The Peaceful Valley Crime Wave by Bill Pronzini

Author:Bill Pronzini
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates

FOURTEEN

JACK VANNER WASN’T hard to find. He was working with Otis Moore over on Elkhorn Street, repairing old Mrs. Wainwright’s sunporch. Whacking nails into a piece of plywood siding on a side wall when I got there. Neither him nor Otis was glad to see me, Otis because he made a point of saying he was in a hurry to finish the job before the snows came.

“What you want with me, Sheriff?” Vanner said, sullen, when I got him out of Otis’s hearing range. Good-looking scamp, I had to admit, even with sweat slicking his face and his mop of black hair tangled up from the wind. “I heard you plain Saturday night about leaving them Injuns alone. I ain’t seen Bandelier since then.”

“Pleased to hear it. But that’s not why I’m here. I reckon you heard about what happened to Charity Axthelm?”

“Yeah, I heard. So?”

“You don’t seem too broke up by it.”

“Why should I be? I hardly knew her.”

“That’s not what I been told. Word is you and her were seeing each other.”

“That’s a goddamn lie.”

“Is it?” I looked him hard in the eye. Wasn’t much to see there except insolence, but he didn’t match my stare for long. His gaze shifted sideways and he rubbed the sleeve of his jacket across his eyes to cover them. “Better not lie to me, Jack.”

Pretty soon he said, still not looking at me square, “So what if I was seeing her? That was months ago and it wasn’t for long.”

“Just how long?”

“Long enough to—”

“Long enough to what? Get what you were after from her?”

“Listen, what does it matter? I didn’t have nothing to do with her getting killed.”

“I didn’t say you did. Answer my question.”

“Hell, Sheriff, she was a tramp. She liked you, she’d put out for you. She liked me for a while. That’s all.”

“When did you see her last?”

“Community dance two weeks ago. But we never said a word. I didn’t want anything more to do with her or her with me.”

“The last time you saw her in private?”

“The last time she dropped her drawers for me, you mean?”

That didn’t set well at all. Neither did the insolent little sneer that went with it. I grabbed a handful of Vanner’s shirt and jacket and yanked him up close. “Don’t smart-ass me, boy. Somebody brutally murdered that girl. You, for all I know right now.”

The sneer wiped off and his Adam’s apple commenced to bob. “Hey, no, Sheriff. No. I’d never do nothing like that.”

“Show some respect then.”

“That peddler Rainey done it, everybody knows that—”

“Everybody don’t know it. I don’t know it.” I shook him a little. “Now when were you last with her?”

“I don’t remember exactly when. Three, four months … start of summer.”

“Sure it wasn’t five, six weeks ago?”

“No, not that recent. Three months at least, more like four.”

I let go of him, gave him a little push out of my space. “Who was she seeing five weeks ago?”

“I don’t know.”

“No idea at all? Nobody bragging like you?”

“I ain’t been bragging,” Vanner said.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.