The other two, each in a smaller and less ornate hearse, were carried off toward the respective cemeteries chosen by the widows of the dead Denver men.
Longarm, still with Henry beside him, paid his respects to Mrs. Vail. He was going to have to remember, he reminded himself, to call on her every now and then and see what he might do to help ease her burden. God, he hoped Billy had left her well provided for, because the government would only give her a pittance for a pension, if it bothered to give her anything at all. Then, his heart near to breaking, he turned away.
He decided against going on to the cemetery to see Billy’s coffin put underground. This right here had been bad enough.
Besides, dammit, there was a pursuit to organize, and the sooner that was done the better.
“Come along, Custis. I have a hackney waiting around the corner.”
Longarm nodded and, without protest, allowed Henry to lead him away from the saddest and most miserable damn thing he’d ever in his life had to do. God, this was bad.
Chapter 3
Longarm leaned forward to flick the butt of a cheroot out of the cab window, then slouched back onto the worn padding of the seat. He felt lousy. But then this was one truly lousy day in every way that counted.
“Long. Custis.”
“Yes, Henry?”
“Could I … could I ask you something.”
“Yeah, of course.” Longarm continued to peer out the window, not really focusing on anything, his expression vacant and miserable.
“The … I remember the other day seeing you run after the carriage, what was left of it.”
“Uh-huh.”
“And today … those coffins being closed.”
“Yes?”
“Was it bad?”
The scene came all too readily back into Longarm’s memory. Just like it had been that day.
“It was bad,” he said softly, not wanting to go over it again in his mind, but knowing Henry was entitled to an answer. Henry had cared for Billy every bit as much as Longarm did. No, that probably wasn’t true either. Henry very probably cared for Billy Vail even more than Longarm. They’d worked together every day, and were much more than boss and employee. They’d been friends. That was one of Billy Vail’s many gifts. He was able to command more than mere loyalty from the people he worked with. He was able to generate love as well.
“Time I caught up with them,” Longarm went on, “there was already an ambulance there. I don’t know how they got there so quick, but they did, and I know they were trying their best. The carriage was torn all to pieces. The whole back end of it was laying in the street back by the Federal Building. That and Mrs. Troutman’s body.
“The ambulance attendants were picking up the commissioner when I got there. They had the back end of the ambulance open, and they were putting the commissioner on a stretcher. I could see that part of his leg”—Longarm paused, frowning in thought—“his right leg, I think it was, was missing. I remember that real clear because one of the men on the ambulance after they put the stretcher inside, he reached down and picked up the missing piece of leg and laid it onto the stretcher beside where it should’ve gone if it hadn’t got blowed off.”
“Jesus, God,” Henry said, whispering it in such a way that Longarm didn’t take it for blasphemy but for a sort of prayer instead.
“Billy and Mr. Terrell …” Longarm squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, although he kept his face turned away so Henry wouldn’t see. “I tell you true, Henry, I never seen so much blood. They was both covered with it from top to toe. It was … it was pretty awful.”
“The thing is … d’you think he suffered?” Henry asked. “That’s what I’ve been worrying over ever since it happened. Did he suffer any?”
“That much blood … I don’t expect he would have. He must have died quick, I think.”
“He wasn’t moving when they picked him up?”
“No, nor the attorney. The only one that showed any life was the commissioner, and he was screaming and losing blood in great, awful gouts of the stuff. I doubt he lasted halfway to the hospital unless they managed to get the bleeding stopped somehow.”
“But the marshal …?”
“I never saw him move at all. He just laid there all awash in blood, and they picked him up and then Terrell, and after that they were clanging the bell and running like hell toward the hospital.”
“You didn’t follow after them?”
“Not then. I circled back and walked the streets some, thinking I could maybe spot the bomber trying to slip away unnoticed. But I never saw anything more of him. I expect he got rid of the cloak right away, and I don’t know about you but I never saw what he had on under it, so I prob’ly could’ve walked right past him on the sidewalk and never known it. Later on that evening I went over to the hospital. They told me none of them made it. I can’t say I was surprised. But you gotta hope. You know?”
“I know. I was there too that afternoon. It wasn’t news I wanted to get,” Henry said.
“We’re gonna find whoever threw that bomb, Henry. I swear we are.”
“I hope I’m there when it happens,” Henry said in a coldly bitter tone. Longarm looked at him. Henry might look meek and bookish. And for the most part he genuinely was. But the little man had more grit than enough, and Longarm knew he could turn loose with a six-gun when he had to. No doubt that was what Henry had in mind now, a chance to put some lead into whatever son of a mangy bitch it was who’d murdered Billy Vail.
Longarm stared back out the window, his eyes red and stinging for some reason.
God, this was bad.
Chapter 4
The U.S. attorney’s office was bigger than Billy Vail’s had been, but even so, it could hardly hold everybody. Longarm felt like a sardine in a can, an overly warm can at that, wedged in as he was between Henry and Smiley so that his arms were about pinned to his sides. If he’d farted, the guy behind him would have felt the breeze. In addition to every deputy working out of the Denver office, there was a contingent of U.S. deputy marshals who had been rushed in on loan from Kansas City and four more from San Francisco. There were representatives from the law-enforcing bodies of the state of Colorado, the cities of Denver, Aurora, Golden, and Central City, and Denver and Arapaho Counties. Hell, Longarm didn’t know where-all else these people came from. There was even a pair of Secret Service agents—cold-eyed men who looked like they suspected everyone there but themselves—who’d been dispatched off the president’s own protection detail and sent to keep an eye on the investigation.
The one thing all of these people seemed to have in common, Longarm thought, was that every swinging dick among them wanted to catch the bastards who’d killed Billy Vail and Avery Terrell and George and Troutman. From every jurisdiction around, and with whatever motivations there were that drove them, these boys all looked just about as offended and anxious to get on with it as Longarm was himself.
“All right, settle down now. Everybody listen up,” a voice called from the front of the room, from what had been U.S. Attorney Terrell’s desk. The room, which a moment earlier had been softly buzzing with the combined noise of several dozen simultaneous conversations, became instantly silent.
“Thank you,” the voice went on.
Longarm tried to get a look at whoever was doing the talking, but all he could see at the moment was the top of the man’s head. Which did not exactly give him much to go on.
“For those of you who do not know me,” the speaker announced, “my name is Cotton. J. B. Cotton. I am—I should say that I was—assistant U.S. attorney under Avery Terrell. The Attorney General of the United States has appointed me interim U.S. attorney for this district until such time as permanent replacements can be decided upon to fill this vacancy and that of the U.S. marshal for the district.” He paused and coughed. “It is my understanding that no decision has been made yet about whether another special envoy will be named to fill the shoes of Commissioner Troutman. All of those decisions, naturally, will be at the will of the president and Congress. In the meantime, gentlemen, it is our task—one might even say it will be our privilege—to conduct a swift and sure investigation into the shocking and unwarranted assault on our brothers in service of our government. It is up to us, each one of us assembled here today, to see that the murderers do not go unpunished, to insure that the lives of these brave and worthy men were not given up in vain.