Murder at the Powderhorn Ranch

by Jessica Fletcher

  This is a heck of a way to fly my first solo, I thought as I mentally made decisions about how to approach the landing strip. One thing loomed largest in my mind. I had to keep my airspeed above the stall range. And as I turned the plane to fly downwind and parallel to the runway, I realized how menacing the trees were at both ends.

  I completed the downwind leg, the runway to my left, made a left ninety-degree turn until the strip was perpendicular to me on the left, then made another ninety-degree turn, putting the runway directly in front of me.

  With one hand on the yoke and the other on the throttle, I adjusted airspeed, holding the Cessna’s nose slightly elevated to gradually lose altitude.

  The trees loomed larger and closer as I continued my approach. Stay above them, I told myself. Don’t let the landing gear clip their tops. At the same time, I couldn’t land too far down the strip for fear of running out of room and careening into the trees at the far end.

  Lower, lower—that’s it—clearing the trees—kill any remaining altitude the minute you’re over them and stall it out hard—that’s it—almost there—pull all the way back on the yoke—kill power—and—

  I hit hard, and on one wheel, but the other wheel came down and caught the turf. Keep it straight. Okay, apply brakes with your toes on the rudder pedals, but not too hard.

  The trees at the far end seemed to rush toward us, but I brought the plane to a full stop a few hundred feet from them.

  I let out a sustained stream of air—and relief—slumped back, and allowed some of the tension to drain from my body. I closed my eyes and started to say an unstructured prayer to someone when applause snapped me out of my reverie. I turned. Morrison was sitting up straight, a big smile on his face. “Nicely done, Mrs. Fletcher. Couldn’t have done it better myself.”

  “You aren’t ill.”

  “Never felt better.”

  “You ... you ...”

  “Easy, easy. Just testing you under fire. Shook you up, huh?”

  “I cannot believe anyone would be so cruel, so callous, so ...”

  “Relax. We’ll have to walk back. I told Jon I’d buzz the ranch when we were landing to let him know to pick us up, but the plans changed. Let’s go.”

  “You are a despicable person, Mr. Morrison.”

  His answer was to laugh, turn off the ignition, slide the key beneath his seat, open his door, and climb down from the plane. I did the same. I refused to walk with him and stayed a few feet behind as we set off across the field in the direction of the road. He said while walking, “Did I kill the Molloys? The answer is no. Do I know who did? No again. Do I know why they were murdered? No, although I suggest you and your police buddies take a closer look at some of the ranch staff.”

  I caught up with him. “Anyone in particular?”

  “No. Do I think anyone else will get it between now and Sunday? You never know.”

  He stopped. “A word of advice, Mrs. Fletcher.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “Stay away from Pauline. Stay away from everyone in my family. The police have questioned us. That’s their job. It’s none of your business. You’re a writer. Stick to making up stories. But stay away from us. Consider it a warning.”

  “And if I don’t heed your warning?”

  He shrugged and set off again. “Proceed at your own risk.”

  We said nothing else until reaching the ranch, where Jim Cook was supervising the splitting of firewood. “How was your flight?” he asked.

  “Uneventful,” Morrison said angrily, walking past him.

  Jim looked at me with raised eyebrows.

  “Uneventful,” I confirmed.

  “See you at dinner?”

  “Of course.”

  “Don’t forget the square dance. We’ve got some extra guests. Nancy O’Keefe, the reporter, will be with us, and I think Bob Pitura and his wife, April, will be here, too.”

  “Should make for a lively evening.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  There was no sense in recounting for Seth Hazlitt my harrowing, infuriating experience with Craig Morrison. He’d only become upset and want to confront Morrison at dinner.

  I spent what was left of the afternoon collecting my thoughts and trying to relax. Ironically, the unpleasant airborne episode had energized me. Anger can do that. His behavior was dismaying beyond words. It was as though, I thought while brushing my hair, that he’d acted out what seemed to be the operative attitude of the entire Morrison family—swagger, arrogance, and disdain for everything and everyone except themselves.

  Seth was already at the lodge when I arrived for dinner, watching the square dance caller and his wife, Ken and Kathy Ashwood, set up the turntable and PA system while their two children, Michael and Melissa, busied themselves reading books in the large common room. Bob Pitura was there, too, and introduced me to his wife, April, a beautiful young woman with a warm, legitimate smile.

  The Gunnison Country Times reporter, Nancy O’Keefe, arrived a few minutes later.

  “Good to see you again, Mrs. Fletcher,” she said.

  “Same here. Been busy writing about the latest tragedy at the Powderhorn?”

  “I’ve been doing some digging, making a few calls. How was your day?”

  “Routine.”

  Pitura said, laughing, “We finally released the Molloys’ car to the rental agency. They were getting uptight about not having it back.”

  “A rental car?” I said. “I understood they’d been touring this part of the country for a while. I assumed they were in their own automobile.”

  “No,” Pitura said. “They rented it in Gunnison.”

  “When?” I asked.

  “Sunday.”

  “The day they arrived. What did they do, fly into Gunnison?”

  “Evidently. We haven’t checked that. Should we?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. I was just thinking out loud.”

  The expression on Pitura’s face said he’d be, checking how the Molloys arrived in Gunnison at the first possible opportunity.

  The wranglers and other staff drifted in. The discovery of Geraldine Molloy’s body in the smoker on the island had put everyone in a somber mood. It was as though to exhibit spirit was to defile the dead.

  But Jim Cook, bless him, wasn’t about to allow that sober mood to prevail, not on square dance evening.

  “This couple was expecting twins. The husband was out of town on business the day his wife delivered, and his brother took her to the hospital. The new father called the hospital and asked his brother how everything was. The brother told him he was now the father of twins, a boy and a girl. ‘The doctor asked me what the babies’ names would be,’ the brother said. ‘I told him the girl’s name was Denise.’ ‘What about the boy?’ the father asked.”

  Jim looked at us. Seth and I asked, “What was the boy’s name, Jim?”

  “Denephew, of course.”

  There were as many moans as laughs, but the tension had been broken, just in time for some of the Morrisons to arrive and cast a new pall over the room.

  Joel Louden and Sue Wennington emerged from the kitchen, carrying two large salad bowls. The lasagna couldn’t be too far behind.

  “You didn’t tell me about your flying lesson,” Seth said to me.

  “It was fun. I learned a lot.”

  “Did you?”

  “I’ll fill you in later.”

  “Why do I have the feeling that it wasn’t wonderful?”

  “Just your natural suspicious nature at work.”

  Craig Morrison and his wife, Veronica, came up to us. “Did your friend tell you how I almost gave her a heart attack?” Craig asked, grinning.

  “No, she did not,” Seth said.

  “Tell him about it, Mrs. Fletcher.” To Seth he said, “Had her baptism under fire, Doc. Came through with flying colors.”

  They walked away.

  “What’s this all about?” Seth asked sternly.

  Nancy O’Keefe joined us bef
ore I had to answer. “I’ve done a little follow-up on Paul Molloy’s background in Washington,” she said.

  Seth’s expression was quizzical.

  “Excuse me,” I told him, then followed O’Keefe to a secluded comer.

  “What have you learned?” I asked her.

  “Nothing that would stand up in court,” she said. “There wasn’t enough hard evidence for the Senate committees to ask the Justice Department to indict. But it seems he was involved with some sort of group that was negotiating with the Libyans to sell them bomb-making materials.”

  “That’s serious.”

  “Yes, it is. I’m working on it from a local angle.”

  “Is there one?”

  “It looks that way. The group Molloy was allegedly involved with operated out of Denver.”

  “I suppose that’s local enough. Is there anything that might have bearing on his murder here in Powderhorn?”

  “Nothing yet.”

  “What about this Denver group?” I asked. “Who were they?”

  “Some shady characters, international traders, wheeler-dealers. The names didn’t mean anything to me. There was a woman involved.”

  I thought back to Chris Morrison’s comment earlier in the week: “Cherchez la femme—Look for the woman.” It made sense in murder cases, but an international cabal to sell bomb-making supplies to a rogue foreign state? That would represent a new use of the phrase.

  “Her name was Veronica. I remember it because I’m a fan of old movies, especially Veronica Lake films. Remember her, with the blond hair falling over one eye?”

  “Of course I do. What was this Veronica’s last name?”

  “Not as poetic as Lake. Veronica Schwinn.”

  “Was she ever indicted?”

  “None of them were.”

  Nancy’s mention of a woman named Veronica caused me to look to where Veronica Morrison talked with her husband and two children, Godfrey and Pauline. I wasn’t thinking, even remotely, whether there was some link between these two Veronicas. But I knew few women named Veronica, and it was natural for the thought to make a fleeting appearance. What surprised me was that Pauline was there. I’d come to the conclusion that she’d be kept under wraps for the duration of the week.

  “Thanks for the update,” I said to Nancy as Bonnie spirited her away. I rejoined Seth and the Pituras, who were talking with the square dance caller and his wife.

  “A pleasure to meet you,” Kathy Ashwood said. “I’m a big fan of your books.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Glad to see that Jim and Bonnie decided to go ahead with the dance,” Ken Ashwood said. “I thought they might cancel, considering what’s been happening here.”

  “I give them credit for trying to keep things as normal as possible,” I said. “It can’t be easy to put on a pleasant face when you’re surrounded by murder.”

  Evelyn Morrison made her entrance just as Jim announced hat dinner was served. She took her customary place at the head of the extended table and spread her napkin on her lap with a flourish.

  “Excellent lasagna,” Seth announced. “My compliments to the chef.”

  “Best I’ve ever had,” Chris Morrison said, licking his lips. “Right, Marisa?”

  His wife, a woman of few words, nodded.

  Bob Pitura was asked about his investigation, but he had little to offer, deflecting the inquiries with a smile and a “Nothing new on that front” response.

  Immediately following dessert, Jim and the wranglers began to move tables and chairs from the dining room in preparation for square dancing. Once the room was cleared, Ken Ashwood said into the microphone, “All right, ladies and gentlemen, it’s time to grab your partner and dance.”

  Neither Seth nor I had square-danced in years.

  “Feel up to it?” I asked him, thinking of his bruises from the fall.

  “Ayuh. Lookin’ forward to it.”

  As much fun as the dancing was, it proved to be more strenuous than I’d remembered. Of course, I was also a little—read “considerably”—older than the last time I’d tried it. I sat out a few of the dances, some of which were incredibly complicated despite the caller’s expert instructions. Seth participated in every dance and seemed to be enjoying himself. Jim, of course, kept the video camera rolling.

  During one of my breaks I found myself focusing on each person in the room and what I knew about them.

  Joel Louden, the cook, like the rest of the staff, danced with enthusiasm. He’d lied to me about having served dinner to Geraldine Molloy the night of her murder. Why would he have done that? Delivering a tray of food wouldn’t cast undue suspicion on him. The worst that would have happened was to be asked about her mood and activities. Also, I thought of his fortuitous arrival at the Powderhorn Ranch the day the regular chef had left. And, he was from Las Vegas, where the Molloys had lived.

  Pitura had ascertained that Paul Molloy lived as a bachelor there, yet Geraldine was introduced as his wife. Nothing especially unusual about that in this day and age of unmarried people living and traveling together. Still, I questioned it. From my brief encounter with him, he didn’t seem like a man who would be embarrassed to share a room with a girlfriend.

  Pauline was next on my visual scrutiny list. I felt handcuffed in pursuing my thesis that she might be the biological daughter of Paul Molloy. With nothing more to go on than that she looked somewhat like him, and more important, that he carried her childhood picture in his wallet, it would have been insensitive, to say the least, to ask the question directly. But I knew that if I didn’t, I’d never know the answer. It wasn’t a soap-opera interest on my part. If she was Molloy’s daughter, it could have a direct bearing upon Molloy’s murder.

  I shifted attention to Chris Morrison, the younger brother, and his taciturn wife, Marisa. Neither struck me as people who might kill someone. Of course, over many years of being involved with murder, I’d learned that judging people in this subjective way could be foolhardy. What was lacking with Chris and Marisa was a motive, unless it harkened back to some deep, dark family secret involving Paul Molloy.

  The reporter, Nancy O‘Keefe, who’d hooked up with Seth in a complex dance, laughed heartily as he failed to navigate some of the trickier moves called by Ken Ashwood. According to Nancy, Molloy, a self-professed “land developer,” was also an alleged international dealer of weapons of potential mass destruction. The Morrison family enterprise was involved in land development, too, and was from Denver where, according to O’Keefe, the arms cabal had been headquartered. One of its members was a woman named Veronica—Veronica Schwinn.

  I took in the staff, who were having a wonderful time. Both Paul and Geraldine Molloy had been killed by tools from the stable. Naturally, anyone on the ranch, including guests, could have taken those tools and used them for murder. For that matter, any resident of the town of Powderhorn and surrounding towns could have done the same. The Morrisons were quick to point a finger at the ranch’s staff, a little too quick, perhaps.

  Aside from Joel Louden’s being from Las Vegas, I wondered whether any other members of the staff knew one or both of the Molloys before their arrival at the Powderhorn.

  Chris Morrison had come to the immediate conclusion that Geraldine Morrison had killed her husband. But her murder obviously dashed that theory.

  Or did it? That theory was based upon a snap judgment that both murders had been committed by the same person. Not necessarily so. It was possible that Geraldine killed her husband, and then was murdered herself by someone else. But I doubted it. I’d reached a conclusion, unsubstantiated by facts, that both Mr. and Mrs. Molloy had been killed by the same individual.

  Craig and Veronica Morrison were a handsome couple, self-assured and comfortable with being treated with deference by lesser mortals. Craig was now a known quantity to me, an unpleasant man who found it funny to have someone think he’d died, and then place that person in a frightening situation. Take that sort of warped view of life and exte
nd it a little, and you have someone capable of inflicting any level of cruelty.

  As for Veronica, she was an unknown entity. I easily dismissed her as a suspect because she wasn’t even at the ranch on the Sunday night Paul Molloy was murdered. I saw her arrive by limousine Monday afternoon. What stuck in my mind was that snippet of conversation between Evelyn and Craig Morrison about her. It was clear Evelyn thought little of her daughter-in-law, and judging from Craig’s response, he wasn’t sufficiently enamored of his wife to mount a defense of her. But maybe no one dared challenge the family matriarch, even when it involved a person you supposedly loved.

  Cousin Willy—whom I would call William from now on—was present at the square dance, but did not participate. He sat in a corner near the caller and sipped a soft drink. What role might he have played in the murders? He didn’t seem the killing type, although a lifetime of being degraded and dismissed could turn anyone’s feelings into a murderous rage. I surmised that he was the family whipping boy, its gofer, someone who would do whatever he was told. Would that include murdering on the family’s behalf?

  I looked again at Joel Louden. He’d lied to me about having been the last person to see Geraldine Molloy alive. But I’d come to that conclusion based solely upon William telling me he’d seen Louden with Mrs. Molloy the night of her death, and before Sue Wennington had confirmed it. It isn’t like me to make judgments based upon a single source. Was I slipping? I hoped not.

  The Morrison children joined their parents in a few dances, but sat out most of them. It was inconceivable to me that either of them would commit murder. But they were old enough. Besides, recent headlines seemed filled these days with tales of youngsters killing people. They shared their own cabin, which meant only they would know of each other’s movements. No, I decided. I could accept one of them lashing out at a family member out of extreme anger, but not committing the murders of Paul and Geraldine Molloy.

  Who did that leave?

  Jim and Bonnie Cook.

  Seth Hazlitt and yours truly.