The Outrage - Edge Series 3 (14 page)

He thought she looked more attractive than he remembered her from their two previous meetings. Her titian hair had a richer sheen in the dappled sunlight and her tall frame with its generous curves looked even more erotic than it did when he saw her so elegantly dressed in the blacksmith shop and then in mourning black at the funeral. Even though she now wore old and creased pants and a less than becoming man’s shirt and there was a dirt smudge on her right cheek, another at the left temple. She was clutching a piece of soiled rag. She was intrigued. ‘What was he doing there?’

‘He didn’t say. He was just sleeping in the sun when I showed up. But I guess he went there to pay his respects in his own way. He told me he didn’t think he’d be welcome at the cemetery.’

She nodded ruefully. ‘Probably not.’

‘You do his cleaning chores?’

‘Does that bother you?’ she asked defensively but looked ready to become aggressive.

‘No.’ He swung down from the saddle and as he led his horse toward the rickety porch he saw that her mount was hitched to a tree at a rear corner of the shack.

‘That’s good. You obviously do not know him that well. And you shouldn’t call him bad names after just one meeting.’

He shrugged. ‘I guess you’re right. Muriel Mandrell at the coffee shop called him Crazy Joe and said a lot of people do.’

She shook her head and vented a soft sound of disapproval then asked: ‘So, exactly what are you doing out here, Mr Edge?’

He showed a sardonic grin. ‘I guess you could say I’m hoping to do what you are, lady.’

Her frown remained in place. ‘I’m not very good at riddles.’

‘Clean up.’

‘Oh, the money you were offered in the suicide note? I see, it’s a joke.’ She didn’t smile as she remained on the threshold, did not step out on to the lop-sided porch of the old shack that looked big enough and had enough windows for four rooms at the most, maybe two or three that were not so cramped. ‘Every once in a while I shake a duster around in here. When I know the stubborn old buzzard will be away from this hovel for long enough so I can make a serious impression on the mess he creates.’

Edge hitched his reins to the porch rail.

‘He pretends to hate the attention but I’m certain he’s secretly pleased somebody takes trouble on his account. You’ll have to wait a time if you’re here to see him. He tidies the cemetery each Thursday morning. But today he had to leave it until the afternoon because of the funerals. Did Joe invite you here?’

‘He wants to help find out who killed the Quinn women. Claims somebody came to this place and stole some clothes yesterday morning.’

‘And he thinks that has some connection with the murders?’ she asked doubtfully. Edge showed another sardonic smile. ‘If I think so too, does that make me as crazy as people say Kellner is?’

‘Yes, all right. I can see what you’re getting at. But if you think you can follow tracks through this kind of country maybe you really are mad. As deranged as I am – for feeling sorry enough for the old man to clean up after him every once in awhile.’

‘I don’t know you well enough to pass judgement on you, Miss Farmer.’

‘It began when I used to help him with reading and writing. But he learned quickly and doesn’t need me for that any more.’ She turned to go back into the house and said over a shoulder: ‘I’ll be seeing you, Mr Edge.’

‘If there’s enough reason for me to stay hereabouts maybe I’ll get to know you better, Miss Farmer.’

She directed a double take at him but failed to read anything in his impassive features that invited her to pursue the subject and went into the shack, leaving the door open as she began to hum melodiously.

He unhitched his horse, climbed wearily into the saddle and rode back the way he had come, calling himself a fool on two counts. Firstly for allowing himself to be persuaded by the lure of money to come out here on a wild goose chase and also because of the stirring of lust that the attractive and enigmatic woman had triggered deep within him again. The day had gotten to be hotter, the heat humid beneath the canopy of trees, and after he crossed the creek sweat droplets beaded his face and pasted the clothing to his body. Back on the Old Town Road he made unhurried progress to Springdale where some people took the trouble to acknowledge him but most of them pointedly pretended not to notice him ride by. He hitched the gelding to the saloon’s rail and stepped into the cool interior where there were a dozen or so patrons standing at the bar or seated at tables, most of them in working garb. Just as on the street, his reception varied from barely polite to being ignored. A few of the earlier mourners were still in dark funeral attire but not so the young man who had been Nancy Quinn’s beau. He had changed into a well-cut blue suit over a grey shirt and red tie. And he packed a Colt .45 in a holster on his right hip. He rose unsteadily from the corner table where he had been seated alone and weaved to a point at the bar close to where Edge stood, about to pay for the beer that the tall and skinny, hollow eyed and prematurely bald bartender had just drawn for him.

Colman sidled closer to the newcomer, emptied his shot glass of its heeltaps and offered thickly: ‘I’d like to buy you that drink, sir. And that’s another one for me, Mr Tolliver.’

‘I wouldn’t like for you to buy it for me, kid,’ Edge said and put a coin down on the countertop.

Colman’s breath smelled of more than the whiskey he had just finished, he swayed a little from side to side and his immaturely handsome face was unhealthily flushed. For a stretched second he looked as if he was about to become a mean drunk, but managed to check the impulse to temper and said in a carefully measured tone to the bartender: ‘Okay, if that’s the way he wants to be. But another shot for me, Mr Tolliver, if you please.’

‘My pleasure, Matt.’ Fred Tolliver eyed his younger customer nervously as he brought a bottle up from under the bar and splashed a drink into the pushed forward glass. Colman, still youthfully virile but already starting to get a little flabby, sank half his drink and said: ‘Mr Edge?’

‘Something I can do for you?’

‘The word is that you’re going to find out who killed Nancy and her mother. I’m Matt Colman, by the way. Nancy and me were going – ‘

‘I know who you are. So what can I do for you?’

‘Want you to know I had nothing to do with what happened out at the Quinns place.’ He hiccupped.

‘Somebody say you did?’

Colman suddenly swung around to rest his back against the bar and glowered malevolently at the other customers. Edge followed the direction of his glare and saw how most of the saloon’s patrons avoided meeting the young man’s gaze. Then Colman put his back to the room again and raised his voice as he glowered fixedly at the array of bottles and glasses aligned on the shelves across the wall behind the counter.

‘Not just somebody, mister! A whole bunch of people around here! Not to my face, mind you! But behind my back is where they been talking! Been saying how I had my way with Nancy and killed her! And saying how then I killed her mother because Mrs Quinn saw what I did to her daughter. Killed her because – ‘

‘That is enough, young man!’

All attention swept to the archway between the saloon and the hotel lobby. Where the short and stout Elizabeth Wexler had appeared, her usually high coloured fleshy face now deep scarlet with anger, her clenched fists pressed to her broad hips and her elbows jutted to the side in an attitude that brooked no argument.

‘I will not have this kind of disturbance at the Grand Hotel! I’ll ask you to drink what is in your glass and then leave without fuss. And you will not return until you have sobered up and learned how to conduct yourself in a seemly manner in a public place where certain standards are maintained!’

While the woman delivered the ultimatum her neatly dressed, almost bald husband appeared at her side, his pinched featured face expressing earnest approval as he nodded many times in rapid succession.

Colman started to excuse plaintively: ‘But, Mrs Wexler, I’m only trying to – ‘

‘That’s enough!’ the irate woman snapped and advanced into the saloon, her fists still pressed hard into her hips.

‘But – ‘

‘I figure the lady means it, kid,’ Edge said and reached out a hand to hook it over the young man’s shoulder, intent upon turning him away from the advancing woman.’

But Colman was in no mood to see reason and interpreted the move as aggressive. He whirled to face Edge and hauled back an arm, the hand fisted to throw a punch. But it was the hand wrapped around his shot of whiskey and as he tightened his grip the glass shattered: the liquor that had been inside sprayed up and then blood spurted out from between his clenched fingers.

Edge released his hold on the boy’s shoulder, stepped back and said evenly: ‘It seems like that small glass could’ve hurt you some kid. Do you want to call a halt now, or go for a real big pain?’

Just for part of a second the drunk and angry Colman seemed on the verge of lunging at Edge: unaware of his bleeding hand and the stunned silence that now gripped the barroom. Maybe not recalling anything of what had been said, including his own embittered contribution to the exchange. Then it was as if every debilitating effect of his heavy drinking suddenly caught up with him. And he was ashen faced under the surface burnish of his complexion as tears of hopelessness welled up into his deep blue eyes. And his full mouth above his dimpled chin got tremulously slack as he began to shake uncontrollably in every muscle.

‘Oh, shit!’ he gasped, then buckled at the knees, his arms dropped heavily to his side, his eyes rolled and snapped shut and his quivering mouth gaped open. And he would have corkscrewed to the floor had not Edge taken a step forward and gasped him in a supporting bear hug.

‘Get that no account drunken young fool out of this place!’ Elizabeth Wexler demanded.

‘Yeah, get him out of here fast!’ Her husband attempted to sound tougher than he could ever hope to look. ‘We have a reputation to maintain at the Grand Hotel! Whatever would old Mrs Cantrell say if she were to hear of this?’

Edge shifted his glinting eyed gaze from the Wexlers to glance at everyone else in the saloon and saw they all showed variations of the same disdainful expression. Then he stooped, hefted the young man up and over a shoulder and carried him to the batwings. There he paused to look coldly back at the array of sneering faces and drawled wryly:

‘No sweat, I’ll see to it the kid doesn’t bleed to death. And you folks can feel proud that nothing the rest of you did has gone against the reputation of this town.’

CHAPTER • 9

___________________________________________________________________________

EDGE FOLDED the limp form of the passed out Matt Colman face down over the
saddle on the dappled grey and took him to the house with a brass shingle fixed to the porch that announced:
JAMES SULLIVAN MD
.

The unconscious young man dripped blood copiously from the wounds in his swinging hand, leaving a spotted trail along the dusty street as the sunlight of afternoon faded toward evening. People stared and there was some low toned talk as a man was carried through Springdale in this manner for the second time in two days. But the fact that Edge was leading his horse toward the doctor’s house rather than to the undertaker’s parlour tacitly answered the obvious question in the minds of many of the intrigued onlookers. Colman began to recover his senses as, after thudding a fist on the front door to summon the doctor, Edge carried the youngster along the hallway: trailing Sullivan to his surgery in a back room of the spacious, immaculately neat and tidy, smelling of bleach house on Texas Avenue East. Where the painful treatment he began to receive as the middle aged, overweight and over-active medical practitioner removed splinters of glass from the palm and fingers of the injured hand quickly sobered him up.

‘It’s what everybody’s been saying, ain’t that so, Doc?’ the wan faced Colman insisted from where he lay flat on his back on a leather covered couch. ‘That it was me who killed Nancy because I couldn’t wait until we were married?’

‘It’s been said, there’s no denying that,’ the seemingly nervous by nature but efficiently attentive Sullivan allowed, constantly switching his rapidly blinking grey-eyed gaze between his sullen patient and the impassive Edge. He shrugged. ‘As it’s bound to be, in the circumstances. Until the actual culprits are found, ugly rumours are certain to circulate after such an outrage. And the way you and Nancy Quinn were such close friends . . . ‘

‘Yeah, see, that’s it, Mr Edge!’ Colman was childishly eager to press his point. ‘Nancy and me, we’ve known each other ever since she came to town all that time ago. See, the Quinns roomed at my folks’ boarding house while their place was being built. That time we lived two houses down from the Doc’s place here.’