She crossed her arms. “Only if you tell me what it is you’re going to get since I’m missing all the fun.”
I took a deep breath. “I might be shooting blanks here, but I think, I’m hoping, that Shelby hid the negatives in the photo album she gave me the day before Thanksgiving. What better place to hide the evidence of something illegal than with the police chief’s wife?”
Isaac nodded. “It’s exactly how Shelby would think. She loved reading Nancy Drew mysteries and watching Murder, She Wrote on TV.” He grabbed my hand. “Let’s go.”
“Y‘all be careful,” Dove said.
“We will. If anyone follows us, we’ll come right back and get Gabe. I promise.”
Isaac kept a close eye on the passenger side mirror during the half-mile drive to the museum. “No one’s behind us,” he said, his voice tense.
“I didn’t think there would be, but it doesn’t hurt to be safe.”
The museum parking lot was dimly lit by a single security light. I fumbled with the keys in the cold night air and finally opened the front door. Once inside, I quickly locked it behind us. “The album’s in my office.”
Inside my office, I opened the bottom desk drawer and pulled out the handmade leather photo album.
“Just a minute,” Isaac said, taking it out of my hand. He stared at the album, running his hand over the soft leather, fingering the bones and feathers she’d carefully fashioned. He traced the lines of my brand. “She made this?”
I nodded silently.
He swallowed hard, then tightened his jaw. “Let’s see what’s in here.”
There were twenty-five pages with a photograph on each page. She’d mounted them in the old-fashioned way with those tiny triangular picture holders that filled all Dove’s photo albums.
We pulled out each photo, and on the twenty-second one we hit pay dirt. On the back of the photo was taped a strip of four negatives in a plastic holder. Isaac held them up to the light in my office, his gray eyes squinting.
“What do you see?” I asked eagerly.
He scanned the negatives. “One is looking through a window—it appears to be of a person painting. Looks like she took them with a telephoto. One’s of just some trees and bushes—nothing distinct. And one’s of a license plate. The last one of two people with some cows.” He shook his head and handed them to me. “My eyes aren’t as good as they once were, and I don’t have a magnifying loop to see them better. You take a look.”
I peered at the strips, but couldn’t make out any more details than he could. “I guess we’ll have to get some pictures printed.”
“I can do it if I have the right equipment. At least I can make a contact sheet. That would show more detail.”
I slipped the negatives back into the holder and leaned against my desk. “Probably I should just give them to Gabe to hand over to the Sheriff’s Department. If only I could be sure what was on them.”
Isaac looked at me soberly. “Are you afraid one of the people might be Wade?”
I bit my bottom lip, not wanting to answer. “I just want to know what it is we’re handing over to the police.”
“I want her killer caught,” Isaac said, his voice sharp.
“I know.” I looked at the strip again. The three people in one picture all wore Stetsons, but their faces were indistinct. “Too bad she couldn’t have gone that extra step and made prints for us.” I started putting the pages back into the album. Then an idea came to me, inspired by something Isaac had said about Shelby. Maybe it was just juvenile and silly enough to be right. I picked at the edges of the leather cover.
“What are you doing?” Isaac asked.
“You said she loved reading Nancy Drew books, right?”
“Yes. So?”
“So, I think she did make things easy for us. I think there are prints ...” I peeled back the leather cover. “And here they are!” Wrapped in protective plastic were four 5 x 7 black-and-white photographs. He crowded next to me, and we looked at the pictures.
Greer was the person painting. Shelby had apparently been taking photographs around Greer’s cabin and saw the opportunity to capture an artist working unawares. I peered closer at the paintings, thoughts of forgery dancing in my head. Was that how she was making the money to support herself, to keep her family’s ranch going?
But the paintings weren’t copies of Remington or Russell. They seemed to be her own original oils of ranch life. I looked intently at the picture of the license plate. It was a Montana plate—muddy and old—attached to what appeared to be an RV.
The third picture said it all.
“Oh, no,” I said, staring at the picture of Kip and Greer loading cattle onto a truck. “This is why Shelby was killed. Greer did it when Shelby told her about this picture.”
Isaac gave me a confused look. “Why? She’s just loading cattle onto a truck. She’s a rancher. Seems natural enough.”
I pointed to the side of one of the cows—a Hereford-Angus mix. “Sure, if the brand wasn’t mine.”
He looked up at me, shocked. “Cattle rustling? My granddaughter was killed for a bunch of cows?”
“Appears so,” I said, feeling a sadness at how life can spiral out of control. “Greer was stealing from her friends. That would certainly be worth killing someone over, because not only would it ruin her art career, she’d go to prison and humiliate her family in front of the whole ranching community.”
“Do you think her family knew?”
“No, they didn’t,” Greer answered from the doorway.
Isaac and I jumped at the sound of her voice. When we saw the .45 revolver in her hand, Isaac put his arm in front of me much the same way Dove used to when I was a child and she had to stop the truck quickly.
“How’d you get in?” I demanded.
“Benni, grow up. Keys to this place float around here like pollen.” She walked over and grabbed the photos out of my hands, looking down at the handmade photo album. “So that’s where she hid them. I didn’t even know she’d given you that album. Smart girl.” She nodded her approval of Shelby’s cleverness. “But not smart enough to keep what she saw to herself.”
I saw Isaac’s face start to redden and I touched his arm and said in a low voice, “Don’t.”
Greer calmly studied Isaac’s angry face, pointing the gun at his chest. “Listen to her, Mr. Lyons. I grew up using guns and I’ll shoot you, I swear I will.” Her voice trembled slightly.
Stay calm, I told myself. Words are all you have at this point.
“Greer,” I said softly, “why would you steal from your friends?” Keep her talking, I thought, and pray that Gabe gets annoyed enough to track us down after Dove tells him where we went and why.
Framed in the doorway, dressed in old jeans and a brown Carhartt working jacket, standing straight and proud, her white hair a halo around her head, she looked like a figure in one of her own western paintings. Her lined face clouded with sorrow. “I had to, Benni. Bradley left me with nothing, and the ranch is going down fast. It hasn’t really made enough money to support any of us in years. I couldn’t expect my brothers to take care of me and I had to live. I had to buy paint supplies. Look, I didn’t steal from just one person—I spread it around. And I only took from the people who could afford the losses.” She explained it to us in a reasonable voice, not giving any indication that she comprehended how serious her actions were.
“Why didn’t you just get a job?” I blurted out, quickly regretting the words once they were spoken. What if it set her off?
“Doing what?” she asked in a calm, rational voice. “I’m fifty-four years old, Benni. Working on the ranch and being an executive’s wife—that’s all I can do. Besides, I want to paint. That’s all I’ve ever wanted. What could I do? I didn’t have a choice.”
“Please, Greer,” I said. “Let Isaac and me help you. You’re in too far now. You’ll never get away with it if you hurt us.”
Her face stiffened, then as suddenly as it did, it fell aga
in. Her mood changes made my heart beat furiously in fear. “I’m so tired, Benni. So tired of trying to figure all of this out. All I want to do is paint. I wish Shelby had minded her own business. I wish you’d left this alone. I was only going to do it for a few more months. Once we sold the land on the highway and I made my name as an artist, I wouldn’t be forced to do it anymore. Timing—it was all just bad timing.”
“Greer, please give me the gun. Let us help you.”
“Shelby was an accident,” she said, her voice a hoarse whisper. “And Kip—he sort of was, too. I didn’t want to kill him. He’d been in on it, but he panicked when Shelby found out. And then she died, and I couldn’t take the chance he’d crack.” She rocked backwards on the heels of her boots. “I’m so tired.”
I felt Isaac shift next to me, dropping the arm he’d been holding in front of me.
“Don’t try anything stupid,” she said, shifting from one foot to the other.
“Greer, you need help.” I kept my voice low and even. “We can get you help. Just give me the gun and then you can rest.”
She looked up at me, her eyes glazed with tears. “I could be famous. I’m good. I’m a good artist.”
“Yes,” I said soothingly, “you’re a good artist. One of the best.”
She looked at me sadly. “Turn around, Benni.”
I stared back at her, feeling my knees tremble slightly, thinking, this is it. I swallowed over the hard knot in my throat and took one last chance. “No, Greer, I won’t. If you’re going to shoot me, you’ll have to look me in the eyes while you’re doing it.” I prayed that she wasn’t so far gone emotionally that she’d accept my challenge.
“Turn around or I’ll shoot Isaac in the heart,” she said, her voice calm. I turned and looked at Isaac.
He nodded. “Do as she says, Benni.”
“No,” I said. “She’s going to kill us anyway. I want her to look at me when she does.”
“I’m not going to kill you,” Greer said, her voice weary. She stepped back out of the doorway into the narrow hallway. “Just turn around. I’m going to lock you in this room and take Isaac with me as a hostage so I can make a better deal with the DA. I know I can’t get away with this, Benni. I’m not stupid. You’re the police chief’s wife. How would I get away with killing you?”
Her voice sounded so calm and reasonable that I reluctantly did as she asked.
“Okay, Isaac,” she said. I could hear her labored breathing in the quiet room. “Your granddaughter ruined my life, so here’s a picture for you to take to your grave.”
The gun exploded.
I screamed and started to turn around.
Isaac grabbed me and shoved my face into his chest.
“Don’t look, honey,” he said, the words catching in his throat. “It was her last act of friendship to you. Accept it.”
18
THREE DAYS LATER they buried Greer. Her funeral was huge; mourners overflowed the Methodist church she’d attended her whole life. It was a literal sea of tan and black cowboy hats and shiny boots. I arrived right before it started and slipped into a back pew. The minister read the twenty-third Psalm and spent a good part of the sermon talking about God’s great and tender mercies. I said a prayer for her family and for Isaac and left Greer’s, Shelby’s, and Kip’s fates up to the God I believed was the author of both perfect love and perfect justice. Then I cried at the waste and sadness of it all.
I left as quickly as I could after the service. In the parking lot next to my truck, Buck, one of Greer’s two older brothers, saw me as he leaned against a Shannon ranch truck, inhaling quick desperate puffs from his cigarette. His eyes were shadowed by his gray dress Stetson. After a few seconds, he gave the slightest of nods, acknowledging that the family didn’t hold me to blame. A great weight lifted off my shoulders.
The day after the funeral, I drove out to the ranch to take Wade to the airport. Isaac and Dove were sitting on the front porch when I drove up, Isaac’s travel-scarred leather suitcases sitting next to him. I walked up the steps and leaned against the porch railing, facing them.
“You going somewhere?” I asked Isaac.
“I have work back in Chicago,” he said, “things I’ve put off that can’t be postponed any longer. But I’ll be back. When the book comes out.”
“You’re actually going to do a book?” I asked. “When in the world did you find time to take enough pictures?”
He handed me a stack of eight-by-ten photographs. “It’s what I did to keep from going crazy while all this was being played out. I’m calling it Riding Light—California Ranch Women. It’ll contain both my and Shelby’s photographs so she’ll get her book. I only wish she was here to see it.”
Dove put her hand over his and patted it gently. I sat down cross-legged on the porch in front of them and flipped through the photographs. Many of them I recognized from Shelby’s months following me around the ranch—some were from the album she’d hidden the negative in. One of Isaac’s was of me sitting next to the creek wrapped up in his leather and fleece coat. He’d caught in me a wary, watching expression somewhere between smiling and frowning. One hand was bunched in a fist, the other laying on my thigh, palm open and vulnerable. His photograph did what all the best ones do—tell a story. In that split second, he captured all the feelings I’d experienced in the last two years.
“That one’s called ‘A Woman Torn,’ ” he said.
I nodded and kept going through the photographs of friends at local ranches, pausing at one of Dove looking out of a side window at the Historical Museum. Her gaze was wistful and longing, looking beyond the photographer’s lens; she leaned out slightly, her arms resting on the ledge, holding her battered Stetson in one hand. Behind her it was dark, but the sun lit up her face, and in her eyes you could see the young girl she once was.
“I love this one,” I said. “I want a copy.”
“Certainly. I’m calling it ‘Dove in the Window,’ ” he said. “And you’ll both get copies of the book as soon as they roll off the presses.”
“That’s a quilt pattern,” I said, surprised.
He smiled. “I know. Dove suggested it to me.”
“Well, now, honeybun,” Dove said, speaking for the first time. “Looks like we’re all saying good-bye to people today.” She nodded at the side of the house where Wade had turned the corner and was walking toward us. He carried a dark blue duffel bag. The bruise on his cheek was already starting to turn lavender around the edges.
I’d called Wade a few hours after the incident at the museum on Saturday night. His heavy sigh had been audible over the phone.
“I can go home now,” he said, his voice catching.
“Yes,” I answered, feeling sad, but also relieved. “You can go home now.”
“I’m going to try to get Sandra back. But if I can’t, I’m going to be a good daddy to my kids. That much I can do.”
“Yes, Wade, that much you can do.”
I stood up, handed the photographs back to Isaac, and went down the steps to meet Wade.
“Ready to go?” I asked.
He nodded. “My plane leaves at noon. I can’t believe I’ll be back in Texas by suppertime.”
Just then, Gabe drove up in his Corvette. He stepped out and walked over to Wade and me. They nodded at each other but didn’t speak.
“You got your car back!” I said. “What’s Emory doing for wheels?”
Gabe smiled down at me. “He bought a car this morning and said he wouldn’t be needing mine anymore.”
“He bought a car! What kind? Why in the world would he do that? Is he planning on driving back to Arkansas?”
“It’s a brand-new Cadillac Seville. And I’m not supposed to tell you this, but for once I’m going to be the one who lets the cat out of the bag. Goaded on by his, in my opinion, questionably victorious date with Elvia, he’s decided not to go back to Arkansas, but to stay here in San Celina to wine and woo her. Apparently he’s talked himself into a job at the
Tribune and is having all his worldly possessions shipped out. He was perusing the real estate ads in the paper after you left this morning.”
“He didn’t tell me!” I said. “That little twerp. He’s moving out here! Oh, geez, the Tribune!” I turned to Dove and gave her an accusing look. “Did you know about this?”
She smiled secretively. “I reckon I’d heard a little something about it. But you know me—unlike some people, I don’t have a leaky mouth.”
I brought a palm up to my cheek. “Elvia! Has anyone told her yet?”
Gabe laughed and ruffled my hair. “Emory said that he was leaving that for you to do.”
“Oh, man, she’s going to kill me.” I grinned. “Emory living here in San Celina. That makes me real happy.”
“I can tell.” He turned to Wade. “So, Harper, you’re heading back to Texas.”
Wade nodded. “Reckon it’s time.”
Gabe looked at him a moment, then held out a hand. “I hope everything works out for you and your family.”
Wade took his hand and shook it, nodding over in my direction. “Thanks, Ortiz. You take good care of her now. She deserves it.”
“I know,” Gabe said.
Wade touched the brim of his hat, then turned to me. “I’ll wait for you in the truck.”
“I’ll be there in a minute,” I said.
Dove and Isaac came down from the porch and joined me and Gabe on the front lawn. I looked up at this giant snowy-haired man who, in the short time I’d known him, had managed to steal a tiny piece of my heart.
“I’m going to miss you,” I said to him, “I think.”
“That’s probably the nicest thing she’s ever said to me,” he said, winking at Dove.
“So, you really will come back and visit?” I asked. “That’s not just words?”
“You bet, Benni Harper.” He looked down at Dove, his face soft. “I have relationships here now. I’ll be back.” Then he reached down and pulled me up into a big hug. It felt like being squeezed by a huge polar bear. “Now, you’d better turn your back,” he said after releasing me.
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