Robert B. Parker's Revelation Read online

  “How many people are there here?” Virgil said.

  “Inmates or workers?”

  “Both.”

  “Well, we are overcrowded here. ’Bout three hundred inmates and ten to fifteen workers; most are guards, and of course there is support staff, too, cooks, cleaners, and such.”

  I looked back to Skillman.

  “Our prisoners have been tight-lipped and offered up nothing about how this happened, really. What do you know about how these men got out?”

  “We don’t know nothing, either . . . Least I don’t.”

  He pointed up to the warden’s place and shook his head.

  “Warden Flushing has not really been out since this happened,” Mickey said. “Think he’s taken this hard. Kenneth Tillary is his chief assistant and he’s the one who has been handling things.”

  “And you don’t know anything about the escape?”

  “Nope, it was late, sometime in the middle of the night, and I was not there, I was on day shift. But Mr. Smith back there, he’s the outside boss, he was there and he didn’t see or hear anything. Fact of the matter is, at least from what I know, no one saw anything. All I know is Benny and Chuck, two guards inside, were killed. That is all I know. I kind of thought the warden would have gathered us and at least offered up something, said something by now, but he has not. I guess he can’t believe it, I don’t know. Hell of a deal, though . . . it’s like they just vanished.”

  40

  The warden’s assistant, Kenneth Tillary, met us inside the prison walls. He was a thin, older, sunbaked man with silver hair and wise blue eyes behind thick spectacles. He was pleasant enough as he collected Skillman and Dobbin. For the moment he treated the men kindly, as if they had never escaped. He avoided asking about the other escaped men and remained focused on reprocessing Skillman and Dobbin. After a short but formal explanation of what would happen to the men once the circuit judge came through, he instructed two guards to return the two men to their cells. Virgil and I watched as the escapees were quickly hustled away. Skillman looked back to Virgil.

  “They’ve both suffered wounds,” I said.

  The guards that were moving them off acted as if they did not hear me or did not give a shit.

  “Why don’t you fellas come into my office,” Tillary said, then looked to Mickey. “I’ll take care of the marshals from here.”

  “I was gonna take them up—”

  Tillary interrupted, “Thank you, Mickey, that will be all.”

  Mickey looked at us, nodded and said, “Good to meet you.” Then took off on the bay horse. A couple guards pushed the gates open and Mickey galloped off back to the entry station as the doors were closed behind him.

  We walked with Tillary across the compound and toward the northwest corner office.

  “Is your telegraph back in service?” I said.

  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.”

  41

  “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.”

  “What do you want to know?” he said.

  “You provided Sheriff Stringer with information that there were eight of you who escaped,” Tillary said.

  “That’s right. The sheriff said he would see to it that my cooperation would be recognized by the good judge, and I told the sheriff all I knew.”

  “Why did you lie?”

  “I didn’t lie,” he said defensively.

  “Why did you fail to include Donnie Lonnigan?”

  “Donnie Lonnigan? I didn’t include Lonnigan because Lonnigan was not with us, that’s why.”

  “Then where is he?”

  Dobbin shook his head.

  “Hell. I ain’t got no idea.”

  “Why would you protect Lonnigan?”

  Dobbin looked completely confused and his eyes darted among Tillary, Virgil, and me.

  “I ain’t protecting nobody,” he said.

  “Give us an account of the escape,” Virgil said.

  “Well, I told Sheriff Stringer all of what happened,” he said.

  “Just go again,” Virgil said.

  “All I know is I was sound asleep. I was in the same cell with the blackie, Dekalb, and Old Man Wythe, and Dekalb nudged me and told me to get up—that we were leaving. It was dark and we filed out in single file. Eight of us, all from compound C. We went to the stable. Them others got saddle horses and Dekalb, Wythe, Skillman, and me ended up in the buckboard. I figured there was no use in arguing with the likes of Degraw and Ravenscroft ’bout who gets a saddle horse and who don’t. So we took off. Them with the horses went one way and we went the other and there was no sign of Donnie Lonnigan.”

  42

  Tillary mounted up on a tall gray mare and Virgil and I followed him out the prison gates and rode slowly up the winding road to the warden’s house. When we approached the home, which was situated behind a low rock wall surrounding the property, Tillary stopped and turned back to us.

  “Maybe give me a minute, let me go in and let him know you are here,” he said.

  Virgil glanced to me, then nodded to Tillary.

  “Sure,” he said.

  We rode on up to the house and stopped at a hitching post next to a well and dismounted. We tied off and Tillary walked up toward the house. The home was a well-built large adobe with a wide porch. There was a nice-sized barn on the west side behind the house and a few other outbuildings to the east.

  Tillary knocked on the door, and when he did we heard a gunshot from inside the house. Tillary dropped quickly to one knee, then moved at a low crawl away from the door.

  Virgil and I pulled our Colts and dropped for cover behind the rock wall. I could see Tillary clearly from where we were crouched. He pulled the Smith & Wesson service revolver he had on his hip and stood with his back to the wall between the front door and the window.

  We waited for a long moment, then Tillary called out, “Scholes!”

  He waited for a reply, but there was nothing.

  “Scholes,” he called again.

  Then.

  “Mrs. Flushing?” Tillary said. “Can you hear me?”

  Tillary looked to us and shook his head a little.

  “Scholes,” he called again. “Mrs. Flushing!”

  Again nothing, only silence, and Tillary looked to us and raised his palms upward.

  “We have help here, from territorial marshals, they’re here with me now,” Tillary said.

  We waited for a long while, but there was no sound or sign from anyone.

  “Not feeling real good about this here, gentlemen,” Tillary said as he moved out a bit and looked to the front door. He stood there just looking at the door, then turned to us and shook his head. He looked back to the door again, then eased off the porch and moved slowly back toward the well.

  Virgil and I stood up slowly from out crouched positions when Tillary got close. He glanced back to us and shook his head as he put his revolver back in its holster.

  “I’m thinking the worst here,” he said.

  “When were you last up here?” Virgil said.

  “Been a while,” he said as he remained looking at the front door.

  “You been up here since the breakout?” Virgil said.

  He shook his head.

  “No,” he said. “No reason, really.”

  We all remained looking at the house.

  Tillary was shaking as he removed his hat and wiped his sweat-covered forehead with the back of his shirtsleeve.

  “The poor crazy fucker,” Tillary said, then looked to us. “I’m kicking myself very hard in the ass right now. If we get in there and see he’s done something bad, killed her and himself, I will be forever regretful, I can tell you that.”

  “Don’t have another choice,” I said, “but to get in there and see what is what.”

  “We don’t,” Virgil said.

  We took cautious time getting into the house. I entered in the back and Virgil and Tillary came in from the front, and I was the first to see the blood.

  “Back here,” I said.

  Virgil and Tillary came walk
ing into the dining area just off the kitchen where I stood looking at the young man sitting at the end of the long, thick wood table. His pistol was still clutched in his hand. He’d shot himself in the temple and blood was splattered across the wall and a painting of Jesus behind him. In front of him on the table was a pair of binoculars, a half-empty bottle of whiskey, a letter, and a pen. Next to the letter there was a silver-framed wedding tintype of the young warden with his new bride in wedding clothes, and it, too, was splattered with blood.

  When Tillary saw him sitting at the head of the table, he took a step back.

  “Oh . . . dear God. I should have prevented this,” he said. “You see her?”

  I shook my head.

  “Gentlemen,” he said. “Please. Help me, let’s look.”

  Virgil looked to me and nodded a little.

  Then as Tillary and Virgil started to move I looked to the note left on the table and said, “Don’t bother.”

  43

  “She’s not here,” I said.

  Tillary turned and looked at me.

  “What?” he said. “Where? Where is she?”

  “‘She left me,’” I said, then looked to Virgil and Tillary. “Those are the first words here on this letter.”

  I glanced at the body of the letter, which included some writing on the back.

  “Lot here,” I said. “It’s for you, Mr. Tillary. It’s addressed to you.”

  “She left him?” Tillary said in disbelief.

  “That’s what it says,” I said.

  Tillary shook his head a little. He walked slowly over to me and I handed the letter to him.

  “I understand it’s addressed to you personally,” Virgil said, “but it’d be a good idea we know what’s written there.”

  Tillary nodded.

  “Of course,” he said.

  His hands were shaking as he held the letter at arm’s length and started to read, “‘Dear Mr. Tillary. She left me. She is not coming back. It was my fault.’”

  Tillary looked up to Virgil and me and shook his head a little.