"Don't assume guilt when you can presume innocence."

  -Earl Westman, marshal of Stagna

  The hopeless case

  Earl Westman was steaming in his hot box of an office on the north-west corner of Stagna's square. His home away from home wasn't what you'd call 'comfortable', but it suited his needs. The vertically challenged town marshal with his black hair and brown eyes looked much like any other settler. Since he wasn't from Stagna, looking the part went a long way towards fitting in. Even so, he'd never quite felt like one of them. The least Agalian thing about him was that he was a teetotaller. Not that he was especially fond of tea, but he had to be careful with drink, because he liked it too much.

  On the other hand, drunken brawling was the favourite pastimes of his adopted countrymen. It often ended with them rolling around on the ground, where they couldn't do much harm. Seeing Earl approach, in his light-brown hat with the black leather stripe, was often enough to break things up. If not, he'd give the wheezing bodies a few minutes to hug it out once they were gasping for breath they were more than happy to crawl off to the so called jail. There, they could sleep it off for as long as he felt appropriate. Marshal law was always in effect in Agalaland's seven districts.

  The town's gravelled square and its pubs was a hot spot for fights. It was also the natural gathering point for the whole Remington district that hosted four week-long markets every year. The summer market and the Hein-day celebrations of midsummer were upcoming. Visiting drunks meant these weeks were always Earl's busiest. He'd never understood the appeal of dragging along old junk to sell, only to replace it with other old junk. Still, the markets were a good time, and most everyone looked forward to them. Like his daughter, Charlene.

  At the moment, Earl was busy putting off going to Bern's, not his usual style. He was more of a run head first at a thing kind of guy. Still, even with the tavern only across the square. No one would blame him for slacking off a bit, the summer's first heatwave was in full effect. But that wasn't the problem. He needed a favour from Fannie. She was the current owner of Bern's and a direct descendant of Bern Bloomer, a town icon. Besides Charlene, Fannie was the only person in town Earl respected. She was wranglesome, but entertaining, and always spoke her mind.

  Stagna sat right above where Zanja branched into three rivers, making the town an important hub for trade. Still, in the hearts and minds of the people, Bern's Bucket O'Beer was what made the town historic. They believed the tavern was their oldest permanent structure. It'd once served as the sole beacon of civilised drunkenness in an otherwise wild and sober landscape. Stagna was the first town built by the settlers coming to the grasslands, before they started calling themselves Agalians. Because of that, it'd become Agalaland's unofficial capital — a questionable honour at best since Agalians tended to judge social progress on the number of pubs a town could support.

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  Bern's was a special case and counted as at least three taverns. Even Earl, who never had more than half a pint these days, still ate most of his meals there. Not to diminish Bern's importance, but from his law-man point of view, the courthouse was what made the town's position legit. As the only court in Agalaland, it was the one place where a lawful sentence of capital punishment could be handed down. Besides the importance of pubs, Agalians also felt hangings were an essential government function. They were executed from the branches of the ugly old oak at the centre of the town square.

  Fanning himself with his hat, he thought about what Charlene'd suggested. That he bobble down to Zanja for a cooling dip. But it wouldn't look right. He was serious about his duty, more so than anyone expected. Even now, with his boots off and showing the holes in his socks, his mind was working double time. Because unless there was some progress in the case of the elusive chicken thief, the deadly fruit of lynchings would soon be in season.

  The case was strange. As far he could tell it amounted to nothing more than a few missing vegetables. If it hadn't been for the p-word rumour, the case would've never come to his attention at all. Once he looked into it, he found it started two months ago in the Benelli district, each theft taking place near Ganja river, and always moving towards his town.

  Starting to get pins and needles in his arse from the hard wooden chair, Earl shifted with a frustrated grunt. The arse-rot wasn't his only annoyance. Much worse was the rhythmic rish-rash sound of floor scrubbing, the only other person who worked during a heatwave was his daughter. Charlene was in the back, her beige work dress probably wet from being on her knees.

  The jail only had two lockable cells; the rest was just a holding area. Locks were a luxury, and the system worked fine. Most drunks left through the separate exit when they felt ready. That way, he didn't have to see them or smell their crapulence. They always looked like boiled shite when leaving the jail.

  He couldn't understand why Charlene bothered with cleaning the cells. The peskier hooch-goblyns who slept in there were dirtier than a mucky bag filled with muck. More than that, he wished she'd slow down a bit. Still, he couldn't blame her. Charlene inherited his sense of duty, and sometimes it seemed she was waging a personal war on the dust of the world. He'd tried putting his foot down when she put little flowerpots in the barred windows, his argument being that cells weren't supposed to be nice.

  "Why not?" she'd asked with a straight face.

  Since he couldn't come up with a good answer right on the spot, both office and jail were now nice. She'd even put up curtains and various knick-knacks. The more he resisted, the harder she worked. What bothered him most was that this wasn't even her only gig.

  "It's my job to work myself into an early grave, when I'm dead she can take over," he whispered into his hat.

  Officially, she only worked for him as the jail house cook, and she'd been doing that unofficially since she was ten. As long as no one starved to death, she more than fulfilled her obligation. Still, Charlene'd taken the position to mean housekeeper, secretary, deputy, counsellor, interior decorator, and all-round handy woman. Even then, she only accepted pay for the time she spent cooking.

  At least this time the cell she was cleaning would be in use soon. The thief had damn well better appreciate how nice the cell was; that was all he could think. Earl had no doubt about whether he would catch the chicken stealer. It was a tricky case, but not hopeless. Not like trying to lure Charlene away from her scrubbing.