Marshal and the Moonshiner Read online

  I rose and towered over Laurel. He backpedaled as his hand reached inside his coat. He tripped over the chair Hardy sat in and nearly lost his balance. Hardy looked at him and shook his head before he turned his attention back to me. “Marshal Lane, there’s just too many coincidences about your story of last night that don’t add up.” He shook out a cigarette and handed me the pack. I declined. As badly as I needed a smoke, I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of thinking he was winning me over.

  “Deputy Notch said he found an empty jar of moonshine under your bed in your hotel room.”

  “So you two work nights as revenuers?”

  Laurel got red faced, but Hardy grinned. “Sit down, Marshal Lane.”

  I sat, and Hardy became serious. “That’s pretty good for a federal lawman. It’s just—and I shouldn’t even bring it up, but it is germane to the case—that you used to be a rummy. And apparently still are.”

  “So?”

  Hardy leaned across and rested his elbows on the table. “So maybe you blacked out. Maybe you got drunk again and just don’t remember. ’Cause if that were the case, it wouldn’t be murder. We could charge . . . manslaughter. Maybe even self-defense if the prosecutor—”

  “Look,”—I eyed the pack of smokes but left them—“I told Maris that Amos Iron Horse forced me to drive to the rail yards.”

  “Marshal,”—Hardy shook his head—“I don’t think she believes you any more than we do.”

  “And did she tell you about the fight Vincent Iron Horse and Goar had?”

  “Vincent didn’t knife Goar.” Laurel had regained his lost courage and stepped closer to me. “They had fisticuffs, and he tossed Goar out. That’s according to Deputy Red Hat. Besides, Vincent Iron Horse is tough enough he wouldn’t need a knife.”

  “I believe Goar went to Vincent’s hoping to find Amos for the reward money—”

  “For a murder warrant that Amos had been cleared of?” Hardy asked.

  “And how about Dutch Seugard’s name on some of the barrels?” I said. “Maybe he was there to pick up Vincent’s booze. Maybe he took out Goar. Everyone had a motive for murder except me.”

  Hardy looked at Laurel, and he grabbed a notebook from his back pocket. “We gave the information about Vincent possessing illegal hooch to our vice detectives. They raided Vincent’s place. All they found was pieces of a barrel that had shattered against the wall.” He frowned. “And no booze like you say there was.”

  Hardy took out a notepad and wet his pencil stub with the end on his tongue. “I believe you murdered Goar last night, Marshal Lane. I believe you had to knife him because Sheriff Stauffer still has your gun in evidence for Jimmy Wells’s murder. But you say you didn’t kill Goar. All right; let’s go over your rendition of things once again. Just for our edification.”

  For the next two hours, Laurel and Hardy took turns interrogating me, going at me from different angles as I’d done with Yancy a time or two, playing crappy cop, obnoxious cop. Finally, I got my fill of them. I stood and started for the door. Laurel moved to block the way. As if that’d stop me. “Where you going? We’re not finished yet.”

  I brushed him aside, but his hand reached under his coat. Whether he came out with a sap or a gun, I was going to drop him right there and hope his blood would mix with that already on the wall. “I told you two all I know. Now either arrest and charge me, or get the hell out of my way.”

  Hardy stood and hitched his trousers up over his belly. “We got nothing to hold you on. But I still don’t believe your tall tale. Don’t fret, though; we’ll keep working Goar’s murder, and eventually your hokey alibi will surface like a fresh turd in a toilet. And we’ll be there to pull the chain.”

  I left the room and stood in the hallway outside the sheriff’s office, catching my breath. When Laurel and Hardy left, I went back in the office. I brushed past Melody’s objections and burst into Stauffer’s office. He was talking with someone on the phone and abruptly hung up. He stood and met me halfway across the office. “Howe tells me he doesn’t have enough to hold you on,” Stauffer said. “Yet. But I know you killed Dale. He was my friend and—”

  “And I’m going to have your ass for lying to a federal marshal.”

  “Lying about what?”

  “Amos. There is no outstanding warrant for him. And why the hell did you have your deputies tail Maris and me?” He remained silent. “Huh, Toby?”

  Stauffer’s face reddened, and he took a step closer to me. I walked around him, bent to his desk drawer, and reached inside. By the time he realized what I was doing, I’d grabbed my .45 from the drawer. “That’s evidence,” he said as he reached for my gun, but I snatched it away and stuck it in my waistband. “That’s evidence,” he repeated.

  “Of what? Goar was stabbed to death, not shot. And Jimmy Wells was shot, but it wasn’t with my gun. You had ample time to do a ballistic comparison.”

  “The coroner hasn’t finished making the comparisons yet.”

  “When he does—and if it matches my gun—you come hunt me up, and I’ll give you the gun back then. Right now, you got other problems.”

  “What problems?”

  “Me.” I opened the humidor on his desk top and grabbed a Cuban. Stauffer’s mouth stood agape, an unbelieving look on his face as I snipped the end with his cutter and dropped it back into the humidor. I didn’t like cigars, but for Toby I’d make an exception. I lit it and blew smoke in his face. His face became red, and it crept up to cover his balding head. Apparently, he wasn’t used to his authority being challenged.

  “I ought to step on your neck,” he blurted out without much conviction.

  I blew a fresh wave of cigar smoke his way. “No time like the present. Toby.” I tossed my coat on his chair. He stripped off his vest and rolled his shirtsleeves up. He bladed his stance to me, the pro boxer coming out, but he paused a little too long sizing me up. A mite too cautious. I had him by a couple of inches, but he had me by thirty pounds. The odds weren’t enough in his favor, and he stepped back. “Get out of my office.”

  I hesitated, not moving, taunting him before I slung my coat over my shoulder. “One other thing: what did it cost to get Maris to turn on me?”

  “Cost?” Stauffer smirked. “Well, nothing. She came to me like any concerned deputy would if they suspected foul play.” He motioned to the door. “Good day, Marshal. And don’t expect you’ll grace my office with your ass again. Until I have enough on you to prove murder.”

  Outside the sheriff’s office I gratefully found a spittoon and dropped the nasty Cuban inside. I turned my back and checked the condition of my .45; it remained loaded. I tucked it in my waistband and walked the hallway on my way to Leonard Brothers. I needed to talk with Byron.

  I stepped through the front doors into a hot, dusty afternoon, and air hit me like a blast furnace. Or a crematorium oven, I thought, if I didn’t learn what happened to Dale Goar.

  “Wait up for me!” Maris yelled from the courthouse steps.

  I ignored her.

  “Wait up.”

  “So you can stab me in the back again?” I called over my shoulder as I crossed the street.

  She ran around me and blocked the sidewalk. Nasty habit of hers. “I had to tell Stauffer about last night.”

  I looked down at her. Gone was the coyness, the smart-aleck attitude that reminded me of a spoiled kid. Her mascara had run, and the heat had caked it on her cheeks, and I knew she’d been crying recently. But the deep, gut-wrenching feelings of betrayal lingered. “Why’d you run to Stauffer about anything? Because you figured I killed Goar?”

  “At first. When I heard his body had been found in the old rail yards in the city—the same night you admitted to being there—I was obligated to report it.”

  “Thanks for the confidence.”

  “But only when I heard Dale had been stabbed, and I remembered Stauffer had your gun in evidence.”

  “So you figured I murdered him with a knife?” I started arou
nd her, but she grabbed my arm. “Listen, there were too many coincidences . . .”

  “Funny, that’s what the Oklahoma City dicks said.”

  “Then there’s the other night—if I hadn’t stopped you, you would have beaten Goar bad. Maybe to death. I couldn’t get the possibility out of my mind . . .”

  “We’ve worked together for some days now. Do you really believe I could murder someone and leave his body rotting in a rail yard?”

  “No,” she said, barely a whisper.

  “Then why . . .”

  “If I say too much”—Maris looked away, her tears flowing again, flushing away the old mascara—“I’ll be the next dead body they find.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense . . .”

  She nodded and looked back in the direction of the courthouse. “If he even suspects I said anything, I’m a dead deputy.”

  “What are you going on about? If who suspects?”

  “Johnny Notch.” Maris exhaled, and her legs got wobbly. She sat on the curb, eying the courthouse as if she expected Notch to appear. “I think Notch set you up.”

  “And what brought you to this bit of forensic conclusion? I don’t like the man, but I doubt he fabricates evidence.”

  “That empty jar of moonshine—and we’ll talk about trust later—was under your bed. Johnny found it. How did he even know there’d be whisky in your room?”

  “Because someone told him I’m a recovering rummy,” I breathed.

  Maris held up her hand like an errant schoolgirl. “I’m afraid I’m guilty of that as well. Notch insisted I chauffeur you around after that first day. But I didn’t want to get saddled with some . . . old marshal. I told him I didn’t want to be responsible for some rummy falling off the wagon, seeing as we’d probably be around booze.”

  Maris stood and paced in front of me. “And that’s all the Oklahoma City detectives needed to plant the scenario that you blacked out last night and murdered Goar. Because I’m betting Notch planted the jar the night he ransacked your hotel room.”

  I nodded. I now knew who sacked my hotel room—and planted that Mason jar of moonshine. I thought the whisky was a gift from heaven but knew better now. Notch had been my benefactor. And I suspect he took my knife that found its way into the middle of Dale Goar’s chest.

  “Did Notch kill Goar just to set me up for a murder?”

  “I wish I knew.” She looked to the courthouse again. “Give me another chance, and we can find out.”

  “Won’t your boss object?”

  She let out a deep sigh. “I got no boss. Stauffer fired me. He figures he’ll be able to sell it to the Indian people who vote by explaining that I went off the reservation—so to speak—when I went into the city on my own.”

  I thought that over long and hard for a moment. Maris had indeed betrayed me. But she had done so when her conscience got the better of her, when she thought it her duty to report me as a suspect, even though we’d been friends. That said a lot about her, and about her willingness to make things right now. “Walk with me to Leonard Brothers,” I said. “I got some serious sobering up to do.”

  CHAPTER 25

  * * *

  I had just downed my second pot of Byron’s sober-up-you-boozer coffee when he emerged from the kitchen with another plate of ham and eggs. The ham was unusually fatty, and the eggs seemed to wink at me, though I didn’t get the joke. “Bon appétit.”

  I pushed the plate away. “I can’t eat another morsel . . .”

  “You got to.” Byron pushed it back in front of me. “You know the rules: get as much food in your gullet to sop up what booze remains. And enough coffee so you do not want to swallow another drop of anything remotely tasting like booze. Then we will talk.”

  Before I started on the next plate of food, I popped a couple more Bromo-Seltzers to quash my migraine. I belched and forced myself to finish the meal, soaking up the runny eggs with a chunk of rye bread. He refilled my cup, but I wasn’t sure I could drink another drop. “Maybe someone else would like a cup.”

  Some coffee spilled from the pot as he waved it around the diner. “You see anyone else here besides you and me?”

  He was right. Maris had walked with me to the café at five o’clock, where I confessed to Byron that I’d been drunk for the past two days and remembered little. He had shuffled two railroaders waiting for sack lunches out and locked the door to leave us alone. “The Leonards can afford for me to close early one night,” he said before he delivered his food and coffee onslaught.

  I expected Byron to chew my ass for my incredible stupidity, about my knowing the dangers of giving in to just one drink. But he didn’t. When he finally came out from the kitchen empty handed, I figured he’d run out of food, and he sat on a stool next to me. “Now we talk.” He wiped the counter with his apron before he untied it and tossed it through the kitchen door.

  Byron let me ramble on about blaming my war injuries for starting me drinking at Portsmouth Hospital. I told him how I drank to forget my father losing his ranch, the Rocking Horse outside Bison, when his taste for gambling overrode his desire to care for his family. And in the end, sticking the barrel of a goose gun into his mouth and pulling the trigger. Somewhere along the line, I’d began to cry in front of this man I had known barely a week. I broke down and told him I felt Helen died because she couldn’t stand to live with a drunk anymore, even one who hid his condition so well from the public he served. And how, when she died, I jumped off the wagon into a stupor that lasted until my brother-in-law locked me in his meat locker and sobered me up.

  When I finished and was under some semblance of control, Byron reached into his back pocket and handed me his handkerchief.

  “What’s this for?”

  “Dry your cheeks. You look like a mess.”

  “But this is a snotty hankie.”

  Byron shrugged. “Only one I got.”

  I handed Byron his kerchief back and used the sleeve of my arm to dry my eyes.

  He walked around the counter and began brewing up fresh coffee. “Bet you have had an urge to scratch that itch since leaving Bison.”

  “I have.”

  “Then you know for rummies like you and me, it is an itch you cannot scratch. We just keep at it until we scratch it raw.” He set the pot on the hot plate. “We have lost too much to booze, you and me. There is too much at stake not to climb back on that wagon.”

  I nodded again, and Byron patted me on the back. “Johnny Notch was able to set you up because he knew you were an alkie. His kind is a natural predator, ferreting out the weaknesses of his prey. If it wasn’t booze, he would have found some other way to plant evidence against you.”

  “And wasn’t I dumb as hell.” I stood from the stool to stretch but sat right back down. The room moved just enough to make me sick if I stood. “What did I think, the Whisky Fairy brought me the moonshine because I was such a good boy?”

  Byron leaned closer. “Maris is convinced Notch set you up to take the fall for Dale Goar’s murder.”

  Against my better judgment, I reached over and grabbed the coffee pot. By now I had worn a path to the outhouse and figured one more trip wouldn’t hurt any. “But Goar did odd jobs—mostly shady—for Stauffer. Why would Notch want him dead?”

  “Why else? Money.” I hadn’t heard the tinkling of the bells above the door or heard Maris enter. She pocketed the door key and walked to the counter. “I just left to Ft. Reno.” She reached around me for an ashtray and lit a smoke. “I managed to charm my way into the NCO barracks. A Sergeant Rice was kind enough to show me Dutch’s room. He took everything when he went AWOL. Rice figured Dutch will get hard time for his desertion this time.” She winked. “And I found out something else.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah, what?” Byron leaned closer to Maris.

  “I’ll tell you if you promise me you’ll let me in on Notch’s arrest.”

  “I’m not out to arrest anyone except Amos,”
I told Maris as I started for the privy. My bladder wasn’t what it was when I was a younger. “I got to see a man about a horse,” I said and ran for the outhouse. When I came back a little lighter, Maris had finished her coffee and headed for the door.

  “Thought you were going to tell me something . . .”

  “Not if you won’t help nail Johnny Notch.”

  She had reached the door when I stopped her, and she didn’t turn around while I spoke. “Let’s say I help you build a case for Notch—whatever it is you think he’s done—and you help me find Amos.”

  “And you won’t give me the slip and rent Ragwood’s car again?”

  “Not if you don’t stab me in the back to your boss . . .”

  “Former boss. And I’m still waiting; that case against Notch?”

  “What makes you think we can build a case against him for anything?” I asked.

  Maris turned and smiled. She walked toward the counter, unbuttoning her top as she walked. Byron looked away, but I had no such discipline. But all Maris did was pull a ledger book from inside her shirt and plopped it down next to my coffee cup. I opened the book and ran my finger down entries of whisky delivered, money collected. “Where’d you get this?”

  “From under Dutch’s mattress.”

  “How did you find it there?” Byron asked.

  “That Sergeant Rice I sweet talked to get to Dutch’s room . . . let’s say I had to take—or give—one for the team.”

  “What a sacrifice,” Byron said. “Still does not explain how you found the book.”

  Maris laid her hand on Byron’s arm. “Uncle Byron, the book was jabbing me in the back. That’s how I found it.”

  Byron started asking again when he realized Maris found the book while lying on Dutch’s mattress entertaining Sergeant Rice. It was the first time I saw Byron blush.

  I studied the ledger, and the thing I first marveled at was how neat Dutch’s cursive was. He had divided the book into sections: one for booze coming in from Vincent, another the amount he sold out of the commissary building. The last section was a jumble of numbers, but no names or dates. I looked on the back of the page, but there was nothing. “Wonder what this section is for.”