CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Thaddeus Gripewater was drunk.
That much was obvious to Fallon, and to the big guard, who had announced, “Prisoner here as ordered, Doctor,” as soon as they had stepped inside the hospital.
The old man sat at a table, his eyes red, his face without much color, a glass, almost empty, in his hand, and two bottles before him. One was empty. The other was uncorked and the contents down to the label.
“Doctor?” the guard called out again.
Gripewater lifted his head and stared, but his dead eyes did not appear to realize who stood before him. Slowly, with trembling hands, he brought the glass to his lips and slurped down the rest of the contents. Just as slowly, the glass was lowered. It rested on the table, and Gripewater brought the hand back up to wipe his mouth with the back of his hand.
His hand, Fallon noticed, usually spick-and-span, appeared filthy.
“Oh,” Gripewater said. He reached his shaky hand and picked up the bottle, tilted it, and filled the glass. The bottle returned, and Gripewater stared at the glass.
“Oh,” he said again.
The big matron, Eve Martin, stepped around a corner, followed by four female prisoners. One of those was Jess Harper. Fallon did not know the others.
“Well,” the guard standing behind Fallon said in a voice that made one of the girl’s shudder. “I didn’t know you were up here, Bedbug. You’re lookin’ fine, darlin’, real, real fine.”
The smallest of the women, the girl who had to be Bedbug, shivered. Like all of the prisoners, she kept her eyes on the floor, refusing to look up. No, that wasn’t quite the case. Jess Harper stared directly at the guard, and her eyes burned with fury. So did the matron’s.
“Get out,” the matron ordered.
The guard cleared his throat. “Now, ladies, this here is a desperate criminal.”
“Out!” Eve Martin put her hands on her hips. She might have outweighed the guard. She certainly was two inches taller.
“It’s all right,” Doctor Gripewater said, slurring his words. He gestured. “There’s no place for him to go. There’s no place for anyone here to go. Except . . . to . . . hell.”
The matron now turned her hot glare to the drunken sawbones, but only briefly. An instant later, she was moving to an examining table, barking orders at Gripewater, Fallon, the guard, and the women convicts.
“I’ll examine him, Thaddeus. Just the stitches in his legs. Harper, fetch some alcohol from the counter. Claire, get some bandages off the shelves. Liza, take that bottle away from Thaddeus before he throws up all over the floor you just mopped. Fallon, hang your jacket on the rack by the window. And take that hat off. Where were you raised, in a barn? And you . . . are you deaf or something? I said get out. Get out, Malachi, right now before I throw you out. Wait by the door, you big galoot. I’ll have Fallon out of here before you can whistle Yankee Doodle Dandy. No, that’ll take longer. God, Fallon, I can smell you from here. Off with the shirt, too, and go wash your arms and hands good and thoroughly in the basin on the table over there. Bedbug, get some towels. Move, Fallon. Move before you miss your supper. And I’ll tell you just one more time, you giant, stick-wielding sadist, get out of here before I toss you out. Thaddeus, do us all a favor and go lay down or just drop dead.”
* * *
Fallon hung up his jacket, stripped off his shirt, and found a stool to sit on while he unlaced his work boots.
“Socks, too, honey,” said Bedbug, a thin, brown-haired girl with scars on her face and a nose that had been busted more times than Fallon’s. Fallon wet his lips and moved toward his wool socks.
The girl whispered. “Don’t worry, hon. Malachi ain’t lookin’ inside, and I won’t tell nobody about the blade you’re hidin’.” She giggled. “Hell’s fire, sonny, ever’ man in stir has got hisself a pig-sticker of some kind.”
Fallon shoved his socks, and his knife and sheath, into the boots, and stood, feeling awkward about being shirtless and in his bare feet in a room filled with four women. No, five women. He had to remind himself that Eve Martin was of the fairer sex.
Bedbug wet her lips. “All right, hon, now let’s go get yerself cleaned up a mite before Miz Eve starts curin’ all that ails ya.”
* * *
He sat on the table, clean as he could be, and watched Jess Harper clean the stitches over his wound. The other women prisoners stood before him, while the big-boned woman of a matron ran her rough fingers through Fallon’s hair.
“No lice,” she announced.
The raven-haired girl, Claire, snorted: “He ain’t been here that long, Miz Martin.”
Martin’s fingers stopped on the lump on Fallon’s head. “Does that hurt?” she asked.
“Not as much as when it got put there.”
“Today?”
“Yesterday.”
Her fingers left his head, and she moved down the table, where Jess Harper gently rubbed alcohol over the stitches in his calf. Unlike the matron, the young, expectant mother had a gentle touch. Fallon could not imagine what his cellmates would say if they heard about his examination in the hospital. Four young women doted on him. Of course, then there was Eve Martin, too, who doted on no one—especially Doctor Thaddeus Gripewater.
Martin stopped beside Jess. Her giant right hand reached up, and Jess Harper froze, lifted her head, and closed her eyes as the matron placed the back of her hand against Jess’s forehead.
“How do you feel?” the matron asked in a soft voice that made Fallon think the big, surly woman actually had a heart. She lowered her hand and waited for the answer.
“I’m all right,” Jess said faintly.
“Go lie down,” the matron ordered.
“But . . .” Jess stopped herself, nodded politely, and left Fallon. He watched her go behind the curtains. Bedbug went with her. Claire took over the cleaning of Fallon’s leg, and Liza wrapped the bandage over the wound.
The matron stuck a thermometer in Fallon’s mouth. “Hold that under your tongue, Fallon,” she said. “I’ll be back in a moment.” She glared again at the doctor, who still sat at the table, a newspaper before him, but the bottles of alcohol long removed. Fallon watched Martin disappear behind the curtain, too, where he figured she was checking on Jess Harper and Bedbug.
“Whatchya in fer?” Liza asked.
Fallon turned his attention to the two other prisoners. “Hell if I know,” he replied.
Both of the girls laughed.
“He’s funny,” Claire said.
“Cute, too,” Liza said.
“Ain’t they all?” Claire said.
“I’m a pickpocket,” Liza said.
“She’s good at it, too,” Claire said.
“Not good enough,” Liza said. “Or I wouldn’t be here.”
Claire batted her eyes. “I’m in for manslaughter. He didn’t treat me right. I got two more years to go, but that’s fine with me. It wasn’t manslaughter. I murdered the bastard.”
Fallon nodded. He couldn’t figure out what else he could do.
Liza walked away, to chat with Doctor Gripewater, who just stared off through the window, looking at nothing, comprehending nothing. The pickpocket lifted the newspaper, and her eyes widened.
“Claire!” she called out, and the woman swore under her breath and walked across the room to the table.
Pointing at a headline, Liza said, “Ain’t this the fella . . . ?”
Claire said, “Liza, you dumb hussy. You know I can’t read.”
Liza read the name, “Mr. R. R. Ness, attorney at law, forty-two years of age.”
Claire stepped back. “Oh, my word . . .” she said.
But then the matron was back. She jerked the thermometer from Fallon’s mouth, tossed it into a bowl with hardly a glance, and told Fallon: “Get dressed, get out. You’re the healthiest man in The Walls.” Her hard eyes turned toward the doctor sitting in his chair. “Prisoner or free person,” she added.
Standing by the window, Fallon pulled on his shirt. He watched the big guard—Malachi, that was what Eve Martin had called him—standing a few feet away from the hospital, carving his quid of tobacco with a pocketknife. Fallon looked at the keys hanging from his belt. He heard himself whisper, “Pickpocket,” but quickly dismissed that thought, and sat down to pull on his socks and shoes, discreetly returning the sheathed knife into his left boot.
“Thank you, ladies,” he said as he took his hat. He glanced at Gripewater, but realized the doctor was in no condition to be asked to loan a prisoner ten dollars in paper currency, one-dollar notes. He sighed. He was pretty certain Eve Martin would not loan him a penny.
Hat on, he pulled on his jacket, and reached for the doorknob.
“Fallon,” Gripewater said hoarsely. Turning, Fallon saw the old man beckoning him. He did not look back at the guard, who had been keeping his attention on the prison yard. Fallon came up to the doctor, who just sighed and tapped the newspaper that Liza had been reading.
It was not much of a story, with a small headline, but Fallon picked up the paper and read.
NO MOTIVE, SUSPECTS
IN MURDER OF
SLAIN ATTORNEY
Governor, Police Chief
Plead for Any Witnesses
To Come Forward—
Demand Justice
LOCAL BUSINESSMAN MIRED IN DISPUTE
WITH DECEASED HAS ALIBI, TELLS REPORTER,
“I WOULDN’T NEED A KNIFE TO KILL THAT SWINE”
R. R. Ness to be Buried
In Family Cemetery
The headline was longer than the article, which ran on the bottom of the right-hand corner next to some advertisements and a few quotations from the Bible the editor had used to fill white space. The paper was the Citizen’s Evening Call. Fallon read:
Mr. Toby Q. Harrelson, Jefferson City’s chief of police, said no witnesses have come forward after the brutal murder of Mr. R. R. Ness, attorney at law, 42 years of age.
Mr. Ness, whose ancestors date to when Missouri was a territory, was found in an alley next to his office. He had been stabbed repeatedly, and his throat was cut. Police officers believe that the foul crime was committed sometime after 8 p.m. Wednesday night after Mr. Ness had dined with clients and friends at Delaney’s Fried Fish.
Mr. Jonah McNabb, a longtime associate of Mr. Ness, said the attorney was in fine spirits after taking supper and said that he was returning to his office to finish a brief that he intended to file with the court on Monday morning.
It was been well reported that Mr. Ness was preparing a case against Mr. Luther Scott, of Scott & Associates Enterprises of Missouri. The two men have been feuding for months, and Scott, Mr. Ness has alleged, even threatened the life of Mr. Ness.
Reached in his office this morning, Mr. Scott denied the allegation and also said that he was eating in the same restaurant on the night of the murder and was still dining until the restaurant closed. Dominique Delaney, owner of the popular eatery on the waterfront, confirmed that to this Evening Call reporter.
Governor Horatio Boone, who was a solicitor with Mr. Ness a decade earlier, pleaded for anyone who might know something of the crime, or saw anything suspicious, to contact the city police as soon as possible.
“This outrage must be righted with a quick and just trial,” Governor Boone said.
Mr. Ness is to be buried at the Ness Family Cemetery tomorrow immediately after his funeral at the Lutheran Church of Jefferson City.
Fallon laid the paper back on the table. He wondered if the man named Scott had actually told a reporter what the headline claimed but the story never mentioned. None of the names mentioned, none of the places, and nothing in the article meant a thing to Fallon, who stared at the doctor and waited for the drunk’s eyes to focus.
“Now look at page four.” This time, Thaddeus Gripewater did not slur his words. “Above the fold, in the first column, halfway down.”