Between Earth and Sky(38)

Inside they passed by an unvarnished bench and two mismatched chairs to a long counter. A small picture of President Roosevelt hung in a cheap tin frame, lonely on the wall.

Beyond the counter, the office was a hive of activity. Stacks of paper and worn ledger books claimed every available surface. Survey maps plastered the walls. The air smelled of stirred-up dust and mildewed paper. One man, a half-breed guessing by his high cheekbones and broad nose, huddled over a spread of documents. Another, the only woman in the room besides Alma, thumbed through a cabinet of folders. Several other workers bustled between desks and file drawers. No one looked up in greeting.

Stewart rapped gently on the counter. “I’m looking for Deputy Agent Taylor.”

“Can’t you see we’re—” A burly white man, seated at a nearby desk, glanced up at Stewart and stopped mid-sentence. His eyes flickered to Alma and seemed to stall. He stood, but without hurry, smoothed his jacket, and straightened the gold-plated star pinned above his breast pocket. “What can I do for you?”

The other employees came to attention as well. Alma’s skin tingled beneath the intensity of their collective gaze. Stewart repeated his request.

“He’s head agent now,” the man with the star said. “Is he expecting you?”

“I’m afraid not. Our trip was too sudden to announce by letter, and I was told you have no telephone.”

“Nearest telephone’s back in Detroit Lakes. I’ll tell Agent Taylor you’re here. What was your name?”

“Stewart Mitchell. I’m here regarding the murder of Mr. Andrews.”

“You a lawman?”

“I’m one of the attorneys involved in the trial.”

Alma looked around the room. Stewart had not even mentioned which side of the case he represented and already she felt a crackle of tension.

Her gaze stopped on the half-breed. He was the youngest of the employees, more a boy than a man, and the first to return his attention back to his work. He wore his thick black hair short, parted at the middle, and slicked down with oil. His brown eyes were light, his skin the color of pale clay.

The man with the star emerged from a door at the back of the room and waved them forward.

A young man greeted them inside the office. “Welcome, welcome. I’m Agent Taylor.” He shook Stewart’s hand and nodded at Alma. “Have a seat. This is Sheriff Knudson.”

The man with the gold badge bobbed his head. He closed the door but remained in the room, leaning against the far wall.

Alma sat in a high-backed wooden chair, feeling caged in the small room. Daylight dribbled in through the milky glass of the lone window. The agent’s musky cologne permeated the stale air. Her eyes drifted from the window to a waist-high bookshelf topped with a mantel clock and matted tintype.

“That’s my pappy,” Agent Taylor said, smiling at Alma. “Fought with Custer and Colonel Mackenzie during the Great Sioux War.”

Alma shifted in her chair. The man’s vivid blue eyes and sharp face unnerved her. He leaned back in his chair, still smiling, and laced his hands behind his head.

Stewart cleared his throat. “You served under Mr. Andrews as deputy agent before the murder, is that correct?”

Mr. Taylor brought his hands around to his lap, but remained relaxed and easy in his chair. “Yes, that’s right. For goin’ on three years.”

“And, Mr. Knudson”—Stewart swiveled around to face the sheriff—“you completed the investigation against Mr. Muskrat and executed the arrest?”

Sheriff Knudson nodded.

“Mr. Muskrat offered no defense or alibi,” Agent Taylor said. “He’d bootlegged a gun same as the one shot Agent Andrews just a few months prior. What more questions could you have?”

“Did he admit to the crime?”

“No,” the sheriff said. “He ain’t said nothing at all.”

Stewart unbuckled the flap of his satchel and withdrew several sheets of paper. “Seven people were listed as witnesses to the crime, but only one interview was filed with the report. Do you have summaries or transcripts of the other six?”

The sheriff took the top sheet of paper from Stewart and frowned. His rough, weather-beaten skin reminded Alma of Mr. Simms. “I only interviewed the one. Abe Johnson. He’s a worker at this here agency and one of my deputies. Heard the gunshot from his kitchen window and saw Mr. Muskrat fleeing into the woods. No need to interview the others.”

“From what distance did he see Mr. Muskrat?”

“Pardon?”

“How far from Mr. Johnson’s window to the woods?”

The sheriff shrugged. “Fifty yards. A hundred tops.”

“That’s quite a distance. Especially in the dark.”

“You city folk might not know, but the moon shines real bright out here in the country.”

“It was a new moon that night,” Alma said.

They all looked at her.

In the days after learning of Asku’s trial, reading and rereading those articles, she’d thought back to where she was the night of the murder. What banality had occupied her time when a thousand miles away all this trouble had begun for Asku? It was a Sunday. She and Stewart attended a dinner party thrown by one of Stewart’s colleagues who’d moved to the suburbs. She’d thought of every laugh, every smile, over and over again until it made her sick. She remembered the hum of the electric hansom that carried them home. “Watch your step, ma’am, it’s mighty dark,” the driver had said. And later, after she and Stewart had made love, she remembered lying awake staring out the bedroom window at the moonless sky.