A Knife in the Heart Read online

  He kissed her forehead. “At some point, you’ll likely come across some people who aren’t good. I’d like to keep you from those types of people, but you’re bound to meet them when you get older.”

  “Like the Widow Daniels.”

  He gave up on trying to save the reputation of that old biddy. “Well, just remember, that usually there’s good in the worst of men, and bad in the best of men.”

  “There’s no bad in you, Papa.”

  “Well, I try,” he said, but he knew he sometimes did not even try. Like when he had to deal with a murdering fiend like Bowen Hardin. “You just remember that. But you look for the good in the bad people. Don’t look for the bad in the good people. Does that make sense?”

  She shook her head.

  He laughed, kissed her forehead again, and hugged her tightly. “I know,” he whispered. “I have a hard time trying to sort all that out at work.” He released his hold, and rose. “You ready?”

  “For the . . . funeral?”

  Fallon nodded. He still didn’t know if this was a good idea, but Fallon and Christina well remembered they had been at funerals when they were younger than Rachel Renee. Christina recalled that of one of her baby brothers, who had lived but two weeks. Fallon had attended his grandmother’s. Then, when he was twelve, his pa had taken him to watch the finest men of Gads Hill lynch a man who had been accused of stealing a mule.

  That was something Harry Fallon would never forget. And it might have been why when Judge Parker and the U.S. marshal handed Fallon that deputy’s badge five years later, he took it. Thinking now he would work for the law.

  And here he was, years later, serving as a warden. Working for the law. And sometimes . . . working for what he figured the law needed to be. “There’s no one sentence for one particular crime,” Judge Parker told him. “One shoe doesn’t fit every foot. Remember that.”

  “If you get sad, honey,” Fallon told his baby girl, “just let me know. It’s all right to cry. But if it gets too much for you, we can go wait outside. Don’t worry. Everyone will understand.”

  “All right. Can we go to the ice cream parlor afterward?”

  “Absolutely.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  Some of the newspapers didn’t know what to make of this new warden the federal pen had. Sometimes, editorials and news articles stated, Warden Fallon came up with these harebrained ideas that made them think he was turning the penitentiary into a Sunday school for killers and traitors to the U.S. government. Other times, they thought he was Genghis Khan.

  Two weeks after Wesley Westinghouse’s funeral, Fallon had to give a speech at the Leavenworth Opera Hall. For a weekday morning, he figured he had done well to draw a crowd of nineteen people, not including the editor of the Post, the only newspaper that figured the warden’s speech was worth covering. Which, Fallon thought, it wasn’t. He took a few questions from two of the sixteen women in the audience, and one from the Lutheran minister, shook hands, and stopped to make pleasantries with the Post editor.

  They were walking toward a hack when gunshots ripped through the hot morning air.

  “That’s coming from . . .” the Post editor started.

  Fallon already knew. He was running toward the grounds where the new federal pen was under construction.

  A gust of wind took the gray bowler off his head as he darted through buggies and freight wagons that had stopped in the middle of the street, but Fallon didn’t care. He just ran. Three patrons of a barbershop had gathered their horses from the hitching rail and blocked Fallon’s way as they stood holding their reins with left hands and pointing with their right hands. Fallon saw no way around the men and their mounts, so he leaped over the water trough, placing his right foot on the top of the hitching rail, pushing himself up and over, while ducking underneath the awning, and landing on the boardwalk. He barely broke his stride, although if he had to do it nine more times, he would have broken his neck in nine places. Actually, he didn’t even remember doing it until the widow Daniels read the article in the Post to him after church the following week.

  He dodged people, found the road, and ran. Sweating now, tugging loose his ribbon tie. Whistles blared, but the roar of gunfire had faded. The barbed wire surrounding the working section of the new prison glistened in the sun, and through the fence Fallon saw guards taking cover behind lumber and stones. Other guards blocked the gate, yelling at passersby to keep moving, keep their heads down, and get the hell out of there. One of them swung a revolver at Fallon, but quickly recognized him and stepped aside as Fallon raced through the entry port and spotted Captain Big Tim O’Connor at the edge of the pile of stones. Seeing no sign of arms from the rock wall of the cell block being built, Fallon sprinted forward.

  Ten yards from the wall, he saw the muzzle sneak from the doorway to the cell block, heard a laugh, and then he was diving as the shotgun spoke. Fallon landed in front of an overturned wheelbarrow, heard the buckshot bouncing off the iron tub, and rolled over and over. Then O’Connor’s meaty mitts grabbed the shoulders of his coat and dragged him behind the wall.

  “What the hell are you doing?” O’Connor roared and leaned against the stone.

  Fallon didn’t answer. He came to his knees, chest heaving, sweat stinging his eyes, and found a spot beside the leader of the guards. After a minute, all he could say was “Report”—and that came out more as a gasp than a command.

  “Indianola Anderson got a shotgun,” O’Connor said.

  “How?” He feared the convict had overpowered a guard.

  “Don’t know.”

  “I do.” The guard Raymond stood at the other end of their small redoubt, peering around the corner at the cell block. Wilson took his place as the lookout, and Raymond inched his way closer to his two superior officers. “When the crew came in with the supplies, Deke Reno was one of them,” Raymond said.

  O’Connor swore, first in Gaelic, then in English.

  “Who’s Deke Reno?” Fallon asked.

  “Ex-convict. Spent fifteen years here. Released last December. He’s been hanging around Leavenworth, doing odd jobs.”

  “Did you see him with a shotgun?” Fallon asked.

  Raymond shook his head.

  Now Fallon cursed, but only in English.

  “But,” Raymond tried to explain, “another guard, Walter Mitchell, told me that Reno visited Anderson last week.”

  It was O’Connor’s turn to curse.

  Fallon wet his lips and tried to put things together. A load of construction materials was being brought inside the compound. Normal. The wagon would be searched, as would the driver. Only one man would be allowed to bring the wagon in, so that one man had to be this Deke Reno. But it would be easy to plant a shotgun in with the lumber and kegs of nails.

  “Who unloaded the wagons?” Fallon asked.

  “Prisoners.”

  Fallon swore. “The rule,” he said tightly, “is that the wagons are unloaded by employees of the company delivering the supplies. After the wagon has been searched thoroughly.” He stared at O’Connor, who shrugged.

  After clearing his throat, Raymond said, “Lieutenant Wilder said it was all right since it was only one wagon this time, and hot, and the driver said the four men who were supposed to come out with him today were in jail across the river for getting drunk.”

  Which confirmed Fallon’s suspicion that the driver had been Deke Reno. “I’ll have a talk with Mr. Wilder when we’ve got things under control.”

  “No,” O’Connor said, sighed, and then spit. “That’s his body over there.” He vaguely motioned to the pile of lumber scraps next to the entryway to the cell block. “They blew his damned head off.”

  “Do we know how many inmates are inside the block?” Fallon asked.

  “Between ten and twenty is our best guess,” O’Connor said.

  “Hostages?”

  O’Connor nodded. “Probably at least two or three guards.”

  “Which means they have two or t
hree other weapons,” Fallon said.

  “But maybe not many rounds,” Raymond suggested.

  “They were cutting loose pretty good when this all broke out. Had to be at least eight rounds. Including the shot they took at you.”

  “No,” Fallon said, and rested his head against the stones. “If this Reno managed to get a shotgun in with the supplies, there’s a good chance he brought along a box or two of buckshot.”

  Three shotguns, Fallon thought. Maybe four. The prison outfitted its guards with Winchester Model 1897s, twelve-gauge, special-order twenty-inch barrels, each weapon capable of holding five shells in the tube. Add one in the breech. Twenty-four rounds. In the hands of hardened killers. With a range of . . . Fallon had to guess . . . twenty yards, maybe twenty-five. This day could turn even messier.

  “They can’t get out of here without us cutting them down,” O’Connor said. “It’s hopeless.”

  “Do we know which convicts were working here today?”

  O’Connor shook his head. “The lieutenant had the list.”

  “I recognized Indianola Anderson,” Raymond said.

  “We know he’s there,” O’Connor growled. “Why didn’t you let us know you recognized Reno?”

  “That’s enough, Tim,” Fallon said. “Reno served his time. He had a job. And the lieutenant let him in.”

  Raymond whispered. “There’s Ben Lawless. And this big cuss named Holderman.”

  Fallon looked up. “Aaron Holderman?”

  “Yeah. I think that’s his name. Big dude. Strong. Ugly. Stupid.”

  Fallon whispered another curse.

  “They still can’t get out of here,” O’Connor said. “Unless they try to sneak out when it gets dark.”

  Fallon was shaking his head at the captain’s naiveté, but before he could explain what was likely to happen, the voice of Indianola Anderson rang out from inside the cell block. “Hey, ya stupid thugs who guard us! We wants to talk at the warden. Right now!”

  “I’m here, Anderson!” Fallon called back. “This is Warden Harry Fallon.”

  “All right, Warden. Here’s the deal you best give us. You gonna bring us four horses. Fast horses. Saddled and waitin’ fer us outside the gate. An’ then all you cur dawgs is a-gonna lay down all yer damned weapons and line up, hands over yer heads, an’ jes watch us walk right on past ya. But that ain’t all. No. We ain’t no fools. Ain’t nobody gonna be nowhere on the road. We see anybody, and there’ll be hell to pay in triplicate. So you let the laws in town know. I’ll give ya fifteen minutes to get the town cleared, the roads emptied, and dem hosses ready for us to ride. Ya see, we just ride outta here, cross the Big Muddy, and nobody follers us, or ya is gonna have to bury one of ya boys.”

  “Don’t listen to him, Warden Fallon!” a voice cried out. “They will just—” The crunch of a shotgun stock ramming into a man’s jaw silenced the guard. And left Fallon closing his eyes and lowering his head.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  “Them low-down sons of strumpets,” Captain O’Connor whispered. “That sounded like Jefferson.”

  “Yes,” Fallon said, his voice barely audible. “It was Elliott.”

  “Your time, boys, be down to fourteen minutes!”

  Fallon spit, yelling back: “Anderson, we’ll need longer than fourteen minutes to clear the roads and get people out of harm’s way. Give us an hour.”

  “No.”

  “Thirty minutes, then, damn it. I have no jurisdiction outside—”

  “Thirteen minutes!”

  “Dirty dog’s watch is fast,” O’Connor said.

  “All right. I’m going to get your damned horses.”

  Fallon came into a crouch, turned to O’Connor, and whispered, “Do you have a sidearm?”

  “No,” the guard said and held out his shotgun.

  Fallon shook his head. “They’ll see that.” He sighed, thinking he should have brought his revolver with him. But who would bring a loaded .45 to a speech at an opera hall in the middle of the morning in a city the size of Leavenworth?

  “All right.” He came up. “Wait here. If this doesn’t work, don’t let a one of them out of this yard alive.”

  “If what don’t work . . . ?” the big guard cried out in desperation, but Fallon was already running toward the gate, out of view from the cell block’s entrance, then he cut back and ran to the rock wall being built. From this point, he couldn’t see O’Connor or Raymond. But he saw the brick trowel lying beside the bucket of mortar. This would have to work. Bending his knees, Fallon reached down and grabbed the handle. The elongated trowel, about eleven inches in length, came to a point at the top, like the point of a spear, just nowhere near as sharp. But this trowel had seen a lot of use, slapped a lot of mortar and untold number of bricks, and as Fallon ran his thumb across the angled heel, the roughness, he hoped, might be enough. The gamble, of course, was to pick which wall to climb over. The only way out of the compound that wasn’t fenced in with barbed wire would surely be manned. So Fallon rose and moved to the wall.

  He inched his way along the wall, ducking in the places where the wall remained less than three feet high. Moving with hardly a sound, he listened. When he came to the halfway point, he stopped, mopping his face with the sleeve of his shirt. Fallon looked at his shirt and tried to remember when he had removed his suit coat. Staring ahead, through the fence of barbed wire, he watched the armed guards—and the prisoners—all staring in silence. And this was the gamble, he knew. All it would take would be for one of the convicts to shout a warning, let the cons inside the cell block know that Fallon had no intention of getting horses. They’d kill all the hostages. Then come out or let the guards rush in. Either way, these men were hardcases.

  They’d die game.

  And kill as many guards as they could before being sent to hell.

  He crawled along the wall, came to the lowest point, where the stones had been placed no higher than two feet off the ground. But it struck him that this would be the most likely place for Reno and Anderson not to have someone as a lookout. Anyone in this cell would be a sitting duck for a guard with a high-powered rifle.

  He lifted his head. He looked into the emptiness, saw no one, heard nothing, and then he rolled over the rock and came down onto the dirt floor, not hard, barely making any sound. No one came after him. No words reached him. He moved hurriedly to the corner, where the walls were higher, and came up.

  “You hear somethin’, Bootsey?”

  That came from the next cell. Fallon brought the trowel up, pressed his back against the wall that came just below five and a half feet high. Eventually, the walls would reach eight feet.

  “No.”

  “Bootsey, ya best go see. I swear I heard somethin’.”

  “You go,” Bootsey said. “I ain’t gettin’ my head blowed off.” The voice, Fallon thought, sounded oddly familiar.

  “You’re goin’, Bootsey.”

  “Why me?”

  A laugh followed. “’Cause I got this here scattergun. You go. It’s ain’t likely nothin’. But if you don’t go, I’m gonna blow yer head off.” The convict laughed like a hyena, and Fallon heard the footsteps on the rock floor. He didn’t wait. He came to the hallway, looked down both ways, saw no one, and stepped quickly, seeing the doors waiting for locks to be put on. He found the nook in the wall and shoved himself into it, just as a man in stripes and a cleanly shaved head stepped into the hallway and moved toward the cell Fallon had just left. Fallon came up quickly and pressed the sharp corner of the trowel against the convict’s throat.

  “One word,” he whispered, “Bootsey, and you’ll bleed out like a deer before butchering.”

  The man froze. The smell told Fallon the man had wet his britches. “Drop the shiv.”

  The handmade knife fell to the floor, rattling just a little, but enough for the man in the other cell with the shotgun to call out, “Bootsey?”

  “Answer him,” Fallon ordered, and now that he knew who Bootsey was, he w
hispered his real name. “Holderman.”

  “Yeah, Dooley,” Aaron Holderman said.

  “What was that?”

  “Tell him the truth.” Fallon put the blade closer to the former American Detective Agency operative’s throat.

  “Dropped my knife.”

  “You damned idiot. Hurry up.”

  Fallon didn’t have much time. Pretty soon, someone else would step out of a cell. “How many hostages are in there?”

  “Jus’ the goody-goody yellow dawgs who didn’t take no hand in this,” Holderman whispered.

  “Anyone else who’s not a goody-goody yellow dog?” Fallon pressed the trowel’s edge tight.

  “No, Fallon. But I didn’t want to do nothin’. Dooley made me. Swear to God.”

  Fallon lowered the trowel, brought it around, and then pressed the point hard against a surprised Holderman’s back. “Listen to me, Holderman. Do exactly what I say.” He was thinking this up as he talked. “Shout out Dooley’s name. Tell him to hurry. Then you hurry. You run into that cell, you keep your hands up over your head, and you yell to the guards not to shoot. You might live that way. If you don’t, if you don’t do exactly what I tell you, I’ll gut you like a catfish. And you know I’m not bluffing. Right?”

  Holderman’s big head nodded.

  “Now.” Fallon lowered the blade, praying Holderman’s cowardice would work in Fallon’s favor. For Aaron Holderman had seen Harry Fallon at his best, and his worst, often at the same time.

  The big man raised his hands high and roared, “Dooley! Come quick! Hurry!”

  Then Holderman ran down the hall, just the few steps, turned into the cell with hardly any outer wall, and Fallon heard the big brute’s screams: “Don’t shoot! I surrender! Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!”

  Fallon had turned, rushed, hearing the footsteps of Dooley, and he stepped into the entrance of the cell, and shoved the trowel hard, thrusting up, powering with all his might as the tool sliced into Dooley’s abdomen just below the rib cage. Dooley gasped, gagged, and dropped the pump-action shotgun onto the floor. Fallon already was pushing the killer back, twisting while withdrawing the blade, then spinning Dooley around. He brought the trowel up, but used the angled heel this time, placed it against Dooley’s throat. And sliced.