Cold Case at Cardwell Ranch

by B. J Daniels

  “So, just to be clear, you didn’t want him dead?” Waco asked.

  “I didn’t care one way or the other,” she said, draining her sparkling water before reaching for her gin and tonic. “But I have to admit, I haven’t missed him. Not that I had any contact with him after he married Stacy. I admired her for holding out for marriage—even knowing what happened to the others.”

  “Maybe she thought she would make out like a bandit the same way you did,” he suggested. “I understand his first wife’s jewelry disappeared at some point.”

  Lorraine’s laugh was bright as sunshine. “Really? How sad. Marvin wanted me to have it.” She shrugged.

  Waco shook his head. “You must have had proof that he killed his first wife and his fiancée.”

  Lorraine didn’t admit it. But she also didn’t deny it. “I got lucky. But I don’t think things went as well for Stacy.”

  Waco didn’t think so, either. So why had she married him? He watched the woman finish her drink as quickly as she had her water.

  “I need to go change,” Lorraine said, excusing herself. “I have a massage soon. I hope I answered all of your questions.”

  “You did.”

  * * *

  HE WAS ALMOST to the Gallatin Canyon when he noticed that Hitch had left him a second message. He listened to it, hearing the worry in her voice. She passed along Jane Frazer’s concerns that Lorraine might be in danger. He told himself that Lorraine was fine, but still placed the call.

  When the redhead came on the line, he could hear dinner music in the background. “I thought you should know that Marvin’s daughter Jane Frazer is worried that you might be in danger.” He waited for a reply.

  Not getting one, he continued. “She’d had a visit from the medical examiner about her father’s remains being found. They discussed Marvin and his...women. Your name and your location came up. That’s how I found you.”

  “I’m sorry—what is it you’re trying to tell me?” He could hear the soft clinking of cutlery and the murmur of voices. It sounded like she was in a five-star restaurant.

  “Your life could be in danger.”

  “Oh, Detective, that is very sweet of you to think of me, but as you noticed when you arrived here, I live in a gated community surrounded by staff and other residents. I’m not worried. Also, I still have my... insurance policy, so I’m fine.”

  “Marvin’s dead, so that insurance policy might not be worth the paper it’s printed on.”

  Lorraine laughed. “It wasn’t just Marvin, Detective. At least one of his...offspring was also involved in helping him terminate those two relationships.”

  “That is the sort of evidence I’d like to see.”

  “You didn’t hear it from me. But thank you so much for your concern.” She hung up.

  He sat for a moment mumbling under his breath. People often thought they were safe because a community was gated. Or because they had incriminating evidence as so-called insurance. He shook his head. Maybe Lorraine Baxter was right and there was no cause for concern.

  One thing kept coming up time and again—a common denominator. The Hanover heirs. Were they as dangerous as he was being led to believe?

  It was time he found out.

  Chapter Ten

  The last thing Ella needed right now was a family dinner. But she knew her aunt. Dana needed to get everyone together. It was her strength in times of crisis. If this wasn’t a crisis, then Ella didn’t know what was.

  Before coming in to dinner, Ella had noticed a vehicle in the distance, the same one she’d seen there earlier. Waco Johnson or someone he’d hired to watch the ranch?

  Dana had seated them all in the huge dining room. Pot roast, corn, potatoes and green beans from last year’s garden were passed around the table, along with a slab of fresh sweet butter and honey to go with corn bread piping hot from the oven. There was apple pie for dessert or Dana’s favorite chocolate cake. Her aunt believed food was love and that all of them seated around the table together would make whatever was happening better.

  But Ella had her doubts. She wondered what Stacy was doing right now. There still hadn’t been any word from her. The ranch was being watched by a homicide detective, and tomorrow Ella was headed for Hell and Gone with only a prayer’s hope of finding her mother.

  After helping her aunts with the dishes, Ella escaped to a corner of the living room. She heard the front door open and saw Hitch enter. Ford rushed to his fiancée. Earlier, when Ella had gone down to the barn to check on the new foal, she’d heard Ford on the phone, leaving Hitch a message. He’d said, “I know you’re probably still working, but if you get a chance, give me a call. Just getting a little worried about you.” Ella wondered what case Hitch was working that had him worried—surely not Marvin Hanover’s murder.

  She could see that Ford was relieved and happy to see his fiancée. Everyone in the family had accepted Hitch, it appeared. Ella was withholding judgment until she got to know the medical examiner better.

  When Ford went to retrieve the piece of pie Dana had saved for her, Hitch approached Ella. “I was hoping you would be here,” the young woman said quietly. “I heard you’ve gone looking for your mother.”

  Ella knew there was no keeping secrets in this family—unless you were Stacy Cardwell. She said nothing and waited since Hitch seemed to feel uncomfortable talking about it.

  “It’s gotten more dangerous,” Hitch said quietly.

  “My mother—”

  “As far as I know, she’s fine. But when I spoke with Waco—”

  “You two are on a first-name basis?” Of course they were. Ella wasn’t sure why that annoyed her. Lines had been drawn in the sand. Hitch was on the wrong side if she was with Waco.

  “We’ve worked together for several years now,” Hitch said.

  Ella studied the woman. “Are you working on a case with him right now?”

  “If you’re asking about the homicide case involving your mother—”

  “We don’t know that it involves my mother,” she interrupted.

  “I just meant—”

  “Waco’s after my mother.”

  Hitch looked uneasy. “Waco is interviewing everyone who was closely associated with Marvin Hanover. He’s just following standard procedure.”

  “Spare me the administrative lesson. My uncle is a marshal. I grew up with standard procedure,” Ella snapped.

  “Then you know I can’t talk about it.”

  Ella took a breath. “But you can tell me what kind of lawman Waco is.”

  For a moment, Hitch looked as if she wasn’t going to comment. “He’s good at his job. He’s thorough, but he’s fair. He’s...likable.” Ella quirked a brow. “But he won’t stop until he gets to the truth.”

  “I’m curious just how close the two of you are,” Ella said, hating that she’d actually voiced the words out loud.

  Hitch seemed surprised. “If you’re asking what I think you are, Waco and I are just friends. That’s all.”

  “You two never dated?”

  The other woman smiled. “No. He’s never been interested in me as anything more than a coworker.”

  “What about you?” Ella knew she should stop. She could see Ford headed their way.

  “Sorry, not my type—not that there is anything wrong with him for someone...” Hitch’s smile broadened. “More like you, maybe.”

  Ford walked up with a small plate and a slice of apple pie. He put his arm around his fiancée. “Dana insists you come into the kitchen. She’s made you a dinner plate.”

  Ella felt Hitch’s gaze shift to her.

  “Please, just be careful,” the medical examiner said, a knowing look in her eye.

  Was she referring to the murder case? Or Waco?

  Ella could have mentally kicked herself. She’d sounded jealous of Hitch and Waco,
when that wasn’t what she’d been getting at in the least. She felt a knot form in her stomach as she watched Hitch and Ford head to the kitchen. She told herself that this strange feeling had nothing to do with her and Waco, but Waco Johnson and Hitch Roberts and where—and if—the woman fit into this family.

  * * *

  THE HANOVER HOUSE was exactly as Hitch had described it. Waco had called and Lionel had said they would be waiting for him. After he parked and walked up to the large front door, it had opened and he’d gotten his first look at Lionel and Angeline. Like her description of the house, Hitch had done a great job sizing up two of Marvin’s offspring.

  He’d gone through a list of preliminary questions about Marvin and about their relationship with their father, and was just getting to Stacy Cardwell Hanover when the younger sister arrived.

  Mercy burst in, the sound of her voice racing her into the room only seconds before she appeared. While Lionel and Angeline were dull as dust and about as forthcoming as rocks, Mercy was a turbocharged gust of fresh air.

  The robust fiftysomething woman with her wild curly brown hair and small granitelike eyes stormed over to him. “Well?” Mercy demanded.

  He pretended he didn’t know what she was talking about as Lionel tried to shut his sister up and Angeline wheeled herself to the bar to pour herself some wine. Hitch had said that the woman was ill and apparently dying. Waco wondered if she was on any kind of medication and yet still drinking wine.

  “What have they been telling you?” Mercy looked from Lionel to Angeline and back. “Don’t believe anything they say.”

  Lionel groaned. “Mercy, this is not the time for—”

  “They hated our father as much as I did. Maybe more.”

  “I’m going to do my best to find his killer and give you a little peace,” Waco said.

  Mercy howled at that. “You think finding his killer will give us peace? We already know who killed him. What we want is the money,” the woman said, ignoring her brother’s attempts to silence her.

  “What money?” Waco asked, hoping he looked genuinely confused.

  Mercy flung her hands in the air. “Our father’s fortune. Of course, they didn’t tell you. He wore a key on a chain around his neck. Tell me you have the key.”

  “I have the key.” The room suddenly went deathly quiet. Mercy was staring at him, as was Angeline. Lionel was frowning at him.

  “You have the key?” Mercy repeated. “Then give it to us.”

  “I’m afraid it’s evidence in a murder investigation,” Waco said, and the woman erupted with a string of curses. “You’ll get it back when the investigation is over.”

  Mercy swore again. “How long is that going to take?”

  “Let the man do his job,” Lionel said before Waco could answer. “Have you talked to Stacy?” he asked.

  “She’s definitely on my list,” Waco said.

  Mercy shot a look at her brother. “Is he serious?” She swung her gaze back at him like a scythe. “Stacy Cardwell murdered our father. Why wouldn’t you have already talked to her?”

  “We haven’t established that Stacy killed anyone,” Waco said. “Tell me this. Why did your father marry Stacy?”

  Mercy gave him a disbelieving look. “She was young, she was somewhat pretty, I suppose, and she was easier than an Easy-Bake Oven.”

  “He wanted another son,” Angeline said in a hoarse whisper as she picked up her full glass of wine and straightened the quilt on her lap. “No offense, Lionel, but you know it’s true. He would have given anything—and I mean anything—for another son.”

  Lionel looked down at the expensive worn rug at his feet. Waco noticed it was threadbare like the furniture. The light in this room was dim, but he began to see how outdated everything was. Was the family hurting for money? It would appear so.

  “None of our father’s offspring at the time met his expectations,” Lionel snarled. “But I see no reason to air our dirty laundry with—”

  “Our father would have married anyone he could get pregnant with a son,” Mercy said, cutting him off. “Since the bitch said she was pregnant—”

  “Wait!” Waco said in surprise. “Stacy was pregnant?”

  “No, she wasn’t pregnant,” Mercy snapped as she shrugged off her jacket and dropped into a chair by the fire. “She lied to him so he’d give her the money he’d promised her.”

  “In all fairness, Stacy said she miscarried the baby after the marriage. At least, that’s what she told us. Then, when our father disappeared, she got an annulment,” Lionel said.

  “If anything, she got rid of the baby—if she’d ever been pregnant to begin with,” Mercy said. “Why keep it if it wasn’t going to make her any more money?”

  Waco was having trouble keeping up. “Your father paid her?”

  “Ten thousand dollars to prove that she was having a son,” Angeline said.

  “So she was pregnant?” Waco asked, trying to fit the odd-shaped pieces together.

  “He believed her, but who knows if it was even true?” Mercy said. “Stacy had an ultrasound photo in her purse that supposedly he accidentally found. But I suspect she planted it there, knowing he was so jealous and suspicious, he often searched her purse.”

  “What my sister is saying,” Lionel added, “is that we aren’t certain the photo was necessarily hers.”

  “But she didn’t have any trouble taking the reward he gave her,” Mercy piped up. “Ten thousand dollars. Apparently, that’s what a son was going for back then.”

  “I’m sorry—I’m confused.” Waco held up his hand.

  “It was a boy, so Stacy’s work was done,” Lionel declared with obvious disgust. “Once the baby was born, he planned to divorce Stacy and raise his son himself.”

  Waco couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “And Stacy was good with this?”

  Mercy laughed. “There never was a baby. It was all a lie. You know she used someone else’s ultrasound. She just wanted that ten grand he’d promised her. Once she had it, she must have realized she couldn’t keep up the lie, so she killed him.”

  “I think she killed him because he caught her in the lie,” Angeline said, her weak voice cracking as she slurred her words. “That’s why we never believed that he had abandoned her. When he disappeared, we knew he had to be dead.”

  Mercy nodded in agreement. “Daddy would have wanted his money back and threatened to take it out of her hide.”

  Waco thought they might be right. From what he’d learned so far about Stacy Cardwell, the story might actually fit. She had used men for money before and she’d also been questioned in a police investigation about stolen money from a fundraiser event.

  “She wouldn’t have had to kill him,” he said, realizing it was true. “She had the reward money. Why not just take off? He would have had a hard time getting his money back once he realized he’d been cheated.”

  “You didn’t know my father,” Lionel said. “He would have tracked her down to the ends of the earth. He would have gotten his money back one way or another. If he didn’t kill her, he would have made her wish she was dead.”

  “He sounds delightful.” The words slipped out before Waco could stop them. “So maybe he did find out the truth and Stacy killed him in self-defense.”

  Mercy groaned. “Who cares? When he disappeared, we all thought he took the money and ran. But now that we know he was murdered... If Stacy didn’t get the money my father kept hidden all those years, then where is it?”

  Waco didn’t have an answer for her.

  It was getting late. He was about to stand to leave when the boyfriend Hitch had told him about entered just in time to hear Mercy’s question.

  “Yeah, where is this fortune?” Trevor said in a mocking tone. “’Bout time someone produced it or I’m going to start wondering if the whole thing was just a way to keep you al
l in line.” The cocky young man looked to Waco.

  “You must be Trevor,” he said.

  “You’ve heard about me.” The man smiled. “You the cop who found him at the bottom of the well?” Waco nodded. “So someone iced him, huh?” Glancing at the family, he said, “Someone in this room?” His laugh had a knife edge to it.

  “Must you, Trevor?” Lionel said, shooting a displeased look at Mercy.

  “You’ll be notified as to when you can take possession of your father’s remains,” Waco told the others in the room.

  “And the key,” Mercy added quickly.

  “That and the rest of his belongings found with him,” Waco said.

  “You can keep his bones,” she said. “It isn’t like we’re going to pay for a funeral for him. Not after thirty years. Not after...” She waved her hand through the air. “As far as I’m concerned, you can keep him.”

  Lionel rose. “Let me see you out.”

  At the front door, the oldest Hanover offspring apologized for his family. “This has all come as a shock.”

  Waco didn’t point out that they didn’t seem shocked, just angry. When he’d run preliminaries on each of them, he’d found that not one of them had a job, let alone a career. Had they all been sitting around for the past thirty years, waiting for their father’s money to turn up?

  He’d wondered how they lived until he’d done a little investigating. He’d found ads on Craigslist where they’d been selling off their father’s holdings over the years. Stocks, bonds, land. Even antique house furnishings when things had begun to turn lean. It explained the condition of the entire house.

  Glancing back as he made his way to his SUV, he questioned the timing of the anonymous call. Why had the bones turned up now? He thought about the recording. Any one of the family members could have called from the Gallatin Gateway bar down the road from the house. The caller’s voice had sounded hoarse. Because they’d lowered their voice to disguise it?

  The big question: Had one of them made the call because they were running out of money and hoped the investigation would turn up the dough? Or the key?