The Sporting House Killing G. Powell (best free novels .TXT) 📖

lie to us.”

“About what?”

“About what happened that night at Miss Jessie’s sporting house.”

“Which night?”

“The night of the killing.”

His eyes went wild. “Are you police?”

“We’re lawyers for a boy accused of a murder he didn’t commit.”

Lowe brightened. “So you’re not here about me?”

“No, sir. But if you lie to us, we might just make you our business.”

“I have no reason to lie. What do you want to know?”

“You went to Miss Jessie’s that night, didn’t you?”

Lowe’s face reddened. “I did.”

“Where’d you tell your wife you went?”

He swallowed hard. “Sunday night’s my card night, and she goes to bed before I get home. The game ended early.”

“What time you get to Jessie’s?”

“I don’t know, maybe about eleven. I don’t carry a watch.” He started walking again.

Catfish surged forward to catch up. “You remember a boy leaving as you went in?”

“Maybe.”

“Your memory better improve, Mr. Lowe, unless you want to carry on this conversation at the sheriff’s office.”

Lowe’s eyes took off. “No, no, I remember him, but I don’t know who he was.”

“What’d you do when you got inside?”

His pace quickened again. “I, ah, I visited with one of the ladies boarding there.”

“Miss Sadie?”

He nodded.

“How long you visit with her?”

“I don’t remember. Not long.”

“Ever see Miss Georgia?”

“No, never.”

“Did you see any other men customers?”

“No.”

“Hear a gunshot?”

“No. That happened after I left. I read about it in the paper.”

“What time did you leave?”

“I don’t remember. Maybe close to midnight.” His pace quickened again.

Catfish tugged on his sleeve. “Hold on, Mr. Lowe, you’re wearing me out.”

They stopped, and Catfish caught his breath. They had the man’s attention, but there was more he knew.

“Now, how do you get about town?”

“I walk. Or take the trolley. Why?”

“Did you drive a red buggy of some kind to Miss Jessie’s?”

“No, I walked. It’s only about three or four blocks from my house.”

“You see a red buggy there?”

His eyes jumped into action. “Maybe, I don’t really remember.”

He did. He saw it.

“Think hard, Mr. Lowe,” Catfish said.

“All right, yes . . . I do remember a carriage of some kind. It was unusual . . . A racing rig, maybe.”

“For trotters?”

“Maybe.”

Catfish pulled Jasper’s drawing from his pocket and gave it to Lowe. “Look like this?”

“Yes.”

“You know whose it is?”

“No.”

Catfish put the drawing back in his coat pocket. “You know Bud Orman?”

“No.”

He didn’t seem to. But Orman had to have been there that night.

“Did you see any other men at Miss Jessie’s that night?”

“No,” he answered too quickly.

“You sure?”

“I didn’t see any other men except that boy you asked me about.”

Catfish looked up toward Franklin Avenue and scratched his chin. “Mr. Lowe, you see that clock tower?”

“Yes.”

The red brick clock tower rose over the nearer buildings. The sun reflected off the white clock face set into the gray slate mansard roof.

“That’s the courthouse. You’ll be answering questions there if you don’t tell me the truth right now.”

Four blinks, two winks. “Look, I can’t be a witness in your case. I just can’t. It would ruin me. My wife would leave me, and I’d lose my job.”

“Maybe you should’ve thought about that before now.”

He began to whimper. “Please don’t get me involved in this.” He wiped his eyes with a handkerchief and glanced around, then took off up the street again. “I’ll tell you what you want to know, but please don’t get me involved.”

“What’d you see?” Catfish asked in his serious voice.

“There was a man. A young man. When I left the . . . boarding house, he was crossing the street from the Red Front and tossed something into that buggy you asked me about. Then he came back across the street, heading toward the boarding house.”

“Miss Jessie’s?”

He nodded.

“What’d he look like?”

“I don’t remember, I really don’t. I’m sorry. I wish I could help you, but I wasn’t really paying attention to him.”

“How young was he?”

“Older than the boy you asked me about. Maybe a little younger than you.” He nodded at Harley.

“What was he wearing?”

“I told you, I don’t know.”

“Wearing a hat?”

“No.”

“What color hair?”

“It wasn’t dark, but I don’t really know.”

“So he had light-colored hair?”

“Maybe.”

Catfish hooked his arm through Lowe’s. “Mister, if you give me enough information to find that man, I won’t have to tell anybody about you. You want to cheat on your wife and steal from your employer, that’s your business. But if I don’t have enough information to find that young man with the red buggy, I’ll have no choice but to tell the sheriff you’re a witness. Then everybody’ll know what you been up to.”

“But I’m not a witness,” he said. “I didn’t see anything. Please, please, I’m telling you the truth.”

“What did he say to you when you passed him?”

“Nothing, I swear. I’ve told you everything I know.” He broke down in tears and buried his eyes in his hands.

Catfish pulled out his calling card. “Mr. Lowe, you remember anything else later, you let me know.”

“Oh yes, sir, I sure will.” He stopped walking and faced Catfish. “You won’t tell anybody about me, will you?”

“Tell anybody about what?” He gave him the card, turned his back on Lowe, and walked off. He glanced over his shoulder. “But you better hope I find that man with the light-colored hair and the red buggy.”

Lowe scuttled toward home as Catfish and Harley walked on toward the surrey.

“Where we going, Papa?”

“To pay a call on Bud Orman.”

“Do you think he was the fellow there that night?”

“I don’t know anybody who’d say Bud was young, but then again it was dark. Let’s talk to him. See if he has a red buggy.”

Chapter 19

Papa had said Bud Orman was in his mid-forties, but that was overly generous. His face looked as though he’d been through at least another decade of hard living. His face seemed weighted by heavy wrinkles and hooded gray eyes.

His office was a repository of relics from his tinsmithing and saloon-keeping days, jumbled with sundry papers on every surface and rolled-up plats in the corners and on the floor. A county map stretched across his desk. The room reeked of kerosene from five lamps. A