Robert B. Parker's Blackjack (10 page)

C
hastain had one of his young deputies fetch the Denver policemen and bring them to the office to talk with Virgil and me. We closed the door between the front office and the cells, separating us from Truitt.

Detective Lieutenant Claude Banes, the larger and older one of the two, had broad shoulders and large hands. He had that look of a man that likely drank too much whiskey.

After the introductions Lieutenant Banes dropped in a chair, unbuttoned his jacket, and leaned back with his hat in his hand. Everything about his demeanor suggested he was tired, had seen it all before, and was less than interested in his job.

The younger one, Detective Sergeant Sherman King, was a lean, clean-shaven man with a bowler pulled down just above his eyebrows. His manner was precise and rigid, and as Chastain had said, he was certainly full of himself and every gesture he made let us know he took his job seriously.

Chastain, Virgil, and I sat across from Lieutenant Banes, but Sergeant King remained standing as if he were an officer at attention.
King looked to Banes and the lieutenant nodded a little, as if to give the young sergeant permission to speak. King quickly weighed in with some brazenness that would be short-lived.

“Where did you lose him?” King said.

“Lose who?” Virgil said.

“Bill Black, of course.”

Virgil glanced at me before he answered King.

“We didn’t lose Bill Black,” Virgil said.

“The deputy that called on us said there was an apprehension of someone.”

He nodded to the back cell room.

“Someone that had been with Bill Black, but that Black got away.”

“Let’s start with something a bit easier,” Virgil said.

“What’s that?”

“Why are you here?”

King looked to Banes, then back to Virgil.

“Official business of the Denver Department of Law Enforcement.”

“What sort of official business?”

The young sergeant stood straight-backed with his jaw clenched.

“We are here to investigate.”

“Investigate what?”

“I don’t have to tell you this is serious business involving a member of our department.”

“Tell us about this murder,” Virgil said.

“I can tell you what is within my purview to be shared.”

Virgil glanced to me again, then looked back to the sergeant and smiled.

“Tell us all you know, within your purview.”

“I can answer the questions I feel are appropriate for me to answer, Marshal.”

Virgil looked to Banes, and Banes averted his eyes to me.

“Roger Messenger a member of the Denver Department of Law Enforcement?” Virgil said.

“Was,” King said.

“He’s not anymore?”

“He is on leave, pending investigation,” he said.

“Providing he lives,” Virgil said.

The young detective sergeant stared at Virgil.

“Who is Ruth Ann, and how is she related to Roger?”

“I’m afraid I cannot answer that.”

“There is really nothing for you to be afraid of, Detective Sergeant King,” Virgil said.

King blinked a few times.

“The case is confidential, Marshal.”

Virgil glanced to me.

“We heard something about that,” Virgil said.

“There is a warrant and there is a bounty,” I said. “Not much confidential about that.”

“Nonetheless . . .” he said.

“Messenger come here by himself,” Virgil said, “or as a member of the Denver Department of Law Enforcement to serve the warrant?”

Detective Sergeant King pulled his shoulders back and looked at Virgil without answering the question.

“Guess that means confidential,” Virgil said.

“I cannot answer that.”

“How is it that Boston Bill Black ends up being charged with this murder?”

“I told you this is confident—”

“Shut up, Sherman,” Banes said. “Goddamn it, son, just shut the hell up.”

King looked to Banes like his feelings were hurt.

“Ruth Ann was Roger Messenger’s wife,” Banes said. “Maybe you figured that part out already? Nothing goddamn confidential about that.”

“How is it that Boston Bill is wanted for her murder?” Virgil said.

“Ruth Ann was fucking Boston Bill Black,” Banes said.

D
etective Sergeant King raised a rigid finger and said, “That is unauthorized and—”

“I said, shut up,” Banes said, looking sternly at the young man. “And I mean it. These fellas have lost one of their men trying to sort this shit out, and I’ll be goddamned if I’m gonna just sit here and listen to you avoiding what they need to know so they can do their job.”

Banes looked back to Virgil.

“If I said Ruth Ann was promiscuous, that would be a pound-and-a-half understatement. She was as wild as a March hare. She had a hard time keeping her legs together, you see . . . and Bill Black was not the first. Roger was no match for her, not from the damn beginning. Not sure how she even ended up with Roger or how he ended up with her, but when Black was in Denver, working on the gambling house there, he was giving it to her on a regular basis.”

King shook his head back and forth with a disappointed look on his face. Banes ignored him.

“Everybody knew about it,” Banes said. “Apparently, Ruth Ann had her hooks in Boston Bill bad.”

“Roger knew about it, too?” I said.

Banes nodded.

“Yeah,” he said. “Poor sonofabitch . . .

“When it started up with Bill she flaunted it and shit. That was hard on Roger, you can imagine.”

King looked to Banes and said harshly under his breath, “Sir . . .”

Banes continued without acknowledging King.

“Rumor is Boston Bill tried to break it off with Ruth Ann, but she had different ideas. She wanted to leave Roger. Anyway, she leaves Roger, so the story goes, and Roger starts to drinking and then he gets his ass kicked off of the force.”

“And Ruth Ann?” Virgil said. “What happened to her?”

“Next thing you know, Ruth Ann ends up missing. Then two weeks go by, then Ruth Ann is found down by the South Platte behind the inn where Bill Black was staying, facedown in a foot of water. She’d been beaten, brutally murdered.”

“Any witnesses?”

Banes nodded.

“Folks, the owners of the inn, heard him, Boston Bill, and Ruth Ann arguing in the middle of the night, the night before Bill left Denver.”

“But no eyewitness?”

“Not directly, but all indicators point to . . . Black,” he said. “There was blood found on the back steps.”

“Who found her?” I said.

“Some kids who were fishing,” he said.

“How could you tell after that long a time what had happened to her?” I said. “That she had been beaten? Hard to believe no coyotes and other varmint got to her.”

“She was in shallow water, a bunch of green river weed wrapped around her, when the kid found her. When the officers got there to
the riverbank and pulled her from the water she was still intact. She was brought in, looked at carefully.”

“And?” I said.

“She had a number of cuts on her body,” Banes said. “Looked like a blow to the head is what did her in. Hard to say, she could have been held down in the shallow water and drowned, for all we know. But it was her, it was Ruth Ann, and she was killed.”

Detective Sergeant King lowered his head as if he’d been defeated.

“You and Roger friends?” Virgil said.

Banes sat stoic as he looked at Virgil a bit, then nodded.

“Yes.”

“What he ever say to you about any of this?”

“Nothing.”

“Roger ever a suspect in Ruth Ann’s murder?” I said.

Banes looked at me.

“It was discussed,” he said.

“By who?” I said.

“All of us.”

“What do you think?”

Banes stared at me for a long moment.

“Maybe.”

“Maybe?”

“He had to be mad as hell at her. Fact, he even said to me he’d like to see her dead for making a fool out of him like she did . . . I suppose I would not have put it past him.”

“So what do you figure?” Virgil said.

Banes nodded a little, then shook his head. He glanced to his detective partner before he spoke.

“I’d most likely put my money on Roger as the killer of his wife, Ruth Ann.”

The young detective reacted liked he’d been shot and said with
volume and precise, sharp, emphatic words, “Bill Black is the murderer of Ruth Ann Messenger . . . and he is a wanted man. He is on the run. And his warrant is supported by evidence and not hearsay. And not you or anyone else outside of the court of law can hypothetically go putting money on it.”

“I can hypothetically do what the sam-hell I want to do,” Banes said, looking sternly at his partner, but then he nodded a little. “But I can also say . . . you might be right.”

“There is no doubt,” King said.

“Oh, there is always doubt in this line of work,” Banes said. “Always . . . even when it involves friends, family, and loved ones. Always. It’s just how it is.”

“But if Roger did do it,” I said, “why would he come here and see to it that Bill be arrested?”

“Retribution, maybe, get back at him for the humiliation, hell, I don’t know.”

Banes shook his head.

“Roger was a good policeman. Honest, fair, and he believed in the law and that every man deserved his day in court, including Boston Bill, I guess . . . He did everything by the book . . . but a man can be pushed only so far.”

Chastain had been working on a plug the whole conversation, and now spit it into a spittoon by his desk and said, “Then you got to ask yourself, Why would Bill take off like he did if he didn’t do it?”

“Don’t know,” Banes said.

Chastain worked the plug a bit.

“Men do get jumpy,” he said, “when they are wanted.”

Banes nodded.

“Also,” he said, “I think at some point Bill realized, maybe not until Roger come upon him, maybe before, that he stepped into a big pile of shit when he started up with Ruth Ann. She was really
something to look at, but, well, Ruth Ann brought with her a damn rat’s nest full of trouble.”

“What about the warrant?” Virgil said.

“Not sure of all the particulars, but it was standard. Once information came in, all of it pointing to Black, the chief issued the warrant.”

“Chief suspect Roger, too?”

Banes was quiet for a moment, then . . .

“I can’t say . . . but the warrant was drawn up for Bill Black.”

Banes looked to King, then back to Virgil.

“There you have it,” Banes said.

“What about the reward money?” Virgil said.

Banes glanced to King again, then back to me.

“That was offered by the chief, too.”

Virgil looked at me and squinted a little.

“Why all the fuss about confidential,” I said.

“Roger Messenger,” Banes said. “Is the son . . . of our beloved chief of police.”

W
ithin a few days Roger Messenger died of the gunshot wound he received from Truitt Shirley, and Truitt was subsequently charged with his murder.

The day after Messenger died, Detectives Banes and King returned to Denver with his body. The fact that it was anyone’s guess as to the whereabouts of Boston Bill at this point in time left the two officers no real choice other than to move along and wait and see if a law official or bounty hunter was lucky enough to apprehend him.

Skinny Jack, too, had a proper funeral. He was buried alongside his mother, who he had taken care of during a long, drawn-out illness and had passed away one year to the day Skinny Jack was killed.

After the funeral, Allie, Virgil, and I sat at a table near the bar, where Virgil and I were drinking mugs of cool beer and Allie was sipping on a glass of Irish whiskey.

“Just awful,” Allie said.

“Nice funeral, though,” Virgil said.

“Was,” I said.

“I am just so sick about it, though,” Allie said.

“Me, too, Allie,” I said. “Me, too.”

“And to think he was killed exactly a year after his poor, sick ol’ momma’s passing away is just, well, it’s just as sad as can be. He was so young and sweet. He had no business being a deputy lawperson, none whatsoever.”

“It was his job, Allie.”

“I don’t care, it is sad and wrong.”

“He was a good man, Allie, and I share your deepest sympathy, but he liked the job he did and he was good at it.”

“Well, it is just terrible, and to think that skinny young boy took such care of his poor, sick ol’ momma like he did for as long as he did and now this. Just is not fair.”

Virgil nodded.

“Not much is fair, Allie.”

“That could have been you,” Allie said.

“It wasn’t,” Virgil said.

“And then what on earth would have become of me, can you tell me that?”

“Well, we don’t have to think about that, Allie.”

“We do have to think about it, Virgil.”

We’d been through this before with Allie. Many times. It was like a burr under her saddle. She would be doing fine until there was an incident that got her imagination churned up and she imagined things she had no control over.

“You don’t have to dwell on it,” Virgil said.

“Not dwelling, Virgil. It could happen.”

“Well, hell, Allie, everybody has to face such things, whether they are lawmen or law-abiding citizens or criminals or whoever, everybody has to think about it.”

“I just don’t like what you do.”

“Without men like me, you, the people, are not protected.”

“Don’t mean it has to be you being the one that is the protector.”

“Can we just enjoy this beer?” Virgil said.

“Absolutely,” she said as she took a sip of her whiskey. “Everett, you will look after me, won’t you?”

“Well . . . sure, Allie.”

“I’m right here, Allie,” Virgil said.

“For now,” she said. “And thank God for Everett.”

“What about Everett?” Virgil said.

“What about him?” she said.

“What gives Everett this good fortune that you ain’t pointing in my direction?”

“Don’t be silly, Virgil. I’m not saying that, not pointing good fortune in Everett’s direction at all. Though I do wish you all the good fortune God has available to grant you, Everett, I do. I’m just concerned about having a contingency plan is all, Virgil. You have to understand that. Everett understands that, don’t you, Everett?”

“A contingency plan?” Virgil said.

“Yes,” she said. “A contingency plan. You want me to be taken care of, don’t you?”

Virgil looked at me for a second, then looked at Allie.

“Well, of course I do, Allie.”

“Well, good, then, I’m glad to know that you agree with me and Everett.”

Allie turned in her chair and held up her empty glass for Wallis to see.

“Wallis,” she said as she wiggled her glass a little. “Would you be so kind?”

“Right away, Mrs. French,” Wallis said.