Robert B. Parker's Blackjack by Robert Knott Page A

confident—”
    “Shut up, Sherman,” Banes said. “Goddamn it, son, just shut the hell up.”
    King looked to Banes like his feelings were hurt.
    “Ruth Ann was Roger Messenger’s wife,” Banes said. “Maybe you figured that part out already? Nothing goddamn confidential about that.”
    “How is it that Boston Bill is wanted for her murder?” Virgil said.
    “Ruth Ann was fucking Boston Bill Black,” Banes said.

28.
    D etective Sergeant King raised a rigid finger and said, “That is unauthorized and—”
    “I said, shut up,” Banes said, looking sternly at the young man. “And I mean it. These fellas have lost one of their men trying to sort this shit out, and I’ll be goddamned if I’m gonna just sit here and listen to you avoiding what they need to know so they can do their job.”
    Banes looked back to Virgil.
    “If I said Ruth Ann was promiscuous, that would be a pound-and-a-half understatement. She was as wild as a March hare. She had a hard time keeping her legs together, you see . . . and Bill Black was not the first. Roger was no match for her, not from the damn beginning. Not sure how she even ended up with Roger or how he ended up with her, but when Black was in Denver, working on the gambling house there, he was giving it to her on a regular basis.”
    King shook his head back and forth with a disappointed look on his face. Banes ignored him.
    “Everybody knew about it,” Banes said. “Apparently, Ruth Ann had her hooks in Boston Bill bad.”
    “Roger knew about it, too?” I said.
    Banes nodded.
    “Yeah,” he said. “Poor sonofabitch . . .
    “When it started up with Bill she flaunted it and shit. That was hard on Roger, you can imagine.”
    King looked to Banes and said harshly under his breath, “Sir . . .”
    Banes continued without acknowledging King.
    “Rumor is Boston Bill tried to break it off with Ruth Ann, but she had different ideas. She wanted to leave Roger. Anyway, she leaves Roger, so the story goes, and Roger starts to drinking and then he gets his ass kicked off of the force.”
    “And Ruth Ann?” Virgil said. “What happened to her?”
    “Next thing you know, Ruth Ann ends up missing. Then two weeks go by, then Ruth Ann is found down by the South Platte behind the inn where Bill Black was staying, facedown in a foot of water. She’d been beaten, brutally murdered.”
    “Any witnesses?”
    Banes nodded.
    “Folks, the owners of the inn, heard him, Boston Bill, and Ruth Ann arguing in the middle of the night, the night before Bill left Denver.”
    “But no eyewitness?”
    “Not directly, but all indicators point to . . . Black,” he said. “There was blood found on the back steps.”
    “Who found her?” I said.
    “Some kids who were fishing,” he said.
    “How could you tell after that long a time what had happened to her?” I said. “That she had been beaten? Hard to believe no coyotes and other varmint got to her.”
    “She was in shallow water, a bunch of green river weed wrapped around her, when the kid found her. When the officers got there tothe riverbank and pulled her from the water she was still intact. She was brought in, looked at carefully.”
    “And?” I said.
    “She had a number of cuts on her body,” Banes said. “Looked like a blow to the head is what did her in. Hard to say, she could have been held down in the shallow water and drowned, for all we know. But it was her, it was Ruth Ann, and she was killed.”
    Detective Sergeant King lowered his head as if he’d been defeated.
    “You and Roger friends?” Virgil said.
    Banes sat stoic as he looked at Virgil a bit, then nodded.
    “Yes.”
    “What he ever say to you about any of this?”
    “Nothing.”
    “Roger ever a suspect in Ruth Ann’s murder?” I said.
    Banes looked at me.
    “It was discussed,” he said.
    “By who?” I said.
    “All of us.”
    “What do you think?”
    Banes stared at me for a long moment.
    “Maybe.”
    “Maybe?”
    “He had to be mad