The Investigation

“The Investigation”

“Here, have some water.” David did not respond. “David, take the water,” the man repeated, obviously trying to persuade the young man drink some of the liquid. “C’mon, David, it’s for your benefit.” Marvin, the chief inspector, was sitting on one of the few chairs in the room, holding a glass of murky water for David. “David, you’ll feel-”

“I don’t want no water now, thank you,” David interrupted. He was the only one in the room sitting in the slightest of comfort – a red settee upon which he stretched himself. There was nothing else in the room besides three other men sitting in wooden chairs behind which was a curtain concealing the rest of the room. “I just wanna know why ya’ll think I killed ‘im!”
Marvin looked at Michael, the deputy sheriff, who was sitting in the chair to his left. Both were quite unkempt, their faces covered with stubble from the previous day that they had not yet had the chance to shave off. It was near three o’clock in the morning, but the interrogation was necessary.

Michael leaned forward in his chair, the angry expression on his face growing severe. “You know you killed ‘im!” he shouted, pointing directly at David. “You know, and we know, and in this California territory …” His voice trailed off as he stuttered to find words in his fury.
“I will tell you again,” David reiterated, “I did not kill my father! I killed another man, his servant, Gregory, but I did not kill my father!”

He would have continued, but suddenly, the curtain was ripped aside, and a woman rushed up and kneeled down before Michael’s feet, screaming between sobs, “He ain’t done nothing! Ah, it’s all my fault! It was me, I tell you!”

Michael surely would have kicked the woman and immediately condemned her too, but David stood up, drawing everyone’s attention, saying to the weeping lady, “No, Georgia, don’t lie for me.” Addressing the others, he said, “Don’t listen to her. The only thing she’s done is love me. I tell ya though, neither of us did nothing besides me killing the old man.”

“Actually, he’s not dead.” Jedediah, the lawyer sitting in the chair on the far left, stood up and walked over to Georgia. Picking her up, he said to her, “Please, lady, escort yourself out into the saloon and have a drink. We’ll call you back later.” Still sobbing and slightly hesitating, she did what she was told.”

David sat back down on the settee, still not taking the water. “So, I guess now you’ll want my story.” The others nodded. “That’s all fine, but I want to hear yours first.”

Marvin scooted forward in his chair, took a deep breath, and, with a calm voice, began. “We really owe it all to Peter, you friend. You see, we were all playing poker at the county jail when this all happened. Apparently, you had gotten your hands on a large sum of money, a couple of thousand dollars, he said. He had gone to her house,” he pointed toward where Georgia had erupted from behind the curtain, “and the maid there told ‘im all about how you stole a hammer. He then went to the Dame Holly’s mansion where she told him how she refused to loan you any money. That’s where things started clicking for ‘im. And, he thought that you had stolen the money from your father, so he came here to tell us.”

Michael picked up here, shouting, “But we already knew that you had killed your father and stolen his money because Greg’s wife told us!”

If it were not for Marvin’s restraining hands on the sheriff’s shoulders, Michael surely would have injured David. After Michael had sat back in his chair, Marvin finished by saying, “He also informed us that you were going to kill yourself today. So, we followed rumors to where you were – which was very easy, seeing as everyone was talking about all the food you had bought – and interrupted your little drinking party.”

David sat silent for a couple of moments, letting it all sink in. He shifted uncomfortably, his feet now resting on the floor, his shoulders hunched over his knees. “Well, I guess it’s my turn. And I will tell y’all the truth under one condition.” He held up a finger as he said this. “You must let me tell you the story my own way, not int’rupting me every two words for your legal stuff, okay?” The men nodded as a whole. “Okay, then let me begin with the mornin’ of the day before yesterday.”

For the next two hours, David explained the last two days of his life to the three inquisitors as Jedediah frantically wrote notes down on a piece of legal paper. “I was afraid that Georgia was going to marry my father, Theodore, because he’s so filthy rich, even though the three thousand he has somewhere really belongs to me. And, even if I could get Gigi … I mean, Georgia t’marry me, I would still have to pay off Kathryn yet have money still to run away to Oregon with her, which will be very difficult since I barely have a dollar….” The last comment was met with inquisitive glances from the questioners. David quickly explained how he owed Kathryn three thousand dollars, though when asked for what reason, he refused to say. “My personal life has no business in a courtroom,” was all he would say to that.

His account continued nonetheless, though he was slightly annoyed at the interruption. In his search for money, he had come to Dame Holly’s mansion, but “she refused to loan any money, that miserly old woman!” In spite of not acquiring any money, David decided to risk asking Georgia to marry him before Theodore did. “But she wasn’t home,” he had said, “and no one would tell me where she had gone! I was angry, so I grabbed a hammer from their house and stuck it in my belt.”

“Why?” Marvin interrupted. “Why did you take the hammer?”
David put his head down. For a moment, he said nothing. “I dunno. I guess I was just angry.” He lifted his head back up and looked at the inspector, saying to him, “But I don’t wanna have to stop every few seconds to explain pointless things! Remember what I said about that.”
Michael muttered something about how it was actually very important, but David dismissed the comment. He continued his narrative, restarting with his mad flight from Georgia’s house. He had made his way through the dark streets to Theodore’s house, certain beyond a doubt that Georgia was there with him already. He explained how he had “snuck – sorry, inspector, sneaked” through the garden to the bedroom window, peering through it to see Theodore all alone, still awake, pacing.

“And you killed him!” Michael shouted, standing up, holding out his gun. “Admit it now, you killed him!”

Jedediah stood up and sat Michael back down, saying, “Mike, we don’t do things that way
here. We have a system, and you should know that.” Michael just muttered incoherently, his facing turning red again. Marvin looked back over at David and motioned with his hand for him to continue.

“Thank you inspector,” David said irritably, his head buzzing from alcohol and fatigue. “I still wasn’t sure is Georgia was there or not, so I knocked the secret signal.”

“Sorry, but, hold on a moment,” Jedediah interrupted. “What do you mean, ‘the secret signal’?” David sighed in frustration but explained how, out of paranoia of David killing him for Georgia’s sake, Theodore had come up with a secret knock to know if the visitor was Georgia or not. This knock he told only to Samuel, his illegitimate son acting as a servant, who ended up telling David, also for fear of his life. As to the question of why Theodore was afraid of David, the answer was simply because David had said on numerous occasions that he was going to kill his father.

More questions would have been asked, but David continued his account before any could be asked. Theodore had rushed to the window after the knocking, asking if Georgia was there, but he received no answer. Michael accused quite vehemently that David had killed his father then, but he was again calmed down by his comrades before he could do anything rash.

“It was at that point,” David continued, “that old Greg saw me in the garden. He was shoutin’, so I tried to escape, hitting him on the head with the hammer in the process. I felt bad, so I came to him and tried to sop up the blood with my hankie. I thought he died.”

David showed those interrogating him the blood stains he had on his shirt and pants. When they were through, he mentioned how, in a rage, he had stormed off to Georgia’s house once again to make the servant tell him where Georgia was. “She must’ve been afraid of the blood, for she immediately told me that she had come here, to this saloon, to marry her former lover, that Chinaman. That’s when I decided to go to her one last time, then kill myself.

“I then went to Peter to get some pistols that I had previously loaned to him. He gave them back to me, and I went over to the Plony General Store where I bought enough food and drink for this party we were having that you interrupted.”

Marvin leaned forward and interrupted. “Ah, see, that’s where a problem arises. Where did you get the money? You said earlier that you had ‘barely a buck.’ So where did all this come from? Did your brothers, Alex or John, give you the money?

David refused to answer, even after several minutes of questioning. He finally got so irritated that he shouted out that he had taken three thousand dollars from Kathryn, but had only spent fifteen hundred, keeping half for later. None believed him, saying that it was widely known all three thousand had been spent previously. As for his brothers, he quickly explained to them how Alex was weeping for his dead priest, and John was on his way to Oregon, so neither could have lent money. “Besides, they’re poorer than me!” he concluded

“So, I made my way here, feasted for several hours, got back with Georgia, and then you came here and spoiled everything. And that’s my story. Once again, I did not kill anyone!”

The three men talked for a while about what they had heard, then called for witnesses, all of whom, including Georgia, claimed that David had spent three thousand before. The evidence concluded that he had stolen the money from his father and, in the process, killed him. In the end, David was arrested and sent to the county jail. On his way, though, he assured everyone that he would be back again some day, that the truth would be found, and that he would marry Georgia. He then disappeared from view as the carriage he was riding took him to his new home.


-_-_-
Chris