“Huh, look a reason for a dozen handkerchiefs,” Rose whispered and he gave her shoulders a squeeze. He sat her down in a chair beside Katrina so they could lean on each other.
“Did anyone see anything?” Collectively they all shook their heads.“Does anyone know who she was with?” Again head shaking.
“She was alone.” Someone said. He looked around until he found the speaker. It was another blond, he remembered that her name was Maryanne.
“Are you sure?”
“I talked to her just at closing. She was disappointed that she hadn’t found her admirer.” The woman sniffed. He looked around at the room there were only women.
“Was there anyone else here? Anyone that left because they didn’t want to be here when the sheriff got here?”
“Walt left.” Raven said softly,“I walked him to the stairs and I turned to go back and that’s when I saw her.”
“The door was open?”
“Yes.” Raven bowed her head and began to sob into her hands. One of the other girls put their arm around her.
“Anyone else?”
“T- two left after you went back down stairs.”
“Henry Barrow left about an hour ago. Just after closing.”
“Keith Simmons left just before closing.”
“I don’t need to know who left before closing. I doubt they saw anything.” He himself had been walking around outside at that time and he hadn’t seen anything. “Alright, ladies, sit tight until the Sheriff gets here.”
Matt went back upstairs and made his way to the end of the hall. Examining the floor for blood or foot prints. Dixie’s room was right at the top of the back stairs which made it really easy for the killer to get in and out. He found blood drops on the stairs and a blood smear on the edge of the door. It was too dark to see in the alley so he opted to wait until morning to look out there.
Dixie’s was not the first body he had seen. It wasn’t the first gruesome crime scene he had been to either but this was the first time he could think of that someone had been brutally murdered while he was only a few doors away. She hadn’t been dead very long her body was still warm and the blood, even the blood on the wall was still wet. He looked at the wall and the door the blood was on the back of the door. The door had been closed at the time of the attack. It appeared that Dixie had let her killer in and closed the door. He knelt and took a close look at the body. There was a thin red line on the side of her neck where it wasn’t covered in blood. The killer had taken the necklace. He looked around the room. He spotted a jewelry box and lifted the lid. There wasn’t much inside but there were a few pieces at least as valuable as the necklace that had been taken.
“Matt, I got here as quick as I could.”
“Hi Jack, thanks for coming.” Jack looked down at the body and sighed.
“What a shame.” Matt watched Jack look over all the details of the scene. While writing notes to himself. Jack was a Ranger, still had the heart of a Ranger anyway. He was glad he wasn’t dealing with a yokel Sheriff with no experience.
Matt didn’t say anything letting Jack arrive at conclusions himself. Finally after he closely examined the body and the room he looked at Matt. “What do you think?”
“I think she knew her killer, no one saw or heard anything. She might have been expecting him or he might have knocked but she let him in and turned her back and he cut her throat.” Matt said.
“Yeah that’s pretty much the conclusion that I drew. I just have one thing to add.”
“What’s that?”
“Whoever killed this girl killed Benji too.”
When the undertaker arrived Rose sent all the girls back to their rooms. They were all upset, as was to be expected,but sitting in the saloon just waiting for something to happen wasn’t helping anyone. She hoped they would all get some sleep but that didn’t seem likely. She wasn’t sleeping. She was pacing her room waiting for Matt to come back. She never thought she’d be so thankful to have him there.
Matt wasn’t sure the door would be unlocked when he finally went back to Rose’s room. If ever there was a time for a locked door it was now. But it was. He wasn’t surprised to find her waiting up for him. She was sitting on the bed with her knees pulled up and her arms wrapped around them.
“Ya’ll right?” He didn’t like the way she looked. She looked small and vulnerable. She nodded in answer to his question. He sat down on the bed in front of her.
“Do you know what happened?” Her voice was only a whisper.
“No not yet but I’ll find out I promise.” She looked up and met his eyes and her head tipped to the side slightly.
“Matt.” The word was an entreaty. She threw her arms around his neck.“I’m so glad you’re here.” He put his arms around her and smiled despite the sad circumstance. It only took a psychopathic killer in their midst for her to need him.
“You really should get some sleep if you can,sweetheart.”
“So should you.”
“Sun will be up soon and I will be able to see outside. I might as well wait.”
“Who would do this? Why her, she was so nice, I never evenheard her get cross with anyone.”
“Sometimes it’s not about that.” She pulled back and looked at him.
“You know who did this?”
“No.”
“But you have an idea.”
“Rose.”
“Tell me.”
“Rose I really don’t know who did this or why yet. I have theories that I have to work through.”
“Will you tell me when you know?”
“That depends, you thinking of forming a lynch mob?” He teased but she was undeterred.
“No.”
“Yes,” he sighed, “I will tell you when I know.”
“Promise?”
“If you promise not to get involved.” She frowned at him and then her eyes widened.
“You think it was someone here? Matt no one here would do that, they couldn’t.”
“Rose. The only thing I know for sure is that you didn’t kill her and I didn’t kill her. Like it or not everyone else is a potential suspect.” She sighed and laid her head on his chest. He was right and she knew it. At least she could trust him. She knew he wasn’t the killer.
The only clue he gleaned from the alley was a bloody scarf, it looked as if it had been used to wipe off the murder weapon. Unfortunately, it belonged to Dixie so it wouldn’t help to identify the killer. He did have Jack show him where Benji’s body was found though. Now that he had two murders it might be a little easier to find the killer. Clearly Dixie wasn’t just a random stranger in the wrong place at the wrong time. The killer had sought her out, which meant that he might have killed Benji for a reason. The problem was he still didn’t know why Benji was in this town. No one seemed to have seen him in the saloon.
Matt discreetly interviewed everyone the girls had identified as having been there at the time of the murder. None of them had seen or heard anything. Even Walt Porter who had apparently walked right passed the body said he had only noticed the open door but the room was dark. Next he interviewed all of Dixie’s regulars. He asked them each about the necklace but none seemed to know anything about it. He was growing more and more frustrated as the hours stretched into days and he didn’t have any good leads. He went back into the alley and walked back and forth thinking he might find something he had missed before but he didn’t. He was about to step back inside when he heard voices. They were coming from the side of the building and they were arguing. He stepped around the corner in time to see someone walk away from Izzy.
“Going to be hard to incite a brawl when Rose hasn’t reopened.” He glared at the other man.
“What the hell are you insinuating?”
“I am not insinuating anything. I know all about you Frank.” Izzy glared at him.
“You don’t know anything.”
“I know who you are, and why you’re here. I know you’re behind all of it. The vandali
sm, the near riot, the attempt at sabotaging the supplies. You want this place shut down. The question is,are you willing to commit murder to accomplish that?”
“You can go to hell.” He spat,he started to walk away but Matt grabbed him and slammed him against the wall. The man had fifty pounds on him but it didn’t matter.
“If I find out you killed them I will make sure you swing.” He growled close to the other man’s face.
“Ahem.” Matt looked up and saw Rose standing at the corner of the building. Reluctantly he released Izzy.
“I was with Faith when Dixie was killed. Ask her.” Izzy growled before walking away. Matt was angry, he was angry that he hadn’t found any solid leads, angry that he couldn’t pin anything on Izzy and angry because Rose was looking at him as if he was a rabid dog. She didn’t say anything until Izzy was gone. She is nothing if not discreet. He thought bitterly.
“Izzy didn’t kill Dixie,” she said softly, “He couldn’t.”
“Come on Rose, it’s not like it would have been the first time.” He snapped.
“What?” He shouldn’t have said it. He regretted it the second it passed his lips. He certainly wasn’t going to repeat it or explain it. He paced angrily instead.
“You said them.” Rose said softly.
“What?”
“You said,‘if you killed them’.” He looked at her waiting.“You think whoever killed Dixie also killed your partner.”
“Yes.”
“I guess that explains why you are taking this personally.”
“I am not taking it personally,” he snapped, “I am perfectly objective.”
“I didn’t suggest that you weren’t.” He looked at her long and hard and drew a deep breath. He wasn’t angry with her, he shouldn’t be snapping at her.
“I would have been driven to find the killer either way. I liked Dixie she was… real. Besides,no one has ever been killed under my watch before.”
“She wasn’t under your watch.”
“I was a few doors away. I let my guard down.” She approached him and he stood his ground but when she got there she just put her hand on his cheek.
“You are not responsible.” Those four words made him feel better immediately as if she had pulled the thorn out of his side.
“Neither are you.”
“I know.”
“So why haven’t you opened the Saloon again?” She shrugged but he knew she had given it a lot of thought. He didn’t press but he didn’t accept the answer either. She did feel guilty he could feel it every time he held her in his arms and she didn’t sleep. The two of them both lying awake and both pretending not to know the other wasn’t sleeping.
“I don’t think I am going to. I was planning to go anyway. As soon as you catch Dixie’s killer, their killer.” She corrected.“Then I will go for good.” He wasn’t sure how he felt about that, he wanted to ask her where she would go, what she was going to do next. He wanted her to confide in him but she hadn’t yet it didn’t seem likely that she would.
“I need to talk to Katrina.” Rose frowned at the sudden subject change.
“Why?”
“Because I think she knows something. I have for a while. I have talked to everyone else but not her because… well because she has already been through a lot.”
“You’re not planning to talk to her like you did Izzy are you?”
“No,” he smirked,“But there’s a chance I might not be very nice if I think she is hiding something so if you don’t want to be there…”
“No I do,” she said quickly realizing he was inviting her.“She might be more willing to talk to you if I am there.”
“That was my thought exactly.”
Chapter 15
Matt stood back and let Rose smooth the way for him. They still hadn’t told the girls exactly who he was but it was clear he was investigating Dixie’s murder. So they answered all his questions without putting up much of a fight. Katrina was different though. She was different then all of them.
“Trina, can we come in?”
“Sure. I was wondering when you would get around to me. It seems you’ve talked to everyone else.” Katrina smiled and offered him a seat. He looked around the room, it was just a cursory glance but what he saw turned his blood to ice. It froze from his chest and spread through his veins. He moved his hand to rest lightly on the butt of his pistol. He hadn’t sat and he didn’t.
“Where did you get that hat?”
“What hat?” He pointed with the hand not on his gun. It was a dirty brown cowboy had with a flat brim and a sweat stain so wide it could have been a hat band. He would have known that hat anywhere. It had been here the whole time. He gritted his teeth wishing he had just searched every room. Why would Katrina kill Benji? She might have had motive for Dixie, it could have been a rivalry, it could have been over the room… but why Benji?
“Oh that hat,” she said softly. His trained ear heard a guilty inflection in her voice.
“That’s not Jonathan’s is it?” Rose asked. Rose… he felt the need to move himself between her and Katrina but he couldn’t do it without being obvious.
“No it isn’t.” Katrina reached up and pulled the hat down. She glanced at him but then she focused on Rose and his tension intensified.
“It’s Ben’s hat, Rose.” Her voice was soft, apologetic, his chest tightened uncomfortably.
“Ben was here?” Rose asked. Matt’s eyes widened slightly, the only evidence of his surprise. Katrina nodded. The two women were looking at each other as if they had forgotten he was there. Rose reached out and took the hat from Katrina’s hands.“Did you tell him?” Katrina nodded.
“I did.” Katrina said,“He was going to wait for you but… I should have told you, I’m sorry,I just thought it would be better this way.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Ben was… he was the one that was killed behind the saloon.” Rose gasped and she immediately looked at him. She looked down at the hat in her hands then back up at him her eyes were filled with tears.
“I’m so sorry.” she whispered,and handed him the hat. He took it and she rushed out the door. He didn’t know what to do. His feet were rooted to the spot. He felt Katrina’s eyes on him and he looked up at her. He forced himself to be professional.
“Your window overlooked the alley. Did you see anything that night? Hear anything?”
“No, I wish I had. We talked for a long time it was really late when he left. I just… I just went to sleep. I didn’t know anything happened until morning.” Matt nodded and looked at the hat. He had more questions. A lot of them but he wanted to get his head on straight first.
“Thanks.” He turned and walked out. His boots felt like they had lead in the heels as he walked down the stairs. He was going to have to face Rose. He didn’t want to, he didn’t want to hear what she might say. When he finally opened the door she was sitting on the edge of the bed she had her bible in her lap and he wondered if she was preparing for confession. He closed the door and locked it out of habit.
“I am sorry, I didn’t know.”
“I know,” he said, not sure what else to say.
“Does… did he have any family?”
“A… ah… sister I think, back east somewhere. They weren’t close.”
“He has a son.” She opened the bible and withdrew a photograph. She handed it to him and he took it. He couldn’t say it looked like Benji but it was definitely the same child he had seen with Rose only younger. His knees felt weak and he sank down to the edge of the bed.“His name is Clay and he’s… great.” She sniffed and he looked at her. The tears that had been in her eyes were running down her cheeks. He gave her a handkerchief.“Thank you.” She said wiping her eyes.
“How old is he?”
“He just had his first birthday… he… Oh no.” She groaned.“He turned one when Ben was here.” She put her face down in the handkerchief. Matt thought about the timing that would have been a few months after
they were here for Hardin, did he meet her then and come back. He would have, he thought bitterly.
“He’s cute.” Matt said looking at the picture. Rose lifted her head and smiled.
“So cute, and so sweet he just laughs all the time.” Matt smiled despite the pain.
“Benji was always laughing at something.”
“I should have told him.I tried, I wrote a hundred letters. I even had that picture taken just so I could send it… But I couldn’t send it.” She stood up and paced.“I just thought he would come back, that I could tell him in person. She wanted to tell him in person…” She turned back and met his eyes.“Did I mess up? Should I have told him about her in a letter?” She was looking for an answer in his eyes and he had no idea what she was talking about.
“Told him about who?” He thought they were talking about the baby until she said she.
“Pam.” He was growing more confused by the second but he somehow felt like he should know what she was talking about. “She didn’t want to tell him she was pregnant in a letter. She said she didn’t want him to feel obligated. But then when she died I didn’t know how to tell him about both.” Matt just stared at her trying to process what she said. “She really loved him. I don’t know if it matters to you, but she did.” A slow smile spread across his face as he felt the knot in his stomach unclench.
“Yeah, it matters.” He handed her back the picture and she smiled at it.“How did she die?” Rose’s smile faded.
“She died when she had the baby.” She sat back down on the bed as new tears rolled down her cheeks.“She needed me and I… I fainted.” She clenched her eyes shut and he realized that if ever she was confiding in him it was now. He put his arms around her and pulled her against his chest. He could feel her shaking from the force of the tears.“The midwife told me there would be blood, but I thought I could handle it. It was stupid.”
Whiskey Rose (Fallen) Page 13
