Longarm asked where Young Hansson might be that morning. She met his gaze boldly as she calmly said, "He and a few of the other boys are out hunting strays. I can't say exactly when they'll be back."
Sheriff Tegner snorted. "I can. Never. We saw all that new drift wire You've strung to the east, and you've had your frontage along the Sleepy Eye road fenced solid for some time. I reckon I'd better arrest you for murder before you decide to go hunt stray snipes or great horned jackrabbits your ownself, Helga Runeberg!"
She went a shade paler, but didn't look too scared. Then Longarm suggested, "Maybe we ought to go in out of this hot sun and have a more confidential conversation with the lady, Sheriff." Longarm was already swinging out of his saddle as he said this. So Sheriff Tegner dismounted as well, even though he grumbled in a lower tone, "Damn it, Longarm, it was you who pointed out this very suspect and that missing Hansson boy availed themselves of Western Union's services in New Ulm when they had a perfectly fine telegraph office way closer in Sleepy Eye."
Helga Runeberg snapped, "So this fancy federal man says. But he's right about how high that sun stands right now. So come on in if you want to make total fools of yourselves with this dumb line of questioning!"
She waited until just the three of them were alone in her kitchen before she poured herself and herself alone a cup of coffee and asked the sheriff, "Did he tell you how he followed me all the way to Sleepy Eye and threatened my poor inexperienced cowboys with a repeating rifle in front of witnesses?"
The sheriff planted his old bony butt on one corner of her kitchen table as he replied, "He did, and how he thinks you put on such a show for witnesses as well!"
Longarm remained standing by her back door as he nodded at her and explained, "Laughing Larry Lucas went through a charade to encourage the sheriff here to look somewhere else once I was dead too. You'd made too much public war talk to take back, right after I gunned your dear old Uncle Chief, and you were too sore to consider he was the only really experienced killer on your payroll. So after you wired for outside help from Saint Paul-"
"That's your word against mine!" she interrupted, eyes blazing.
Sheriff Tegner snapped, "No, it ain't. I questioned the Western Union clerk who served you, and he backs Longarm's tale of seeing you and young Hansson coming out just after. Before you even think of saying it was Gus Hansson sending that wire to that boardinghouse in Saint Paul, the clerk said it was you who wrote the telegram, no doubt in some tricky code, since we know you never had no Cousin Anna, but that don't matter. Tell her about the real deputy marshals over in Saint Paul, Deputy Long!"
Longarm smiled thinly at the defiant little thing, still trying to recall where he'd seen those eyes before, and explained, "It only took my pals in Saint Paul one visit to determine Laughing Larry had been boarding at that same address under the very name you evoked in your telegram, which would still be on file by the way."
She said, "All right, Uncle Chief gave me the name of another old army pal to call on if I needed help and he wasn't around. Uncle Chief traveled a lot. I don't know anything about any code. I was just told to wire Uncle Leroy that Cousin Anna was getting married and let his old army pals take it from there, see?"
Sheriff Tegner stood up, reeling some, as he snarled, "I see you think I'm just a dumb Swede you can brush away from your guilty fresh face like a housefly! But you can't fool me with your slippery answers, Helga Runeberg! I'm arresting you in the name of the people of Brown County for murder in the first degree and-"
Longarm moved with surprising speed to catch the older lawman as he lurched the gal's way, but seemed to be fixing to go another. The tall deputy said soothingly, "I told you to go easy on them caraway seeds. You're too upset to question the witness calmly. So why don't you step outside for some fresh air and let me see what I can find out from Miss Helga, Sheriff?"
The older man muttered, "Hang her, I say! Hang her as high as she blew poor Vigdis Magnusson's pretty blond head!"
But Longarm still managed to ease him outside. Helga Runeberg was frog-belly sweaty and pale as he turned back to her. But she managed a brave enough front as she said, "Drunken old fool! He hasn't a thing on me, and he'd know that if only he'd stay out of the aquavit!"
Longarm smiled knowingly and nodded, but warned, "He is the sheriff, and that gal Laughing Larry killed in my place was mighty popular in New Ulm. I'd hate to face a local jury, stuck with even the circumstantial evidence we have on you. That's what they call it when nobody saw you actually pull the trigger. Circumstantial evidence."
She said, "Damn it, I was right here on my own land, miles away from New Ulm, when that stuck-up blonde was killed!"
Longarm soberly informed her, "Miss Viggy wasn't stuck up. She was blown up. Laughing Larry would have been miles away by now had not I beat his train into the depot. I didn't know it was him before I got there. I ain't that smart. I only figured whoever it was would want to get out of town suddenly, and seeing I did know a train was about to pass through..."
"I don't know who or what you're talking about," she said. "You were there when I told my boys not to gun you down like the dog you were born. Were you there when somebody instructed a killer from out of town who his target might be and with whom he'd be planning to spend the night?"
Longarm sighed and said, "I sure hate small-town gossip. But I do thank you for tying up that loose end, ma'am. You see, I solve these tougher ones by tying up one loose end after another until none seem to be left and I get to make my own arrests. I'm a tad more scientific than Sheriff Tegner."
He let that sink in. Then he told her, "I want you to listen tight and weigh all the words of either of us before you toss more sass my way, Miss Helga. Sheriff Tegner's up for another term in the coming elections, and he needs an arrest and conviction so bad he can taste it."
He let that sink in before saying, "I'm sore about poor Miss Viggy too. Since you seem to have heard some gossip, I have no call to tell another lady why. Suffice it to say I am out for blood. But I can be flexible, not having to produce anyone for a local court. I want the big fish, on federal charges. I want him so bad I may just see my way clear to toss a few smaller fish back."
She hesitated, looked away, and bitterly replied, "Forget it. I have this family spread to think of. We both know I'd have to move far away and change my name forever if I ever turned state's evidence on a man like Calvert Tyger!"
Longarm nodded pleasantly and said, "Pinamiyeh, as your Santee neighbors would say. That's exactly the sort of loose end I like to tie up, and we've been wondering how come Calvert Tyger keeps dying all over this country. Would you like to try for the way those hot hundred-dollar notes got scattered even wider, ma'am?"
She hesitated, then softly murmured, "I have your word I won't have to sign anything or repeat one word of this in front of anyone else in this world?"
He hesitated in turn before cautioning her, "I can only bend the law so far. It's my duty as a potential witness against you to warn you I can't turn my back on a serious felony. But if I'm right about you only aiding and abetting, and you'd like to tell me just what in blue blazes has been going on, I see no reason to drag your name all over the arrest warrants once I know who I really want to arrest."
She poured another cup of coffee, this time for him, as she choked back a sob and confessed, "You were right about my sheltering Uncle Chief and, all right, a couple of other boys who might have been a bit wild. But I swear I've never taken part in any felonies myself, and that was no lie about Uncle Chief knowing nothing about that robbery in Fort Collins."
She waited until he'd sipped some coffee without calling her a liar to her face, and then she added, "He was never after you when you shot him either! I can see now how you might have thought he was. But he and some other boys he rode in with a few weeks ago were only following you about in hopes of finding out who'd sent you after them. Uncle Chief never bought that story about a bank note from that payroll robbery attracting you all the way to New Ulm. He said he'd heard they were turning up all over, and besides, he didn't know about any robbery in Fort Collins. He was afraid someone was trying to frame him and his friends."