The Vicar of St. James

by J. R. Roberts

  “Why don’t you take Clint with you?” Father Joe said. “He already knows the two ladies.”

  “Hey, wait—”

  “That’d be a big help, Mr. Adams,” Bricker said. “Would you?”

  Clint hesitated, then figured, what the hell.

  “Okay, Sheriff,” Clint said. “I’ll come along to tell them, but then I’m still leaving town.”

  “Thanks a lot. I’ll go and help Harve and be back here.”

  “I’ll meet you here.”

  Bricker and Jackson went to unload the bodies, and Clint went into the church with Father Joe.

  In his office, Father Joe took a bottle of brandy from the bottom drawer of his desk. He poured two glasses and handed Clint one. They sat there and waited for the sheriff to return.

  SEVENTEEN

  “This is horrible,” Father Joe said.

  “It is.”

  “You must have been shocked.”

  “Death doesn’t shock me,” Clint said. “The things people do to each other don’t shock me. They didn’t used to shock you.”

  “I’m not shocked,” Father Joe said. “More… disappointed. With my parishioners. I guess my sermons haven’t hit home.”

  “Well,” Clint said, “maybe not to one person.”

  “You think one person killed both men and strung them up?”

  “Hmm, maybe not.”

  There was a knock on the office door.

  “Come in!”

  Sheriff Bricker stuck his head in.

  “You ready, Mr. Adams?”

  “Ready as I’ll ever be,” Clint said, standing.

  “I’ll be here,” Father Joe said.

  Clint and Bricker walked to the hotel, Clint leading his horse.

  “One good thing will come out of this,” the sheriff said.

  “What’s that?”

  “These two women can go back home without worrying.”

  “I guess,” Clint said. “Let’s see if they look at it that way.”

  They knocked on the door. When it opened, Adele stood there. She was still dressed for her wedding, only without the veil. The dress was a little worse for wear.

  “Clint!” she said, then noticed the sheriff standing there. “Sheriff Bricker. Uh, what can we do for you gentlemen?”

  “Is your mother here?” the sheriff asked.

  “Yes, she’s inside.”

  “Can we come in?” the lawman asked.

  “Of course.”

  She backed up and allowed them to enter. Debra was sitting on the bed, swung her feet to the floor and stood up when she saw them.

  “What’s going on?” she asked.

  “We have somethin’ to tell the both of you,” Sheriff Bricker said. “This mornin’ Mr. Adams left town, but he didn’t get very far.”

  “What’s that got to do with us?” Adele asked, standing by her mother’s side. Clint noticed they were the same height, but Debra filled her clothes out more fully than her daughter did.

  “I found your husband, Mrs. Whittington, and Dan Carter, Adele.”

  “Found them?” Debra asked.

  “Dead.”

  Debra gasped and Adele took her mother’s hand.

  “How?” Adele asked.

  “Someone hanged them from a tree.”

  “Lynched them?” Adele asked. “But why?”

  “We don’t know.”

  “By who?” Debra asked.

  “We don’t know that either,” Sheriff Bricker said, “but I’m gonna find out.”

  “Where are they?” Debra asked.

  “At the undertaker’s.”

  Debra looked at her daughter.

  “We should go,” she said.

  “Yes, of course, Mother.” She looked at the sheriff. “May we?”

  “Sure,” the lawman said. “We’ll walk you over.”

  “Thank you.”

  At the undertaker’s the two women went inside to view the dead. Clint and the sheriff remained outside.

  “What’s your first move going to be?” Clint asked.

  “Damned if I know,” Bricker said. “I’m not a detective.”

  “You might want to question mother and daughter about who the men had run-ins with. Maybe somebody’s holding a grudge.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Find out who they were doing business with.”

  “I don’t suppose I could convince you to stay and help me,” Bricker said.

  “I can’t—”

  “You sound like you’ve had experience.”

  “I have, but—”

  “If you stay, we can probably solve these killings together, faster.”

  Clint hesitated, then said, “I’ll stay to ask a few questions, maybe put you on the right track.”

  “Thank you,” the lawman said with great relief. “I appreciate it.”

  Clint shook his head, wondering if he was going to end up wishing he’d kept riding when he found the bodies.

  EIGHTEEN

  When the women came back out, the daughter was dry eyed, but the mother was weeping.

  “I have to take her home,” Adele said.

  “No problem,” Clint said. “I’ll take you.”

  “I’m gonna ask some questions around town,” Bricker said. “See what I can find out.”

  “Let’s get you ladies your buckboard from the livery,” Clint said. “Sheriff, we’ll talk later and compare notes. Oh, and could you please get me a room?”

  “Of course.”

  The sheriff went inside. As Clint and the women walked to the livery, Adele asked, “So you’re staying longer?”

  “Just to help find out who killed your father and husband-to-be.”

  “That’s good,” Adele said. “Very good.”

  They drove back to the house, and Adele walked her mother inside. Clint followed them in. There were only a couple of chairs left, and Debra sat in one. Adele turned to face Clint.

  “We’ll get you some help bringing your things back into the house,” Clint said.

  “No,” Adele said, “it’ll give us something to do.”

  “All right,” Clint said, “but before I leave, I’d like to ask you both some questions.”

  “Not my mother,” Adele said. “Let’s go out—”

  “No,” Debra said. “I’m all right. Go ahead, ask your questions.”

  “This is for both of you,” Clint said. “Who would want to kill Carter and Ben?”

  “I don’t know who’d want to kill Dan,” Adele said. “All he did was run a hardware store.”

  “So you don’t know anyone he was having trouble with over the last few days or weeks?”

  “No.”

  “Father Joe says Carter was very agitated the day before the wedding,” Clint said. “You don’t know why?”

  “No,” she said.

  “Maybe he had cold feet,” Debra offered.

  “Maybe,” Clint said. “What about you, Debra? Who had it in for your husband?”

  “Who didn’t?” Adele asked.

  “What Adele means is, Ben was not a pleasant man. He didn’t have many friends.”

  “What about somebody he was doing business with?”

  “What business?” she asked. “This is a hardscrabble farm. The only thing he ever fought with was the ground.”

  “And us,” Adele said.

  Clint studied the two women. It seemed as if they would have had a motive to kill Ben Whittington, but could the two women have done it and strung him up? And if so, why kill Carter?

  “Okay,” Clint said. “I’m going to go back to town. I need you two to think this over, maybe talk to each other. You might recall something valuable.”

  “What are you gonna do?” Adele asked.

  “I’m going to try and help the sheriff find out who did this,” he said.

  “Will you let us know what’s going on?” Debra sked.

  “Yes, of course.”

  “I’ll walk you out,” Adele said, ta
king his arm.

  Outside she yanked on his arm and said, “I was very angry with you last night.”

  “Oh, why?”

  “You know why. I came to your room and you wouldn’t let me in.”

  He disengaged his arm from her. “I didn’t hear you knock.”

  He walked to his horse and mounted off.

  She stared up at him and smiled.

  “You’re not gonna get off this easy, Clint Adams.”

  “You better see to your mother, Adele,” Clint said. “I’ll see you later.”

  She was standing in front of the house, arms folded in front of her, until he was out of sight.

  When Clint got back to town, he first saw to Eclipse’s comfort and care, then his own. He went to the saloon for a beer.

  “Mr. Adams,” Eddie said. “Beer?”

  “Yup.”

  “We heard what happened,” Eddie said, although at the moment, he was the only one in the saloon with Clint.

  Clint accepted the beer and asked, “You got any ideas, Eddie?”

  “About what? Oh, you mean who killed Dan and Ben? Naw, not me.”

  “Tell me about them.”

  “They was opposites,” the barman said. “Everybody liked Dan, and nobody liked Ben Whittington.”

  “And you can’t think of anyone who disliked Whittington enough to kill him?”

  “Maybe one or two fellas, but they’d have nothin’ against Dan,” Eddie said. “Ain’t you lookin’ for somebody with reason to string them both up?”

  “That we are, Eddie. Seen the sheriff?”

  “He was here, askin’ me a lot of the same questions you just did.”

  “Did you give him those one or two names of men who disliked Whittington enough to kill him?”

  “Tell you the truth, I think it plumb slipped my mind.”

  “Well then,” Clint said, “suppose you give them to me, and I’ll pass the information along.”

  “So you’re stayin’ in town?” Eddie asked.

  “Just for as long as it takes to find the killer or killers,” Clint said. “Now why don’t you stop stalling and let me have those names?”

  NINETEEN

  Clint left the saloon after he finished his beer and went in search of the sheriff. Eddie had given him two names, both men who had played cards with Ben Whittington, and accused him of cheating. When Clint asked Eddie if Whittington had cheated, the bartender said yes—badly…

  “Ben was no card player,” he said, “but he needed money bad. He tried palming a card or two and they caught him.”

  “Didn’t kill him on the spot?” Clint asked.

  “Well, I could see him palming the cards from here,” Eddie said, “but as bad a cheater as Ben was, them two was bad poker players.”

  “So?”

  “They thought he was cheatin’,” Eddie said, “but they couldn’t prove it.”

  “Well then, I’ll just have to find out if they decided to do something about it later.”

  “Good luck.”

  Clint found the sheriff in his office, sitting behind his desk, looking bedraggled.

  “You know, there might’ve been a few men in this town who wanted Ben Whittington dead, and there are more than a few who ain’t unhappy he’s dead, but Dan Carter? I can’t find anybody who had a bad thing to say about him.”

  “I came up with a couple of names from Eddie the bartender, men he thought might’ve wanted Whittington dead, but I heard the same about Carter.”

  “What about the women?” Bricker asked. “Did they have anything to say?”

  “They weren’t very helpful,” Clint said. “For one thing, Adele wasn’t too anxious to marry Carter. I don’t think she wanted him dead, but she wasn’t upset when he didn’t show up for the wedding.”

  “What about Mrs. Whittington?”

  “I get the feeling if Whittington was alive, she would have gone back to him,” Clint said. “Unless her daughter could have convinced her not to.”

  “I don’t know what my next move should be.”

  Clint sat in a chair across from Bricker.

  “Well, for one thing, I’d get out to the Whittington house and have a look around. I might find something useful.”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know,” Clint said. “But I’d wait and let the women settle back in first. And then there’s Carter’s hardware store. Same thing. Take a look around. Maybe there’s a letter, a note, some unpaid bills, something that could be helpful.”

  “Yeah, okay.”

  “And you might see about having it locked up when you’re done,” Clint added. “Or people are going to start helping themselves to hardware.”

  “It’s not that kind of town,” Bricker said, “but one or two people might get brave.”

  “I’ve got to clean up,” Clint said, standing, “and get something to eat.”

  “You have a room at the hotel. Just pick up your key at the desk.”

  “Thanks.”

  “No,” Bricker said, standing up, “thank you, for agreeing to stay to help.”

  Clint headed for the door, then stopped.

  “One more thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Talk to your mayor and your town council.”

  “About you stayin’?”

  “Not about me at all,” Clint said. “About the two dead men. Maybe you’ll find somebody there with a grudge.”

  “The town fathers?” Bricker asked.

  “You never know,” Clint said, and left the sheriff scratching his head.

  TWENTY

  Clint went to the hotel, collected his key, and made arrangements for a bath. He left his rifle and saddlebags in the room, but took two shirts down with him, figuring he might as well wash them in the bathtub, too.

  He had washed the shirts, set them aside to dry, and climbed into the tub himself when the door to the room suddenly opened. He grabbed for his gun, which was hanging on the back of a chair he had set next to the tub, but relaxed when he saw who it was.

  “The clerk told me you were takin’ a bath,” Adele said, smiling. She closed the door behind her.

  “They should put locks on these doors.”

  She was wearing a simple sundress, which covered her for the most part, but there was just a small section that was cut out to show some skin—some creamy, smooth, young skin on her chest.

  She stood with her back to the door.

  “Don’t worry,” she said. “We won’t be disturbed.”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  She laughed and said, “I know, Clint, but it’s what I meant.”

  “Adele, you don’t exactly act like a young woman who’s been left at the altar.”

  “Are you kiddin’?” she asked. “I prayed that Dan wouldn’t show up. My prayers were answered. It was my father wanted me to marry Dan, not me.”

  “Why?” Clint asked. “Why did he pick Dan Carter for your husband?”

  “I guess maybe Dan reminded him of himself when he was young.”

  “Meaning Carter would have gotten more like him as he got older?”

  “Maybe,” she said. “That would be a good enough reason not to marry him. My father was a terrible man—an awful father, and a brutal husband.”

  “Awful father?” he said. “Did he ever…”

  “Touch me? No,” she said, “he didn’t go that far. If he had, I would have killed him myself—and not by hanging him. I would’ve cut his throat in his sleep.”

  From the look on her face, Clint believed what she was saying. She might’ve killed her father at some point, but not by hanging him.

  Father Joe stood in front of the crucifix on the front wall of his church and stared. He wasn’t seeing it, however. He was deep in thought, thinking that his new parish might already be in danger. With two dead men to deal with, he hoped that the sheriff would be predictable, and that the whole matter would blow over quickly.

  But what about Clint Adams?<
br />
  Maybe it had been a mistake to invite Clint to Griggsville. He’d only wanted him to see that Joe Holloway was gone, and that Father Joe was here. He hadn’t expected that Clint would get involved in any town business, and now he was here, helping the sheriff investigate the two murders.

  This didn’t have to be a catastrophe, though. All he had to do was remain in control.

  He walked to his office, entered, and closed the door. He made sure both doors were locked, then walked to a chest in the corner, took a key from his pocket, and unlocked it. When he opened it, the item right there on top was a gun and holster, rolled up. It hadn’t been removed from there in a few years.

  “I don’t want to talk about my father,” Adele said. “Or my former husband-to-be.”

  “Well,” Clint said, “we can talk about anything you want, when I finish my bath.”

  “You know,” she said, “that bathtub looks so inviting.”

  “Adele—”

  She started to unbutton her dress. Clint knew he could try all he wanted to be a gentleman, but if that dress came off…

  “Adele, I’m warning you—”

  “Warning me about what?” the young woman asked. “All I want to do is share the bath with you. Are you gonna be selfish?”

  He opened his mouth to reply, but she suddenly peeled the dress down to her waist, and she was half naked. Her breasts were full, with brown, already distended nipples.

  She peeled the dress the rest of the way down and stepped out of it. Completely naked, she stepped up to the tub, lifted her leg, and got in.

  Clint Adams, the gentleman, left the room as she sat in the tub, sliding her smooth, bare legs alongside his.

  TWENTY-ONE

  “Where’s the soap?” she asked, leaning forward and reaching beneath the water. “Oops! That’s not the soap.”

  “No, it’s not,” Clint said.

  She held his hard cock in her hand and stroked it.

  “Mmmm, nice,” she said.

  “Do you have much to compare it with?”

  “More than my parents would think,” she said. “Especially my father. He still thinks—thought—I was a virgin.”

  “And your mother?”

  “I’ve caught her looking at me funny a time or two, like she knew. But she never said anything.”