I
"There. There. It's okay, boy." His hand hovered inches away from Deputy Garcia's shoulders. "I've seen him now and you can... ." He was interrupted by Garcia shaking and retching. "Let it out, boy. Let it out." His deputy heaved and finally spit a few globs of acidic phlegm down on the puddle of vomit. "Just go. Outside, now. I've got it from here. Just send up Johnny as soon as he shows."
Sheriff Hyram Booth turned away from his deputy and pulled open the windows. The smell inside the small courtroom was stomach turning. Vomit and the metallic stench of blood. He took a deep breath, filled his lungs with outside air before he turned around and approached the judge's headless corpse.
The fat, white-haired man had been beaten, severely and repeatedly, enough to deform bones and to bruise every inch of once ruddy skin. Booth noted the broken fingers, maybe lifted in defence and maybe broken to further torture the geezer.
He stepped around the blood pooling from the corpse's neck stump and approached the bench. There, perched atop the polished mahogany, sat the head. Its mouth was opened in a rictus grin and the yellowed teeth seemed sharpened and elongated. "Tarnation," said Booth to no one in particular.
The sheriff followed the faint, sad sound of music to the judge's chambers. The radio on the windowsill played that one mournful ballad by a cowboy troubadour. The one about love lost and the moonlit grave out in the desert. Booth turned off the radio, grunted and grimaced, then turned it on again. The wailing lament of a murderer and a guilty conscience.
It was a beautiful day outside. White bloomed the flower beds and the red-gold midday sun seemed to smile in the blue sky. He tried the latch but could not open the window. The foul odours had followed him into the small room.
His search was cursory. The grand desk, as ever, was adorned with curios and the judge's matted brass nameplate. 'The Honourable Samuel Diegife.' Its top was empty. No papers; save for the brown bag and a half-eaten sandwich. Booth checked the drawers. He found naught, but the judge's six-shooter and a bottle of bourbon, half-empty.
The black robes still hung in the corner as if their owner could return at any moment. Booth noted the flag and the pictures of presidents and hunting scenes, undisturbed. He opened the filling cabinet, unlocked, and eyed the folders. They looked perfectly ordinary. He picked on out at random and leafed through the write-up of the mayor's third divorce from early last year. His duty done, he shrugged and left.
The deputies stood outside, smoking. Colour had returned to Garcia's face and Johnny showed off his usual bored expression.
"Got one for me?" the sheriff asked.
He lit the cigarette with his gasoline lighter and took a drag. "Johnny, I need you to head over to the clinic and get Doc Warrens or somebody to help you with the corpse. I need the autopsy done pronto."
"Now?" the chubby ginger asked.
"Now."
With an annoyed expression Deputy Johnny Holiday flicked away the half-finished cigarette. He turned and climbed into his police cruiser.
"Now," Booth pushed his cigarette to corner of his mouth, "you found'im, right?"
"Me and Mrs. Larson, yeah."
"He hold court today?"
"Nah, but you know how he be - was."
"Mhm." The sheriff nodded; he knew about both the judge's creative uses for a bailiff and his deputy's habit of hanging around the courthouse. And around the court reporter. "He seem different to you? Nervous?"
The other stared and smoked. When he finally answered, he sounded uncertain: "Nah. I don't think so. Wasn't like we'd all be hanging out in chambers or nothin'. He paused. The furrows on his brow disappeared suddenly and he added: "He bummed a smoke -'bout an hour before lunch- and he was fine; happy even. Joked with Lizzie - with Mrs. Larson. And he talked about goin' fishin' on the weekend."
"I see. So you went for lunch?"
The deputy nodded. "Mrs. Larson had invited me over to hers and when we came back I could, like, sense it. I sent her out back and," he winced, "secured the scene."
Booth laughed. "Sure did." He trampled the stub of his cigarette into the dust. "Keep securing the site. At least until Johnny shows." He saw the look on the other's face and added: "You can stay outside. Probably nobody dumb enough - anyway I gotta inform the widow."
A quick glance at the watch and his grumbling stomach convinced Booth to take lunch first. And Mary would be waiting.
He drove past the other one-story wood houses and stopped the cruiser in his own driveway in front of the chipped paint green garage door. The kitchen window was open, and the radio inside played that same cowboy ballad.
Mary shut off the radio when he entered. She had cooked, steak and potatoes. "I boiled 'em with cream, just like you like 'em," she said.
He said nothing.
She looked tired. Old and tired. Even with all the make-up, the lipstick and whatever paint she had assembled, she looked tired. With the dark bags under her brown eyes and her thinning, strawy, greying black hair. "How's work?" she asked. Her voice was high-pitched, nervous.
"Bad." He tore into the beef.
"You like the food?" She was not eating and only moved her small serving around on the brown earthenware plate.
"Fine."
"Coffee?" He set down the red-stained steak knife and sauce-covered steel spoon beside his empty plate.
She stopped her fidgeting with the floral oilcloth and hurried from the table to the kitchen counter to the stove. "Two sugar, no milk?", she asked, though she knew the answer.
He waited in silence until she brought him the steaming enamel cup. She handed him the coffee and then hovered behind him. Her hands rested on his shoulder while he drank. Suddenly, he could feel her lips on his bearded cheeks.
"I've missed you," she whispered. "And I think you deserve a break."
Her cooking apron fell to the floor. She wore her one short skirt and one good blouse, with nothing else underneath.
"I've gotta go. Much work." He emptied his cup. She could not hide her sorrow. He felt the gnawing guilt and hurried away.
II
The widow was beside herself. Crying and unable to answer any questions, she begged him to stay with her. He spent two endless hours drinking her weak coffee and eating stale cookies. Still, he was unable to console the dumbstruck woman. She was at one moment trying to play host and then wracked by crying fits. Only after even more coffee, he finally convinced her to take a glass of brandy and to lie down.
After he had, as promised, called her sister and the Reverend Porter, he radioed his deputy from the car:
'Johnny, do you read me? Over.'
'Loud and clear. Over,' answered Deputy Holiday's voice.
'You get it done? Over.'
'Yes. Over.'
'Did the doc say when he'll be done with the autopsy? Over.'
