Hitched!

by B. J Daniels

  “What’s the story on Ray Jr.?”

  “Goes by RJ. Thirty-four, no visible means of support, lives with his father.”

  And yet he’d purchased himself a new expensive car on the day his father was murdered?

  “The housekeeper found Ray Sr.’s body—and the safe—wide-open. She says she saw Ray Sr. putting a large amount of cash into the safe just that morning. According to the eyewitness, RJ and his stepsister left together in a large, newer-model black car at around the time of death estimated by the coroner. Didn’t get a make and model on the car.”

  “Sounds like the one we just pulled from the Missouri River.”

  McCall filled him in on what they had so far—one female victim in the same age range as Josephine Vanderliner and a car registered to Ray Allan Evans Jr., driver missing and suspected drowned. “We’re dragging the river now for a possible third body,” she told him.

  Detective Diaz sent her photographs of both Ray Jr. and Vanderliner.

  McCall watched them come up on her screen. Ray Evans Jr. first. A good-looking, obviously rich kid from the sneer on his face. She thought of the abuse her Jane Doe had suffered before being hanged and drowned. Did he look like a man capable of that? Or was he also a victim of foul play?

  McCall held her breath as she clicked on the photograph of Josephine Vanderliner.

  JOSEY TOUCHED HER NAPKIN to the corner of her mouth, then carefully placed it beside her dessert dish before rising to follow her “husband” outside.

  “That was awkward,” she heard Aunt Virginia say, as Josey left the dining room. “So what does the note say?”

  “Not now, Virginia.”

  “He killed himself because of you, didn’t he?”

  As Josey reached the front door she heard what sounded like a slap followed by a cry and glass breaking. She didn’t look back as she pushed open the door and stepped out into the fresh air.

  Spotting Jack down by the barn, she walked in that direction, just glad to be out of the house. She figured Jack wanted to be alone and certainly wouldn’t want her company. For appearance’s sake, she had needed to go after her husband. She hadn’t wanted to feel his pain, but her own emotional pain was so near the surface and had been for too long. She knew family drama and how it could tear you apart from the inside out.

  Josey slowed as she neared. He stood with his back to her, his head high as if he were gazing out across the ranch. The sun hung over the Little Rockies in the far distance, the sky ran from horizon to horizon, so wide and deep blue, she could understand why Montana was called Big Sky Country.

  Jack didn’t look at her as she joined him at the corral fence. He’d opened himself up back there at dinner, and even though she hadn’t known him long, she was sure he regretted it. He’d exposed how vulnerable he’d been, still was, when it came to his grandmother and the past.

  Against her will, Josey felt a kinship with him. Life hadn’t been kind to him, and yet she sensed a strength in him born of hard times. Jack might have taken a beating, but he wasn’t down for the count, she would bet on that.

  “Did you enjoy my sad tale?” he asked, still without looking at her.

  She sensed the last thing he needed right now was her sympathy. “It was a real heartbreaker. Was any of it true?”

  He looked over at her and grinned. “It almost brought a tear to the old bat’s eye, don’t you think?”

  “I could tell it broke your aunt Virginia’s heart.”

  He laughed and slipped his arm around her, his gaze going back to the sunset. “I can’t believe how lucky I was to find you.”

  She might have argued that, but she was smart enough to keep those thoughts to herself. As long as no one discovered where she’d gone, they were both lucky.

  “Have you ever seen anything more beautiful?” he asked, looking toward the horizon.

  “No.” She studied the wild landscape, broken only by a few outcroppings of rock and the dark tops of the cottonwoods. Between the ranch and horizon was a deep ravine that seemed to cut the place off from the world.

  “The Winchester Ranch is the largest ranch in three counties,” Jack said.

  “So it’s the money you’re after?”

  He smiled. “Who says I’m after anything?” He pulled her closer as he turned them back toward the ranch lodge.

  Josey had seen how upset he’d been at dinner. Maybe he wasn’t after his grandmother’s money, which was just as well because Josey doubted he would be getting any. But he was after something, and that something felt more like settling a score with his grandmother.

  She felt a chill as they walked arm in arm back to the lodge, wondering what his grandmother was after and why she was bringing the family back to the ranch.

  Whatever Jack was up to, his grandmother had her own agenda, Josey thought. Out of the corner of her eye she saw a face at one of the lodge windows.

  Pepper Winchester’s face appeared for an instant before the curtain fell back into place.

  THE PHOTOGRAPH OF VANDERLINER was several years old, but there was no mistake. She wasn’t the Jane Doe now lying in the county morgue.

  So who was the victim they’d pulled from the river?

  “Our Jane Doe isn’t Vanderliner,” McCall told Detective Diaz. She promised to get back to him as soon as they were able to run the dead woman’s prints.

  Back down at the river, the surface golden with the last of the sun’s rays, McCall listened to the sound of the boat motor as her fiancé, Game Warden Luke Crawford, helped drag the river for the bodies.

  Because of the lack of manpower in a county sheriff’s department, game wardens were often called in, since they had the same training as other law enforcement in the state.

  Normally crime in and around Whitehorse was mostly calls involving barking dogs, noisy neighbors or drunk and disorderlies. Occasionally there would be a domestic dispute or a call to check on an elderly person who wasn’t answering her phone.

  Murder was rare, but not unheard of. McCall knew that firsthand. She’d had more than her share of bloodshed recently. The last thing she wanted was another homicide.

  “So if the driver of the vehicle was able to swim to safety, he’s on foot,” George said.

  McCall nodded, glancing down river toward Highway 191.

  “You’re thinking someone picked him up,” George said with a nod. He sounded exhausted. “Makes sense. He would probably need medical attention. I’ll call the hospital emergency rooms.” He headed for his vehicle.

  “You don’t have to stick around. I can call you if we find another body.”

  He shook his head. “I want to be here.”

  “Thanks.” McCall turned back to the river. If RJ wasn’t in the river, he’d be on the hunt for shoes, dry clothing, a vehicle and possibly medical attention, as George had said.

  So what would he do? Head for the highway. The nearest town was Whitehorse to the north, but she doubted he’d be picky if he could catch a ride. If he was headed south he’d probably have to go clear to Billings to get what he needed. Or cut over to Lewistown, which was closer.

  George came back to tell her that a man matching RJ’s description or a woman matching Josephine Vanderliner’s hadn’t come into emergency rooms in Whitehorse or Lewistown.

  “So either he wasn’t hurt that badly or he hasn’t gotten to a place where he can get medical attention,” McCall said, glancing behind her into the tall pines. Vanderliner, she could only assume, was in the river.

  She heard one of the search-and-rescue volunteers call her name. “Got something down here,” the volunteer called.

  McCall worked her way down the river to where the volunteer stood next to something caught in a limb beside the water. She shone her flashlight on the object. A leather shoulder bag.

  Squatting down and pulling on her latex gloves, she dragged the bag to her and opened it. A wallet. She focused her flashlight beam on the driver’s license inside—and the photograph of a pretty, ginger-haired yo
ung woman. The name was Josephine Vanderliner.

  PEPPER STEPPED BACK from the window, trembling inside with rage and embarrassment. How dare they condemn her? Couldn’t they understand how devastated she’d been to lose Trace?

  She brushed angrily at her tears. She wasn’t looking for their sympathy. Nor their understanding. And it was a damned good thing, because clearly she would get neither.

  She felt the note she’d stuffed into her pocket and eased it out. The paper was yellowed. The dark splatters made her recoil. Angus’s suicide note. She didn’t have to open it to know that he was blaming her even from the grave.

  What about the failings of his father? Where was their anger toward the man who had gone to such extremes, spoiling them rotten one moment and then punishing them by locking them in that third-floor room?

  She thought of the young wife she’d been. The foolish young woman who’d let Call Winchester rule all their lives for way too long.

  Funny, she was still acutely disappointed in him even after all these years. Her anger had eased as did her fear of him, she thought with no small amount of irony, but not her disappointment.

  Was it any wonder that she had never trusted another man? Even Hunt McCormick. How different her life would have been if she’d run off with him like he’d wanted her to.

  She shook her head at the very thought. She hadn’t been able to leave because of her children, children she should have protected from Call. All her children, not just Trace. But the older ones had always been Call’s children from the time they were born, and she’d felt so helpless against him back then.

  The truth was she’d loved Call, trusted him to do what was best for all of them, even when it came to how their children should be raised.

  She’d been blinded by that love.

  Until Trace was born.

  Pepper would never know what had changed. Maybe she’d finally seen Call for what he was, a bully. Or maybe she’d finally fallen out of love with him.

  Either way, she’d been determined to save Trace from him. That struggle had definitely killed any love she had for her husband and had cost her the rest of her children.

  Pepper knew that some people thought she was cold and heartless. They pointed to her reaction when Call hadn’t come back from his horseback ride more than forty years ago. She hadn’t been able to hide her relief that he was gone.

  But her secret shame was that a part of her still loved the Call she thought she’d married. Just as a part of her still loved Hunt McCormick.

  She started to unfold the note, bracing herself, but changed her mind and dropped the paper into the waste-basket. For a long moment she stood there, staring down at Angus’s last cry for help. The one thing she’d never been was a coward. At seventy-two, she couldn’t start now. She bent down to retrieve the note and carefully eased the paper open.

  The words were scrawled and almost illegible. The handwriting of a child. Or a terrified, sick man.

  I’m so sorry, Mother. Forgive me. I forgive you.

  Angus.

  She crumpled the note in her fist, suddenly unable to catch her breath or stem the flow of tears. Her body jerked with the shuddering sobs that rose up in her. It was all she could do not to scream out her anguish.

  Pepper didn’t hear the door open behind her.

  “I thought you might need something,” Enid said, making her spin around in surprise. Enid held a teacup and saucer.

  Pepper could smell the strong tea, strong to cover up the drugs her housekeeper had been systematically and surreptitiously giving her for years. At first Pepper hadn’t noticed, she’d been so grateful for the oblivion. She assumed it made Enid’s job easier having Pepper either out like a light or so docile she wasn’t any trouble.

  But after learning about Trace, things had to change. She needed her wits about her. She also needed to be more careful when it came to Enid.

  She quickly turned her back to Enid, stepping to the window to hastily dry her tears and pull herself together. Enid was the last person she wanted seeing her like this.

  She heard the elderly housekeeper set down the cup and saucer on the end table by the bed and move to join her at the window. Enid pulled back the curtain wider to see what Pepper had been looking at out the window.

  She smiled smugly as she saw what Pepper did—Jack and Josey walking arm in arm toward the house.

  “I brought you up some chamomile tea to help you sleep.” Enid motioned toward the cup she’d put down beside Pepper’s bed.

  “You are so thoughtful,” Pepper said, not bothering to hide the sarcasm in her tone.

  “Yes, aren’t I,” Enid said and turned to leave. “Good night.”

  “Good night,” Pepper repeated, just wanting the woman to leave her room.

  “Drink your tea while it’s hot.”

  She bristled. “Please close the door behind you.” Pepper didn’t turn until she heard the door close.

  The smell of the strong tea made her nauseous as she stepped to the door and locked it, then she picked up the cup of tea and carried it into the bathroom, where she paused before pouring it down the drain.

  Tonight she could have used the mind-numbing effect of whatever drug Enid had put in it. But she could no longer allow herself that escape.

  She dumped the tea and rinsed out the sink. The cup she left by her bed before going to the window to look out across the deep ravine to the rocky point in the distance.

  It was over there, just across from the ranch, that her precious son had been murdered. Pepper thought of the third-floor room, the binoculars she’d found, and the feeling lodged deep in her heart that someone in her own family was involved.

  Nothing else mattered but finding out the truth. It was why she’d made sure her granddaughter McCall had become acting sheriff. While they had never discussed it, Pepper had seen something in McCall’s expression. She didn’t believe, any more than Pepper did, that the alleged, now-deceased killer had acted alone.

  And McCall, who was so like her grandmother, would never let a killer go free. Pepper was counting on her.

  AS THEY ENTERED THE HOUSE, Jack discovered his aunt Virginia had been waiting for them.

  “I’d like to speak to my nephew,” she said, looking pointedly at Josey. “Alone.”

  “Anything you have to say, you can say in front of my wife,” he said indignantly.

  “It’s okay,” Josey said, touching his arm. “I’d like to take a look around the ranch.”

  “Don’t go far,” Jack said.

  Josey looked amused.

  “I’m just saying this is wild country and you can get turned around out there in the dark.”

  “Yes,” Virginia agreed with a tight smile. “My father disappeared out there on a night a lot like this one.”

  “I don’t want you disappearing, too,” Jack said, only half-joking. “Also, there are rattlesnakes out there.”

  Josey glanced at his aunt as if to say, And in here, too.

  “What is this about?” Jack asked his aunt, as Josey left.

  “Why don’t we step down the hall?” she said. “That awful woman might be listening. Both awful women,” she added under her breath.

  They stepped into the parlor. Virginia closed the door and spun around, clearly angry. “Okay, you can knock off the act.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “You aren’t Angus’s son, and even if you are, you’re not getting this ranch.”

  Jack had to smile. “Isn’t it possible I’m just here to see my grandmother?”

  His aunt scoffed. “You don’t have to pretend with me. She can barely stand the sight of you. She isn’t going to leave you a thing.”

  Jack was tempted to say that it seemed to him that Pepper Winchester couldn’t stand the sight of anyone, maybe especially her daughter. “Frankly, I think she’ll try to take it all with her before she leaves any of us a dime. But even if I’m wrong, I’m no threat to you.”

  Virginia looked skeptical
. “Please. After that sympathy play you made at dinner? I see what you’re doing, but it won’t work. You’re wasting your time.”

  “Is that why you pulled me in here? To tell me that?”

  Virginia was tall like her mother, but without the grace. “Has my mother mentioned who else is coming to this gruesome reunion?”

  “Your mother hasn’t shared anything with me.”

  “Well, I’m worried.” Her gaze bored into his. “I heard Enid and Alfred whispering between themselves. They seem to think Pepper might not be of sound mind. I’m betting they’re thinking that they can somehow have her put away and take all her money.”

  Jack wasn’t surprised to hear this. “God knows they’ve put up with her long enough. They probably deserve it.” Enid acted as if she was the lady of the house, not Pepper. It surprised him that his obstinate grandmother put up with it.

  “What Enid and Alfred Hoagland deserve is to be fired before they steal her blind,” Virginia snapped. “What if they’ve somehow coerced her into making a new will and leaving everything to them?”

  “I can’t see Pepper doing that under any circumstances. Haven’t you seen the way she looks at Enid? She detests the woman. And no one is going to have Pepper committed. It would require a mental evaluation, and I’d put my money on Pepper passing with flying colors.”

  “You’d put your money on it?” Virginia said. “As if you had any money. I know that’s not your car parked out there.” She gave him a satisfied look. “I have connections. I had the plates run. That Cadillac belongs to the Galaxy Corporation. I assume you’re employed by them. Or did you steal the car?”

  “I borrowed the Caddie with every intention of taking it back,” Jack said, bristling. He hadn’t expected this of his aunt. “And your wife? Did you borrow her, as well?” Virginia asked with a laugh, then waved it off. “I was only joking. She’s right up your alley. I’ve seen the way she looks around the lodge, as if she’s putting a price tag on all the furnishings.”