“Why’d I take yore advice for? I’d not be here if not for you.”
“You’d not be here if you hadn’t set fire to the man’s boat. I wouldn’t care if you beat each other’s brains out down there. The fire you set could have spread to the dock and destroyed a half dozen boats.”
“I was goin’ to cut it loose and let it drive downriver.”
“That would have been smart. Were you wanting to set the woods on fire? I’m not going to argue with you. I brought you in, it’s up to the judge how long you stay.”
Corbin went out and locked the door. On the sidewalk he took out his pocket watch and glanced at it, then walked down the street to the telephone office.
“Morning, Mrs. Ham. Are you on day duty this week?”
Corbin had removed his hat when he came in the door. During the past week he had come to know and like the telephone operator. He had learned that her husband had been an officer in the infantry who had been killed in the Argonne Forest in France. Sergeant Alvin York, most decorated hero of the war, had been in his battalion. “I’m just filling in for Gertrude. She’s come down with something or the other. I hope it isn’t that influenza starting up again.”
“I’m with you on that. Is Mr. Brady in?”
“He’s in his office. Go on back.”
The mayor was standing when Corbin reached the door. “Morning, Chief. Come on in and have a seat.”
Corbin took the chair in front of the desk and placed his hat on the floor beside him.
“How’s things goin’?” the mayor asked and reached into a box on the desk. “Cigar?”
“No, thanks. I find they cut down my wind.”
“I heard that you were out running the other day.” Ira chuckled. “Folks around Fertile think it odd to see a grown man running. No one runs around here unless someone’s chasing him or his pants are on fire.”
“I started running in school and continued when I went to the army. It came in handy a time or two when I had to chase someone down. I can work off some of my frustrations by running.”
“The job is frustrating you?”
“I’ve a few things I’d like to discuss if you’ve got the time.”
“What’s on your mind?”
“For one thing, I’m curious to know why Wood resents having a lawman in town.”
“Has he been giving you trouble?”
“I guess you heard that I put Otto Bloom in jail. The man was drunk, beat hell out of his wife and hit her with a chunk of coal. Bloom was arrogant and sure that Wood would get him out—which he did. Mrs. Bloom refused to file charges against her husband. Instead of defending the man, you’d think that the banker would have fired him.”
“Otto Bloom works on the ledgers in the bank. He and Wood are thick. However, they don’t socialize outside the bank. It could be that Amos thought he’d not be able to get along without him.”
“It could be that Wood doesn’t want someone else handling the books.”
“That’s a thought. I’ve heard that there’s a lot of bank fraud going on nowadays, not that anyone has complained about Wood’s bank. He lost a few depositors when the other bank came to town. Ron Poole switched, but that was because he and Wood seldom see eye to eye on anything.”
“Once a wife beater, always a wife beater. If Bloom beats that woman again, he might kill her. How will Wood feel about that? If I hear of Otto hurting her again, I’m putting him back in jail. I wanted you to be aware of it.”
“It’s what we’re paying you for. Don’t let Wood intimidate you. He’s only one of five on the council.”
“There’s no danger of that. I’ll do what I was hired to do.”
Corbin studied the face of the man on the other side of the desk before he spoke again. “There was a rape down at Well’s Point last night.”
Ira Brady’s mouth opened, then snapped shut. “Ah …law. I hate to hear that.”
“I was looking around down there after we’d put out the boat fire, and a kid came up to me and said a man had hurt his sister. He wanted my gun because he was goin’ to kill him. The kid was crying. He couldn’t have been over ten years old. After talking to him for a while he finally took me to a shed where his sister was trying to get herself together before she went into the house.”
“Did you get a name?”
“Holstead. The kids’ mother is dead. Holstead hauls coal for the railroad. From what I gathered, the girl was scared her pa would find out and blame her for being out at night. She and the boy had heard the fight and had gone down, like a lot of other folks, to see what was going on.
“The way they explained it to me, the boy wandered off, leaving the girl alone. She said there were some other folks around and she hung back, not wanting them to see her and tell her pa she was there. A man—a big man, she said—put his hand over her nose and her mouth and dragged her backwards into the woods. He wrapped something around her head so she couldn’t see and stuck the ends of it in her mouth to gag her.”
“The … dirty son-of-a-bitch! Any man would seem big to a kid like that.”
“He threw her on the ground and went inside of her. She didn’t want to tell me that. Hell, she’s just a fourteen- or fifteen-year-old kid. When he was finished, he turned her over on her stomach, took the cloth off her head and pushed her face down on the ground so she couldn’t see him and said that if she told anyone, he’d find her and really hurt her.
“The poor kid was afraid to move for fear he’d come back. Finally she heard her brother calling her. She said she called out to him, but it was so dark it took him a while to find her.”
“Did you talk to Holstead?”
“No. The girl begged me not to tell her pa or anyone. She was in a panic, and I figured she’d been through enough for one night. I asked her if she wanted to see the doctor. She got scared and began to cry and shake. All she wanted to do was get in the house and in bed before her pa came home.”
Ira Brady leaned back in his swivel chair, rocked back and forth a time or two, then put his elbows on the desk and looked directly at Corbin.
“Doc Curtis told me that during the past five years or so there have been eight or ten young women that he’s pretty sure have been raped. Only one came forward and told him outright. Others, he suspects, have ended up pregnant and were sent away to have their babies in secret. He’s a reliable source in such matters because folks tell doctors things they don’t tell anyone else.”
“I’d like to talk to him. Do you think he’d tell me anything?”
“You can try. Doc is getting up in years. He’s crotchety, but loyal to his patients. I don’t think he’ll name names.”
“Think about this. It could be that this man has raped dozens of young girls and the only ones the doctor knows about are the ones he made pregnant.”
“Doc won’t talk about this. A woman would be ruined for life if word got out she had been raped. You’re up against a stone wall. None of the girls that I’ve heard about have been … ah … hurt in any other way except for … you know …”
“Sooner or later he’ll kill one of them. He’ll do it if she finds out who he is,” Corbin said quietly.
“I can see that he would.” Ira leaned back in his chair and drummed his fingertips on the arm. “He knows that he’d be hanged, if not by the law, then by a lynch mob. What do you plan to do?”
“Keep my eyes and ears open. I’d like you to do the same.”
“Of course I will. How are things going otherwise? Have you had any run-ins with Walter Johnson?”
“A few times. He’s mean and mouthy and drunk most of the time when I see him.”
“Could he be the one?”
“I’m not ruling out anyone at this point.”
“Liquor is flowing pretty free down at Well’s Point.”
“Some of it’s coming down from Canada, some more from stills in the hills and there are folks here making their own. Fertile is a river town. It would take an army of men to stop the bootlegging. Prohibition is a stupid law.”
“Yes, but it is the law.”
“It’s the law for poor folks. You can bet the rich folks in town have their booze. It flows like water in the speakeasies in Chicago and breeds men like Al Capone and his gang.”
“Give it a few years and the law will be repealed.”
“I hope so.” Corbin pulled out his pocket watch, looked at it and got to his feet. “I’d better get my prisoner up to see Judge Murphy.”
“Ron Poole tells me that your office and the new jail will be ready in a week or two.”
“I’ll be glad to have headquarters and a decent jail. Right now I have to let one prisoner out in order to put another prisoner in. Marshal Sanford will be here at the end of the week.”
“Will you consult with him about the rape?”
“I’ve not decided. I don’t have anything to go on except the girl’s word, which I don’t doubt for a minute. But the fewer people who know about this, the better. Marshal Sanford’s deputy, Weaver, has a loose tongue. For some reason, he’s got it in for Walter Johnson’s son, who came here from St. Joseph.”
“I’ve met Evan Johnson. He isn’t what you’d expect, knowing his old man. He was an officer during the war and stayed for a while in France doing work for the government. I can’t understand why he came here, except that the farm belonged to his mother and he wants to see that Walter doesn’t run it into the ground.”
“From what I heard, it’s one of the more prosperous farms in the area.”
“Walter may be a genuine asshole, but he’s worked that farm.”
Corbin grinned at the earthy expression that came from the dapper little mayor, then stooped and picked up his hat.
“I’ve met a few of the neighbors up that way. They spoke well of Evan Johnson. No one has a good word for his pa.”
“It’s always been that way around here. When I came here back in ’14, he was about the same then as he is now. He’s got an ironclad stomach and a hide like an elephant, or he’d have been dead long ago.”
“I plan to buy a car,” Corbin said, abruptly changing the subject. “What can I expect from the town in the way of expenses?”
“Wood would go up in smoke if it’s suggested the town buy you a car.”
“I’ll buy it myself; but it’s only fair that if I use it for city business, I have help with the expense of running it.” Corbin spoke firmly, letting the mayor know that he would not be taken advantage of by a tight-fisted council. “I may be the only police chief in the state who has to buy his own car.”
“I realize that. I’ll see to it that you are provided with a license tag and gas money.”
“Thanks.” Corbin headed for the door, then turned to ask, “How many new businesses have come to town during the past five or six years?”
“New businesses? Let me see. The new bank, Star Mercantile, Sparky’s Eatery, the automobile mechanic. There may be a few more that have come and gone. Most of the Main Street businesses were here before the war. Why do you ask?”
“Just curious.”
“Fertile hasn’t grown much, but hasn’t lost much, either. The railroad helps to keep it going. It’ll not die out, because it’s the county seat.”
“I’m glad to know that I’ll not be out of a job anytime soon.” He grinned. “Unless Wood fires me. Good day to you, Mayor.”
“He’d have a hell of a time doing that by himself. Come in again, Appleby. I like to know what’s going on.”
Ira sat quietly after Corbin left. He heard the chief speaking to Mrs. Ham, then all he heard was the faint sound of her voice at the switchboard. Thinking over the conversation, Ira decided that there was more to the new police chief than he had first believed. He was definitely overqualified for the job of police chief of a town the size of Fertile.
Why had he come here? Who or what was he looking for?
A
FTER AN AFTERNOON
of picking up rocks in a field that his father wanted to plant with winter wheat, Joe announced at the supper table that he and Jack were going over to help Evan pull down an old wamper-jawed lean-to shed.
“What’s he doin’ that for?” his father asked without looking up from his plate.