Sheriff on the Spot (19 page)

“Plumb certain sure. He'll stretch a rope—an' you'll go on livin', Miss Kitty. An' all your life you'll know 'twas your fault an' you should of hung instead of Sam.”

“That's right,” she cried wildly. “That's it! I killed Fred. If anyone hangs, I should.
I
stabbed him. Sam didn't. He just thought he did.”

18

As Kitty concluded her astounding announcement, Pat nodded and muttered, “I didn't know whether it was you or Deems.”

But Sam Sloan strode toward Kitty saying angrily, “Shut up. You got no right to say that. Nobody's goin' to b'lieve you.”

Her eyes had come to life again as she looked up into his fiercely ugly face. “But it's the truth, Sam. You haven't killed anybody. I did it. And I'm glad,” she added firmly.

Sam whirled on Pat and charged, “This is yore doin'. You scared her with talk about me hangin'.”

Pat said, “That's what I figured to do—if she cared a damn about you.”

“I'm sorry, Sam,” Kitty said miserably. “When I did it I didn't expect you to get in trouble over it. We had everything fixed with Mr. Purdue. I didn't expect anyone to ever know.”

“You couldn't of done it,” Sam argued pathetically. “I recollect—”

“You recollect goin' after him with a knife,” Pat cut in sharply. “Then you passed out—or thought you did. That's what you told me an' Ezra.”

“But he was daid. Lyin' there on the floor with blood on him when Ezra come in.”

“That was what Ezra was supposed to believe. Where'd you get the blood?” Pat asked Kitty.

“It was chicken blood. I sneaked a cup of it out of the kitchen before supper.” Kitty sat erect and her face was composed now. Her voice was steady and she appeared glad that the strain was over.

“You didn't really pass out,” Pat told Sam. “You got hit in the head an'
knocked
out.”

Sam put his fingers up and uncertainly felt the back of his head. “I never had nary a bump,” he protested. “Like I tol' you—”

“That's where this comes in.” Pat reached down and picked up the top part of Kitty's white lisle stocking. He dangled it before her eyes and demanded, “Isn't that it?”

She nodded and said calmly, “I wondered if you'd guessed.”

“I didn't at first. Not until Sam told about the funny way he passed out all at once—an' how he woke up without a bump but with the whole back of his head aching.

“That's what happens when you get hit with a sandbag,” he told Sam. “You pass out sudden an' it don't leave any mark—only a bad headache when you wake up. The bottom part of a stocking makes a good sandbag,” he went on slowly. “You cut off the foot an' fill it half-full of sand. An' you don't have to swing it hard. Even a lady can knock a man out easy. Can't they, Miss Kitty?”

She nodded. “I fixed it yesterday afternoon. Just to be safe. You never know what will happen. Then—when I saw that knife in Sam's hand, I had to use it.”

She hesitated and folded her hands in her lap, then looked up at Sam Sloan. “You're going to hate hearing this. And you're going to hate me. That will make it easier.

“We've pulled this stunt before,” she went on steadily, looking at Pat, now. “Fred and I have. He thought it up. The first time was only about a week after we were married. Ten years ago. I was fifteen years old. I lived on a farm in Kansas when I met him, and we eloped a week later.

“I hated him as soon as I found out what kind of man he was. But I couldn't go home. I had to do what he wanted. He made me invite a man up to my hotel room—and then he came in and frightened the man and made him pay a hundred dollars to be let off.

“I ran away from Fred the next day. I could sing, and I started entertaining in saloons to make a living. But Fred found me. He needed me to help him blackmail people. He pulled that same badger game on a couple of men for low stakes, and then he figured out this scheme.”

Kitty paused to shrug her bare white shoulders. “He planned it very carefully, choosing a small town with a crooked sheriff. We tried it first in Montana and it worked. The man thought he'd killed Fred, and paid the sheriff a thousand dollars to hush it up. The sheriff kept two hundred and gave Fred the rest.

“That was the first time,” she went on tonelessly. “I've run away from him three times, but Fred has always found me. I was too good a meal ticket for him to let me go.

“That's enough so you'll understand how we worked it. Then I came to Dutch Springs. And I met Sam who had eight thousand dollars in the bank.”

Kitty drew in a long breath and looked up at Sam. “I'd never minded doing it an awful lot before,” she confessed. “The other men were always pretty terrible. It was their fault for going after a woman the way they went after me. They, at least, deserved what they got. But you were different.” Her voice trembled. “I never really knew a man like you before. You didn't think I was bad just because I sang in a saloon. You didn't try to—act like other men always had.

“I wrote Fred I wouldn't do it to you,” she went on fiercely. “I hope you'll believe that, Sam. But he laughed at me. He thought I'd gone crazy. Then he accused me of hoping to get all your money for myself—and he threatened to tell you the truth about me unless I went on with it.

“I couldn't stand for you to know, Sam. I felt that anything would be better. So when Jeth Purdue was appointed sheriff, I wrote for him to come on. And that's—the way it was,” she ended faintly.

“The damn skunk!” Sam said angrily. “He had it comin' no matter how he got it. But you know dang well I killed him. You can't—”

“No, Sam. You didn't,” Kitty insisted wearily. “Everything went just as we'd planned it till you pulled that knife. I knocked you out just before you reached him.

“Then he lay down and I poured the blood on him and on your knife and ran in for Ezra,” she went on steadily. “I got him to carry you out, and promised to see Mr. Purdue about fixing it. I went downstairs and waited for Mr. Purdue to come. He was supposed to be there at seven-thirty. But he didn't come and I began to get worried. I slipped up to my room to see if everything was all right—and there was Fred lying on the floor pretending to be dead. With your knife right beside him.”

She shuddered violently at the memory and wrung her hands together. “I don't know what came over me,” she whispered almost inaudibly. “I saw that was my chance. I've hated him for years.” Her voice rang out strongly. “All at once I saw how I could get away from him forever without paying for my crime. You and Ezra thought you'd killed him. Purdue was willing to cover it all up.

“I guess I went crazy for just a minute. I picked up your knife and stabbed him. It was easy. He hardly moved at all. And—I couldn't pull the knife out.” Her voice rose hysterically. “It was as though his corpse was still fighting me in death. It wouldn't come loose. I had to go off and leave it there. I don't know what became of it.”

Pat cleared his throat. He said, “It
was
stuck tight. I found it in him just like you said when I first came up here. I saw 'twas Sam's knife an' I pulled it out an' hid it until I could find out more about what happened.”

“Don't look at me like that,” Kitty called out wretchedly to Sam. “I did it because I loved you. Do you hear me? Because I loved you. With him dead, I thought—”

Sam cleared his throat loudly. He stared down at her bowed head, then sat on the bed beside her. He put his arm about her bare, shaking shoulders and said, “I don't blame you, Kitty. I don't blame you none a-tall.”

“But I'm afraid a jury will,” said Joe Deems harshly. “It's not going to make a very pretty story in court.”

“That's right,” Pat agreed mildly. “Your part isn't goin' to sound very pretty.”

Deems snorted, “My part?”

“Sure. You were in it with 'em. They needed you to help pretend to get rid of the body an' keep Sam an' Ezra fooled. Ralston told me all about that,” he added.

Deems looked confused, but he shrugged and said, “You'll have a hard time proving I had any part in it. They'll hang Kitty,” he ended venomously.

“Why, no. I don't reckon they will, Deems.”

Sam and Kitty both looked up at him with a start. Pat disregarded them. “You know she didn't do nothin' but stick a knife in a dead man,” he told Deems quietly. “That's not a hangin' offense.”

“Into a dead man?” gasped Deems.

“Sure. That's why the knife came out so hard. Knives always stick tight in a corpse. Seems like there's a suction or somethin' that holds 'em. Just like Miss Kitty noticed when she tried to pull it out.”

“You mean
I
did it, then?” Sam leaped to his feet gladly.

“Not you, Sam. Joe Deems. He killed Fred Ralston.”

Deems laughed out loud. “Just how do you figure that?”

“It's the only way it does figure,” Pat told him earnestly. He turned to Kitty. “Didn't you leave your husband lyin' on his back that first time when he was playin' dead?”

“Yes.”

“That's what Ezra said,” Pat grunted. “But he was lyin' on his
face
when you came back to the room. An' he didn't move when you stuck him. He was already dead. Morgan, here, told us he was stabbed twice. Once in front an' once in the back. Deems had slipped in before you with the same idea you had, Kitty. You're not any more a murderer than I am.”

Deems laughed again. “Why do you think I'd do that?”

“Because you loved Kitty,” Pat told him harshly. “You were crazy about her. You saw a good chance to get rid of her husband an' lay the blame on Sam. Hell, 'twas a perfect set-up. You couldn't pass it by.”

“You'd better have your head examined,” Joe Deems laughed.

“I admit it took me a long time to see how 'twas. But that's not all. You killed Jeth too. When you found out I had him locked up, you got scared. You knew he'd break down an' tell everything if I questioned him. So you slipped out an' shot him through the jail window with a mate to that forty-five derringer I took off you while the shootin' was goin' on back of the bank.”

Deems snorted, “Try an' prove it.”

“But you made a mistake when you killed Ralston,” Pat went on gravely. “You found out afterward that Kitty was really sweet on Sam. It hadn't done any good to kill her husband. You'd just fixed it so she an' Sam could get married. That pretty near drove you crazy. So, when you heard Sam was comin' back to ride the mail, you decided to finish what you'd started. You hired Mex Joe an' Ben Larkin to dry-gulch him on his ride.”

“Who says so?”

“Ben Larkin says so. I got him locked up in jail right now. Where you missed was by not killin'
him
too, Joe.”

Deems took a backward step and showed them a stubby .45 derringer in his hand, a mate to the one in Pat's pocket.

“I'm going out that side door,” he announced without a tremor in his voice. “Anybody wants to eat lead—try to stop me.”

He took another backward step, and another toward the side door.

Sam's body left the bed beside Kitty as though it were driven by a catapult. His shoulder struck the hotel proprietor's knees and they tumbled to the floor together.

There was a muffled explosion as they fell. Deems' body went limp on top of Sam.

Sam shoved the body off him and looked at it wonderingly. “Right through the heart,” he said in an awed voice. “With his own derringer.”

Pat said, “That'll save Powder Valley a trial.” He looked at Harold Morgan. “I'd call it suicide—on account of him having already committed two murders an' us catchin' up with him.”

Morgan said, “Looks like suicide to me.”

Pat said quietly, “That leaves only us four that knows anything about all this. I don't reckon anybody needs to know anything more than that Joe Deems killed Ralston an' Jeth Purdue for reasons unknown an' then committed suicide. That the way you see it, Morgan?”

The rancher glanced behind him at Sam and Kitty who were locked in a tight embrace. He said soberly, “That's the way it looks to me, Pat. And I don't believe we're needed here any longer.”

Pat looked behind him and chuckled. “It sure don't look like it,” he agreed. “In fact, I better be ridin' to tell Sally the news. Never did see a woman like her for likin' to fix up for a weddin'.”

About the Author

Brett Halliday (1904–1977) was the primary pseudonym of American author Davis Dresser. Halliday is best known for creating the Mike Shayne Mysteries. The novels, which follow the exploits of fictional PI Mike Shayne, have inspired several feature films, a radio series, and a television series.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 1943 by William Morrow and Company, Inc.

Cover design by Andy Ross

ISBN: 978-1-4976-4380-2

This edition published in 2015 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

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