by Alice Sharpe
Was her stepfather a murderer?
Was that the real reason she’d dragged her feet about questioning him? Face it. Even now, wasn’t she glad to be driving out to talk to a man she’d never met so she wouldn’t have to confront her stepfather?
When that train of thought became too uncomfortable, she snuck a glance at Adam and mused about the fate that had reintroduced them at this one miserable juncture of their lives. Her brain told her to be careful but her heart, headstrong as a willful two-year-old, said to hell with caution.
“Oh, man, I don’t like the looks of that,” Adam said, startling her. She looked through the windshield to see dark smoke hovering over the hillside ahead, smudging the evening air. In the next moment, an emergency truck raced past them going the other direction, siren blaring.
“There have to be a lot of houses out this way,” Echo said, although the truth was it looked like the hill was actually a ritzy neighborhood with large plots of lands and few homes.
A fire truck passed them going slower, headed back to town. Adam sped up. “Lonnie and his wife live near the top of that hill,” he said. He pulled through the gates after a series of switchbacks and slowed as two fire trucks and a half dozen firemen came into view.
What was left of what appeared to have been a huge house was a smoldering mass of burned lumber, the roof crashed into the middle. Some of the fireman still directed water at the site while others were in the process of rolling hoses. It looked as if a few neighbors were standing around, talking in hushed tones.
“The firemen are still wearing their turnout gear,” Adam said as the truck came to a stop. “It must have just happened.” He gestured at the long white car parked next to a detached garage. “It looks like they were home.”
A tall, lanky man dressed in a short-sleeved Western shirt approached the truck. An expensive-looking camera hung around his neck. “Do you know these folks?” he asked as Adam rolled down the window. The acrid smell of fire swept through the cab and stung Echo’s eyes.
“They’re family friends. I see their car over there. Are they okay?”
The man looked toward the house, then back. “Some of the neighbors got over here in time to help the husband get the woman out of the house. They took her off in an ambulance. The man went with her. He was staggering and coughing but at least he was walking under his own steam.”
“Who are you?” Adam asked but he could have just asked her. Echo recognized a journalist a mile away.
“Reporter with the Tribune. I caught the 9-1-1 on my CB and got over here soon after the first trucks. What can you tell me about these folks? What’s your name?”
The sound of a siren racing up the hill caught everyone’s attention. Echo looked through the back window. She could see a flashing red light but little else thanks to the ATV still strapped in the truck bed being in the way. In her sideview mirror, she watched the sheriff get out of his official white SUV.
The reporter immediately veered away to intercept him, but Inkwell waved him off as he marched determinedly to Adam’s window. “What are you doing out here?”
Adam explained. Echo noticed he didn’t say a word about coming to find the alleged cousin’s name. He finished with a question of his own. “Are Lonnie and Janine okay?”
The sheriff stared at him for a few seconds. “The wife was apparently napping down in the basement and that’s where the fire started. She’s in bad shape. Lonnie was upstairs. He seems to have been asleep, as well.”
“How did it start?”
“That’s for the fire marshal to determine.”
“We’ll head over to the hospital and see if we can help Lonnie,” Adam said.
Inkwell lowered his voice and checked to see if the reporter was still close by. “I suggest you go home. My deputies are over at your place right now collecting everything that shoots a .22 caliber bullet.”
“What are you talking about?” Adam demanded. “Why?”
“Ballistics tests just came back on the bullet that killed Willet Garvey. By some miracle of timing that defies explanation, they also came back on the two bullets we found inside your cave.”
A chill ran through Echo’s entire body as the sheriff lowered his voice even more. “All three bullets were fired from the same gun,” he added.
Beside her, Adam’s knuckles turned white as he gripped the steering wheel.
“You might want to advise your father to call his attorney.”
Chapter Eighteen
J. D. Oakes and Del Halverson were both at the ranch when Adam and Echo returned. Pete was conspicuously absent. The deputies were in the process of carting off the last of the weapons as per their warrant.
As soon as they’d driven away, it was up to Adam to explain what had happened at Lonnie’s place. The news hit all of the older men hard.
“The fire started in the basement?” Del said. “Are you sure?”
“Positive,” Adam answered.
His father immediately started making plans to collect Lonnie and bring him back to the ranch if the hospital would release him but of more interest to Adam was the meaningful glance J.D. and Del exchanged.
“Lonnie never got here today to talk to Dad,” Adam said, leading the two of them aside as his father went into his office to exchange slippers for boots. “I get the feeling you guys know what he was worried about. The time for secrets is over.”
“Your Dad is going to the hospital,” Del said. “If Lonnie wants to talk, he’ll talk.”
“Hell, I’ll talk,” J.D. said. “I’m worried about Lonnie. From what Adam said, Janine could have died tonight, might still not make it. Lonnie will blame himself if he, well, you know.”
“I don’t know,” Adam said as Echo joined them. “Tell me what you mean.”
“Oh, hell,” Del said with a sigh. His face, unnaturally pale for him, seemed to blanch even further as he added, “Lonnie had a collection down there in that basement.”
“What kind of collection?” This from Echo.
“Artifacts from all over the place,” Del said. “Janine didn’t know anything about it. He showed us the stuff a few weeks ago, after a card game. Your dad wasn’t coming to the games ’cause of that busted knee. Anyway, after Willet got himself killed, Lonnie confessed the last few things he bought came from Garvey. According to Lonnie, he didn’t know Garvey stole them from your cave. He swears he wasn’t in cahoots with Willet but he’d met with the man several times. He didn’t know who had seen him at the Garvey place and if that someone might come forward after the murder.”
J.D. shook his head. “If Lonnie panicked and decided to burn down his basement to get rid of the evidence, he never meant to hurt Janine. Sure he’d inherit all her money, but he’d be alone.” He stroked his mustache and sighed. “He said guilt over buying stolen things from Garvey was eating him up. He wanted to confess it all to your father. But Lonnie isn’t the bravest guy around.”
Adam and Echo looked at one another. What did all this mean?
“We’re going with your father to the hospital,” J.D. added, slapping Adam on the arm. Unfortunately, he hit the wounded one and Adam had to stifle a grimace. “If Lonnie comes back here, be sure to keep an eye on him. If he started that fire, I wouldn’t put it past him to do something else equally drastic.”
Echo walked the two men to the door as Adam went into his father’s office. To his absolute astonishment, the black Stetson sat on the desk.
“Hold down the fort, I’ll be back soon,” his dad said as he grabbed truck keys from the top of a bookcase.
Adam picked up the Stetson. “Wait a second, Dad. Where did your hat come from?”
“I found it behind the gun case when I was unlocking it for those damn deputies. It’s missing a concho. I suspect your brother’s dog had a go at it. Pauline said she’d keep an eye out for it. I have to run.”
“Wait. Did the deputies go over to my place and get the Smith & Wesson?”
“I didn’t know you had it.
I think their warrant just covered my property. You own the land your house sits on.”
“But the gun is registered to you. I took it over there after that little visit from the Garvey boys. You better call the sheriff in the morning and tell him about it.”
There was a soft knock on the open door frame and they both turned to see J.D. “You coming, Birch?”
“Yeah. I’m coming.”
Adam took the hat with him when he returned to the living room. Echo had plopped down in front of the empty fireplace. She was thumbing through the cigar box, pausing to peruse each photo. Her eyebrows lifted when she saw what he carried.
“Is that your father’s?”
“Yep. He found it tonight on the floor behind the gun case. One of the conchos is missing.”
“The hat couldn’t have been there long or Pauline would have come across it before now,” Echo said.
“The general consensus is Bonnie chewed on the band. Does it look chewed on to you?”
“No,” Echo said as the dog who leaned against her leg managed to look offended by the suggestion. Echo tousled her gold ears. “And unless she’s learned to drive and open doors, how did she deposit one of the missing conchos inside Willet Garvey’s house?”
“Echo, if you hadn’t taken that concho, the police would have picked it up. Tonight, when they searched for weapons, they would have found the hat with the missing concho and put two and two together.”
“I hadn’t thought of that. How did the hat end up here?”
“We never lock a door. During busy seasons, the house is often unattended for hours at a time.”
“Meaning just about anyone could have returned it, but why?”
“To frame Dad for Willet’s murder. Why else?”
“But why did someone even want to kill Willet?”
“It’s got to be tied into the artifacts. Lonnie was buying them from Willet but he didn’t know where Willet was getting them. When he figured it out, he panicked. The question is, did he panic before or after Willet was killed?”
“Everyone agrees the artifacts aren’t really valuable monetarily. Plus, Willet died the day before the remains were discovered in the cave and yet the same gun killed the three people years apart. None of this makes sense, but I can feel a noose tightening around your father’s neck.”
“You watch,” Adam said. “If ballistic tests show one of our guns fired those bullets and they get a new search warrant, the next thing we’ll find is a bag of cocaine hidden away in Dad’s desk.”
They looked at each other for a heartbeat and then both rose at the same time. An hour later they’d searched the office. No drugs, but it was a huge ranch and evidence could be planted in a million different spots.
They sat back down on the sofa and Echo picked up the box again while Adam studied the band. It did not look chewed to him…?.
“What’s this?”
He shook himself out of his reverie and turned his attention to Echo as she lifted a tan business card from the cigar box. “It was stuck against the front wall. It’s the same color as the box.” She flipped it over in her hand. “‘William Stonehill,’” she read. “Who’s that?”
Adam took the card. “Never heard of him.” One side was printed with the logo and information for a feed store in Woodwind that had gone out of business two decades before. The second side had William Stonehill written across it in pencil along with a phone number. “Area code 406,” he read aloud. “Montana.”
“Where in Montana? Can you tell?”
“No. The whole state has the same area code.” He flipped the card. There was nothing on the other side. “It had to be in the box at least as long as the pictures, but who knows, it could have been in there for years before that.” He flipped the card onto the tabletop. “Echo, where’s Uncle Pete? Isn’t it odd that he didn’t come into the house during all this commotion?”
“Pauline said he didn’t feel well.”
“I think it’s about time we got to the bottom of what he knows.”
ECHO RAPPED HER KNUCKLES against the cabin door, waited a few seconds, then called out her stepfather’s name. A faint “Come in” reached her ears. She and Adam walked directly into the living area, which wasn’t all that big. Honey-gold knotty pine walls and antique braided rugs lent the place a cozy air that somehow didn’t translate tonight.
The reason was the man sitting on a straight chair staring into a dark fireplace. Pete glanced up as though he’d been waiting for a firing squad. He looked ten years older than he had just three days before.
Echo crossed the room and knelt beside his chair. She had planned on questioning him gently, but the guilty look in his eyes unnerved her so that subtlety flew out the window. “Why did you take the postcard?”
“I didn’t—”
“Yes, you did,” she said. “Don’t lie about it. We have to know why.”
Pete shook his head. There were tears in his eyes. Echo’s heart went out to her stepfather, but she resisted the urge to let him off the hook. She didn’t believe for a moment that he would hurt anyone, but it was obvious he knew something.
“Echo has come very close to danger more than once and she might again,” Adam said. “That’s unacceptable to me. Isn’t it to you?”
“Yes, but it doesn’t make sense,” he said quickly, glancing at Echo, and the tenderness she saw in his eyes communicated things he’d never been able to put into words. She gripped his hand. “Just tell us why you took it.”
Pete’s mouth opened and closed. He covered his face with his free hand, then lowered it. It took him sixty seconds before he finally spoke. “I thought the police might be able to tell that Melissa didn’t really write the postcard. I couldn’t take the chance.”
Adam said, “Take what chance?”
The tears ran down his cheeks, following the grooves etched by time. “I was trying to protect my brother.”
Echo immediately looked up at Adam who stood so still she could see his heartbeat in his throat. “Dad sent the postcard? How—”
“No, I sent it.” He transferred his gaze to Echo. “I’d traveled to Ontario in the past and brought home a bunch of postcards only your mother knew about. When things started heating up for Birch, I copied an old card of Melissa’s that was lying around, one she’d sent earlier that year when she was gone for a while. Then I put it in an envelope and sent it to a Canadian friend with directions to send it here as a kind of joke. Birch had to know she couldn’t have sent it but you should have seen him showing it around. It gave me the chills.”
“How could Dad have known she didn’t send it?” Adam said. “What do you mean?”
“I had to protect Birch,” Pete mumbled. He took a deep, shuddering breath and finally mumbled, “He killed Melissa.”
Adam took a step back. “No.”
“I knew it had to be one of those spontaneous things, you know, a crime of passion,” Pete said, his voice rising. “I didn’t know then he’d killed the cowpoke, too. I thought he had just lost his temper and went too far and your mother ended up dead and he hid her body. I had to get the law off his back. I had to save the ranch. I thought I could live with knowing, but, Echo, when your mother started asking questions about the postcard, thinking she recognized it from those in the drawer, I knew it was time to get you and her away from here.”
His gaze swiveled back to Adam. “I worried every day of my life about leaving you boys, but I knew Birch would never hurt you. It was your mother who pushed his buttons. He loved her so much.”
“Did you see him do it? How do you know he killed her?”
Pete shook his head. “I came into the house that night. They didn’t know I was there. I heard the fight and it wasn’t just a squabble, they were really going at it. Then Melissa exploded out the back door and I stood there in the shadows trying to figure out what to do. That’s when I saw Birch come out of the den toting that old .22 he’s still got. He went after her. I followed him, then lost him out where we
used to have a bunkhouse. I thought I heard a shot, but I wasn’t sure, it wasn’t loud, and I told myself someone was shooting coyotes.”
“But that doesn’t mean—”
“Next day Melissa was gone. I’m not sure when Lassiter disappeared. Birch waited a few days then called the cops. I was there when he told them his version of what happened. He never admitted anything about going after Melissa or taking a gun or nothing. He lied to them.”
“What did he do when the postcard came?”
“Acted all happy. I kept thinking about that noise. I couldn’t swear what it was. I checked out the bunkhouses and couldn’t see anything wrong. But I knew I had to get Althea and Echo out of here. We couldn’t stay. And now I wish I’d never come back.” He looked into Echo’s eyes. “It was selfish of me to bring you here after all those years of keeping you away. I wanted time with you. I never dreamed all this would happen—”
Echo ran a hand through her short hair. This was a nightmare. She looked up at Adam, who was standing there, shaking his head.
“No,” he said. “I don’t believe it. There has to be another explanation.” He paused for a moment and that’s when Echo heard a car outside. Adam apparently heard it, too. He crossed to the window and held open the drape for a second, then dropped it. “Dad and the others are back. Looks as though they brought Lonnie with them. Time for a chat.”
“I can’t bear to look him in the eye,” Pete said.
“You don’t have to,” Adam said. “I’ll do it for you.”
Echo got to her feet. “And I’ll help.”
THEY FOUND J. D. OAKES smoking on the porch. “They’re inside,” he said as he snuffed out the cigarette. “I’ve had about as much of Lonnie as I can take. Tell Del I’m going to go over to say hello to Pete. He can come get me when he’s ready to head home.”
As Adam opened the front door, his father turned to face them, his eyes red and moist. Del and Pauline were in the process of helping Lonnie up the stairs. Lonnie was making a lot of noise, but none of it was intelligible. Birch took Echo by the arm and guided them both into the living room. He kept his voice soft. “Janine died,” he said.