by Janet Dailey
The lawyer stood to leave, and everyone else rose with him. Beau turned to Sky. “I hope you’re going to tell us what’s in that envelope,” he said. “When are you going to open it?”
Sky shook his dark head. “Not just yet. I’ll know when the time is right.”
Will glanced past him. Jasper had paused in the doorway. His pale eyes appeared to be studying the three men, taking their measure in some secret way. As his gaze met Will’s, he raised a grizzled eyebrow. Then he turned away, leaving Will to wonder what the old man had been thinking.
Sky walked back down the slope toward the paddock, where two of the men had been helping him build a new section of fence. His senses were acutely aware of everything around him—the smells of grass and manure, the whinny of a mare to her foal, the echoing ring of two hammers, striking almost in unison. Through the well-worn soles of his boots he could feel every rock and pebble, every rise and fall of ground. The sun beat down on the felted crown of his Stetson, warming his thick, black hair. Everything was much the same as it had been for years, yet not the same. Whatever was inside the mysterious envelope, he sensed it could have the power to change his life.
He remembered the windy November morning when he’d first wandered onto the ranch, a fifteen-year-old runaway, filthy and shivering in his thin denim jacket, his stomach a gnawing pit of hunger. The name Blanco Springs had been mentioned by his mother, so long ago that he no longer remembered the context, but it had to be a better place than where he’d come from. Maybe she even had folks there. He’d hitched rides from Oklahoma, stopping at farms and ranches on the way to chop wood or shovel out barns in exchange for a meal. The last ride, a truck delivering winter feed, had let him off here, and here he had found a home.
A plump, kind-looking woman had answered his knock at the back door. Too proud to beg, he’d asked for work. She’d taken one look and hauled him into the kitchen. “Go wash up,” she’d directed him. “I’ll fix you some breakfast. Then you can talk to the boss about earning it.”
He’d devoured his way through three platefuls of bacon and eggs, two cups of coffee, and a small mountain of pancakes when a man walked into the kitchen—a terrifying man who looked as big as a barn door, with a bristling mustache and the fiercest, bluest eyes Sky had ever seen.
Sky had possessed the presence of mind to stand.
The man had looked him up and down. “Good. I like a boy with manners,” he’d boomed. “Bernice here says you’re asking for a job. But you look too scrawny to do a man’s work. How old are you, boy?”
“I’m fifteen, sir.” Sky had felt his knees shaking as he answered. “I’m stronger than I look. I’ll work hard for as long as you’ll have me.”
“Sit. Finish your breakfast.” The man had taken a seat on the opposite side of the table. Even sitting down, he’d loomed like John Wayne on steroids. “The name’s Bull Tyler. Mr. Tyler to you. And I’m willing to give you a try at mucking stables—but only a try, mind you. First time I catch you slacking, you’re done, hear?”
“Yes, Mr. Tyler. But I’m no slacker. And I get on with horses. You’ll see.”
“Fine. What’s your name, boy?”
“Sky. Sky Fletcher.”
The big man’s expression had frozen, but only for an instant. “What about your folks? Can I expect them to show up looking for you?”
“No, sir. My mother died when I was three. Her brother’s family in Oklahoma raised me. But I . . .” He’d paused, still feeling the sting of the welts on his back. “I don’t belong there anymore.”
“And your father?”
He’d shrugged. “I never knew him—or anything about him except that he was white and no good.”
“Why no good?”
“Because he didn’t give a damn about my mother or me. A good man would have taken care of us.”
“And what was your mother’s name?”
“Marie. Marie Joslyn Fletcher.”
He rose. “Bernice, we should have some outgrown clothes from the boys. Get those rags off the lad and burn them. Then get him a bath and a toothbrush. When he’s cleaned up, send him out to Jasper.” Without another word, he turned away and strode out of the kitchen.
Bernice had cried out when she saw the welts on Sky’s back. “One thing I can promise,” she’d declared. “Wherever you came from, you’re not going back!”
And so he never had, Sky reflected now. He’d stayed in touch with his cousins and even tried to help Lute, as he’d been helped. But he had no desire ever to see his uncle or aunt again.
Bull had been a fair employer over the years, even insisting that Sky take time off to finish high school. But he’d shown Sky no special attention or favoritism, let alone affection. Whatever place Sky held within the ranch family was the place he’d earned.
Which was why any sort of legacy was so unexpected. In recognition of his service to the ranch . . .
The thin envelope felt like a leaden weight inside his vest. Whatever it held, Sky hoped it wasn’t money. He had money of his own, saved over the years. Not that he had any desire to spend it. Everything he needed was right here on the ranch.
Perhaps he’d be better off not knowing what was in the envelope. Maybe he’d be smart to simply burn it and walk away.
But Sky knew better than to act rashly. Sometimes the wisest course of action was to do nothing. For now he would let the matter rest. The first group of the new colts would be arriving tomorrow. He would have his hands full all summer with their care and training. Whatever was in the envelope had waited this long. It could wait longer.
Glancing back toward the house, Sky saw that Jasper had come out to sit on the porch with the dog. Jasper had spent the past forty years on the ranch. He was as rich in secrets as the silent stone buttes and turrets below the caprock—and he hid those secrets almost as deeply.
He’d shown no curiosity about the contents of the envelope, almost as if he already knew what might be inside.
Checking the impulse to go and talk with him, Sky kept on walking. He would sit with the old man another day. Right now he had more pressing things to do.
The first of Sky’s pupils had arrived. Beau stood with Erin and Jasper outside the fence, watching as twenty-two splendid young horses—yearlings and two-year-olds—thundered out of the long trailers and into the freedom of the grassy paddock.
“Look at that black . . . and, oh, that red one . . .” Erin was beside herself with excitement. Sky had given her the task of naming the new horses, and she took her job seriously. She’d brought a clipboard from the office and was already taking notes. Too bad Will wasn’t here to share this with her, Beau reflected. But Will had driven up to the summer pasture above the caprock to spend the day checking on the cattle herds. He relished being back in action.
Beau knew enough about horseflesh to appreciate Sky’s choices. All fillies and geldings, they were on the small side, solid, compact, and agile. Their eyes shone with alertness and intelligence. When word got around that Sky was training them, interest would be high among ranchers all over the state. Hopefully, when they came to auction, the bidding would be over the top.
Sky, on horseback, seemed to be everywhere at once. He sat his blue roan gelding as if he were part of the animal, guiding the horse more with his knees than with his hands. Back in the day, the Comanche had been the finest horsemen on the plains. Something in that ancient blood had trickled through the generations to pool richly into Sky Fletcher. There was no more logical explanation for his rare gift.
Leaning on the top rail of the fence, Beau watched the milling of bodies and colors—bay and roan, black, silver, paint, and buckskin, dun and claybank, in a kaleidoscope of grace and motion.
His cell phone rang. Seeing Natalie’s name on the display, Beau walked away from the fence to take the call.
“What’s up, gorgeous?” He was in high spirits today.
“Beau, are you alone?” She sounded like a terrified child.
“What is it?
” he asked, alarmed. “Is it Slade? Has he threatened you again?”
“Yes . . . no . . . Listen to me, Beau! The sheriff and his deputy just left here. Slade’s dead. Murdered on your ranch. And they’re on their way to question you.”
CHAPTER 12
It had to be a mistake.
That was Beau’s first thought. Then reality slammed him like a runaway train. Slade Haskell was dead. And it wouldn’t take a Sherlock Holmes to name the prime suspect in his murder.
“Are you all right, Natalie?” he asked, needing to be assured of that.
“I will be.” Her voice quivered slightly. “It’s just the shock of it. You were at the ranch last night, weren’t you? Will can verify that.”
“Call Tori,” he said, ignoring her questions. “Tell her everything the sheriff said.”
“Beau, I’m worried.”
“Call Tori,” he repeated. “Do it now. I have to go.”
Beau ended the call. He wanted to assure her everything would be all right, but he couldn’t promise that—not until he knew more about what had happened.
He had added the sheriff ’s number to his phone contacts after Jess Warner’s murder. Walking back toward the house, he made the call.
“Axelrod,” the deep voice answered.
“Sheriff, this is Beau Tyler. Natalie just called me about Slade. She says you want to talk with me.”
“That’s right.” Beau could hear the crackling sounds of a police radio in the background. “We’re on our way to your place. We’re about fifteen minutes out. Stay where you are.”
“I’d rather meet you.” Beau knew he was innocent. But a roomful of witnesses had seen his fight with Slade and heard his threat to kill the man if he hurt Natalie again. Now Slade had been found murdered on ranch property. It didn’t look good.
Axelrod paused before he answered. “All right. Drive out and meet us on the road. We’ll give you an escort back to town.”
Beau ended the call, an uneasiness churning in the pit of his stomach.
He caught Jasper’s attention as he walked toward the vehicle shed. “I need to run into town,” he said. “I shouldn’t be long.”
When Beau spotted the squad car, there was a second officer driving the tan Jeep Cherokee with the burly sheriff in the passenger seat. As Beau pulled off the road, the sheriff got out and climbed into Beau’s truck. “We can talk on the way in,” he said, shifting in the seat to give Beau a view of the holstered pistol at his belt.
Beau started the engine and pulled onto the road, following the sheriff ’s vehicle. “I can guess what you’re thinking, but I didn’t kill Slade,” he said. “I detested the man, but I’m not a murderer.”
“However, you are a trained killer,” Axelrod said.
“So are thousands of other combat veterans.”
“But you were a specialist. A sniper.”
“What’s that got to do with anything? Was Haskell shot?”
“Since you’re bound to hear it sooner or later, yes. He was shot several times at close range.”
“If I had killed him, which I didn’t, one shot would have been enough. And it wouldn’t have been up close.”
“That remains to be seen. We’ll be testing your hands for gunshot residue of course.”
A curse escaped Beau’s lips. “You’ll find it. I was target shooting with my niece yesterday. Jasper was there—you can ask him if you have to.” Beau was hoping to clear this up without involving anybody else at the ranch, but the way things were looking, that might not be possible. He could sense the wheels turning in Axelrod’s mind—how an explainable shooting event could be used to cover a criminal one.
“What can you tell me?” He steered the conversation away from himself. “Where was Slade? Who found him?”
“A Cessna pilot called it in. He spotted Haskell’s flatbed by the bog, with the body on the ground.”
“Dumped, like the girl?”
“Nope.” Axelrod’s eyes narrowed. “We found blood and casings at the scene. There’s more, but we can cover that in interrogation.”
Interrogation. The word sent a chill along Beau’s nerves. Axelrod, it appeared, had already zeroed in on the most likely suspect. “Do I need a lawyer?” he asked.
The sheriff shrugged. “You’re a smart man and you know the law. Up to you.”
Fifteen minutes later, Beau was seated in a room with a two-way mirror on one wall. The sheriff faced him across a narrow table. The process was one Beau had taken part in countless times. But he’d been the one asking the questions, not the one answering them. He willed himself to stay calm. He was innocent, he reminded himself. He had nothing to hide.
“Can you account for your whereabouts two nights ago between nine o’clock and midnight?” Axelrod sounded as if he’d memorized a script.
“I decided to go into town around nine. Stopped at the Blue Coyote for a few minutes, but it was crowded and I didn’t stay. There was an NBA game on TV. Lakers, I think. Didn’t pay much attention. After that I drove by Dr. Haskell’s, but she wasn’t there, so I drove home. Got there about ten-fifteen.”
“Can anyone verify that?”
“I didn’t talk to anybody at the bar, but Will was awake when I came home.”
“Are you intimately involved with Natalie Haskell?”
The question jolted Beau. Despite his best intentions, his temper began to rise. He’d wanted to keep Natalie out of this, but that wasn’t going to happen. “After Slade beat her up, she filed for divorce. He was set to stand trial for assault and would have most likely gone to jail. She’d have been free to remarry. Why would I want to kill him over Natalie?”
“I’ll take that as a yes to my question.” Axelrod scratched the corner of his grizzled mustache. “Did you or did you not threaten to kill Slade Haskell if he bothered his wife again?”
“I did.” A drop of sweat trickled between Beau’s shoulder blades, soaking into the back of his shirt. It was all circumstantial, but the sheriff was building a damned good case against him.
A manila envelope lay on the table. Opening the clasp, Axelrod slid out a sheet of creased, sweat-stained, blood-spattered white paper enclosed in a plastic sleeve. He passed it across the table to Beau. “Do you recognize this?”
Beau stared at the crudely phrased letter. His stomach contracted. He forced himself to speak calmly. “I’ve never seen it before. Where did you find it?”
“Crumpled inside Slade’s shirt pocket. Isn’t that your signature?”
“It’s a damned good imitation. But I never signed anything like this and I sure as hell didn’t write it.” As Beau studied the grammar-school printing, the awkward sentences, realization dawned. He was being framed—by a perfect storm of circumstances and an enemy clever enough to take advantage of them.
But who was it? And why?
“Did you dust this letter for fingerprints?” he asked, knowing his own prints couldn’t possibly be on it.
“We tried. But the paper was too far gone. This isn’t a blasted TV crime show. We do the best we can with what we’ve got, and sometimes it isn’t much.” Axelrod slid the letter back into the envelope and fastened the clasp. “Must’ve been pretty rough over there in Iraq. I hear tell some men who’ve seen a lot of killing come back messed up in the head. They have spells where they think they’re still in combat.” He glanced up, meeting Beau’s eyes. “You ever have trouble that way?”
“It’s called post-traumatic stress, and that’s just one way it can manifest. I had a few issues after I left Iraq, but I was lucky enough to get help. Apart from some bad dreams, I’ve been fine for years.” Beau had answered similar questions openly in the past. He had no problem with answering this time . . . until a horrific thought struck him.
“Why would you ask me that question?” Beau kept his tone calm and neutral, but his pulse was surging.
“Just thinking, that’s all.” Axelrod brushed a stray fly off his wrist. “We haven’t had a murder in this county for y
ears. Since you came home a few weeks ago, we’ve had two, both of them connected to your ranch. In my line of work, I’ve learned not to believe in coincidences.”
In the tense silence, the droning fly sounded as loud as the engine of a helicopter. Beau rose slowly to his feet. He could feel a vein throbbing in his temple, but he kept his voice level. “You’ve known me most of my life, Sheriff. You’ve known my family and you know our values. So far, you’ve given me nothing but conjecture. Unless you can offer solid proof—”
The door opened partway to admit the deputy. “Excuse me, Sheriff, but there’s something out here you gotta see.”
Axelrod stood, shooting Beau a glare. “Sit down and stay put,” he ordered.
Given no choice, Beau sat and waited. This was a nightmare. He’d had nothing to do with Slade’s death. But he’d had motive, means, opportunity, and no solid alibi. Anyone in the sheriff’s place would’ve brought him in. Hellfire, he would have done it himself.
The sheriff was back, trailed this time by his deputy. “A road worker brought in a rifle, a thirty-thirty he found lying next to the highway. No prints, and we’ll need to wait for the ballistics report, but the caliber matches the casings from the crime scene, as well as the bullets the medical examiner took out of Slade Haskell’s body.
“A thirty-thirty?” Beau shook his head. “Anybody who hunts has a gun like that. There must be thousands of them in the county.”
“But not many with a serial number registered to Bull Tyler,” the sheriff said. “And none that would have Jasper Platt’s name engraved on the stock. That rifle came from your ranch.”
Beau remembered the theft of Jasper’s gun—a gift from Bull. But before he could explain, the door burst open and a tall, blond whirlwind of a woman swept in. “This stops right now!” Tori commanded. “Sheriff, I’m here to represent my client. You’re not to question him unless I’m present.”
