Youngblood shook his head, pissed.
Caulder and Coop sly-eyed each other. They’d heard the rumors.
“Did Jenkins have some provision in his will about you running the place after he’s gone?”
“How the hell should I know?” Indignant and surly.
Marta returned with Coop’s fresh Coke, saying, “So what’s the story you were going to tell?” The lady liked stories; that’s what kept her eight hours of table-hopping fresh. She swiped a bug buzzing her head.
“These machetes got me thinking. Something I read once, about a ruler in China, near the Tianshan Mountains. This would have been during the Han period, back in early B.C. This ruler wasn’t too well liked by his subjects. Seems he was letting the wealthy slide on their taxes, leaving the merchants and peasants to pick up the slack. Anyway, one day he decided to take a tour of the countryside with his Royal Guard. He wandered off by himself to inspect some farmland and was later found in a field, hacked to death by a machete.
“There were about twenty farmers out there at the time, clearing marshland for a rice field. One of them had seen his opportunity and took it. But which one?”
“Should I order pie while I wait for you to finish?”
It was Youngblood, getting on my nerves now. “No. But Coop can have a slice if he wants.”
The big man snorted, amused.
The two bandits listened quietly, nursing wounds. Lids heavy over hard eyes.
“Anyway, the head of the ruler’s Guard gathered the farmers together, made them all stand in a row and set their machetes on the ground in front of them. All their blades were clean; whoever'd done the deed had washed his weapon in a nearby stream. But see, this guard knew something; the boy was ahead of his time. He made all those farmers stand there and wait. And it was a hot, dry day.”
“Like we’re waiting now,” said Caulder. “So what’s the point?”
Coop wiped a bead of sweat from his temple. Youngblood twitched a finger as a fly landed on it. The bug zipped away.
“The point is: Flies always find the blood. No matter how much you wash it off, they find the scent. All it takes is a few stray microbes. That’s what this guard knew. So he had all those farmers stand and wait, on that hot, sweaty day. Wait for the flies to show up and land on the murder weapon, pointing him to the killer.”
Youngblood scoffed again, “This is—”
“Stupid?” I finished. “I realize it’s not exactly CSI, but stupid it ain’t, cowboy.”
It might not have been stupid, but hell if I knew if it was actually going to work. Given my recent unemployment, I was second-guessing myself a lot lately.
“So you’re thinking that two of us teamed up to take out Jenkins?” It was Coop, getting into it.
“No, I think it was one of you,” then I nodded to the silent bandits, “and these two. I’m guessing they were hired to come in and make it look like a holdup, then do Jenkins. Or maybe only one of them was privy to the murder part. Maybe this one that went into the bathroom with you guys, the one I shot, got cold feet and backed out. There was an argument back there with whichever one of you hired him; that’s why he came racing out hollering and angry, leaving one of you to finish off Jenkins by his lonesome.”
“After the other two of us had been knocked out,” finished Coop.
I nodded.
Caulder pointed to the arm-shot bandit. “That means it was him who knocked us out?”
“Or whoever hired him. From behind, like I said.”
Coop grunted, “I was hit from behind.”
“So was I,” said Youngblood. He pointed to the bruise on the back of his neck.
“Me too,” offered Caulder, lowering his head to show off the pinkish egg sprouting from his scalp. “So did one of us club him-self?” He chuckled like he’d just delivered a punchline.
“Nope,” I said, staring Caulder down. “Not you, anyway. Because you’ve only got one bump.”
“That’s all it took. He hit me hard.”
I shook my head. “No. That bump happened out here. We all saw it. He clubbed you with the butt end of his blade for show. It staggered you, but didn’t knock you out. If he’d hit you in the bathroom, you’d have two bumps.”
Caulder’s face bunched up as if someone had just told him hippos could fly. “I’m with Youngblood. This is stupid.”
By now both Coop and Youngblood had turned to regard Caulder suspiciously.
Caulder jerked his head back and forth between the two, defensive. “Come on! I got no reason to see Jenkins dead!”
I thought of one more thing, but wasn’t sure if the bait was big enough for the fish: “Maybe it has something to do with your brother.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” He ran a hand through coarse dark hair.
“That’s right,” said Coop. “His brother Matt got canned a couple of weeks ago.”
“And for that I kill him? Come on, Coop, you know me.”
I offered something else. “Your brother gets cut, so you cut Jenkins. Poetic, in a crude sort of way. Like a Cro-Magnon chiseling a haiku on the cave wall.”
“For firing Matt?” Caulder was incredulous.
Youngblood had been cogitating for thirty seconds or so. “Maybe it’s more than that,” he said.
We waited for him to continue.
“About three months ago, Mr. Jenkins was mugged after his Thursday bank stop, by guys wearing ski masks. Normally, I went with him, but that day I was out vaccinating and ear-marking some new head with Caulder. Later, Mr. Jenkins always suspected Matt had something to do with the mugging; it'd been Matt’s day off. Hell, maybe even one of these two was in on it.” He meant the bandits.
The one with the busted nose shifted, a clear tell.
“Mr. Jenkins finally got tired of suspecting Matt and let him go.”
“And that’s why Jenkins was killed?” wondered Coop.
Youngblood shrugged. “Maybe. Think about it...”
I let the overgrown Hardy Boys keep going while Caulder sweated it out between them.
“Mr. Jenkins asked me last month if I thought Caulder could have been involved with the mugging, like maybe he’d given Matt details about the bank stop. I said no way, Caulder’s a stand-up guy. But that wasn’t good enough for Mr. Jenkins.” Youngblood stared at Caulder. “He told me he was going to start digging around about you.”
“Come to think of it,” said Coop, “Caulder’s got a brand-new pair of dancing boots and a turquoise buckle out in the bunkhouse.”
“Really?” asked Youngblood.
Caulder was finally fed up. “I bought those with last year’s bonus!”
Coop guffawed. “You never sat on a bonus more'n three days!”
“So you think I arranged that mugging and Jenkins was going to nail me for it? That’s still no reason to kill the guy!” Caulder looked from one to the other and back to me, assured.
“Unless you’re a third-striker,” I said.
Caulder blanched.
“I saw the way you were eating your food, guarding it with your arms wrapped around your plate. That’s how a convict eats. You done time, Caulder? If Jenkins snooped around about your past, he would have found out about your record and brought the cops in to question you about the mugging. And you couldn’t handle the idea of going back in for a long stretch. That’s why you killed him. Stupid, Caulder, real stupid.”
Frustrated, he swept his arm across the tabletop, sending his pocketknife flying. It bounced off a chair and clattered to the floor, spinning like a propeller. It slowed to a stop under an oil painting of Haystack Rock at Cannon Beach.
Caulder rocketed from his seat like a giant coil just sproinged his butt.
But I already had my gun out. Pointed at his chest.