A Time For Hanging (6 page)

"He's in the back room, praying.
 
Have you found my daughter?
 
Have you found Lizzie?"

"We'd better get your husband in here," Vincent said, knowing it was the wrong thing but unable to think of anything better.

Mrs. Randall looked at him stonily, then turned and left the room, her broad back tensed as if she expected Vincent to hit her.

In a few seconds, Randall entered the room, clutching his Bible.
 
His wife stood behind him in the doorway, filling it.

"You've found her?" Randall said.
 
"Where is she?"

"Yes," Vincent said, twisting his hat in his hands.
 
"We've found her.
 
She . . . she's at Doc Bigby's office."

"She's hurt?
 
What happened?
 
A fall?
 
Did she --"

"She's dead," Vincent blurted out.
 
He couldn't think of any other way to put it.
 
Hell, there wasn't any other way.

Mrs. Randall gave a brief, strangled cry and fell forward.
 
She hit the floor hard, and Vincent was glad for the momentary distraction.
 
He stepped past Randall and knelt down beside her.
 
There was a horsehair sofa on one side of the room, and it had been his intent to get her to it, but he saw that he could not do so without help.

He got her rolled over onto her back, and then he felt Randall's heavy hand on his shoulder.
 
"Leave her.
 
Tell me what happened to me daughter."

Vincent stood up slowly.
 
His knees popped.
 
Maybe it was better this way.
 
Mrs. Randall wouldn't have to hear the terrible details, at least not from the sheriff.

Randall stood stiffly while Vincent told him.

"There must be some mistake," he said when the sheriff had finished.
 
"My daughter can't have been killed like that."

There was a faint stirring from Mrs. Randall, and what
 
might have been a sigh.
 
Vincent looked down at her, but she gave no sign of being aware of anything.
 
Her eyes were closed.

"It's her," Vincent said.
 
"There's no mistake."

Randall walked over to the sofa and sat down.
 
He put his Bible down carefully on an end table covered with a white crocheted doily.
 
Then he clasped his hands and bowed his head.

Vincent stood there awkwardly.
 
He didn't know whether to say or go, but he felt he should do something for Mrs. Randall if her husband didn't intend to.

She lay on the floor unmoving, however, and Randall continued to pray silently.
 
Or Vincent guessed he was praying.
 
That was what it looked like he was doing.

"She's at the doc's, like I said," Vincent said finally, but Randall ignored him, and his wife did not hear.

Nothing changed for a full five minutes, so Vincent walked to the front door and let himself out.

There was another house he had to visit that night.

#

The home of Paco Morales was quite different from that of the Randalls.
 
There was no fence, and no flower garden, not even the pretense of one.
 
Even in the moonlight, Vincent could see that the roof needed repair and the paint was peeling.
 
The yard was hard dirt, and there were some chickens roosting in the lower limbs of a chinaberry tree near the house.

There was a light in one of the front windows, and it occurred to Vincent for the first time that there was another mother who had most likely been up all night waiting for her child to come home.

He knocked on the door, and it was answered immediately by a short, round-faced woman with coal-black hair and anxious eyes.

"Miz Morales?" Vincent said.
 
He knew very well who she was.
 
He had met her more than once when her husband had been killed.

"Si, I am Rosa Morales, Sheriff."

"It's, uh, about your son."

"Paco.
 
Where is Paco?"
 
The voice came from a little girl about six years old who was standing beside Mrs. Morales.
 
Vincent hadn't noticed her earlier.

"Go to the bedroom, Aurelia," Mrs. Morales said.
 
"It is time that you were asleep."

"But where is Paco?"

"Never mind about that.
 
Go to bed."
 
The woman's voice was firm, and the little girl turned reluctantly away.

Her mother watched her go.
 
When the girl was gone, Mrs. Morales turned back to Vincent.
 
"And now, was my daughter asked, where is Paco.
 
Where is my son."

"Well, ma'm, he's in the jail."

The anxiety in Mrs. Morales's changed to something else.
 
"Why is he in the jail."

"He killed -- " Vincent caught himself.
 
"He might have killed a girl tonight.
 
I ain't sure."

Mrs. Morales seemed to shrink a little, somehow.
 
It was probably just that her shoulders sagged, but it seemed to Vincent that she actually grew smaller.

"Killed a girl?
 
Paco would never kill anyone.
 
I sent him to the store for salt and sugar, and he has not returned.
 
But he would not kill anyone."

Vincent felt immensely uncomfortable.
 
He had the feeling that he had heard all this before, three years ago, when her husband had been killed.
 
She couldn't believe he had cheated anyone, either.

"Maybe he didn't kill anyone," Vincent said.
 
"But it looks bad for him.
 
He was caught pretty close to the body."

"And who was this person Paco is supposed to have killed?"

"Lizzie Randall.
 
The preacher's daughter."

Mrs. Morales did it again, shrank up even smaller in the doorway.
 
"Miss Randall," she said.

"You know her?" Vincent said, surprised.

"No," Mrs. Morales said quickly, too quickly it seemed to the sheriff.
 
"I did not know her.
 
And Paco did not kill her."

"Well, it'll be up to the judge and jury to decide that," Vincent said.

"Paco, he is all right?
 
He is safe in the jail?"

Vincent decided to answer the second question.
 
"He's safe.
 
I won't let anything happen to him."

"I can see him?
 
Now?"

Vincent didn't think that would be a good idea.
 
"Better wait till mornin'.
 
You can come in then."

Maybe Bigby would have looked the boy over by that time, cleaned him up.
 
Even if Paco was a killer, his mother shouldn't have to see him looking the way he did now.

"I will be there in the morning, then.
 
Paco killed no one, Sheriff.
 
Whoever says he did is a liar."

And with that she closed the door in Vincent's face.

The jail was hot and still, and Paco Morales lay sweating on the cot in one of the tiny cells.
 
Luckily, he was still not conscious.
 
Doc Bigby was cheerfully putting the boy's broken arm in a sling, having already bound his ribs.

"What do you think, Doc?" Vincent asked.

"He'll live," Bigby said.
 
"They must've beat the hell out of him, though."

"What about the girl?"

"Haven't had time to look at her yet.
 
Got to get to it though.
 
In this heat . . . . "

He didn't need to finish the sentence.

When he had left, Vincent sent Jack on home.
 
The night was almost over anyhow, and the sheriff had decided that he might as well be the one to sit it out.
 
He wanted to be there when Paco Morales woke up so he could ask him a few questions.

#

Paco woke in a haze of pain.
 
There wasn't a part of his body that didn't hurt, and for a moment he thought that he must still be in the grove, still taking the kicks being dealt out to him by the men.

After a while he knew that he was not lying on the ground but on something softer, though not much softer.
 
He opened his eyes, and even that was painful.
 
He tried to raise his hand to his face, but he found that he could not.

It was too dark to see much, but he could tell that he was in some kind of small room.
 
There was a square of lighter darkness above him which he assumed was a window.

A door opened at the end of a hall somewhere.

"You awake, boy?"

"Yes," Paco croaked.
 
"I am awake."
  
His throat was dry and very sore.
 
Someone had kicked him even in the throat.

He heard footsteps and then the sound of a key in a lock.
 
There was a squeak of a door opening very near him.

"I'm the sheriff," a voice near him said.
 
"Can you sit up?"

Paco tried, but he could not raise himself.
 
The pain was too much.

He felt a hand go under his head and lift it.

"Try to drink some of this water."
 
A dipper was pressed to his parched lips.

Paco managed to take a few sips.
 
The water felt cold and sweet as it trickled down his throat.

"Where am I?" he said.

"In the jail.
 
Looks like you're in a little trouble, boy."

"The men, they beat me.
 
They --"

"I know about that.
 
Question is, what did you do?"

"Nothing.
 
I did nothing.
 
I was going home from the store, and I found the woman . . . . "
 
The sentence ended with a soft groan of pain.
 
Vincent did not know whether Paco was groaning because he was hurt or because of the woman.

"Found her, huh?
 
You didn't have anything to do with her bein' there in the first place?"

"No!
 
No!
 
I bought some salt and sugar at the store, and then I talked to Juanito Garcia.
 
When I was going home, I found her in the trees."

"What did you kill her with, son?"

"I did not kill her!
 
I found her there!"

Vincent thought about it.
 
There was the sound of truth in the boy's voice, and his mother had said something about the salt and sugar.

"Where's the sugar and salt, then?" he asked.

Paco could not remember.
 
"I . . . I lost it.
 
I was afraid when I found her, and I ran."

Well, that was possible.
 
But it was possible that he lost it when he attacked the girl, too.
 
Vincent would have to go give the place the once over when it got light.
 
There was more than the salt and sugar worrying him.
 
If Paco had killed the girl, maybe stabbed her, the doc said, what had he done it with?
 
Paco didn't have a knife, and there hadn't been one lying in the trees, not that Vincent could see.
 
He'd have to have a talk with Juanito Garcia, too.

Vincent gave Paco another sip of the water.
 
"You try to rest son.
 
I've told your mother that you're here.
 
She'll probably come in to see you.
 
You'll be all right."