“Clara Ramsey was murdered. I think I know who did it, and it had nothing to do with Doc Herman. He’s scared about something, and I’d like to know what it is.”
“I don’t know, and that’s the God’s truth.”
“Are you willing to stick your neck out and arrest the man who killed Clara if I can get him to confess?”
“Hell, yes. Somebody beat the shit out of that girl before he threw her out and ran over her.”
“Doc may think he knows who killed her and is protecting that person. The man I think did it is from Texas and has no connection with Doc Herman.”
Johnny spent the next ten minutes telling Sheriff Carroll about Marty Conroy and the meeting he and Keith had set up for Wednesday morning.
“Keith McCabe will get him across the river into Tillison County. Will you come with me and arrest him if I can get him to confess?”
“Damn right. Hell, Johnny, I hated seeing that girl go to her grave with folks thinking she’s just wandered out there on the road and got hit by a car.”
“All right. Come down to my place Wednesday morning, and we’ll go down to the border.” Johnny turned his back and leaned on the truck. “Thatcher is watching us from the doorway.”
“Bastard! He’s probably already called Doc.” Carroll let out a stream of obscenities. “Tell you one thing, Johnny. Doc is all het up about Miss Dolan being in the records office. Tell her to watch her step.”
“If Doc or one of his thugs lays a hand on her, he’ll answer to me.” Johnny’s face had never looked more Indian than it did when he turned to the sheriff.
“I knew that things would come to a head around here sooner or later. Doc thought they could go on forever.”
“You mean the selling of babies born to unwed mothers at the clinic?” Johnny spoke matter-of-factly as if it were common news. It caught the sheriff by surprise.
“Hell and damnation! You . . . you know about that?”
“A girl came to town a week or two ago. She was looking for her
real
mother. Adelaide is keeping her out of sight down at the
Gazette.
She’s not much more than a kid. You should go talk to her. Her folks, the DeBerrys, got her here sixteen years ago. They don’t want her now and threw her out. She says DeBerry wants his money back because he wasn’t told she had Indian blood.”
Johnny was taken aback by the stunned look on the sheriff’s face. He went as still as a stone. Seconds passed before he swallowed, coughed, and muttered something under his breath before he spoke.
“Doc . . . know about this?”
“No. Miss Dolan went to the records office to check Judy’s birth certificate. What she found surprised the hell out of her.”
“For God’s sake, don’t let Doc find out about the girl!” Carroll blurted.
“We’re doing our best. We’d appreciate your help.”
“You got it.” He wiped his brow with a handkerchief he pulled from his back pocket.
“Sheriff,” Thatcher called from the door of the office. “Phone.”
“See you Wednesday.” He turned away as if he had the weight of the world on his shoulders.
When the Sheriff Carroll walked into the office, Thatcher handed him the telephone receiver.
“Carroll, what’s going on down there?”
“Whatta you mean, Doc?” Sheriff Carroll glared at his deputy, who grinned brazenly back at him.
“What business does Johnny Henry have with the sheriff that he doesn’t want your deputy to know about? Thatcher seemed to think you’re hatching up something behind his back.”
“Horsecock! Johnny Henry wouldn’t talk to Thatcher if he was the last man on earth. He hates his guts. As for what we’re
hatching up,
somebody rustled a couple of Johnny’s steers, and he’s mad as hell about it.”
“Explain that to Thatcher. He’s a good man and we need good men, Carroll.” The call was abruptly cut off.
At the door of his office, Sheriff Carroll turned his head to stare at Deputy Thatcher.
“You son of a bitch,” he said, and slammed the door.
S
heriff Carroll sat at the scarred table that served as his desk, adjusting his weight to take pressure off the broken spring in the seat of the chair. It was an unconscious action. He had been sitting in this chair for twelve years . . . a lifetime. Each year the weight of the guilt he carried became heavier. In a small corner of his mind he was glad it was coming to an end.
The door was pushed open, and Thatcher leaned against the doorjamb.
“Want me to go out ta where the steers were rustled and take a look around?”
“No! And shut the goddamn door!”
“Johnny musta really twisted yore tail.” His grin showing his tobacco-stained teeth, the deputy stepped from the room and gently closed the door.
“Son of a bitchin’ bastard sneak!” Sheriff Carroll muttered. A few minutes later he reached for his hat and slammed it down on his head. Thatcher was leaning on the counter, a cigarette hanging from his lips when he opened the door. “Clean this place up!”
“You’re gettin’ mighty bossy, Sheriff. Somethin’ eatin’ on ya?”
“Yeah. You’re eatin’ on my nerves. I’m going out to where those steers were rustled. Be gone a couple of hours.”
“A half dozen bums built a fire in the gulley back down the tracks. Want me to run ’em off?”
“Hell, no. Leave ’em alone.”
“You’re the boss,” Thatcher said with a snicker as Sheriff Carroll went out the door.
Goddamn him. He’s been a millstone around my neck long enough.
• • •
The sheriff drove south out of town toward Johnny’s ranch but turned off at the first crossroad he came to, slowed the speed of the car until it was crawling along, then stopped.
No use burning up gas even if the county does pay for it.
He placed his hat on the seat beside him, mopped his face with the palms of his hands, and let his mind wander back to when he was a nineteen-year-old kid and had just graduated from high school. The previous year had been the happiest of his life. He’d found a girl who loved him, a girl who didn’t laugh at his blunders and didn’t make fun of him because he was overweight. A girl he didn’t dare let his mother know about.
Hannah had been so pretty, so sweet. She had been a happy, smiling girl then. It broke his heart to see her now. She was what she was because he’d not had the guts to face down his mother and take her for his wife. Dr. Herman had made their problem so easy to fix, and Hannah had loved him enough to let him make the decision; but afterward, grief for the loss of her child had broken her spirit and driven her to whiskey for forgetfulness.
She’d had two more babies since she had given birth sixteen years ago. He doubted that Hannah even knew who had fathered them while she was in a drunken stupor. The disgrace of her pregnancies had caused her family to take her to the clinic where her first child was delivered. Both babies had been declared stillborn by Dr. Herman, but Pete knew better than that.
Doc had arranged for him to get the job as deputy and later helped him get elected sheriff. From that day on, he’d been firmly under Herman’s thumb, paying the price to keep the doctor from talking about his affair with Hannah, the town whore. After his mother died, he would have been free to marry Hannah, but it was too late.
He enjoyed the respect he received as sheriff. For the first time in his life he was an official and not merely Pete and Ruby Carroll’s fat kid. Through the years he had thought of the baby he and Hannah had had. He’d even made it his business to find a birth certificate that had listed the date and time Hannah had given birth. Someday, he had told himself, he would go to Fort Worth, look up the DeBerrys, and see his and Hannah’s child, if only from a distance.
He tilted the rearview mirror and looked at himself. The years had not been kind. He was thirty-six years old and looked ten years older. His hair was gray; his jowls sagged. He had bags beneath his eyes. It was time to face up. Maybe he could make up . . . a little, for the damage he’d done to the only person who had ever loved him.
• • •
The sheriff parked behind the
Gazette
and went in the back door. The first thing he saw was a small, dark-haired girl picking type from a rack with a long pair of tweezers. Without conscious thought, he took off his hat.
“Hello, Sheriff.” Paul positioned himself protectively between the sheriff and the girl. “Adelaide is up front. Go on through.”
Pete Carroll felt a heavy lump in his chest. On stiff legs he went through to the front office. Both Adelaide and the redheaded reporter were busy at their typewriters. Alarm showed on Adelaide’s face when she looked up and saw him. Her eyes darted to the door leading to the back room.
“Hello, Pete. I didn’t know you were here.”
“I need to talk to you, Adelaide. Can we go somewhere . . . private?”
“Well . . . ah, yes, but wait here until I talk to Paul.”
“I’ve seen her. You don’t need to tell him to hide her.”
“For gosh sake, Pete—”
“I’m not here to cause trouble. I just had a long talk with Johnny Henry.”
“Go on, Adelaide,” Kathleen said. “I see Mrs. Smothers and a couple of her cronies across the street. They may be headed this way.”
Paul looked askance when Adelaide came into the back room with the sheriff. Under Carroll’s intense scrutiny, the young girl moved closer to Paul as if seeking protection. Her dark eyes went from the man with the star on his chest to Adelaide. She put her hand on Paul’s arm.
“It’s all right, Judy. The sheriff isn’t here to arrest you. Pete, this is Judy DeBerry. She’s been helping us here for the past couple of weeks.”
“How do you do, sir?” Judy’s voice was barely above a whisper.
“Hello.” Pete’s throat was so clogged he could barely speak.
Oh, Jesus. This is my little girl. Hannah and I made this pretty child out of our love for each other. She could almost be Hannah sixteen years ago. What did I give away . . . so long ago?
“Pete,” Adelaide said, then repeated it when he didn’t seem to hear. “Pete, we can go into Paul’s room, but I want him to hear whatever you have to say. I have no secrets from Paul.”
“Honey,” Paul said to Judy, “use the type out of this number six tray for the headline and out of number four for the subheading.”
“All right.” Judy looked anxiously at the sheriff. He was still staring at her with a strange look on his face. Then he turned and followed Adelaide. Paul gave her shoulder a squeeze before he left her.
As soon as the door closed behind them, Sheriff Carroll turned and faced them.
“She’s my . . . mine,” he blurted. “She’s my little girl.” Sobs came up out of his throat and threatened to choke him. “Mine and . . . Hannah’s.”
Tears flooded his eyes and rolled down his cheeks. For a minute he tried to hold back the flow, then in a defiant action threw his hat on the floor. He stood like a swaying oak before sinking down on the edge of the bed. He leaned over, his forearms on his knees, and his thick shoulders shaking with sobs.
Adelaide and Paul looked at each other helplessly. Paul opened a drawer, took out a handkerchief, and pressed it into the sheriff’s hands. Paul was the only grown man Adelaide had ever seen cry. He had cried almost silently when he had told her about his life until the time he came to Rawlings. Pete Carroll was not so reserved; he sobbed as if his heart were broken. Adelaide sat down on the bed beside him and put her arm around him.
“Do you want to tell us about it, Pete?” she asked when he had quieted a bit.
He dried his eyes and blew his nose on the handerchief Paul had given him.
“I’ll wash . . . this and give it back.”
“Pete, how do you know that Judy is yours and Hannah’s?” Adelaide asked.
“Hannah had a baby sixteen years ago. It was mine. Doc said the thing to do would be to find it a good home. We let him have it. I found out he gave her to people named DeBerry.”
“We know what Dr. Herman and Louise are doing. They don’t care if the baby has a
good
home. They are selling the babies to whoever has the price,” Paul declared angrily. “We’re trying to get proof so they can be stopped.”
“Doc’s a dangerous man. Louise Munday is just as bad. I’ve known it for a while, but didn’t know how to get out from under it.” Pete Carroll’s eyes were still wet, but he held up his head and looked each of them in the eye. “May God forgive me for what I’ve done to that girl and to Hannah.”
“There nothing I can say that will bring peace to your mind, Pete. I know what pressure you had from your mother. It still is no excuse. But that’s in the past. What you do in the future is what is important.”
“He’d not think twice about getting Judy out of town if he finds out who she is. He didn’t want Miss Dolan to come here; he was afraid an outsider would dig up something.”