by Cindi Myers
“All the employees have been with the family a long time,” Travis said. “I’m not saying one of them didn’t do it, but I can’t think why.”
“Doug Whittington hasn’t been here that long, has he?” Cody asked.
“He has a record,” Dwight said. “Though not for theft.”
“There’s someone else here who has a record,” Gage said. “For robbery.”
A chill ran through Cody. “I don’t think Bette—”
“You don’t know she wouldn’t,” Gage said. “None of us really know much about her. And she was working in the kitchen all day—right next to Travis’s rooms.”
Cody nodded. Gage was right. He couldn’t let his personal feelings for Bette cloud the fact that on paper, at least, she looked like the ideal suspect. “How do you want to handle this?” he asked.
“I’ll talk to Doug first,” Travis said. “I think just you and me. He knows both of us, so that may put him more at ease.”
“Do you want Dwight and me to talk to Bette?” Gage asked.
“Wait,” Travis said. “Let’s see what we hear from Doug first.”
They found Doug and Rainey in the kitchen, washing cups and plates brought over from the cabin. Rainey turned when Travis and Cody entered the kitchen, but Doug remained hunched over the sink. “What can I do for you two?” she asked.
“We wanted to talk to Doug for a bit,” Travis said. He crossed the room and opened the back door. “It won’t take long.”
Rainey dried her hands and started to remove her apron. “Just Doug,” Cody said, and looked hard at the young man. It was a look that had induced many a suspect to be more cooperative, and it worked on Doug, as well. The young man tossed his dish towel on the drain board and followed Travis out the door, Cody close behind.
Outside, the cold bit through Cody’s fleece pullover and jeans, and he noticed Doug was already shivering. Maybe that was part of Travis’s plan. Instead of sweating the truth out of Doug, he planned to freeze it out of him. “What do you want?” Doug asked.
“Have you been in my room today?” Travis asked.
Doug blinked. “Your room? You mean your bedroom? Here?”
“Yes. Have you been there?”
Doug shook his head. “No. I never go in that part of the house. I mean, why would I?”
“Have you seen a couple of rings I had in there?” Travis continued. “Gold wedding rings.”
“No. I told you, I don’t go in there. I keep to the kitchen and the dining room and my room. Mom was real clear about that when I moved here.”
“Have you seen anyone else in or near Travis’s room?” Cody asked.
“Is something missing?” Doug asked. “Is that why you’re asking all these questions?”
“Have you seen anyone near Travis’s room?” Cody asked again.
He hesitated, then said. “I think I saw that Bette woman. Not in your room, but in the hall just outside of it.”
He was lying. Everything in his manner—the shifting eyes, the defensive hunch of the shoulders, as if he was expecting a blow, told Cody his words were a lie. Did Travis see it?
“What time was this?” Travis asked.
“I don’t know. This afternoon. She was supposed to be in the kitchen, baking. Mom had told me to stay out of her way. So I thought it was strange she was in the hall in that part of the house.”
“Where were you when you saw her?” Cody asked.
Another long pause. “I was just, you know, crossing the great room. I thought I might have left my gloves in there.”
“Why would you have left your gloves in there if you never go in there?” Cody asked.
Doug flushed. “I didn’t say I never go in there.”
“Thank you, Doug. You can go back in now.”
The young man left them. As soon as the door closed behind him, Cody turned to Travis. “He’s lying,” he said.
“Maybe.” Travis turned and walked around the side of the house.
“Where are you going?” Cody asked, hurrying after him.
“Let’s talk to Bette.”
The light over the door to her cabin was lit, and Bette opened the door within seconds of Travis’s knock. She was very pale, her lips in a tight line, and she wouldn’t meet Cody’s gaze. “Come in,” she said. “I’ve been expecting you.”
The two men filed in. Bette sat on the edge of the bed—just as she had last night. Cody took the same chair he had used last night, too, while Travis remained standing. “We’re asking everyone what they know about the missing rings,” the sheriff began.
“You asked Doug,” she said. “Now you’re asking me. That’s not everyone. Just the people with prison records.”
Travis didn’t react to this accusation. “Do you know anything about the missing rings?” he asked.
“No. I’m not a thief. The bank job—that was one time. And it was stupid. Something I’ll regret the rest of my life. But it doesn’t matter to you how many times I say I’m sorry, does it? People like you are going to blame me for the rest of my life.” Her voice broke on the last words, and Cody had to curl his fingers into his palms to keep from reaching for her. He pushed away the emotion here, freezing it out. Bette wasn’t his lover right now—she was a suspect.
“Someone said they saw you near my room this afternoon,” Travis said.
“Who said that?” she asked. “Rainey or Doug? They both hate me. They’d say anything to get me into trouble.”
“Why do they hate you?” Travis said. “You didn’t know them before you came here, did you?”
“No,” she said. “Lacy said Rainey was upset that she wasn’t chosen to cater the wedding, so maybe this is all part of that resentment. Some people are like that, building grudges into rage.”
“I’ve known Rainey a long time,” Travis said. “She gets upset at people, but she’s not a liar.”
Bette said nothing, merely stared at him.
“Were you in my room at any time today?” Travis asked.
“No,” she said. “I’ve never been in your room. And I didn’t take the rings. I didn’t even know about the rings.”
“Lacy didn’t mention them to you when the two of you were talking about the wedding?” he asked.
“No,” she said. “I mean, I assumed there would be rings, but we never discussed them.”
“Beyond their monetary value, they have a great deal of sentimental value,” Travis said. “Especially to Lacy.”
“I know. But I didn’t take them. I wouldn’t do something like that. I would certainly never hurt the person who is my best friend in the world.”
“Do you know anyone else who might have taken them?” Travis asked. “Have you seen anyone suspicious in the house?”
“No. I’m sorry, I don’t.”
Travis glanced around the cabin. “Do you mind if we take a look?”
“You want to search my cabin?” She stood, face flushed, eyes bright with tears. “You mistrust me that much?” This last question was directed at Cody.
“You don’t have to submit to a search,” Cody said. “But doing so is the quickest way to establish your innocence.”
“Oh, sure, because you couldn’t just believe me or anything simple like that.” She threw up her hands. “Go ahead. Rifle through my belongings. You won’t find a ring.”
The look she gave him made Cody feel black inside. Whatever the two of them might have started last night, it had ended now. He turned away, to Travis. “Where do you want to start?”
Chapter Eleven
They found the rings in Bette’s cosmetic case, the box wrapped in a piece of tissue and stuffed beneath tubes of lipstick, mascara and eyeliner. When Travis showed it to her, she went so white Cody poised to catch her, thinking she might faint.
She shook her head. “No.” She covered her mouth but couldn�
��t hold back a sob. “I swear on my mother’s grave, I don’t know how that got there.” She looked at Cody. “You believe me, don’t you?”
His throat hurt as he tried to get the words out that she needed to hear—that yes, he believed her. Of course he knew she wouldn’t take the rings.
But he had spent years training to believe what was right before his eyes. He dealt daily in evidence and rules of law based on hard facts, not emotions. So, though his heart wanted him to say the words, it couldn’t overrule his head.
Travis slipped the ring box into his pocket. “Are you going to arrest me?” Bette asked.
“As long as the pass is closed, you can’t go anywhere,” Travis said. “I don’t want to upset Lacy, so for now we’ll leave this, while I investigate further.”
She sank to the bed again, face buried in her hands. As Cody followed Travis out of the cabin, her sobs hit him like blows. He didn’t even feel the cold as they walked toward the house, but when Travis stopped on the porch and turned to him, Cody said, “If that was the right thing to do, why do I feel so awful?”
“Do you think she took the rings?” Travis asked.
“It doesn’t matter what I think,” Cody said. “We have a witness who said he saw her outside your room this afternoon, and we have the rings in her possession.”
“And we have her record.”
“Yeah. And we have her record.”
Travis pulled out the ring box and looked at it. “I don’t think she was faking her shock when we found the ring box.”
“Maybe she thought she’d hidden it too well,” Cody said.
“It was a lousy hiding place,” Travis said. “And she could have put up more of a fuss about us searching. She’s been in the system, so she knows her rights. She could have insisted we get a warrant. But she didn’t.”
“She’s right that Doug and Rainey resent her,” Cody said.
He nodded. “But if she didn’t take the rings, how did someone get into her room?”
“Is there more than one key to those cabins?”
“Yes. There are at least two—maybe three,” Travis said.
“Do a lot of people know where they’re kept?”
“They’re in my dad’s office,” Travis said. “But it isn’t locked. Anyone could get in there.”
“This isn’t the first time someone may have been in Bette’s cabin while she wasn’t there,” Cody said.
“Oh?”
Cody glanced at the cabin door. “Can we go inside to discuss this? I’m freezing out here.”
Travis blinked. Cody thought his friend probably hadn’t even noticed the cold until now. “Sure. We’ll go into my office.”
“Travis!” Lacy called from her seat by the fire when he and Cody entered. He waved her off and led the way across the room to his office.
Cody sank into the cowhide-covered chair and let the warmth of the room wash over him. Travis sat behind the desk. “Bette thinks someone has been in her cabin before?” he asked. “Why didn’t she say anything to me or my parents or Lacy about this? How do you know about it?”
“She didn’t want to upset your family,” Cody said. “She felt they had enough to worry about, what with the upcoming wedding and a serial killer running around. Also, I think she didn’t want to call attention to herself or get any kind of reputation as a complainer or a troublemaker. She didn’t tell me that, but that’s the impression I get.”
“That answers part of my question,” Travis said. “When did someone go into Bette’s cabin, and how do you know about it and I don’t?”
“It happened the first night she was here,” Cody said. “I walked her to her cabin—mine is the one next to hers. Someone had painted the words Go Home in red paint on her door. She washed it off before anyone else could see, and she made me promise not to tell anyone.”
“That’s still outside her cabin,” Travis said. “You said someone was inside.”
“I’m getting to that,” he said. “The next night I walked her back again, and this time, I went inside. While I was there, I used the bathroom, and when I opened the cabinet to get a towel to dry my hands, I saw a can of red paint and a brush there.”
Travis waited, a skeptical look on his face. “I didn’t say anything about it to her,” Cody said. “I even played with the idea that Bette had painted the door herself, but I couldn’t figure out why she would do something like that. If it was a ploy to call attention to herself, it failed, because I was the only one who saw.”
He shifted in the chair. “Later—after her accident, when we were talking—I asked her about it and she said she hadn’t seen the can of paint in the cabinet until she was getting ready to take a shower the next morning. She thinks someone was in her cabin while she was out—someone who had a key.”
Travis considered this. “So that same someone could have taken the rings and planted them in Bette’s cabin, knowing she would be a suspect in the theft, because of her past.”
“Right,” Cody said. “Except who would do that, and why? Would Doug and Rainey really go to so much trouble to get rid of her? Would they take such personal risk just so they could cater your wedding? It doesn’t make sense.”
“No. Is there anyone else who might want to get rid of Bette?”
“Whoever attacked her on the road,” Cody said.
“If that’s the case, her attacker wasn’t the Ice Cold Killer,” Travis said.
“Did your investigation of Lauren Grenado’s murder turn up any new evidence?” Cody asked, grateful for a momentary shift of focus.
“Nothing so far.” Travis sat back, the chair creaking underneath his weight. “The business cards are generic cardstock available at pretty much any office supply or craft store and online. The printer is a laser printer—we don’t have the expertise to determine a particular brand. The duct tape, again, is a brand that is sold by the millions in hardware stores and home improvement centers. We checked with the stores here in town that sell it, but their records haven’t turned up anyone suspicious making a purchase. We’ve turned up some hairs and fibers from the vehicles, but we’re still waiting on test results from the ones we were able to get to the lab before the road closed. No fingerprints. No DNA. No other physical evidence to speak of.”
“Is this killer that skilled, or just that lucky?” Cody asked.
“Maybe both,” Travis said. “I’m still hanging on to my theory that we’re looking for two people, not one. The speed of the crimes points to that. It takes time to subdue and secure a conscious victim and, except for Fiona, the evidence points to the women being conscious until they’re killed. Fiona was hit on the head with a rock, but that may be because it was the most public of the killings, and therefore necessitated silencing her immediately.”
“And no suspects?” Cody asked.
“There are always suspects,” Travis said. “I have a couple I want to interview again tomorrow, if you want to come with me.”
“Yes.” Cody sat up straighter. He had been dying to have more of a role in the case.
“I’d be interested in getting your perspective on these guys,” Travis said.
“What are you going to do about Bette?” Cody asked.
“You two are friends,” Travis said. “Talk to her. Feel her out on this theory that someone planted the ring. See if she can come up with possibilities.”
“I’ll talk to her,” Cody said. Though he doubted the friendship they had been building could ever be repaired after tonight. She thought he had betrayed her.
Part of him thought that, too.
* * *
“I THINK IT would be better if I didn’t cater your wedding,” Bette said to Lacy as she pulled her aside after breakfast the next morning. She had lain awake half the night agonizing over what she should do. Travis was willing to let her walk around free for now, but his accusations ha
d cast a pall over what was supposed to be a happy occasion.
“What are you talking about?” Lacy stared at her, confusion filling her hazel eyes.
“After what happened last night, I don’t think it would be right for me to have a role in the wedding.” Bette twisted her hands together, determined to remain businesslike and not upset her friend more than she had to. “Travis doesn’t trust me and I would never, ever want to come between you two.”
“What are you talking about, silly?” Lacy took Bette’s hand and pulled her down onto the sofa beside her. The two were alone in the great room. “What makes you think Travis doesn’t trust you?”
“He thinks I stole your wedding rings.”
Lacy’s eyes widened. “He does not!” Lacy put her arm around her friend. “He found the rings last night,” she said. “He’d misplaced them, that’s all.”
Bette couldn’t look at her friend. Travis must have told Lacy that lie to protect her. He certainly hadn’t done it to save Bette.
“I don’t want anyone else catering my wedding,” Lacy said. “Besides, you’ve worked so hard already. Those cream puffs and tea cakes you made yesterday were divine, by the way. I know people don’t come to weddings for the food, but my guests are going to be blown away by your dishes. Besides, where do you think I’d get a caterer this close to the wedding?”
“Rainey and Doug could do it.”
Lacy snorted. “Please! If I wanted to serve steak and potatoes and apple pie, they’d do a fine job. But I don’t want that.”
“Travis would probably like it,” Bette said.
“He’d love it. But he’ll like your food, too. He’s not as hidebound as he comes across sometimes.”
Last night in her cabin, the sheriff had been as unbending as steel. Obviously, Lacy knew another side of him.
“Come on,” Lacy said, patting Bette’s back. “You need to get away from the ranch for a while. Let’s go to town and poke around in some of the cute shops and have lunch.”
“All right,” Bette said. “While we’re there, I need to stop by the store and get some more cream.”
