Killing Time In Eternity - Edge Series 4 (31 page)

‘Do more that call me names that I maybe deserve, I guess?’ Edge suggested.

‘Just shut up and listen to her, Edge!’ Sue Ellen admonished in a long-suffering tone.

‘Troy told me you were as cold as a snowbound Kansas January, mister!’ She looked like she wanted to leap at him with her hands clawed to tear the flesh off his face. And maybe if there had not been a gap of fifteen feet between them she would have attempted it.

Sue Ellen recognised the same symptoms of seething anger in the woman and betrayed irritable impatience when she reminded brusquely: ‘Look, you came to me for help and I gave you the best advice I could.’ She glanced nervously across the doorway at Edge, sighed and shook her head then glowered at Victoria Shaver. ‘With what’s happening over on Main Street my advice to Edge is not to wait around here unless it’s going to be worth his while using up valuable time.’

She cocked her head in a listening attitude but there were only the sounds of the rainstorm from outside. If the mob headed up by Hardin was still baying for blood there was no audible evidence of it over this distance.

‘He’s gone!’ the embittered woman finally murmured through gritted teeth. Then her voice rose. ‘The damn man has packed up and disappeared! Left me and the house and everything our marriage was about, the lousy, rotten. . . ‘ She could not bring herself to utter any profanities beyond those that were generally acceptable in mixed company. And her sour expression showed clearly that she considered this language was not strong enough to express the depth of her ill feelings toward her husband. 165

‘Are you sure, lady?’

She sneered and blurted: ‘What? Of course I’m damn well sure!’

‘I thought maybe that your husband would in the bunch that’s planning to lynch me?’

The woman snorted her disgust. ‘It’s where he ought to be, that’s for sure. If he was any kind of man at all, he ought to be lending a hand to put you in the ground where you belong but – ‘

‘Victoria, you’d better hurry up and make your point!’ Sue Ellen warned harshly. The seated woman raised thick-fingered hands to cup her face and seemed on the verge of breaking down. But after a few moments during which her body remained rigid, she regained control of her emotions, dropped her hands back into her lap and chose to stare fixedly ahead. To peer at a place far outside of this room as she began to speak in a dull monotone, her careworn face as blank of expression as the wall she seemed to stare through.

‘Troy’s always been a man who looked to make a dishonest dollar, mister: it’s in his nature. If he can’t do something outside the law to make a buck here and there then he’s just not fully alive. And even if he had a million dollars he’d be just the same. But he never got himself mixed up in anything violent before, I’ll say that for him. Wheeling and dealing and cheating - but nothing that ever got him or anyone else hurt. Until you poked your stranger’s nose in, mister!’

‘Victoria!’ Although there was no longer any rancour in the Mrs Shaver’s weary tone, Sue Ellen clearly suspected that she was about to embark on another time wasting tirade. The woman in the chair waved a hand to dismiss Sue Ellen’s concern and accused Edge: ‘You put the fear of God into my husband, mister. Not that he ain’t gone through his entire life being scared of something or other. That’s in his stupid nature as much as his need to steal and cheat. It’s the excitement as much as the extra cash I’ve always thought. That’s why he’s forever had his sticky fingers in pies that weren’t of his making. And now he’s run off, the scared crazy sonofa . . . ‘

‘Do you have any idea where he went?’ Sue Ellen asked as Victoria Shaver’s innate decency checked her from completing the curse.

She shrugged and shook her head. ‘I don’t know, Miss Spencer. I was in bed before he got home from the saloon last night. And when I got up this morning he wasn’t in the house or out in his yard. And the carpetbag was gone from the cellar.’

Edge said: ‘I guess he didn’t need that for his clothes and stuff, Mrs Shaver?’

‘You guess right, mister,’ she answered tautly. ‘I can’t tell you what the amount is. He never told me that. But I got to see it from time to time. When he brought it out to put some more cash in it. There was a lot, I can tell you that. Hundreds of dollars: maybe even 166

thousands. It was
our
going away money;
our
rainy day money;
our
money for the future.’

She forcefully emphasised the plural pronoun, her face contorted into the most vicious scowl yet each time she spoke the word. ‘He’s been squirreling it away for years and years. Every crooked thing he was ever mixed up in, he saved the money he made from it. Wouldn’t put it in a bank because he didn’t want anyone to know about it. Started getting dirty money together soon after we got married.’

She shook her head licked her dry lips. ‘First he used to hide it in a little tin box and then in a cardboard carton. The more money he came by so the places he stored it in had to keep getting bigger. He never would get a safe for it. Troy said thieves who broke into a house always went straight for a safe. But a beat up old tin box or a sack or a bag or something like that . . . ‘

Sue Ellen asked: ‘Didn’t you worry that sooner or later Troy was always just bound to run out on you, Victoria?’

‘Do you really think I didn’t figure that could happen?’ She was irritated then shook her head ruefully. ‘But I always kept a real close watch on the sneaky little . . . I never expected him to go off so sudden. Especially not while he had this big deal coming up. He’s talked about it a lot lately: said as soon as it worked out,
we’d
double what
we
had.
We
, mind you. And he believed what he said about doubling what he had. So I knew he wouldn’t have gone before it was done. But that was before he was panicked into cutting and running.’

She sneered her disdain. ‘But that’s what this . . . This stranger to town did!’

‘That’s water down the river, lady,’ Edge said. ‘What did he tell you about this big deal he had going for him?’

She grimaced. ‘Nothing. Not a damn thing! But then Troy never told me much about anything. The bast . . . he kept me short of money all our married life but made sure I stayed sweet with all his airy-fairy talk about what a wonderful future we’d have once he’d got enough cash together. But he always had plenty of money to spend on those ramshackle old wagons he prettied up . . . ‘

‘Victoria, hurry it up and get to the point,’ Sue Ellen said.

‘But that’s another story,’ the older woman admitted with a sigh. ‘Like I said, lately he was always talking about this big deal that would make it all come right for us at last. And he would have included me! I’d have made damn sure of that if this deal of his went through! If you hadn’t stirred up trouble for him and scared him into running off in the dead of night. Because there’s been so much killing and that wasn’t Troy’s way and it was the last straw when you came to his yard making all kinds of threats . . . ’

167

She strove to stoke her anger while she stared fixedly at Edge, her dark eyes gleaming as she clenched and unclenched her fists around the crumpled handkerchief in her lap. And as the scowl grew darker and more vicious by the moment he thought that once more she was preparing to hurl herself at him: had a vivid image of the short, plump woman springing up from the chair with her hands twisted into talons that clawed toward his face.

Then an abrupt change took control of her, a moment after Sue Ellen had recognised the same danger signals Edge had seen and jerked away from the wall as the unnatural glittering brightness in Victoria Shaver’s eyes died. And tears spilled down her fleshy cheeks as her full lips quivered and her truncated body slumped flaccidly in the chair, every vestige of aggression draining out of her.

‘Oh, dear God,’ she moaned tremulously.

Edge directed an inquiring glance toward the shocked Sue Ellen who tacitly conveyed that now she was seeing the disillusioned woman as a pathetic figure deserving of sympathy while she struggled against the threat of sobbing.

‘I really did want to kill you, mister!’ the distraught woman admitted hoarsely. ‘After I knew for sure that Troy had gone, that’s all I wanted to do. I never thought of anything beyond killing you. Battering you to death. To rid myself of the hate I had for you.’

‘Please don’t go on like this, Victoria,’ Sue Ellen placated. ‘It’s serving no purpose.’

‘But that was plain stupid, wasn’t it? Miss Spencer made me realise that. I couldn’t kill you - or anyone else. And even if I could, what would that have gained me?’

Edge answered ruefully: ‘I used to figure that revenge was sweet, lady. But believe you me, the good taste doesn’t last for long.’

She chose to ignore his response and asked earnestly: ‘It’s serious, isn’t it, Miss Spencer?’

‘What’s serious, Victoria?’ Sue Ellen asked.

‘Whatever it is that Troy’s mixed up in this time? Whatever led to all the killing in Eternity?’ She tightened her mouth line and gave a fast shake of her head. ‘Not like all those other grubby little deals he got himself mixed up in? They never harmed anyone, except in their pockets. I was against it from the outset - when he first started to talk about how this big deal was going to make us rich. And I’m not just saying that now it’s all over for him. If ever Troy’s caught, he’ll be sure to tell folks - the law – that I was always against what he was doing. He owes me that.’

Sue Ellen asked fretfully: ‘Victoria, just how much do you know about Troy’s latest shady dealings?’

168

The short fat woman hunched in the chair looked afraid again and then puzzled as she hurriedly switched her bemused gaze between the couple who flanked the door. ‘Didn’t I tell you earlier, Miss Spencer? When I came to your house didn’t I make it plain I don’t know anything about this? Troy told me a little about the things that didn’t do anybody any real harm, but that’s all I know.’ She curtailed her nervously earnest concentration on Sue Ellen and again switched her suddenly terrified gaze between the couple flanking the closed door.

‘Victoria, if you do know something and you’re not telling Mr Edge . . . ’ the younger woman began to warn in grave tones. ‘Troy went to Dodge City recently, didn’t he? Did his trip have something to do – ‘

The wind gusted suddenly more strongly and moaned much louder: hurled the raindrops hard at the window and crashed open the door of a nearby outbuilding. Edge interrupted sourly: ‘I believe the lady, Sue Ellen.’

The younger, far more attractive woman switched her attention between Edge and Victoria Shaver, incredulity in her wide, pale blue eyes.

‘The way he ran like a scalded cat shows he’s easy to scare,’ Edge said.

‘Troy is sure that all right,’ the man’s desolate wife confirmed as a train whistle sounded in the distant east.

‘Easy to scare into keeping his mouth shut. The way Brady was until I threatened to kill him. Just before somebody else did that without making any threat.’

Sue Ellen said: ‘So you’re up against the same brick wall as before?’

There was another far off blast from a steam whistle as Edge shifted his glinting eyed gaze to Victoria Shaver and asked: ‘Did he make mention of a train, lady?’

‘A train?’ she repeated, genuine bewilderment in her expression and tone. ‘I don’t know what you mean, mister?’

‘Yes, Edge, what do you mean?’ Sue Ellen demanded.

Edge recalled the image of Brady sprawled face down in the mud, blood oozing through the dirty blond hair at the back of his bullet shattered head and murmured: ‘Guess you could call it something more than a shot in the dark.’

‘There’s been more than one of those fired around here lately,’ Sue Ellen said woefully as she glanced toward the window where the grey of the new day had now totally replaced night. ‘It’s no longer dark now, but I’m not so sure that – ‘

Edge swung away from the wall, pulled open the door and stepped across the threshold into the passage that led to the front hallway.

‘Where are you going?’ Victoria Shaver asked anxiously.

Sue Ellen supplemented the query with a look that was quizzically apprehensive.

169

He told them evenly: ‘To see if I can throw some light on the subject.’

170

CHAPTER • 21

_________________________________________________________________________

THE ONLY sounds disturbing the new dawn were the familiar ones of the whining
wind and hissing rain as Edge took long strides through the house: then slowed his pace going down the cement walk, his coat collar turned up and his hat brim pulled down. The two women followed close behind until at the gateway Victoria Shaver, her head fixedly bowed, darted on ahead, starting to sob and mumble the name of her runaway husband. Edge asked with pointed indifference: ‘What’s that about, lady?’