by Lynne Hinton
“Who’s out here?”
Eve tried to gather herself, to steady her pulse and regain her breath. She glanced out the window of the driver’s side. Daniel was nowhere to be seen. It dawned on her that he might have been injured when he jumped aside. She ignored the question she had been asked and opened the truck door, calling out his name.
“Daniel! Daniel!”
It was pitch-black except where the truck lights on the other side of the gate were shining and the lone beam coming from a flashlight that had been the glare in Eve’s eyes. There was a sound of someone moving, and Eve hurried to the ditch on the other side of the road where she thought she had heard the noise.
Daniel was getting up from the ground. She could see him now in the lights. He was brushing off his clothes. “I’m right here,” he finally answered.
Eve reached out her hand and he took it. She pulled and Daniel climbed out of the ditch and moved closer, bumping into her.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
“I’m fine,” he answered, dropping her hand and trying to pick off the spiny barbs from the sticker bush he had landed in.
“Who’s out there?” the voice from the other side of the gate called out again.
Daniel walked in the direction of the man. “Detective Daniel Hively.” He moved around the truck.
She stayed put and could hear the gate being unlocked and opened. She could see Daniel handing over his identification.
“What’s going on?”
And Eve recognized the voice as John Ewing’s. She eased across the road and around the truck.
“Sister Evangeline?” He had the flashlight on her.
“Hello, Mr. Ewing,” she replied. “What are you doing out here?”
He didn’t respond. “I’m visiting …” He paused. “Well, what about you? Did something happen out here? Why are the police here?”
“Oh, I, uh …”
“I used to be her father’s partner,” Daniel said, coming to her rescue. “She was driving me out to my car. You know, dead battery. I couldn’t get a cell signal, so I walked to 14, made a call to the Divines, and waited until Evangeline met me there at the intersection.”
Eve turned to him. It amazed her that he had come up with such a good story so quickly. It made perfect sense and likely would not be challenged. She was impressed.
Ewing glanced around. “Where’s the car?”
Eve quickly turned to Daniel. She hadn’t thought of that. Maybe Daniel’s story wasn’t as good as she thought.
“That’s the thing,” he said, his voice calm, steady. “We stopped here because I couldn’t quite remember how far up the road it was.”
She nodded, looked back at the rancher, and smiled.
“You out here on police business?” He had put the flashlight down.
Eve waited.
“Murder victim’s car was found up the road a ways. I was checking out the area again, making sure we didn’t miss anything.”
“Can’t see much in the dark,” Ewing noted.
“It wasn’t dark when I was up there.”
Daniel was not about to be outwitted, Eve thought.
“When that sun sets, though … Well, let’s just say I wasn’t quite prepared for this.” He had his hands on his hips again.
Eve could see that his suit jacket had gotten torn in his jump into the ditch. He was also covered in dust.
Ewing handed him back his identification.
“You seemed like you were in a real hurry,” Daniel said. “I was sure you were coming through that gate and into the side of Captain Divine’s truck.” He paused, putting the identification back in his pocket. “Everything okay with you?”
Ewing nodded, reached up, and scratched his chin. “Got a call from my stable man. One of the horses is foaling, having some trouble, he said. So I was in a bit of a hurry to get over there. I thought I had left the gate open when I drove in.” He turned and looked at his truck. “Guess I’m glad I just replaced the brakes.”
Daniel nodded. “We’ll get out of your way, then,” he said, gesturing to Eve.
She took that to mean he wanted her to move the truck, and she walked over to the driver’s side.
“I think my car is just up the road there,” he added.
Ewing looked toward the west, thinking the detective meant that direction. “All right,” he said. “I hope you get to it okay.” He turned to walk to his truck and turned back. “You need help with a jump?”
“With what?” Daniel asked.
“A jump,” Ewing repeated. “You said your battery died. You need cables?”
Eve reached into the back of the Captain’s truck. She held up a set of jumper cables. “We’re all set,” she answered for him.
Daniel turned, giving her a surprised look.
“Okay then,” Ewing said. “Evangeline, tell your daddy hello. And nice to meet you, Detective.”
“Yes, nice to meet you.” He paused.
“Ewing,” Eve whispered. “John Ewing.”
“Mr. Ewing,” he finished up his farewell. He opened the passenger’s-side door and waved.
Eve got into the driver’s side, turned on the engine, waited for Daniel to get in the car, and moved forward enough so that the rancher could ease past her onto the dirt road. “Well, that was a close one!”
Daniel just looked at her and shook his head. “Just drive me to my car,” he said, sounding more than a little frustrated.
FIFTY-SEVEN
“And he almost hit you?” Dorisanne was sitting on the porch in one of the wicker chairs their mother had bought years before. She had a blanket wrapped around her and a knit hat on her head. Nights in the desert were always chilly, no matter what time of year.
“A dead-on T-bone,” Eve replied. She was on the top step, leaning against the railing. She wore a thick sweater and a scarf. Her knees were pulled up beneath her chin, and she had wrapped her arms around her legs. “I was praying every prayer I knew!” She paused. “And that’s a lot of prayers!”
“Man!” Dorisanne had wanted all the details of her sister’s near-fatal experience.
The two of them had decided to talk outside while having cups of hot chocolate. The Captain had already gone to bed.
“So Daniel was mad?”
Eve dropped her head, resting her forehead on her knees. “I haven’t gotten a talking-to like that since I was thirteen.”
Dorisanne took a sip of her hot chocolate. “But you never really said what you were doing out there anyway. Who is this guy again, Russ Biltmore?”
“Ross Biltmore,” Eve corrected her. “He’s a writer and was a known associate of the murder victim. I was just looking around to see if I could find anything that might shed light on his relationship with the deceased. And I heard some stuff.” She made a kind of clicking noise with her tongue. She was happy to have the opportunity to share her ideas with someone.
“I’m pretty sure Biltmore was writing scripts and the victim was getting the credit. There was all this talk between him and Mr. Ewing about money and pages.” She shook her head. “At first, I thought it was the producer who had the best motive to commit murder. The two had argued. He thought his director was stealing from him. And I don’t know.” She hesitated. “There’s just something about him I don’t like.”
“Who?” Dorisanne was clearly interested.
“Ron Polland.”
“That’s the producer you’re talking about?” She seemed impressed. “He’s done a lot of famous films,” she added. “The Captain said he was working on a Hollywood murder, but I didn’t know it was this one. You’re trying to solve the case of who killed Charles Cheston?”
Eve smiled. It pleased her that her sister was so excited.
“And who’s his client?”
Eve’s smile widened.
“You’re working for Megan Flint?” Dorisanne practically screamed the question, jumping up and spilling her hot chocolate.
“Shhhhhh!” Eve
was worried her sister would wake the Captain.
Dorisanne sat back down. “I can’t believe it.”
“She’s real nice,” Eve said. “Sweet, demure. I guess you’d call her beautiful.”
“Megan Flint? You’ve been around her?”
“A lot, actually.”
Dorisanne shook her head. “I should have known that if you came home to take care of him, you’d get something big to happen to you like this.”
“What’s that mean?”
She blew out a breath. She used the blanket to wipe off the spilled cocoa. “It just means I stay with Mama, and the best I get is a male nurse wanting my phone number. You stay with him”—she motioned toward the back of the house—“and you get to meet movie producers and hang out with Hollywood people.”
“I don’t think that’s really the way to look at this,” Eve commented.
“Yeah, well, that’s true,” Dorisanne agreed. “It doesn’t matter who shows up. I could never make it through one day of trying to care for him. Mama was a saint.”
The two were silent, daughters remembering their mother.
“So, anyway, tell me more about what happened tonight.” She drank the last sip of her hot chocolate.
Eve shrugged. Somehow, after hearing the comment that her sister made about caring for their parents, it didn’t feel as exciting to share her insights about the murder case.
“Oh, don’t do that!” Dorisanne could see what had happened and that Eve had lost interest in the conversation. “Give me some details.”
She hesitated a moment. She did want to talk to someone about what she had heard at the cabin.
“Well, now I actually think this Biltmore guy is the better suspect. He had a motive in that he was secretly selling the scripts to Cheston. He left the country when the director disappeared. The victim’s car was found near his house.” She stopped. “Of course, we don’t really have to prove who killed Cheston, we just need to help the attorney come up with a line of defense for Megan that would provide a reasonable doubt that she did it. Offering up another suspect is a way to demonstrate an alternative theory of the crime, but you do have to have evidence to show to the court supporting your claim about another suspect. You don’t have to actually prove anything, but you can’t just name names and give speculative reports. You have to have a clear theory to present.”
There was no response and Eve turned to her sister, who was staring at her. “What?” she asked.
“You sound …” Dorisanne paused. “You sound like him.” And she pointed to the back of the house.
“Yeah, well, I guess we’ve been hanging out together a lot the last couple of months.”
“Has it been that long?”
Eve nodded. “I know. It’s gone by pretty fast.”
“Well, it’s all very exciting,” she noted. “And I’m happy that it’s going so well for the two of you.”
There was a pause.
“He said his leg was sore.” Dorisanne tugged at the blanket that had slipped beneath her shoulders. “That’s why he isn’t wearing his prosthetic.”
Eve considered the lie. She knew the Captain hated anyone to know of a serious medical condition, of a weakness he might have. She considered holding to his story but then decided Dorisanne had a right to know the truth.
“It got infected,” she said, taking a sip from her drink.
“Is it bad?”
Eve shook her head. “I don’t think so, no.” She put her cup down. “I’m staying for six more weeks,” she added.
A look of surprise spread across Dorisanne’s face. “Six more weeks?” she asked. “That’s a long time to be away from the convent.”
Eve shrugged. “I guess.” She leaned her head back. “What about the two of you?” She wanted to change the subject. “How did it go after I left?”
Dorisanne closed her eyes. “It was fine,” she answered.
Eve watched her sister yawn. She thought about going into the house for the night. It was getting late.
“Did you tell him?” Dorisanne asked, ending the silence.
Eve turned to her sister, who was clearly watching for the answer.
“Tell him what?”
“That I was here before.”
Eve glanced away, shaking her head. “No.”
“I just couldn’t see him, not that night.”
“Why? What was going on that night?” Eve recalled it was the first evening they were home from the hospital. She didn’t know what was so special about that night to keep her sister away.
“Robbie left me.”
“What?” The news was a surprise to Eve. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Dorisanne shrugged. “I didn’t want anyone to know.”
Eve shook her head. All these secrets, she thought. All the ways nobody in her family could tell the truth. She was about to say as much and then thought about herself and the things she knew she had not said to either her sister or the Captain, things like how she wasn’t sure she wanted to go back to Pecos, how much she was enjoying trying to help solve a murder.
“Did he come back?”
Dorisanne just shook her head. “I haven’t heard from him since that night.”
“Could something have happened to him?” She had heard the mention of gambling debts.
“I don’t know.” She closed her eyes again. “He always seems to hang out with the wrong people.”
“Are you safe?” Eve wanted to know.
“I guess,” Dorisanne responded.
Eve pulled her feet closer to her, dropping her head onto her knees again. She turned so that she could see her sister’s face. The sadness was so obvious, and Eve wondered how she had missed it when Dorisanne had first arrived earlier that evening, how she had not heard it in her voice when they had spoken weeks before. She wondered what else she had missed in her sister’s life since moving into the monastery all those years ago.
“I’m sorry, Thumbelina,” Eve said, calling her sister by the nickname she had given her when they were just little girls.
Dorisanne didn’t answer, but Eve could make out the way her face softened and the slight nod of her head. For all that they had gone through, all that had been shared and missed, Evangeline was sure of one thing—she deeply loved her sister.
FIFTY-EIGHT
“She left a couple of hours ago.” The Captain was standing at the kitchen counter. He finished off his coffee, rinsed the cup, and set it in the sink. He spun around on his crutches to face Eve.
“I was going to drive her to the airport.” Eve yawned, scratching her head. She was still in her pajamas. “What time is it, anyway?”
“Ten o’clock,” he answered. “You were sawing some logs in there, so Dorisanne and I let you sleep.”
“You got up to see her off?” She walked over and poured herself a cup of coffee.
He maneuvered his way past her and took a seat at the table. “Isn’t that what a father does when his daughter is leaving?”
Eve saw no need to respond. She got out the milk and added some to her drink. She moved over to the table to join him. “What’s this?” she asked, reaching for the paper bag in the fruit bowl that served as a centerpiece.
“A burrito from Twila’s. I thought you might want some breakfast.”
“How did you get to Twila’s?” She opened the bag, pulling out the burrito. It was still warm.
“Dorisanne and I drove over there before Michael and Sarah got here to take her to Albuquerque.”
Eve nodded. She took a bite. “Yummm.” She stopped, bowed her head to say a quick prayer, and kept eating.
“Twila makes the county’s best burritos. I don’t care what they say over in Albuquerque or Santa Fe.” He winked.
“You already eat?”
He nodded.
“You check your sugar level?”
“Yes, and I took my insulin.” He reached over to the napkins and handed one to Eve. “And I showered and shaved and even dressed mysel
f.”
She rolled her eyes and kept eating.
“Where did you go last night?”
She swallowed hard, took a sip of her coffee, and tried to think of how to respond.
“Never mind,” he said. “I already talked to Daniel this morning.”
She took another bite.
“He said to tell you that Ewing’s story checked out. There was a foal born early this morning, and he also said to tell you that the jet injector is used to vaccinate the horses.” He watched her closely. “What’s that all about?”
She wiped her mouth. “I saw Daniel last night on the Mine Road.”
“When you were on your way to Madeline’s?”
She nodded.
“And you talked to John?”
She nodded again.
“And he just happened to have a jet injector in his hand while you had a talk?”
“No, not in his hand.”
He waited for an explanation.
She put down the napkin, rested her hands on the table, and decided to tell the truth.
“I went to Mr. Biltmore’s house. I saw a jet injector in Mr. Ewing’s truck. While I was there, Daniel came up. We were parked at the gate, and Mr. Ewing came flying down the driveway and almost hit us.” She took a breath. “We had a short conversation afterward.”
He sat back in his chair.
There was a long pause. Eve grabbed the last of her burrito and finished it off.
“Did you find anything out while you were there?”
The question and the interest behind it made Eve smile. She took a sip of her coffee.
“I overheard the two men talking. Cheston definitely was paying Biltmore for the script. He was supposed to come to the house, pick up the script that was left for him, and leave twenty-five thousand dollars in a safe. Biltmore said that the pages he’d left for him were gone, but the money was not there. He said he talked to Cheston the night before he was scheduled to pick up the script.”
“Did you hear the date when that call was made?”
She shook her head.
“Did you hear what the script was and where he left it?”
She shook her head again.
“Did you hear anything else?”
