by B. J Daniels
“You won’t bother Sandra, promise me.”
Jake pried the man’s fingers from his arm. “I can’t do that. But I don’t want to cause her any more stress than she’s already gone through.”
Anger made the man’s next words come out with spittle. “You’ll be sorry if you go near my wife.”
“That sounds like a threat, Lonny. It makes me wonder if you threatened Frank, as well. For a nonviolent man, you seem dangerous to me.”
* * *
THE RIVER VIEW was a small restaurant overlooking the river and the golf course. With it being winter, the course was covered with snow. Steam rose up from the river and into the cold, blue, wintery day.
Sandra was waiting for her at a table by the window. The place was empty except for the bartender and what sounded like the cook banging around back in the kitchen. Blaze figured Sandra had some pull to get them a table this early. She hadn’t even had breakfast, so she could use a good meal—if that was what Sandra had in mind.
Her first impression of the woman was of elegance. Sandra was tall and blonde with a regal air about her. She was dressed like a woman of privilege and good upbringing. While Blaze was wearing jeans and a winter sweater, Sandra wore a wool dress and knee-high boots. A colorful scarf graced her slim neck. The blue in the scarf matched her eyes perfectly and Blaze suspected the woman knew it.
Sandra extended one manicured hand. A thin gold bracelet tinkled faintly from her wrist as Blaze took her firm hand.
“Lunch was a nice idea,” Blaze said, wondering what the woman was really up to. She hated that she was always suspicious, but it did come with the job.
“Please join me,” Sandra said motioning to the chair opposite her.
Shrugging out of her winter coat, Blaze took a seat. A waitress appeared at once and took her coat. She ordered coffee with cream and sugar. Sandra said she’d take the same, only black, before she opened her menu.
By the time the waitress returned with their coffees, they were both ready to order. Sandra opted for a salad, no surprise there.
“I’ll take the burger and fries,” Blaze said, not to be intimidated. “Make it a cheeseburger, loaded.” She handed off the menu and added, “I’m starved. I didn’t have breakfast.”
Her companion said nothing, picking up her cup and sipping her coffee.
“I’m curious why you wanted to see me,” Blaze said after stirring cream and sugar into hers.
“I thought I would beat you to it so we could meet at my convenience and on my...”
“Turf, so to speak?”
The woman nodded with a faint unamused smile. “I don’t want you to misconstrue why I invited you here.”
“For lunch.” She smiled but got no reaction from the woman, so she added, “I’m assuming it was to try to convince me that you didn’t kill your father.”
“If you’re referring to Frank Anson, he isn’t my father. He was merely a sperm donor, so to speak,” Sandra said.
“Okay, but I’m sure it must have been a shock to find out that Frank Anson was your...biological father.”
The woman looked as she was going to correct her again, but either gave up or thought better of it. “It was a shock. I’ll admit it. I’d always wondered who my biological parents were.”
“You never asked?”
She shook her head. “You know my parents. It was clear to me that they would have told me if they had wanted me to know.”
Blaze studied her, looking for cracks in her perfectly made-up exterior. Had this woman never gone through rebellious teenage years when she might have demanded to know the truth? “I’m surprised you weren’t curious.”
Sandra shrugged slightly. “I had won the jackpot, so to speak, by getting the adoptive parents I had.”
“You must have been furious at Frank for trying to blackmail your seemingly perfect parents.”
Sandra tilted her head and gave her a triumphant smile. “I don’t have extremes of emotion such as fury. So if you’re hoping that I became unhinged and killed the man, you’re sadly mistaken. I’m sorry to ruin your theory.”
Her manner was calm as she spoke. Blaze also thought that it wouldn’t take much to misconstrue her tone as someone who was talking down to her. She said as much to the woman.
Just then, Sandra’s cell phone, lying next to her coffee cup, pinged. She looked down at the text she’d just received and picked up the phone. “It’s my husband. Apparently he’s upset because your boyfriend paid him a visit.” She pocketed the phone. “I’d answer it, but he’d be worried that I was meeting with you.”
“Then I suggest you not tell him.”
Sandra gave her a weak, sympathetic smile. “We don’t keep secrets.”
“No? You didn’t tell him beforehand that you were going to ask me to lunch.”
All sweetness had left the woman’s face. “Because if I had, he would be bursting in here right now to save me from you.”
The waitress appeared with their food. Blaze wasn’t going to let this woman ruin her appetite. She dumped ketchup on her burger and took a bite. It was delicious, and the french fries were hot and crispy on the outside and soft inside. Sandra picked at her salad.
“So you’re pregnant,” Blaze said between mouthfuls.
“Yes.” Sandra’s hand went to her stomach. It reminded Blaze of when Allie had done the same thing. It gave her a strange feeling, almost a longing to belong to a club she’d never given a thought to before.
She ate in silence for a while. “When are you due?”
“June.”
“Boy? Girl?”
“Boy.”
Blaze put down her half-eaten burger and pushed her plate away. “Are you curious at all as to who killed Frank?”
Sandra lifted her chin slightly. “Not at all.”
“So you aren’t worried that it was your husband, who, according to you, would have been bursting in here right now if he’d known about this...lunch.”
For the first time, color stained the woman’s cheeks. Was that a crack in the woman’s impeccable veneer?
“It was more of a figure of speech.”
“I highly doubt that.”
Sandra put down her fork, no longer pretending to eat her salad. “You don’t know me, and you certainly don’t know Lonny.”
“Do you?”
The woman tossed down her napkin and signaled for the bill.
“You seem scared to me,” Blaze said as she watched Sandra’s right eye twitch. “For your sake and your child’s, I hope you have nothing to fear.”
Sandra quickly paid the bill.
“Thank you for lunch,” Blaze said as they both rose to leave. “If you ever need to talk to someone...”
The woman shot her a look as if to say Blaze would be the last person on earth that she would call. Then Sandra flounced out, grabbing her coat from the waitress as she left.
* * *
JAKE STOPPED BY the local café only to find out that Luella had left for the day. On his phone, he’d found out what he could about her. The newspaper had done a story on her. Her father had advised her to get a good job and keep it. She’d gone to work at the café at fifteen and had been there ever since. From her Facebook page, he gathered that she’d been married and divorced twice. She had been living with a man until recently.
He drove by her address to see that her older-model sedan was parked next to a small house that needed a good coat of paint. Pulling out his cell phone, he called Blaze.
“Where are you?”
“I was just leaving the River View. Why?”
He filled her in on what he’d learned and listened as she told him about Sandra’s call and their lunch. “Do you believe she didn’t know?”
“I’m not sure. She’s one cold fish and it sounds like her husband is a hothead.”
/>
“That was my impression, too,” Jake said. “He seemed under a lot of stress. But I can understand wanting to protect the person you love.”
“And now there’s the baby. It’s a boy, by the way.”
“I’ve pulled over down the street from Luella’s. I thought we might want to do this together.” He read off the woman’s address.
“I’m on my way.”
It didn’t take her long. Once he saw her rig pull in next to the curb in front of Luella’s, he swung around and went back. “How was lunch?” he asked as she got out of her pickup. Food was a subject they’d never argued over since they both loved to eat.
“You should try the burgers and fries at the River View.” She kissed her fingers, making him laugh.
“You smell like fries,” he said as they walked up the broken sidewalk to Luella’s front door. “I like it.”
She grinned over at him as if, like him, she felt it was nice to be on the same page—at least on some things.
Luella answered on the third knock. She came to the door still dressed in her waitress uniform, but she’d kicked off her white nursing shoes. She looked from him to Blaze and back for a moment. “If this is about Monte...”
“It’s about Frank and your daughter,” Jake said.
The older woman seemed to take his words like a gust of wind. She swayed a little before stepping aside to let them in.
The house was neat and clean and would have looked lived-in twenty years ago. Now it appeared dilapidated and as tired as Luella appeared. In her midfifties, she’d been working on her feet for more than forty years.
“I don’t believe we’ve met,” Jake said and introduced himself. “You’ve already met Blaze.”
Luella nodded and motioned for them to sit. She lowered herself into a ragged recliner. He and Blaze sat down on the blanket covering the couch. He felt a broken spring and had to shift over a little.
The older woman didn’t say anything for a few moments. She reached a hand up to brush back a lock of hair, looking embarrassed. Letting out a hoarse little laugh, she said, “You’re probably wondering what I ever saw in Frank. This might surprise you, but back in the day, he was quite cute and charming. He had a way with women. He was actually very funny at times.” She shook her head as if even she couldn’t believe it.
“You’ve watched Sandra grow up,” Blaze said. The woman nodded vacantly. “You never approached her or her family with the truth?”
“Why would I do that? I gave her up so she could have a good life, and she has.” Luella pursed her lips and rocked a little in the recliner.
“Did the Westlakes know about you?” Jake asked.
“You’d have to ask them. I certainly never said anything.”
“Sandra said she didn’t know about either you or Frank before the night he tried to blackmail the pastor,” Blaze said.
Something flickered in Luella’s old eyes. “Frank could be a bastard. I’m so sorry he did that. I was happy watching Sandra from a distance.” She smiled. “She would come into the café sometimes. She always left me a large tip, so I thought maybe she knew.” The woman shrugged. “She never said anything.”
“You know she’s pregnant,” Blaze said and the woman nodded, those eyes filling with tears.
“You must have been upset when Frank told Sandra the truth.”
Luella wiped at her tears, her gaze filling with a fire that hadn’t been there moments before. “What do you want me to say? That I could have killed him for doing that? Damn him to hell. Don’t look so surprised. It wasn’t the first time I wanted to kill him. I was fifteen and pregnant when he dumped me. My mother had kicked me out. My father’s only advice was to get a job. I had no money, nowhere to go. If Patsy down at the café hadn’t taken pity on me...”
“You own a gun, Luella?” Jake asked.
The woman laughed, exposing missing teeth. “You can search my house, if you like. If I had a gun, I would have pawned it years ago. Or one of my no-account husbands or boyfriends would have.”
“What kind of relationship did you have with Frank?” he asked.
Luella looked at him askance. “Relationship? Weren’t you just listening? I hadn’t talked to that man in almost forty years.”
“Surely he came into the café,” Blaze said.
“That cheap bastard?” The woman scoffed. “He avoided me and I avoided him.”
“You must have been furious when he brought home a young wife,” Jake said.
“Allie?” Luella shook her head. “That poor woman. All I felt for her was pity. Everyone did. Frank had become someone no one liked. Probably from living all those years with that awful mother of his. I wasn’t surprised someone shot him.”
Jake looked over at Blaze and saw that she, too, was inclined to believe the woman. “So if you had to pick someone, who would you say wanted him dead the most?”
Luella chuckled and then seemed to give that some thought.
He named off the suspects. With each she shook her head. “What about Sandra’s husband, Lonny Dean?” He caught her reaction and the quick way she tried to hide it.
“I’m not that wild about him, but if Sandra likes him...”
“You think he’s capable of murder?” Blaze asked.
She shook her head. “I don’t take him for a shooter. That is how Frank died, right? Someone shot him? At least that’s what I heard.”
“Then who?” Jake prodded.
“There’s another possibility,” the woman said slowly, looking away. He could tell that she was deciding whether or not to tell them. With a sigh, she said, “I’ve kept this secret long enough. I wasn’t the only one Frank got in a family way back then. Like I said, he was a charmer.” She seemed lost in the past for a moment before her gaze came back to them. “The difference is the other woman was engaged to someone else at the time. Her fiancé apparently has always thought the child was his.”
“Who was the other woman?” Blaze asked.
“Lorna Cutter.”
Jake frowned and looked over at Blaze to see if the name meant anything to her.
“Lorna Cutter?” she asked as if trying to place the name.
“Well, that was her name before she married Bud Fraser.”
Blaze let out a gasp. “Are you telling me that LJ is Frank’s son?” Her gaze shot to Jake before returning to Luella. “Are you sure about this?”
“It’s the best-kept secret in Saddle Butte,” Luella said. “Because Frank wasn’t about to tell. Bud’s father, the sheriff back then, would have killed him. And Lorna wasn’t saying a word. But I knew. I’d known that Frank was cheating on me. I just didn’t know he’d gotten her pregnant not long after he did me. Lorna had been holding off poor Bud until after that fancy wedding she was planning. Told everyone that she’d gotten pregnant on their honeymoon to Yellowstone Park. No big surprise when the baby came early. So if you’re looking for someone who just might have hated Frank more than me, don’t overlook your former boyfriend LJ Fraser and his clueless daddy.”
“Wait, are you saying that LJ knows?” Blaze asked.
“It crossed my mind when I heard that Frank had been shot,” Luella said slowly. “If Frank was desperate enough to try to blackmail the Westlakes, the damned fool might have gone to the sheriff or his son.”
* * *
BLAZE FELT SHAKEN as she left Luella’s. “I’ll meet you back at the ranch?” Jake nodded, his expression unreadable. “You aren’t going to—”
“Confront the sheriff or his son?” He shook his head. “But this definitely adds a new dimension to Frank’s murder.”
As she drove out of town, she couldn’t shake the feeling that Luella might have just given them the connection they needed. It would explain why the sheriff had been so determined to send her father to prison for Frank’s murder. But was he covering for himsel
f or his son?
She thought about LJ. He’d been older, wilder, just her type back then. It hadn’t hurt that he’d been a star athlete at their small high school, playing both football and basketball. He’d had some natural ability that his coaches said could have sent him far. But he’d opted to stay in Saddle Butte, where he was a big fish in a small pond.
LJ was violent enough to kill, she had no doubt about that. But if he’d killed Frank, it would have been an impulsive thing. Seeing Frank from the road, she could imagine LJ pulling out his rifle, the one that always hung on the rack in the back window of his pickup, and firing. LJ was a pretty decent shot if you believed his Facebook posts with dead animals.
Then again, there was his father. Bud always had a chip on his shoulder when it came to anyone who inherited land. With Monte being one of the largest landowners in the county, he’d especially been a target of that wrath. She’d overheard him one time at the coffee shop saying he could have made something of himself if his daddy left him a few thousand acres.
But his bias against those who were born into land wouldn’t have been why he’d want Frank Anson dead. If Luella was telling the truth, which Blaze suspected she was, then LJ was Frank’s son—not Bud’s. That would be reason enough for Bud to take out the man—especially if he’d heard about Frank going to the Westlakes and feared Frank might tell LJ out of spite. Because Frank would have known that Bud and his son didn’t have any money. He might also have been worried about trying to blackmail a sheriff.
As she pulled into the ranch yard, Jake parked next to her. They exited their rigs and hurried into the ranch house out of the cold.
“If what she told us is true...” Blaze said as she took off her coat and hung it up in the closet by the door.
“LJ is Frank’s son. We just don’t know if Frank went to the sheriff or LJ after his plan to blackmail the Westlakes failed.”
“Or if Bud had just heard what Frank did and wasn’t about to let the man shoot off his mouth to the rest of the town. I can see Bud killing him.”
“I’d put my money on LJ,” Jake said, rubbing his swollen jaw. “That man has a lot of pent-up anger.”