Longarm and the Santa Fe Widow by Tabor Evans

Author:Tabor Evans
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2011-08-09T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 12

Deputy United States Marshal Herb Pelkey was pacing rapidly up and down the deserted train station platform when Etta and what he supposed were two of her brothers appeared as if out of a grave. Pelkey felt a cold chill pass up and down his spine, but he was as fast as any man with a gun and he stood squarely in the lamplight so that the two railroad employees could see him.

Etta Ramsey looked composed and even had a smile on her pretty face when she stopped and said, “Good evening, Marshal Pelkey. These are my brothers.”

“Nice to meet you,” Pelkey said, extending his hand, which was ignored. “Well then, if that is how this is going to go, we might as well get right down to the purpose of this meeting.”

“Yes,” Etta said, “do tell us the purpose of this meeting because, quite frankly, we don’t understand what any of this is about.”

“I think you do,” Pelkey said. “Marshal Custis Long, a man that I very much dislike and have to work next to in the office, shot and killed your brother Horace in cold blood. Your brother was lured to a lonely spot near Cherry Creek by a woman that you well know . . . Mrs. Rose Delamonte . . . and then Horace was gunned down like a dog.”

Etta’s smile died. “That is what we heard, too. But perhaps we have only come to collect our dear fallen brother’s remains and take them back to Santa Fe. Nothing illegal about that, is there?”

“No,” Pelkey said, “if it were true. But Rose Delamonte has told our department that you not only had her in-laws killed in something that was made to look like an accident, but that you had her own husband shot down in ambush.”

“She’s a lyin’ bitch!” one of the brothers spat. “We didn’t do anything to her or her kinfolk. The sheriff in Santa Fe cleared us of any connection to those deaths.”

“Ah, yes, a man named Sheriff Lucas Greer.”

“That’s right. How’d you know?”

Pelkey smirked. “We’re a big city here and I’m a federal officer, not some yokel carrying a tin star in some one-horse town.”

“You wired Santa Fe,” Etta said. “You wired to find out about us.”

“That’s right.”

“And what did you hear back from Sheriff Greer?”

Pelkey’s smirk faded. “Actually, nothing. I was supposed to be on the train out of here today and to go to Santa Fe and investigate the accusations made by Mrs. Delamonte.”

“You can investigate until the sun falls from the sky,” the other brother said with a chuckle that had no warmth, “but you won’t find any connection between us and those deaths.”

“I might and I might not,” Pelkey replied. “I should tell you right here and now that I have very high connections in Washington, D.C. And, if anything . . . anything bad at all . . . should befall me, then the vice president himself would send more lawmen than you could possibly imagine and the truth would be known.

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