Dorothy Garlock - [Dolan Brothers] (42 page)

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Authors: With Hope

BOOK: Dorothy Garlock - [Dolan Brothers]
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* * *
Tom was pacing back and forth across the porch when dawn began streaking the eastern sky. He stopped in front of Henry Ann, who sat in the porch swing.
“If she’s alive, she may have gone to that place in the clay bank. It would be light by the time I got there.”
“I’ll get a lantern and go with you.”
“It’s a long walk, and you’ve not been to bed.”
“Neither have you. Oh, wait . . . I hear a car. Maybe Johnny and Grant are coming back.”
The Model T turned into the yard and stopped. As was his habit, Johnny hopped over the door and slipped to the ground.
“Where’s Grant? Have you found her?” Henry Ann called to Johnny before he reached them on the porch.
“Grant’s back at Dolan’s, and, yes, we found her.”
“God, that’s a relief,” Tom said, then, “She’s all right, isn’t she?”
“No, Tom. She’s dead.”
“Dead? No . . .”
“I wanted Grant to come tell you, but he’s with Sheriff Watson. He came out as soon as Grant called him—”
“—We saw the car go by.”
“They want you to come over, Tom.”
“Was she . . . ? How did they find her?”
“Grant and I got to thinking that if she got out, she might have gone to that place by the creek where she went sometimes. We got the lanterns, went there, and found her. By the time we got back to your place the sheriff was there. Grant took him back, and I came for you.”
“She . . . didn’t burn up in the fire?” Henry Ann spoke. Tom seemed to be speechless.
“No. She was . . . she was . . . her throat was cut.” Johnny said the last quickly and turned his face away.
“Someone killed her?” Tom’s words were loud. “Someone killed her?” he repeated. “They didn’t have to kill her, for God’s sake.”
“Yeah.”
“Oh, my God! Oh, my God!”
“I’ll take you over there. Grant made a litter out of a couple of poles and a tarp he found in the barn. He and the sheriff went to bring her in.”
“I’ll go with you.” Henry Ann laid her hand on Tom’s arm.
“You’d better stay here, Sis.”
“He’s right. Stay here.” Tom seemed to be looking right through her. He walked to the car like a man with the weight of the world on his shoulders.
“Johnny,” Karen called from the door, “wait a minute.” Minutes later she came out with a bushel basket. “There’s hot coffee and plenty of cups in here. Aunt Dozie wrapped the pot in a gunnysack. Buttered bread and jam are in the flour sack.”
“That’ll be welcome.” Johnny carried the basket to the car and wedged it between the front and backseat. Tom was already in the car.
Henry Ann watched until they were out of sight. When she turned, Karen stood beside her.
“I heard. How terrible. I can’t believe . . . a murder. There’s not been a murder around here since . . . heaven knows when. Well . . . that is, not a woman. Who would do such a thing?”
“Thank goodness they can’t blame Tom. He was here.”
* * *
The acrid smell of smoldering household goods and old wood was strong when Johnny stopped behind the sheriff’s car parked along the road behind Tom’s roadster. Tom got out of the car and stood looking at what once had been his home. The only identifiable thing was the iron cookstove sitting amid the rubble.
What had gone wrong? Was it possible Emmajean had set the fire, then run off?
It was quiet. Far away Tom could hear a mourning dove calling. In the morning light he looked around at things that were the same, yet so different. Mr. Austin came from the barn carrying a bucket.
“I milked your cow, Dolan. Do you want me to pour the milk in the hog trough?”
“Unless you can use it.”
“Hogs got to be fed.” He went toward the hog lot and when he returned he rinsed the bucket at the well and left it there. “I’ll be going, Dolan. If there’s anything more I can do, let me know.”
“You’ve done plenty, Austin. I appreciate it.”
Austin’s horses were skittish as animals sometimes are around a smoldering fire. The hired man handled them expertly, and the wagon pulled out of the yard and headed down the road.
“Here they come.” Johnny started toward the back railed fence.
Two men carrying a litter were coming across the field. Tom’s eyes focused on the small form wrapped in the old quilt. Reality hit him like a blow between the eyes. Emmajean was dead. Poor girl. Her short, confused life had been anything but happy.
Tom and Johnny took the litter when it was passed over the fence. They carried it to the big shade tree beside the barn and gently lowered it to the ground. Blond hair showed from beneath the blood-soaked quilt. Kneeling down beside her, Tom closed his eyes and crossed himself. When he stood, he was looking into the eyes of the sheriff.
“Dolan, I’m sorry ’bout this.”
“Thank you. You’d better know right off that if I find him first, I’ll kill him.”
“And you’d better know right off that if you do, I’ll come for you,” the sheriff replied in a no-nonsense tone.
“Some rotten son of a bitch was hanging around out there. A couple of times I found boot tracks in the sand and cigarette butts.”
“That’s not unusual. Most men smoke.”
“Not a dozen cigarettes in one place.”
“Why did you let her go out there if you knew a man was hanging around?”
“I’ve had an eye on her almost every minute for over a week . . . until last night. I thought she was asleep.”
“There’s no cigarette butts out there now. Tracks had been brushed out.”
“Was she . . . raped?”
“I’m not sure. There was no blood . . . down there. She’d been knocked around . . . mauled. She had a split lip and . . . one of her breasts chewed. Bastard probably hurt her bad, she was yelling, and he killed her to shut her up.”
“Godamighty! Poor girl.” Tom sat down on a stump and bowed his head. “She’d taken the quilt and a few things out to that dugout—it was kind of like a kid’s playhouse. I followed her many times. She’d be sitting on the quilt, combing her hair and looking in her mirror. I thought it harmless and never dreamed that anyone would hurt her until the time she didn’t come home and Johnny found her in Austin’s shed.”
“What did she keep out there?”
“A pink comb, a small round mirror, a couple of garters, a few bows, and a string of beads. She took a small blue perfume bottle. I don’t know if there was anything in it or not. When she left, she’d wrap them in that old quilt.”
“Hummm . . .”
“She wasn’t right in her mind, Sheriff.”
“Gifford told me. You’re saying she left her pretties out there?”
“They were there yesterday.”
Tom knelt and lifted the quilt from Emmajean’s face. Her head lay at an unnatural angle, and her face was crusted with dirt and blood. He closed his eyes and let the quilt fall back in place.
“Does she usually go out there in her nightclothes?” the sheriff asked.
“She’d go naked if I didn’t make her dress. She had on her nightdress and her underdrawers when I put her to bed.”
“All she’s got on now is the nightdress. Gifford tells me that you were over at the Henrys’.”
“Emmajean was in bed asleep when I left.”
“Who besides you saw her?”
“Good God, man! Do you think I killed her?”
“I don’t rule anyone out. You could’ve killed her and gone to the Henrys’ for your alibi.”
“To hell with you!” Tom’s hand clenched at his sides. “I’d not gone to the Henrys’ if Johnny and Grant hadn’t come over.”
Oh, Lord! I might have gone. I was tempted.
“Wait a minute, Sheriff,” Grant said. “Tom wasn’t in the house a full minute. Through the window, I could see that he went in the room and right back to the porch. He blew out the lantern and came to the car. He didn’t have time to start a fire. Besides that, what man in his right mind would risk going into a burning house to get someone that he knew was already dead? Look at his hands.”
“Who the hell are you? His lawyer?”
“Tom isn’t guilty. He doesn’t need a lawyer, but if he does, I know where he can get one.”
“There hasn’t been a woman murdered in this county since Indian days. This is going to cause quite a stink.”
“I don’t care how much
stink
it causes. This pitiful creature was my son’s mother,” Tom said heatedly. “I want the one who did it caught and hung. She was so demented that she would spread her legs for anyone. He didn’t have to kill her.”
“I could send Elmer from the funeral parlor out to get the body,” the sheriff said quietly, ignoring Tom’s anger. “But it’ll be quicker if I take her in and have Doc Hendricks look her over. The nearest morgue is in Ardmore.”
“My brother’s a federal officer working out of Kansas City. I wish he was here.”
“This isn’t a federal case. We’ll handle it here. Don’t leave the county, Dolan.”
“Why would I leave? My son is here.”
“Yeah, that’s right. The mouthy little twit told me you had sent the boy to live with Miss Henry. She said you two had something going. Never mind. Calm down,” he said when Tom bristled angrily. “She also said Pete Perry would get even with whoever got him knocked out of the marathon.”
“I had nothing to do with that.”
“Revenge takes many paths. Looks to me like I’ve got several good suspects here, counting young Austin. You said that one time you found Mrs. Dolan in Austin’s shed? Alone?”
“She’d had intercourse with someone. He’d slapped her and bruised her face.”
“Got anyone in mind?”
“If I had, I’d a been after him. It wasn’t Chris. I’d bet my life he had nothing to do with this.”
“Well, we’ll see. Someone want to help me get her in the car?”
“I’ll do it.” Tom knelt and, with Grant’s help, gently rolled the body in the blood-soaked quilt in the tarp. Tom lifted it in his arms and carried it to the car. The sheriff opened the rear door, and Tom placed the body of his dead wife on the seat.
Emmajean loved to go to town and . . . she was going for the last time.
“Sheriff, would you notify her folks down in Conroy, Texas? I’ve been expecting them to come up here. I’d hate for them to come and . . . find out what’s happened when they got here.”
“What’s the name?”
“Martin Conroy.”
“Any kin to the Conroy that’s been selling oil leases around here?”
“That’s her brother. Martin is her father.”
“Didn’t I hear that he died?”
“Not unless it was in the last day or two. Her brother was here last week. I sent word for him to have Martin come up and help me decide what to do about Emmajean.”
“Humm . . . I’ll get Flossie at the telephone office to put in a call down there. Shouldn’t cost over six bits. I don’t think the county will raise too much cain over that.”
“Thanks.”
Sheriff Watson left the Dolan farm chewing on his upper lip. This was more than a bootlegging or bank-robbery case. This was BIG. A woman murdered, more than likely raped, would be front-page news all over Oklahoma. If he didn’t find out and arrest the person who killed her, he could kiss his job good-bye come election day.
He was inclined to believe Dolan wasn’t the one, but you could never tell about a murderer. Seven or eight years ago a couple of young fellows killed a kid named Bobby Frank up in Chicago. They were eighteen- and nineteen-year-old college boys, and one was a boy genius who spoke fourteen languages. It was hard for folks to believe that they were killers, but they finally confessed to doing it to see if they could commit the perfect crime.
The sheriff passed the Henry farm. Isabel had said that Dolan had been hanging around Miss Henry. A married man, even with a crazy wife, had no business smelling around another woman, to his way of thinking. Had Dolan gotten rid of his wife so he’d be free to court Miss Henry? A well-to-do woman with a paid-for farm was a prize for any man.
And there was Pete Perry. He’d certainly have a talk with him. He’d not heard of Pete doing anything but a little bootlegging now and then. His deputy, Orlan Nelson, kept an eye on him and swore he had nothing to do with killing other folks’ beef. And there was the Austin kid. Guess he wasn’t a kid anymore. Orlan said he’d been keeping the road hot to old man Hastings’s place, gettin’ him a little tail from Opal. Maybe Opal wasn’t puttin’ out enough, and he decided to try Dolan’s crazy wife.
Sheriff Watson was puzzled by Gifford, too. Phillips hadn’t said much about him except that he’d been working at the Henrys’ almost since Ed died. The man knew what he was about. It was almost as if he was familiar with procedures at a crime scene. Out at the dugout where he and Johnny found the body, he’d been careful to make no tracks. The only ones found were his and Johnny’s. The place had been swept clean. There were no cigarette butts, and none of the things Dolan said his wife had taken to the spot were there. The killer had been careful to leave no sign.

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