“Hey, mister.”
He looked up. It was a kid, maybe eight, ten years old—a small boy wearing miniature bib overalls and worn-out shoes three sizes too large. Kid had an older brother, Longarm guessed. “Yeah, son?”
“Get on the other end, please?” The kid pointed to the far end of the teeter-totter, a device damn near impossible to enjoy by oneself.
“What the fu …” Oh hell, why not? It had been a rather long time. But Longarm managed to remember how the stupid things worked. He straddled the two-by-eight slab of wood, sitting fairly close to the balance point so as to make the kid’s weight about even with his when the laws of leverage applied themselves, and he and the scruffy kid were bouncing up and down like that when Sylvie Allard showed up.
“Am I interrupting anything?” she asked.
“Yeah, you are. An’ I thank you for it too.” He beckoned the boy over to him and handed the kid a dime. “Go get yourself some ice cream,” he said, figuring he still owed the ladies at the ice cream parlor something, considering. Besides, it would get the kid out of earshot.
“Thanks, mister. Thanks a lot.” The boy charged off like a coyote after a jackass rabbit, and Longarm and the woman drifted down toward the riverbank where the dark water swirled and gurgled over some white, flat rocks.
“I was commencing to think you weren’t coming,” Longarm admitted.
“I almost didn’t, actually.” She hesitated. “Would you really tell my husband?”
He shook his head. “No, I reckon not.”
That elicited a small smile. “I didn’t think you would. Not really.”
“But you came anyway.”
“You said something that made me come.”
“Not that stupid threat about …”
“No. What you said was that you want to find the man who killed Peter.”
“And your local law?”
“They will want the killing to stop, of course. But they will only charge and convict anyone if he proves to be …”
“Convenient?” Longarm suggested.
“Yes. Thank you. That is a nice way to put it.”
“Everyone seems t’ think politics is already involved in these killings,” Longarm said.
“Yes, of course. We are very political around here, you know. Every since those damn carpetbaggers came in after the War and we didn’t know how to defend ourselves from them. Well, we learned. Perhaps too well, if you see what I mean.”
“Yeah, I s’pose I do, sort of.”
“Yes, well, it is true that Peter was county secretary of the Whig party. There was talk about running him for state office too. In the party, I mean. Peter was a very quiet man. He never wanted the public exposure that holding elective office would have required.” She dropped her eyes, and he thought she might even have blushed a little. “He always said he didn’t want to take on anything that would mean moving away from Addington.”
“He must have loved you very much,” Longarm said, in response more to her demeanor than to what she was saying.
The remark hit home. Tears began to slide, silent and unheeded, down her cheeks. She pretended not to notice so he did too.
“Will you even be able to attend the funeral?” he asked.
Sylvie Allard shook her head. “My husband would wonder why. I can’t have that.”
“No, of course not.”
“I am not a bad woman, Officer.”
“No, I’m sure you aren’t.”
She gave him a sharp look. “I mean it, Officer. Appearances to the contrary.”
“I meant it too, ma’am.” Which was not entirely true, but what the hell. “Can we get back to Peter Nare and the reasons why someone might have wanted him dead?”
“I don’t suppose you know about our local politics,” she said.
“Not much, no.”
“There is a group, old residents mostly, old families here, who want to take over the Whig party and make it into something of their own. Peter opposed them. I think it is more than possible that someone from this new faction could have murdered him to make way for someone of their own choosing in Peter’s office.”
“These people would feel so strongly about it?”
“Some of them might,” she answered.
“Could you give me any names? Not as an accusation, of course. I realize you would have no way to know for sure. But some names for me to look into.”
“James Deel, Cory Johnston, Paul Burkett …” She hesitated again. “Chief Bender.” The police chief’s name came out in a bare whisper. She sounded frightened, he thought. Damn.
“You’re very brave,” he said. “Thank you.”
“I’m not brave, Officer. I just … don’t much give a damn any longer. You know?” She raised her small shoulders and dropped them again. “I only had one small measure of happiness. Now that has been taken away from me. I don’t suppose …” She didn’t finish the thought. And he did not ask.
After a moment Longarm coughed lightly into his fist and changed the subject. “I’ve heard the possibility mentioned, ma’am, that these killings could have something to do with the shenanigans at a shivaree years back. Revenge for what happened that night.”
“A shivaree, Officer?”
“Yeah, they’re …”
“I know what a shivaree is, of course. The young men around here do it all the time. I remember on our wedding ni …” She blushed, stopped, reconsidered bringing that night up.
Longarm got the distinct impression, though, that Sylvie Allard had been a more than willing bride. Whatever went wrong between herself and her husband happened long after their fondly remembered wedding night. Shivaree and all.
“What I meant to say, Officer, is that I can’t think of any reason why anyone would have particularly strong feelings about an ordinary little thing like a shivaree.”
“You don’t remember a man named Buddy Matthews or someone called Wallace Tatlinger?”
“I remember Wallace, of course. He was such a nice man. A cripple. He died a while back. Who was the other man you named?”
“Matthews,” Longarm repeated. “Buddy Matthews.”
Mrs. Allard frowned. Then her brow smoothed as memory came to her and she said, “Of course. I’d forgotten. I was a little girl then. There was a scandal. A shooting or something like that, and I think he was sent to prison. But my, that was years and years ago. I’m sure everyone has forgotten all about that by now. We have other things on our minds here, Officer, things more important than old scandals.”
“Yes, of course. I, uh, think you were gonna tell me some more about those fellows you mentioned a minute ago, Chief Bender and Deel, Johnston, Burkett?”
“Was I really?”
He smiled at her. “Well, I was kinda hoping.” She glanced toward the sun, which was dropping low on the horizon.
“Just another couple minutes,” he asked. “Then I’ll try an’ not bother you no more. And … no more threats. I’m sorry ‘bout that. I feel badly for doing it.”
“Yes, all right. I suppose a few more minutes won’t hurt. “And then,” she straightened her shoulders and tried on a brave but artificial and decidedly strained little smile, “then I shall have to think about my memories, shan’t I, as they will be the only things I can look forward to for the rest of my life.”
A couple more years, Longarm figured, and Sylvie Allard would, at least in her own mind, be a regular martyr. Thank goodness that wouldn’t be on his plate of things to fret about. He had enough worries of his own without taking hers on to boot.
“You were gonna say …?” he prompted.
“Yes, of course. Let’s see now. James Deel is …”
Chapter 22
Longarm had supper at a small cafe where they either didn’t recognize him or were too interested in food to bother deviling the intruder. Whatever the truth, no one treated him like anything but just another customer.
After the meal he lingered over pie and coffee, then lighted a smoke before venturing out onto the streets. It had come dark while he was eating, and Addington—modern though its residents seemed to think it—had no gas lights on the street corners like Denver and San Francisco and other up-to-date metropolises could boast.