Webb looked at Ruth, who was standing to one side. She was biting her lip, her eyes blinking, as if holding back tears. “Watch your language, Buck,” he cautioned. He didn’t hold with swearing in front of women. It showed disrespect. And he especially didn’t like the idea of Buck swearing in front of his mother.
“I can’t help it!” His fist made a downward stroke through the air. “I never expected that you would doubt—”
“It isn’t a question of doubt, or what I believe,” Webb interrupted sharply. “These are serious charges that have been leveled against you. I’m not taking them lightly, and neither should you. I have always stood behind my men when they were in trouble. I’ll stand behind you. Now, the young lady claims she saw you hit Anderson over the head and rob him. We need to establish where you were and what you were doing at the time.”
“Who notices the time when you’re drinking?” Buck argued. “I didn’t know I was going to need an alibi. I played some poker, drank …” He paused, struggling for something more specific. Then his glance fell on Chase, standing by the fireplace, an arm hooked on the mantel. “I was with Chase most of the time. Ask him.”
“It’s true.” Chase nodded, wearing the same grim expression that was on everyone’s face in the den—his father’s, and Buck’s parents, Ruth and Virgil Haskell. Only on Buck, it took on a desperate quality. “Buck and I were together almost the entire evening, but, like him, I didn’t pay attention to the time.”
“I could have been in the john when Anderson got banged on the head.” Buck lifted his hands in a beseeching gesture. “That… girl claims she saw me, but maybe she said that because she’s the one who really did it. Where’s her alibi? Who was upstairs with her when she supposedly saw me? She could just as easily be the one who knocked Anderson out and rolled him. I’ll bet that’s what really happened. Anderson never saw who hit him. He said so. Why couldn’t it have been a woman?”
“I admit it’s possible,” Webb conceded.
“Why else did she wait until the next day to tell the sheriff? Why didn’t she come forward that night when they found him? It sounds fishy to me,” Buck insisted. “Wait a minute!” He turned again to Chase, remembering something. “I borrowed five dollars off you last night—before they found Anderson outside. Would I be borrowing money off you if I had just robbed somebody?”
“No, it wouldn’t make sense,” Chase agreed.
“There! You see! That proves it!” Buck declared with a decisive nod of his head.
Webb rubbed his hand across his mouth in a thoughtful manner, then brought it down to the desktop. “I’ll see what can be done to get this straightened out. In the meantime, Buck, I advise you to stay away from Jake’s until it is.”
“I’ll make sure he does,” Virg stated. “Come on, boy.” He motioned to his son to come with him, then glanced at the man rising from the chair behind the desk. “Thanks, Webb, for backing the boy.”
“Buck is family.” The statement explained it all.
Virg turned to his wife. “Are you coming, Ruth?”
Her gaze darted away from Webb to her husband. “In a minute, Virg.” There was a slight hardening of Virg Haskell’s expression as he flashed a sharp look at Webb, then turned to escort his son from the room. When the pair had left, Ruth took a hesitant step toward Webb. Her hands were clenched together in a knotted ball. The tightness of her smile revealed how deeply worried she was. “I just wanted to thank you … for helping Buck.” Her voice was very low, but otherwise steady.
“You know I’ll do everything I can, Ruth.” He felt a strong urge to reach out and take her in his arms, hold her there and comfort her, but it wasn’t his place to offer that kind of comfort.
“Buck is wild sometimes, but he isn’t bad,” Ruth insisted.
“I know.” Webb took her clenched hands and smoothed them out to rest between his rough palms. “Don’t worry about it. Okay?”
“Okay.” Ruth smiled, but there was a shimmer of tears in her blue eyes. “Thank you.” It was a whisper, given as she squeezed his hands and quickly withdrew hers to follow her husband and son.
Webb stood for a long time after the front door had closed, staring in the direction that had given him the last glimpse of Ruth. He hated to admit it even to himself, but he was worried about Buck. The boy was intelligent, maybe too damned smart for his own good. There was a conflict going on inside of Buck, part of the transformation into manhood when the impulses for good and bad remain matched or tip one way or the other. There was larceny in the soul of every man; it was only a question of degree.
He took a deep breath and turned to glance at his son. Webb was bothered, too, by the blind loyalty of near-brotherhood that tied Chase to Buck. There were flaws to be overlooked in friends, but first they must be seen and recognized before they could be ignored. Otherwise, there would be a hard road of disillusionment ahead. If Chase had a blind spot, it was Buck. Webb wanted to open Chase’s eyes.
“What do you think? Did Buck do it?” The sharp challenge within the question was hidden by the offhand delivery, so casual, so smooth.
“Buck?” Chase lifted his head to frown at his father. “Of course he didn’t do it. A dollar doesn’t stay in his pocket for more than ten minutes, but he doesn’t steal it from somebody else’s.” He pushed away from the fireplace, a certain agitation in his action that showed he resented the question even being raised. “Besides, he was with me when it happened.”
“I thought you weren’t sure about that,” Webb reminded him.
“I’m sure. I’ll swear to it,” Chase stated.
“If you supply an alibi for him, the charges will be dropped.” Webb sought to make it clearly understood the power that a Calder’s word carried, a power not to be abused.
“The charges should be dropped, because I know he didn’t do it. That girl can’t be positive it was Buck she saw from the window. It was too dark outside, too many shadows. She made a mistake.”
“As long as you aren’t making a mistake,” Webb murmured and moved to his desk.
Chapter XVII
A month after Maggie had brought Ty home from the hospital, Dad Hogan suffered a stroke that left him paralyzed. Cathleen was forced to admit him to a nursing home, where there were the proper facilities to care for him. The household routine that had been changed once to accommodate the addition of an infant was changed again to include twice-daily visits to the nursing home by the arthritic Mother Hogan.