Murder at the Powderhorn Ranch

by Jessica Fletcher

  Jim used a handkerchief to place the weapon in his jacket pocket. “I’ll turn this over to the sheriff when he gets here. I’m sure he’ll want to have it checked for prints.”

  “Any word from him?” I asked.

  “His on-duty road officer called in from the car,” Jim said. “Talked to Bonnie. Should be here in ten, fifteen minutes. He’s got the county coroner with him, and a homicide investigator. They’ve dispatched an ambulance, too, to remove the body, I suppose. Not much more to be done for Mr. Molloy.”

  “Poor woman,” I said, referring to Geraldine. “Have the Morrisons been told?”

  “Yes,” Jim said. “Felt I had to before they heard a rumor and started sensing something was wrong. Thought it was better to hear it directly from me, but the cousin, Willy, had already told them.”

  “What will this do to the week, Jim?” Seth asked.

  “Bonnie and I had a brief talk about that,” Jim replied. “Of course, we don’t know what the sheriff will want from us and the guests, but if the investigation isn’t too intrusive, we’d like to go on with the week as normally as possible, if that is possible. Bonnie’s convinced that if it was murder, it had nothing to do with anybody here at the ranch. Some sickie passing through.”

  “I hope that’s the case,” I said. “If it isn’t—”

  “I’d rather not think about that,” Jim said.

  The door opened, and Geraldine came onto the porch. She’d obviously taken a fast shower; her hair was still wet. She was dressed in a simple blue denim dress and white cardigan sweater.

  “Sorry about the news, Mrs. Molloy,” Jim said.

  “I can’t believe it,” she said. “Paul dead? It’s inconceivable. What happened? Did he fall off a horse? Was he kicked?”

  “We don’t know yet, ma’am. The police are on the way. Coroner, too.”

  The word coroner caused Geraldine to shudder and to grip the porch railing for support.

  “Why don’t you sit down, Mrs. Molloy,” Seth suggested, pulling a chair closer to her. She sat, closed her eyes, and slowly shook her head.

  “Would you like some water?” Seth asked. “Coffee? I’ll get some from the lodge.”

  “No need for that,” I said. “There’s coffee brewing in the cabin.”

  Geraldine opened her eyes. “There is?” she asked.

  “Yes. Didn’t you put it up?”

  “No, I—Paul must have before he left this morning.”

  “You know for certain he left this morning?” I asked.

  “No. I just assumed he did.”

  I stopped myself from saying that judging from what I’d seen of the body, Paul Molloy had been killed last night. But that was pure speculation on my part.

  We all turned in the direction of the house, where two vehicles kicked up dust as they turned in to the ranch, lights flashing. One was a marked Gunnison County sheriff’s car. The other was the ambulance. “We’d better get over there,” Jim said.

  “You go ahead,” I suggested. “Seth and I will stay with Mrs. Molloy until she’s needed.”

  Jim took purposeful strides to the house. From where we stood, we could see that the vehicles had carried a number of people; we counted three in police uniforms, and the ambulance discharged a man and a woman wearing white—emergency medical personnel was the assumption.

  I fetched Geraldine Molloy coffee from inside. As I poured it into a cup—she took it plain black—I paused to ponder what she’d said. If she was to be believed, and I had no reason not to, her husband had put up the pot. But when? It was unlikely he would have done that if he’d left during the night. And if my preliminary analysis was correct, he hadn’t been there in the morning to do it.

  “Here you are,” I said, handing the steaming cup to Mrs. Molloy.

  She seemed to have relaxed and gave me a smile. “Thank you,” she said. “You’re very kind.” She was certainly not the gun-wielding woman I’d first encountered when coming to the cabin to break the news of her husband’s death. I preferred this version.

  We watched Jim lead the entourage from the house to where the body was being guarded by the two wranglers.

  “I think I’ll join them,” I said. “Mind staying with Mrs. Molloy, Seth?”

  “No need for anyone to stay with me,” she said, standing. “I’ll be fine. I’d like to be there, too.”

  “I don’t think that’s wise,” Seth said. “Maybe we can stay in the house with Bonnie.”

  “Good idea,” I said.

  I walked with them to where Bonnie stood outside the office, her face set in anguish. “Mrs. Molloy and Seth will stay here with you, Bonnie,” I said.

  I went to where the others now surrounded the body. A uniformed officer stopped me.

  “It’s okay,” Jim Cook said. “This is Jessica Fletcher, the famous mystery writer. She’s a guest at the ranch this week. She was one of the people who found him.”

  They’d cleared away the brush, leaving Paul Molloy’s body exposed. The coroner was on his knees examining it, fingers gently probing certain areas. Molloy’s eyes were open. Years of research into homicide investigations for my crime novels had taught me plenty, including that upon death the muscles controlling the pupils relax, causing them to lose the symmetrical appearance characteristic of being alive. His eyelids had become flabby, another sure sign of death.

  The coroner, a large, beefy man wearing slacks, a yellow V-neck sweater over a white shirt, and elaborately tooled cowboy boots, continued his physical examination of the corpse. I knew what he was attempting to determine: the approximate time of death. He took Molloy’s chin and carefully moved it from side to side, checking the level of rigor mortis that had set in. It starts simultaneously throughout the body, but progresses fastest in the jaws and neck. Generally, it begins three to four hours after death, progresses from the head down to the feet, and reaches its full effect between eight and twelve hours following death. I couldn’t tell from where I stood what point of rigor had developed, but I had the sense it was pretty far along. If this coroner followed standard procedure, Molloy’s temperature would be taken once he’d been delivered to the county morgue to further help establish time of death, an inexact measurement because of all the variables—size and weight of the deceased, environmental factors at the time of death, clothing, and myriad other factors to be taken into account.

  One of the officers took multiple photographs of the body and the surroundings in which it had been found, while the other two searched the ground for clues that might have been left by an assailant.

  “Can we move him?” the coroner asked the plain-clothes homicide investigator, who’d been making notes.

  “Yeah. We’ve got it all, I think.” He turned to Jim Cook. “You say his name is Paul Molloy?” during dinner. They were a last-minute reservation. We had an empty cabin—the honeymoon cabin—and invited them to come. This is a week we generally reserve only for one family. They hold their family reunion here every year. But we also invited Mrs. Fletcher and another old friend from Maine, Dr. Seth Hazlitt, for the week. Turns out we might have picked a bad one for them to come.”

  “You can’t always control things like this,” the investigator said. “You can’t always plan for murder.”

  “You’re convinced it was murder?” I asked.

  “Looks that way to me, Mrs. Fletcher. By the way, I’m homicide investigator Pitura, Robert Pitura.” I took his extended hand. He was even bigger than the coroner, perhaps six feet, six inches tall, with a full head of hair that came down low on his forehead, and a genuine smile.

  “Pleased to meet you,” I said. “Was it the wound to the chest that killed him?”

  “Appears that way, although the doc will be the one to nail that down. You discovered the body?”

  I explained the circumstances that had led Crystal to finding the body of Paul Molloy.

  “See anything unusual this morning or last night, Mrs. Fletcher?”

  “No. Did you get a sense
of time of death?”

  “The doc will determine that. The blood was crusted, though. Happened quite a while before you found him.”

  “I thought the same thing.”

  Pitura smiled. “I imagine you’ve done some studying of murder for your books.”

  “Yes, I have, a necessity for a crime novelist. I was with the deceased’s wife this morning. She’s at the house with Mrs. Cook.”

  “She say anything interesting?”

  “Interesting?”

  “About her husband, where he was, why he was out here?”

  “No.”

  “Where was she all night?”

  “In bed, I think. I woke her this morning.”

  “After your ride?”

  “Yes, after the body was discovered.”

  “Late sleeper.”

  “Evidently.”

  “I’d like to speak with everyone at the ranch. They all here, Jim?”

  Jim replied, “I suppose so. All the guests, certainly. The staff. I don’t think anyone’s gone into town. No, sure of it. By the way, I noticed those tire tracks on the road.”

  Pitura examined them, said something to a deputy, then turned to Jim and said, “Well, might as well get to it. Sheriff Murdie will be out later. Had another scene to go to.”

  We stood together as the emergency medical team brought Paul Molloy’s lifeless body to the road on a gurney and slid it into the ambulance. Investigator Pitura conferred with the uniformed officers, dismissed one of them, and told the other two to stay with him.

  As we approached the house, the Morrison family stood together by the pool, taking in our activities. They were all there, except for Willy. He’d probably taken to his cabin to try to calm down.

  Evelyn Morrison broke from the group and came to where we’d stopped in front of the office. Jim introduced her to Investigator Pitura.

  “This is extremely distressing,” she said to Jim calmly. She’d changed into a tan shirt, blue blouse, and yellow sweater, all undoubtedly bearing designer labels. “We certainly didn’t anticipate something like this.”

  “Neither did we, Mrs. Morrison,” Jim said, keeping his tone pleasant.

  “I’d like to discuss this with you further.”

  “Happy to, Mrs. Morrison. But right now, I think there are more important things going on.”

  She glared at him.

  He smiled.

  Investigator Pitura said to her, “I’d appreciate it if you and your family remain here at the ranch and be available for questioning, Mrs. Morrison.”

  “Questioning? Why would you want to question us?”

  Pitura grinned and said, “Just part of my job, ma’am. I’ll try not to make it too painful.”

  Chapter Six

  Investigator Pitura instructed the uniformed officers to resume their examination of the area where Molloy’s body had been found, and to go through the honeymoon cabin in search of anything that might shed light on his activities leading up to his death. We gathered in the Cooks’ living room—Pitura, Seth, Jim and Bonnie Cook, and Geraldine Molloy.

  The Gunnison County homicide investigator was as gentle as he was large. He offered comforting words to Mrs. Molloy. Once he’d established that he was a sympathetic participant, he eased into his questioning, an open notebook on his lap.

  “When was the last time you saw your husband?” he asked.

  She sighed, rolled her eyes as though to summon an accurate recollection, then looked at him and said, “Last night.”

  “About what time?”

  “Ten. No, closer to eleven.”

  “In your cabin?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you both go to bed at eleven?”

  “I think so. I went first, I think. Yes, I’m certain I did.”

  “And what did he do?”

  “Stayed up to read.”

  “A book?”

  “I don’t know. A magazine, maybe.”

  “Know the name of it?”

  “No.”

  “Were you awake when he came to bed?”

  “I don’t remember. I took a pill. I’d had trouble sleeping lately. I don’t think I was awake when Paul came to bed.”

  “So you’re not sure he ever did—come to bed.”

  “I guess not.”

  “What was his state of mind last night, Mrs. Molloy?”

  “State of mind?”

  “Yes. Was he depressed, agitated, angry about something?”

  “No.”

  “Had he been down about anything lately?”

  “Not especially.”

  “What business was he in?”

  “Land development.”

  Pitura smiled and shook his head. “Afraid you’ll have to be more specific than that, Mrs. Molloy. What does a land developer do?”

  “Develop land. I don’t mean to be evasive, but I’ve never been sure what Paul did. I didn’t pay much attention to his business.”

  “He have his own company?”

  “Yes. Back home, in Nevada.”

  “Las Vegas?”

  “Just outside.”

  “I see. What brought you to Powderhorn Ranch?”

  “Paul wanted to get away for a week. I suggested Hawaii or the Caribbean. But he said he just wanted to get in the car and drive, see some of the country. A friend had been here a few years ago and suggested we spend a week. At least that’s what Paul told me. He said he had trouble getting a reservation because there was a family that had booked the ranch for some sort of reunion, but that he managed to convince the owners to take us.”

  “That the way it was?” Pitura asked Jim Cook.

  “That’s the way it was,” Jim said. “Mr. Molloy really wanted to be here this week, said it was the only week he had. We had one empty cabin and invited them to join us.”

  “How did he seem to you when he checked in?”

  Jim shrugged. “Fine, I guess. A quiet fella. Didn’t have much to say at dinner.”

  “What about breakfast?”

  “Didn’t make it for breakfast.”

  “You slept in, Mrs. Molloy?”

  “Yes. The pill I took was potent. I never woke up until Mrs. Fletcher came to the cabin.”

  “Mind if I see the pill bottle?”

  “I ... I don’t have one. I carry medications in a plastic container—vitamins, things like that. I only had one sleeping pill with me.”

  “I suppose your pharmacist can tell us what sort of pill it was.”

  “I’m sure he can. But why is this of interest to you? My husband was killed by some deranged person. What does it have to do with my sleeping pill?”

  “Probably nothing,” Pitura said pleasantly. “If I have any other questions, we can get together again.”

  “I intend to go home,” Geraldine said.

  “I’m afraid you’ll have to postpone that for a few days, Mrs. Molloy.”

  “But I’ll have to make funeral arrangements.”

  “Your husband won’t be released until the autopsy has been completed,” Pitura said. Could be three or four days, maybe longer. In the meantime, everyone at the ranch, guests and staff alike, will have to stay for questioning.”

  Geraldine stood. “This is outrageous.”

  “Mrs. Molloy, it appears that someone murdered your husband. It happened right here on the Powderhom Ranch. I understand your wanting to get back home, but until my investigation is completed, that just won’t be possible. You have children?”

  “A daughter, in San Francisco.”

  “Maybe she can come and be with you,” Bonnie offered. “She can stay with us in the house.”

  “My daughter and I haven’t spoken in years.”

  After a moment of silence, Jim Cook put his arm around Mrs. Molloy and said in his low, calm voice, “It won’t be long, Mrs. Molloy, before Mr. Pitura will have this all wrapped up and you can get back home. In the meantime, Bonnie and I will do everything we can to make it easier on you, serve meals in your c
abin if you’d like, get you anything you need from town.” He turned to Pitura. “Speaking of that, Bob, I have to send one of the boys into Gunnison to pick up another guest. Her plane’s due in an hour.”

  “Another guest?” I said.

  “Mr. Craig Morrison’s wife. Couldn’t come in with the rest of the family. It okay with you, Bob, if I send somebody to pick her up?”

  “I suppose so, but let me talk to who you decide to send before he goes.”

  “Fair enough. I’ll send Jon. He should be down at the garage, fixing one of the Jeeps.”

  “I’ll talk to him there,” Pitura said. “Sorry for your loss, Mrs. Molloy. You take care.”

  “I’d like to lie down,” Geraldine said. “I don’t feel well.”

  “Of course,” Bonnie said.

  “I’ll be happy to walk Mrs. Molloy to her cabin,” Seth said.

  “Thank you,” Bonnie said. “We’ll check in on you later, see if you feel like some lunch.”

  Seth and Mrs. Molloy were almost out the door when Pitura said, “Mrs. Molloy, one last question before you go.”

  “Yes?”

  “I understand you had a handgun with you this morning.” I hadn’t mentioned it to the investigator, but Seth or Jim must have.

  “That’s right,” she said.

  “Belong to you?”

  “It belonged to my husband.”

  “Was it registered?”

  “I don’t know. He’d been attacked a year or so ago and bought the gun for protection. I assume it was registered.”

  “We can check. Naturally, we’ll hold it until this is resolved. If it was properly registered, you can have it back.”

  “I don’t care about getting it back. When I heard someone in the cabin, I grabbed it. I didn’t know who it was.”

  “Perfectly understandable,” Pitura said. “Thank you.”

  When they were gone, Bonnie and I went to the kitchen, where she made a pot of tea.

  “I feel terrible about this,” she said.

  “Hardly calculated to make anyone feel good,” I said.

  “That poor man, Mr. Molloy, and his wife.”

  “I suppose it gives credence to that old saying, ‘Life is what happens when you’re making other plans.”’

  “It certainly does. I feel bad for everyone, Jess, including you. Jim and I finally get you to visit, and someone is murdered. Hardly a respite from the murders you write about.”