Name On The Bullet - Edge Series 6 by George G. Gilman Read Free Book Online Page B

meals. But if there had been supper in this house tonight, it was surely eaten long ago or picked at and thrown out. And as he pushed open the door of the spartanly furnished hallway he was immediately aware of the absence of any appetising aromas coming from the kitchen behind the dining room: heard voices from beyond the parlour door. They were not loud, but were harsh toned in argument, as if frayed tempers were being held in check with difficulty. Elliot McGowan for sure, he recognised as he relished the warmth of the house and only now realised just how cold it had gotten to be outside. And Martha or Julia: perhaps both, or a woman from town who . . . He paused for just a moment then chided himself for eavesdropping and started along the hallway as the warmth of the house recalled other luxuries he was used to in this place. Right then the prospect of satisfying his hunger took priority over the comfortable bed he knew awaited him upstairs and he decided to take a look in the kitchen: to check that if, despite the circumstances, Martha had thought to leave him out some cold food.
    Then the parlour door was jerked open with a controlled force that was as angry as the voices had been. But instead of rage the weather-beaten face of McGowan expressed anguish. He was startled to see Edge in the house and took a moment to recover: during the pause ran a gnarled hand through his thick mop of black hair and seemed unsure of how to greet him. Then blurted:
    ‘I’m sure sorry, Edge. I . . . We didn’t hear a horse in the yard. Or the door open.’
    He shrugged. ‘Too wrapped up in family business. You being back: does that mean all of you are? Gene Hooper and the rest?’
    While the man blinked his small green eyes, clenched and unclenched his work scarred hands, sought to adjust to this unexpected situation and struggled to empty his mind of what had occupied him and the women a few moments before, his wife continued to sit at the table where she most often attended to her needlework. Martha was tall, fifty or so with dark eyes in a bronzed, deeply lined face framed by stringy brown hair streaked with silver grey. She may have been pretty in her prime but in the years since then life had not been kind to her physically and when he first saw her at the start of summer Edge had guessed she was no more than a shadow of her former self. Tonight her always-gaunt face was more drawn than usual and even her never powerful frame looked somehow shrivelled by grief. Julia rose from the chair across the table from her mother in the stove heated room, came up behind her father and demanded softly but insistently: ‘Did you find the men who murdered Wendell, Edge? Did you kill them or did – ‘ She broke off, on the verge of another attack of the weeping that had mottled her face with patches of red and purple. The twentyeight years old Julia had hazel eyes, short brown hair framing angular features and a body that was flat at the chest and narrow at the waist. And in her present bereaved state there was no trace of the underplayed sexual attractiveness Edge had often registered during the summer.
    Both daughter and mother were dressed in appropriate black.
    ‘The marshal has a man and woman locked up in the jailhouse,’ Edge told her. Martha voiced the surprise expressed on all their faces: ‘A man and a woman ?’
    ‘Thank God for that at least.’ Julia returned unsteadily to her chair, sank slowly on to it, clasped her hands tightly together and stared down at them where they rested on the table. Her new wedding ring gleamed in the soft light of the overhead lamp. ‘I don’t care who or what they are. Just so long as they pay for what they did to Wendell.’
    Her mother reached out to clasp her daughter’s wrists and squeezed them in a futile comforting gesture.
    McGowan said in low, apprehensive tones: ‘It sounds to me like you ain’t fully convinced Gene has got the right people locked in the town jail,