Trouble in Big Timber

by B. J Daniels

  He felt a chill run the length of his spine. All those days of feeling nothing but an emotional numbness were gone. Like a bucket of ice water poured over his head, he was now wide-awake as he realized what this woman was accusing him of—and Rachel, as well. She thought he was somehow involved in Humphrey’s death? Because of a phone call?

  With a silent groan, he thought about what had happened between him and Rachel at the wedding all those years ago. He hated to think of what the medical examiner would make of that.

  Chapter Eight

  Ford felt so shaken after his encounter with the medical examiner that he didn’t go right to Rachel’s room. Instead, he went outside and walked around town for a little while to clear his head. Big Timber was a small Western ranch town set in the middle of several impressive mountain ranges along the Yellowstone River.

  The views would have taken his breath away if he wasn’t already short of breath from what the medical examiner had accused him of doing. That he’d always wanted Rachel and had helped her kill her husband out of jealousy and was now her...defense? That was insane. How could she think such a thing?

  By the time he returned to the hospital, he was still shaken but more in control. He’d come here to help Rachel. That Hitch—as she called herself—thought Rachel might have planned the whole thing so she could kill her husband was even crazier. Had the woman seen Rachel’s face? The doctor had just taken her down to X-ray. Clearly, she’d been beaten.

  If the medical examiner believed that was what had happened, then Rachel needed him even more than he’d thought. He had to see her again and he’d kept her waiting long enough. But he felt off balance as he found the doctor and got permission. The guard at the door let him in. As he stuck his head around the corner into her room, he did his best not to let her see how upset he was. He wondered how much of it was guilt over what had happened all those years ago.

  “The doctor said you can have some company for a few minutes.”

  She waved him in. “I must look awful,” Rachel said and touched the bandage at her cheek.

  “You couldn’t possibly look awful and you know it,” Ford said as he pulled up the chair next to her bed. “Since you’re fishing for compliments, you must be feeling better.”

  She chuckled even though it seemed to cause her pain. “That’s what I always loved about you, Ford. You tell it to me straight.” Her expression softened and he felt a slight electrical charge in the room. It was dated and weak, but still he felt it. “I’m so sorry.” She began to cry. “The sheriff told me that I called you and that you...heard. I can hardly face you. Now I’ve involved you in all this.”

  “Rachel, really, it’s all right.”

  “No, it’s not. I never wanted anyone to know and now...”

  He reached for her hand, thinking they all had things that they never wanted anyone to know. “When I got your call, it caught me at a really low point. The truth is, Rachel, your call saved my life.”

  She wiped her eyes. “Ford, you don’t have to say that.”

  “I’m not.” He hesitated, but only for a moment. “When you called, I was driving toward the edge of a cliff. I’d planned to end it.”

  Her blue eyes widened. “No,” she said, looking horrified.

  He nodded. “But then you called. So I’m the one who should be thanking you.”

  She studied him for a long moment and then laughed. “Look at us. Who would have ever thought this is where we would end up.” He squeezed her hand.

  For so long he hadn’t felt anything and thought he never would again. Yet when he’d gotten her phone call yesterday and realized who it was, he’d felt as if his numbed emotions had been touched with a cattle prod. He’d known he had to come to Big Timber. Her wrong number had brought him back into her life. If that wasn’t fate, he didn’t know what was.

  After his interview with the medical examiner, it was clear that Rachel needed him—even if she didn’t know it yet. “How are you doing?” he asked.

  “You’ve been through something like it, so I suspect you know.”

  He did know. Their situations were nothing alike except for the feeling of horror at where life had landed them. He hated to think what she must be going through. Seeing her again, it felt as if no time had passed since they last saw each other. He wanted to ask if she’d been happy at least some of those years with Humphrey, but didn’t want to remind her about her marriage. She must have loved her husband. At least until the abuse began.

  “Do you want to talk about it?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “He just wasn’t the man I thought he was. I really thought when we married that we would live happily ever after. Silly, huh?”

  “I think that’s the way most people go into a marriage.”

  Rachel picked at the edge of the sheet, her eyes downcast. “He was so sweet, so caring, so generous. At first.” She looked up. “You know, he bought the ranch because of you.”

  “That’s what his father told me.” Ford remembered what Shyla had told him about how miserable Rachel had been at the ranch. Bart had even wanted to blame Ford for Humphrey’s buying the ranch and dying here.

  “Bart’s here?” she said, her voice breaking. “You know, he hates me. Always has. He’ll do everything in his power to get me sent to prison for life.”

  “We won’t let that happen.”

  Eyes shiny and bright, she smiled up at him, taking him back to that day in college—those few precious moments in the park before she saw Humphrey.

  * * *

  HITCH HAD WATCHED Ford Cardwell from the hospital window as he’d left earlier. He’d had his hands in the pockets of his jeans, his head down. She’d obviously upset him. Because it hadn’t been true? Or because it had?

  She had seen how anxious he’d been earlier to see Rachel Collinwood. At the window, she’d decided to wait him out, knowing he would be back once he’d calmed down. The fact that he’d been so upset told her how deep his feelings apparently went for the woman in question. Sure enough, he’d come back and gone straight to Rachel’s room.

  From down the hall, she now watched him exit the woman’s room. It was time to take this to the next step. Hitch put in a call to the sheriff, then headed down the hall toward Rachel Collinwood’s room. As she walked, she mentally processed what she’d learned from Ford Cardwell. If Rachel needed someone she could depend on, well, then she’d certainly made the right call—so to speak—when she’d hit Ford Cardwell’s number.

  Hitch pushed open the hospital room door, already knowing what she was going to find. Still, she stepped in and stood for a moment studying Rachel, who lay in her bed, eyes closed. Hitch was curious what kind of woman inspired the kind of loyalty the flyboy hero had for her.

  Rachel Westlake Collinwood even in her current condition radiated that kind of beauty that few women possessed. Though bruised, lacerated and swollen, her face still had the heart shape so popular on magazine covers. The woman’s eyes, she knew from her online search, were big and deep blue. Those eyes now opened in surprise to find Hitch studying her with speculation. Hitch saw the woman’s guard come up. Had the sheriff warned her about the female medical examiner?

  “Rachel Collinwood?” she said, stepping to the bed. “I’m state medical examiner Henrietta ‘Hitch’ Roberts.” She pulled up a chair beside the bed. “I need to ask you a few questions about what happened yesterday. You don’t mind if I video this.” She set up her phone so it was aimed directly at the woman, not waiting for her approval. “So, Mrs. Collinwood, why don’t you tell me in your own words exactly how this all happened. I know the sheriff already took your statement. You don’t mind going through it for me, though, do you, just for the record?”

  Rachel glanced at the phone, then at Hitch. Her eyes instantly filled with tears. “He’s dead, isn’t he?”

  Hitch met her watery gaze. “He is. Why don’t w
e start with what happened before you got home.” She caught that moment of surprise, just a flash in the woman’s eyes. Rachel hadn’t mentioned that she’d just gotten home from town when she’d been questioned by the sheriff.

  “Or do you want to start with the argument that began before the two of you returned to the ranch?” Hitch asked.

  Rachel Collinwood swallowed and seemed to be buying time. “This is very hard to talk about. I’ve suspected for some time that my husband’s been having an affair. When he said he had to go into town to pick up some part or another, I followed him. I caught up with him outside the woman’s house and we argued. I went home, upset, and he followed me.”

  From there, Hitch noticed that this was the same story she’d told the sheriff on video, almost verbatim. She’d learned that interrupting the speaker often changed their account because they were so used to telling it in order, they would forget where they were. She didn’t intend to get the same exact story from Rachel Collinwood if she could help it.

  “That two-lane highway into town doesn’t get much traffic,” Hitch said, stopping the flow of the woman’s words. “It must have been difficult to follow him into town since he would know your vehicle.”

  “I took the pickup. I figured he’d expect me to take my car.”

  “Your car being...”

  “The BMW. Anyway...” She picked up her water glass next to the bed, adjusted the straw and took a sip. “When I got home, I heard him coming. He’d been angry in town. I was suddenly afraid for my life.”

  “Why would you go back to the house if he’d physically abused you before?”

  “He had, but never like...that day,” she said, dropping her gaze to her hands lying on the sheet as she toyed with the space where her wedding bands had been. The hospital staff normally removed jewelry for safekeeping. But in this case, the DCI investigators had taken all of her jewelry as evidence.

  “But you had to be expecting trouble, right? Otherwise, why carry the gun in your purse? Unless you planned to kill him.”

  The woman’s gaze shot up to hers in surprise. “I...I want a lawyer. And turn that thing off.” She made a swipe at the phone, but Hitch got hold of it before Rachel could knock it to the floor. “I have nothing more to say to you. You’re trying to twist my words. After everything I’ve been through, I can’t believe...” She glared at Hitch. “I would think another woman would understand. He could have killed me! He would have, too, if I hadn’t...” She clamped her lips shut and looked away. “Please go. I have nothing more to say to you.”

  “I need to inform you that you are under arrest pending the results of this investigation and a possible trial,” Hitch said. “Once you are able to leave the hospital, you will be taken into custody until a hearing before a judge, in which case you will either be allowed bail or put behind bars.”

  “You can’t be serious!” the woman cried. “He would have killed me. He told me he was going to kill me!”

  “In the meantime, you will be fitted for an ankle bracelet that requires you to stay on this floor of the hospital.” Hitch pocketed her phone as she heard the sheriff talking to the guard outside the room. “If you’ll excuse me for a moment,” she said and stepped out.

  The sheriff lumbered toward her looking angry and upset.

  “Sheriff, I need you to inform Mrs. Collinwood of her rights and make sure she understands she is under arrest for the death of her husband.”

  “That’s why you got me down here?” he demanded angrily. “You got me away from my lunch for this?” He shook his head. “You are one heartless woman.”

  “I’m just doing my job. Isn’t that proper procedure in a domestic homicide? I see no reason to let this run the full seventy-two hours. Mrs. Collinwood has admitted to shooting her husband with the intent to kill. Sheriff, if you prefer, I can call—”

  The man growled. “I don’t need you calling anyone,” he snapped.

  Minutes later, after the sheriff had read Mrs. Collinwood her rights, she was fitted with an ankle bracelet. Hitch stood at the door and watched. Rachel Collinwood lay in the bed, her face turned to the wall, quietly crying.

  Hitch’s cell phone rang. She took it on the way out of the hospital.

  “I thought you’d want to know. Two shots were fired from the weapon that killed Humphrey Collinwood,” Bradley from DCI told her.

  She stopped just short of her SUV. “How many casings did you find?”

  “Only one in the kitchen on the floor.”

  “Were there any slugs found in the wall?” she asked, frowning as she tried to understand when and where the other shot might have been fired.

  “Negative. But both shots had been fired close to the same time.”

  Hitch swore under her breath. “We have to find that other slug and casing.”

  “Have you seen the size of that ranch?” he asked.

  “Let me see what I can do. That casing is somewhere out there, and I have a theory that the first shot was a practice one.”

  Chapter Nine

  Hitch couldn’t get the news off her mind as she drove out to the Collinwood Ranch. Pulling up to the house, she thought she saw movement inside but realized it was only the reflection of the crime scene tape flickering in the breeze.

  After getting out of her SUV, she stepped under that tape and entered the house with the code the sheriff had given her. The first thing that struck her was the absolute silence, followed almost instantly by the smell of cleaning supplies.

  The kitchen shone white—all signs of the violence gone. She stepped in and looked around. The DCI unit had been thorough; she didn’t doubt that. Which meant the second casing hadn’t been in this room. Just as the slug wasn’t embedded in any of the walls. Glancing around, though, she knew that the other shot hadn’t been fired in here.

  Her gaze went to the sliding glass door from the kitchen out onto the deck. She carefully opened the door. The breeze brought the sweet scent of pine and summer as she stepped out. Had Rachel stood here, with the gun in her hand? Rachel Collinwood wasn’t the kind of woman who left things to chance, right?

  Because of that, she would fire the gun to make sure it worked. To know how it felt, how much it kicked in her hand, what it would do when the time came.

  Hitch walked to the edge of the deck and leaned her elbow on the railing to take aim. She spotted the closest pine tree and pretended to fire. Then she glanced down at the thick shrubbery below. The weapon would have ejected the casing.

  But before Hitch went digging in the shrubs, she wanted a look at that pine.

  A dozen yards from the deck, she stopped in front of the tree. She didn’t see it at first. The bullet hadn’t skinned much of the bark. Instead, it had lodged in the soft wood and was nearly covered by a piece of bark. She walked back to her vehicle for her satchel, took a few photographs, then pulled on latex gloves and went to work with her pocketknife.

  As the slug came out, she dropped it into an evidence bag. Hitch told herself that anyone could have fired the weapon from the deck. But Bradley had said the two shots had been fired close together.

  Holding the slug up in the sunlight, she knew it didn’t prove that Rachel had orchestrated the murder of her husband. But then again, it did add to growing evidence that she had.

  Putting down her satchel, she bent at the edge of the deck. If she found the empty casing... She had been looking in the shrubbery directly off the deck railing when something farther back under the deck, closer to the house, caught her eye. The casing lay next to the house and the door out to the deck.

  Goose bumps rippled over her skin. She’d thought that Rachel had taken the first shot as target practice so she knew how the gun would react when she pulled the trigger. She would have put her elbows on the railing to take aim because she wasn’t used to firing this weapon.

  But Hitch knew now that it didn’t happ
en that way. Rachel Collinwood had fired the shot that hit the tree standing at the open kitchen doorway. She had practiced with the gun long before the day of the shooting.

  It explained why Humphrey Collinwood’s voice was never heard on the phone call to Ford. Because he was already dead from the first shot fired—before Rachel had “accidentally” made that alleged pocket dial.

  While Humphrey Collinwood lay in a pool of his own blood, his wife had taken the phone, made the call, acted out the attack and then stepped to the open glass doors and fired the shot that Ford heard before she’d disconnected and called 911.

  That would explain why Ford Cardwell hadn’t heard Humphrey Collinwood say a word.

  After taking a photo of where the casing had landed in relation to the house, Hitch put her camera away to leave. But as she did, she felt an icy chill and turned quickly, unable to shake the feeling that someone was watching her. Her gaze took in the sliding glass door into the kitchen. For a moment, she’d expected to see someone standing there.

  But the doorway was empty. So was the yard. So was the land that ran from the house to the rolling hills to the mountains in the distance. Behind her, the breeze stirred the boughs of the pine tree, making an eerie moaning sound.

  Hitch laughed at her foolishness, but it sounded hollow. She didn’t spook easily, but this wasn’t the first time she’d felt...something that raised goose bumps across her skin. She doubted it would be the last, given her job. And yet, as she climbed back into her SUV to leave, she found herself staring at the house, unable to shake what felt like a warning.

  * * *

  WHEN FORD VISITED Rachel again later that afternoon at the hospital, he was glad to see that she seemed in better spirits. Her face was badly bruised, but several of the bandages had come off. Also, she seemed glad to see him.

  “You look as if you’re feeling better,” he said, going to her bedside.