Doc Forbes finally banged on the table for silence and declared, “This hearing has been called to decide the causes of two deaths. That of the late David Loman, alias Dancing Dave, and Howard Burnside, who was better known as Bubblehead. This shouldn’t take long because, with the help of Nurse Calder yonder, I autopsied both those boys this very afternoon.”
He picked up some papers as if to read them, decided the technical terms would only confuse his fellow panelists, and declared, “I can sum it up best by saying they both died with severed spinal columns.”
A cowhand seated near the back joyfully volunteered, “They say that’ll happen ever time when you tie a rope around a rascal’s neck and shove him off a railroad trestle.”
Doc Forbes silenced the laughter with a severe look and told them all, “We have to word our official report soberly. How does manslaughter at the hands of person or persons unknown strike the rest of you?”
There came a murmur of agreement from both the panel and their audience. So Longarm called out, “Manslaughter my Aunty Fanny! When you set out alone or in a bunch with the avowed intention of killing somebody, and then you kill not one but two, the legal definition of your crime is premeditated murder in the first degree!”
Doc Forbes said that sounded fair. But another man on the panel, who looked like he and Buffalo Bill bought their outfits at the same shops, protested, “Hold on. The Minute Men ain’t murderers. I’ll allow they might have been rougher than they needed to be on that one train robber the other night. But they had just cause to be het up about the fiendish ravaged murder of that poor little Sunday school gal!”
The agreement was louder this time. As it died down a fussy-dressed gent wearing his glasses with a string on them cleared his throat and fussed, “We held our hearing on the death of Mildred Powell the day before yesterday. I see no reason to rehash it. We agreed on those findings, and the grand jury surely would have indicted that half-wit if the Minute Men hadn’t taken the law into their own hands.”
“Three cheers for the Minute Men!” yelled another cowhand, to be seconded by a townsman, who called, “Saved the grand jury a meeting and Lord knows what it might have cost the taxpayers to go on guarding and feeding that ravenous half-wit!”
Nurse Calder rose to her five-foot-six or so and snapped, “You gentlemen are the ones who sound like half-wits! Thanks to the murder of Howard Burnside, we’ll never really know what happened the other day in the basement of First Calvinist!”
The older man dressed like Buffalo Bill or a mighty well-paid top hand looked up at her, surprised, and said, “We know what happened to Miss Mildred, Nurse Calder. She told Nick Olsen and Rafe Jennings who’d just ravaged her and left her for dead when they found her bleeding to death on the cement floor down yonder!”
Nurse Calder sniffed and said, “Dr. Forbes let me read all that. Then I assisted him in the examination of your accused rapist. Howard Burnside had the mind and sex drive of a pre-school child. He had the sex organs to go with them, and there was no indication she’d been raped in Mildred Powell’s autopsy report!”
A tall young man wearing a low-crowned Stetson rose to his feet in the crowd and called out, “Hold on, there, ma’am. I’d be Rafe Jennings and I was holding Miss Mildred’s head on my knee, trying to help her breathe, as she told me and Nick Olsen yonder she’d been raped and stabbed by old Bubblehead—or Howard as she called him.”
The taffy-headed gal in tan shrugged and replied simply, “She was confused, or you heard her wrong. It’s possible for a woman to have sex with a man without retaining any, ah, results in her vagina. But even if he’d been wearing a condom, that immature Mongoloid idiot was simply not man enough to rape anybody!”
The lout who’d raised a cheer for the Minute Men laughed lewdly and asked, “Did you take a yardstick to both them dead boys, ma’am? Is that true about hanged men having hard-ons after they’re dead?”
More than one man present laughed uncomfortably. But if the cool-eyed Nancy Calder was embarrassed, she failed to show it. Staring right at the crude cowhand, she sweetly replied, “You might or might not defecate or ejaculate as You died instantly with a severed spinal column. I can assure you they’d have dropped real loads and shot their wads if you’d strangled them slowly.”
The cowhand protested, “Hold on. Don’t you go saying it was my notion to kill them boys last night!”
That really got the crowd to buzzing. Doc Forbes pounded the table and declared them both out of order. So Nurse Calder sat back down.
That allowed the panel to jaw back and forth about crossing some Ts or dotting an occasional I. In the end they decided to send a bill of John Doe indictments on to the county prosecutor and let him worry about it.
As the hearing was declared over and everyone tried to get over to the Red Rooster at once, Longarm stayed put in his corner until, sure enough, Nurse Nancy Calder moved along one wall toward him, looking sheepish as she nodded and said, “You’re right. I should have kept my big mouth shut. I think I was called up here to verify the sex-mad rages of Mongoloid idiots. I’m sorry if I let everyone down, but at least I have that brain to carry back to the agency with me, if only I can get permission from the next of kin. I’m not sure Dr. Forbes likes me anymore.”
Longarm said, “Just stay put a minute and let the stampede die down, ma’am. Doc Forbes is all right. He’s just a small-town sawbones depending on the county machine for the difference betwixt living well and struggling. I don’t think he’d lie deliberately. I just heard one witness testify the dead gal accused that Burnside boy. As to that brain you two took out of his odd-shaped skull this afternoon, I might be able to help you out there. His sister, Miss Rose, is sitting wake on him over to the funeral parlor. Let me do the talking and we might be able to get her permission.”
He explained about his earlier conversation with the dead boy’s next of kin. She agreed it was worth a try, and allowed a written statement from a peace officer, confirming an oral agreement, would cover her with the Bureau of Indian Affairs if push ever came to shove.
As they followed the last of the crowd outside, the sun was all the way down and the western sky was painted red and gold where it wasn’t already purple. So the lighting was a tad tricky as they moved around to where they’d tethered their mounts. But Longarm made it an even half-dozen men blocking their paths, all but one under broad-brimmed hats, with the odd one a derby.
Getting right to the point, one of them announced, “We don’t hold with trash-talking sluts coming here to accuse our pals of lying, you Indian-loving slut!”
Longarm moved the gal out of his line of fire as he quietly but firmly declared, “You say that one more time or call this lady one more name and I am going to clean your plow, cowboy!”
“You think you’re big enough?” jeered another voice from the coyote pack.
Longarm said, “You’d best mount up and go on home after the doc, Nurse Calder. We might be holding another coroner’s hearing here directly.”
Then another party loomed out of the darkness to declare in a no-nonsense tone, “That’ll be enough for tonight, boys. Go on home, Tom. You too, Latigo. I mean it, and we all know what happens if I have to repeat myself!”
It seemed to work. As the surly crowd dispersed without a lick of back-sass, Longarm nodded knowingly at the pewter badge worn by the darkly dressed figure who’d come to their rescue.