“Could be.”
“Of course you do. They figure to take firm root here and then grow like a weed, like a vine taking hold in one spot and pretty soon expanding all around it. If they can get a firm hold here, Longarm, next they’ll have a voice in the state capital. Senate, House of Representatives, state supreme court, wherever they can get a toehold. And that is all entirely legal. Don’t get me wrong. My boss has no grief with anything they do that’s legal and aboveboard. So long as the Texas First party members are elected fair and square, we’ll do everything we can to protect them and to guarantee their rights. Unfortunately, there are rumors … which now look to be something more than rumors … about their methods for gaining control of some political offices.”
“Norman Colton, you mean?”
“It’s possible. Colton wasn’t a Texas Firster. His appointment to office came out of Washington, you know. And he was loyal to his party. Just like Pete Nare was loyal to his party. Which was the opposition to the current administration but there again he was no Texas Firster.”
“And the first man who was killed? What was his name again?”
“Meyers. Wil Meyers.”
“Right. Thanks.”
“Anyway, you asked about Meyers’ political affiliation,” Amos reminded him. “The truth is that I don’t know. I haven’t wanted to be too nosy about the other murders. I can safely bring up anything relating to my so-called cousin Norman, but I didn’t want to tip my hand about Meyers. Now, of course, it looks like there’s a pattern beginning to show so I’ll be free to ask around some more. But still as a concerned relative. I’ll leave the official investigating to you since you’re out in the open about it.”
Longarm nodded. “And your boss in the Rangers thinks the Texas First party is beginning to have some influence inside the Rangers, I take it?” That was the wrong thing to say, he saw immediately: the open friendliness in Amos’s eyes was instantly replaced by a veil of—at the very least—caution.
“The Rangers don’t get involved in politics, Deputy. Never!”
“No, I reckon you don’t,” Longarm said quickly. But it sounded lame even to him.
Of course Amos’s anger was more than answer enough. Damn right the head man in Austin was afraid that this Texas First crowd was trying to influence law enforcement as well as put their people into elected office. And when someone started trying to take that kind of control, well, any sensible citizen would tend to open his eyes and his ears wider than usual and prepare to defend the rights his government was supposed to guarantee for him.
“D’ you, uh, want a piece o’ pie t’ go with that,” Longarm suggested in a peace-making effort.
“If you’re buying, sure,” Amos said, accepting the unspoken apology in the spirit Longarm intended.
Chapter 19
It was no trick to find out where the latest murder took place. A large sign painted in bright red lettering proclaimed the location of Nare and Son, Hardware and Farm Implements, Offered to the Gen’l Public at Wholesale Price.
The two-story building was perhaps twenty feet wide but ran the full depth of the city lot, which was a good seventy or eighty feet or so. According to what Longarm had overheard earlier in the police chief’s office, the top floor was given to living quarters and the ground floor to business. There was an alley running along the east side of the building, and that would be where the door was, the one Peter Nare opened to find a gun staring him in the face.
Naturally enough the store remained closed after the proprietor’s death. If there was family left to take over the buisness, they would not likely do so until after a suitable mourning period. The top-floor windows, at least those that could be seen from the street, were closed, and there was no way for Longarm to tell if anyone was there. Seeing no policemen in the vicinity he assumed the chief was already in possession of whatever information was available. If any.
Longarm figured there was at least a strong likelihood that this killing and the two previous ones, including that of federal employee Norman Colton, were connected. So it was within his jurisdiction to make inquiries into the death of Pete Nare.
He stood on the board sidewalk across the street from the empty and somewhat forlorn-looking hardware store and lighted a cheroot while he took a look up and down the block.
There was a saloon on the corner, normally the most likely source of information about any happening in the neighborhood. But Longarm had been in the place the previous day and found only silent hostility there.
He smiled when he saw, tucked between a hatmaker and a haberdashery, a small storefront that announced itself as an ice cream parlor and confectioner. Perfect. He stayed where he was until he finished his smoke, then ambled down the block toward the ice cream parlor. A mid-afternoon sweet sounded just about right.
Longarm was not sure if he should feel like a cockerel in a roost full of hens. Or a turd floating in the punch bowl.
For sure he was the only male in sight. Unless you counted those visible through the glass front as commerce passed by the tiny island of feminism.
The proprietress and staff were exclusively female and so was the afternoon clientele. Save, that is, for one tall, lean United States deputy marshal.
The woman who seemed to be in charge of the parlor was perhaps fifty or so, with hair like steel, eyes like ball bearings and a build that suggested she could wrestle steers and not give much away in terms of raw power. She had two waitresses, both young women in their late teens or early twenties, each wearing identical uniforms of white shirt, gray skirt and an overblouse (or whatever the glorified aprons might be called) made of pink fabric with huge ruffles at the arm holes and embroidered lettering on the left breast to indicate the girl’s name—Barbara being a short girl with a round face, dimples, and brown hair tied back in a severe bun and Clarice being tall, slim, and almost pretty except for a large wart on the side of her nose that gave her the unfortunate appearance of a Halloween witch illustration come to life.
The patrons—the little store was nearly full—were ladies in various degrees of finery taking time out from the taxing chores of shopping, pausing here for refreshment so they would be able once more to contribute to the economy of their town.
Married women all, he was sure. He could tell by the piles of bundles, sacks, and parcels spread out on the floor near their feet. Women would spend so freely only if someone else was providing the wherewithal. Or so Longarm believed. He supposed he could be in error about that since it was only one man’s lifetime of experience that led him to the assumption.
Whatever, they were a handsome sight, this gathering of Addington’s grandest dams at the—well, sort of—watering hole.
“Yes, sir?” The voice was tentative, unsure and a trifle too high-pitched. It was Clarice who’d lost out and had to wait on the male in their midst.
“You have ice cream, the sign says?”
“Yes, sir. Seven flavors.” She pointed toward a sign high on the back wall listing the assortment.
“Vanilla will be fine,” he said.
“Yes, sir. We have some nice fresh dewberries. Would you like some on top?”
“Please.”
She gave him a smile that seemed genuine, dipped into a minimal curtsy and swept away with the hem of her skirt flying up a bit to reveal an ankle that was not half bad. If it weren’t for that wart …
Longarm removed his Stetson and looked around, but there was no provision made for gentlemen’s hats here. He settled for putting it on the seat of the other chair at his tiny table.
The ladies at the other tables had virtually stopped talking when he entered, but by now they were beginning to relax in his presence—if not actually forgetting about him then at least no longer finding it unnatural for him to be there among them in what he now strongly believed was normally an exclusive preserve of the fair gender.