The Owlhoot Read online

  Six deputies were in the squad-room, but none of them wore clothes with more than a slight hint of the old West. Two were clad in khaki uniforms, their revolvers hanging from open-topped holsters on Sam Browne-style belts which looked more military than Western. All the others were dressed in civilian clothes and carried their hand-guns concealed from view. They looked like ordinary citizens, such as might be found gathered anywhere east or west of the Mississippi. One of them most certainly would have been out of place in the setting of a traditional range country jailhouse, few of which made regular use of female officers.

  Woman Deputy Alice Fayde looked nothing like an old-time Texas lawman, but she was a trained, efficient and effective peace officer for all of that. Red hair, done in a neat flip style, framed a face that had charm, strength and was good-looking without being out-and-out beautiful. A dark blue blouse, open at the neck, set off her full firm bust without blatantly advertising it or the way she trimmed down at the waist. Her denim skirt covered the attractive curve of her hips and was short enough to prove that she had a pair of legs shapely enough to compete in any company, even when ending in shoes with practical, medium-high heels.

  Seated at her team’s desk, with fingers flying over the keys of the typewriter, she looked like a capable secretary. The five male deputies present knew her abilities went far beyond that. First as a rookie of the Bureau of Women Officers, walking a beat, then as a detective in one of the city’s six divisions, she had gathered experience in her chosen trade. Graduating through the various specialist squads of the Gusher City Police Department—Vice and Gambling, Juvenile, Traffic and Narcotics—she had gained promotion to the Sheriff’s Office. What was more, she came, not as the usual type of female deputy—riding a telephone switchboard, acting as secretary or dealing purely with women offenders—but to work full-time on investigations.

  Breaking into the previously all-male investigatory side of the Office had not been easy. At first Alice and Joan Hilton, her opposite number on the day watch, had faced near hostility while working to prove their worth. The case which had won complete acceptance for Alice had not been easy, for it had been investigating the murder of her uncle, Deputy Tom Cord. [ii] Cracking that case ended any last doubts about the wisdom of employing woman deputies. It had also brought her a regular partner—and many women would have envied her choice.

  Six foot three in height, even without counting his crepe-soled shoes, Deputy Bradford Counter topped the physique of a Mr. Universe with curly golden blond hair and an almost classically handsome face. Certainly he was the best-dressed male deputy present. His genuine Harris-tweed sports jacket had been tailored to the fit of his great spread of shoulders, enormous biceps and slim waist. It also hung so as to give no hint, even when buttoned, of the Colt Government Model .45 automatic pistol in the Hardy-Cooper spring shoulder holster under his left arm. He wore an open-necked dark gray shirt, blue silk cravat, and gray slacks with knife-edge creases.

  That Brad Counter dressed in the manner of a top-grade young executive, drove an imported M.G. MGB convertible, and had an apartment at the exclusive Beverly Arms hotel in Upton Heights, caused his superiors—First Deputy McCall and Sheriff Jack Tragg—no concern as to his honesty. They, and his companions in the Office, knew him to belong to one of the richest families in Texas.

  Instead of going into the family oil business, or one of the subsidiary organizations owned by the Counters, Brad had elected to become a peace officer. After graduating with honors from the University of Southern Texas’ Police Science and Administration class, he had taken the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s exacting police officers’ training course. From that he had come into the Sheriff’s Office as a deputy, without passing through the G.C.P.D.’s academy or serving as a municipal police officer.

  There had been some criticism of Jack Tragg for employing Brad; doubts over whether a young man with purely a theoretical background in law enforcement could handle the work. Helped by Deputy Tom Cord, Brad had gained practical knowledge and confounded those who gloomily predicted failure by becoming a successful member of an investigation team. Together Brad and Alice had hunted the two professional killers responsible for the old deputy’s death and the big blond’s automatic had cut them down when they resisted arrest. Brad was considered to be the best all-round gun handler in the county or municipal law enforcement offices, while he had also gained the reputation for being able to hold up his end in any kind of rough-house brawl.

  Brad’s affinity for peace officer work and skill with firearms was hereditary, stemming from his paternal great-grandfather. Back in the wild years following the War between the States, Mark Counter had been known as a gun fighter of the first water, a man of enormous physical strength, extremely effective at bare-handed combat—and a top hand with the ladies. [iii] Certainly Brad had inherited all his illustrious ancestor’s good qualities, including the last; a fact to which Alice could testify.

  Not that either Alice or Brad were being given much chance to demonstrate their abilities as peace officers. It had been a quiet evening; almost as if the 250,000 or so citizens of Gusher City had reached a mutual agreement not to commit any of the offences which the deputies had responsibility for investigating. With their county-wide jurisdiction, the Sheriff’s Office also acted as the city’s homicide squad. That extended beyond merely investigating murders. There were twenty-two legal infractions—train-wrecking, wife-beating, kidnapping, being three of them—crimes which might end in killing, which came within the deputies’ scope. Only that night nobody seemed to be breaking any of the twenty-two.

  Having finished their own paperwork, four of the male deputies gathered at the uniformed team’s desk and talked. Ready to help with details of the report Alice was typing, Brad sat on the edge of their desk and cleaned the Winchester riot gun which he carried when expecting trouble.

  The door of the Watch Commander’s office opened and First Deputy McCall entered the squad-room. Big, craggy-faced as a Highland shepherd, he wore a gray business suit and Stetson hat. That he had the latter on did not imply he was just arriving at, or on the point of leaving, the Office. According to rumor, not even his wife had ever seen him bare-headed.

  ‘The tax-payers’re sure getting their money’s worth tonight,’ McCall said dryly, looking at the four deputies.

  ‘Things’re real quiet,’ admitted big, burly Irishman, Deputy Rafferty.

  ‘Maybe they’ll hot up later,’ Deputy Valenca went on. ‘They mostly do.’

  ‘Which being the case, some of you’d best go grab a meal to be ready for it,’ McCall decided. ‘Where’re Dick and Frank at?’

  ‘Making the rounds down in Greevers,’ Deputy Chu, Rafferty’s Chinese partner answered. ‘Nothing special, but they figured to drift around for a spell.’

  That had always been the habit of capable peace officers. Even on quiet nights they roamed the streets ready to prevent trouble breaking out. So McCall showed no surprise to learn that the Negro and Mexican deputies had decided to prowl in the police division which housed the majority of their people. However, his cold eyes stayed on the quartet. No chaser of his watch, as long as they performed their duties efficiently, his Scottish nature protested at seeing them standing around at the tax-payers’ expense.

  ‘Who’s going?’ the First Deputy asked.

  ‘We may as well, Tom,’ Rafferty suggested to his partner. ‘Why don’t all four of you go?’ Alice asked, stopping typing. ‘Then maybe I can finish this report in peace. I nearly included the punch line to your last joke, Lars.’

  ‘The sheriff told it to me,’ replied the enormous blond, Deputy Larsen, his voice as mild and gentle as a store assistant serving a rich customer. ‘Come on, Tony. We know when we’re not wanted.’

  ‘We’ll be at the Badge, Mac,’ Chu said, leading the quartet in the direction of the main entrance.

  After the other deputies’ departure, McCall crossed to Alice and Brad’s desk. He picked up the papers she had al
ready typed, finding them to be what he had expected; the report on a multiple-murder investigation she and Brad had recently brought to a successful conclusion. [iv] Hooking his rump on to the opposite end of the desk to the big blond, McCall began to read the report.

  Ten minutes went by. Sitting back in her chair, Alice stretched and let out a sigh. Brad had completed the cleaning of the riot gun and nursed it as he watched his partner remove the papers from the typewriter. Glancing at the clock, Alice opened her mouth to speak. Before she could, the telephone in McCall’s office buzzed loudly. Returning the report to the desk top, the First Deputy crossed the room and disappeared through the door.

  ‘Cross your fingers,’ Alice warned Brad.

  ‘You and your big mouth, boss-lady,’ the blond replied. ‘We’re the only team in the building.’

  ‘I had noticed that,’ Alice admitted, her voice an attractive Southern drawl. ‘It may be nothing.’

  A hope which McCall rapidly proceeded to shatter on his return. His face held as near a smile as it ever showed. Glancing at the empty typewriter and assembled riot gun, he said, ‘Now that’s what I call giving the tax-payers value for their money. One set of chores finished and you’re all ready and eager to start another.’

  ‘What is it, Mac?’ Alice asked resignedly.

  ‘Call from the duty patrolman at Central Receiving. A woman’s just recently brought in a man with a probable skull fracture. She was a mite hysterical, but they’ve quietened her down ‘

  ‘It can’t just be an auto accident,’ Brad groaned. ‘We’re not that lucky.’

  Also, the officer at the Central Receiving Hospital would not have troubled the Sheriff’s Office under those conditions.

  ‘It wasn’t,’ McCall confirmed. ‘Way she’s told it, somebody pistol-whipped him.’

  Which meant that the Hospital Detail patrolman had acted correctly. Those Articles in the ‘Offenses Against the Person’ section of Texas Penal Code covering the different degrees of assault and battery, formed a major part of the twenty-two infractions under the Sheriff’s Office’s jurisdiction.

  ‘We’d best get over there and ask her who, when, where—and why,’ Alice decided, watching Brad taking his riot gun to replace it in the box. ‘Like the man said, why did I have to open my big mouth?’

  Three

  Riding one of the elevators to the ground floor, Alice and Brad left the D.P.S. Building by a rear door. They collected their black and white Oldsmobile Super 88 deputy car from its place in the carefully-planned geometrical pattern—arranged to prevent confusion and speed mass departure in the event of a full-scale emergency—of law enforcement vehicles in the official parking lot. While Brad drove, Alice reported them out and told their destination to the Communications Bureau’s permanently-manned Central Control.

  Neither of them spoke much during the short journey, but their thoughts ran along similar lines. Would this be just another routine chore, or were they headed into the start of a long, grueling and dangerous case? They had little enough information to go on, which did not surprise them. Patrolmen of the Hospital Detail were notorious for the brevity of their reports.

  Each of the city’s larger hospitals had a member of the Patrol Bureau present twenty-four hours a day. The Hospital Detail offered an important, yet comfortable and not too hazardous assignment for older patrolmen. Like the old hands in any trade, profession or organization, such officers knew how to perform their duties thoroughly but with the minimum fuss and effort on their part.

  On arriving at the Central Receiving Hospital, situated at the junction of Business and Gusher City South Divisions, the deputies parked their car and went into the reception area. They saw a tall, portly, gray-haired patrolman coming from a room with ‘G.C.P.D. Hospital Detail’ painted on its door. Going over to him, they showed their identification wallets.

  ‘Howdy,’ the patrolman greeted. ‘She’s waiting inside. Way she tells it, you’ve a 1408a.’

  Alice and Brad exchanged glances. Article 1408a of the Texas Penal Code was a robbery in which a firearm or other dangerous weapon was exposed or used; it carried a penalty of death or a prison term of not less than five years. Such a case might easily wind up in gunplay and flying lead.

  ‘Any more?’ Alice asked, returning the I.D. wallet to her shoulder bag.

  ‘Name’s Mrs. Ivy Monoghan,’ the patrolman replied. ‘Feller’s not Mr. Monoghan though. He’s Martin Hoopler, a friend of the family.’

  ‘Like that, huh?’ Brad drawled, having caught the inflection in the officer’s laconic words.

  ‘I wouldn’t know,’ the patrolman answered. ‘’Less I miss my guess, you’d have to fight her off your lap if you didn’t have your partner along. Lordy lord, they didn’t have gals like her when I was young enough to use ’em.’

  ‘Monoghan,’ Alice said, before Brad could comment to the harness bull’s statement. ‘That seems to ring a bell.’

  ‘If you’d once seen her, you’d not forget her in a hurry,’ the patrolman stated, directing his words to Brad. ‘She’s some looker. A blonde; and what a build.’ He rolled his eyes ecstatically. ‘Her and that striptease gal at the Queen of Clubs might be twins.’

  ‘The Manders killing,’ Brad said to Alice, beating her to it by a split second. ‘Mrs. Monoghan was one of the three possibles for the victim.’

  ‘Sure,’ the girl agreed, remembering other things they had heard about Mrs. Monoghan while trying to identify the hideously-battered body of a murdered woman. [v] ‘Let’s go in and talk to her.’

  ‘I was just going to fetch us some coffee,’ the patrolman remarked. ‘Bring you a cup if you like.’

  ‘That’d be great,’ Alice replied. ‘Let’s go, Brad. If she looks like Zippy Sharon, you’ll be busting a gut to see her.’

  To be truthful, Alice also felt some interest at the prospect of meeting the third of the women whose name had come up as the possible victim of the brutal murder. For various reasons, she and Brad had not needed to see either Zippy Sharon or Mrs. Monoghan during the investigation. Feminine curiosity prompted Alice’s interest, but another reason lay at the bottom of it.

  Brad opened the door and allowed his partner to precede him into the room. Looking over Alice’s shoulder, he saw the woman seated on the comfortable divan which the Hospital Detail officers had acquired from somewhere to augment the meager furnishings supplied by the G.P.C.D. Coming to her feet, Ivy Monoghan showed that she had a rich, voluptuous body and curves matching those of striptease star Zippy Sharon or the actual victim, girl wrestler Fairy Manders. In her mid-twenties, she had a sensual beauty and attraction—and knew it. After a brief look at Alice, she gave Brad the majority of her attention. She seemed both worried and pleased to see the big, exceptionally handsome blond deputy.

  ‘Mrs. Monoghan,’ Alice greeted. ‘I’m Deputy Fayde and this is my partner, Deputy Counter.’

  ‘I—I think we’ve met, Dep—Mr. Counter,’ Ivy said, smiling weakly. ‘We’ve never been introduced formally, but I’ve seen you several times at the Beverly Arms.’

  ‘I live there, ma’am,’ Brad answered in a non-committal manner. ‘Sit down, please. We’d like to ask you some questions.’

  ‘Here, right now?’ Ivy groaned, looking appealingly pathetic at Brad.

  ‘Here, right now,’ Alice answered for him and sensed the hostility in the glare Ivy directed at her.

  ‘It’s late,’ the blonde pointed out sharply. ‘I should be getting home.’

  ‘We won’t take any more of your time than is absolutely necessary,’ Alice promised. ‘But we have to know all about the incident. Sit down, please.’

  ‘I’m not sure that I can help you,’ Ivy said, without complying with the request.

  ‘We’ll have to be the judges of that,’ Alice stated.

  Ivy stood hesitantly fumbling with her handbag, eyes going from one deputy to the other. Then she turned her gaze on Brad, giving him the full benefit of a stare which had never yet failed to win a ma
n over to her way of thinking.

  ‘If I tell you all I know, Mr. Counter, can I have your word that I won’t be called on to appear in court as a witness?’

  ‘We can’t promise you that,’ Alice answered.

  ‘Then I can’t tell you anything!’ Ivy insisted.

  ‘If we don’t get your story, we’ll have to take you to the Department of Public Safety Building and hold you as a material witness,’ Alice warned, and continued before the blonde could start protesting, ‘Remember one thing. There’re no reporters around here, but there’s always a few at the D.P.S. Building.’

  ‘I don’t care about reporters!’ Ivy snorted, but her tone showed that she did. ‘You can’t take me there!’

  ‘We can and would have to,’ Alice assured her uncompromisingly. ‘You brought in an injured man who you said had been hit with a revolver. That implies a crime has been committed and that you saw it. So, unless we have other witnesses, we have to hold you until we’ve checked your story. I realize that being involved might embarrass you ‘

  ‘Just what are you implying?’ Ivy bristled.

  ‘Suppose you tell me what happened,’ Brad put in, using a gentler manner than that of his partner. ‘I’ve friends in the Public Relations Bureau and I’ll ask them not to mention your name in the press hand-outs. And it would be easier to avoid reporters here.’

  ‘You’re right, of course, and I’m being foolish,’ Ivy purred and sat down. She crossed her legs, which exposed a fair length of them to Brad’s view. Dipping a hand into her bag, she took out and opened a gold cigarette case to show two gold-tipped cigarettes. ‘Do you smoke?’

  ‘Not right now,’ Brad replied, producing a lighter from his jacket pocket.

  Face showing no expression, Alice watched Ivy’s hands close on Brad’s as he held the flame of the lighter to the woman’s cigarette. Although the blonde did not know it, she had fallen for one of the oldest peace officer tricks in the book. From the first moment their eyes had met, Alice sensed the other’s hostility and had known instinctively that she would be uncooperative to a member of her own sex. According to the information received during the Manders’ investigation, Ivy had a husband much older than herself and liked the company of men around her own age. Without bias or jealousy, Alice figured the blonde to have the kind of man-hungry nature to which Brad would appeal. Having seen Brad keep his mind on duty and follow a conversation, during the multiple-murder case recently completed, while Zippy Sharon performed her breath-taking, provocative dance routine near at hand, Alice figured she could trust him to ignore the lesser allure of Ivy Monoghan. So they had applied the hard- and soft-sell technique which so often yielded results. After Alice’s harsh, faintly antagonistic behavior, Brad’s gentleness, looks and physique had won the woman over.