Six a.m., bright an’ early, I rode up to the caravan. Three coaches long, plus a dozen riders and about a thousand head o’ cattle were stopped right where it’d happened, ‘bout a dozen miles from the nearest podunk town, surrounded by thick woods.
Great, I thought. Nothin’ like bein’ the only qualified investigator in the middle o’ bear country to make ya think maybe leavin’ the city wasn’t such a swell idea. Best backup I got if things go south is probably some drunk sheriff who thinks he’s my damn boss. Think I’ll go it alone on this one.
Well, I brought my horse to a stop by the lead carriage andd jumped off, eager to get the meet-and-greet over with with the local yokels so I could get some work done. Imagine my surprise, then, when a guy in a proper suit with a shaved face and a regular cityboy haircut came hoppin’ outta the carriage and pressed his way to the front o’ the crowd.
“I’m sorry, who is this, now? Were we expecting someone?”
No one answered him, so he stepped up and squared right up to me with a pair o’ beady, bespectacled eyes. “You’ll have to pardon my impertinence, sir,” he began, pushing his glasses up with his finger, “but who are you?”
I held out my hand. “Private investigator Saul Driver, at your service.”
“Mister Driver,” he said, ignoring my hand, “I’m Franklin Blunt, from the Department of Mutation Affairs. I’ve got this situation well in hand. Your services will not be required, so I’ll ask you to vacate the vicinity with due haste.”
No malice got into his voice or marred his pretty features, but he was gettin’ my gruff, stubbly dander up.
“I offered you my hand in generosity, pal. You don’t wanna start off that way with me, fine—we won’t be friends later either. The fact is, I’ve never heard o’ this ‘Department o’ Mutation Affairs’, so for all I know, you’re makin’ it up to obstruct justice, in which case, you’ll get to feel the butt o’ my pistol on your forehead. So are you gonna step aside?”
“It’s a new department,” he said, his resolve clearly shaken. To the man’s credit, he held his ground. I casually made a show of peering past him, then added my own two cents to the statement.
“Very new. Seems they didn’t send along a single man to back up your authority.”
Finally, the mook relented. “Under the circumstances, it appears this particular case has been...overbooked. I’m certain that we can both conduct an investigation without obstructing one another. But I warn you: If you do anything to hinder me in the performance of my duty, you will be subject to stern punishment.”
I grinned at his cowardly sneer. “I can hardly wait. Gluttony’s my favorite sin.”
Had I noticed a priest in the party facing us I mighta watched my mouth. Not that his sensibilities matter to me one iota, but this group was frazzled as it was. Last thing they needed was the only two cool heads for miles with a chance o’ crackin’ their murder case goin’ at each other like duelin’ roosters.
Blunt opened his mouth like he was gonna say somethin’, but his rage turned to shock when he realized he hadn’t a clue what I was sayin’. While he reacted I brushed past him, intent on gettin’ someone to show me to the body.
Father Darwin was all too eager to step out from the crowd and walk me to the spot, but I figured that was just the Christian way or some hooey. Seemed like the Father had somethin’ else in mind, though.
“The deceased is a...Mutation,” he managed to open with a real shocker.
“That’s the word from down-river,” I rattled off carelessly. “I guess you did last rites or whatever.”
He tensed up when I said that and got real stern. This was a sore subject for the holy man.
“I’m not certain it would have been appropriate.”
I woulda said somethin’ in reply, but then—dear God—we came upon the body. I’d never seen an uglier display o’ hatred in my years investigatin’.
She’d taken more than a dozen stab wounds, and some o’ them hadda’ve happened once the girl was already dead. Her loose-fitting patchwork pants, in colors ranging from purple to white to green, were shredded, especially around the crotch, where she’d been penetrated with a knife. Her white shirt was ripped where her breasts had each been slashed, and there were two nickels over her eyes. I went to get a closer look, crouching next to her, and the Father snapped me outta my reverie with a shock.
“Her eyes are gone.”
I looked at him with a start, frowning at my discomfort, when I saw that we’d been followed over to her. Two guys—one of ‘em a real bear of a man with a ruddy country complexion and simple clothes, his attitude smelled almost as bad as he did. The other guy was from the city. Nice tailored suit, short hair, little bit of a beard...wiry fella like my new friend from the DMA, but not as dumb by a long shot.
My first dilemma here was figurin’ out just what in God’s name’d been done with her eyes. Then, if I could find a reason the coins’d been stuck on her face, well, I’d maybe have a motive. I looked up at the group around me to see who I’d interview first. The way a man thinks says that the guy who done it was standin’ right there to make certain I didn’t put the pieces together.
“Had it comin’, damn Satanic freak,” the bear spat. The Father looked at him impassively. What was on his mind? I couldn’t guess. But the focus o’ my attention was already decided. I stood, brushed my pants and started toward this tower o’ hatred.
“And your name, sir?”
“Bradley Haring,” he replied, drawing himself up to his full, impressive height. A head taller than me and thick as a tree trunk, I don’t think I’d a’ been surprised if he turned out to be a Mutation himself.
“Let’s talk in private, Mr. Haring,” I said, keeping my tone neutral and walking past him to lead the way into the second wagon. On the way over, I could make out a little bit of an exchange between Blunt and one o’ the passengers. It made me smile.
“Wal, ah reckon if that scream hadna’ woke me up, ah wouldna’ been wanderin’ outside.”
“Scream? Is there a reason you neglected to mention this scream?”
“Well, you ain’t asked.”
But where did the scream come from?”
“Wal, from a lady’s lips, ya wingnut!”
“What are you attempting to hide? The United States Government frowns upon obstruction of justice, Mr....I’m sorry, I didn’t get your name...”
Me an’ Haring got inside and I took a seat. When I asked him to do the same, he decided it was for the best only because he couldn’t stand upright inside the carriage. He sat with his hands flat on his lap and glowered at me, but I paid it no mind.
“How long we gonna wait here while you try to figure out who gets the reward fer killin’ the witch?” he rumbled.
This was interesting, but I tried not to let it show. I wanted to give this bumpkin the benefit of the doubt. A smart murderer doesn’t talk at length about how he’s glad the victim’s dead; but was this guy a stupid murderer, or just stupid?
“I’m afraid I don’t follow you,” I said neutrally.
“Well, who cares who did it? Mutations all deserve to die. We shouldn’t wait here like somebody’s actually gonna get arrested. Honest Abe bit the big one, so the government don’t care a lick about ‘em now.”
“So if she hadn’t been killed already, I take it you’d have been happy to do the deed yourself? God knows you’d get a pat on the back from everyone present, after all.”
His giant head nodded once. “Happiern’ a pig in shit.”
“So what’s to stop me from thinking you did do it? I mean, since you’ve just provided me with ample motive and told me you wanted to and would have. That’s a confession if ever I heard one.”
His mouth opened and closed a couple times like a guppy’s, then he said, uncertainly, “But you...have to prove it.”
I knew then that this guy was no master at Checkers. “Get outta here.” I tilted my head toward the exit. “I’m through with ya.”
At first he hesitated like this was some kinda trick, then he drew himself up and made for the flap. When he got there, he seemed to think ol’ Blunt would be waitin’ to nab him. Then he got out and I thought about the situation.
Here we had a murder where the three main suspects were some country lout who hated anything he didn’t understand, up to and including arithmetic; a priest with enough religious conviction to condemn the same, but no obvious anger problems; and a third guy. Completely quiet. He looked smart, too. I decided I’d have a word with him, but when I stepped off the carriage, I saw my new friend was busy with him. I shrugged. Day was young, yet—but gettin’ hotter. If it wasn’t for the shade, we’d all boil by noon.
There mighta been somethin’ to gain from goin’ through the deceased’s belongings. Usually was. So, without preamble, I ambled on over to see what was on her person. Often that stuff was most relevant.
To say that the lady was fond o’ jewelry is an understatement, and I’m not given to that. She had more bracelets and rings than a pawn shop, and her purse, in the meantime, was cheap as they come. Thing was little more than a dark blue cloth pouch on her sash of a belt, but it didn’t jingle when I touched it. This struck me as odd. What was a lady with all this fine stuff doin’ broke? Not that she seemed to know the difference between what was valuable and what she just thought was pretty—or maybe she didn’t care. Maybe she was livin’ on daddy’s dime, then daddy passed away unexpectedly and she never learned to save for a rainy day. So I untied the pouch and opened it, and the damn thing was lookin’ back at me! Or, well, that’s how it seemed when my heart first jumped to my throat. Then I realized, still disturbed, that some nut had put her eyes in the bag. They were blue. She was a pretty girl when she was alive.
Whoever did this—put her eyes in the money pouch and money over her eye sockets—they weren’t just playin’ switcheroo for fun. They wanted to make a point. Once I knew the girl’s story, the killer’s story’d naturally intersect with it. Or so I’d hoped.
Pencilneck showed up when I was walkin’ away from the body. Seemed he’d recovered some o’ his starch while we’d been apart.
“I trust that you’ve handled the body and surrounding evidence with due diligence, that I may find everything intact and undisturbed? Tampering with evidence is a f--”
“She’s all yours, Chief,” I interjected, and with that latest brush-off I went to check out the rest o’ the lady’s stuff.
She’d taken the back wagon, which didn’t come as much of a surprise, bein’ that she struck me as the type who kept secrets inside secrets. I found her stuff inside a pretty little oak trunk with a lock that didn’t work. Bet she looked over her slim little shoulder every time she opened it. There was a deck o’ tarot cards, a journal, a flask with some kinda hooch and a little doll. Other than that, dust. The caravan probably kept all the food together, which I wagered had been paid for in advance.
The cards, weighed with her complexion, clued me in that she was some kinda Gypsy. That probably didn’t work in her favor against the prejudice of her fellow riders. But the primary object o’ my interest was the diary.
The moment I cracked it open did shed some light on the subject, though this was entirely the wrong variety. I winced against the sunlight and stared at Pencilneck, whose contempt could be smelled like distant cowshit.
“You opened the pouch on the deceased’s person,” he said, an accusation.
“Yeah, I did. You wanna make a Federal case out o’--sorry, right, ‘course you do.” I smiled, though I wasn’t feeling anything but annoyed.
“I simply wished to make sure.” He pouted and left.
Good, I thought, kid seems to know that we both got the same right to the evidence until I’m shown proof to the contrary. Hope he can’t have my license revoked.
The diary wasn’t in a language I could read, that’s for sure. Words like “gadjo” and “Romanipen” appeared with extraordinary frequency, the latter cluing me in that I was a hundred percent on the spot, and this girl was a Gypsy. I closed it up and put it away, thinking that was the only useful piece o’ information I was gonna get from it. I thought briefly about leaving a note to my dear friend Pencilneck, then thought better of it. I’m a professional, after all.
Back into the sun, and boy, was it hot. I was bakin’ inside the wagon, but this wasn’t much better. Seemed to me now’d be a good time to interview the city boy, seein’ as Pencilneck was busy with the gorilla I’d first interviewed.
City boy came quietly enough, and gave his name as Mr. Gerard Colvin. This guy really was a twig, and he sat smart and straight like he was attendin’ a private primary school lesson. Owlish eyes blinked from behind big round lenses.
“What is it you’re headin’ west for, Mr. Colvin?”
“Back home in New York, I studied accounting. They say there’s money to be made in the West, and a lot of entrepreneurs have set up shop out there, but I have the impression that many of them couldn’t afford to bring accountants with them. Opportunity, then, should abound.”
Let other, harder guys blaze the trail, then you trot along to reap the rewards. I’d met this type before. He was patient, I gotta give him that; but these types, they could afford to wait. If they were polite, meanwhile, you couldn’t say anything bad about them, which they’d exploit to no end. They could be dirty as a dormouse, but you’d be the bad guy for pointin’ the finger.
This didn’t mean squat, though, because it was all conjecture. At this point I was leanin’ hard toward the priest...even though it was a hard sell. He didn’t have a taste for any part of the affair, it looked like, from the victim to the crime. How do you place a guy like that?
“Did you know the victim prior to your departure?”
Looked like he wanted to bristle at something I said, but he covered it and responded calmly.
“We hadn’t met one another until we signed on for this trip,” he explained. “I may have seen her once or twice in the city, but—it’s hard to say. There are so many like her there, and they’re all the same after a while. You know, unfortunates. All those people immigrating here just to beg and steal. Detestable. Not that they have any other option, mind you.”
“Yeah. Unfortunate.” I leaned back. “I take it, then, you didn’t get to know the victim in transit? Kinda hard to avoid people in a caravan this size.”
“She...kept to herself, mostly. I gather that she felt out of place and desired to keep us at arm’s length, which I found...desirable.”
There was a funny twist to his mouth when he said the last word, so I remembered that.
“Anybody else talk to her, try to get into her business—hassle her?”
He nodded. “Yes. The priest, he...well, it isn’t so much that he was aggressive with her, but he endeavored to speak with her on the matter of her peculiar faith. You see, naturally he did not approve, and at first she was content to listen to him. As he persisted, one evening we were subjected to a demonstration of her Mutation powers.”
“Go on.”
“Well, he urged her to read specific passages out of the Bible and the Book of Mormon. The latter, I haven’t any idea what for, but as to the former, he suggested that if she were truly a Christian, her practice of witchcraft and numerology would be her undoing. Her response was to laugh at him—some might have thought it a peculiar cackle—and to berate his religion most severely for its adherence to a set of golden tablets which only one corrupt leader claims to have ever seen. At this the priest became most severely agitated, and he insisted that she not presume to ridicule a faith she did not begin to comprehend. Her response, then, was to shout that she, and no other, had experienced the truisms of faith among men, and the acts it compelled them to perform. Expressing a, er, personal ire at being cast out from among her own people--’they lifted their skirts, and I was thrown into the wind’, she said, and she—well, <ahem>, um, perhaps it is presumptious of me, of all of us, to assume that she caused it, but—the wind suddenly surged and fluttered the priest’s robes around him, and the cooking-fire roared and leapt three feet, to the astonishment of everyone present. From that night until now, nobody had dared speak with her again.”
“And what is your religious affiliation, Mr. Colvin?”
He paused, unsure of why I might ask a question like that. Then, as if it didn’t matter one way or the other, he told me he was a Methodist. I let him go.
Pencilneck was over by the main group takin’ notes from various accounts like a good little boy, so I pulled in the priest to secure my conviction. Time to see if the Father was ready for confession.
“...I’ve already explained to Mr. Blunt that I’m not responsible for the souls of the damned,” he sighed, when I tried to find out if he’d talked to her or had any kinda dealings with her after the night when she blew up the fire.
“Yeah, well me and that stooge ain’t friends, so you can tell me everything you just told him.”
“This is preposterous! For one of those Mutations, you would hold us here indefinitely, ask us all the same questions twice...why, it’s a wonder the establishments of man still retain anyone’s faith, being that they’re so unreliable. You and--”
“Yeah, look, write it all down for me, okay? Maybe you got time to sit here and chatter, but I’d rather not be stuck her indefinitely.
He huffed in disgust.
“Now here’s an easy one for ya. You see anybody else talkin’ with her?”
“As I explained to your associate, two nights ago I was unable to sleep, and as such, I was privy to an argument between the deceased and a gentleman who sounded like Mr. Colvin. They were at a middling volume, so I was unable to make out every word which was spoken, but I heard a reference to a payment, which set Mr. Colvin into a mighty fury. He finished by shouting that if all she desired was his coin, she could have it. This was followed by what sounded like a handful of coins scattering on the floor of the wagon. I’m sorry if I’ve omitted anything. It really is tedious to have to relate the story twice. Perhaps if the two of you could coordinate better, this process would pass more smoothly. May I go...?”
“Listen, I told you that Pencilneck and me don’t—hang on. You explained all this to him already?”
Before he could confirm it, I was outside and marchin’ over to where I last saw Colvin. It was like a ton o’ bricks, and they were gettin’ hauled away before I could put ‘em back together.
He was mad at her about somethin’, passionately mad. He accused her of only caring about money. Her eyes were in her money pouch. My heart was sinkin’ fast. If Blunt did somethin’ stupid...
The group pointed me to a spot where Colvin asked to jaw with Blunt in private. Bet they jumped when I pulled my revolver out and ran in that direction. Colvin was a clever bastard, but only compared to Pencilneck.
I dashed deep into the woods, cursin’ my rotten luck for puttin’ me in the sticks twice in a row. Until I heard Colvin cry out “Stay down!” I thought I’d never find ‘em.
Colvin had a gun on Pencilneck, who’d been disarmed and bopped with his own weapon. Yeah, sometimes I’m that good. So there was Pencilneck on the ground, his back to a tree and a hand to his temple where he’d been whacked. And Colvin had a gun trained on him, trembling. He whipped around when I traipsed onto the scene, ‘cause I ain’t a lightweight. Lucky for me, my gun was ready too.
“It don’t have to end with another murder, Cole, old pal.”
“You stay back!” He glanced nervously back at Pencilneck, then back at me. I desperately wanted my buddy back there to make a move, but he didn’t look inclined to do his job.
It’s a man’s job, I thought, obviously not for you.
“Come on, Cole. I know you don’t just shoot people willy-nilly. What you did back there, that was complicated! So I ain’t saying you ain’t nuts, but I think maybe you’re only nuts in love.”
He blinked, rattled his head. “Love—what?!”
“What’s this about, Driver?!” Pencilneck squeaked angrily. “Is this how y--”
Colvin bounced between the balls of his feet as he looked from one of us to the other, back and forth in rapid succession, and I said, “Don’t worry—I want him to shut up too.” It earned me a hard look from Pencilneck. “So, yeah, you had a thing for the Gypsy dame, right? Except it turned out...it turned out she only had eyes for money.”
I could see that I nailed it. The awe in his eyes said it all. He could speak to me only with his eyes and it’d say a thousand words.
“It’s too bad she was just a whore, after all that,” I pressed on when I saw that I’d got him. This was the clincher. “You thought you had somethin’ with her, somethin’ real, but in the end, she was a piece o’ gutter trash not even worth pissin’ on.”
My decision to insult her worked. “Don’t—don’t--don’t talk about her that way!” His attention was completely on me now.
“Hey, pal, I ain’t the one who stabbed her in all those inappropriate places and thought it’d be a thrill to treat her eyes like marbles.”
He tried to rally his wits and play to my sensibilities one last time. Too bad he don’t know squat about me.
“We’re talking about a Mutation.”
“A Mutation you were in love with.” I shook my head sadly.
He bared his teeth, got ready to talk, and Pencilneck picked that moment to whack him in the back o’ the head with a tree branch. When he didn’t go down on his face, I took the initiative to rush in and clock him.
“Thanks for pitchin’ in, Chief,” I muttered as I shook out my fist.
“Not a bad contribution from you either,” he murmured back. “But don’t think this makes us any kind of team.”
“Don’t get your hopes up, kid.”
He tied up the killer, and while he did, I hadda talk at someone about my thoughts.
“Think she was a Mutation...or just a witch?”
He glanced up, confused. “What are you talking about?”
What was this guy doin’ when he questioned people, askin’ their favorite foods? How’d he come around to suspectin’ Colvin anyway? Sheesh. These government types. Maybe Colvin just panicked an’ Pencilneck followed him.
“Nevermind. I ain’t been in the business that long...musta got my facts confused.”
But it stuck in my craw after that. What makes someone a Mutation, anyway? This girl came off as a witch, and I ain’t never believed in witchcraft. But if she was one, would witchcraft he a trick anybody could learn, or wouldja need some special somethin’? People think that somethin’ comes from the Devil, just like they said about witches’ magic a couple hundred years ago. Meantime, the priest, Father Darwin? Worst kinda hypocrite. I didn’t learn ‘til later, Mormons think God dishes out all kindsa powers...but I guess only to people they like.
This was only the tip o’ the iceberg. The Mutations I had yet to see’d make me blur the line further still, but even that’s just the beginning.
Great, I thought. Nothin’ like bein’ the only qualified investigator in the middle o’ bear country to make ya think maybe leavin’ the city wasn’t such a swell idea. Best backup I got if things go south is probably some drunk sheriff who thinks he’s my damn boss. Think I’ll go it alone on this one.
Well, I brought my horse to a stop by the lead carriage andd jumped off, eager to get the meet-and-greet over with with the local yokels so I could get some work done. Imagine my surprise, then, when a guy in a proper suit with a shaved face and a regular cityboy haircut came hoppin’ outta the carriage and pressed his way to the front o’ the crowd.
“I’m sorry, who is this, now? Were we expecting someone?”
No one answered him, so he stepped up and squared right up to me with a pair o’ beady, bespectacled eyes. “You’ll have to pardon my impertinence, sir,” he began, pushing his glasses up with his finger, “but who are you?”
I held out my hand. “Private investigator Saul Driver, at your service.”
“Mister Driver,” he said, ignoring my hand, “I’m Franklin Blunt, from the Department of Mutation Affairs. I’ve got this situation well in hand. Your services will not be required, so I’ll ask you to vacate the vicinity with due haste.”
No malice got into his voice or marred his pretty features, but he was gettin’ my gruff, stubbly dander up.
“I offered you my hand in generosity, pal. You don’t wanna start off that way with me, fine—we won’t be friends later either. The fact is, I’ve never heard o’ this ‘Department o’ Mutation Affairs’, so for all I know, you’re makin’ it up to obstruct justice, in which case, you’ll get to feel the butt o’ my pistol on your forehead. So are you gonna step aside?”
“It’s a new department,” he said, his resolve clearly shaken. To the man’s credit, he held his ground. I casually made a show of peering past him, then added my own two cents to the statement.
“Very new. Seems they didn’t send along a single man to back up your authority.”
Finally, the mook relented. “Under the circumstances, it appears this particular case has been...overbooked. I’m certain that we can both conduct an investigation without obstructing one another. But I warn you: If you do anything to hinder me in the performance of my duty, you will be subject to stern punishment.”
I grinned at his cowardly sneer. “I can hardly wait. Gluttony’s my favorite sin.”
Had I noticed a priest in the party facing us I mighta watched my mouth. Not that his sensibilities matter to me one iota, but this group was frazzled as it was. Last thing they needed was the only two cool heads for miles with a chance o’ crackin’ their murder case goin’ at each other like duelin’ roosters.
Blunt opened his mouth like he was gonna say somethin’, but his rage turned to shock when he realized he hadn’t a clue what I was sayin’. While he reacted I brushed past him, intent on gettin’ someone to show me to the body.
Father Darwin was all too eager to step out from the crowd and walk me to the spot, but I figured that was just the Christian way or some hooey. Seemed like the Father had somethin’ else in mind, though.
“The deceased is a...Mutation,” he managed to open with a real shocker.
“That’s the word from down-river,” I rattled off carelessly. “I guess you did last rites or whatever.”
He tensed up when I said that and got real stern. This was a sore subject for the holy man.
“I’m not certain it would have been appropriate.”
I woulda said somethin’ in reply, but then—dear God—we came upon the body. I’d never seen an uglier display o’ hatred in my years investigatin’.
She’d taken more than a dozen stab wounds, and some o’ them hadda’ve happened once the girl was already dead. Her loose-fitting patchwork pants, in colors ranging from purple to white to green, were shredded, especially around the crotch, where she’d been penetrated with a knife. Her white shirt was ripped where her breasts had each been slashed, and there were two nickels over her eyes. I went to get a closer look, crouching next to her, and the Father snapped me outta my reverie with a shock.
“Her eyes are gone.”
I looked at him with a start, frowning at my discomfort, when I saw that we’d been followed over to her. Two guys—one of ‘em a real bear of a man with a ruddy country complexion and simple clothes, his attitude smelled almost as bad as he did. The other guy was from the city. Nice tailored suit, short hair, little bit of a beard...wiry fella like my new friend from the DMA, but not as dumb by a long shot.
My first dilemma here was figurin’ out just what in God’s name’d been done with her eyes. Then, if I could find a reason the coins’d been stuck on her face, well, I’d maybe have a motive. I looked up at the group around me to see who I’d interview first. The way a man thinks says that the guy who done it was standin’ right there to make certain I didn’t put the pieces together.
“Had it comin’, damn Satanic freak,” the bear spat. The Father looked at him impassively. What was on his mind? I couldn’t guess. But the focus o’ my attention was already decided. I stood, brushed my pants and started toward this tower o’ hatred.
“And your name, sir?”
“Bradley Haring,” he replied, drawing himself up to his full, impressive height. A head taller than me and thick as a tree trunk, I don’t think I’d a’ been surprised if he turned out to be a Mutation himself.
“Let’s talk in private, Mr. Haring,” I said, keeping my tone neutral and walking past him to lead the way into the second wagon. On the way over, I could make out a little bit of an exchange between Blunt and one o’ the passengers. It made me smile.
“Wal, ah reckon if that scream hadna’ woke me up, ah wouldna’ been wanderin’ outside.”
“Scream? Is there a reason you neglected to mention this scream?”
“Well, you ain’t asked.”
But where did the scream come from?”
“Wal, from a lady’s lips, ya wingnut!”
“What are you attempting to hide? The United States Government frowns upon obstruction of justice, Mr....I’m sorry, I didn’t get your name...”
Me an’ Haring got inside and I took a seat. When I asked him to do the same, he decided it was for the best only because he couldn’t stand upright inside the carriage. He sat with his hands flat on his lap and glowered at me, but I paid it no mind.
“How long we gonna wait here while you try to figure out who gets the reward fer killin’ the witch?” he rumbled.
This was interesting, but I tried not to let it show. I wanted to give this bumpkin the benefit of the doubt. A smart murderer doesn’t talk at length about how he’s glad the victim’s dead; but was this guy a stupid murderer, or just stupid?
“I’m afraid I don’t follow you,” I said neutrally.
“Well, who cares who did it? Mutations all deserve to die. We shouldn’t wait here like somebody’s actually gonna get arrested. Honest Abe bit the big one, so the government don’t care a lick about ‘em now.”
“So if she hadn’t been killed already, I take it you’d have been happy to do the deed yourself? God knows you’d get a pat on the back from everyone present, after all.”
His giant head nodded once. “Happiern’ a pig in shit.”
“So what’s to stop me from thinking you did do it? I mean, since you’ve just provided me with ample motive and told me you wanted to and would have. That’s a confession if ever I heard one.”
His mouth opened and closed a couple times like a guppy’s, then he said, uncertainly, “But you...have to prove it.”
I knew then that this guy was no master at Checkers. “Get outta here.” I tilted my head toward the exit. “I’m through with ya.”
At first he hesitated like this was some kinda trick, then he drew himself up and made for the flap. When he got there, he seemed to think ol’ Blunt would be waitin’ to nab him. Then he got out and I thought about the situation.
Here we had a murder where the three main suspects were some country lout who hated anything he didn’t understand, up to and including arithmetic; a priest with enough religious conviction to condemn the same, but no obvious anger problems; and a third guy. Completely quiet. He looked smart, too. I decided I’d have a word with him, but when I stepped off the carriage, I saw my new friend was busy with him. I shrugged. Day was young, yet—but gettin’ hotter. If it wasn’t for the shade, we’d all boil by noon.
There mighta been somethin’ to gain from goin’ through the deceased’s belongings. Usually was. So, without preamble, I ambled on over to see what was on her person. Often that stuff was most relevant.
To say that the lady was fond o’ jewelry is an understatement, and I’m not given to that. She had more bracelets and rings than a pawn shop, and her purse, in the meantime, was cheap as they come. Thing was little more than a dark blue cloth pouch on her sash of a belt, but it didn’t jingle when I touched it. This struck me as odd. What was a lady with all this fine stuff doin’ broke? Not that she seemed to know the difference between what was valuable and what she just thought was pretty—or maybe she didn’t care. Maybe she was livin’ on daddy’s dime, then daddy passed away unexpectedly and she never learned to save for a rainy day. So I untied the pouch and opened it, and the damn thing was lookin’ back at me! Or, well, that’s how it seemed when my heart first jumped to my throat. Then I realized, still disturbed, that some nut had put her eyes in the bag. They were blue. She was a pretty girl when she was alive.
Whoever did this—put her eyes in the money pouch and money over her eye sockets—they weren’t just playin’ switcheroo for fun. They wanted to make a point. Once I knew the girl’s story, the killer’s story’d naturally intersect with it. Or so I’d hoped.
Pencilneck showed up when I was walkin’ away from the body. Seemed he’d recovered some o’ his starch while we’d been apart.
“I trust that you’ve handled the body and surrounding evidence with due diligence, that I may find everything intact and undisturbed? Tampering with evidence is a f--”
“She’s all yours, Chief,” I interjected, and with that latest brush-off I went to check out the rest o’ the lady’s stuff.
She’d taken the back wagon, which didn’t come as much of a surprise, bein’ that she struck me as the type who kept secrets inside secrets. I found her stuff inside a pretty little oak trunk with a lock that didn’t work. Bet she looked over her slim little shoulder every time she opened it. There was a deck o’ tarot cards, a journal, a flask with some kinda hooch and a little doll. Other than that, dust. The caravan probably kept all the food together, which I wagered had been paid for in advance.
The cards, weighed with her complexion, clued me in that she was some kinda Gypsy. That probably didn’t work in her favor against the prejudice of her fellow riders. But the primary object o’ my interest was the diary.
The moment I cracked it open did shed some light on the subject, though this was entirely the wrong variety. I winced against the sunlight and stared at Pencilneck, whose contempt could be smelled like distant cowshit.
“You opened the pouch on the deceased’s person,” he said, an accusation.
“Yeah, I did. You wanna make a Federal case out o’--sorry, right, ‘course you do.” I smiled, though I wasn’t feeling anything but annoyed.
“I simply wished to make sure.” He pouted and left.
Good, I thought, kid seems to know that we both got the same right to the evidence until I’m shown proof to the contrary. Hope he can’t have my license revoked.
The diary wasn’t in a language I could read, that’s for sure. Words like “gadjo” and “Romanipen” appeared with extraordinary frequency, the latter cluing me in that I was a hundred percent on the spot, and this girl was a Gypsy. I closed it up and put it away, thinking that was the only useful piece o’ information I was gonna get from it. I thought briefly about leaving a note to my dear friend Pencilneck, then thought better of it. I’m a professional, after all.
Back into the sun, and boy, was it hot. I was bakin’ inside the wagon, but this wasn’t much better. Seemed to me now’d be a good time to interview the city boy, seein’ as Pencilneck was busy with the gorilla I’d first interviewed.
City boy came quietly enough, and gave his name as Mr. Gerard Colvin. This guy really was a twig, and he sat smart and straight like he was attendin’ a private primary school lesson. Owlish eyes blinked from behind big round lenses.
“What is it you’re headin’ west for, Mr. Colvin?”
“Back home in New York, I studied accounting. They say there’s money to be made in the West, and a lot of entrepreneurs have set up shop out there, but I have the impression that many of them couldn’t afford to bring accountants with them. Opportunity, then, should abound.”
Let other, harder guys blaze the trail, then you trot along to reap the rewards. I’d met this type before. He was patient, I gotta give him that; but these types, they could afford to wait. If they were polite, meanwhile, you couldn’t say anything bad about them, which they’d exploit to no end. They could be dirty as a dormouse, but you’d be the bad guy for pointin’ the finger.
This didn’t mean squat, though, because it was all conjecture. At this point I was leanin’ hard toward the priest...even though it was a hard sell. He didn’t have a taste for any part of the affair, it looked like, from the victim to the crime. How do you place a guy like that?
“Did you know the victim prior to your departure?”
Looked like he wanted to bristle at something I said, but he covered it and responded calmly.
“We hadn’t met one another until we signed on for this trip,” he explained. “I may have seen her once or twice in the city, but—it’s hard to say. There are so many like her there, and they’re all the same after a while. You know, unfortunates. All those people immigrating here just to beg and steal. Detestable. Not that they have any other option, mind you.”
“Yeah. Unfortunate.” I leaned back. “I take it, then, you didn’t get to know the victim in transit? Kinda hard to avoid people in a caravan this size.”
“She...kept to herself, mostly. I gather that she felt out of place and desired to keep us at arm’s length, which I found...desirable.”
There was a funny twist to his mouth when he said the last word, so I remembered that.
“Anybody else talk to her, try to get into her business—hassle her?”
He nodded. “Yes. The priest, he...well, it isn’t so much that he was aggressive with her, but he endeavored to speak with her on the matter of her peculiar faith. You see, naturally he did not approve, and at first she was content to listen to him. As he persisted, one evening we were subjected to a demonstration of her Mutation powers.”
“Go on.”
“Well, he urged her to read specific passages out of the Bible and the Book of Mormon. The latter, I haven’t any idea what for, but as to the former, he suggested that if she were truly a Christian, her practice of witchcraft and numerology would be her undoing. Her response was to laugh at him—some might have thought it a peculiar cackle—and to berate his religion most severely for its adherence to a set of golden tablets which only one corrupt leader claims to have ever seen. At this the priest became most severely agitated, and he insisted that she not presume to ridicule a faith she did not begin to comprehend. Her response, then, was to shout that she, and no other, had experienced the truisms of faith among men, and the acts it compelled them to perform. Expressing a, er, personal ire at being cast out from among her own people--’they lifted their skirts, and I was thrown into the wind’, she said, and she—well, <ahem>, um, perhaps it is presumptious of me, of all of us, to assume that she caused it, but—the wind suddenly surged and fluttered the priest’s robes around him, and the cooking-fire roared and leapt three feet, to the astonishment of everyone present. From that night until now, nobody had dared speak with her again.”
“And what is your religious affiliation, Mr. Colvin?”
He paused, unsure of why I might ask a question like that. Then, as if it didn’t matter one way or the other, he told me he was a Methodist. I let him go.
Pencilneck was over by the main group takin’ notes from various accounts like a good little boy, so I pulled in the priest to secure my conviction. Time to see if the Father was ready for confession.
“...I’ve already explained to Mr. Blunt that I’m not responsible for the souls of the damned,” he sighed, when I tried to find out if he’d talked to her or had any kinda dealings with her after the night when she blew up the fire.
“Yeah, well me and that stooge ain’t friends, so you can tell me everything you just told him.”
“This is preposterous! For one of those Mutations, you would hold us here indefinitely, ask us all the same questions twice...why, it’s a wonder the establishments of man still retain anyone’s faith, being that they’re so unreliable. You and--”
“Yeah, look, write it all down for me, okay? Maybe you got time to sit here and chatter, but I’d rather not be stuck her indefinitely.
He huffed in disgust.
“Now here’s an easy one for ya. You see anybody else talkin’ with her?”
“As I explained to your associate, two nights ago I was unable to sleep, and as such, I was privy to an argument between the deceased and a gentleman who sounded like Mr. Colvin. They were at a middling volume, so I was unable to make out every word which was spoken, but I heard a reference to a payment, which set Mr. Colvin into a mighty fury. He finished by shouting that if all she desired was his coin, she could have it. This was followed by what sounded like a handful of coins scattering on the floor of the wagon. I’m sorry if I’ve omitted anything. It really is tedious to have to relate the story twice. Perhaps if the two of you could coordinate better, this process would pass more smoothly. May I go...?”
“Listen, I told you that Pencilneck and me don’t—hang on. You explained all this to him already?”
Before he could confirm it, I was outside and marchin’ over to where I last saw Colvin. It was like a ton o’ bricks, and they were gettin’ hauled away before I could put ‘em back together.
He was mad at her about somethin’, passionately mad. He accused her of only caring about money. Her eyes were in her money pouch. My heart was sinkin’ fast. If Blunt did somethin’ stupid...
The group pointed me to a spot where Colvin asked to jaw with Blunt in private. Bet they jumped when I pulled my revolver out and ran in that direction. Colvin was a clever bastard, but only compared to Pencilneck.
I dashed deep into the woods, cursin’ my rotten luck for puttin’ me in the sticks twice in a row. Until I heard Colvin cry out “Stay down!” I thought I’d never find ‘em.
Colvin had a gun on Pencilneck, who’d been disarmed and bopped with his own weapon. Yeah, sometimes I’m that good. So there was Pencilneck on the ground, his back to a tree and a hand to his temple where he’d been whacked. And Colvin had a gun trained on him, trembling. He whipped around when I traipsed onto the scene, ‘cause I ain’t a lightweight. Lucky for me, my gun was ready too.
“It don’t have to end with another murder, Cole, old pal.”
“You stay back!” He glanced nervously back at Pencilneck, then back at me. I desperately wanted my buddy back there to make a move, but he didn’t look inclined to do his job.
It’s a man’s job, I thought, obviously not for you.
“Come on, Cole. I know you don’t just shoot people willy-nilly. What you did back there, that was complicated! So I ain’t saying you ain’t nuts, but I think maybe you’re only nuts in love.”
He blinked, rattled his head. “Love—what?!”
“What’s this about, Driver?!” Pencilneck squeaked angrily. “Is this how y--”
Colvin bounced between the balls of his feet as he looked from one of us to the other, back and forth in rapid succession, and I said, “Don’t worry—I want him to shut up too.” It earned me a hard look from Pencilneck. “So, yeah, you had a thing for the Gypsy dame, right? Except it turned out...it turned out she only had eyes for money.”
I could see that I nailed it. The awe in his eyes said it all. He could speak to me only with his eyes and it’d say a thousand words.
“It’s too bad she was just a whore, after all that,” I pressed on when I saw that I’d got him. This was the clincher. “You thought you had somethin’ with her, somethin’ real, but in the end, she was a piece o’ gutter trash not even worth pissin’ on.”
My decision to insult her worked. “Don’t—don’t--don’t talk about her that way!” His attention was completely on me now.
“Hey, pal, I ain’t the one who stabbed her in all those inappropriate places and thought it’d be a thrill to treat her eyes like marbles.”
He tried to rally his wits and play to my sensibilities one last time. Too bad he don’t know squat about me.
“We’re talking about a Mutation.”
“A Mutation you were in love with.” I shook my head sadly.
He bared his teeth, got ready to talk, and Pencilneck picked that moment to whack him in the back o’ the head with a tree branch. When he didn’t go down on his face, I took the initiative to rush in and clock him.
“Thanks for pitchin’ in, Chief,” I muttered as I shook out my fist.
“Not a bad contribution from you either,” he murmured back. “But don’t think this makes us any kind of team.”
“Don’t get your hopes up, kid.”
He tied up the killer, and while he did, I hadda talk at someone about my thoughts.
“Think she was a Mutation...or just a witch?”
He glanced up, confused. “What are you talking about?”
What was this guy doin’ when he questioned people, askin’ their favorite foods? How’d he come around to suspectin’ Colvin anyway? Sheesh. These government types. Maybe Colvin just panicked an’ Pencilneck followed him.
“Nevermind. I ain’t been in the business that long...musta got my facts confused.”
But it stuck in my craw after that. What makes someone a Mutation, anyway? This girl came off as a witch, and I ain’t never believed in witchcraft. But if she was one, would witchcraft he a trick anybody could learn, or wouldja need some special somethin’? People think that somethin’ comes from the Devil, just like they said about witches’ magic a couple hundred years ago. Meantime, the priest, Father Darwin? Worst kinda hypocrite. I didn’t learn ‘til later, Mormons think God dishes out all kindsa powers...but I guess only to people they like.
This was only the tip o’ the iceberg. The Mutations I had yet to see’d make me blur the line further still, but even that’s just the beginning.
