Robert B. Parker's Blackjack (16 page)

W
e left the hotel and walked for a half-block on the boardwalk before either of us said anything. Daphne spoke up first and asked about my work. She wanted to know about my lawman history, and about how I met and began working with Virgil and how we ended up in Appaloosa. I gave her a brief version, starting with my days at West Point, through fighting Indians, then becoming an itinerant lawmen and up to being current-day marshals.

“Dangerous,” she said.

“Can be.”

“But danger is your business,” she said.

“Not all of it,” I said. “But some.”

“I just can’t imagine.”

“It’s a profession.”

“Oh, it’s more than that,” she said. “Why, it’s upholding values of good versus evil and . . . protecting the innocent.”

“If you are making me out to be chivalrous,” I said, “you’re not going to get any argument out of me about that.”

“Obviously, though, from what you told me, with your history, you have . . . ?”

“What?”

“Had to shoot people?”

“Some.”

“And obviously you must be good at your job?”

“Why’s that?”

“You’re alive.”

“Ha!” I said. “And glad of it.”

“And I imagine some of those you have shot have died?”

“Yes.”

“Besides the Indians, during the battles, you have killed others, too, I assume?”

“I have.”

She nodded as we strolled a little.

“Fascinating,” she said.

“You think?”

“I do,” she said, “and I’m sorry, I will say no more, other than it’s exciting.”

“What’s that?”

“You?”

“Me?”

She stopped walking.

“It excites me,” she said. “What you do.”

We were standing on the boardwalk in the dark, and she took a short step away from me and put her back to a post.

“Who you are . . . interests me.”

“You interest me, too,” I said.

“I’m glad,” she said.

“From the moment I saw you walking with your parasol.”

I moved closer to her. She pulled her shoulders back some, and the movement lifted her chest a little.

“Tell me about you,” I said.

“What would you like to know?”

“How come you are not a married woman?”

“Oh, I . . . I don’t hold as much stock in that notion as other women,” she said.

“Why?”

“I enjoy my independence, I guess.”

“So you have never been close to the altar?”

“Oh, well, I must admit there was one time, but . . . I don’t know. I just decided it was not the right thing . . . And you, what about you?”

I shook my head.

“Not me,” I said.

“And why not for you?”

“Guess my line of work has kept me from it, mostly.”

“Mostly?”

I nodded.

“It defines you,” she said. “Work. What we do.”

“I guess,” I said. “And how ’bout you. How does a beautiful woman like you become a mathematician?”

She laughed.

“I’m not a mathematician,” she said.

“You do multiplications and such, don’t you?” I said.

“I’m a bookkeeper,” she said.

“How long have you been working for Pritchard?”

“A long time now,” she said. “I started as an apprentice, then, after some time, one thing led to another and I got the job.”

I moved a bit closer to her.

“Go on,” I said.

“No,” she said. “You go on . . .”

“Me go on?”

She nodded.

“Yes,” she said. “Go on and kiss me.”

I
kissed Daphne for a respectable amount of time there under the awnings and in the shadows of the boardwalk. Then, like a gentleman, I stopped and took a step back. After a few refined and polished words regarding refrainment, I walked her back to her hotel. We strolled slowly across the hardwood floor of the dark lobby to the bottom of the stairs. She stopped and turned to me.

“Thank you,” she said, looking up at me. “This was lovely.”

I kissed her again. She kissed me back, and though we’d spent some good kissing time previous to this kiss, this one instigated her to kiss me so hard it took my breath. After a solid moment she pulled away and looked in my eyes.

“You’re good,” she said.

“I try.”

“Oh, you more than try.”

She kissed me again with both of her arms pulling me tight as if she were holding on for dear life. This one felt desperate and hungry, and after another long, passionate go of it, she looked up again, and this time her eyes were moist.

“My God,” she said.

I didn’t say anything as she remained holding me.

“I suppose I will see you tomorrow,” she said. “At the proceedings?”

“I will be there,” I said.

“I’m glad for that.”

She stared at me for a long moment.

“It’s all so worrisome,” she said.

I nodded a little.

“I know,” I said.

“So I appreciate this . . . this wonderful time together, this diversion.”

“That’s me,” I said smiling. “Diversion.”

She put her hands on my shoulders and rubbed them up and down, as if she were trying to warm me. She looked at me, too, with appraising intensity, as if she were trying to see past my eyes. Then she shook her head and a concerned look came across her face.

“How do you think this will go?” she said. “Tomorrow?”

“Hard to say,” I said.

“I’m concerned,” she said.

“One thing about Judge Callison,” I said. “He’s fair.”

She nodded a little.

“What do you think?” she said.

“About Bill Black?” I said.

She nodded.

“I’ve never really even talked to the man,” I said. “Since he’s been here in town I’ve only seen him here and there, heard things about him, so I’m just not sure.”

“What sort of things have you heard?”

“Nothing to do with this trial.”

“But you’ve heard things, things that give you some kind of indication?”

I shook my head.

“No, not really, nothing admissible, anyway,” I said. “You said you’ve known him?”

“Yes,” she said. “Since he started with Mr. Pritchard.”

“And that’s been a few years?” I said.

“Yes,” she said.

“So you know, or would have some idea?”

“Yes,” she said. “But . . .”

“But what?”

“Does anybody really ever know anyone?” she said.

“You like him?” I said.

“Enough.”

“So what do you think,” I said. “Do you think he murdered Ruth Ann Messenger?”

She looked down for a moment, then looked at me. She peered into my face for a period of time before she spoke.

“No,” she said. “I don’t think so.”

“You can only hope, then, justice prevails.”

“On your recommendation, I think the attorney Juniper Jones that Mr. Pritchard hired will do what he can.”

“Juniper is the best in Appaloosa.”

“He said we will likely be called to the stand,” she said.

“He will do what he has to do.”

She nodded.

“It’s all so frightening,” she said.

I nodded.

“I understand how you feel,” I said. “But you have to know, or keep in mind, a woman was murdered and that is what this is all about, not Bill, but the fact she was murdered and Bill was reportedly the last person she was in contact with.”

“Yes,” she said. “I know . . .”

“Did you know her?”

“Ruth Ann?”

I nodded.

“God, no,” she said. “I did hear things about her, though, things that were not so favorable, but I don’t think they were unfavorable enough for him to murder her.”

“Well . . .” I said. “I’ve been leaning that way myself, but it is up to the judge.”

She pulled me close to her and she hugged me, then pulled back and nodded, then kissed me one last time.

“Good night, Everett,” she said. “And thanks again.”

She put her hand to my cheek, pecked me with one last touch of her lips, then turned, and I watched her walk up the stairs. When she got to the landing she looked back, smiled blissfully, then moved on and was gone from sight.

C
hastain and Book took Truitt for a stroll in cuffs while Virgil and I accompanied Juniper Jones to have a discussion with his new client, Boston Bill Black, before his trial.

Black looked exhausted. He was on his bunk, leaning over a bit, with his big hands draped across his knees. His mustache that was normally dyed black as coal was now showing half-inch roots of gray and his face was covered with long gray stubble that was beginning to look like a beard.

Juniper sat at a small table just outside of Black’s cell and Virgil and I perched ourselves on a bench behind and off to the side of Juniper.

Juniper previously had a short discussion with Black prior to the preliminary hearing, but this was Black’s chance to help provide Juniper with a defense, and so far Black was doing himself more harm than good. For ten minutes he had been staring at the floor in front of him as he repeated, “I did not kill her.”

“You have said that,” Juniper said.

Juniper dropped his notepad on the desk. He leaned back in his
chair and clasped his chubby hands over his belly and looked at Black with his head tilted to the side.

“I did not kill her,” Black said again.

Juniper briefly glanced over at Virgil and me, then looked back to Black and slowly shook his head back and forth.

“I can’t decide whether you are trying to convince yourself or if you are losing your mind, Mr. Black,” Juniper said.

Black looked up at Juniper and stared at him. Then he looked to Virgil and me.

“I don’t know who did this,” he said. “But I am a victim here.”

“Right now you are a bit more than that,” Juniper said. “You are charged with murder.”

Black sat silently and shook his head.

“Look,” Juniper said. “I don’t feel at the moment the prosecution has that solid of a case, I don’t. But with the way things are going, they just might have enough ammo to convict you. So unless you provide me with some kind of details that can help me, I’m afraid there is a very good chance you will most definitely become a victim . . . of circumstance.”

Black looked up, pushed his hair back on his head, and stared at Juniper.

“Give me some details and let me figure out how best to use them, Mr. Black,” Juniper said. “Gamble with me here.”

Black nodded.

“What can I say?”

“Let’s start with the argument that the owners of the inn overheard.”

Black looked over to Virgil and me, then back to Juniper, but didn’t say anything.

“Did you have this argument with Ruth Ann Messenger the night she went missing?”

“I did,” he said.

“And what did you argue about?”

“She was . . . crazy.”

“Let me repeat the question,” Juniper said. “And what did you argue about?”

“The same thing that has happened to many a man.”

“This particular argument, involving you and Ruth Ann Messenger.”

“She said she loved me and wanted to leave town with me.”

“Did you love her?”

“No.”

“Then what were you doing with her?”

“What do you think?”

“What I think has no bearing on what you were doing with her.”

He shook his head.

“I don’t know.”

“Well, that is not very helpful or convincing, Mr. Black.”

He got to his feet and started to pace.

“Ruth Ann was real . . . seductive. Goddamn nice to look at. So, you know, at first there she is, this very attractive and beautiful woman, and she was, I don’t know, for a while, okay, and . . . we were having a good time.”

“A good time? Can you elaborate?”

“Oh, hell, she’d come around and she wanted attention, you know, and, well, I gave it to her.”

“In what way?”

Black’s eyes squinted a bit, reflecting.

“In the obvious way,” he said.

“How long had you been doing the obvious way with Ruth Ann?”

“About two weeks, I’d say.”

“Then what happened?”

“She started getting very possessive of me.”

“And in this two weeks’ time you spent with her did you know she was married?”

“Not at first, but I learned later.”

“How did you learn that later?”

“At first when I met her, when she was flaunting herself at me, when we was doing the obvious, she said she had been married but was no longer married. Then after a few times together she up and says she’s only separated from her husband but was in the process of getting a divorce. And I was . . . like, oh, shit . . .”

“Did you know he was a policeman?”

“Hell, no,” he said, shaking his head. “No . . . she didn’t mention his line of work. That came out later, too. She started off as something delicious and worked her way into being nothing but a stick of goddamn dynamite.”

“So she told you that later? About her husband being a Denver police officer?”

Black looked down and away from Juniper as if he was lost in thought.

“Yeah . . . she was manipulative . . . the . . . bitch. She doled bits and pieces. It was her way, how she churned her butter.”

Juniper glanced at Virgil and me.

“You wanted her out of you life?”

“Hell, yes, I did.”

“Did you kill her?”

Black smiled and looked over to Virgil and me, then looked back to Juniper.

“First, she is a divorced woman looking for someone to scratch her itch, then she’s a married woman that is separated, later I discovered she was really still with him and that he was a member of the Denver police force.”

“And his father?” Juniper said. “Did you also learn his father was the chief of police?”

“Yeah . . . another part of her butter batch . . . The chief has surely got me in his sights with the hammer back,” Black said. “Not my fault she was the way she was and her husband and his chief father got their goddamn feelings hurt.”

He nodded, then shook his head.

“Been interesting,” Black said.

A
nd did you also learn Ruth Ann’s husband knew about the two of you?”

“Oh, yeah . . . sure I did.”

“How did you find that out?”

Black laughed.

“She told me.”

“And how did you react?”

“Oh, I did a goddamn jig . . .” Black said.

Black’s eyes narrowed.

“Listen,” he said. “I was mad as hell.”

“And what did you do with that madness?”

“What?” Black said, as if he were just snapped back to being present in the moment.

“Did you act out in any way?”

“What do you mean?”

“Did you tell her to leave, did you walk out, did she run off crying, did you hit her, did—”

“That is what we had the fight about at the goddamn inn that night.”

Juniper made a note. Then leveled a look at Black.

“If you did not kill Ruth Ann—” Juniper said.

“I didn’t,”
he said with a snap.

Juniper nodded.

“Okay . . . Who do you think did?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you have any idea, do you know anyone who would have a motive to kill her?”

“Hell, goddamn, for all I know she has a slew of men with a motive . . . I’m telling you she was crazy.”

“Do you know if there were others she was doing the ‘obvious way’ with besides you?”

“I don’t know but I damn sure would not put it past her . . . but I don’t think so.”

“Why?”

“’Cause she was obsessed with me.”

“Do you think perhaps it could have been her husband that murdered her?”

“Well . . . ya know,” Black said with a sarcastic tone, “it damn sure could have been.”

“Do you know if he ever hurt her? Physically?”

“Not that I know of, no . . . But being around her for any length of time would make most men want to do something to her physically, that is how she liked it. Don’t think she was comfortable unless there were chips on the table. Taller the stack the better, and now that I think about it, the more players the better. Maybe there were others like me that had anted up.”

“But did she say anything, did you learn anything specifically about her husband, in respect to you?”

“She told me he was mad as hell. She played him, I’m sure, like she was playing me. She’s a sharp if I ever saw one.”

“What else did she tell you about him.”

Black shook his head.

“Nothing, really . . . other than she said he was not the type to do anything about it.”

“The following day, after her murder, you left Denver?”

“Yes.”

“How do you know she was murdered, then? It was not until many days later her body was discovered.”

“Well, I am just . . . I don’t know, assuming.”

“For your sake and mine, Mr. Black, let’s avoid assumptions altogether.”

Black nodded.

“When was the last time you saw Ruth Ann?”

“The night of the argument,” Black said. “At the Bloom’s Inn?”

“Bloom’s Inn?”

“Yes,” he said. “Where I was staying.”

“What happened, did she just walk out? When and where exactly did you last have eyes on Ruth Ann?”

“That night, we argued. I told her to leave. She was angry as hell and she stormed out.”

“What time?”

He shook his head.

“I say about eleven o’clock in the evening.”

“And you never saw her again?”

“No.”

“You are certain?”

“Yes.”

“Did she leave out the front door or the rear door of the inn?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “She left my upstairs room and that was the last I saw of her.”

Juniper glanced to us then looked back to Black.

“Then, the following day you departed Denver, for . . . where?”

“Here,” he said. “To get ready for the opening of the new hall here.”

Juniper looked at his notes.

“But you were in Las Vegas prior, were you not?”

“Well, yes, I had a few weeks in between, some time off, I had been working nonstop for a long time and I like Vegas, I have friends there, and yes, I was there.”

“And that is where you met with Truitt Shirley and Ricky Ravenfield?”

“Yes.”

“And you hired them?”

“I did.”

“Why?”

“I felt, I knew, my life was in danger.”

“Danger from whom?”

“There was a bounty on my head.”

“How did you know this?”

“I received a wire from Denver that Ruth Ann had been murdered and I was the prime suspect and that the chief of police had put a bounty on my head.”

Black looked to Virgil and me.

“I’ve been in this part of the country for a long time,” Black said. “I’ve spent a good amount of time elsewhere, Saint Louis, Frisco, Boston, and the like, but I know these parts . . . Santa Fe, Las Cruces, New Mexico. And I know about bounty hunters and I knew I was being set up.”

“Set up?”

“Yes, somebody was out to get me,” he said. “Ruth Ann’s husband, his father, I don’t know exactly, but somebody.”

“So you hired Truitt and Ricky?”

“I did.”

Juniper jotted down a few notes, then nodded, looking at his notepad for a moment. He looked back to Virgil and me, then looked back to Black.

“It would be a good idea if you spiffed up a bit for the proceedings,” Juniper said. “Not too much, but some. I will see to it you have your proper clothing and grooming supplies.”

Black nodded.

“Thank you . . .”

Juniper got to his feet and turned for the door, but then turned back to Black.

“One more thing . . .”

“Yes?” Black said.

“Who was it that told you you were the prime suspect in this murder and that there was a bounty on your head? How did you find that out?”

“One of Mr. Pritchard’s employees sent me a wire.”

“Who?”

“Ms. Angel,” he said. “Daphne Angel.”