Killing Time In Eternity - Edge Series 4 (17 page)

Edge rose from the chair and admitted: ‘I don’t have any idea until I find it. There or any place else to tell the truth.’

The weary and disconsolate lawman sighed. ‘Yeah, I know what you mean. Just don’t you overlook what I said about having a duty to tell me if – ‘

Warner cut in sourly: ‘And if you don’t do that, it’ll be a crime you can be tossed into a cell for, mister.’

Edge pointedly ignored the threatening warning as he went to the door where he paused, nodded toward Warner and said: ‘If I do anything against the law around her, marshal, do him a favour.’

Flynt was perplexed. ‘Do Clay a favour?’

‘Don’t give the man in black there the chore of trying to bring me in.’

Flynt spread another glower across his ruddy complexioned features and shared his disapproval equally between the two men. ‘You got no need for concern on that score, mister. I already said, Clay’s only hired on for the one special duty and that’s to help guard the train.’

Warner laughed harshly but his chilling green eyes did not show a glimmer of humour when he challenged: ‘None of that tough talking you do scares me, Edge! Fact is, you don’t mean any damn thing to me!’

‘I can live with that, feller,’ Edge replied evenly. ‘Long as you keep in mind that I don’t find you at all arresting.’

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CHAPTER • 12

_________________________________________________________________________

EDGE WAS able to keep out of the reach of the steadily falling rain for most of the
way from the law office to the theatre. For both were on the same side of the curved strip of mud that was Main Street today and many of the buildings in between either had porches or were fronted by covered sidewalks.

No one passed by close enough to speak to him so he was left alone with his thoughts. But by the time he mounted the steps of the false front of the Washington Memorial Theatre he had not resolved the puzzle that intrigued him. This was whether it was sheer dumbness or plain indifference that had prevented Marshal Flynt from asking so many blatantly obvious questions. Paramount of which was if Edge knew who Arthur Colbert had arranged to see in his town office today.

The large double front doors of the theatre were not locked and when he entered the building he saw that immediately inside the lobby was a scuffed blackboard propped on an unstable easel. Equipment that looked like it was on loan from the schoolhouse that was up near the Eternity River end of the street. A neatly white chalked message on the board announced:
We regret to inform our loyal patrons that the current production of THE

RIVALS is postponed until further notice.

One of the doors flanking the ticket booth in the rear wall stood partly open and a glimmer of lamplight and a few unobtrusive sounds filtered through from the auditorium. When he reached the threshold he saw that Sue Ellen Spencer was up on the dimly lit stage beyond a dozen rows of matching chairs, twenty or so in each row. She was wearing an unflattering wraparound apron of drab grey and her brown hair was held off her face by a dull yellow band that emphasised, in Edge’s view, the appealing way her ears stuck out a little. Her less than beautiful but to him attractive features were flushed from the exertion of wielding a broom between pieces of fragile looking period furniture arranged across the stage before the expertly painted backdrop representing the wall of an elegant parlour.

‘Do actors make a lot of mess, Sue Ellen?’ he called as he started down the aisle to the left side of the equally spaced ranks of chairs.

She was momentarily startled by the unexpected voice as she peered short-sightedly across the darkened auditorium. Then she hurriedly turned and stooped to pat at her hair with her free hand as she studied her reflection in a mirror on a bureau backed against the painted canvas wall. She showed a grimace at her unkempt appearance when she 90

straightened up and looked toward him again. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve come to lend a hand?’

‘I have to admit it wasn’t what I had in mind.’

She smiled. ‘And I have to admit my hopes weren’t very high.’

He reached the end of the front row of chairs and asked: ‘Did you hear what happened to Arthur Colbert?’

The weary smile was replaced by another short-lived grimace as she nodded, rested the brush against a table and came toward some narrow steps at the side of the stage close to where he stood. She answered sadly: ‘Beth Flynt came by with some flyers for our next production. And she said Bradley Frost had gone to find out the details for the newspaper. Mr Colbert wasn’t one of my most favourite people in Eternity, but it’s awful that he was murdered that way.’

‘So him getting stabbed isn’t the reason why you’ve cancelled the show?’

She shook her head. ‘Not as such. I put up that notice as a mark of respect for Doc Childs getting shot and killed before I heard about Mr Colbert’s death. But with yet another murder in town, I doubt anyone will be in the mood to enjoy a night at the theatre. So I’m taking the opportunity to give the place a thorough clean before bringing down the curtain for the Lord knows how long. You found Arthur Colbert, Beth said?’

‘That’s right.’

‘So you never had a chance to ask him if Billy and whoever was riding with him went out to the Colbert place the night he was killed?’

He told her what the Colbert brother and sister had told him at the house but he didn’t say anything about Baldwin slugging him on Olivia’s signal.

‘Anyway, you’ve not come here just to see that I’m kept up to date about the latest violent death in this town?’ She hunkered down on the middle step and looked almost as weary as Flynt had in the law office.

‘I’m here to pick your brains if that’s okay?’ He took off his hat and sat on a front row seat facing her.

‘Again?’ She smiled wanly. ‘I’m not sure that I have too many of those left to be raked over. And as I told you, Arthur Colbert and me were not exactly the best of friends, so I don’t know if – ‘

‘He was supposed to meet with somebody called Shaver in his office this afternoon.’

‘Was that Troy or his wife Victoria?’

‘Just the name Shaver was mentioned, so I’d guess a man.’

‘I know Troy quite well. He’s a house painter and carpenter by trade. Does some unpaid work for the theatre every now and then. Has a yard in back of his house out along 91

the California Trail. He did all this as a matter of fact. He’s very good at his job.’ She half turned and gestured toward the stage backdrop and furniture. Then showed a deprecatory smile as she added: ‘As even a non-artistic type of man like you can see?’

Edge gave the stage setting a cursory glance. ‘I’ve not come across him since I got to Eternity.’

‘He went away recently. Dodge City, somebody said. I don’t know for certain. He stopped by the theatre last week and told Mathilda Brown he wouldn’t be around to do any work here for awhile.’

‘The Shaver place is on the California Trail? Be one of the houses I can see from the back of my place?’ Without taking his thoughts beyond the mere fact of the event, he briefly recalled the murderously intentioned rifleman astride the dark horse out back of the store.

She shook her head. ‘A mile or so to the west of them I’d guess. I don’t know that Troy’s back yet. You could ask one of the men who work for him. That’s Gus Brady and Lester Hardin who’ll probably both be in the saloon at this time of day if they don’t have any work to do. But Victoria ought to be able to tell you for sure.’

‘He was supposed to meet with Colbert today.’

She shook her head and grimaced. ‘Yes, of course, you said that. I told you how my brains are shot.’ She laughed then abruptly ended it and frowned thoughtfully.

‘Something wrong?’

‘No, not really: it’s just that . . . I never even considered it before, but now I come to think of it . . . Now you’ve set me thinking about what’s been happening in Eternity lately . . . Well, there’s something about the man I saw riding with somebody who I thought could have been Billy that night. Reminds me somewhat of Troy Shaver.’

‘Something?’

She shrugged. ‘I can’t be more precise than that.’ She shook her head more adamantly. ‘No, forget what I said, Edge. If I really thought deeply back to that night, I could maybe come up with six other names of men it could have been. This long afterwards.’

‘Sure, no sweat, Sue Ellen. Anyway, right now I’ve got something else I need to do. Flynt says I can take a look over the Childs house and we figured you maybe have a key?’

‘No, I never did have. The doc quite literally kept open house at his place. And I don’t suppose it has been locked up by anybody since he was killed last night. With nobody living there, who would take the trouble?’

‘Much obliged.’ He stood up and put on his Stetson.

92

‘I’m not being a lot of help really, am I? She showed a faint smile. ‘Perhaps on account of the way my weary old brain keeps getting picked at so much, do you think?’

Edge tipped his hat. ‘It’s a real pleasure being allowed to dip into such a good looking container, Sue Ellen.’

She patted her hair tentatively and blushed again as she rose from the step. ‘I’d like to think there are times when it would look much better than it does right now.’

‘I’d like to think there’ll be better times than now for us to talk about better things.’

He swung around and as he started back along the side aisle of the theatre he sensed the woman watched him with deep interest. But, as he admitted to himself with a rueful frown while he crossed the lobby out of her sight, this was probably no more than wishful thinking.

Outside on the broad steps of the theatre he paused for a few moments, pondering his priorities and decided to change their order. Stepped down on to the muddy street, crossed it and headed toward the meeting of the trails beyond the wedge-shaped stone building that housed the town bank.

The rain had stopped and the dark grey clouds were much higher, offering no immediate threat of a downpour. But as he started out along the California Trail the air felt colder and he soon began to regret that he hadn’t gone back to the store to exchange his lightweight slicker for a thicker sheepskin coat.

He moved unhurriedly past the line of small and mostly dilapidated houses that faced southward across the trail and the railroad track. And beyond these over the rolling flatlands to where, a long way from here, the weather was sure to be a great deal warmer than it was in Kansas on this November day.

He was not conscious of any inquisitive eyes watching him from within the line of ill cared for houses. Then saw a small, gaunt faced woman hanging freshly laundered white lace curtains at a window. He did a double take and realised she was peering fixedly into the south: perhaps harbouring similar thoughts to his own about a far distant part of the country where it would be much better to be today.

Through the window of another house he glimpsed a section of wall hung with brightly coloured paintings in a style that was familiar to him and he guessed this was where Roy Sims lived his lonely life. A confirmed bachelor who would not have – possibly never have had – wishful thoughts about a fine looking woman. And probably the heaven he constantly imagined and re-created in colourful paintings was the only better place he would ever hanker to be.

The house Edge was headed for was far enough out of town for him to wish he had chosen to ride instead of walk. It had an even more rundown from neglect look than any 93

he had yet seen in Eternity. And its unpainted timbers, missing roof shingles and stonework that needed re-pointing in many places certainly did not provide a good advertisement for the skills of the tradesman who lived there. A painter and carpenter who worked out of a yard a little apart from the house and back from it: reached by way of a wheel-rutted track that led off the trail, along the side of the house to an area surrounded by an eight feet high timber panel fence.

A crudely painted sign nailed to one of a pair of gates announced:
T.W.SHAVER –

COME ON IN.
Half the fastening was broken and hanging off the fixing so it was simple for Edge to swing open one of the gates and peer inside. Where his suddenly intrigued gaze was immediately drawn to an old but immaculately maintained four-wheeled carriage standing under a tarpaulin canopy supported by six poles. The vehicle’s timber had a high sheen from recently applied black varnish, the brass metal work was polished to a gleaming finish and the windows were not marred by any smears on their crystal clear surfaces. The only jarring note was that a wheel was missing off the axle at the jacked up rear near side. The fine condition of the carriage was in stark contrast to the trash littered yard and the decrepit pair of buildings that matched the state of the fence and gates. And a worsefor-wear flatbed wagon. Also a man seated on a three-legged stool in the doorway of the smaller shack who was carefully painting a narrow green line around the rim of the wheel missing from the carriage. He was raggedly dressed in multi-coloured paint stained overalls and a torn shirt and on his head was a billed cap of waterproof fabric. He was past fifty, skinny and weather beaten with dark eyes and discoloured, oversize dentures.

‘Help you with something, mister?’ The pre-occupied man asked the question brusquely after a fleeting, unimpressed glance toward Edge as the caller came through the part open gateway.