“You said Jed got what he deserved.”
“I don’t feel that way now. He was right all along. If I’d listened to him, he’d be alive, but I thought I had to stick by my family. You can see where that got me.”
There wasn’t much Fargo could say to that. He said, “You might be surprised at how forgiving people can be if they know you’re sorry for what you did. I don’t think Abby will blame you for anything after she hears what you have to say. She’ll help you find a place around here.”
“That would be nice, but I don’t know if I can ask her. It’s not right, what I’ve done.”
“People change,” Fargo said, though in his experience the ones who did were few and far between. “You talk to Abby. You might find out she’s changed a little, too.”
Angel said she’d try, and Fargo left to pay his visit to Molly.
Molly was feeding the chickens when Fargo got there, sticking her hand into a bag of corn and flinging it out in wide swaths. As soon as the grain hit the ground, the chickens would snap it up. Or they’d snap something up. Since they were in the chicken yard, the chickens would sometimes miss the corn and peck at their own droppings. After watching them for a few seconds, Fargo thought it might be a while before he wanted to eat fried chicken again.
“Hey, Fargo,” Molly said when she saw him standing there. “Did you come by to help me feed the chickens?” She gave him a wicked grin. “Or did you have something else in mind?”
“I had something else in mind,” Fargo said, “but it might not be what you’re thinking.”
“That’s too bad, but it’s nice to see you anyway. I have to put this corn in the barn. Come on along.”
Molly went off toward the barn, and Fargo followed behind. She put the bag of corn in a barrel so nothing would get into it. She covered the barrel, dusted off her hands, and turned to Fargo.
“All right. If this isn’t about what I was hoping it was, what is it about?”
“We need to have a little talk,” Fargo said.
“We’re talking already. You have a particular subject in mind?”
“Peter Murray.”
“That’s one thing I’d just as soon not talk about. He’s not a very pleasant subject.”
Fargo thought it might get less pleasant before their conversation was over. He said, “Do you want to talk here in the barn or go inside?”
“It’s nice enough here in the barn.” Molly sat on the covered barrel. “Find yourself a seat and let’s talk.”
Fargo pulled a nail keg over and sat down on it. He was at a lower level than Molly, and she had to look down at him to see his face.
“Now, what is it about Murray that you want to tell me?” Molly asked.
Fargo told her what Angel had said about the death of Murray’s wife and the way Murray felt because of it. Then he talked about how Murray always knew what was going to happen and where everyone was going to be.
“We’ve talked about that last part before. At Jed’s funeral. Remember?”
Fargo said that he did. “I’ve been thinking about it some more. If Murray knew everything that was going on, somebody had to tell him.”
“I figured that, but I don’t know who it could be. There are a lot of people around here, and I can’t keep watch on all of them.”
Fargo didn’t really think she’d tried to keep watch. He said, “Only a few people knew where Paul Murray was buried. And of the ones who knew, three of them are dead.”
Molly looked at him through hooded eyes.
“What are you trying to say, Fargo? That I have something to do with what Murray finds out about things?”
“It could be that way,” Fargo told her.
“But you don’t think so, do you. You know me better than that, Fargo.”
Fargo wasn’t sure you could ever know people well enough to predict what they might or might not do, no matter how long you’d known them.
“I’m not sure what to think,” he said. “Your house and barn were burned, but not any of the others. I asked myself about why that might be.”
“It could be that Murray hates me more than the others. And that means I’m not the one passing information to him.”
“Or it could be that he just wanted people to think he hates you. You have another house and barn already, and it didn’t take you long to get them.”
“I don’t like the way this is going, Fargo. You might want to think it over before you say anything else.”
“I’ve already thought about it. I don’t have much else to say.”
“That’s good, because I’m about through listening. Get on with it.”
“It’s about Jed,” Fargo said. “I don’t think anybody in the Murray gang killed him.”
“I don’t know what makes you say that. Everybody knows he was killed in the fight at Lem’s barn.”
“He was killed in the fight, all right, but it wasn’t the Murrays who killed him. I’ve been pretty sure of that all along. They were on horseback, but the way the bullet went in Jed’s head showed that whoever shot him was standing behind him. Murray wanted him dead, all right, but he had to be sure the job was done. The one way to do that would be to have somebody there who could take care of it. It would have been easy for somebody who was already at the party to come up behind and kill Jed in all the confusion.”
“Why would someone besides the Murrays want to kill Jed?”
“Because they wanted to get rid of him. Maybe whoever did it was jealous.”
Molly slid off the barrel and stood facing Fargo.
“Are you saying that I killed him because I was jealous of Abby? And that I was spying on everybody for the same reason?”
“It makes sense,” Fargo said. “You knew where Paul was buried, and that’s important. Not just the general area. Everybody knew that. But Murray went right to the grave and dug in the right place. I was there and saw it. Somebody had to tell him just exactly where the grave was.”
Molly drew herself up a little straighter. She towered over Fargo, who continued sitting on the nail keg.
“You’re going to make me mad in a minute if you keep on like this,” Molly said.
“You can settle down,” Fargo told her. “I don’t really think it was you. It could have been, though, and I wanted to make sure it wasn’t.”
“And you’re sure now?”
“I’m sure. You wouldn’t be so mad at me if you were guilty.”
Molly relaxed. She grinned and sat back down on the barrel.
“How do you know I’m not lying to you?”
“You could be, but I don’t think so. There’s somebody else who fits all the facts even better than you do.”
Molly thought a second and said, “Rip Johnson.”
“That’s right. Rip. I asked Lem if Rip would be willing to fight with the rest of us, and he said that Rip was ready to go, and that he wanted to know as soon as anything was decided. I figure he wants to know first so he can get word to Murray. And when you think about it, it was mighty convenient that his wife was the only one killed when Murray raided his place. Everybody was drunk, but Rip might not have been as drunk as he wanted us to think. He might even have pushed his wife out of the house or told her to go outside. The others were too drunk to know if he did.”
Molly’s mouth twisted in disgust. “And him doing all the crying about her being dead. He was probably glad to get her out of the way so he could start working on Abby.”
“He’s already been sniffing around. His house and barn weren’t burned, either, but then only yours were.”
“Don’t get started on that again. If you want to know, I think Murray did that because he thought I might leave if he did. I’m the only one around here with guts enough to stand up to him now that Jed’s gone, and he’d be glad to get rid of me. But I’m not all that easy to get run off.”