Claudia Dain (40 page)

"Morning, ma'am," Grey said, stepping over the threshold. "We need to talk to Jack."

"It's too early to receive visitors," she snapped, but she was unable to stop his forward momentum. Blakes was right behind him.

"Ma'am." He tipped his hat.

They were both covered in dust and had a growth of whiskers sprouting up. They looked like they'd had a hard night.

They had.

Jack came down the stairs, fully dressed and fully armed, as they walked in. There was only one reason for them to be here, one thing he'd asked for them to do while he had his time with Anne: Tucker.

Grey and Blakes nodded to Jack, ignoring Miss Daphne as they left her behind, at the door with her mouth open and her eyes snapping.

"Morning, Miss Daphne," Jack said cordially. "We need to talk in private, so we'll just go on and use that room you set up for me a few days back." He was walking toward the kitchen as he spoke, with Grey and Blakes following. Daphne didn't say a word; he didn't give her the chance to.

When they were in the room, the door closed, Grey started talking.

"Found Tucker."

"That was quick," Jack said.

"Dead," Blakes said.

"Dead?" Jack said, his eyes disbelieving.

"Worse than dead; murdered," Grey said. "Gutted like a fish and with his throat cut open from ear to ear; worst-looking smile you ever saw."

"How long?" Jack asked.

"A day or two, maybe three, no more than that. Found him in an old shack not much above five miles from here. Two horses in, different directions, two out, same direction."

"Met his killer out there and somebody's got a horse more than he did two days ago," Jack concluded. "Met him by accident or on purpose?"

"Hard to say," Grey said. "From what you said about him, I'd think he was going to a meeting. The place was quiet and tucked away. Not something you'd stumble on out riding."

"Could a woman have done it?"

"Not likely," Blakes said. "He didn't have a bullet hole on him and it'd take a powerful woman to slice a man like that. He had to see it comin'."

"You still figure him for the killer?" Grey asked.

"I don't know," Jack said, slapping his hat against his thigh as he pondered.

Grey bit his thumb, thinking out loud, "It could be that he killed them gals and then was killed by someone else; maybe by someone who knew him for the killer and was out for revenge."

"Them gals didn't have much, not a one of them; all from little, hoping for much. Can't think of any family that could have done it. In fact, now that I think on it, there wasn't a one that I found who came from a home with a man in it," Jack said.

"Somebody else then? Two killers running over the same track?" Blakes offered.

"Been known to happen, I guess, but it don't smell like that to me. What do you think?" Jack said.

"No, it don't smell casual," Grey said. "There was something real personal about the way he was cut up. Guts pulled out and left to lie on his legs. Personal."

"Same killer?" Blakes said. "The one thing you gotta say about them strangled gals is that it seemed damned personal. Who kills a woman if it's not personal?"

"I sure had my sights on Tucker as being the one," Jack mumbled.

"If he was, then the problem is solved. No more murders."

"Yeah, but I don't want to find out we're wrong the hard way," Jack said.

"There's that," Blakes said.

"We brought the body in; laid it out at the doc's," Grey said.

"You tell Lane?"

"Came looking for you first," Grey said.

"Let's go get him. He'll need to know one of Abilene's finest citizens has been killed," Jack said, the sarcasm heavy in his voice.

Anne scooted back into the kitchen and hid until they had left the house. She'd heard every word and they hadn't seen her. That was good because she was so pressed by guilt, she was about to fold under the weight. Bill dead. Murdered. And so close to Abilene.

Jack had hated him, believed him capable of killing those women, that had been obvious from what she'd heard. And Jack had been jealous of Bill because she'd made him so, purposely, deliberately, and at every opportunity. Jack was a violent man, given to violent acts. Everybody knew that. He was a bounty hunter. It was a violent life.

She'd pushed him to violence. It was as clear as rainwater. She'd used poor Bill and manipulated Jack and now a man was dead.

All because she'd kissed Jack.

* * *

Lane was on his way to the doc's when they found him; the doc had sent one of the Walton kids for him and the kid had given him the message. About half the town knew about the murder already. Jack knew that just by the looks he was getting. Guess he was high on the list of possible suspects and he figured it was a mighty short list besides.

"Didn't need for this to happen," Lane muttered as they joined up with him.

"Never a good time for a murder," Jack said.

"What time did you find him?" Lane asked.

"Last night," Grey answered, "about an hour or more after moonrise."

"Full moon. Good for tracking," Lane said mildly.

"Yeah, otherwise I don't know as how we'd have found him without daylight. And we did find him. Dead."

Lane nodded. Everyone was a suspect until he had this thing figured out. Murder had come to Abilene, all right, but who'd have thought it'd be Bill Tucker? Not an enemy to his name, except for Jack. Talk was already running that Jack had done it. Couldn't be helped; Bill had been real popular and Jack was a man who made enemies just by showing up. Still, he had two who stood by him now, hard men, used to killing. Was the friendship of the sort that they'd do a killing for a man in need? Lane looked them over as they passed into the doc's office.

Damn, but he hadn't seen this coming.

Bill was laid out on the doc's table, looking as dead as pan-fried steak. Doc Carr was ripping off what was left of Tucker's shirt and laying it aside for his examination.

"Don't take a doctor to see what's killed him," Malcolm snapped. "I didn't become a doctor to stick my fingers into a dead body."

"Then find another line," Jack said, equally sharp. "We need someone who knows what he's doing to check things out."

"He's dead!" Carr stormed.

"How? What went first?" Jack snarled back. "Did the knife get to his heart? Is that how he went? Or was it the gutting itself, did he bleed to death?"

"What does it matter? He's dead," Carr said stonily.

"It's not easy to get the heart, lots of bone in the way. That tells us something. He was gutted, that's for sure, but was his breastbone cut through? Did that knife hack at bone? Takes a strong arm for that. Can you tell which came first, the gut or the throat? Where's there the most blood? It all matters, it all tells us something, maybe something about the killer."

"You seem to know a lot about dead bodies," Malcolm Carr said.

"Yeah, well, I should, I've seen enough of 'em," Jack replied without apology.

The doc closed his mouth with a snap and bent to his "patient."

"Throat first, looks like," Blakes said, bending over Tucker.

"Didn't mar his face," Grey said.

"What difference does that make? Dead is dead," Carr said.

"Whoever did it didn't care that anyone would know it was Tucker that was found," Lane said. "Could have sliced him up and made it tough to know who it was."

"Maybe he wanted us to know," Jack said.

"Throat first," Lane said, "is easier if you have some height Tucker was a big man."

"So not a woman," Grey said.

"A woman? Why would a woman—" Carr said.

"Women have their reasons to kill," Blakes said.

"Throat first," Lane said, "so the rest was for sport. Or revenge."

"Them guts laying out," Grey said, "that tells me it was personal. Doc? Are them guts cut or whole?"

The doctor kept his commentary to himself and examined the cavity. "Whole."

"That means that they were lifted out with hands, not pulled out with a knife. Very personal."

* * *

Anne made a special trip to talk to Reverend Holt. He didn't seem surprised to see her. That in itself was plain embarrassing.

"Good day to you, Mrs. Scullard," he said with a smile.

"Good morning, Reverend Holt. I hope I'm not disturbing you?"

"Of course not. I'm always happy to talk to you. How are you faring today?"

"Oh, fine," she said weakly.

"Has anyone yet told you...?"

"Oh, yes, I know about Bill. I feel just terrible about it. So guilty," she said, resisting the need to wring her hands.

"Guilty?" he said. "Sit down, Anne, and you tell me why you would have anything to feel guilty about. You can't mean that you feel responsible for Bill's death?"

Anne settled herself in the upholstered chair that faced the reverend's desk and clasped her hands in her lap; she had the look of a penitent pilgrim.

"I do. I do feel responsible," she gasped out. "Oh, Reverend, you don't know what I did, the awful, sinful things I did."

Holt sat down behind his desk and leaned across it, his big arms almost covering the desktop.

"Tell me. I'll listen."

"I provoked him, provoked him as often as I could."

"Bill?"

"No, not Bill. Jack."

Holt frowned and rubbed a hand across his chin. "What does Jack have to do with it?"

"I kept... kissing him," she whispered.

"Bill?" he asked on a high note.

"No, Jack."

"You are saying that you kept kissing Jack and that it provoked... Bill?"

"No, Jack," she said on a sigh. This confession was impossible. The reverend didn't seem to be following her at all.

"Why would Jack be provoked by your kissing him? Are you saying that he didn't like it? But that can't be so since he married you. Anne, really, just tell me straight out so I can make sense of what you're saying."

"I liked Jack, but Bill was my beau," she said, feeling like a Jezebel, "so I sort of... courted Jack, kissing him and such, and then I used Jack to sort of force Bill off, which made Bill mad and Jack got mad about that, too. I'm sure Jack wouldn't have asked me to marry him if Bill hadn't been about to do it himself. And then Bill and Jack had a fight, which they couldn't help but have what with the way I'd played them against each other, and Jack said he'd kill Bill. And now Bill's dead," she finished in a rush of breath, her eyes pleading for understanding and forgiveness.

"You believe Jack killed Bill?" Holt asked, his own eyes wide with horror. But Anne mistook the cause. "You believed he was capable of it all along, didn't you?"

She nodded, uncertain where the reverend was going.

"Anne Ross Scullard," he thundered, "you willingly married a man you believe capable of cold and ruthless murder?"

Was that what she'd done? She didn't answer because the reverend was building to a fine outrage.

"I would never have married you to any man I thought capable of such a thing. Yes, I know Jack Scullard's reputation and yes, I know the gossip, but killing in the line of duty is one thing and murder is something else again. And I can tell you one thing, if you sort the wheat from the chaff, you'll find that Jack is not a man to resort to murder, no matter how provoked."

"But everyone is saying—"

"Anne, you're a grown woman, or I never would have married you, but you've got to stop turning with the whim of the crowd. Do
you
have evidence of brutality in Jack?"

She thought of last night and all the days before when he'd been gentle and patient and protective. "No," she whispered, "but Miss Daphne always says, "Lean not on your own understanding.""

"I know the line well," he said briskly. "Would you like to know what the whole verse says?"

Before she had a chance to answer, his Bible was on his desk, flipped to the page, and pushed over to her. With a finger he pointed to the line while he recited from memory.

"Proverbs, Chapter three, verses five and six:

"Trust in the Lord with all thine heart,

And lean not unto thine own understanding.

In all thy ways acknowledge Him,

And He shall direct thy paths.'"

Anne read the lines with him. It was nothing like what she'd been taught all her life. She'd been instructed that she was a foolish child, given to acts of reckless disobedience, and that she had to lean upon the wisdom of her grandmother, not of God. Some days, she thought that God would have been an easier taskmaster.

"Do you understand this verse, Anne?" Reverend Holt asked. "Do you see that what you have been doing
is
leaning on your own understanding? You listen to Powell, to McShay, to Sheriff Lane, to Miss Daphne, but do you listen to God? Have you ever asked Him which path He has for you? He's the only one you can listen to and trust, Anne, because He's the only one who knows everything and who truly has your best interests at heart."

No, she had never thought to ask God... for anything. She went to church twice weekly, sat and listened to the sermons, participated in the ladies' circle, and tried not to make anybody mad at her; that's what she did, all of what she did. She had stopped talking to God right after her father had left her; she'd prayed once, hard, for God to bring her daddy back. But God hadn't done it and so she'd stopped asking for anything. Not because she was mad at God, but because she was learning that what she wanted didn't matter and that nothing she did, no matter what prayer she whispered in the dark of her bedroom or how good she was, changed that.

She had never trusted the Lord with all her heart. The only thing she'd done with all her heart was be afraid.

"Anne," he said gently, "do you love Jack? Beyond the passion that God created as surely as He created everything else?"

Did she love Jack? She didn't want to love Jack; loving Jack would make everything all the harder. Why didn't he ask if Jack loved
her?
That would be easier to answer because she knew he didn't. He'd never spoken of love, he'd only spoken of kisses, of passion. She didn't want to love a man who didn't love her. Not again.