Frank Tuttle - The Broken Bell

When Mama let Gertriss go, they were both crying, both trying hard to hide it.

I rose. “We all need another beer.” I left and took my time.

When I came back, beers in hand, Three-leg Cat was perched on Mama’s lap, purring and preening as she scratched him behind his one intact ear. Gertriss was fussing with her makeup, squinting into one of the new tiny glass mirrors ladies have begun to carry in their purses this season.

I distributed beers. Mama’s first bottle was empty. Gertriss had hardly touched hers. I hate to see good beer get warm, so I took it.

I gathered the emotional storm was over. But there were still things I needed to know. “So the Sprangs came here looking for money.”

“Mostly.” Mama took a draught and belched, loud as any man, and Gertriss laughed. “Vengeance, too, after they heard Gertriss had took up with a man. They can’t take no vengeance on women. But they’ve got their eyes set on you, boy, thanks to me.”

I shrugged. “How much money are we talking here?”

“Mama’s eyes went hard. “You ain’t thinking about paying them road apples, ’ere you?”

“Why not? If the price is right, it seems like a good way to get rid of them for good. How much?”

“Eight crowns,” said Gertriss softly. “In Old Kingdom coin. They won’t take Regency paper, or anything but gold.”

I snorted. “Hell. Eight crowns. Fine. I can afford that. I’ll pay them, when they get out of the Old Ruth. By then they’ll be so ready to get the Hell out of Rannit they probably won’t stop running long enough to count it.”

“I can’t let you do that, Mr. Markhat.”

“What is it with Hog women? I said I’d pay them. It’s not a fortune. If you want, call it a loan. Even on what your cheapskate boss pays you, eight crowns won’t take that long.” I frowned. From their expressions, I was missing something fundamental to the situation. “This is some Old Law country thing, isn’t it? Do I also have to give them an ear? Agree to consort with their oldest, ugliest daughter? Spill it. I’m a city man, remember?”

Mama sighed. “Tell him the rest, child. I’m liable to tell it wrong.”

I put my beer down a little too hard.

“Wrong or right, ladies, somebody better start telling me something right now.”

Gertriss cleared her throat. “I didn’t know this, until today. I swear I didn’t, Mr. Markhat. Mama just told me.”

“Keep talking.”

“Harald. Harald-he had a brother.”

“Lots of people do. So?”

“He’s dead too.”

Silence. Gertriss was on the verge of tears. I looked to Mama.

“Kilt with the same knife that kilt Harald,” she said. “On the same night. The Suthoms reckon Gertriss kilt him too.”

Gertriss wouldn’t meet my eyes. My mouth went dry.

“I have to ask, Gertriss. You know I do. Did you kill them both?”

She shook her head.

“I didn’t know nothing about the other Suthom boy ’til today,” said Mama. “The Sprangs got big mouths. They talked it all up and down the Old Ruth, about how they come to Rannit to put the vengeance on the man what took up with the woman what killed the Suthom boys. I reckon they aims to kill you, boy, and then go home and collect a reward from the Suthoms. So I ain’t sure eight crowns is going to stop this mess. I ain’t sure at all.”

I swallowed the rest of Gertriss’s warm beer, opened my cold bottle, and took a swig of it too.

“And I thought my day couldn’t get any worse. Funny old thing, life.”

Gertriss burst out crying, and I thought seriously about joining her.

It was nearly Curfew before I got the women settled enough to finish talking things out.

We were all out of beer. My throat was dryer than the Regent’s tears. Gertriss had cried away most of her make-up, leaving nothing but dark circles under her eyes. Even red-nosed and a bit raccoonish, she was still fetching.

Mama was gruffing and puffing and threatening to set out for Pot Lockney at first light to “set them Suthoms straight.” I’d dissuaded her from that notion only barely, and at the cost of most of my voice.

I’d filled two notebook pages with times and names and dates and places. I wasn’t ready to leap to my feet and declare the identity of the real murderer of Harald Suthom’s brother Ash, but I had my suspicions.

“I still say they can’t know the same knife killed both Suthoms,” I said. “Especially if the second body wasn’t found for nearly a month.”

Mama shook her head. “Old woman Nilkill says it were the same. She fancies herself a blood witch. If she says both Suthom’s blood is on that knife, that makes it so, boy, in Pot Lockney.”

“How convenient. And they know it’s Gertriss’s knife how, exactly?”

Gertriss sighed. “I carved my name in it when I was ten.”

I groaned. “Well, at least now I know you didn’t kill the second Suthom, Miss. You’re too smart to use a signed knife.”

“Boy!”

“Sorry, sorry, fine. So Harald Suthom meets his well-deserved demise at around eight of the clock. Gertriss is on the road by nine. Sometime in the next few days, Ash Suthom is dispatched with the same knife, wrapped in old burlap, and laid to rest in a briar patch. He lies there until a bear pulls him out and scatters him over old man Ferlong’s cotton patch. That about right?”

Mama and Gertriss exchanged glances, then nodded yes in unison.

“Since we know Gertriss didn’t kill Ash on her way out of Pot Lockney, that means somebody else did. Any idea who? Was Ash as charming and well-loved as his older brother?”

Mama shrugged. “Ain’t none of them Suthoms worth a damn. But I’d never heard tell of Ash ’til today.”

“He was quiet,” said Gertriss. “Never heard him speak. People were scared of him, just for being a Suthom, but I never heard any stories about him. He worked the cows. He paid his bills. He didn’t cause any trouble at the inn. That’s all I know. Except that I didn’t kill him.”

I doodled on the paper, drawing a little stick man with a knife in his back.

“So who found Harald?”

Gertriss looked at Mama.

“Way I hear it, it was his foreman, come looking to roust him out and get started working. They knowed he’d been to see Gertriss, he’d bragged about it. Came in and found him dead in her bed, and her gone.”

I gave my little stick man Xs for eyes.

“So for all we know this foreman took the knife out of Harald and then left it in Ash.”

Mama shrugged. “Ain’t no way for me to know that, boy. Nor you.”

“And then a bear helpfully pulls the corpse out of a briar patch and makes sure he gets a proper burial, right after the good people of Pot Lockney remove a signed knife from his back. How fortuitous. Miss, the next time you go to all the trouble to wrap a corpse and drag it into a briar patch, you might consider removing the murder weapon at some point during the festivities. Especially if said weapon carries your name.”

Mama opened her mouth to gruff at me, but caught on. Gertriss got there faster.

“Someone wants me blamed for Ash’s murder.”

“Oh yes. Bear my ass. They hoped the body would be found, but it wasn’t. So they helped matters along. Now, we’re looking at one of two things here. One, they knew you’d killed Harald, and they knew you’d left town. That made you the perfect pick for killing Ash, too, nothing personal, just business. Or second, somebody back home hates you enough to kill a second man just to make sure you’d be hanged for killing the first. Who would want to do that to you, Miss? Who hates you that much?”

“No one.” She shook her head. “Honest, Mr. Markhat. Nobody.”

I dropped my pencil and leaned back in my chair. Fatigue was settling over me like a coat made of rocks.