Let It Bleed

by J. R. Roberts

  She tried to say something, so he had to remove his hand to understand her.

  “It’s n-not locked.”

  “Of course it’s not,” he said. “All right, inside.”

  He pushed her in and followed, pulling the door shut behind him . . . and locking it.

  THIRTY-SIX

  Clint slept well.

  No one came to his door, not even Mathilda, which was good. She needed to stay away from him, and he needed to get a good night’s sleep.

  So there was no knock on his door . . . until morning.

  The sun had been streaming through his window for a couple of hours when the knock came. At that hour he doubted it was Mathilda. Maybe Temple. When it became more insistent, he grabbed his gun and went to the door.

  “Who is it?”

  “Detective Stokes sent me.”

  He unlocked the door and opened it an inch. He recognized the man in the hall as one of the new cops watching him and Temple.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “You better get dressed and come with me, Mr. Adams,” the policeman said.

  “What’s going on?”

  “You’ll see.”

  “You better wake Temple.”

  “My partner is doing that,” the man said. “We’ll wait in the lobby.”

  * * *

  Clint and Temple came out into the hall at the same time and headed for the stairs.

  “Do you know what this is about?” Temple asked.

  “No,” Clint said, “just that Stokes wants us.”

  “Do you think—”

  “I’m trying not to think,” Clint said.

  The two policemen were waiting in the lobby. They said that their names were Bishop and Odon, and that they had a buggy out front to drive Clint and Temple to the scene. They didn’t say scene of what.

  But as soon as they came within sight of Mathilda’s Dress Shop, Clint said, “Oh, no.”

  “What is it?” Temple asked, but then he also noticed where they were.

  The buggy stopped. Clint stepped down and asked Odon, “Where is she?”

  “Upstairs.”

  He ran for the stairs, and Temple followed. At the top he found Stokes waiting for him.

  “Mathilda Lawson—” he started to say, but Clint cut him off.

  “I know her.”

  “Oh,” Stokes said. “I’m sorry . . .”

  Clint moved past him into the room. She was lying on her back on the floor. She looked like she was sleeping, except for the mottled skin around her neck and the tip of her tongue sticking out. Beside her lay a bright orange neckerchief.

  “Damnit!” he swore.

  “This is different,” Stokes said. “He grabbed the other one off the street and left her in an alley.” He looked at Temple. “How did it go in Boston?”

  “The same,” Temple said, cutting him off. “He’d grab them from the street, and then leave them somewhere else on a street or in an alley.”

  “So then,” Stokes said, “maybe this isn’t the same killer. Maybe—”

  “It’s him,” Clint said. “He used an orange scarf to strangle her.” Clint looked at Stokes. “He’s sending us a message. Somehow he knew I knew her, and he couldn’t resist.”

  “So instead of coming after Temple, he went after her?” Stokes said.

  “Damnit!” Temple swore.

  Clint knew what he was thinking.

  “It’s not your fault, Harry,” he said.

  “Yeah, well, that’s easy to say . . .” He shook his head and went back outside.

  “Why does he feel it’s his fault?”

  “The piece in the newspaper,” Clint said. “He thinks he pushed the killer into this.”

  “I hate to say it,” Stokes said, “but maybe he’s right.”

  “Killers kill, Detective,” Clint said. “They don’t have to be pushed into it.”

  “You sound experienced.”

  “With killers? Very.”

  “Sure, gunfighters, Indians, but what about this?” Stokes said. “Stranglers like this?”

  “One in England, one in Seattle . . . yeah, I’ve seen this before. Nobody has to make them kill. They like it too much to need help doing it.”

  “But this one,” Stokes said. “It may not be his fault, but—”

  “Go ahead, say it,” Clint said. “It may be mine. He picked her to send me a message. That doesn’t make it my fault, Detective. The fault is still all his.”

  Stokes shrugged, impressed at Clint Adams’s attitude about the murder.

  “But that doesn’t mean I’m not going to catch him,” Clint said, “because I am. I swear to you, I am.”

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  Clint and Temple stayed on the street in front of the building until Stokes had the body removed.

  “Anybody see anything?” Clint asked him.

  “That’s what I’m going to have my men asking,” Stokes said.

  Clint was about to say something else when he saw Sheriff Evans approaching. Stokes saw him at the same time.

  “Oh, no,” he said, “that old-time badge-toter. What’s he want?”

  “He probably wants to help,” Clint said. “If you let him, you’d find out he’s probably a good man. And he’s known these people a long time.”

  Clint moved to intercept Evans.

  “Not Mattie,” Evans said.

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “Jesus,” he said, shaking his head. “First Laurie, and now . . . that sonofabitch!”

  “Mattie didn’t say anything to me about someone watching her,” Clint said. “Did she mention it to you?”

  “No,” Evans said, “and I just saw her yesterday. She did talk about you, though.”

  “Me?”

  He nodded.

  “She wanted to know how long I thought you’d be stayin’ around. I guess she liked you.”

  “Well, I liked her,” Clint said. “I’m going to catch that sonofabitch, you can depend on that.”

  “I’d like to help, if they’ll let me,” Evans said.

  “Talk to Detective Stokes over there,” Clint said. “I’m sure he’ll welcome your help.”

  “You think so?”

  “I do.”

  Sheriff Evans left Clint and walked over to Detective Stokes. Clint watched the big detective turn to face Evans, and then the two shook hands. At that point Temple came walking over to him.

  “I’m so sorry, Clint.”

  “Yeah, but not half as sorry as this killer’s going to be,” Clint said. “You can depend on that.”

  “So where do we start?”

  “Somebody around here had to have seen something,” Clint said.

  “Clint, he’s never been seen grabbing a girl,” Temple reminded him.

  “But he had to watch her for a while, right? Figure out when to grab her? Somebody might have seen him standing around, keeping an eye on the store.”

  “Aren’t the police going to ask?”

  “They’re going to be looking for someone who actually saw him take her,” Clint said, “but like you said, he’s never been seen.”

  “Can’t you get them to act differently?”

  “Detective Stokes strikes me as a man who has to follow his known procedure. That’s where he’s at a disadvantage, no matter how good he is at his job.”

  “So we have an advantage.”

  “We do.”

  “That’s good to know. So should we split up?”

  “No.” Clint looked across the street, where a crowd had gathered to watch. “He could be any one of those men. We better stay together, where I can keep an eye on you.”

  “I’m not going to argue with that.”

  “Besides,” Clint said, “the mayor and the
chief have read the newspaper by now. One of them might come after you.”

  “You know,” Temple said, “I forgot all about that.”

  “They’re not going to forget it,” Clint said. “That’s for damn sure.”

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  Clint decided to simply work the side of the street across from the store, starting with the café he and Temple had eaten in. They talked to all the waiters, then to the people in the stores on either side.

  “You know,” said the owner of the photographic studio to the right of the café, “there was a fella loitering out front for most of yesterday.”

  “Yesterday?”

  “Yeah, in the afternoon. I had the feeling he came out of the café next door, but then stayed around, watching . . . something.”

  “Watching what?” Clint asked.

  “I don’t know,” the balding man said, “something across the street.” He was in his mid-forties, wearing a long leather apron and smelling faintly of chemicals.

  “You didn’t happen to take his picture, did you?” Clint asked.

  “Naw,” the man said, “why would I have done that?”

  “Of course,” Clint said, “why would you have?”

  “But I did take a picture,” the man went on, “up here.” He pointed to his head. “I got that kind of memory.”

  “That’s great,” Clint said. “What did he look like?”

  The photographer gave them a description of the man that was almost as good as a picture.

  “I hope that helps,” the man said. “If you don’t mind, I have some business inside.”

  “Of course,” Clint said. “Thanks a lot.”

  The photographer went back inside.

  “Now what?”

  “Have you ever had this much information about the killer before?”

  “No.”

  “We don’t have a picture, but we have something almost as good.”

  “So where do we start?”

  “Next door,” Clint said. “The café again. Now that we can describe him, maybe somebody in there saw him and heard a name.”

  They went back to the café to question the waiters. Across the street, the killer stood with his arms folded, leaning against a wall, blending in with other onlookers who were now lining both sides of the street. He felt great satisfaction in having policemen all around him, as well as Clint Adams and the reporter, Temple.

  He wondered, though, why Adams and Temple were going back into the café after having already been there. His gaze shifted over to the store he’d been standing in front of when he was watching Mathilda’s Dress Shop. At the time, he had not realized it was a photography studio.

  He wondered if the photographer had told them anything damaging. He’d have to ask the man, but that would have to wait until all the commotion had died down, and the onlookers moved along.

  He could wait.

  * * *

  “Oh yeah,” a young waitress said, “I remember that feller. He had the beef stew.” She was the only waitress who worked in the café. The others were waiters.

  “You remember anything else about him?”

  “Well . . . he was a pretty finicky eater, always wiping his mouth with his napkin. And, oh yeah, he spent a lot of time starin’ out the window.”

  “Did he talk to you about anything other than eating?” Clint asked.

  “No,” the waitress said, “he only spoke to me to order, or to ask for something else.”

  “Did you see where he went when he left?” Clint asked.

  “No, sir,” the waitress said. “I had other tables to wait on. I just seen him go out the door.”

  “Did he looks at you, uh, kind of funny?” Temple asked.

  “Whataya mean, funny?”

  “Did he make you uncomfortable?”

  “Well . . .”

  “What’s your name?” Clint asked.

  “Heather.”

  “It’s okay, Heather,” he said. “You can tell us.”

  “He . . . uh, did make me feel uncomfortable when he first came in. Staring at me. He touched my arm once, when I served him his stew. Gave me the willies. But then . . . I don’t know, he started staring out the window. After that he stopped. Didn’t seem to notice me at all, unless he wanted something.”

  Clint stared out the window at what the killer would have been seeing, and saw the front of Mathilda’s Dress Shop.

  “Okay, Heather,” Clint said. “Thank you.”

  “Did I help?”

  “Yes, Heather,” he said, “you helped us quite a bit.”

  * * *

  Outside, Temple said, “She helped?”

  “She did.”

  “How?”

  Clint pointed at the dress shop.

  “That’s what the killer saw when he stared out the window,” he said. “I think he saw Mathilda, and forgot about lucky little Heather.”

  “Ah . . .”

  “And one more thing just occurred to me.”

  “What’s that?”

  “First, we probably just missed him in the café when we ate,” Clint said.

  “And?”

  “And if he was around here all afternoon, watching,” Clint said, “then he might have seen her talking to us.”

  “Ah,” Temple said, “I see what you mean.”

  “Come on,” Clint said, “we’ll talk to some more people on this side of the street. Somebody else might have seen something.”

  “What about Stokes?”

  “What about him?”

  “Are you going to tell him what we found out?” Temple asked.

  “Yes,” Clint said, “but only after we find out some more.”

  THIRTY-NINE

  Clint and Temple spent the next few hours talking to people in the area. They were told that although the police had questioned them already, they had not asked the same questions.

  “We’re working on some different ideas,” Clint said.

  They were finished and had decided to go the saloon for a beer when they saw Stokes coming toward them.

  “Do you want to tell him now?” Temple asked.

  “Let’s see what he has to say first.”

  The crowd on both sides of the street had thinned out. Clint did not see any of Stokes’s uniformed men on the street at all.

  “Detective,” Clint said. “Have you found out anything?”

  “Yeah,” Stokes said, “either nobody saw anything, or nobody wants to say they saw anything.”

  “That’s too bad.”

  “Yeah, it is,” Stokes said. “I’ll tell you what else is too bad. That article this fella wrote in the newspaper today.”

  “What about it?” Temple asked.

  “The chief went off like a steam engine this morning,” Stokes said. “And I hear the mayor did the same.”

  “Sounds like it had the desired effect, then,” Temple said.

  “Chief Landry wants me to bring you in,” Stokes said to Temple.

  “For what?”

  “Questioning.”

  “Again,” Temple said, “for what?”

  “He says he thinks maybe you know something about this latest murder.”

  “He’s crazy—”

  “No, he’s mad,” Stokes said, “and he wants to make things tough on you.”

  “Are you going to take him in?” Clint asked.

  “I’m not,” Stokes said, “on one condition.”

  “What’s that?”

  Stokes poked Clint in the chest with a thick forefinger. Clint thought he might find a bruise there later.

  “Find me that killer,” he said. “I’ve seen you walking up and down this street, talking to people. What makes me think you’re asking them a whole different set of questions? And wh
at makes me think maybe you got some of the answers you’re looking for?”

  “Detective—”

  “Never mind,” Stokes said. “Just make sure I don’t see this young fella’s face again unless you’ve got the killer with you.” He looked at Temple. “I’m gonna tell the chief I couldn’t find you. Keep it that way.”

  “Yes, sir,” Temple said.

  “Thanks, Stokes.”

  “Don’t thank me,” Stokes said to Clint. “Just don’t make me look like a fool. If you do, I’ll toss both your asses in jail.”

  “Got it,” Clint said.

  Stokes started to walk away, then stopped short and turned back.

  “Oh, and I think you were right about Sheriff Evans,” Stokes said. “I think he is a good man. Maybe even good enough to help you out.”

  “I think so, too,” Clint said. “Thanks, Stokes.”

  The detective nodded and walked away.

  “Are we going to the saloon?” Temple asked.

  “Later,” Clint said. “Let’s go and talk to the sheriff. I think Stokes might be right.”

  “I don’t know him,” Temple said, “so I guess I’ll take your word for it.”

  “You’ll find out,” Clint said. “Come on.”

  * * *

  When they got to the sheriff’s office, the lawman wasn’t there. That alone indicated to Clint that the sheriff might have had a change of heart.

  “What now?” Temple asked.

  “Let’s wait,” Clint said. “He’ll be back.”

  “Does he have any deputies?”

  “No,” Clint said, “just him.”

  “Why does the town need him if it has a police department?” Temple asked.

  “I think that question is on the sheriff’s mind, too,” Clint said. “He’d like to make the town realize they do need him.”

  Clint went to the stove and checked the coffeepot. It was empty.

  Temple walked to the doorway to the cell block and looked inside at the three cells. They were empty.

  “Aren’t the town sheriffs going away with the coming of the new decade?” Temple asked.

  “Don’t talk like that around Evans,” Clint said. “Not if we want him to help us.”