CHAPTER 6

Billy opened up the back door of the death house and took a deep breath of fresh air. He sat down on the edge of the porch. The steps hadn’t been put in yet, so his feet dangled just above the dirt.

He had to get the images of those bodies out of his mind.

He focused on the lots across the street from the death house and saw they were already plotted out with stakes in the ground. He knew this part of town was the next slated for expansion by the Dover Station Company. They were planning on diverting part of the river to flow through a dry bed at the end of Front Street for the new sawmill they would start building in a month or so when the weather got warmer. The mill was supposed to increase the town by a third and be a big boost to its lumber industry.

This entire area was supposed to be the site of the town’s future. But the three dead women he had just seen reminded him of the town’s deadly past. They were gone, but the living kept on planning and building and growing.

In a year or so, no one would remember the three dead women he had just seen in the house behind the Municipal Building. And if they did, they wouldn’t even care. Because Dover Station was a boomtown and boomtowns had short memories. The past was an expense they could ill afford. There was simply no money in it.

But Billy had always been a sentimentalist, and letting death go was not in his nature.

He pulled out his pouch of tobacco and his rolling paper and began building a cigarette, hoping the routine might take his mind off what he had just seen. Three dead women—Chinese from the looks of them—posed sitting against the wall in an upstairs bedroom. The oldest of them might have been thirty. The other two had been no older than twenty.

Each of them had died from a sharp blade drawn across their throats. Billy was sure of that. The other things that had been done to them were best forgotten about until Doc Ridley could take a look for himself. He had seen injuries like that before. Horrors from the parched lands of the southwest. Men found bound on scorched wagon wheels. Women found in burned-out houses. Mutilated bodies left on the side of the road for the buzzards and the coyotes to pick at. The bodies of cavalrymen stripped bare and desecrated, left to swell and bake beneath the harsh desert sun.

And the flies. The damned flies were always there. Everywhere, and now they had come to a row of tiny houses behind the Municipal Buildings on the edge of town. The flies and the same death that always brought them.

Billy didn’t notice Underhill had been standing off to the side until the chief cleared his throat. “Grant told me it was pretty bad in there.”

“It’s not good.” Billy made sure he had rolled his cigarette nice and tight before sealing it. “But you didn’t see it for yourself, did you? No, I’d wager you didn’t get much past the front door.”

“That’s right.” Underhill lifted his head. “How’d you know?”

“Saw your boot print in the . . . mess . . . just inside the house,” Billy said. “Looked like you slid as you ran out.”

Underhill toed at the dirt. “Didn’t know a man could tell so much from a lousy boot print.”

“Most people can’t,” Billy said. “I can.”

“It was the smell that got me,” Underhill explained. “I’ve seen a lot of things in my time, Billy, but I’ve never smelled anything like that.”

Billy couldn’t hold that against him. Most people could handle the sight of death and even a fair amount of blood. Not many could handle the amount of gore he had just seen in that house.

Underhill’s lips moved as he struggled to find the words. “Grant said there’s three squaws in there, all cut up.”

“Squaws?” Billy struck a match on the porch and lit his cigarette. “Grant doesn’t know what he’s talking about. They’re three Chinese women. And from the general look of the place, I’d peg them as whores. That’s not to say they deserved to die that way, but I’d imagine the nature of their profession might help you figure out who did it.”

“Chinese women?” Underhill repeated as if trying the idea on for size. “You sure?”

“I’m sure they’re not squaws, and I don’t know why Grant would say otherwise. I know he’s been cooped up in an office for the past couple of years, but squaws and Celestial women don’t look much alike.”

Underhill still frowned like he didn’t like the idea. “But that doesn’t make any sense. We don’t have many Chinamen in town.”

Billy didn’t know what to tell him. “Well, however many you had yesterday, you’ve got three fewer of them running around today.” He thought of something. “You sure Grant told you they were Indian women?”

“Squaws was his exact term,” Underhill said. “He was all set and ready to tell that to Doc Ridley and that old drunk Harrington down at the Record before I stopped him.”

Billy flicked his ash off the porch. “Why’d you stop him from getting Doc Ridley?”

“On account of Ridley being the biggest gossip in town, second only to Mackey’s father,” Underhill said. “And I didn’t want this in the paper until we knew more about what happened here and why. Maybe it would’ve been different if I’d been able to go in there and take a look at them for myself, but, well, I couldn’t, and that’s all there is to it.”

That was more to it than Billy thought there would be. He had never known Underhill to stand up to Grant in the past. He was surprised he had done so now, but he was glad he had. “Seems Grant was in a hell of a hurry to put a period on this, wasn’t he?”

“Seems so,” Underhill said. “Why do you think that is?”

Billy smoked his cigarette. “He’s your boss, not mine. You tell me.”

“I won’t be able to tell you anything,” Underhill admitted. “I’m not a tracker, Billy. You are. You track men and you track down facts. You’re used to finding things you’re looking for. I’m not like that, and neither are any of the men working with me. They’re tough boys, but . . .”

“They’re gunmen,” Billy said. “Gunmen aren’t lawmen, Walter, not even after you pin a badge on their chest.”

“And right now, we need a lawman for this kind of work.” The wind shifted again, and Underhill had to step to the side to avoid another blast from the death house. “I want your help on this, Billy. Hell, I’m not ashamed to admit I need it. Grant wanted these murders public, and I don’t know why. Once he brings other people into this, the truth will get stomped out, and I don’t want that. You said you thought those ladies were whores. Well, someone saw fit to kill them. And with Grant rushing to make it public, I figure there’s got to be a reason why. Maybe it’s the same reason why they got killed in the first place.”

Billy took his first deep drag on his cigarette while he thought over everything that Underhill had just said.

The notion that James Grant had been in the death house first bothered Billy. Grant’s decision to involve him and Aaron bothered him even more. Grant never did anything by accident.

Billy asked Underhill, “Who told you about these dead ladies?”

“Grant did,” the chief admitted. “Said he passed by on the way to the office and saw the door open but no one around. Said he didn’t see the blood until he got closer. Then he came to get me. After I couldn’t go inside, he went inside instead. He came out, told me what he saw, and wanted to get Doc Ridley and Harrington. I told him we should get you and Mackey instead, since you’re used to so much blood and all.”

Billy wasn’t sure why Grant wanted the killings to be so public. If anything, the gruesome details would scare half the town to death. People could jump to conclusions about who had done it and maybe grab the wrong people. Billy had seen what a mob can do when it was short on facts and long on suspects.

Maybe Grant had seen that, too. Maybe that’s what Grant was counting on.

But that didn’t explain why the three women had been killed in the first place. Had Grant done it or someone else? And why?

Billy asked Underhill, “How long do you think you can keep Grant from telling people about this?”

“Maybe a few hours,” Underhill said. “Maybe until tomorrow morning if I’m lucky, but I don’t really control the man. Why?”

“Because I’m going to need all the time I can to get to find out as much about this as I can before Grant stops us.”

“Us?” Underhill brightened. “So you’re going to help me?”

“Not you.” Billy finished his smoke and flicked the cigarette out into the dirt. “I’m going to help those women in there. I might be wearing a new star, but I’ve spent a long time risking my life defending this town.”

He looked across the street at the staked-out lots where the sawmill was going to be built in a few weeks. “This place might not be the same as it was five years ago, but I’m not the same man who stepped off that train from the army, either.”

He was about to stand up but stopped himself before he fell over.

Underhill rushed to keep him from falling off the back porch. “You all right, Billy?”

But Billy was better than all right. He had a feeling he was looking at the start of the answers to all of his questions. “Who owns these houses, Walter?” He saw the chief looked puzzled, so he put a finer point on it. He knocked on the wood he was sitting on. “Why did the company build these three houses before the sawmill or the other buildings?”

“I guess because these lots don’t belong to the Dover Station Company,” Underhill told him. “They never have. I remember them from when I was helping Mr. Rice go over the survey maps. These lots were listed, but owned by someone else, so he decided to build around them.”

Billy kept looking at the lots as he slowly got to his feet. “Do you remember the name of the man who owns these lots?”

“No, because it wasn’t important,” Underhill said. “I remember he said whoever owned them would sell out fast enough when they heard that saw going at all hours of the day and night. Figured we’d pick them up at a dirt-cheap price then.” The chief looked at him. “Why?”

“I don’t know,” Billy said. “Think you can find out who owns these houses?”

Underhill nodded toward the Municipal Building. “The Land Office is right down the hall from mine. I should be able to find out easy enough once old Bill Donohue finally gets around to coming to work. Why?”

Billy slapped the dust from the seat of his pants. “Because that title just might tell us who killed these women and why.”