The Peaceful Valley Crime Wave

by Bill Pronzini

  She made a derisive noise, a kind of ladylike snort. “My relationship with Mr. Bedford is strictly that of employer and employee.”

  “You’re not interested in marriage, then?”

  “Not with him or any other man.”

  “Did you have an argument with Mrs. Purvis the other morning, out in front of her house?”

  “Yes. She accused me of spying on her, a ridiculous charge. I was merely passing by and stopped for a moment to rest. I told her so and she became abusive.”

  “What did you do then?”

  “Simply walked away.”

  “So you have no animosity toward her.”

  “Not until now. If she persists in making slanderous accusations against me, I will consult an attorney. Kindly tell her that. Now if you have no more questions, Sheriff, I have my sewing to attend to.”

  Well, hell’s bells. It was her word against Reba’s, and I’d known Reba to jump to conclusions and exaggerate to beat the band. There wasn’t a shred of proof that Grace Selkirk poisoned the buttermilk, or any good reason I could see why she would have. I let her go on about her business while I went on about mine.

  * * *

  “I TOLD YOU she was a witch!” Reba cried. “Didn’t I tell you she was? A murderous witch!”

  “That may be, but—”

  “She did poison the buttermilk. I have no other enemies, it couldn’t be anyone else. Or do you choose to believe her instead of me?”

  “Sure not, but—”

  “If she succeeds in slaughtering me, my death will be on your head, Lucas Monk.”

  I swallowed a sigh. I hadn’t relished coming back to her house to tell her about my talk with Grace Selkirk, but I had to do it. Naturally it threw her into a tizzy and brought the expected load of wrath down on my head. Not that I blamed her for being upset. I just didn’t much care for being castigated for something beyond my control and that was no fault of mine.

  “You’re not in any more danger,” I said. “If the Selkirk woman is guilty, she knows now that I’ve got my eye on her. She wouldn’t dare make another attempt on your life.”

  “You can’t be sure of that unless you watch her twenty-four hours a day. Or me twenty-four hours a day.”

  I let that pass. “What would you have me do, Reba? My hands are tied without evidence.”

  “Find the potassium cyanide she used. Search her room in Titus’s house.”

  “I can’t do that without a warrant. And I can’t get a warrant without cause enough to convince Judge Peterson. Besides, she’d be smart enough to hide the poison someplace or get rid of it.”

  “Then for heaven’s sake find out where she got it. Talk to Adam Peach at the drugstore.”

  “You can’t buy potassium cyanide in a drugstore,” I said. “Only way I know to get it is from apricot pits, almonds, cassava roots. Then chemicals have to be added to the powder.”

  “You see? She is a witch. Only a witch would know how to mix up such a devil’s concoction.”

  Wasn’t anything I could say to that. For one thing, just about anybody, if they set their mind to it, could learn how to make the stuff by reading a chemistry book or a book on poisons. For another thing, it wasn’t likely a private citizen could extract and mix up a batch of potassium cyanide in less than twenty-four hours. Barring that witch nonsense, why would Grace Selkirk have some already made and on hand? But Reba wasn’t in a frame of mind to listen to sensible explanations.

  “What kind of chemicals?” she said.

  “How’s that?”

  “You said the poison has to be mixed with chemicals. What kind?”

  “I don’t rightly know.”

  “Well, find out and ask Adam if he sold any of those to her.”

  “I doubt they’re the kind that’d be stocked in a drugstore. Even if they were, Grace Selkirk wouldn’t likely buy them in her own backyard.”

  Reba made a sound in her throat like a wasp caught in a spiderweb. “So you’re not going to do anything at all,” she said.

  “You needn’t fret about that. I’ll do all I’m empowered to do, and one way or another I’ll get to the bottom of this business. Meanwhile, I’ll ask you not to say anything to anybody about what happened to Hannah with that poisoned buttermilk. And that goes double for making any more unfounded accusations against Grace Selkirk. She’s liable to bring a suit against you for slander if you do; she as much as told me she’d do just that.”

  “Witch!”

  “Reba—”

  “Very well, I’ll keep this foul business to myself for the time being,” she said, harsh and stiff, “but you had better get to the bottom of it, Sheriff.” Sheriff this time, not Lucas. “For your sake as well as mine.”

  FIVE

  THE THIRD AND most shocking crime in the sudden epidemic reared its ugly head the next afternoon.

  Saturdays are a busy market day in Peaceful Bend. Folks come in from the ranches and farms and outlying hamlets to do their weekly shopping, socialize with friends, get haircuts and shaves, and treat themselves to sodas and ice cream at Peach’s Drugstore or beer and stronger spirits in one of the saloons before heading back home. Mornings when I’m not busy with sheriff’s matters, I spruce up some in a starched white shirt, string tie, and my best suit, clap my stockman’s Stetson on my head, and walk around town saying howdy to those I haven’t seen in a while. My political opponents claim it’s calculated to curry favor with the voters, but that’s not how I look at it. I figure it’s incumbent on a public official to be neighborly and make himself available to listen to comments, suggestions, and complaints from the people he serves.

  Before I got around to that activity I went to see how Hannah Mead was getting on. Still in her bed but recovering, Reba told me, tight-lipped. She wouldn’t take me upstairs this time. Wasn’t any need for me to talk to Hannah, she said; she’d already told me everything there was to tell. Still peeved at me for not clapping Grace Selkirk in irons on her say-so. I didn’t tell her that I’d had a careful roundabout conversation with Adam Peach after leaving her the day before, and as I figured, he hadn’t sold anything to anybody recently that could be used to make potassium cyanide. Such news would only have started her haranguing me again.

  Lester Smithfield buttonholed me on my way back to Main Street. He wanted to know how my investigation into the stolen wooden Indian was progressing, and scolded me for not coming to see him yesterday. What with the buttermilk poisoning business, I’d totally forgotten that he’d come to the sheriff’s office asking for me. I apologized, and told him as much as I deemed proper for public consumption. Lester is one of my staunchest supporters, but he’s also a newshound who needs to be fed regular to keep him happy.

  Otherwise it was a normal Saturday morning made even more palatable by the fact that Henry Bandelier stayed clear of me. The afternoon started out normal, too. After an early lunch at the Valley Hotel, I walked over to the Municipal Park baseball diamond. Baseball is real popular in the spring and summer, with a game just about every week—school and pick-up matches, and contests between the Peaceful Bend Bobcats and teams from Elkton, the only other town of any size in the valley, and towns in the nearby counties. I reckon I’m as big an addict as anybody; attend as many local games as I can, keep tabs on the Major Leagues in the big-city newspapers that come in by train. One of my fondest wishes is to one day sit in the stands in Detroit or Washington and watch Ty Cobb bat against Walter Johnson, not that that’s ever likely to happen. Farthest out of Montana I’ve ever gone or am ever likely to is Laramie, Wyoming, to pick up a wanted felon.

  Today was crisp-cold and sunny, with that hint of winter in the air, but just as I expected, a handful of kids were out there on the field taking turns hitting and chasing fly balls. I sat down to watch them. That was where I was and what I was doing when Jeb Barrett came rattling up fast in his ranch wagon, calling my name.

  “Figured I’d find you here, Sheriff,” he said. He was a baseball addict himself, plays first
base for the Bobcats. Good-humored gent, Jeb, but he wasn’t cheerful today. Just the opposite, his lean face drawn tight and grim. “Something bad’s happened. Real bad.”

  “What is it?”

  “My two boys went poking around over at the old Crockett place this morning. Weren’t supposed to trespass, but you know how kids are. They got it into their heads to pull off the cover on what’s left of the dry well, and when they saw what was down inside, they come racing home to tell me. I thought they were funning me at first, but when I rode over there and had a look for myself, I come straight in to fetch you.”

  “What’s in that well, Jeb?”

  “A dead woman. Young girl, looks like.”

  “Sweet Jesus.” After twenty years and all I’ve had to contend with in that time I’m not easily shocked, but the thought of a young girl dead in the well on the abandoned Crockett property was enough to turn my insides to ice. “Could you tell who she was?”

  “Not for sure. She’s lying twenty feet down on a pile of rubble, facedown. But she appears young and slim and she’s got long blond hair. It could be Charity Axthelm.”

  Charity Axthelm. The ranch girl Reba’d told me had run off with the traveling peddler three days ago.

  “How long you figure she’s been in there?”

  “Not long enough for … well, you know.”

  No smell of decay, he meant. “Any sign of violence on the body?”

  “Hard to tell from a distance.” He let out a heavy breath. “But she sure didn’t fall into the well by accident. The cover was on it. My boys been messing around over there before, and Doyle swears the other times the cover was off and laying on the ground. Somebody had to’ve slid it back on.”

  I climbed onto the seat beside him and Jeb drove us quick to the courthouse. Boone Hudson happened to be in the sheriff’s office today; he lives in Elkton, up in the northeastern part of the county, and patrols that section of the valley. Carse was there with him, the two of them playing checkers. I told them what Jeb had told me, sent Boone to inform Doc Olsen, sent Jeb on his way back to the Crockett place, and took Carse with me to the garage to crank up the Model T.

  For a change the motor caught without much fuss. I let Carse drive; he’s better at negotiating road ruts than I am, and less apt to blister the air with oaths when one of ’em comes near cracking a man’s spine.

  What was left of the Crockett farm was two miles east of town, adjacent to Jeb Barrett’s property on Little Bear Creek—one of several valley farms that had been abandoned, though not for the same reason as most. The land’s good, but not all the homesteaders who flocked to Montana the past decade or so were willing or able to work it hard enough and long enough to make a worthwhile living. Seth Crockett was one of those. Too lazy, and too fond of liquor to boot. His place was already run down, the unpruned trees in his plum orchard getting stunted and gnarly, when he dropped dead one afternoon while tending to his meager hay crop. He hadn’t been in the ground more than a week when his long-suffering wife auctioned off most of their belongings, packed up herself and their one offspring, and went to live with her folks in South Dakota. The farm had been for sale for more than a year now with no takers. Unless somebody bought it soon, the county would take it over and sell it for back taxes.

  Jeb was just turning his wagon onto the overgrown access lane when the flivver came belching and snorting up behind him. Doc Olsen’s Tin Lizzie was weaving along some distance behind us, Doc at the wheel and Boone hanging on for dear life beside him. Doc drives that machine of his the way he used to drive his buggy, which is to say poorly and not a little reckless.

  The weedy lane passed through barren fields, up over a rise, and down into the farmyard. The house, small barn, and lean-to stable were tumbledown, with missing boards and shingles, and the poorly built chicken coop had collapsed in on itself; altogether the buildings had a desolate look in the pale sunlight. Creepers and wild climbing roses covered one wall of the house and half the sagging porch roof. Tall summer-brown grass and weeds made a jungle of the yard and what had once been a vegetable garden. The old well, if I remembered correctly, was behind the farmhouse.

  Jeb stopped his wagon and Carse rattled the flivver up behind. The oldest Barrett son, Doyle, was waiting for us along with Jeb. He’s big for his age, about twelve, and usually had a kid’s swagger about him. Not today. He looked relieved to see his pa and the county law, as if being alone here with the poor dead girl had spooked him some. I didn’t blame him. The cold, gusty wind made noises like ghosts moaning and wailing.

  We all trudged around to where the old well was, picking our way past gopher holes, rocks, scattered pieces of rotted wood, and avoiding thick tangles of wild blackberry. Seth Crockett had had the same poor sense when it came to locating his first well that he’d had in tending to his land. If it had been dug deeper and farther away from the house, it wouldn’t have gone dry and made it necessary for him to have another dug over near the creek where the first one should have gone.

  Wasn’t much left of the old well, the windlass having collapsed into rubble. The warped wooden cover, two halves held together by rusted hinges, had been put back on top by Jeb or Doyle or both; Carse hauled it free. My stomach roiled when I looked down inside. I could see the girl plain, lying in a twisted sprawl on the clutter of dirt and stones that had crumbled loose from the walls. Long strands of blond hair spread out around her head, the tails of a sheepskin coat bunched around her, the blue gingham dress underneath hiked partway up her bare legs. I couldn’t make out any wounds or blood. If there were any such, they were on her front side.

  Beside me Carse said, “Good God Almighty.”

  “Amen.”

  “If some son of a bitch threw her down there, I hope he rots in hell.”

  Doc Olsen’s Tin Lizzie rattled and snorted into the farmyard. I went back out there, Carse and the Barretts following. Doc had brought his bag and an old military blanket to wrap the body in. Carse fetched the rope we kept in the flivver’s trunk box. Wasn’t any question of driving either of the Model Ts around to where the well was; the rocks and gopher holes would sure have busted an axle or a wooden artillery wheel if we’d tried it. Jeb thought he could maneuver his wagon all the way around, and he managed it all right, got it drawn up fairly close to the well.

  While that was being done, Doc had his look down at the dead girl. “Hasn’t been in there long,” he said after sniffing the air. “Good thing it’s been cold lately.”

  “Jeb thinks she might be Charity Axthelm.”

  “Well, we’ll find out.”

  Carse and Jeb fastened the ropes to the wagon, then found stones to anchor the wheels. Boone was too heavy to be the one to go down into the well, and Carse is ten years younger than me, more agile, and not afflicted with bursitis. That left the unpleasant task to him.

  He tied the longest rope around his waist and climbed down with Doc’s blanket. He made short work of wrapping and tying up the body, and Jeb and Boone and me hauled it up. Then we dropped the rope back down and helped pull Carse back onto solid ground.

  “Charity Axthelm, all right,” he said. He looked a little sick.

  Doc said, “Put the body in the wagon. Then everybody back off and let me have a look at her.”

  While he was doing his examining, I told Carse and Boone to hunt around and see could they find anything that might tell us who was out here with the dead girl. Then I took Jeb and his son aside.

  “Your pa tells me the well cover was on the ground the other times you and your brother came fooling around over here,” I said to Doyle. “You sure about that?”

  “Yes, sir. We looked into the well a couple of times before. When we saw the cover was on today, we wondered how come. That’s why we took it off and looked in.”

  “How’d you and Kyle get over here today? Horseback?”

  “Yes, sir. Too far to walk from our place.”

  “When you rode in, did you notice was there any sign of recent passage
on the lane? Horse tracks? Wagon or automobile tracks?”

  “Well … the grass was beat down some.”

  “Yes, it was,” Jeb said. “I noticed that, too, when I drove in earlier.”

  “Beat down by what, would you say?”

  “Hard to tell. Could’ve been a wagon or motorcar.”

  “Were the tracks cut deep enough to’ve been made by the wheels on a heavy, loaded wagon?”

  “Didn’t look that deep, no.”

  A chorus of honks sounded overhead. Another flock of wild geese headed south for the winter. When they were gone, I said, “Either of you see anybody in this vicinity recently who doesn’t live around here? That itinerant peddler, Rainey, that was in the valley last week, for instance?”

  Doyle shook his head. Jeb said, “Didn’t come out this way, far as I know. Why? You suspect him, Sheriff?”

  “No cause to suspect anybody until I know for sure how the girl died.”

  I knew for sure three minutes later, when Doc Olsen finished his preliminary examination. “Cause of death appears to be manual strangulation,” he told me. “Deep bruises on her throat and neck. The broken neck most likely happened when her body was thrown into the well.”

  “So now we definitely got us a murder on our hands.”

  “You have, Lucas. I’m only a doctor and glad of it.”

  “And the county coroner.”

  He said, testy, “I don’t need you to remind me of my duties.”

  “One of which is calling a coroner’s jury. You figure on doing that right away?”

  “I hadn’t thought that far.”

  “I’d take it as a favor if you’d hold off until Monday,” I said. “Give me time to do some investigating, maybe find out enough so the jury can render a more informed verdict. Any objection?”

  “No, no objection. They’re just a legal formality anyway.”

  For a fact they were. Nine men to look at the body and see for themselves how she’d died, listen to testimony from witnesses such as Jeb and Carse and me, and unless there was strong evidence as to who was responsible, make the usual determination of death at the hands of person or persons unknown.