Murder in Dogleg City (3 page)

Quint glanced at the closed door of
Asa’s as they walked past. It was dark behind the filth-streaked
glass. The Red Chamber, an opium den directly across the street,
was closed as well. The Red Chamber was owned by Tsu Chiao, another
Chinese—everyone pronounced his name “Soo Chow.” Quint wondered if
Li Wong and Soo Chow had a misunderstanding. Fortunately, Soo Chow
spoke English fluently, so maybe they could get to the bottom of
this quickly. Li Wong, however, walked on past the Red Chamber. He
turned beside Asa’s Saloon and headed to the back, toward the whore
shacks of Cribtown. As soon as Li Wong reached the back corner of
Asa’s, he began speaking excitedly in Chinese and
pointing.

A man was crumpled on the ground. He
lay on his back, open but sightless eyes fixed on the sky. He was
dressed in cowboy garb—denim pants, cotton shirt and a cowhide
vest. The fly of his pants was open and the end of his pecker,
though shriveled, was visible; the whole front of the pants was
piss stained. Quint dropped to one knee and touched the back of his
hand to the man’s neck. It was cold, too cold to have been chilled
by the night air alone. He lifted the man’s shoulder and looked at
his back. He had been shot between the shoulder blades. The heart
must have stopped right away as there was not a lot of blood. Quint
lowered the body. There was no obvious exit wound. The man had most
likely been shot with a pistol, and the ball was lodged somewhere
inside. A rifle bullet would have gone clean through.

Quint searched the man’s pockets and
found $122.00 in bills and a few coins, all of which he stuffed
into his own shirt pocket for accounting. He looked for any papers
that might indicate who the victim was, but found nothing. The man
had a .36 caliber Navy Colt still in its holster. It was fully
loaded and unfired. Quint stuck it in his belt. It looked as if the
man was most likely taking a leak when someone shot him in the
back.

Quint stood and studied the
surrounding area, then turned to face Li Wong,

“
I suppose you found him
while you were making your rounds to pick up some dirty
laundry?”

Li Wong nodded. “Miss Haddie say pick
up clothes outside early.” The Miss Haddie in question, Quint knew,
lived and whored in one of the shacks nearby.

Quint knew that Sam would assign him
all the investigating leg work, particularly since the killing had
taken place in Dogleg City—Quint’s unofficially assigned territory.
Sam was most likely still in his quarters; the marshal liked to be
most visible during the evening gambling hours. It would be up to
Quint to notify Elijah Gravely the undertaker to pick up the body,
then contact Doctor Munro for his assessment.

Quint pointed toward the street and
The Red Chamber. “We could walk over and talk a bit with Soo Chow,
see if he has anything to add to this.”

Li Wong bristled visibly. Quint knew
there was a rift between the two Chinese men—Li Wong disapproved of
Tsu Chiao’s abusive opium trade at The Red Chamber, and disapproved
even more of his unwanted attentions towards Li Wong’s
sixteen-year-old daughter. Tsu Chiao no doubt figured the nubile
young girl would make a prized addition to the wing of his
establishment he called “the Jade Chamber.”

“
You can take your cart
and go on back to the laundry, Li Wong, I’ll speak with Soo Chow
later on,” Quint said. The relief was evident in Li Wong’s face.
“You can save me a trip if you would stop by Gravely’s Funeral Home
and tell Elijah that I need him to come down and pick the body up,
I’d appreciate it.” Li Wong nodded, then wasted no time in
leaving.

Quint turned back to the body to study
it for clues. He noticed the man’s boots were not new, but were
well cared for and recently blacked. The tops of the toes were not
worn or scored by stirrups as a drover’s boots would be. He picked
up one of the man’s hands, noting the long slender fingers and the
uncallused palms. Despite the man’s attire, he was no
cowboy.

Quint examined the man’s pistol. The
Navy Colt had been converted to cartridges from cap and ball. He
looked more closely at the finely-tooled, belted holster—the Colt’s
handle had been facing forward on the left side, available for a
convenient draw with the right hand while seated. The man seemed
out of place in this cheap part of town—just what was he doing
here?

While he waited for Gravely’s carriage
to show up, Quint walked back between the shacks of Cribtown that
sat directly behind Asa’s. There was a stench of hastily emptied
douche pans and chamber pots about the debris littered place; old
clothes, empty bottles, smashed crates and a broken chair were
lying about. If the night time revelers ever saw this mess in the
light of a sober day, perhaps they would change their mind about
ever coming back again.

Quint was looking around, not at
anything in particular, when he spotted a pair of legs behind an
empty crate. His first thought was that he had discovered another
body —but when he walked up, the slight form of Rupe Tingley, the
one-armed saloon swamper, began to move. He was just waking up.
Quint noticed an empty whisky bottle lying close to the matted
grass where the man had been lying.

“
What are you doing here,
Rupe?”

The man sat up, then rolled around to
his knees and stood, using his good arm for support. Rupe looked
around through bleary eyes, swaying a little before steadying
himself. Quint could smell the foul odor of his whiskey breath.
Rupe shook his head a little, as if to clear the
cobwebs.

“
I don’t know, it was
dark. I musta fell asleep.”

“
How long have you been
here?”

Rupe shook his head from side to side
again. “It was late.”

“
Did you see or hear
anyone shooting behind Asa’s last night?”

Rupe dabbed the back of his hand
across his reddened eyes. “I can’t say,” was all he managed before
going into a coughing spell.

Quint waited until Rupe had finished
gasping for breath, “Are you going to be able to do the cleanup
today, Rupe?”

Rupe straightened up a little, pulling
his shoulders back. “Damn, sometimes I just cain’t drink that stuff
like I used to,” he said, then coughed again. “I was just heading
up to the Lucky Break, Quint.”

Rupe stared at Quint as if noticing
him for the first time. “Say, deputy, you wouldn’t happen to be
willing to spot a man an eye opener, would ya?”

Quint reached in his pocket and handed
Rupe a nickel; it would cover the price of a beer. Then Quint heard
the rumbling of the funeral carriage pulling up behind Asa’s to
retrieve the body.

Quint wanted to question Rupe further,
but not here. He would look him up later when the man was fully
functional and take him to the marshal’s office. There, just maybe,
Rupe might remember something and open up if he got out of his
familiar surroundings. At least eliminating the fear of listening
ears, which Quint figured were all around this place, might help
loosen his tongue.

Quint needed to locate Marshal Sam
Gardner and advise him of the killing. He already knew what Sam
would most likely say to him, once he heard the news. He would say,
“You need to answer the five W’s—who, what, where, when and why.
When you can answer all of those, you’ll have solved the case.” Sam
had served as captain of an Illinois cavalry company during the
war, and had developed a reputation as an efficient lawman in the
years since. He was a sharp dresser, and more than a tad vain, but
he carried himself with an easy, confident authority. The man had
his faults, but he had been very patient in training his young
deputy.

* * *

When Quint got to Ma’s Café he found
Sam at his usual corner table. Ten in the morning was Sam’s
breakfast hour; he had finished his meal and was sipping coffee.
When Quint walked in, Sam knew something was up—he rarely saw his
deputy before noon.

Sam swept a hand toward the pot.
“Coffee?”

Quint helped himself.

“
What have you got,
Quint?”

Quint settled into a chair across from
Sam. “There was a killing last night, down in Cribtown, right
behind Asa’s. The victim was dressed like a working drover but the
evidence suggested otherwise.”

Quint told of the boots, the soft
hands and the money on the man’s person.

Sam’s eyebrows went up, “Asa’s Saloon
is the asshole of Wolf Creek. The worst scum frequent that place. A
killing anywhere around there is no surprise —but it sounds like
your man drifted out of bounds. Any idea as to who he
was?”

Quint leaned back in his chair, “I
didn’t find any papers on him, just $122.00 in bills and change. He
had an unfired but fully loaded .36 Colt, still in its holster. It
looked to me like the fella didn’t want to walk an extra fifty feet
to the outhouse, so he stopped in the shadows and was taking a piss
when someone shot him in the back. Doc says he figures it happened
sometime around midnight.”

The marshal’s eyebrows went up even
further. “Now this is a new wrinkle. While shooting a stranger in
Cribtown is not that unusual, not robbing him afterwards is
dumbfounding. Hell, it’s mildly astonishing the corpse hadn’t been
robbed of all clothing and dental fillings. Were there any
witnesses?”

“
I haven’t been able to
interview anyone from the saloons because all the night people are
still sleeping. I did find Rupe Tingley sleeping on the ground
behind one of the shacks in Cribtown. He looked to be in pretty
rough shape. I figure we ought to talk to him later, when he’s
fully awake. He may have seen something, but I don’t know how we’d
get him to talk about it. When I asked him if he saw a shooting, he
just said that he couldn’t say.”

Sam nodded. “Could be that Rupe was
seeing elephants last night—but like you say, we’ll talk with him
later. You’ve sure enough been busy this morning Quint, but as you
know, there’s more to do. The objective right now is to find out
who the fellow was. You need to go over and let the Sheriff’s
office know about the killing—see if Sheriff Satterlee has any
reward dodgers on the man.”

Quint nodded. Sam picked up the
coffeepot and waved it in the deputy’s direction—Quint declined, so
the marshal poured himself another cup. Then he continued his
instructions.

“
After that you can go on
over to the livery, see if there’s an unclaimed horse. Check with
Richard Wilhite over at the Imperial Hotel—maybe he remembers
something about the stranger, and for sure he’ll have a signature
on the registry. Then you’ll need to go down to Dogleg City and
grill the hell out of Asa Pepper. I find it hard to believe
somebody can get shot outside Asa’s place and him know nothing
about it. See Soo Chow over at the Red Chamber too, while you’re at
it. I don’t know if it’ll do any good going very far into
Cribtown—those women that work the area aren’t apt to say much even
if they know anything. You might talk to Haddie, that whore that
lives in the first shack on the left, though, she’s always been
cooperative.”

“
All right, Sam,” Quint
said. “After I go to the Sheriff, the hotel, and see Ben Tolliver
at the livery, I’ll start off at the high end of town and work on
down to the worst places—the way a working cowboy would drink his
way through town.”

Sam Gardner nodded his approval.
“You’ve got a full plate, then, Quint. I’ll help out as much as I
can. When we leave here, I’ll go by Gravely’s and have a look at
the corpse, get his description in my mind, the clothes he was
wearing and such. I’ll let Mayor Henry know over at the Lucky
Break, and I was going to see Ira Breedlove at the Wolf’s Den
anyway so I’ll ask around there. This afternoon, when they all wake
up, I’ll venture into Abby Potter’s whore house and see if she or
any of the girls knew of the man. Let’s meet back here around noon
and compare notes.”

* * *

Quint took it upon himself to stop in
at the Lucky Break, even though Sam had said he was going by the
place as well. Quint wanted to do some digging around of his own,
and see if he could figure out a motive for the killing.

Rob Parker, the Lucky Break’s head
bartender, was bleary-eyed—he had not been awake long. The burly,
bearded man yawned heavily as he washed glasses.

“
Mornin’, Rob,” Quint
said. “Boy, you look like hell this time of day.”

Rob shrugged. “You look like hell
ever’ time of day.”

“
I can’t argue with that.
Say, we found a fresh corpse down by Cribtown this morning—I was
wondering if you saw him in here at any time last
night.”

“
Ever’body I saw was
alive, or close to it. Anything particular I’m supposed to be
remembering?”

“
This fella was a tall
man, in his mid-thirties. Brown hair, pock-marked face—dressed like
a drover.”

Rob’s eyes shifted from his polishing
cloth to Quint. “Pock-marked, huh. I do remember seeing a man of
that description in here.”

“
You say you talked to
this fella last night?” Quint asked.

“
No, I said that I saw a
man of that description in here last night. I didn’t get a name. He
liked to talk, I know that. Seems like he was gabbing to anyone who
would listen the whole time he was here–until he came across
Alexander Munder, anyways. Munder is immune to other people’s
voices—he gave Pock-Marks an earful about his cold-hearted wife,
until Munder found someone else to glom onto.”