Read The Outrage - Edge Series 3 for Free Online Page B

been on the stage. Sheriff Meeker stood with his back to the fireplace and was also dressed in a business suit but it was a shabby three-piece of a cheap pin stripe fabric. Either out of respect or by coincidence he wore a funereal black tie. He held a cold pipe by the bowl in his right hand while the fingertips of his left traced the heavily fleshed line of his jaw.
    Meeker was in his late fifties, maybe five and a half feet tall and flabbily broad at the shoulders and hips. Above his bulky frame his face was round and variegated. The shape because he was a fat man, the dull red and blue coloration probably on account of an unhealthy lifestyle. He had three chins that stepped down from his thick lipped mouth into his short neck and a full head of tightly curled, black and grey hair neatly trimmed at the back and sides. Contrasting with the frayed and stained suit his shoes were new looking and had a high shine. If he had a revolver it was a small weapon and one not carried on a holstered gunbelt.
    ‘This is Vic Meeker, our county sheriff, Edge. Vic, this is Mr Edge. He shared the stage with me from Pine Wells to town. Edge, both Martha and Nancy are dead: assaulted and murdered. They didn’t deserve to die that way.’
    The lawman and Edge exchanged a nod as the introductions were made then Edge looked about him as Quinn gestured with a tremulous hand that was the only overt sign he may at any moment lose his eerily calm composure. First glanced at where two blankets were draped over the sofa facing the fireplace, contouring it closely enough to outline the shape of the piece of furniture and three loose cushions upon it. Then at another blanket spread on the floor just inside the doorway, near a sideboard from which a bottle of liquor and several glasses had been jolted to the carpet, some of them broken. A bottle and two glasses were still on top.
    ‘Bad business.’ Meeker both looked and sounded uncomfortably out of his depth in the situation.
    Edge said to Quinn: ‘You left your bag at the stage depot, feller. I just now gave it to the deputy.’
    ‘Thanks. It was good of you to take the trouble. This wasn’t why I asked you to give Austin a miss for awhile, was it, my friend?’ He interlocked his fingers in his lap but not quite soon enough to stop his hands from shaking. He was clearly in deep shock but the groundwork for learning bad news had been laid when the stage arrived. So maybe the passing of time had lessened the anguish to some extent and now he was numb. There was a stiffly automatic manner about the way he rose from the chair and looked from Edge to Meeker as he asked: ‘A drink, gentlemen?’
    Meeker said: ‘Not for me.’
    Edge shook his head.
    The bereaved man moved rigidly to the sideboard, uncaring that broken glass crunched under his feet. Then carefully, as if afraid a more violent shuddering would attack him, he uncorked the bottle of bourbon and splashed a shot into a crystal tumbler. He took a drink, not too much, and peered fixedly at Edge who was now closer to him than Meeker.
    ‘We have a beat up old wreck of a buckboard, Edge. For some reason whenever my wife went to town she always preferred to drive it instead of the new buggy. This morning she went by way of the Old Town Road instead of taking the main trail and a spoke snapped. It seemed she tried to change the wheel but the spare was busted, too. If only I’d remembered to get the damn thing fixed when I said I would weeks ago it’s likely Martha would still be . . . ‘
    He took another gulp of his drink.
    Meeker advised as he struck a match: ‘You sure it’s a good idea, Mr Quinn: going over it again so soon? If you reckon it’s necessary for Edge to know the details, I can tell him everything that’s happened.’
    ‘No, I need to talk about it, Vic. If it’s all the same to you?’
    The lawman shrugged his thick shoulders. ‘Whatever you want.’ He lit the pipe. Quinn drained his glass and set it back on the