THERE WERE MANY REASONS I prayed that nothing would be found as we dug around the Daigle’s horse barn. For one, I didn’t want to accuse a dead woman of murder. Especially when the dead woman in question was the deceased wife of Viktor Daigle, the financier of GloryLand.
Also, finding a body would prove that the cloaked man was probably telling the truth, and that in itself opened a whole new Pandora’s Box.
But mostly, because if there was a child sized skeleton in the ground, that would mean bubbly little Imogene-Clair was dead before her life had even began. Sure, she was the only daughter of a Machiavellian asshole and an attention starved whore-cat, and the likelihood of her growing up to be anything other than the worst kind of human was slim, but she was a child. A sweet child. At eight years old, the ugliness of the world wouldn’t yet have settled on her. She may have grown to be horrible. But maybe not.
My prayers must have carried little weight, because we uncovered the body with the first hole. There was a spot on the far side of the barn where grass didn’t grow, and our shovels sliced easily through still soft earth. Someone hadn’t even tried to cover their tracks. Someone who considered herself above the law.
“Damn,” I muttered, knowing that it wouldn’t end well.
I was right. No one should ever have to see a dead child, but little Imogene-Clair was a whole new kind of terrible. Someone had cracked her head open, and even in the current state of rot, I could tell that the child had suffered. My stomach lurched, but I held it together. I let the ugliness of what I was seeing wash over me and ignite a searing anger inside me. The Vigilante was right. We’d found a body. And whoever had done this—they deserved death. A cruel, ugly death.
Tom doubled over with his hands on his knees and sucked in gulps of air.
“You all right?”
“Yeah. No. I’m sorry, Sheriff,” he wheezed. “I guess I ain’t the detective I thought I was.”
“It’s ok. Why don’t you take a minute and come back once you’ve gathered yourself.”
Tom nodded and headed for a shady patch of ground. He sat down hard and fanned himself with his tan Stetson.
When he returned ten minutes later, still shaky but less green, we very carefully pulled the eight year old girl’s corpse from the ground and laid her on the ground. I pulled my bandana from my neck and laid it gently over her face, as I sniffed back a tear. “Tom, why don’t you send for Doc Ruben,” I said. “Send one of the Daigle’s farm hands.”
Viktor Daigle arrived as the messenger was leaving. We stopped him before he could get close enough to see his daughter’s body.
“What the hell is this?” He demanded.
“Mr. Daigle, we found your daughter. We have reason to believe that Mary-Bell killed her.”
“What the hell is wrong with you, saying shit like that? My wife did not kill my daughter. My daughter is in New York, and my wife is dead. You need to be finding Mary-Bell’s killer, not inventing these...these lies.” He clenched his leather clad hand at his waist and I knew he wanted to bring it across my face. Instinctively I pushed my duster away from my holster. I took a deep breath—there was no need for me to reach for my gun.
“Mr. Daigle, when is the last time you saw your daughter? Did you take her to the train station?”
Viktor Daigle craned his neck over my shoulder toward the barn. He paled, and opened his mouth, then closed it, and then opened it again, like a fish struggling for a breath.
“Now take your time, Mr. Daigle sir,” Tom drawled.
Viktor Daigle looked from my deputy then back to me. “Leave,” he hissed, finally. “Leave right now.”
“If you could just answer my questions, it would really help get some justice for Imogene-Clair.”
The fierce man grabbed the meaty part of my arm and squeezed. Hard. He pulled me to the side for a few steps. Tom started to follow, his hand reaching for his pistol, but I shook my head, signaling him to stay put.
“Now you listen here,” Viktor Daigle rasped, “if this gets out—this lie—then we will see just how true the rumors about you are. I don’t care if everyone says you are indestructible, the next body found will be yours. That is a promise. I won’t have my dead wife’s name besmirched like that. If my daughter is dead, then that is a travesty—but my Mary-Bell would never have done that.”
“Mr. Daigle,” I said calmly. “Let. Go. Of my arm, sir.” I yanked loose of his grasp. And if looks were blades, then I’d have sliced his head clean from his shoulders as I turned to stalk back toward my partner.
“Sherriff,” Viktor Daigle called.
I paused mid stride, but refused to turn around.
“You ask anyone in town. They will tell you- I always keep my promises.”
“What’s that about?” Tom whispered.
“Nothing. We are done here for the day,” I said. We mounted our horses and rode away from the Daigle property.
“If you say so, Sheriff. But something don’t smell right.”
For once, Tom had it right. If the cloaked man was telling the truth about Mary-Bell, then what had all of the other victims been guilty of? And what did Viktor know? The way he’d paled as he looked over my shoulder...he seemed genuinely shocked and horrified.
“I agree, Tom. But we got to play this one smart. Why don’t you start digging around and see what you can turn up on the others—Jo Cartwright, Ronnie Robinson, and Gilbert McCroy.”
“Ok, Sheriff. I don’t really see how that’s going to help anything, but you’re the brains after all. I’m just your Watson.”
“What are you talking about now, Tom?” I asked
“Nothing. It’s from my book. What am I looking for exactly?”
“I’m not sure. We’ll know it when we see it.”
Tom looked over his shoulder, and asked under his breath, “You really think Mary-Bell murdered her daughter?”
I remembered the determination on the Vigilante’s face. The light in his eyes. How I hadn’t felt at danger standing so close to him with my weapon lowered. He’d killed for a reason.
“Yeah, Tom. I do.”
***