CHAPTER 11
Mackey climbed off Adair when he heard Billy shouting from one of the new houses on River Street. He couldn’t hear what his deputy was saying, but since Billy rarely raised his voice, something must be wrong.
He drew his Peacemaker as he ran into the house with the open door. He caught the unmistakable stench of death coming from the house but went in anyway.
He found Billy aiming his Colt at Walter Underhill, screaming, “You recognized him, didn’t you? Who is he?”
Mackey aimed his pistol at Underhill as well. “What the hell is going on here, Billy?”
His deputy turned as if shaken from a dream. “When did you get back?”
“A few minutes ago.” He nodded toward his deputy’s gun. “I’ve got him covered, so why don’t you put that away while you tell me what’s going on?”
Underhill fumed at Mackey while Billy holstered his pistol. “You mean you’re pointing a gun at me without even knowing why?”
“Billy was pointing at you,” Mackey told him. “That’s reason enough for me. We’ll work the rest out when one of you tells me what the hell is going on around here.”
Billy laid out all that had happened as plainly as he could. The three dead whores upstairs. The mutilations. Grant’s involvement. The dead man on the floor being the same man who had attacked him less than an hour ago.
Mackey had slowly lowered his weapon as Billy told his story, but his deputy hadn’t noticed.
Billy concluded by saying, “I brought Underhill over here to take a look at the bastard who tried to kill me. I can tell he recognized him but won’t admit it.”
Underhill argued, “I never said I didn’t know him, damn it. I just was surprised he was the one you’d killed is all. Then you pulled that hog leg and started screaming at me before I could say anything.”
Mackey quietly tucked his pistol back in the holster. “Well, now’s your chance, Walt. Might as well tell us who it is.”
“His name is Dana King,” Underhill told him. “He’s an old buffalo hunter who works for Mr. Grant in this part of town.”
“Imagine that,” Billy sneered.
Mackey ignored him. “What kind of work did he do for the mayor?”
“Nothing for him as mayor,” Underhill said. “He worked for the company. Did a little bit of everything, really. Foreman, clerk, watched the place at night sometimes when we were short a guard to make sure tools didn’t get stolen by the rabble over in Tent City. Signed for deliveries of materials when the teamsters brought them in.”
“And you didn’t know who I was talking about when I described him?” Billy pointed down at the corpse. “How many bald, one-eyed buffalo skinners does he have on the payroll that look like that?”
“Not too many,” Underhill admitted, “but you can’t blame me for wanting to be sure. You want me to think of you every time someone reports a crime that a Negro committed in town?”
Mackey was not buying it. “That’s pretty thin, Walter.”
“The hell it is,” Underhill argued. “Sure, Dana’s a rough customer, but I never thought of him as the killing kind. Scared people just by the way he looked more than anything else. Always did whatever Grant said needed doing and never raised a complaint as far as I know. Never had a problem with any of the workers. Ran a good crew. Men seemed to like him. Never had a complaint about him, either.”
“Well I’d sure as hell like to make a complaint,” Billy said, “because the son of a bitch tried to gut me just before I walked into your office today.”
Mackey moved between his deputy and Underhill. Now that some of the steam had blown off, he figured they were past the point of gun pointing. “You got any reason to think he might’ve been the one who killed the women Billy says are upstairs?”
“No,” Underhill said, “and I really need to get outside before I get sick. I can’t take the stink of this place.” He pointed at Billy as he left the house. “And if that crazy son of a bitch points his gun my way again, it’ll be a whole different discussion.”
Billy went to follow Underhill outside, but Mackey grabbed his arm. “Steady. Getting into a fight with Underhill is only going to make things worse.”
“Then let’s go upstairs so you can see why I’m so damned prickly about it,” Billy said.
Mackey followed his deputy upstairs and saw the mutilated corpses for himself. It was just as Billy had described earlier. Killings made to look worse than they already were.
“I can see why Underhill wanted one of us to look at this before anyone else,” Mackey admitted. “It took a special type to do this kind of work. The kind of work a man like Dana King is used to. You said Underhill went against Grant’s wishes to tell you?”
Billy looked away. “Yeah, he did.”
“Then it sounds like he might be on our side in all of this, doesn’t it?”
“He might be,” Billy allowed, “but he’s still Grant’s man.”
“Maybe he’s changing his mind on that score,” Mackey said.
“There’s something else,” Billy told him. “I didn’t want to mention it in front of Underhill, but since you weren’t around, I brought in that Pinkerton boy Lagrange to look at this. He thinks this is a setup, too, plain and simple.”
Mackey knew Lagrange’s involvement meant Mr. Rice was going to hear about it back in New York. That might not be a bad thing, considering Grant’s involvement in all of this, but Mackey still wanted to know more before the millionaire got involved. “And this dead man downstairs came at you with a knife after Lagrange left.”
“Came up from behind me as I was crossing the street. Strong bastard. Almost beat me.”
Now Mackey knew what was bothering his deputy. This was less about Underhill and more about the notion that he had almost lost his life. That clarified things. “Almost doesn’t count in our line of work. Either you do it or you don’t. And you shot that man full of holes before he had a chance to carve some into you. I’d say that’s a good day.”
Billy ran a hand over his face and agreed.
“We’re going to go back down there and talk to Underhill,” Mackey said, “and I do mean talk. I don’t want you two mixing it up again. He’s got a direct line to Grant, and we don’t want him starting to look at him as an ally in this.”
“So you agree he’s got the blood of these girls on his hands?” Billy asked. “Grant, I mean.”
“Grant’s got blood on his hands already. What’s three more lives to him?” He beckoned his deputy to follow him downstairs. “Let’s go talk to Underhill. And keep it civil.”
* * *
Underhill was down the boardwalk a piece in front of the third house. Mackey could still smell the fresh-cut lumber and paint mixed in with death. The wood smelled a bit too young and probably should’ve been allowed to cure a bit longer before being used for housing. All three buildings would probably begin to sag in a year or two. But Dover Station was a boomtown, and safety came second to necessity.
“How are you feeling?” Mackey asked the bigger man.
“A lot better now that I’m out of there.” Underhill pointed at Billy. “Even better now that he’s not pointing a gun at my head. You’d better keep an eye on him, Mackey. I know he never liked me much, but he’s starting to fray.”
“And you ought to consider yourself lucky,” Mackey said. “First time I ever saw him pull without shooting someone.” But he wouldn’t gain anything by making the chief feel more embarrassed than he already was. “Besides, we all know who the true enemy is here, and it’s none of us.”
Underhill looked at him. “You think Grant’s behind all of this, don’t you?”
“Looks like King did the killing, but him working for Grant makes Grant part of this whether you like it or not.”
Underhill sat on the boardwalk, making the whole structure shake. “Maybe. Hell, I don’t know. I think one of those Chinese ladies upstairs owned the house and these lots they’re built on.”
Mackey looked around at the stakes around the site. “Given that the company owns the rest of these parcels, seems like he might’ve wanted them out of the way. Maybe he sent King here to talk them into selling. Maybe things got out of hand and King went too far. Could explain why Grant was in a hurry to make this public, because it would give him the chance to come up with a story before one of us found out the truth?”
“That’s a lot of maybes,” Underhill said, “and you don’t pull down a man like Grant with maybes. I know he’s done a lot of wrong, Aaron, but this?” The chief shook his head. “I don’t know. Grant’s the type who’d buy out the whores or throw in with them. This close to the new mill, they could’ve been good earners for him. He’s got a piece of every other house in town. Didn’t see him kill anyone to get it. What makes this one so different?” Underhill shook his head. “Maybe Grant sent King here, but the killings seem more like King’s doing alone.”
Mackey asked Billy, “Sound reasonable to you?”
Billy shrugged. “It’s never that simple where Grant’s involved.”
An idea sparked in Mackey’s mind. He grabbed onto it quick before it disappeared altogether. “Anyone check what’s in these other two houses?”
Billy and Underhill looked at each other, then shook their heads.
“I checked the records,” Underhill said. “Same person owns them all. Chinese name and a Chinese signature. Could be a man or woman. You know how tough it is to tell the difference with Celestial names.”
But Mackey didn’t care about that. He cared about the houses.
He walked to the second house and tried the front door. It was locked. He put a shoulder into it, but it didn’t budge. He took a step back and tried to kick it in. It didn’t give at all.
“Something’s behind it,” Billy said. “That lock’s not that strong. Want me to shoot it?”
“Wait.” Mackey stepped off the boardwalk and looked underneath it. The death house didn’t have a basement. He could look straight underneath it and see the stakes in the ground behind it.
But the two houses attached to it both had basements.
He got to his feet and tried the front door of the third house with the same result. “Let’s go around the back.”
Billy and Underhill followed him around to the back of the house. He tried looking in through the windows, but they had all been painted over with black paint.
He went around the back of the third house to try the doors there, but they, too, were sealed shut and the windows were also painted over.
“This doesn’t make sense,” Underhill said. “Why build houses with no way into them?”
“There’s a way,” Billy said. “We just weren’t looking for it because we were too caught up in those dead women.”
The three lawmen went through the back door of the murder house and began to examine the south wall connected to the two houses next door. Underhill gagged as he joined Mackey and Billy as they knocked on the walls, hoping to find some entry behind the walls.
Underhill called to them from the front parlor. Mackey and Billy rushed in to find him next to shelves that had been built into the wall.
“Look at this,” he said. “I noticed it was built deep into the wall, so I pushed on it.”
He pushed on the shelves and they swung into the house next door. Whatever laid before them was pitch black.
All three men drew their pistols at the same time.
Billy struck a match off the wall and walked in first. Mackey and Underhill followed.
Billy held the match in front of him and found an oil lamp hanging from a nail on the wall. He lit it and waved the match dead just as the lamp bathed the space in amber light.
It didn’t take long for the men to realize what they were looking at.
Mackey took the lamp off the wall and held it before him as he walked into the open space, careful to avoid stepping on any of the beds and pillows that were scattered around the house.
He looked to where the front door and windows should be, but they had been walled over. That was why the door didn’t budge when Mackey tried to kick it in.
Underhill said what the rest of them were thinking. “Looks like an opium den.”
Billy toed a brass pipe next to one of the beds. “No doubt about it.”
Mackey saw the wall between these two houses had never been built. It was a straight line of beds and pipes that spanned both buildings.
“More beds,” Mackey said. “Probably where they keep the opium, too, if they have any. Doesn’t look like the place has been used, yet.”
“How do you know?” Underhill asked.
Billy laughed. “You think the stench next door turned your stomach? An opium den smells just as bad. Had one near Concho that smelled something awful. It’s not the opium so much as how men lose control of themselves when they’re smoking the stuff.”
Underhill held his nose, even though all they could smell was cut wood and paint in the houses. “What do we do next?”
Mackey had already thought about that. “Nothing.”
Billy looked like he wanted to say something, but held his tongue.
Underhill said it for him. “What do you mean nothing? We can’t just forget about this, Aaron.”
“Just for now,” Mackey said. He could tell Underhill hadn’t known about this, because he obviously wasn’t that good at masking his feelings. And he wasn’t sure Grant knew about it, but imagined he probably did.
Mackey intended on asking him, but only when the time was right. Now wasn’t it.
“We’re going to blow out this lamp, shut that door, and act like it never happened,” Mackey told them. “Walt, when Grant talks to you about this, you tell him Billy’s been stingy with the facts and has been nasty to you since he looked the place over.”
“That won’t be much of a stretch,” Underhill said.
Mackey let the comment go. “Suggest he invite Billy up for a talk. I’ll go with him and confront Grant with this personally. See what he says.”
Underhill seemed to get the point. “He’ll think it’ll be two against one, but it’ll actually be the three of us putting the question to him. As lawmen.”
“That’s right,” Mackey said as he hung the lamp back on the nail. “As lawmen.”
He blew out the lamp, and the three men stepped back into the death house, shutting the fake door behind them.