Free No Pity For the Dead by Nancy Herriman Page A

and reached up to squeeze his shoulder.
    â€œThe war?” Nick asked, though the question wasn’t relevant to his investigation.
    The man looked at him with eyes gone suddenly blank, focused on another time and place.
    â€œVicksburg,” Matthews finally said.
    â€œBad, that one,” said Nick. “The Wilderness.”
    Matthews returned to the here and now. “You there?”
    â€œI was.” And he could feel the air, hear the sounds of the battlefield, smell it still. The damp. The stink of gunpowder and spilled guts. The acrid stench of fear.
    â€œLost a cousin at that one,” Matthews said quietly.
    â€œI lost my closest friend.” A rush of anger swept over him. He’d never known a better man than Jack Hutchinson. A much better man than his cousin Frank. It should be Jack who was alive, and his cousin who’d bled out his life on the trampled dirt beneath a canopy of shattered trees. But that wasn’t how life worked. And Nick had spent the intervening years learning and relearning the unfairness of it all.
    And you, Meg. To have lost you, too, Meg . . .
    But his sister couldn’t be recovered, either, and Nick had become a cop so that he could wrench some justice out of this unforgiving and heartless world.
    â€œToo many men died. Too many good men,” said Matthews.
    He shook his head somberly and dropped his hand, forming a fist to thump against his leg. At the army hospital, Nick had once seen a soldier, his leg sawed off and his head swathed in so many bandages that only one staring eye was uncovered, do something similar. They all had their tics, the pain and terror seeking a way out of their wounded bodies.
    â€œSo how about you tell me the truth, Mr. Matthews, for the sake of all those good men?” Nick asked. “Did you return last night to check if you knew the man you’d unearthed? Take your key, unlock the door, and go down to the cellar for another peek?”
    â€œHeck no!” Matthews reached into the pocket of his coatand removed a large key. He tossed it to Nick. “It’s a key to the offices. You can bet I won’t ever be going back there to return it.”
    â€œYou won’t be going back there to return it because you’re not working there anymore.”
    Matthews cursed. “I don’t know nothing. And tell John Kelly that.”
    â€œWhy should
I
tell him that?” asked Nick. “He’s your brotherin-law.”
    â€œDon’t think I’ll be talking to him ever again.”
    Nick thought that was likely true.
    He examined the steel skeleton key in his hand. “Who gave you this?”
    â€œJohn, of course.”
    So John Kelly had a key. That was one. And apparently Dan Matthews was permitted to borrow it. That made two. “Who else has keys to the offices?” he asked, setting it on his desk.
    â€œThe partners, of course. I don’t know who else.”
    Three, four, and five.
“Does Kelly lend this key”—Nick tapped it—“to you, because you’re his brother-in-law and supposedly trustworthy?”
    â€œHe’ll give it to whoever’s working late that night.”
    Did Martin know? He seemed too prudent to allow any of the workers to have use of a key to his offices. “Seems awfully trusting of him.”
    The other man shrugged.
    â€œMatthews, I’m going to ask you again.” Nick leaned forward. “Did you know the fellow you found?”
    He hesitated. “I can’t be sure.”
    â€œWhat if I told you it was Virgil Nash?”
    A bead of sweat broke on Matthews’ upper lip, and his eyes widened. Not with astonishment, though, but with alarm. “Shit.”
    â€œThat name bother you?”
    â€œHonest to God, I only heard of the fella. Heard rumors around town that he caused all sorts of trouble for some of the miners back in Nevada, but I never did know him myself.”
    â€œWhat sort of