“Sheriff,” the one called Dewey said calmly. “We got six murders, here, for the love of God. If he can help—”
“Shut up, Dewey.” Lauters turned his back on all of them and started up out of the gully.
“Who’s the sixth?” Longtree asked.
“Nate Segaris,” one of the men replied. “Got killed right in his house.”
“Ripped to shreds,” another said.
Longtree took a drag off his cigar. “Before you boys head back,” he said, “you ought to know there’s a seventh.”
Everyone stared at him.
And in the distance, a low mournful howling rose up and died away.
PART II
Old Red Eyes
1
The good Reverend Claussen, scarf wrapped around his throat, fought through the biting wind to the undertaking parlor. He paused in the street outside of a peeling gray building. A wooden, weathered sign read: J. SPENCE, UNDERTAKER. It was barely readable. Too many seasons of harsh winters and blistering summers had faded the black lettering to a drab leaden color.
Clenching his teeth against the elements, Claussen went in.
He went directly into the back rooms where the bodies were prepared.
In there were Wynona Spence, Sheriff Lauters, and Dr. Perry.
The reverend eyed them all suspiciously. “Why is it,” he said in his New England twang, “that I wasn’t told of another death? Why must I learn these things by word of mouth, by rumor?”
“Keep your shirt on, Father,” Lauters said. “I—”
“I’m not a Catholic, sir. Please address me accordingly.”
Lauters scowled, fished a plug of tobacco from his pouch and inserted it in his cheek. “What I was trying to say, Reverend, was that this here is Curly Del Vecchio. Or what there’s left of him. Curly wasn’t what you’d call a religious man.”
Claussen, his close-cut steel-gray hair bristling, said, “The dead are granted certain considerations, Sheriff. By the grace of God let me give this poor man spiritual absolution.”
Dr. Perry, standing next to the sheeted form on the table shrugged and pulled the sheet away.
Reverend Claussen paled and averted his eyes.
“Not very pretty, is it?” Wynona Spence said, her pursed lips pulled into a thin purple line which might have been a smile. “But beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”
Claussen glared at her. He saw no humor in death.
Wynona Spence inherited the business from her ailing father. Being a female, she was a rarity in the business. But truth be told, she was the perfect undertaker. God molds men and women for certain tasks in life, the reverend knew, and she could have been nothing but what she was. Cadaverous, tall, bony with tight colorless flesh and bulging watery eyes, she was the very image of her father. Only the drab gray dresses and the tight bun her colorless hair was drawn into marked her as a woman. Her voice was deep and velvety, her face hard and narrow. Unmarried, she lived in rooms above the funeral parlor with another woman…and the gossip took off from there.
Claussen went through the ritual over the body almost mechanically.
The words flowed from his lips like wine with the perfect intonation and breath control, but he was not aware of them. He saw only the plucked, slit, and hacked thing laid out before him staring up with blanched, bloodless eyeballs.
Claussen completed the ritual with a few prayers and an “amen”. He turned and faced Lauters with a bizarre species of contempt on his rosy features. “The members of my congregation want something done, Sheriff. They demand resolution.”
Lauters stared at him with unblinking, dead eyes. “We’re doing all we can.”
“Do more! Do it in the name of our Lord!” the Reverend exclaimed piously. “The dead deserve justice! The living, protection!”
Dr. Perry folded his arms and turned away, hiding a smile.
Wynona leaned forward, lifeless eyes examining a new type of insect.
“We’re doing our best,” was Lauters’ only comment. He was visibly trembling, not the sort of man who liked to be told his job.
“One would think your best isn’t good enough,” Claussen said dryly.
Lauters face went red. “Now, listen here, Reverend. My mother taught me to respect the clergy. God knows I do my best. But don’t you dare tell me my goddamn job,” he said, finger stabbing the air. “I don’t tell you how to pray, so don’t you tell me how to run the law around here.”
The reverend, electric with religious zeal and self-imposed holiness, stepped forward. “Perhaps someone should.”
“Listen, you little sonofabitch, I’ve had all I’m going to fucking take—”
“Your profanities fall on deaf ears. Such talk is the work of a weak mind.”
Lauters grabbed him by the arm, not too roughly. “That’s it, Claussen. March your holier-than-thou butt right out the door before I kick your teeth so far down your God-loving throat that you—”
“Sheriff,” Perry said, flashing him a warning look.
Claussen, his eyes bulging in fear, rushed out the door like something was biting his backside.
Wynona giggled. “My goodness.”
Perry sighed. “Not a very good idea, Bill. If you make him angry he could turn his whole congregation against you.”
Lauters bellowed with laughter. “He’s already turned one of them against me,” he said sourly. “My wife.”
With that, he turned and left.
“My, what excitement!” Wynona exclaimed as best she could. “We never have this much excitement here. I feel as though I’ve stepped into a dime novel. Tsk, tsk.”
Perry said, “You’re a strange one, madam.”
And she was. Perry could never understand a woman wanting to be an undertaker. But he honestly couldn’t picture her doing anything else. Even her movements-the slow stiff motions of her skeletal fingers, that slat-lean face pulling into a skullish grin-bespoke a worker of death and graves. Wynona Spence looked much like the bodies she prepared for burial and was only moderately more animated. Whereas most women boasted of perfume, Wynona always smelled vaguely of chemicals and dry flowers.
“I still don’t understand what attracts you to this profession,” Perry said, shaking his head. “But I suppose, given your particular talents, you’re well-suited.”
Wynona smiled as if it was a compliment. “The sheriff really should control his outbursts, though,” she said sincerely. “Not good for a man his age.”
Perry lifted his eyebrows. “He’s not even fifty yet, madam.”
“He looks seventy,” Wynona observed. “One of these days, I fear he’ll be here as a customer.” She sighed, looking at the corpse of Del Vecchio. “Well, we’ll be glad to have him, won’t we?”
Perry scowled. “He’s not in the best of health. In the past year he’s gone downhill. Must be the job.”
“Stress. It takes the best of them. You can take my word for that.”
“Ever since they lynched that Indian,” Perry said, “he just hasn’t been the same.”
2
Joe Longtree came to the undertaking parlor less than an hour later.
Wynona saw him come in and her first thought was that the man was a shootist. He wore a black flat-crowned hat and a long midnight blue broadcloth coat, unbuttoned, that went to his knees. He carried a buffalo coat over one arm. The spurs on his black, scuffed and scraped Texas boots rang out with each step. There were twin Colt pistols slung low on either hip like a gunman would wear them.
“Can I help you?” Wynona asked.
“Joe Longtree,” he said, turning the lapel over his heart inside out. There was a badge pinned there. “Deputy U.S. Marshal.”
“Ah, yes. The Sheriff said you’d be coming.”
Longtree smiled. “I’ll just bet he did.”
Wynona was unsure what was meant by that. Lauters said this federal man would show up and begin nosing about. Lauters also said to beware of him. Longtree, he’d said, was pushy, arrogant, and mouthy. Wynona was expecting the very worst. She had no earthly intention of opposing this man in any way; he was, after all, a federal marshal and carried a certain amount of weight because of it. That and the fact Longtree looked dangerous. His eyes were deep, fathomless blue. Very intense. They were the eyes of a man that killed for a living. Had she been moved by such things, she would have found him exciting.