What the Dead Men Say Read online

  Many nights you could see Dodds running down the middle of the street still pulling his suspenders up. The law-the jail, more exactly-was Dodds’s life. He was sixty-one and would soon enough retire, and he meant to store up as many war stories as possible. He had some good ones. A drunken Indian, defiant beyond imagining because Dodds had arrested his brother, snuck into the office one night, jimmied up the rolltop desk and took a crap right in it. Then he’d locked the desk back up and waited for Dodds to come in and learn what had happened.

  Another time Dodds had swum out against a hard current on a rainy day and rescued a two-month-old lamb that had fallen into the river. And then there was the Windsor woman, a genuine redheaded beauty with a touring opera company, a woman who also managed to steal a goodly number of diamonds and jewels and rubies from the local gentry who’d given her a fancy party. Oh, yes, he had some good tales, and he loved to tell them, too, over a bucket of beer on cool nights inside screened-in porches. It was too much trouble to find another woman and, anyway, he couldn’t ever imagine loving anybody else the way he had Eva; so he said to hell with it and indulged himself in those pleasures that can only be enjoyed by solitary people. Such as being a fussbudget, which he most certainly was. It was said among the town’s lawyers that you might not piss off Sheriff David Dodds by breaking into his room in the middle of the night but you’d piss him off for sure if you wore muddy boots while doing it.

  Now Dodds sat at his desk, rolling his Easterbrook pen between his fingers the way he would a fine cigar, thinking about the former Pinkerton man he’d run in last fall for being drunk and disorderly. O’Malley, the man’s name had been. For the first week O’Malley had been there, Dodds hadn’t been able to figure out what the man was doing in Myles. The check he’d run indicated that O’Malley had been let go from the Pinkertons. When that happened, it usually meant that the man had been found morally corrupt in some way; Alan Pinkerton was a stickler. So what was O’Malley doing there? During the long and noisy night that O’Malley had spent in one of the cells in back, he’d given Dodds at least some notion of why he’d come to Myles. A man had hired him to find out who had killed his daughter. Dodds had thought immediately of the killing in Council Bluffs, so it was not difficult to intuit from that that O’Malley was looking for those bank robbers people had been seeking so long.

  During O’Malley’s last three days in Myles, Dodds had followed him everywhere. He never learned exactly who O’Malley had decided on but, given the places he stopped at, O’Malley seemed to be giving most of his attention to three men-Griff, Kittredge, and Carlyle. Then O’Malley was gone.

  Since then, Dodds had kept close watch on the three men, noting that while Griff and Kittredge saw each other occasionally, they stayed clear of Carlyle. The three men used to be close friends. He wondered what had gone wrong between them.

  Earlier this afternoon, when he saw Septemus Ryan and James ride into town, he knew immediately that he was looking at the man who had hired the Pinkerton. He remembered from pictures that this was the man whose little girl had been killed.

  He liked trouble, Dodds did. He believed it kept him young. He sensed that he was now going to have plenty of trouble, and very soon.

  ***

  The black man and the Mexican in the next cell stared at the nineteen year old who was balled up on his straw cot like a sick colt.

  “Couldn’t you let me go till my pa gets here? You know he’ll go my bail, Sheriff.”

  “I suppose he will. But that don’t mean I can let you go. I didn’t hand down that sentence. Judge Sullivan did. And there ain’t a damn thing I can do about it, even if I wanted to.”

  “All I did was raise a little hell.”

  Dodds had been in the cell block with this kid for ten minutes now. It was enough. He didn’t especially like seeing a boy like this thrown in with a bunch of hardcases, but then again, the kid should have thought about what he was doing when he got drunk the night before and shot up a tavern. He could have killed a few people in all that ruckus.

  Dodds went to the cell door and called for his deputy to let him out. Dodds never took any chances. Only a fool brought keys into a cell with him.

  Through the bars on the high windows, Dodds could see that it was getting dark. His stomach grumbled. He was looking forward to meat loaf and mashed potatoes and peas at Juanita’s Diner down the street. It was Tuesday and that was the Tuesday menu.

  Deputy Harrison, a twenty-five year old with lots of ambition and a certain cunning, but not much intelligence, came through the cell-block door and said, “The pretty boy here giving you any trouble, Sheriff? If he is, I’d be happy to take care of him for you.”

  “No, no trouble,” Dodds said, weary of Harrison’s bluff swaggering manner. Dodds had two deputies, Windom and Harrison. Widom possessed wisdom but no courage and Harrison possessed courage but no wisdom. Together they made Dodds one hell of a deputy.

  “Had to come back and get you anyway, Sheriff,” Harrison said.

  “Oh?”

  “Yep. You got a visitor.”

  “Visitor? Who?”

  “Man named Ryan. Septemus Ryan.”

  “Here you were looking for me, Sheriff.”

  Up close, Ryan gave the same impression he had riding into town this afternoon. A kind of arrogance crossed with a curious sadness.

  The mouth, for instance, was wide and confident, even petulant; but the brown eyes were aggrieved, and deeply so.

  Ryan put out a hand. He had one damn fine grip.

  “Coffee, Mr. Ryan?”

  “Sounds good.”

  When they were seated on their respective sides of Dodds’s desk, tin cups of coffee hot in their hands, Dodds said, “You look familiar to me, Mr. Ryan.”

  Ryan smiled. “You were probably a customer of mine at one time or another. Ryan’s Male Attire in Council Bluffs. The finest fabrics and appointments outside Chicago.” He smiled again. He had a nice, ingratiating smile. His brown eyes were as sad as ever. “If I do say so myself.”

  Dodds decided not to waste any time. “I saw your picture in the state newspaper not too long ago.”

  Ryan just stared at him with those handsome brown eyes. “They was lowering a casket into a grave and you was standing topside of that grave. They was burying your daughter, Mr. Ryan. Or are you going to deny that that was you?”

  Ryan shook his head.

  Dodds leaned forward on his elbows. “Then not too long ago an ex-Pinkerton man came to Myles. He seemed to be looking for somebody special.” A hard smile broke Dodds’s face. “He probably didn’t tell you this part, Mr. Ryan, but one night he got drunk and in a fight down the street, and I had to bring him back here to cool him off for the night, and during that night he told me all about this man who’d hired him. I got a good notion of who that man would be, Mr. Ryan.”

  Ryan continued to stare at him. There was no reading those eyes, no reading them at all.

  “You were the one who hired him. And I know why, too. You had him backtrackin’ the men who killed your girl. And that eventually led him here. Isn’t that about right, Mr. Ryan?”

  “I’d be a foolish man to interrupt a sheriff as well-spoken as you.”

  “So now you’re here, Mr. Ryan, and there can only be one reason for that.”

  “And what would that be, Sheriff?”

  “You plan to take the law into your own hands. You plan to kill those three men.”

  Ryan sat back in his chair. “Are you going to arrest me, Sheriff?”

  “Wish I could. All I can do right now is warn you. I’m not a man who abides vengeance outside the law. I grew up near the border, Mr. Ryan, and I got enough lynch-law justice in my first fifteen years to last me a lifetime. I seen my own brother hanged by a pack of men, and I seen an uncle of mine, too. It’s one thing I don’t tolerate.”

  Ryan kept his eyes level on Dodds’s. “Oh, I expect there’s a lot you don’t tolerate, Sheriff Dodds.”

  “And why the hell
’d you bring that boy along? If I ever seen a sweeter young kid, I don’t know when or where it’d be.”

  “Maybe that’s his problem. Maybe he’s too sweet for his own good.”

  “So you invite him along so he can see you kill three men?”

  “You’re the one who keeps saying that, Sheriff, about me killing those three men. Not me.”

  Dodds’s chair squawked as he leaned back. “I make a bad enemy, Mr. Ryan. I’m warning you now so you won’t make no mistakes about it. When I took this job twenty years ago, it wasn’t safe to walk the streets. My pride is that I made it safe and I mean to keep it safe.”

  Ryan drained his coffee and set the cup down on the edge of the desk. “That about the extent of what you’ve got to say?”

  “That would be about it, Mr. Ryan.”

  “Then I guess I’ll get back to my nephew. Promised him a fancy dinner and a good time in your little town.”

  Dodds pawed a big hand over his angular face. “If you’ve got proof they’re really the killers, Mr. Ryan, give me the proof and let me take them in. I’d be glad to help hang the men who murdered your daughter.”

  Ryan stood up. “I appreciate the offer, Sheriff. And I’ll definitely think it over.”

  With that, he tilted his derby at a smart-aleck angle, nodded goodbye to Dodds, and went out the front door.

  ***

  Dodds listened to the front door close, the little bell above the frame tinkling. He sat there for a time thinking about Ryan and his brown eyes and what those brown eyes said. Sorrow, to be sure; and then Dodds realized what else-it could be heard in his laugh and seen in his smile, too-craziness, pure blessed craziness, the kind you’d feel if somebody killed your little girl and got away with it.

  3

  It was a place of Rochester lamps whose light was the color of burnished gold; of starchy white tablecloths; of waiters in walrus mustaches and ladies in low-cut organdy gowns. Several tables away from where James sat with him Uncle Septemus, a pair of men got up to resemble gypsies walked around the restaurant, dramatically playing their violins. Even though nobody paid much attention- and even though some of the men looked damned uncomfortable with such displays of passion and emotion-the would-be gypsies lent the place its final touch of sophistication.

  “They kind of make me nervous,” James confided.

  “Who?”

  “Those gypsies.”

  “Why should they make you nervous?”

  “I don’t know. Like they’d just sneak up behind you all of a sudden.”

  “And then what?”

  “I don’t know. Play some really corny song.”

  “And embarrass you?”

  James nodded. “Yeah, sort of.”

  Uncle Septemus raised his wineglass. He was notorious, within the family, for being an easy drunk. He’d had three glasses of wine so far this evening, and he was showing the effects. His words slurred, and his handsome brown eyes seemed not quite focused.

  “Wait till you’re a little older,” Septemus said.

  “Then what?”

  Septemus smiled. “Then you’ll appreciate things more.”

  “Like gypsy violinists?”

  Septemus laughed. “Like gypsy violinists.” And then his smile died. “And memories.”

  The silver tears came clear and obvious in his brown eyes. “Do you ever think about her, James?”

  “Who?”

  “Why, Clarice, of course. My daughter.”

  James felt embarrassed. He should have known who his uncle was talking about. Much of the time, his uncle talked about little else. “Sure.”

  “Are you just saying that?”

  “Huh-uh, Uncle Septemus, honest.”

  Septemus drank from his goblet and then rolled the wine around the fine glass that filled his hand. Septemus was a lover of fine foods, he was. “What’s your favorite memory of her?”

  “My favorite?” James was stalling for time. His favorite? He’d never thought of it that way. “Uh…”

  “Don’t worry,” Septemus said. “I have the same problem. I have so many good memories, I don’t know which one is my favorite.”

  “When we used to go sledding, is one of them. She never got afraid like the other girls. She’d come lickety-split down those hills and sail right onto Hartson Creek. Not afraid at all.”

  Septemus smiled again, looking beyond James now. James wondered what he was seeing.

  Septemus said, “Winter was her favorite time. You’d think it would’ve been spring or summer or even fall but no, it was winter. I remember how she used to get snow all over her face so it looked like she had these big bushy white eyebrows and how red her cheeks would get and how her eyes would sparkle. I think about her eyes a lot.”

  James was afraid his uncle was going to start sobbing right in the middle of the restaurant. James was never prepared for such scenes. All he could do was kind of sit there and sort of scooch down in his seat and more or less hold his breath and hope for the best.

  Septemus said, leaning across, “If I tell you something, will you promise not to tell your mother?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “You promise?”

  “Honest, Uncle Septemus. Honest.”

  “Because she worries about me. I’m sure she’s told you I’m not quite right in the head since Clarice was killed.”

  James felt his cheeks get hot. That’s exactly what his mother had told him, and many times.

  “No, Uncle Septemus, she never said anything like that.”

  “She talks to me. All the time.” Uncle Septemus was staring right at James now.

  “My mother?”

  “No, Clarice.”

  “Clarice talks to you?”

  “Clear as bell. Usually at night, just when I’m going to sleep.”

  “Oh.”

  Septemus’s eyes seemed to press James back in his chair. “You don’t believe me, do you, James?”

  “No, I believe you.”

  “Do you think I’m crazy?”

  “No, Uncle Septemus, I don’t.” He hesitated before speaking again. “I just think you miss her an awful lot.”

  “More than you can imagine, James.”

  “It was like when Blackie died.”

  “Your dog?”

  “Uh-huh. He was all I thought about all last summer. Sometimes I’d look up on the hill by the railroad tracks and I’d see him running there, black as all get out and going lickety-split, but when I’d tell Mom about it, she’d just kind of get sad looking and say, ‘You’ll get over it, dear.’ But I saw Blackie; I’m sure I did. And I’m sure Clarice speaks to you, too. I’m sure of it, Uncle Septemus.” The tears were back.

  “You’re a good boy, James, and I love you very much. I want you to know that.”

  “I do know that, truly.”

  “And those things I said about being brought up by a man-I only meant it for your own good.”

  “I know.”

  “The world’s a harsh enough place but for men who can’t deal with it-it’s especially harsh for men like that, if you know what I’m talking about.”

  “I know. My friend Ronnie’s got a cousin like that. People make fun of him all the time and about all he can do is run away and hide. It must be awful.”

  “You can bet it is awful, James.” He sipped some more wine. “I’ll say hello for you next time.”

  “To Clarice?”

  “Umm-hmm. If you’d like me to.”

  “Tell her I’m thinking about her.”

  Septemus smiled again. “I’ll be happy to tell her that, James. Happy to.”

  Septemus raised his wineglass. “But for now, let’s toast our adventure for tonight.”

  “Our adventure? Is that the surprise you were telling me about?”

  “Indeed it is, James. Indeed it is.” Earlier Septemus had asked the waiter for two wineglasses. One had stood empty for the length of the dinner. Now Septemus filled it halfway up and handed it over to James
.

  “Maybe I hadn’t ought to,” James said. “You know how my mother is with us kids. She won’t even let us sample the cider.”

  “You’re with me now, James, not with your mother.”

  “You sure it’s all right?”

  “It’s man to man tonight, James. It’s what’s expected of you.”

  Septemus raised his glass in toast again. “Now raise yours, James.”

  James raised his.

  “Now we’ll toast,” Septemus said, and brought his glass against James’s. “To our adventure tonight. Now you say it, James.”

  “To our adventure tonight.”

  “Perfect.” They clinked glasses.

  “Uncle Septemus,” James said after he’d had a sip of wine and the stuff tasted sweet and hot at the same time in his throat.

  “Yes?”

  “What exactly is our adventure going to be, anyway?”

  “You mean you haven’t figured it out yet?”

  “Huh-uh.”

  “You really haven’t?”

  “Honest, Uncle Septemus. I can’t figure it out at all.”

  “Well, tonight’s the night you become a man.”

  “I do?”

  “You do.” Septemus looked across the table with great patriarchal pride. He smiled. “Tonight I’m taking you to a whorehouse.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  1

  “You going out?”

  “Thought I might take a walk,” Dennis Kittredge said.

  “You be gone long?”

  “Not too long.”

  “You thinking of stopping by the tavern?”

  He was by the front door, the lace covering the glass smelling of dry summer dust. In the trees near the curb he could see the dying day, flame and dusk and a half moon. “I might have me a glass or two is all.”

  She was in the rocker, knitting, a magazine in her lap. He’d seen the magazine earlier. It had a painting of a very pretty Jesus on it. Jesus was touching his glowing heart with long fingers. “You forgetting what night it is?”