Роберт Паркер - Robert B. Parker's Revelation

Tillary stopped at the bottom of the office steps, turned to Virgil and me, and shook his head.

“Don’t have no service,” he said as he looked up to the office. “I’ll show you.”

We walked up the stairs to the prison office perched atop the corner of the prison wall. The office had wide pulley-operated batwing windows on each side that were open and offered a view in every direction. On the north side of the office there was a bank of pigeon cages full of carrier birds that were perched on crap-covered branches and feeding troughs. There were also a number of pigeons perched here and there around the office. A few were on a ceiling beam and a few walked about on the floor. They scattered as Tillary walked to a corner pine desk.

“This is where the key and sounder and batteries used to be,” he said. “As you can see, they are no longer there.”

“Don’t make much sense for them to go to the trouble to do that on their way out,” I said.

Tillary nodded.

“There is a good deal regarding what happened here that don’t make much sense... Please sit.”

Tillary took a seat behind a center room desk and Virgil and I sat on two stiff-backed chairs opposite of him.

“Where is the warden?” Virgil said.

“He is up at his house,” Tillary said with a pained looked on his face, “and I will escort you there subsequently, but I think it important we go over some details. Some of what you know and some of what I know.”

Virgil nodded.

“Here is what I know,” Tillary said. “This escape happened sometime in the night and the following morning both of the guards who were on duty were found dead and nine inmates were out of their cells and gone from the prison yard. The stables were opened and a buckboard and all of the horses were taken.”

“The guard Mickey had a bay he just rode up here on.”

“Oh, yes,” he said. “I meant to say all the horses that were in the stable. We had fenced others that were out, the escapees just took those from the stable.”

“You said nine men got out? It was reported to us that there was eight,” I said.

“Who reported that?”

I looked to Virgil.

“Dobbin. He was the first one apprehended,” I said.

“Well,” he said. “Dobbin is mistaken or lying.”

“He told Sheriff Stringer there were eight of them that got out, that is the information Stringer reported to us.”

“At first I thought that, too, actually, that there were eight gone,” Tillary said. “But one other had escaped from the Tomb.”

“Tomb?” I said.

“Solitary confinement.”

“How did he get out of solitary confinement?”

“How the hell he got out I have no idea... no... no... let me rephrase that, I know perfectly well how he got out. He got out just like the others got out, with a key.”

“How’d they get a key?” Virgil said.

Tillary shook his head slowly from side to side.

“We don’t know,” he said. “No earthly idea.”

I pulled the list of names from my pocket.

“Here are the list of names that were reported to us along with their descriptions. Ben Wythe, Boyd Dekalb, Ed Degraw, Timothy Eckford, Willard Calyer, Charlie Ravenscroft, Richard Skillman, and Bernard Dobbin.”

Tillary nodded, got out of his chair, and walked to the open southeast window and looked down into the yard. He gave a loud whistle, then called out to a guard, “Bring Dobbin up here.”

Tillary turned, walked back, and sat behind his desk again.

“Those that you just read were eight of the men from Murderers Row,” Tillary said.

“Two of those, Dobbin and Skillman, are of course back with you,” I said. “Five are dead and the eighth or ninth man might be dead or captured by now, we don’t know. One man was being pursued by a posse that is being led by Sheriff Stringer out of Yaqui.”

Tillary nodded.

“We originally believed that man to be Ed Degraw,” I said. “But I suppose he could be the other man who you said escaped from the confinement cell.”

Tillary nodded.

“That was Donnie Lonnigan,” he said.

“Donnie Lonnigan?” I said.

“Yes,” he said.

Virgil cut his eyes to me.

“Know him?” he said.

I met Virgil’s eye, shaking my head a little.

“The Don Lonnigan I knew fought with me when I was soldiering, but he was lost in action. That was a long time ago in a fight with Lakota and Cheyenne on the Platt River.”

“Lonnigan or Degraw, either one of them,” Tillary said as he picked up his pipe from a pipe tray on he desk, “they are scary trouble. Both are damn sure a force to be reckoned with... The hell of the thing is those two men thoroughly despise each other.”

He struck a match and lit his pipe. He puffed it until it glowed, then waved the match, dropped it in the ashtray, and stood up. “In their own separate ways, those two were the absolute worst we had to offer here... They caused all of us, including the warden, fits.”

Tillary walked past the pigeon cages and looked out the window toward the warden’s home atop the rise in the distance. He puffed on his pipe some as he looked off, then turned back to us.

“That being said, ever since this has happened the warden has seemed to have slipped off the deep end, I’m afraid.”

“How so,” I said.

Tillary shook his head.

“He’s pretty much stayed up there in the house with his wife. When he has come down here he’s been inebriated. Last time I told him he needed to stay away. I told him I did not want the other guards to see him like that, told him it was not good for the morale of all. I said he should rest and take care of his wife and come back when he was sober, feeling well again, and up for the job. I sent word to his wife to let me know if there was anything at all she needed... poor thing. He’s just a mess.”

Tillary looked back to the house on the hill.

“I shouldn’t really comment on this,” Tillary said. “But the young couple should not be out here, and though he has proved himself to be a capable warden at times, I feel this remote place and the demands of this job are a little too much for him.”

“How long you been here?” Virgil said. “Working at this prison?”

“Since the beginning,” he said.

“How is it that you are not warden and some younger man holds the position?”

Tillary smiled.

“Good question.”

“Bad answer,” Virgil said.

“Warden Scholes Flushing the Third,” Tillary said, “is the son of Territorial Lieutenant Governor Scholes Flushing the Second is the reason why.”

“Good answer,” Virgil said.

“The Flushings are one of the wealthiest families in the Territory,” Tillary said. “All thanks to General Scholes Flushing the First, a southerner who amassed a fortune on a cotton plantation before the war. I think the lieutenant governor positioned young Scholes here so to give him some character, and I’m not certain that was the best row to hoe. This place gives one character, but it also takes some character, if you know what I am saying.”

We heard footsteps coming up the office stairs. It was Dobbin, wearing a pair of handcuffs and accompanied by one of the stern guards who had whisked him away earlier. Dobbin looked to be in pain but was keeping his head up. I could tell Dobbin was the type of young man who would never let you think you were ever getting the better of him. But he jerked his arm from the guard’s grip as they came to attention just inside the office door. The guard grabbed for him.

“That’s okay,” Tillary said to the guard.

The guard instantly refrained his need to manhandle Dobbin and stood back a little.

“Got some questions for you, Mr. Dobbin,” Tillary said. “I know you feel you have been forthcoming and whatnot, but I don’t think you have provided a clear picture of what you know and what happened.”