Blood Ties

by Sigmund Brouwer

  Doris. Nick Buffalo’s girlfriend. It was a double shock to Kelsie. Painful as it was, the first shock had been the lightest to bear. Nick Buffalo sweet on Doris? The two-timer. He’d been with her, Kelsie thought, and he’d betrayed her. And he’d betrayed Doris, too. It shattered Kelsie’s romantic illusions about sweet kisses in the moonlight.

  The second shock was worse. There had been a woman mentioned in the letter as punishment to Nick, a punishment because Kelsie’s attention had been on Nick. And to make it worse, it had happened the night she and Nick were kissing in the moonlight.

  It was Kelsie’s fault that Doris Samson had died.

  Sitting back from the table, staring sightlessly as Lawson mopped up the spilled coffee, more of the horror dawned on Kelsie. Whoever had read her diary knew about Nick. Whoever had read the diary had left her the warning letter. That meant whoever had written the letter had killed Doris.

  Who? Why?

  Kelsie had never felt more like a little girl wanting to throw herself into her daddy’s arms. But she couldn’t. She couldn’t confess. She couldn’t ask for help.

  Hadn’t the letter also told her to keep it secret? Hadn’t the letter warned of more punishment? If she told her father, he might be killed next. Or Michael. Or Lawson.

  Instead of blurting out her fears, Kelsie had blamed her near hysterical reaction at the kitchen table on her monthly cycle – she’d discovered the subject unnerved her normally fearless father – and had excused herself, saying she needed to get back to painting the next shed.

  Then, that afternoon, the tall FBI man had arrived asking after Johnny Samson. He hadn’t been much to look at, but she’d sensed an undercurrent of strength similar to the one her daddy had, and on an impulse, without explaining why, she’d asked the FBI man for a way to call him.

  He hadn’t asked for an explanation but had handed her a card with a number where she could leave her name and a message if he wasn’t there.

  The FBI man had smiled as he said good-bye. Kelsie had noticed the smile had done something nice to his eyes and the angular lines of his cheekbones, and she had wondered about the sadness in his smile. She’d wondered and watched after him. all the way until he reached Johnny Samson and Sonny Cutknife.

  Now, in bed with the sunlight across her face and the headache she wanted to ignore, she found herself thinking about the man’s unhurried, easy manner of speaking and how for a moment the sad smile had transformed his face. Maybe she read too many romances, but she was willing to bet there was a story in that smile.

  Aside from that, of course, was the card he had given her. She’d thought plenty about it before falling asleep. There was no way she could call Sheriff Fowler and tell him about the letter. The sheriff knew the family too well. Maybe this FBI man would swear an oath of secrecy and help her. How could the mysterious watcher person find out then that she had told someone about the letter?

  On the other hand – Kelsie swung her feet out of her bed – whoever had written the letter was beyond creepy. If he actually did find out, there was no telling what he might do.

  Kelsie smoothed down her T-shirt – extra large, it served as a comfortable nightgown – and moved down the hallway. She had this end of the house to herself and enjoyed the privacy of her own bathroom.

  She wanted a cool drink of water then a good, hot shower. She stepped into the bathroom and locked the door.

  She rubbed the sleep from her eyes then reached for the glass on the sink. A large feather was propped upright inside it.

  No.'

  She took a deep breath, trying to calm herself.

  There was a folded piece of paper beneath the glass. Her legs began to buckle. She sat on the closed toilet seat and pressed her hands beneath her knees to keep them from trembling.

  It must have been five minutes before she found the courage to open the note. The paper shook so badly in her hands she had to place it on the sink counter to read it.

  You are safe because I am watching over you. All through the night. Remember our sacrid bond and keep it secrit.

  The doors to the ranch house were never locked. Last night someone had crept inside to this bathroom, Kelsie thought, past the bedroom where she slept. Who? Why?

  Somehow, she found the energy to stand. She told herself to pretend everything was normal. She told herself to shower, to concentrate on an ordinary task to take her mind off this horror.

  It didn’t work. All she could think about was that a killer was stalking her, slipping into the house as she slept. He had invaded her house, and worst of all, she could not tell anyone. She was alone, with no place to hide. Her father, the one person who was a rock of strength through everything, could not help, close and comforting as his presence might be.

  The fear nauseated her, and her stomach began to heave. There was no time to lift the toilet lid. She lurched to the sink and emptied her stomach, running water as much to disguise the sound of retching as to clean the sink.

  When she had finished, she kept leaning against the sink, willing herself to find the energy to straighten.

  And when she did, she stared at her reflection in the mirror in disbelief.

  Part of her hair had been snipped. He had taken hair from her head during the night; he had been that close to her.

  But that wasn’t the worst.

  The man had written in lipstick across her forehead. The letters were written in reverse so that the sentence blazed back into her eyes: I LOVE YOU.

  What had the note said? I am watching over you. All through the night.

  He had stood over her during the night. He had stared down on her. He had listened to her breathe. He had reached down and touched her.

  Kelsie fought an urge to scream. It might bring her daddy. If he asked, she would have to explain, and her father would go looking. And then the stalker might kill her father because she’d told.

  The urge to panic rose. She grabbed a hand towel, held it against her mouth, and screamed.

  9:50 a.m.

  “What’s the word from J. Edgar today?” Fowler said into the telephone. With his free hand, he scratched the back of his head in unconscious irritation. The sooner this FBI rookie left the valley, the better.

  “I talked with some of the waitresses Doris worked with down at Clem’s diner.”

  “Yeah?”

  “They said she used to be real wild. You know anything about that?”

  “Some.” Fowler’s heart responded much differently than the boredom in his voice might have indicated. This would be a good time, he thought, to cooperate enough to keep the rookie from thinking anything was strange and begin his own digging, yet not so much cooperation that Clay could ever make a link to the cabin in the hills. Even if none of the men had done this to Doris, it didn’t need to get out that their hunting trip had been an expedition for two-legged Bambis.

  “We’re looking into it,” Fowler continued. “But we also heard she stopping running wild about six months ago.”

  “She joined a church,” Clay said. “But you probably knew that.”

  “Once we get the reports typed up, look through ’em.” Fowler kept his voice surly. Too much sudden cooperation would also seem suspicious.

  “Yesterday I heard she might have had one recent boyfriend. A guy named Nick.”

  “Nick. That helps. We’ll APB statewide for someone named Nick.”

  “He knows a Sonny Cutknife, who works for a valley rancher named James McNeill,” Clay replied. “I was thinking it might be easier for your men to track him down than me. And her boyfriend is the logical place to start asking questions.”

  “Keep that manual open,” Fowler said, still sarcastic. “What’s it say on the next page?”

  “Treat local authorities with the respect they deserve – which in this case, leaves me some room for interpretation.”

  Fowler could not help but chuckle. The ugly, tall, serious-looking kid hadn’t seemed capable of humor, and the surprise was as effective as t
he reply. “Score one for the FBI. We’ll send someone out to the ranch to ask this Sonny Cutknife about Nick.”

  “Thank you,” Clay said. “By the way, Sheriff, any progress on the fingerprints your report showed on the murder weapon?”

  “None,” Fowler said, “none at all. Trust me; we’d let you know.”

  * * *

  “Two Car.” Sheriff Fowler made it sound like an order, not a question, as he paused at the reception area of the downtown office. Two Car had the desk farthest away from the door. Fowler preferred anyone else to deal with people who walked in.

  “Chief?” Ronald Duggan said in response, sitting well back from his desk because of his girth. Duggan drove the second of the force’s three cars. Over the radio once, the dispatcher had called for Two Car to report, instead of calling for Car Two. Because of Duggan’s size, the nickname had stuck. Duggan weighed 280 pounds. Little of it was muscle, because Duggan was not an athletic man. Physically and mentally, he was overwhelmingly unqualified for police work. As a rookie ten years and one hundred pounds earlier, however, he’d had the good fortune of walking into Wayne Anderson’s First National Bank during a bank robbery and getting shot twice in the abdomen. Although the two robbery suspects got away to be caught at the next bank down in Helena, and although Duggan received a reprimand for attempting to make a personal bank deposit on duty, the severity of the wounds made him an instant hero and guaranteed him lifetime employment, regardless of the corning and going of any town administration, regardless of how much it irritated Fowler to be called “Chief.”

  “I don’t hear the typewriter,” Fowler said. “And I know you’ve barely got half the report done.”

  “Half? Chief, I –”

  “You spent two days knocking on doors, calling every person who had been registered at the motel, and going through the reservation talking to friends and relatives of the deceased. I know you didn’t learn a thing. That’s not the point. The point is I want the name of everyone you spoke to, where they were at the time of death, the weather, what you ate, how often you changed your underwear, and anything else you can think of to make it the longest report in the history of this department. Don’t you get it? If Hoover’s boy is going to look over our shoulders on this, we’re going to bury him in paperwork. I expect a report in triplicate, and I want it on my desk by morning.”

  Fowler grabbed his hat from the coatrack. “I’ll be gone the rest of the day. Don’t even think of looking up from your desk, let alone going out for coffee and doughnuts.”

  Two Car knew better than to ask where Fowler was going. When the Chief was in this kind of mood, the less said, the better.

  “Sure, Chief.”

  Fowler walked out without replying. His mood, though, was much better than it appeared to Two Car. Once Fowler was outside, heading toward the patrol car, he actually began to whistle.

  Out of the seven others at the campfire, he’d already eliminated four men in his search for the owner of the fingerprints on the corkscrew murder weapon in Doris Samson’s death. These were the four men easiest to reach first, the four men who lived and worked in Kalispell – Wayne Anderson, Judge Thomas King, and the two county council representatives. None of their prints matched the ones on the beer can. Yet one set of beer-can prints matched the murder-weapon prints. So he was down to three – Lawson McNeill, then Rooster and Frank Evans at the ranch that neighbored the McNeill spread.

  Fowler would visit each in turn. Then, since he’d be in the foothills anyway, he’d spend a few hours fly-fishing. After that, he’d return to his one-car garage, dust whatever objects he had chosen for fingerprints, and discover which of the three had murdered Doris Samson.

  Simple. And he was looking forward to the results.

  Fowler was a betting man, and he’d give odds his man was Frank Evans. The old crank had always grumbled at James McNeill for “hiring no-good redskins” and was the mean-spirited, vindictive kind able to give you a long, detailed grievance list of who had done him wrong, when, and why over the last twenty years. Besides, both boys were as unlikely a candidate as Frank was likely. Lawson McNeill didn’t have the guts and backbone of the old man. The boy did have a high opinion of himself, but it was based on what he’d been given in both money and name when the old man adopted him, not by what he’d earned. As for Rooster, that kid was so good-natured and quiet, it was inconceivable he’d puncture a woman’s body with a corkscrew.

  Nope, it wouldn’t be the boys, Fowler thought. The murderer had to be Frank Evans, whose neck was far redder than any Flathead skin.

  Fowler continued to whistle tunelessly as he drove out of Kalispell toward the wall of hills at the edge of the valley. As always, it amused him to see the flash of brake lights and the sudden caution in driving habits as people noticed him in their rearview mirrors.

  Once out of town, Fowler let his mind drift away from the finger-prints and Doris Samson’s murder. There was this one pool where he’d spooked a big brown a few weeks earlier, and if he got what he needed from both ranches early enough, he’d have a chance to try again, and this time he’d be a lot more cautious on his approach. All it took was a shadow on the water or the vibration of heavy walking to warn a smart fish. Fowler was determined to hook the brown by the end of the summer, even if he had to crawl a half-mile to do it.

  Thinking of what joy it would be to battle the trout, Fowler stopped whistling long enough to grin with self-satisfaction. Life was like fishing, wasn’t it? That was something Frank Evans was about to discover. Whatever you did, it paid to make sure you were on the right end of a fishing rod, where you had your hand on the reel, not your mouth around a sharp hook.

  12:12 p.m.

  Sonny backed a red Massey-Ferguson tractor toward the fence posts he’d watched Johnny and the FBI pig unload from the truck the day before. Johnny Samson and Nick Buffalo were standing to the side of the pile, waiting for Sonny to reach them.

  Sonny watched for Nick’s hand signals and maneuvered the tractor’s rear end into position near a hydraulic post driver. Then Nick waved for him to cut the motor. Sonny switched off the ignition and hopped down. He grinned at Johnny.

  “Too bad your girlfriend ain’t up there painting sheds. I noticed you looking for her. I been wondering why she ain’t there. She’s got two sheds left to do. Maybe she decided to go for a nap this afternoon instead. Think of that, Johnny. Her sleeping cute and cuddly, just waiting for a big buck like you.”

  “Sonny,” Nick said, moving to the back of the tractor. “Shut up. You talk too much.”

  “Sure, Nick.” Sonny didn’t pause a beat as he continued speaking to Johnny. “You ever put posts in before?”

  Johnny shook his head. He noticed that while Sonny was lighting another smoke, Nick was kneeling to attach the hydraulic system of the post driver to a shaft sticking out between the big back tires.

  “He’s hooking it to the PTO,” Sonny explained, exhaling smoke. “You know what that is, right?”

  Johnny shrugged, not committing himself to an answer, in case Sonny challenged him on it.

  “PTO. Power takeoff. The PTO’s like a drive shaft. Gun the tractor motor, and it drives whatever you attach to it. Like this post driver.”

  “Sure,” Johnny said. It was beginning to bother him that Sonny had this need to show off how much he knew.

  “PTO.” Sonny laughed. “I love that phrase. It’s like when I’m smoking a joint, I’ll lay back and wait, thinking to myself, PTO, come on and get me.”

  Johnny didn’t laugh.

  “Hey, Nick, get it?” Sonny laughed again. “Drugs and PTO. You get high, it’s like a power takeoff.”

  “Got it,” Nick said, sounding angry.

  “Get Doris out of your head,” Sonny told him. “It’s filling you with bad energy. You can’t help it she died. You can’t bring her back.”

  “I miss her,” Nick said, straightening from the tractor. His hands were dark with grease.

  “Don’t be stupid. You
can always find some other honeypot to –”

  Johnny tackled Sonny. They hit the ground hard, rolling into the stacked fence posts.

  “That’s my sister you’re talking about,” Johnny said, his face right in Sonny’s, surprised he’d jumped Sonny, wondering if he was supposed to take a swing now.

  Effortlessly, Sonny pushed Johnny off. It surprised Johnny how strong Sonny was.

  Sonny wasn’t angry though. He stood and brushed himself off then reached down for his cigarette, bent but still smoldering, and took a drag without straightening it. “You and me, we’re even, all right? I should break your nose for jumping me, but I was out of line saying what I did about your sister. I forgot you were there.”

  “All right,” Johnny said, hands at his side and trying not to pant for breath. There was something spooky about Sonny’s flat eyes and his steady stare. Angry as Johnny was, he couldn’t forget how easily Sonny had thrown him to the side.

  Nick ignored them and started the tractor.

  Sonny and Nick showed Johnny how to put in a fence post. The bottom ends of the posts, of course, had been pre-sharpened so they looked like giant pencils. After the post was set into position, Sonny or Nick would adjust the driver and hold the post steady.

  The driver itself was like an upside-down L with a bucket-sized weight of concrete on top. When the hydraulic handle was released, the length of the driver would slide down the length of the post and slam the weight into the top of the post, driving the post deeper and deeper with ground-shaking force. They set the posts in the ground every twenty-five feet. Michael McNeill had instructed them to make a giant perimeter for a new corral three hundred feet long, a hundred feet wide.

  An hour into it, Sonny abruptly stepped away from setting the posts, reached up to the tractor ignition switch, and cut the motor. The sudden silence rang in Johnny’s ears.