Darby Travis’s place was more than a quarter mile past the edge of town, upstream along a tiny willow-lined till not deep enough to keep a frog damp. Most of the year the path running along the west side of the creek—locally and unofficially known as Travis’s Trickle—likely offered a pleasant little stroll. At the moment, however, it threatened life and limb. Literally. If it hadn’t been for the line of snow-plastered crackwillows, they would surely have lost their way. As it was, Longarm hoped the mayor damn sure knew where they were going because one moment of confusion could have downright serious consequences.
When the path took them into the lee of a grove of runty, twisted little cottonwoods, however, Parminter grabbed Longarm by the elbow and guided him into a massive snowdrift. At least the big white heap looked like nothing more than an unusually large drift. What it turned out to be was Old Man Travis’s cabin, its twisted, mud-chinked logs hidden behind a wall of wind-piled snow.
The door, broken lock dangling, stood open, and the interior looked as cold and empty as a tomb.
Which under the circumstances was not at all unreasonable, Longarm thought.
“See anything?” he asked.
Parminter shook his head. “I thought those kids said they lighted a lantern in here.”
“There.” Longarm pointed. The lantern, its globe broken, lay on the floor close to the open door. It was plain damn lucky that the thing hadn’t set the cabin afire when it was dropped.
Parminter, still in the lead, picked the lantern up and shook it. Satisfied that there was still oil in it, he stepped deeper inside the shack to be out of the swirling wind coming through the doorway and struck a match. As soon as the lantern was lighted, Longarm pulled the door closed behind him. There was no change in temperature, of course, but shutting away the sound of the wind made it seem somehow warmer and more comfortable.
“Well, the boys weren’t lying,” Longarm said while the mayor was still busy adjusting the lantern wick.
“Pardon me?”
Longarm pointed. Travis’s cot was a crude affair, made of split aspen logs pegged into a corner so as to provide solid support on two sides, and with a chunk of tree section acting as a leg at the foot of the narrow bunk. At first glance the bed simply looked untidy and rumpled. But closer inspection disclosed an unnaturally pale hand exposed beneath a fold of twisted quilt and a shadowed cheek barely visible at the pillow end of the bed. “Bring that light closer, will you?” Longarm asked.
He moved in front of the mayor and went to the bed. Yeah, the boys were right all right. Longarm pulled the covers back out of the way so he could get a better look.
The body was that of a young woman. Naked. Very badly battered. The right side of her face was distorted with swelling and discoloration, to the point that even someone who knew her would have had difficulty trying to recognize her. There were no visible stab or gunshot wounds. At least none that Longarm could see as she was now positioned, lying face-up on the old man’s dirty bunk with her hands—oddly, Longarm thought—arranged across her stomach in a common burial posture.
She’d had a fine figure, he saw. Her breasts were of something better than average size, and were pink-tipped and exceptionally firm. Or would have been in life, that is. They were damn well solid, of course, now that she was frozen.
Which, Longarm realized, was something of an assumption based on the near-white pallor caused by the cold. He really had no way to judge how long she’d been dead or the condition of her flesh just by looking. So he touched her.
He prodded the slight swell of her lower belly with a rigid fingertip, encountering more than a little resistance. He pushed harder, and was able to feel some small amount of give, the flesh over her stomach acting as a solidly frozen bridge or ceiling on the relatively empty cavity inside. Longarm grunted.
“What?” Parminter asked.
“Takes a helluva time for a body to freeze,” Longarm ventured. “There’s heat built up inside. I dunno why. That’s why you have to gut a deer or elk if you don’t want the meat to spoil. It don’t seem to matter how cold it is, the heat stays inside unless you let the cold get in. She’s been dead”—he shrugged—“couple days anyhow. Could be even longer. I can’t say for certain sure.”
“A week, do you think?”
“Could be, I suppose,” Longarm agreed, although with certain reservations in his own mind.
“The last I recall seeing Darby Travis was just about a week ago,” the mayor said.
“You figure he killed the girl for some reason and then ran?”
“It’s a reasonable assumption.”
“This Travis fella, he wouldn’t be smart enough to move the body elsewhere so it wouldn’t be found in his own bed?”
“Not if he panicked. I mean, it looks pretty much an open-and-shut case, doesn’t it? The girl is here in Darby’s own bed. And he left town without warning.”
Longarm grunted again. Whatever the facts, they weren’t his to worry about. Killing people, even young and pretty girls, was not a violation of federal law. A deputy U.S. marshal had no jurisdiction over local affairs in Kittstown, Wyoming.
On a whim, though, Longarm took the lantern from the mayor and held it closer to the corpse, moving it up and down, back and forth, so as to give light from different angles. “Why are you doing that?” Parminter asked. Longarm explained. “And do you see anything?”
Longarm nodded, pointing. “See there?”
“No.” The mayor leaned closer to scrutinize the curling brown patch of scanty pubic hair.
Longarm moved the lantern a little. “Now?” Longarm prompted. “Not high up in the hair. Down around the pussy and on the skin of her thighs way up high. Now do you see?”
“It looks sort of … shiny,” Parminter said.
“Exactly,” Longarm said. “Know what that is?”
The mayor shook his head.
“Dried come. It’s always shiny like that when it dries on. Helluva lot of it too, in the hair and on her legs.” He moved the lantern and looked closer. “Down here lower on her left leg too. She dripped some. That means she was standing up at one point after she was fucked. And look here.” Longarm dug a fingertip through the screen of dark hair low on the dead girl’s mound. “There more has leaked out and trickled down onto her butthole. I’d say she got it again while she was laying down and never had a chance to get up again. She was killed after that time.” He looked at Parminter. “How old did you say this Travis is?”
The mayor shrugged. “I don’t know. Pretty old.”
“You think he could get it up twice in a row like that?”
“Like what? He could have kept her captive for days before he killed her,” Parminter countered.
Longarm frowned, considering. “You’re right. I reckon he could at that.”
Parminter managed a weak smile. “Besides, I wouldn’t think age should keep a man down. Personally, I intend to still be getting it on a regular basis when I’m ninety.”
“And I hope you do at that.” Longarm looked the girl’s body over again, and shrugged again. “You haven’t said if you recognize her.”
“I … think maybe.”
“Maybe? Mr. Mayor, pardon me for pointing out the obvious, but Kittstown ain’t so awful big that you should have trouble keeping track of who-all lives here.” In an effort to help, Longarm took hold of the girl’s shoulder and rolled the body onto its side so Parminter could get a look at the relatively undamaged side of her face.
God, she’d been pretty, Longarm saw now. And younger than he’d thought. Fifteen or sixteen, he guessed. With a glossy spill of gleaming chestnut-colored hair puffed loose around her head and her eyes closed as if in sleep. It occurred to Longarm for the second time that after battering the girl to death, the killer had bothered to arrange the body with some care, folding the hands, closing the eyes, doing those small services that one did to prepare the dead. But not, of course, washing her, or they never would have seen the semen dried on her flesh. Damned interesting, he thought.