Justice at Cardwell Ranch

by BJ Daniels

  “Hmmm. I hadn’t heard that.” Liza jotted down a note. “Whom did you hear this from?”

  “I don’t—”

  “Recall. Maybe one of your friends?”

  Shelby shook her head. “I really can’t remember. I’m sure you can find out if there was any truth to it.”

  Liza smiled. “Yes, I can. What about Brittany?”

  “What about her?” Shelby asked stiffly.

  “Do you still see her?”

  “Big Sky is a small community. You’re bound to see everyone at some point,” Shelby answered noncommittally. “She and her husband, Lee Peterson, own a ski shop up on the mountain. Now I really do need to get to work,” she said, rising to her feet.

  “Did you see Tanner the night he died?”

  “No. As you are apparently aware, we had broken up. He was dating Brittany. If anyone knows why he killed himself, she would, don’t you think?”

  “Even though she and Tanner weren’t that serious about each other?”

  Shelby’s jaw muscle bunched and her blue eyes fired with irritation. “If she doesn’t know, then who would?”

  “Good question. Maybe Alex Winslow. But then he isn’t talking, is he?” Liza said as she closed her notebook and got to her feet. “One more question. Why would the last word Alex Winslow would say be your name?”

  All the color washed from her face. She sat back down, leaning heavily on her desk. “I have no idea.”

  * * *

  AFTER BREAKFAST, JORDAN WENT back to his cabin and crashed for a while. He figured Liza would be keeping an eye on him. Not that he knew what to do next. He couldn’t just hang out in this cabin, that was for sure. But he’d been serious about not wanting to put anyone else in danger.

  When he woke up, he realized he was hungry again. It was still early since the sun hadn’t sunk behind Lone Mountain. According to his cell phone, it was a quarter past three in the afternoon.

  He found a small sandwich shop in Meadow Village, ordered a turkey and cheese and took a seat by the window overlooking the golf course. Lone Mountain gleamed in the background, a sight that brought back too many memories. There’d been a time when he’d told himself he’d left here because he didn’t want to be a rancher. But coming back here now, he realized a lot of his need to leave and stay gone had to do with Tanner’s suicide.

  When the waitress brought out his sandwich, he asked if he could get it to go. He followed her to the counter and was waiting when he heard a bell tinkle over the door and turned to see someone he recognized coming through.

  With a silent curse, he put a name to the face. Tessa Ryerson. She had already spotted him and something about her expression gave him the crazy idea that she didn’t just happen in here. She’d come looking for him.

  Before he could react, the waitress brought out his sandwich in a brown paper bag and handed it to him. He dug out the cost of the sandwich and a generous tip and handed it to the server, before turning to Tessa.

  She had stopped just a couple of feet from him, waiting while he paid. When he turned to her, he saw that she looked much like she had twenty years ago when the two of them had dated. She wore her light brown hair as she had in high school, shoulder length and wavy, no bangs. A hair band held it back from her face.

  She seemed thinner, a little more gaunt in the face, than she had the last time he’d seen her. He recalled that she’d always struggled to keep her weight down. Apparently, she’d mastered the problem.

  He couldn’t help noticing that her ring finger was bare. Hadn’t he heard that she’d gone through a bad divorce from Danny Spring? Two years ahead of them in school, the guy had been a jerk. Jordan recalled being surprised when he’d heard that she’d married him.

  “Jordan,” Tessa said a little too brightly. “Imagine running into you here.”

  “Imagine that,” he said, now sure the only reason she’d come in here, crazy or not, was to see him. So did that mean she’d followed him? Or had she just been looking for him?

  “Oh, are you getting your sandwich to go?” she asked, sounding disappointed as she glanced at the bag in his hand as if just now noticing it. “I missed lunch and I hate eating alone. Would you mind staying?”

  How could he say no even if he’d wanted to? Anyway, he was curious about what she wanted. “Sure, go ahead and order. I’ll get us a table.”

  “Great.”

  He took a seat away from the girl working behind the counter, positioning himself so he could watch Tessa while she ordered. She dug nervously in her purse, paid for a small salad and a bottled water, then joined him at the table.

  “So you came for the reunion,” she said, smiling as she unscrewed the lid on her water bottle.

  He smiled at that and dug his sandwich out of the bag and took a bite.

  “Wow, it’s been so long.”

  “Twenty years,” he said between bites.

  “I guess you heard about Danny and me.” She sighed. “But I’ve put it behind me.”

  Too bad the look in her eyes said otherwise. He suspected the slightest thing could set her off if asked about her marriage. Unfortunately, he could remember how he was right after Jill had left him. He didn’t want to go there again.

  “So wasn’t that awful about Alex?” she said. “Were you really there?”

  He gave her points for getting right to what she really wanted to talk to him about. He nodded and took another bite of his sandwich. She hadn’t touched her salad.

  “When I heard, I just couldn’t believe it. How horrible. Do they know who shot him?” she asked when he didn’t answer. “I heard it could have been a stray bullet from a hunter.”

  “Really?” he said. “I heard it was murder. Someone wanted to shut Alex up.”

  “Who told you that?” she cried.

  He said nothing for a moment, letting her squirm. “The state crime lab trucks have been up at the falls since last night looking for evidence to track them to the killer. I thought you would have heard.”

  Tessa fiddled with her water bottle, looking worried. “Why would anyone want to kill Alex?”

  He shrugged. “Probably because he’d been asking a lot of questions about Tanner’s suicide. But you’d know better about that than I would.”

  “Me?”

  “I’m sure Alex talked to you.” He wasn’t sure of anything except that he was rattling her. “If you know something, I’d suggest you talk to Deputy Marshal Liza Turner. Alex was murdered and there is an investigation into Tanner’s death, as well. It’s all going to come out.”

  “I don’t know anything.” She squeezed her plastic water bottle so hard it crackled loudly and water shot up and out over the table. She jumped up and grabbed for a stack of napkins.

  He watched her nervously wipe up the spilled water, almost feeling guilty for upsetting her. “Then I guess you have nothing to worry about. But I wonder if Alex said the same thing.”

  “This is all so upsetting.” She sounded close to tears.

  He reached across the table and put a hand on hers. “Tessa—”

  “Please, don’t,” she said, snatching back her hand. “I told you. I don’t know anything.”

  He put down his sandwich to study her. Why had she come looking for him? Why was she so scared? “You and Shelby have always been thick as thieves. What don’t I know about Alex’s death? Or Tanner’s, for that matter.”

  She shook her head. “How would I know? Shelby wasn’t even dating Tanner then.”

  “No, but she’d conned you into breaking up with Alex to go out with me. I thought you were just playing hard to get when you wanted to always double date with Brittany and Tanner. I should have known Shelby put you up to spying on him.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said. “But I do remember you didn’t mind double dating. It was Brittany you wanted to be with. Not me.” She got to her feet, hitting the table and spilling some of her salad.

  “Brittany,” he said under his breath. �
��Thanks for reminding me of that prank you and your friend Shelby pulled on her.” It was straight out of a Stephen King novel.

  Tessa crossed her toned arms over her flat chest, her expression defiant. He’d expected her to stomp off, but she didn’t. Whatever the reason that she’d wanted to see him, she hadn’t got what she’d come for apparently.

  That spring of their senior year was coming back to him after years of fighting to forget it. Hadn’t he had a bad feeling he couldn’t shake even before Alex had called him? “Did Shelby send you to find me?” He let out a laugh. “Just like in high school. What is it she wants to know, Tessa?”

  “I have no idea what you mean.”

  He laughed. “Still doing her dirty work even after all these years.”

  Tessa snatched up her water bottle from the table with one hand, the untouched salad with the other. “I know what you think of me.”

  “I think you’re too smart to keep letting Shelby run your life.”

  She laughed at that. “Run my life? Don’t you mean ruin my life? She practically forced me to marry Danny Spring. It wasn’t until later that I found out her husband was trying to buy some land Danny owned and thought my marriage would get it for Wyatt.” She smiled. “It did.”

  “Then what are you doing still being friends with her?” he demanded.

  “Seriously? Because it’s much worse to be Shelby’s enemy, haven’t you realized that yet? My life isn’t the only one she’s destroyed. Clearly, you have forgotten what she’s like.”

  “No, I don’t think so. I know what she did to Tanner.”

  “Do you?” she challenged.

  “She got pregnant to trap him into marrying her. If she hadn’t miscarried, he probably would have married her for the kid’s sake.” Something in Tessa’s expression stopped him. “She did have a miscarriage, didn’t she? Or did she lie about that, as well?”

  Tessa looked away for a moment.

  Jordan felt his heart drop. My life isn’t the only one she’s destroyed. The thought came at him with such force, he knew it had been in the back of his mind for a long time.

  “She didn’t do something to that baby to get back at Tanner, did she?” he asked, voicing his fear.

  “I have to go,” Tessa said, glancing toward the parking lot.

  He followed her gaze, seeing her fear as a white SUV cruised slowly past. He recognized Shelby Durran-Iverson behind the wheel. She sped up when she saw Tessa hurry out of the sandwich shop, barely missing her as she drove away.

  Jordan stared after both of them for a moment before he wrapped up his sandwich. He’d lost his appetite. Worse, he wasn’t sure what his best friend would have done if he’d found out Shelby hadn’t miscarried early in the pregnancy, but waited as long as she could, then aborted his baby to hurt him.

  He realized it was possible Tanner really had killed himself.

  Chapter Six

  The ski shop Brittany Cooke Peterson and her husband Lee owned on the mountain was still closed for the season.

  But Liza found her at the couple’s condo in Meadow Village. Brittany answered the door wearing a black-and-white polka-dot apron over a T-shirt and jeans. Her feet were bare and her dark hair in disarray. She brushed a long curly lock back from her face, leaving a dusting of flour on her cheekbone. In the background a 1960s hit played loudly. As Brittany’s brown eyes widened to see the deputy sheriff at her door, Liza caught the warm, wonderful scent of freshly-baked cookies.

  “Don’t touch that pan, it’s hot,” Brittany said over her shoulder after opening the door.

  “Did I catch you in the middle of something?” Liza asked facetiously.

  Brittany laughed. “Not at all.”

  “Mommy, Jake stuck his finger in the icing,” called a young female voice from the back of the large two-story condo.

  Brittany wiped her hands on her apron. “Come on in. We’re baking iced pumpkin cookies.”

  Liza followed the young woman through a toy-cluttered living room and into a kitchen smelling of cinnamon and pumpkin.

  Three small children balanced on chairs around a kitchen island covered in flour and dirty baking bowls and utensils. One of the children, the only boy, had icing smudged on the side of his cheek. Brittany licked her thumb pad and wiped the icing from the boy’s face, took an icing-dripping spoon from one girl and snatched a half-eaten cookie from the other girl as if it was all in a day’s work.

  The two girls who Liza realized were identical twins appeared to be about five and were wearing aprons that matched their mother’s. The boy had a dish towel wrapped around his neck like a bandana. He was a year or so younger than the girls.

  “You’d better have a cookie,” Brittany said as she finished slipping warm ones from a cookie sheet onto a cooling rack.

  Liza took one of the tall stools at the counter, but declined a cookie.

  “Just a little icing on them, Courtney,” her mother said to the girl who had the spoon again and was dribbling thin white icing over each cookie as if making a masterpiece. The other girl watched, practically drooling as her sister slowly iced the warm cookies. “Okay, enough sugar for one day. Go get cleaned up.” They jumped down and raced toward the stairs. “And don’t argue!” she called after them.

  With a sigh, Brittany glanced around the messy kitchen, then plopped down on a stool at the counter and took one of the cookies before turning her attention on Liza. “Sure you don’t want one?” she asked between bites. “They aren’t bad.”

  “They smell delicious, but I’m fine.”

  “You didn’t come by for cookies,” Brittany said. “This is about Alex, isn’t it?” She shook her head, her expression one of sadness. “I heard it was a hunter.”

  “A hunter?”

  “You know, someone poaching at night, a stray bullet. It had to be. No one would want to hurt Alex. He was a sweetheart. Everyone liked him.”

  “Not everyone,” Liza said.

  Brittany turned solemn. “So it was murder. That’s the other rumor circulating this morning.” She shook her head.

  “Any idea who didn’t think he was a sweetheart?”

  “No one I can think of.”

  “What about Tanner Cole?”

  Brittany blinked. “Even if he came back from the dead, he wouldn’t have hurt Alex. They were friends.”

  Liza smiled. She liked the woman’s sense of humor. “Do you know why Tanner killed himself?”

  “No. I suppose someone told you that Tanner and I were dating at the time.” Brittany chuckled as she realized whom. “Shelby. Of course.”

  “She did mention that if anyone knew, it would be you. Did Tanner seem depressed?”

  “Far from it. He was excited about graduating. He had all these plans for what he was going to do. I think he already had his bags packed.”

  “He was planning to leave Big Sky?”

  “Oh, yeah. He’d been saving his money for years. He wanted to backpack around Europe before college. He had a scholarship to some big college back east.”

  “What about you?”

  “I was headed for Montana State University.”

  “Weren’t you upset that he was leaving?”

  She shook her head as she helped herself to another cookie. Upstairs, Liza could hear the kids squabbling over the water and towels. “It wasn’t like that between me and Tanner. I liked him. A lot. But I knew from the get-go that it wasn’t serious.”

  “Had it been serious between him and Shelby?”

  Brittany stopped chewing for a moment. She sighed and let out a chuckle. “If you talk to Shelby it was. She was planning to marry him, apparently. She loved his parents’ ranch and used to talk about when she and Tanner lived on the place, what their lives were going to be like.”

  “She must have been upset when he broke it off and started dating you.”

  Brittany laughed. “Livid. But Tanner told me he’d just gone through a scare with her. She’d apparently gotten pregnant.”

  �
�On purpose?”

  “Tanner thought so. He said he’d dodged a bullet when she miscarried…” Brittany seemed to realize what she’d said. “So to speak. Anyway, he didn’t trust her after that, said he didn’t want anything to do with her. They broke up right before Christmas. She’d been so sure he would be putting an engagement ring under the tree for her.”

  “How could Shelby have thought that was going to happen?” Liza asked. “Surely she knew what Tanner was planning to do once they graduated.”

  “Sure, she knew, but Shelby was so used to getting what she wanted, I think she’d just convinced herself it was going to happen.”

  “Maybe she thought a baby would be the tipping point,” Liza suggested.

  “And it probably would have been. Tanner loved kids. He wanted a bunch when he settled down. If she had been pregnant, I still don’t think he would have married her, but he would have stuck around to help raise his child. He was that kind of guy. But he was over Shelby. Nothing could have made him go back to her.”

  “Did she know that?” Liza asked.

  Brittany broke a cookie in half and played in the icing for a moment. “I think she did. She really was heartbroken. She cried hysterically at the funeral. I’d never seen her like that. I actually felt sorry for her.”

  “But you didn’t feel sorry enough not to go out with Tanner.”

  Brittany shrugged. “It was high school. Tanner asked me out. He was a nice guy and a lot of fun. Shelby knew it wasn’t serious. She didn’t blame me.”

  “But she did Tanner?”

  Brittany smiled. “Let me put it this way. If Shelby was the kind to make voodoo dolls and stick pins in them, she would have had one with Tanner’s name on it. But she moved on quick enough. Tanner was barely in the ground before she was dating Wyatt Iverson. One thing about Shelby, she seems to bounce back pretty fast.”

  “Wyatt Iverson of Iverson Construction?” Liza said. “Isn’t that the same construction company that Tanner was working for at the time of his death?”