Dark Horse & the Mystery Man of Whitehorse

by B. J Daniels

  “You don’t know what the first Mrs. McGraw was like then. She was confused all the time. Often she couldn’t remember the names of her children. I overheard her say that she didn’t want the twins, wanted nothing to do with them and wished they would disappear.”

  A piece of the puzzle dropped into place. “You shared this information with your boyfriend.”

  Frieda let out a sob. “I had no idea he would kidnap the twins.”

  There it was. Harold Cline had taken the twins. “That’s why you feel so guilty.” But when she saw Frieda’s expression, she knew that telling him about Marianne’s state of mind wasn’t the only reason Frieda felt guilty. Her heart dropped.

  “Your boyfriend must have thought he was saving them,” Nikki said, hoping to keep the cook talking. “That they would get better homes.” But why not take the kidnapping ransom money and let the twins be found alive and well? Why make them disappear?

  She thought about the broken rung on the ladder and the concern that the kidnapper had fallen, injuring one or both of the babies.

  What other reason would the kidnapper have for not returning the babies?

  “He did plan to find them good homes, right?”

  Frieda’s eyes filled with tears again.

  She heard the sound of a vehicle. Shouldn’t the sheriff be here by now? What if Frieda was right and the man who’d tried to run them off the road had come back?

  She looked around for a place they might hide and saw nothing but short scrub pine and sagebrush.

  “Maybe I should call the sheriff again,” she said to Frieda, but the woman didn’t seem to hear her. Nikki realized that the key pieces of the puzzle were still missing.

  “Where is Harold Cline now?” she asked as she started to dig her cell phone out of her pocket. Frieda had said that “he” would kill them. “Is Harold Cline the man who ran us off the road?”

  “No,” Frieda said her voice cold and hard. “He’s dead. I killed him.”

  * * *

  CULL TOOK A shortcut to Old Town and arrived at the Whitehorse Community Center as several older women were coming out.

  He looked around for Nikki’s rental car, but didn’t see it. “Was Frieda here?” he asked a small gray-haired woman.

  “Earlier, she and the writer. They left a long time ago, though.”

  He thanked her and headed down the main road thinking he must have missed them by taking the shortcut. Patricia’s arrest had thrown him. He was still trying to process the fact that she’d been systematically poisoning his father—and might have done the same thing twenty-five years ago to his mother.

  A feeling of doom had come over him when he’d realized that Frieda and Nikki should have been back to the ranch a good hour ago.

  Maybe it was seeing his mother this morning, but he kept thinking that Nikki was right. If Patty had been poisoning his mother twenty-five years ago, it would explain her behavior more than postpartum depression. It could also explain her breakdown and how quickly she’d gone downhill. Losing the twins must have been the last straw.

  But if it was true, would the sheriff be able to prove that Marianne was a victim of Patty’s, and so was her husband? He wished he could get his hands around Patty’s throat. He would choke the truth out of her.

  The arrest had happened so quickly that he hadn’t had time to think—let alone react. Now he was furious. Patty could have killed his father. Travers had taken it better than Cull would have. What wife poisoned her husband?

  His cell phone rang. He answered, surprised he could get service this far out. “Hello?”

  “A call just came in over the scanner,” his brother Ledger told him. “A car was run off the road near Alkali Creek. Isn’t that on the way to Old Town?”

  “Who put in the call to the sheriff?” Cull asked and held his breath.

  “Nikki St. James. She said she and Frieda weren’t hurt. Deputies are on the way. They got held up because of Patricia’s arrest. Where are you?”

  “On my way to Alkali Creek,” he said, and disconnected.

  Cull hadn’t gone far when he saw the tracks. He slowed. There was broken glass from a headlight at the edge of the road. Ahead he saw more tracks and in the distance, a dark green pickup parked off the road.

  He had his window down as he drove toward the tracks. He hadn’t gone far when he heard the gunshot.

  * * *

  NIKKI WAS STUNNED by Frieda’s confession. So stunned that it took a moment to realize what was happening. There was a sound like something hard hitting stone. At the same time, Frieda flinched and let out a soft cry.

  When she looked over at the woman sitting with her back against a large rock, Nikki saw that Frieda was holding a hand over her stomach. It took her a wild moment to realize that blood was oozing out from between her fingers.

  The second rifle shot pinged off the rock above Nikki’s head. She scrambled up, grabbed hold of Frieda and dragged her around the rock outcropping. Again she heard the sound of a vehicle engine.

  She fumbled out her cell phone and quickly punched in 9-1-1 again, telling the dispatcher what had happened.

  “An ambulance is on the way,” she told Frieda as she disconnected.

  The woman was still breathing, but her breaths were shallow and she was clearly in a lot of pain. Nikki had stanched the bleeding as much as she could with her jacket.

  Her mind was racing.

  “I can’t die yet. I can’t die with this on my conscience.”

  “You’re not going to die.”

  A crooked smile curled her lips. “When I heard that someone had taken the twins, I knew.”

  “Frieda, you shouldn’t try to talk.”

  The woman didn’t seem to hear her. “I prayed it wasn’t him. But when I couldn’t reach him... There was an old cabin in the Little Rockies that Harold used during hunting season. I knew the ransom had been paid, but the babies still hadn’t been returned.” She grimaced in pain, her voice choked with tears as she said, “He was digging a hole to bury them when I found him.”

  Nikki felt her heart drop like a stone. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t speak.

  “He said it was my fault. I’m the one who said the twins weren’t safe and he was just doing what I wanted him to do. The babies were in a burlap bag on the ground next to the hole he’d been digging. I begged him to take them back.”

  Hope soared at her words. “Take them back? They were still alive?”

  Still Frieda didn’t seem to hear her. She was lost in the past, lost in telling a secret hard kept all these years. “He said, ‘Have you lost your mind? The place is crawling with cops. And what would I say? Yes, I took the little snots, but I’ve decided to return them because Frieda has changed her mind? You’re in this as deep as I am. You’ll go to prison with me. You think they will believe that I did this on my own?’”

  She felt her blood run cold at Frieda’s words. “Who did help him?”

  Frieda shook her head. She took a ragged breath. “He never told me.” Nikki could tell that she was in terrible pain. “All I cared about was the babies. I told him I was taking them and going to the authorities.”

  “‘You’re not doin’ nothin’ but goin’ back to the ranch and keepin’ your trap shut.’ I told him I couldn’t go back, not without the babies. ‘You don’t go back and you’ll look guilty and I will be long gone and you can rot in prison.’”

  Nikki couldn’t bear to hear this and yet she hung on every word as she prayed for the sound of the ambulance and sheriff.

  “I knew he was right. No one would believe me,” Frieda said, her voice getting weaker. “He walked over to the babies. He was going to put them into that grave he’d dug. Put them in there still alive. I picked up the shovel.” She began to cry again. “I dug the hole larger and buried him an
d the ransom money.”

  “What did you do with the babies, Frieda?” Nikki asked, her voice breaking.

  The woman’s eyes met hers. “I took them to the Whitehorse Sewing Circle. Pearl Cavanaugh was the only one there that night after everyone else had gone. I told her the same story I told Harold about Marianne. I begged her to find them good homes.”

  Relief rushed through her. “And did she?”

  Frieda didn’t answer. When Nikki looked into her eyes again, she saw that the woman was gone.

  Chapter Eighteen

  ACROSS THE RAVINE, Cull saw a man with a rifle run to his pickup. Something flashed in the sunlight as the man jumped behind the wheel. A moment later he took off in a cloud of dust. Was he going for help? What had he been doing with a rifle?

  Cull pulled over to the side of the road and jumped out to look down into the ravine. In the distance he could hear the sound of sirens as he looked down to the bottom and saw the wrecked rental car. His heart dropped.

  “Nikki!” he called. “Nikki!” He had already started down the hillside at a run when she came out from behind the rocks. His mouth went dry. He hadn’t realized how terrified he’d been until he saw her—saw her injured and covered in blood.

  He ran to her, weak with relief. “How badly are you hurt?” He could see that she had a scrape on the side of her face and there was dried blood on her temple, but it was the blood on the front of her shirt that had him shaking inside.

  “It’s not me. It’s Frieda.” She burst into tears. “She’s been shot. She’s dead.”

  He pulled her into his arms, the sound of sirens growing closer. She felt so good in his arms that he never wanted to let her go. Relief gave way to realization. He’d seen the shooter leave in that old truck. “Did you get a look at the shooter?”

  Nikki shook her head against his chest. “He ran us off the road, then came back...”

  A sheriff’s department patrol SUV stopped at the top of the hill followed by an ambulance, sirens blaring.

  “Let’s get you up to the road,” he told Nikki.

  She pulled back to wipe her eyes. “I can’t leave Frieda.”

  “Let the EMTs take care of Frieda.”

  “But I’m the one who got her killed.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  IT RAINED THE day of Frieda Holmes’s funeral, but all of the McGraws were there standing under black umbrellas, listening to the preacher put her to rest. Frieda had no family except for the McGraws. But members of her quilting group had come to pay their respects.

  Nikki stood next to Cull, the rain making a soft patter on the umbrella he held over them. Her heart still ached for Frieda. She’d paid a high price for what she’d done and the secret she’d kept all these years.

  Still shaken by what had happened, Nikki questioned why she’d become a true crime writer. What drove this need of hers for the truth? Whatever it was, she’d gotten the woman killed. Her relentless need to dig in other people’s tragedies had caused this. She would have to take that to her own grave.

  As she looked around the cemetery, she thought of her father. She knew now that he had nothing to do with the kidnapping, but it would take more than that to clear his name. She had to find out who inside that house had helped Harold Cline. She would never believe it was Frieda.

  The preacher was winding up his sermon. She looked to Travers McGraw, wondering how he was holding up given everything that had happened. He stood tall and erect beside the cook’s grave, insisting he didn’t need the wheelchair. In the days since Patricia’s arrest, he’d improved. No doubt because he wasn’t being poisoned, but it would take time for him to recover—if he ever fully did.

  Cull had been afraid that the news about the twins would be the straw that finally broke him. But Nikki saw that he was filled with even more hope now. He was also stronger now that he knew why his health had deteriorated like it had. He would never be the man he’d been, but he was more determined than ever to find the twins.

  The family gathered back at the ranch after the funeral. Tilly had made them all lunch, but no one was hungry. There were still so many questions, but now at least they knew that the babies had been saved. Unfortunately, Pearl Cavanaugh, the member of the Whitehorse Sewing Circle who Frieda had given the twins to, was dead. She’d died some years ago after having several strokes.

  Travers had asked Nikki to tell them all what Frieda had confessed before she died. When she finished, the room fell silent.

  “You believe Patty was poisoning our mother twenty-five years ago?” Ledger asked.

  “It would explain your mother’s behavior,” Nikki said. “I’m not sure the sheriff will be able to prove it, though.”

  “We still don’t know who helped this Harold Cline take the twins,” Boone pointed out.

  “But we do know that Frieda got them to Pearl Cavanaugh and that she probably found them good homes,” Nikki said.

  “But she is the only one who knows where they went and she’s dead,” Boone pointed out. “It’s just another dead end.”

  “I have to wonder about the adoptive parents,” Cull added. “They had to know about the McGraw kidnapping. It was on national news. Wouldn’t they have questioned where their babies came from?”

  Nikki had thought of that. “I’m sure Pearl had a story prepared. Remember, Frieda told her that Marianne wasn’t stable, that the babies weren’t safe here. I’m sure the new parents thought they were saving them.”

  “They were,” Travers said.

  “Which means they aren’t together. Oakley and Jesse Rose had to have been adopted separately,” Ledger said.

  The room fell silent for a few moments.

  “What now?” Boone asked, looking at Nikki, then his father.

  “I’m sure Nikki is still planning to do the book,” Travers said, and Nikki nodded. “I got a call from the sheriff earlier. They found the hunting cabin in the Little Rockies that Harold Cline used. They found his grave and the ransom money.” His voice broke as he added, “The sheriff found a burlap bag in the cabin that had both Oakley’s and Jesse Rose’s DNA on it.”

  He turned to Nikki. “One of the things that was never released to the media was that when the twins were taken, so were their favorite animals that slept with them at night—and their blankets. Jesse Rose’s blanket was found in the pool house. But Oakley’s was never found. The small stuffed animals were horses with ribbons around their necks. Each twin had a different-colored ribbon.”

  Cull frowned. “So there is one blanket and two stuffed horses still missing. Let me guess. You’re planning to release this information in hopes that the twins will see it.”

  Travers smiled at his son and nodded. “Just the information about the toy horses.”

  Boone got to his feet. “You’re going to bring every nutcase out of the woodwork. Isn’t it bad enough with all the publicity about Patricia?”

  “The twins are alive,” Travers said. “I’ve felt it soul deep since they were taken. What Nikki found out from Frieda only proves it. This is a chance I have to take. With Nikki’s help, we’ll put out the information and pray that the twins will find us.”

  Boone shook his head. “I have work to do. We are still a horse ranch, aren’t we?” He walked out, mumbling, “This family is cursed.”

  “He’s right. I still can’t believe what Patty did,” Cull said, looking over at his father.

  “I suspect she got the idea from when she slowly poisoned your mother over twenty-five years ago and made her think she was crazy,” Travers said.

  Cull shook his head in disbelief. “She would have killed you and none of us would have suspected what she was doing. If Jim Waters gets her out of jail...”

  “He won’t,” Travers said. “Patricia has no money of her own. She won’t be able to ma
ke bail. Not only that, but also the judge thinks she is a flight risk and so do I.”

  “You’re sure Waters isn’t defending her?” Cull asked with disgust.

  “He might have, before he realized she didn’t have any money to pay him. Before we got married, I made Patricia sign a prenuptial agreement. I worried that if we divorced she could force me to sell the ranch that I’ve built for my children.”

  “But she would get something. What happened if you died?” Nikki asked.

  “She would have gotten a few acres so she could build a place for herself, if she so desired, and a large amount of money to live on the rest of her life. I’m sure she would have sold the land,” Travers said. “Now we know that she couldn’t wait for me to die.” There was pain in his tone. He wasn’t used to being betrayed.

  “Nikki tells me that your mother kept a diary,” Travers said to his sons. “One of the pages has turned up. Do you know anything about it?” he asked his family. There was a general shake of heads.

  “The first I heard of it was when Nikki brought me the page someone had shoved under her door,” Cull said. “Isn’t it possible Patricia was involved? She seems to have been involved in everything else, including blackmailing Frieda.”

  “I’m going to go by the sheriff’s office and see if Patty will talk to me,” Nikki said. “If she has the diary hidden somewhere, I doubt she will give it up, though. But all I can do is try.”

  “Good luck with that,” Cull piped up.

  “Did the sheriff say if they’ve had any luck finding the person who ran us off the road and shot Frieda?” Nikki asked.

  Travers shook his head. “They’re looking for the pickup that both you and Cull provided a description for, but they’ve had no luck so far. There are so many old barns around here, not to mention thousands of ravines and ponds where it could have been dumped. That’s what the sheriff thinks Frieda did with Harold Cline’s old car he drove. She suspects it is rusting out in one of the ponds near the Little Rockies. It wouldn’t be the first time a vehicle was hidden in one.”