“No. He isn’t interested in anything I have to say. You’ll know if the tracks by the river were made by my car; they cut deep. Check along the side of the road where he pulled over to dump Walter.”

Weaver and Birdie came around the end of the car. Corbin stood with his arms folded and waited to see what the deputy had to say about Miss Jones talking to Johnson. He knew from the look on the man’s face that he didn’t like it.

“I didn’t want her near him. They could hatch an alibi for him.” His tone indicated that he considered his experience superior to Corbin’s. “Did you hear what he said to her?”

“Every word.” Corbin looked him in the eye as he lied.

Birdie Stuart was dabbing at her eyes. Elsie was holding onto her mother’s skirt. They went up onto the porch, then directly into the house. Weaver jerked his head for the chief to move away from the car.

“The woman says the girl was here before ten o’clock. She doesn’t know why Jones is backing his daughter’s statement. She’s scared to death of Johnson. She says he has a terrible temper. She heard him say several times that he wished the old man was dead. While she was staying at her brother’s, she was sent over to the Johnsons’ with a pie or something. Johnson was in a fit of rage and threatened to kill Walter while she was there. He tried to bash in the old man’s head with a stick of stove wood.”

“You believe her?”

“Hell, yes. Why would she lie? She’s got to stay here with these folks until someone in Memphis sends her a ticket to come home. She doesn’t want them to know what she’s told me. But she said she would swear to it in a court of law when the time came.”

“Why isn’t she staying over at her brother’s?”

“Hell, I don’t know. Family squabble, I guess.”

“I don’t think you’ve got enough to lock him up.”

“I do. I’m going to hold him until the marshal gets here. I didn’t like that arrogant, know-it-all son-of-a-bitch the first time I saw him.” He yanked the car door open. “Get out, Johnson, and turn around.”

Evan got out, turned and put his hands behind him. His eyes were on Julie. He shook his head ever so slightly, signaling for her not to make a fuss.

“Why is he doin’ that to Evan? Papa, do somethin’!” Jill’s voice was shrill and angry.

Julie stood dry-eyed, with her chin up. Her eyes clung to Evan. He was so handsome with his blond hair and dark brows. Their eyes caught and held. A wave of helplessness came over her. He had become everything to her. She had never really understood the magnetism between a woman and a man before. It was both wonderful and devastating.

“Just a minute.” Jethro came off the porch. “Evan, don’t worry about things over at your place. Me and the boys will see to them.”

“I’d appreciate that, Jethro. If I’m not back after I speak to the marshal, would you or one of the boys go to the telephone office and have them call my lawyer over in St. Joseph? His name is Casper Jenson. Tell him to come over right away. I’m going to have to make arrangements for Walter, too, but I suppose that can wait.” Evan turned to Corbin Appleby. “Chief, I’d like to talk to you as soon as we get to town.”

“Hush your gabbing and get in the car.” The deputy opened the door and shoved Evan down on the seat. He was in a hurry to leave. He started the car, turned around in the barnyard, but the chief’s car was blocking the lane and he had to wait. He hung his arm out over the side and slapped the door to get Corbin’s attention.

“Chief Appleby,” Julie said, as he turned to go to his car. “Evan was with me. He couldn’t have done … that. I don’t know why Mrs. Stuart said what she did.”

“I’ll bring the marshal out to talk to you. He’ll want to talk to Mrs. Stuart, too.”

The group stood on the porch and watched the two cars until they were out of sight.

“Papa.” Julie put her hand on Jethro’s arm. “Why is Mrs. Stuart saying that I was home at ten o’clock?”

“I don’t know,” he answered tiredly. “Maybe she really thinks she heard you come in.”

“Hockey!” Joe snorted. “I wasn’t asleep at ten o’clock. I’d have heard Julie come in.”

“Have you wondered why none of the Humphreys come over anymore?” Jack was still holding Joy, whose little face was still streaked with tears. “This and That won’t even come play catch with me.”

“I bet they’re afraid
she’ll
want to go back home with them. She hates Julie and wants to make trouble for her,” Jill finished angrily, turning to glare at her father.

“What can we do, Papa?” Julie turned to the one on whom she had always relied in time of trouble.

“There’s nothing we can do now, Sis. We’ll wait for the marshal. Joe, you and Jack better get over to the Johnsons’ and see whether the chores are done. Weaver’s got it in for Evan, for some reason, and might not have given him time to pen anything up.”

“Chief Appleby seems a decent sort.” Jack set Joy on her feet.

“I’m counting on him not to let Weaver railroad Evan if he didn’t do it.”

“I’m going to ask Mrs. Stuart why she’s lying.” Julie opened the door to go in the house.

“Leave her be, Sis,” Jethro said quickly. “You could just make matters worse.” He avoided looking at his eldest daughter, stepped off the porch and disappeared around the corner of the house.

To keep from crying, Julie held her lips tightly between her teeth and swallowed the lumps clogging her throat. Fear for Evan had caused her heart to shrivel within her. She longed to crawl in a dark hole and cry. Instead, she went to the kitchen and tended the chicken she had put on earlier and, because she had to be busy, she stirred up a batch of bread dough and left it on the back of the stove to rise.

When she had run out of things to do in the kitchen, she sat on the back porch and worked the dasher up and down in the churn, trying to stave off the memory of the deputy putting the handcuffs on Evan. It was usually Jason’s or Jill’s chore to churn, but everything about this day was different.

Birdie and Elsie had not come out of the bedroom, Jason sat quietly in the shade with Sidney, and Jill swung Joy in the rope swing suspended from a branch of the oak tree. Julie had not seen her father since he left the porch after telling her to leave Birdie alone.

Julie worked the dasher and waited for Joe and Jack to come back from the Johnson farm. Her brain was full of turmoil. It was hard for her to comprehend why Birdie hated her and Evan so much that she deliberately lied about the time she came home last night. Was Birdie hoping to convict Evan of murder? Her father had known the woman was lying. Maybe now he would see her for what she was.

What Julie had expected to be one of the happiest days of her life had turned out to be the most miserable.

Chapter 24

C
HIEF CORBIN APPLEBY CAME UP
out of the basement of the court-house after locking Evan Johnson in the holding room and walked down the street to the furniture store, where the members of the City Council were meeting.

Something about Deputy Weaver didn’t sit quite right with Corbin. The man’s determination to prove Evan Johnson guilty of Walter Johnson’s murder without even considering that someone else could have done it and his unnecessary roughness were not the actions of an impartial officer of the law.

Evan, aware that for some reason Weaver had a grudge against him, neither resisted when Weaver shoved him or responded to the jibes made about his wanting his father out of the way so that he would inherit the farm. The only time Evan’s anger flared was when the deputy referred to Julie Jones as a hot little piece of ass.

Corbin had jumped in to grab Evan’s arm and back him away from Weaver, or he would have torn into him.

“Go ahead and hit me,” Weaver had taunted, shoving his face close to Evan’s. “I’ll work you over with this billy club and throw your ass so far back in the state pen that hell will freeze over before you find your way out.”

“That’s enough, Weaver. You had no business making such a remark about Miss Jones. I don’t blame Johnson for resenting it. I resent it, too.”

“So that’s the way the wind blows.”

“I don’t know what you mean by that, and right now I don’t care.” Corbin stood nose to nose with the man, refusing to be intimidated.

Not wanting to leave Evan alone with the deputy, Corbin had hung around until he left.

“Do you have any idea who could have killed your father?” the chief asked when they were alone.

“He had a few drinking cronies. Some of them floated up and down the river from one joint to the other, and several lived here in town or down at Well’s Point. I don’t know of any who had a car like the one described.”

“Did you pass by Gus Keegan’s place earlier in the evening?”

“Is it on the way to the bluff?”

“If you took the river road, you went right by it.”

“Then I guess we did. You can still check the tire tracks and see that we passed on by. Didn’t you say that Gus said the car pulled off onto the grass close to the river? You can prove it wasn’t my car if you can get out there before the tracks are erased. I’d not put it past Weaver to go out and destroy them. That’s why I never said anything to him.”

“Gus has blocked off the road until the marshal gets here. I’m going to a council meeting, then I’ll hightail it out to your place and take a look at your tires.”

“Appleby, why are you helping me? Why aren’t you as convinced as Weaver that I killed Walter?”

Corbin looked Evan in the eye. He wasn’t as tall as the other man, but he had the bearing of a man who had been in the military.

“A bloody, messy murder wouldn’t be your style. You’ve been on the front lines and would know how to kill a man quick and easy. I think you’d know how to do away with him without a finger pointing at you. You could have hit Walter in the head one night, buried him in the woods or carted him over to the Missouri River—it’s no more than fifty miles away— tossed him in and told folks he’d run off. No, I figured right away that you were too smart to stab a man fifteen times, then cut his throat.”

“Thanks.” Evan’s shoulders slumped with relief.

“One thing puzzles me,” Corbin admitted. “Why is Mrs. Stuart sticking her neck out to put a kibosh on your alibi and make a liar out of Miss Jones?”

“You’d have to know Mrs. Stuart to understand. You know what they say about a woman scorned. Mrs. Stuart came here looking for a man to take care of her and, as I was her brother’s neighbor and eligible, she made a play for me and felt scorned because I wasn’t interested. Since that time she has spread tales about me because I didn’t respond to her advances and about Miss Jones because I was interested in her. This is get-even time.”

“What’s she doing at the Jones farm?”

“She had a squabble with her brother’s family, turned her charm on Jethro Jones and got him to invite her to stay there. If the deputy is counting on her to be a reliable witness, he’ll be disappointed.”

“You’re sure of that?”

“I’d stake my freedom on it. The woman is completely self-centered and suffering from delusions. She’s an unconscionable liar as well. She has no compunction about telling a lie that would destroy a person’s reputation.”

Corbin raised his brows. “You’ve given Mrs. Stuart some thought.”

“Damn right. When someone sets out to ruin the best thing that has ever happened to me, I’m going to fight back.”

“Can’t say that I blame you. I’ve got the only key to this place, so you needn’t worry Weaver will come back and pound the life out of you.”

“He’d have to have help. I know how to protect myself.”

Corbin thought about the conversation as he entered the furniture store and walked quickly to the back, where he heard voices raised in an argument.

“I say he’s guilty. It’s as plain as the nose on your face, Ira. I took his measure the day he came back here, lording it over us small-town folks, acting as if he was doing me a favor to put a little dab of money in my bank.” The banker had a big fat cigar in his mouth and was talking around it as he paced the room.

“I didn’t see him that way. He stayed to himself, but that’s his privilege,” the mayor commented.