Tarnished Remains: Shandra Higheagle Mystery #2

by Paty Jager

  “He didn’t really want to divorce me. All his rodeo buddies were against me. They didn’t like him spending time with me instead of them.”

  “That’s not what I heard. Rumor is you forced Johnny Clark to marry you by saying you were pregnant. Then once you had him hooked you either pretended to lose it or you visited a clinic.”

  “How dare you insinuate I’d be so cruel!” Her voice cracked.

  Ryan was pretty sure he’d hit on the truth with the clinic. “The body we found is that of Johnny Clark.”

  “No!” she cried and began to sob in the phone.

  “You’re being pretty hysterical over an ex-husband when you haven’t even blinked over the accusations you may have helped your second husband disappear.”

  “Why you! Who did you say you were? I’m going to speak to your superior and have you removed from the case. I’ll not be insulted.” Her bravado was back.

  “Ma’am, you can’t get me off the case, you’re a suspect.”

  “A what? You think I killed Johnny?” She laughed. “If I was going to kill anyone it would have been that skank. I thought about it, when Marti told me she was pregnant.”

  “Marti who and who was pregnant?” Keeping up with the woman’s conversation had him grasping at the details that stood out.

  “Marti Glasson, she worked at the café in Huckleberry. She loved the cowboys. She also had a thing for Johnny. I knew he’d never fall for her. She had a roving eye and couldn’t keep steady with anyone. But she and I had a mutual dislike for Lil Whitmire and when Marti told me Johnny had been in the café mumbling and trying to sort things out. She’d sat down to be his confidante and learned Lil had told Johnny she was pregnant. He was shocked.”

  The bulb in Ryan’s head started flashing like the light on a squad car. That was what Shandra knew. But how did that make her so sure Lil hadn’t killed Johnny when he refused to marry her?

  “Did this Marti tell you what decision Johnny made?” His telling Lil he wouldn’t marry her may have drove her over the edge. She would have met him on the mountain and smashed in his head. But she wasn’t tall enough to hit him directly on top of his head.

  “Marti called me back all hysterical a week later. She said Johnny came in with a ring. He’d decided to marry the skank.” There was a nasty chuckle and, “Guess she didn’t end up with Johnny either.”

  “Could that be because after learning all this, you followed Johnny up on the mountain and bashed his head in?” Just as Phil Seeton had said, Ryan could see the woman on the phone cold-bloodedly kill Johnny to keep Lil from having him. He saw no reason for Lil to kill Johnny. He was the father of her baby…what happened to the child?

  “I did not kill Johnny! I wondered what happened to him but later I fell in love. True love with Tucker, and I hadn’t given Johnny another thought.”

  Ryan stared down at the notes he’d jotted down. “Any idea where I can find Marti Glasson?”

  “I doubt she made it out of Huckleberry. That one couldn’t keep a job or a man for more than a week at a time.” Tracy Gilley yawned as if bored. “I have another treatment in five minutes. If that’s all detective, I’d like to get back.”

  “Yes, that’s all. Thank you.” While he didn’t like the woman, what she said made sense and she’d given him another lead. Marti Glasson.

  ~*~

  Shandra drove home on auto-pilot. She tried to keep her mind on Lil and how to prove she wasn’t the murderer, but her mind circled to what Phil had said about Daddy. Then she relived the brief kiss with Ryan. This had been an eventful day.

  Lil came out of the studio as Shandra pulled the Jeep into the garage. The woman met her at the door. “Did you learn anything from Phil?”

  “He told Ryan he didn’t think you could kill anyone, but he believed Tracy could.” Shandra ruffled Sheba’s ears and led Lil into the house. “Lil did you ever meet my dad, Edward Higheagle?”

  “The bronc rider? He was your dad? I never put the two together.” She smiled. “I met him once. I was with Johnny. Johnny liked to meet the competitors who were at the rodeos. We were walking around behind the chutes. Johnny was talking with the cowboys and getting some info to use when they came up. Johnny introduced me to Edward and told me to take a good look at the next world champion bareback rider.” The happy reminiscing disappeared. “Your father was bucked off and died before he got that belt buckle.”

  “Were you at that rodeo? The one where he was hurt?” She had to know if Phil’s declaration should be looked into.

  “No, but when I heard I wondered if Johnny knew.”

  “I don’t remember much about Daddy. Hearing Phil say nice things about him made me feel like I knew him better.” Then her mind latched on to what Phil said about her being the reason Daddy and her mom married. As closed up as her mom had been all these years about the marriage, she doubted she’d get the truth from her.

  “It’s been an exhausting day. I think I’ll make a salad and go to bed early. Tomorrow I need to check the clay I brought off the mountain and put it through the next phase.”

  “Do you think Phil said enough to keep your detective from badgering me?” A scowl wrinkled Lil’s forehead.

  “I think Ryan is starting to see you aren’t the killer. But he has to keep digging to find who did take Johnny’s life and ruined yours.”

  Lil walked over to her. “Thank you. No one has cared about me in so long, I forgot what it felt like.” She wrapped her arms around Shandra and held on for several minutes.

  Shandra returned the embrace, finding as much comfort from the woman as she was giving. “You’re welcome. I knew when I heard your background with this ranch you had to be part of it and my life.”

  Lil released her and backed away. “Thank you for allowing me to stay. It’s the only home I know and,”—she ducked her head, then as if coming to a decision, peered straight into Shandra’s eyes. “Our baby, mine and Johnny’s, is buried on the mountain. That’s where I go every Sunday. To be with it.”

  “I wondered why you disappeared. Now I’m even happier about my decision to let you stay.” It was true. Happiness bubbled in her to know she had kept Lil on and that the woman could remain close to the only family she had.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow.” Lil was back to her usual gruff, to-the-point attitude.

  “Yes.” Shandra couldn’t stop the smile lifting the corners of her lips. Lil was a strong woman to have gone through all she had in her life. She was glad the woman was in her life.

  After a quick dinner salad, Shandra took a shower and then sprawled across her bed, sketching an idea she had for a new vase and a surprise for Lil. Before long her eyelids grew heavy. She shoved the pad and pencil to the side of the bed and rested her head.

  Lil stood beside the small waterfall on the upper reaches of the ranch property. She laughed and hugged a baby. Shandra stood by a tree watching the two and feeling happy. A gray cloud moved overhead. The air became cold. The wind picked up and Lil screamed. The wind tugged at the baby in the woman’s arms. Shandra tried to help but the wind blew against her keeping her away. Lil clung desperately to the child, but inch by agonizing inch, the child was pried out of her arms. A woman’s cackle startled Shandra. She looked everywhere but couldn’t see who thought Lil losing her child was funny.

  She looked up at the cloud, hoping the wind would blow it away. The fluffy contours of the cloud revealed Ella’s face.

  “What are you trying to tell me, Ella? Who would want to take away Lil’s baby?”

  Just then a tall cowboy came into view. He called to Lil. She spun toward him, surprise and then elation on her face.

  A jazz tune burst into Shandra’s dream, drawing her out of slumber and to the realization her phone was ringing.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Ryan was tired and should have just given in and closed his eyes, but he’d promised Shandra he’d call tonight. It wasn’t that late. Ten. Surely an artist was up at this time of night.

&nbs
p; “Hello?”

  Her sleepy-sounding voice made him mentally slap himself. She’d made the same trip to Missoula he had today.

  “It’s Ryan. I told you I’d call. I didn’t want you to think I was someone who promised and didn’t follow through.”

  “Oh, what time is it? I dozed off.”

  “Ten. I can hang up if you’d rather go back to sleep.” Dunce! That sounds like an insecure teenager.

  “No, I was having a bad dream anyway. It’s good to talk about something else.”

  The sound of rustling sent his mind to places it shouldn’t go. Not yet anyway.

  “Was your grandmother in the dream?” He found it ironic that he believed in the dreams Shandra had but she didn’t. He’d learned her grandmother was an elder in the dreamer religion of the Nez Perce and had the ability to come to Shandra in her dreams and share knowledge she had about people. Usually the people she cared about that he was investigating for murder.

  “Yes. But I don’t want to talk about it.” Her tone rang with stubbornness.

  “Did she happen to tell you Lil had a baby?” He hadn’t planned to launch that so soon but it seemed like the right time to bring it up.

  “How did you know?”

  The surprise and accusation in her voice made him smile.

  “I investigate.”

  “Who else knows?” she whispered.

  “Two others that I know of.”

  “Who? I thought only Lil, Sally Albright, and myself were all that knew about the baby Lil lost.”

  Shandra’s accusing tone made him grin.

  “Apparently when Lil told Johnny he wasn’t happy about it.”

  “That’s what they argued about before he disappeared. Johnny accused Lil of sleeping around because they used protection. Lil said she had only been with Johnny, but I guess that’s how his first wife wrangled him into marriage was by faking a pregnancy.” Shandra’s voice shook with anger.

  “When did Lil lose the baby?” Ryan had latched onto that little morsel.

  “That night. After Johnny left her on the mountain, she took off up the side of the mountain on a horse and fell off. Between the fall, the realization Johnny didn’t want her or the baby, and who knows what else, she had a miscarriage that night. She showed up at Sally Albright’s muddy, bleeding, and emotionally lost.”

  “That’s something Marti and Tracy didn’t know,” Ryan said, more as a musing than a comment.

  “Tracy and Marti knew? How? And are you talking about Marti Glasson? Lil mentioned her the other day.” Shandra’s questions came at him in rapid succession.

  “Marti was working at the Huckleberry Café back then. Johnny came in muttering, ‘she couldn’t be.’ The waitress discovered Lil was pregnant and Johnny wasn’t happy. According to Tracy, Marti had a thing for Johnny, but she couldn’t keep this juicy bit of news to herself and relayed it to the ex-wife.” He still wasn’t a hundred percent certain Tracy hadn’t got even with Johnny.

  “In my dream the baby blew away but Johnny came back. Did they happen to know if Johnny knew about the baby being lost?”

  “From what I gathered they didn’t even know Lil lost the baby. I’m pretty sure they figured she gave it up when Johnny left her.” But, he hadn’t asked that question.

  “Do you know if this Marti Glasson still lives in Huckleberry?” Shandra asked.

  “I happen to know she does. Only you know her as Martha Samples.”

  “I knew it!” The jubilation and affirmation in her voice startled Ryan.

  “What did you know?”

  “That that woman was a gossip and you could only believe half of what she said,” Shandra said with conviction. “But she knew about the baby. Did she say anything else?”

  “Johnny was in the café a week later with a ring. He’d decided to marry Lil.” He listened close. Was that sniffling he heard? “Shandra? What’s wrong? Why are you crying?”

  “He came back to marry her.” Shandra’s words were wobbly.

  “Yes…?” He’d never understand women. Even growing up with his two uncensored sisters, he still didn’t know what they thought or felt ninety percent of the time.

  “Don’t you see? He did love her. He’d realized Lil would never try to trap him.” The conviction behind her words grabbed his attention. “She said when they wanted to see one another, she’d leave a note in his pickup and he’d leave a note in the barn. They’d meet up on the mountain where his body was found. Someone found his note asking Lil to meet him. Someone who knew he was going to ask her to marry him.”

  “There are only two people. Tracy Gilley and Marti Glasson or should I say Martha Samples.” Ryan was finally feeling like he had clear leads.

  “When will you talk to them? I’d like to be there.” She wasn’t asking to come along, she was telling him she’d be there.

  “I’m not sure having you there would be a good idea.” He didn’t need her butting into his interrogation. She might say something that would tick the other women off.

  “What do you mean not a good idea? I’m a pretty good judge of character, and I might have some womanly insight to ask the right questions.” Her voice purred.

  He smiled and let the low husky words bathe over him. She was using her female wiles to try and sway him. She could try all she wanted, he didn’t mind. But there was no way he’d have her in on the interrogations.

  “Why don’t you talk this way to me all the time?”

  As expected she humphed and went back to business. “I could be an asset. Please let me be there.”

  “One of the interrogations I’ll do by phone. Tracy Gilley is at a spa resort in Texas. I talked to her by phone today.”

  “This is the age of the speaker phone. I promise I won’t say anything without your approval.” Shandra didn’t want to beg, but she would do just about anything to sit-in and hear the women’s excuses for what they knew and if they had anything to do with Johnny’s death. She owed it to Lil to find the truth. Once she heard for herself that Johnny had planned to marry Lil, she’d tell the woman. It was sure to lift a lot of the doubt that had veiled her life since his disappearance.

  “Shandra, you know I believe in your instincts and your dreams. But I can’t have you sitting in when I interrogate a suspect.” The chuckle in Ryan’s voice did little to soften his answer.

  “We could just happen to be at Ruthie’s the same time as Martha.” She tapped a finger against the phone. “I happen to know she eats lunch there Tuesdays and Thursdays. Tomorrow is Thursday.” She waited a beat. “And I’ll be there whether you are or not.”

  “Listen, I can’t have you investigating a witness without me.” Gone was the mirth in his tone.

  “Then I guess you’ll just have to meet me for lunch at Ruthie’s. Then we can call Tracy afterwards. I’m glad you’re a man of your word. I’ll see you at eleven-thirty at Ruthie’s tomorrow.” She hung up and laughed. It had been a long time since she laughed with a full heart. Johnny was going to marry Lil. They would have been such a happy couple. She could tell by the photos she’d seen of the pair.

  “But I’ll wait until I’ve heard what the other two have to say before I say anything to Lil. I want to have all the information in case she asks questions.” She patted Sheba on the head.

  Sheba opened one eye, watching her.

  Shandra laughed again, and stood. Tomorrow could be the turning point in the investigation. She pulled back the covers and slipped into bed. There would be peaceful, happy dreams the rest of the night because her mind and heart were light.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The next day Shandra strolled into Ruthie’s at eleven-thirty. She couldn’t stay at the ranch with Lil and not say something, so she’d packed up vases to take to Dimension’s Gallery owned by her friends Naomi and Ted. She’d spent two hours drinking tea and discussing art and the local galleries with the couple.

  Ruthie greeted her when she stepped through the door.

  “Shandra, welcome.�
�� Ruthie’s smile was always genuine, lighting up her dark-brown eyes. Her mahogany skin glistened from working in the kitchen.

  “Hi Ruthie. I’ll have my usual lunch.” Shandra took the corner booth that faced the rest of the café. This way she’d see Ryan and Martha enter.

  Ryan appeared fifteen minutes later. He stepped through the door, removed his sunglasses, and scanned the establishment. There was a slight flicker in his eyes when he spotted her. Then his brow wrinkled in a frown.

  She snickered to herself. He knew her well enough by now to know she’d be here.

  After joking with Ruthie, he strolled over to Shandra’s table.

  Shandra couldn’t take her gaze off the handsome detective. The memory of the kiss to seal their deal yesterday was still vivid. I wonder if we’ll have a date or two before we go to his brother’s wedding? I’m game.

  “Hello Shandra, what a pleasant surprise,” he said loud enough for the other customers to hear.

  “Care to join me, detective?” she asked, smiling.

  He slid into the bench seat across from her. His voice dropped to a whisper, “I wasn’t surprised to see you here, but I’d hoped all morning you had come to your senses and were staying out of this.”

  “Not a chance.” She smiled as Ruthie arrived with her usual cheeseburger and sweet potato fries.

  “What can I get you, Detective?” Ruthie winked at Shandra as Ryan scanned the menu.

  She didn’t have a problem with the community knowing she and Ryan were a possible couple. She’d been celibate ever since moving to the mountain. She’d learned that the hard way--not all men are what they seem. That had taught her to be much more selective in who she became involved with.

  Ryan looked up from the menu. Stared at her taking a bite out of her burger.

  He nodded toward her. “Give me what she has, but not those orange fries. I want real Idaho potatoes.”

  “You got it.” Ruthie headed to the kitchen.

  “That the sheep farmer in you coming out? ‘Give me real Idaho potatoes.’” She joked, mimicking Ryan’s voice.