by B. J Daniels
Still he’d expected his friend to come if only to tell him it was none of his business. Or maybe something had come up. But he couldn’t help worrying. The Johnny who’d come up the mountain with groceries for him was the old Johnny he’d kept in touch with the past nine years. The one he’d grown up with.
The one he’d seen in the man’s new split-level house was running scared. And not just of his father. That had Trask more than a little worried.
As he started to leave, he saw the flash of metal through the trees. Johnny pulled his shiny new car in and cut the engine before climbing out.
From the defeated look on his face, it was clear that Johnny hadn’t wanted to come. Trask said as much as he got out to greet him.
“You have no idea what kind of pressure I’ve been under, still am,” Johnny said as he stood shifting on his feet. “The house, the car I drive, the big diamond on my fiancée with a champagne appetite... Not to mention the pressure my father puts on me with his...demands of me.”
“You sound like a man about to crack and break, Johnny.”
His friend let out a bitter laugh. “I’m way beyond that.”
“I know Gordon’s death is tied in to whatever was going on at the construction company nine years ago,” Trask said. “I’m going to find out the truth. I’d rather hear it from my best friend.”
Johnny looked away for a moment. When his gaze came back to Trask, there were tears in his eyes. “I knew when you called to say you’d come back that nothing would stop you.”
“Is that why you encouraged me to stay away all these years?” His friend didn’t have to answer. “Johnny, how deep are you in this mess? I know you were stealing materials, but I’m guessing it went much deeper than that.”
Johnny sighed and sat down on a log near the creek as if his legs no longer held him. He put his head in his hands for a minute. When he looked up, there was even more defeat in his expression.
“Nine years ago Gordon found out that someone had been embezzling money from the company,” Johnny said, his voice cracking. “Not me,” he added quickly with a shake of his head. “My father.”
Trask stared at him, too shocked to speak for a moment. “What happened when Gordon found out?”
Johnny looked away again. “He threatened to have my father arrested if he didn’t pay back every dime of it, plus interest. Dad had financial problems I was completely unaware of, everyone was, including my mother. In order to raise that kind of money he would have had to sell everything including our house and still would have come up short. It wasn’t good enough for Gordon.” He sighed. “I couldn’t let Gordon turn him in. Skip was willing to work with a repayment plan, but Gordon...”
Trask swore and stepped back from his friend, half-afraid of what he might do if he didn’t. “If you’re going to tell me that you killed Gordon—”
“No, of course not. But I did go out to the ranch that night to try to talk some sense into him. I’m the one Brittany heard arguing with Gordon, the one she saw leaving the stables that night, but I swear to you, Gordon was alive when I left.”
Trask shook his head. Brittany? Gordon’s daughter was the eyewitness? “But you didn’t come forward when the sheriff was looking for that man—a man that you knew wasn’t me.”
Johnny looked as if he might break down. “I couldn’t. I wanted to. But my father—”
“Screw your father,” he snapped. “Your father is a thief. He turned you into a thief. That’s why you were stealing the material off the jobs.” Johnny hung his head. “You sold me out to protect your father? How do you know that your father didn’t go see Gordon himself and kill him after you left?”
His friend slowly raised his head. “My father may be a thief, but he’s not a murderer.”
“Are you sure about that?” He could see that Johnny wasn’t. “You have to go to the sheriff and tell him what you’ve just told me. Johnny, you owe me that.”
He nodded, his throat moving as he swallowed. “I’ve tried to. But it will destroy not just my father, but my mother, my...fiancée. My entire family. Not to mention what it will do to the construction company. We are just coming back from the recession. This kind of publicity...”
Trask had always known the kind of hold Johnny’s father had on him. What he hadn’t seen before was the kind of man it had turned his friend into. “Stop lying. You’re the only one you’re protecting. I knew you were a thief, but I never thought you were a coward.” He turned and started toward his pickup.
“It’s easy for you,” Johnny called after him. “No one had any expectations for you or your family.”
Trask didn’t turn. He felt sick inside for Johnny. As for expectations, he’d learned that he was the only one who could change the situation he’d been born into. Johnny unfortunately hadn’t learned that.
* * *
AFTER FINDING JENNA HOLLOWAY’S CAR, Flint called in the state crime techs to search the Holloway farm. They were able to get a unit out that afternoon.
By now everyone in the county was debating not about whether Anvil had killed his wife, but where he might have buried her body.
He thought of the case where a woman who killed her husband told everyone he left her and later hired a backhoe operator to cover up what she said was a new septic tank beside the house.
Murderers often did something telling like rent a jackhammer to dig up the concrete floor in their basement. Or buy new carpet for the bedroom. Or suddenly take up flower gardening in their backyards.
But Anvil hadn’t rented a backhoe or a jackhammer. Or bought chemicals that dissolved body parts at one of the local stores.
He had mopped the kitchen floor, though. Preliminary tests of the traces of blood in the cracks in the linoleum hadn’t been of a sufficient amount to indicate a murder had taken place in the kitchen.
Still, it was time to step up the search. More and more, he feared that Jenna was dead and possibly buried somewhere on the farm.
Flint was determined to take one more shot at the farmer that afternoon, hoping he could appeal to Anvil’s cheapness if nothing else.
He led the DCI team out to the farm and found Anvil working on an old tractor at the edge of a plowed field when they drove up. The farmer glanced up but then continued with what he was doing.
Getting out of the patrol SUV, Flint walked out to the tractor. The day was hot for this early in the spring, the sky looking faded above the new green of the grass of the foothills.
“Don’t mean to keep you from your work,” Flint said as he leaned against one large nearly bare treaded tire. “I have a warrant here. These state crime scene techs are going to be searching your house, outbuildings, your farm. Got to do it, you know, but if they don’t find her, then they will expand their search here in the county. Hate to see that. Could take weeks. Going to cost the state a pretty penny. Seems a shame.”
Anvil had been listening, but now he stopped, wrench in hand, to look at the sheriff. “She isn’t here. I already told you that. Waste of time looking. She’s run off with some man, I’m telling you.”
“Maybe so, Anvil, but it’s out of my hands. You haven’t heard from her. No one has. At this point, we have to consider foul play was involved.”
Anvil took off one of his gloves to rub a hand over his face.
“This won’t end until she’s found, one way or the other,” Flint said. “If there is anything else that you can think of that might help...”
Anvil shook his head. “No matter what happens now everyone is going to believe I killed her. I’ve seen the way people look at me. Women avoid me in the grocery store. People I’ve known all my life have nothing to say to me. I pray you do find her, not that things will ever be the same.”
He went back to work and Flint left him at it. A fly buzzed noisily next to his ear as he walked back to his patrol SUV. In t
he distance, he could see a crime scene tech leading a dog into a stand of trees by the creek.
* * *
WHEN JUNIOR WAINWRIGHT called again to say what a great time he’d had and suggested another date, Lillie knew she had to quit ducking his calls and be truthful with him.
Trask had dropped back into her life. If things had been different... But they weren’t. She loved Trask. No matter how this turned out, she would always love Trask.
“I just don’t want you to get the wrong idea.”
“That you like me, that we’re just friends, that you had a good time the other night? Or that the kiss was anything more than a thank-you?”
She laughed. “Okay, you have the right idea.”
“So go out with me again.”
She was smiling. She actually liked Junior. For years it had only been Trask. She hadn’t let herself even consider that there might be someone else for her.
But Trask had her heart and every waking thought. Junior might have been what she needed—had Trask not come back. He was kind, considerate, loyal... She realized she could be talking about a dog.
Junior was fun and...stable. She could count on him being around tomorrow. Junior was...safe. And right now safe sounded wonderful.
“I can’t.” Nor could she tell him why, that Trask was back. “It’s complicated.”
He laughed. “It’s Trask. Okay. You’re still waiting. But, Lillie, I can’t wait any longer.”
“You shouldn’t.” She felt sad. “Thanks, Junior. I really did have a good time.” She hung up, angry with herself. She really had been waiting for Trask all those years. He was the only man for her.
But unless they found out who killed Gordon before word got out that Trask was back in town...
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
FLINT WAS GOING to be late for his date if he didn’t hurry. He swore under his breath as he quickly finished dressing, excited about tonight, excited about seeing Maggie.
He’d gotten Ethel at the café to set him up with a dinner for his date. It was warming in the oven. Now it was just a matter of picking up Maggie.
His cell phone rang. For a moment, he considered not answering it. Until he saw that it was his undersheriff calling.
“Sheriff, I’m sorry to bother you after you specifically said you didn’t want any calls tonight, but we have a situation down here.”
“Mark, I’m sure you can handle it.” Flint trusted his undersheriff, Mark Ramirez. If it had been Harp calling, that would have been a different story.
“It’s Celeste Duma.”
“What?” He couldn’t believe this.
“She called on a domestic dispute. I’m holding Wayne. He swears he never touched her and is threatening to sue the department. The mayor’s down here. And now Celeste isn’t sure she wants to file charges of physical abuse against him.”
“Wait a minute. She said he physically abused her?” Wayne Duma was an arrogant prick. But an abuser?
“She has a black eye and a split lip. The doctor is with her now. He thinks her ribs might be cracked.”
Holy hell. “And she swears Duma did this to her?”
“She did. That’s why I hauled them in. They were having a hell of a fight when I got there. He swears she’s making it all up.”
“She’s making up a black eye, a split lip and cracked ribs? Who does he say did that to her?”
“He doesn’t know. He just swears it wasn’t him. He says she’s a psychopath.”
Flint thought of the woman he’d been married to for the short time before she’d left him for Wayne Duma. He swore under his breath as he saw the time. He was supposed to pick up Maggie in twenty minutes. “I’ll be right down.”
* * *
IT WAS STILL early when Gordon Quinn’s daughter, Brittany, came into the Stagecoach Saloon dressed as if she’d been at a rodeo. She sidled up to the bar with a group of her friends. “Beer,” she ordered loudly, slapping her hand on the bar, and laughed. Her friends laughed with her.
Brittany was a few years younger than Lillie, but they’d gone to school together. There’d been no love lost between them. Brittany had been a bully, too cute for her own good and spoiled, since she came from what Gilt Edge considered a rich family. Gordon had come from money, then started the construction company, bought the ranch and done well for himself.
Lillie and Brittany had coexisted well enough in the small community, until Brittany made a play for Trask not long before her father’s murder—and Trask’s exit.
“I was just thinking about you,” Lillie said.
“Really?” Brittany seemed pleased to hear it.
“Is your mother back from her trip to Denver?”
“You mean my stepmother, Caroline?” The young woman made a face, slurring her words a little. “She’s back. Why do you care?”
“I wanted to talk to her about your father’s murder.”
Brittany’s blue eyes widened in surprise. Or was that alarm? “Why in the world would you want to do that after all these years?”
“Because the killer was never caught.”
“Don’t you mean your boyfriend was never caught?”
“Trask didn’t kill Gordon.”
Brittany smiled. “You just keep telling yourself that.” She sighed, clearly bored with the conversation. “I said beer. Beer for everyone,” she said, motioning to her friends she’d brought in with her. “And one for my horse.” That got another laugh.
“I think you’ve had enough,” Lillie said.
Brittany reared back. “Did you hear that?” she demanded of her friends and then leaned in, her eyes narrowing. “You listen to me, Little Lillie.”
Darby was suddenly at Lillie’s elbow. “I have this,” he said under his breath. He must have seen the fire in Lillie’s eyes because he gave her a little push toward the other end of the bar. Then he smiled at Brittany and said, “So what’s up, Brit?”
Brittany stuck out her lower lip. “Your sister won’t give me a drink.”
Darby rubbed his hand along his jaw as if giving that some thought. “I’ll tell you what. We have a little game we play here. Consider it a challenge.” Brittany was always up for a challenge. “If you and your friends can walk the board...” He pointed to a board that had been nailed to a baseboard and painted white. It measured two inches by eight feet. “...without falling off the entire length, I’ll be happy to pour you a cold one.”
For a moment Brittany looked as if she wanted to argue, but one of her friends cheered her on. “Go, Brit. You can do it, Brit.”
Darby came around the bar to pull the apparatus out onto the open floor. Lillie watched with disgust, but at the same time, with a grudging respect for her brother’s way of handling it. She’d been ready to throw Ms. Quinn out on her butt—after a fight, of course. But she’d been looking for a fight with the young woman for a long time.
Brittany tossed her cowboy hat on the bar and pretended to get ready for her stunt. Everyone was watching, including the regulars at the bar. Walking the plank, as it had become known, always drew a crowd. Lillie figured most everyone was hoping Brittany fell on her ass. Or maybe it was just her.
The intoxicated Ms. Quinn stepped up on the two-inch-wide board. It had been Darby’s idea to put it in the bar.
“We have to be careful that we don’t serve anyone who’s already drunk,” he’d said. “This way, it makes it fun but gets our point across. A cop pulling them over leaving our bar isn’t going to make it so much fun if they are too drunk to drive. Here, they fail, we pull their keys and get them a sober designated driver.” He’d shrugged and Lillie had loved the idea.
Brittany teetered, took a step, then another and fell off. “Not fair. I get more than one chance.” She tried again and failed. Her friends were losing in
terest quickly. Brittany was no longer the center of attention.
“How about some burgers?” Darby suggested.
Brittany’s friends decided they would forgo the plank for burgers. Several of them put an arm around Brittany and led her to a large table away from the bar. Darby gave them all colas, then turned to Kendall. “Mind watching the bar for a moment?” He motioned for Lillie to follow him to the kitchen.
As he took burgers from the refrigerator and tossed a half dozen onto the grill to cook, Lillie joined him. “You’re really good at this,” she said.
“Ah, it’s nothing. They’re just burgers.”
“You know that’s not what I mean. I’m impressed with the way you handled that in there.”
He looked up from where he was cooking on the grill. It was one of their usually slow times. He’d already sent Billie Dee home. “I’ve always wanted to impress you, little sis, because you blow me away. This place was your idea. You called it and it’s been good for us. I’m going to close up after this bunch leaves. Why don’t you go on up. I can handle Brittany and her friends.”
“She’s like putty in your hands because she likes you.”
He grinned. “What’s not to like?”
“You have a point. You sure you and Kendall can handle it?”
“Easy peasy. Get some rest.”
* * *
HAVING GOTTEN OFF work early, Lillie had been too restless to stay home. She knew that sleep wasn’t what she needed. She called Trask, but his phone went to voice mail. She didn’t leave a message. Wherever he was, whatever he was doing, he didn’t need to hear about Emery and Vernon. He would know soon enough, she feared.
The last time they’d talked was on the mountain after the cabin he’d been staying in had exploded in flames.
I don’t want you helping me anymore, he’d said. It’s too dangerous. I need you to stay close to home where you’re safe.
She’d tried to argue, but he’d pushed her into her pickup and told her to go home. She had.
But she wasn’t about to stop. They were too close. If he didn’t want to run, then they would stay and find the killer and fast. The memory of the cabin exploding, though, still had her shaken. Someone had blown it up believing Trask was inside. Or that she was inside with him?
