctantly silent.

‘Well, I ain’t no big city lawman,’ Annie said grimly. ‘Nor any lazy, good-for-nothing small town marshal. But if you want I’ll tell you the important part, as far as I’m concerned. And you can decide for yourself?’

‘I’m listening, lady.’

‘Billy’s troublesome problem was the Colbert woman, is what I think, mister.’

‘I was getting around to – ‘ Hicks attempted to excuse himself defensively.

‘You know of the Colberts, Mr Edge?’ the woman asked as her husband expressed resignation and shifted yet again into a more comfortable position in the chair.

‘I’ve heard they have a big piece of property north-west of town. And they don’t need to scrape around to find money when bills are due. Seen for myself the sister has the brother under her thumb. That’s about it.’

Annie Hicks nodded. ‘Arthur and Olivia who run a fine spread by all accounts. Had a good start at it because the place was built up from nothing by their pa and ma. Both of them killed in a Mississippi riverboat accident awhile back.’

Hicks nodded his agreement.

‘Arthur’s a lawyer by profession and a confirmed bachelor by inclination. Which used to upset some local ladies when he was younger and they were husband hunting. But now he’s well into his fifties and so the unmarried ladies of Eternity have given up on him ever being lured to the altar.’

‘Annie, Mr Edge ain’t interested in – ‘

‘Olivia’s a different kettle of fish,’ the woman pressed on. ‘Coming up to forty but still a handsome woman. And still too flighty by half is the general opinion. Lets it be known when the fancy takes her that she’s not averse to some gentle romancing. Why, there was a time a few years back – ‘

Her husband was becoming steadily more embarrassed and interrupted again to say firmly: ‘Even though he was half her age, Billy had a yen for Olivia Colbert, Mr Edge. And he sure tried to pitch woo with her. Maybe succeeded, for all we know.’

His wife said earnestly: ‘No one but her and Billy ever knew one way or the other. Fact is, them two were friendly for a while and who had a yen for who at the start is . . .’

She shrugged. ‘But it was surely finished a couple of months before he was killed.’

‘Week or so after it ended was when Billy started acting not like his usual self,’ Hicks said.

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‘But it didn’t seem like it was just a matter of Olivia tiring of him,’ Annie explained.

‘Travis can tell you that. There was trouble threatened. And it looked like Billy was maybe bought off from seeing Olivia any more.’

‘Darn it, there was a run-in with a bunch of hired hands, Annie. You don’t know if it had anything to do – ‘

Edge asked: ‘A run-in?’

‘A quarrel that seemed like it could’ve broken out into a fight,’ Hicks said and shot an imperious glance at his wife. ‘I was there and so I know exactly what happened.’

She argued: ‘You only saw something, Travis. You can’t be sure you know any of the details. Only what Billy chose to tell you afterwards.’

Hicks gestured for her to remain silent and explained to Edge: ‘It was one of the few times that Billy and me were having a beer in the saloon together. Lee Baldwin and a couple of other Colbert hands came in and said they needed to talk with Billy in private.’

‘Travis, I’m not so sure that Mr Edge wants to know very little thing that was – ‘ his wife started.

He shrugged. ‘Next day I asked Billy about what happened with Baldwin and he claimed he’d made a loan to the guy in a card came. That Baldwin had promised to pay interest at the time, but he tried to go back on his word when he came up with what was owed. But Billy claimed he got his due in full in the end.’ Hicks looked like he had a bad taste in his mouth as he added: ‘I never believed a word of it. But it wasn’t none of my business.’

Annie said: ‘It was the next day when Billy cursed me in the telegraph office and Travis came running and got himself a black eye for the trouble. Four weeks or so before the boy was killed.’

Her husband augmented: ‘That’s about all we can tell you, Mr Edge.’