Smokin' Six-Shooter

by B. J Daniels

  “That’s it?” Dulcie said when she caught up to her sister outside Midge’s house.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you what I’d discovered,” Jolene said. “Midge found me. She got Angel…me to some people who located a couple interested in adopting me illegally. It’s still a shock and it’s going to take me a while to…”

  “It’s okay,” Dulcie said, understanding. They were strangers. Sisters, but strangers. In time maybe…

  They turned as Midge came out of the house. “You want to know who killed Laura?” She sounded angry. “Ask Ronda Carpenter. But don’t let that timid act of hers fool you. That woman is capable of murder. She and Laura were the best of friends until she lost her baby.” Midge seemed glad to finally unburden herself of this news. “I heard Rhonda and Ben fighting that night. Could hear them clear up at the house from that old trailer they lived in on our property. Who knows if Ben pushed her or she fell like she swore later, but she lost her baby and Laura Beaumont was dead by that evening. So you tell me who killed Laura.”

  With that Midge went back into the house and slammed the door.

  “ARE YOU ALL RIGHT?” Dulcie asked.

  “Please stop asking me that,” Jolene said as Dulcie drove them away from the Atkinson Ranch. “I know I’m Angel Beaumont, but still, it’s as if everyone is talking about someone else.”

  “I only asked because it’s hard for me to hear these things about our mother,” Dulcie said, her eyes on the road. “I thought it might be for you, too.”

  Jolene stared out the window. “I want to go by her house.”

  Dulcie shot her a look. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “I have to see it. You said yourself that we need to find the killer. If I saw him that day, going to the house might make me remember.”

  “You don’t know what kind of reaction you might have.”

  “If you don’t take me, then I’ll go alone.”

  They drove in silence to the old farmhouse. As Dulcie pulled up in front, she let out a curse. “I locked that door,” she said, cutting the engine. “Someone keeps leaving it open. Don’t you dare say ghosts.”

  Jolene wasn’t about to say it but if there were ghosts, then they would most assuredly be in this house, she told herself as she got out.

  The house loomed in front of her. She stood, waiting to feel something, some sense of having been here before, to hit her like a brick, to make her remember.

  She could feel Dulcie watching her expectantly as she walked toward the house. At the front door, she hesitated, some of her courage deserting her.

  “You don’t have to do this,” Dulcie said at her side.

  Jolene stepped in and grimaced at the smell, but was determined not to let Dulcie see how truly afraid she was.

  As she walked through the living room toward the back of the house, she expected any moment to see something that would send her into some kind of shock.

  She found the kitchen at the back. On the table were a bowl and spoon, a small plate and butter knife. Her last meal with her mother?

  She tried to imagine herself sitting there. Tried to imagine the woman sitting across from her. Her mother.

  “Jolene?” Dulcie asked behind her.

  She shook her head as she moved away from the table and headed for the stairs. Might as well get it over with.

  “Honey, I’m not sure—”

  Jolene didn’t wait to hear what Dulcie had to say. She’d come this far. She had to go upstairs. Part of her prayed that she would remember. She wanted these people to mean something to her. Laura Beaumont. Angel Beaumont. Dulcie, the sister she never knew she had.

  As she hurried up the stairs, her heart a-thunder in her chest, she heard Dulcie at her heels.

  At the top of the stairs, Jolene slowed. All her senses were on alert as she turned. One room caught her eye. A child’s room. Angels painted on the walls. They were as striking as Dulcie had said they were.

  She moved toward the room like a sleepwalker. Angel Beaumont’s room. Her room. At the door she stopped and was surprised when she burst into tears. She felt Dulcie’s hand on her shoulder.

  “Jolene? Do you remember?”

  She shook her head. “I just suddenly felt so sorry for this little girl,” she said, wiping her tears. “There is so much sadness in this room. Loneliness. Can’t you feel it?”

  Dulcie nodded.

  “Where is her room?” She couldn’t bring herself to call Laura her mother. And yet calling her Laura felt wrong, too.

  “Down there.”

  Jolene walked toward the open door to the room at the front of the house. She could see part of a faded yellow curtain billowing in and out on the hot wind.

  Jolene had to force herself, one foot in front of the other, to enter the room. The vanity against the wall, the dresser…She froze as she saw the stained bed. The murder story leaped into her mind and she could see the woman lying on the bed, the killer standing over her, the glint of the knife’s blade in the light.

  After a moment she let the breath out she’d been holding. She could feel Dulcie’s gaze on her, a look of fear and wonder in her eyes—and hope.

  She felt nothing. Even when she told herself that her mother had died here. She couldn’t remember that mother, couldn’t remember this life at all. Thank God.

  “Sorry,” she said to Dulcie as she turned and left the room.

  “Nothing at all?” Dulcie asked as they descended the stairs.

  “Nothing.” Jolene was surprised how relieved she felt. She’d been terrified of what she might remember and how she would react. Now she just felt empty as she and Dulcie left the house.

  At the car, Jolene heard a sound that made her turn and look back. The weather vane on the barn groaned in the wind. Just like the one her adoptive father used to have on his barn—before he had it taken down.

  “I think we’d better go see Ronda Carpenter.”

  “SON?”

  Dragged from his thoughts, Russell turned to find his father standing at the edge of his cabin porch. He’d been mentally kicking himself and hadn’t heard him approach.

  After seeing Nina Mae yesterday, Dulcie had been upset. He’d tried his damnedest to get her to come stay out at the ranch, but she’d refused.

  “I need to be alone for a while,” she’d said. “Truthfully, I have trouble thinking when you’re around.” She’d smiled that incredible smile that made his knees weak and kissed him before shoving him out the door.

  He’d known it was the best thing she could have done. If he’d stayed there in the motel room with her…

  “I was hoping we could talk before supper,” Grayson said, taking one of the porch chairs beside him.

  Russell saw the lines of worry etched in his father’s face and felt a stab of guilt. Of course his father was worried. He’d gone along with the other ranchers and farmers in hiring the rainmaker. And now…

  “I’m sorry, I said I’d talk to the rainmaker…” Russell swore. He’d been so involved with Dulcie that he hadn’t given the rainmaker or rain a thought.

  “The ranchers and farmers are losing their patience,” Grayson said. “If this rainmaker doesn’t have some results soon I’m afraid what some of the hotheads of the bunch might do, true enough. But that isn’t what I wanted to speak to you about.”

  Russell hadn’t been on the ranch much either the past few days. “Is something going on I should know about?”

  “That would be my question,” Grayson said.

  “I’m sorry. I’ve been involved in…Dulcie, the woman I brought to dinner, she found out that she’s one of Laura Beaumont’s daughters. Now she’s more determined than ever to find the person who killed her mother.”

  “She’s a lovely, intelligent, determined woman. I can understand why you’re concerned about her. Surely your brother is looking into this.”

  “Shane’s doing his best since the sheriff is out of town, but the trail is twenty-four years old and the community
isn’t talking.”

  His father raised a brow. “You think the community is protecting the killer?”

  “Maybe. Someone tried to run Dulcie off the road. Shane says he doesn’t think it’s connected.”

  “But you do.”

  Russell nodded. “I’ve tried to reason with her.”

  His father chuckled, then turned serious. “You care a lot about this woman.”

  Russell realized now what was bothering his father. “I would never leave the ranch.”

  Grayson smiled ruefully. “Love makes a man do things he swears he never would.”

  “Can you imagine me in Chicago?” He shook his head. “No matter how I feel about her, nothing will get me away from Trails West Ranch.” Even as he said the words, Russell realized that Dulcie had already gotten him away from the ranch. All his thoughts for days had been about her and only her.

  AT THE RURAL MAILBOX with the word Carpenter crudely printed on the side of the rusted metal, Dulcie turned off the dirt road and into the yard of the run-down farmhouse.

  Two mongrel dogs came charging out, barking. As she cut the engine, she looked over at Jolene, who also was debating whether to get out with both large dogs barking wildly just outside the car.

  The front door of the house swung open. Ronda Carpenter called off the dogs, frowning, as Jolene got out of the car. Her frown deepened when she saw Dulcie.

  Ronda was one of those tiny women, small-boned, late forties and beat-down looking. Jolene had seen her only once before. At her interview for the teaching job. Ronda had been on the parent committee that recommended hiring her.

  “If this is about Mace he isn’t here,” Ronda called. “He and his father went to Havre. Is he in trouble?”

  “No,” Jolene said. “Mace’s fine.”

  Ronda looked relieved but not much. “If you’re here about money for the school or something…”

  “I’m not. Could we step in out of the heat for a few moments?”

  Ronda looked worried as Jolene and Dulcie followed her up the steps and into her kitchen. “I need to get supper made. Ben and Mace will be back soon. I hope this won’t take long.”

  Jolene stood for a moment watching the woman’s trembling hands as she put some water on to boil, took out a large bag of elbow macaroni, a can of cream of mushroom soup and two cans of tuna. Dulcie was glancing around the old farmhouse, seeing, Jolene was sure, the tattered furnishings.

  “I need to ask you about Laura Beaumont,” Jolene said.

  Ronda froze. Slowly she put down the can opener she’d been using on the tuna-fish cans.

  “I heard she was a friend of yours,” Jolene said. “I was hoping you could tell me a little about her.”

  Ronda didn’t turn around. “That was so long ago. Why would you care about—”

  “It’s important or we wouldn’t come here and ask you questions that might upset you,” Jolene said. “We need to know what Ben’s relationship was with Laura.”

  “What?” Ronda clutched the edge of the counter.

  “What she’s asking is, if Ben was having an affair with Laura,” Dulcie said and shrugged when Jolene shot her a warning look.

  “No. Ben? No.” Ronda turned around. She looked sick. “Who are you?”

  “I’m sorry,” Jolene said. “This is Dulcie Hughes. She owns the old Beaumont place.”

  Ronda’s gaze swung to Dulcie, her eyes widening.

  “I’m sorry, but we have to ask you these questions,” Jolene said. “Midge Atkinson told us that her husband fired Ben because he was having an affair with Laura.”

  “John was wrong. He was the one—” Ronda clutched the apron material tied at her waist in both fists. “Ben was never with Laura. She was my friend. You have it all wrong.”

  “Then help us,” Jolene said.

  She was shaking her head, her eyes dull with pain. “Please, you both need to leave now.”

  “I know Tinker tried to protect Angel Beaumont the day her mother died,” Jolene said.

  “Tinker?” Ronda’s gaze cleared. Anger shone in her eyes. “You leave my Tinker alone, you hear me?” She picked up the can opener from the counter and advanced on them as if she meant to strike them. “Get out and don’t you come back. If Ben catches you here…”

  Jolene took a step back and Dulcie was already headed for the door when they heard a vehicle coming up the road.

  “Go,” Ronda cried. “If Ben finds you here, he’ll think it’s about Mace. He doesn’t want Mace turning out like his stepbrother.”

  Dulcie opened the door and they both stepped out on the porch as a truck drove past but didn’t stop.

  Ronda stood in the doorway, hanging on to the knob as if her relief had turned her knees to water. Just before she slammed the door, Jolene saw the hateful look she shot the two of them.

  As the sound of the door slamming died off, Jolene thought she heard someone sobbing on the other side. Huge racking sobs that tore at Jolene’s heart. How many lives had Laura Beaumont destroyed before losing her own?

  “What do you make of that?” Dulcie asked, once they were in the car and far enough away there was no chance of running into Ben Carpenter.

  “I think Ronda is afraid of her husband,” Jolene said.

  “Then why is she still with him after everything he’s done to her? I told you what Nina Mae Cross said about the fight Ronda and Ben had and Ronda losing the baby after a fall. You know the bastard pushed her, just as you know he was having an affair with Laura.”

  “Maybe there’s more to the story.” Jolene hoped so. “We’ll know in the morning,” she said with a sigh.

  Dulcie glanced over at her. “You can’t still expect the end of the murder story? Jolene, if the killer is writing it, then he knows what we’ve been up to. You don’t still think he—”

  “The killer will finish because he wants me to know why he killed Laura,” Jolene said.

  Dulcie was shaking her head. “Why is he going to confess? We are no closer to finding out who killed Laura than when we both arrived in town. The killer has no reason to give himself—or herself—up. Not after twenty-four years. There isn’t going to be any more short story. You have to face the fact that we may never know the truth.”

  RUSSELL LOOKED UP as Dulcie made her way to his table at Northern Lights restaurant. When he’d called earlier to see if she would have dinner with him, she’d sounded discouraged. Now as she walked toward the table, he could see it in her face.

  “Bad day?” he asked as he rose to help her with her chair.

  There were dark circles under her eyes and she looked as if she carried the weight of the world on her shoulders.

  “I feel as if I’m beating my head against a wall.” She filled him in on the talk with Midge Atkinson and Ronda Horton Carpenter as well as what Jolene had found out.

  “I think Ronda Carpenter is in major denial but after meeting her husband, Ben, I can’t imagine how my mother could have been in love with him.”

  “Nina Mae said he changed after the loss of his baby,” Russell reminded her. “If he and your mother were truly in love, her death must have changed him as well.”

  “Of course there is always the chance that Midge is lying, and John was the man my mother was in love with and Ben was the man who got dumped.”

  “I see why you feel like you’re beating your head against a wall,” Russell said.

  “That’s just it. We have no idea who is lying and who is telling the truth. On top of that, Ben’s son, Mace, is one of Jolene’s students and Jolene has been going out with Ben’s stepson, Tinker. What a tangled mess.”

  “Small-town Montana,” Russell said.

  “Do you think Tinker knows who Jolene really is?”

  Russell shrugged. “I wouldn’t worry about it, though. Didn’t he try to protect her when they were kids?”

  “Yes.” She rubbed her temples. “Give me some good news. What did you find out about my mother’s locket?”

  Russell wished he
had good news. “The locket wasn’t on the body, according to the coroner’s report.”

  “Are you telling me the killer took it?”

  “Or it was misplaced during the investigation. I’m sorry. Shane got the DNA reports back.” Russell nodded. “You and Jolene are sisters.”

  “Does Jolene—”

  “She knows. Shane just let me know. He said she took the news fine. Sounds as if she’s accepting that part of it at least.”

  Dulcie shook her head. “I don’t like Jolene out there alone. I wanted to stay with her. I even offered to put her up at the same motel where I’m staying. I’m worried about her.”

  “I’m worried about you.” He met her gaze. All he wanted was to take her in his arms and comfort her. They hadn’t made love since that one and only time at the old farmhouse and that hadn’t been his idea of making love.

  He wanted to get this woman in a proper bed and make love to her the way she deserved. He leaned toward her and said as much.

  She gave him a broad smile, light shining in her dark eyes, along with a challenge. “So what’s stopping you?”

  “I want your undivided attention.” He wanted more than that, but he was smart enough not to voice it. He got the impression she wanted this to be casual. He didn’t do casual.

  She sobered and looked toward the bank of dark windows. “I can’t give you what you want right now.”

  “I know,” he said. “So what now?”

  “We wait and see if the killer finishes the murder story,” Dulcie said. “Or did you mean with me and you?”

  AFTER DULCIE LEFT RUSSELL in the parking lot by the restaurant with little more than a brief kiss, she felt restless. She’d hoped he would change his mind and come back with her to the motel.

  But she understood how he felt. He was the kind of man who fell hard when he fell for a woman. He was afraid of falling for her and with good reason.

  She knew she wasn’t going to be able to sleep. Just as she knew that she’d purposely let herself be distracted with Laura Beaumont’s murder. She didn’t want to think about what her grandparents had done.

  Nor did she want to examine too closely how she felt about Russell Corbett.