Free Weak Flesh by Jo Robertson Page A

didn't you call for her at her home?"
    Hayes shifted his eyes from left to right as if contemplating how to answer. "Mr. Carver doesn't care for me," he said at last. "He thinks I'm not good enough for Nell."
    "Did he tell you so?"
    "Not in so many words, not to my face." Hayes wrinkled his nose in a decidedly feminine movement. "But Nell told me. That's the reason we always met away from her house."
    Gage rested his chin on his knuckles and stared thoughtfully at Hayes. Either of Nell's beaus could've gotten jealous or tired of her leading them on, snapped in a fit of quick temper, and hurt her.
    He opened his mouth to ask another question when he saw Pruitt trying to get his attention through the glass pane on the opposite wall that looked out into the main reception room. He frowned and ignored him. Pruitt knew better than to interrupt an interrogation.
    "This, ah, understanding you had with Miss Carver," Gage asked, thinking of the ruby ring he and Bailey had just discovered. "Did you seal your ... relationship?"
    "Good God, no! I respected Ellen too much to, uh, to become intimate before marriage."
    "I don't mean that," Gage prodded.
    Hayes looked confused.
    "Did you exchange a declaration of vows, for example? Or a token of your affection?"
    "No," Hayes said quickly, but his pale gray eyes slid away from Gage's direct gaze.
    Was Hayes hiding something?
    A soft rap sounded on the office door and Gage glanced up to see Pruitt waving frantically.
    "Now tell me, Mr. Hayes," Gage continued, leaning across the desk with dead seriousness. "Where were you on the night of November 20? Where were you the night Nell Carver disappeared?"
    Hayes' mouth gaped open like a fish with a hook caught in its mouth and worked his lips furiously. "I – I was at school, studying for exams."
    "And can someone verify that?"
    Hayes looked out the window at the bare winter scene on the street below as if he'd just realized something important. "No," he said slowly, "everyone had gone for the holiday. I was alone in the dormitory."
    "That doesn't bode very well, now does it, Mr. Hayes?"
    At that moment Will burst into the office fidgeting like a small boy about to soil himself. "Sorry, Marshal, sorry to interrupt, but it's important."
    Gage glowered and motioned another patrolman to escort Hayes to the release area. "See that Mr. Hayes has transportation back to his dormitory." He turned to the young medical student. "Stay close by. I will want to speak with you again."
    Stepping into the outer office with Pruitt at his heels, Gage stopped short at the sight of the giant oak of a man on the other side of the barrier. Two enormous blood hounds leashed at his side danced eagerly around the small space.
    Good God!
    "It's some fellow from up north, name of Tracker Thompson." Pruitt used a stage whisper as if the man mere feet from them could not hear. "He's come at Mr. Carver's request to hunt for clues in the case."
    Lord, not another one, Gage thought. Several weeks after Nell's disappearance trackers had set their dogs loose along the river after allowing them to sniff an article of clothing that belonged to the missing woman. They had discovered nothing.
    Gage ran his palms down either side of his face, feeling a pounding headache coming on. All his investigation needed right now was more civilian interference!
    Tracker Thompson towered over Gage as few men did. A barrel of a man, wide of girth and several inches taller even than Gage's six-foot-two frame, he looked more like an ancient giant oak than a person.
    His brows and hair were a shock of carroty bushiness so garish they seemed painted onto his broad freckled face. His pale green eyes gave a vague, distracted look belied by the alertness of his huge body.
    Thompson's reputation had spread even to Gage's small corner of the South. His fees were exorbitant. Gage wondered where Harold Carver had gotten the money and the prestige to attract this man's interest.
    The two bloodhounds, ninety or a