by Dayle Gaetz
They found Ryan inside the barn, mucking out stalls and not looking happy about it.
“Hey, Ryan!” Huntley called. “When did you get back?”
Ryan removed the cigarette that dangled between his lips. “Late last night.”
“Did you hear about the fire?”
“Yeah, Dad told me.” He turned to Sheila. “I heard your dad’s been arrested. Tough luck, kid.” He patted her on the shoulder as if she was his pet dog or something.
Sheila backed away. “He wasn’t arrested! The Mounties took him in for questioning.” She was about to tell Ryan not to call her “kid,” but when she looked down at the cigarette held between his fingers, with a glowing line of ash drooping from it, she said instead, “You’re not supposed to smoke in the barn. With all this hay around, you could start a fire. You know better than that.”
Anger flashed in his eyes; then he nodded. “You’re right, kid, sorry.” He went outside and stomped the cigarette into the dirt. When he returned, Katie had her notebook and pen at the ready.
“What are you doing?” Ryan growled. “Taking note of my bad behavior?”
“Katie writes notes about everything,” Sheila explained.
“It’s because she has a rotten memory,” Rusty added.
Katie managed to include them all in her angry glare. She snapped the notebook shut. “Did you go to the Calgary Stampede?” she asked.
He looked surprised. “I have no interest in rodeos. Why would I go to the stampede?”
Katie shrugged. “I thought your dad said you went there.”
Ryan shook his head. “He might have told you I went to Calgary to see my girlfriend. We went out for dinner and to a movie. If I never see another horse or cow after I’m done here this summer, I’ll be a happy man.”
“But I thought you liked the ranch!” Sheila said.
“Sure, it wasn’t bad—when I was a kid. I’ve got better things to do now.”
His words hurt Sheila, and she turned her back on him. She busied herself showing Katie how to remove the saddle and bridle.
Ryan muttered something about repairing a fence and rode off in his Jeep.
“He always uses the Jeep now,” Huntley said, “so he doesn’t need to ride a horse. Last year he used to like it here. Now he criticizes everything.”
“Weird,” Sheila said. She remembered how Ryan used to complain at the end of every summer when he had to return to his mom’s place in Lethbridge.
He loved the ranch then. What had changed? “Why’d he come here if he doesn’t like it?”
“Who knows? I guess he needs the money for university. He wants to be a lawyer, you know.”
Okay, maybe that explained it, Sheila decided.
Maybe going to university makes people think they’re way special. “What’s his girlfriend like?”
“I don’t know. She’s never been here because she never wants to leave Calgary. Ben says she’s real old, like maybe twenty-three.”
Twenty-three! Sheila couldn’t imagine ever being so old.
Outside, Rusty had settled in a plastic chair under the cottonwoods with his sketchbook propped on his knees. Katie began to search the dusty yard, her nose close to the ground and a little plastic bag in her hand.
“What are you looking for now?” Sheila asked.
Katie waved the bag. “Evidence!”
Curled inside the bag was a little brown and white object that resembled a caterpillar. Sheila realized what it was: a long cigarette butt.
“Where’d you get that?”
“By the door. It’s the one Ryan dropped.”
Sheila remembered the cigarette butts up on the hill above the development and felt a little burst of hope. “So do you think it was Ryan?”
“Don’t know yet. Could be.”
“Why did you ask if he went to the stampede?”
“I just wanted to know if he was in Calgary or not.”
“Why?”
“Because that’s where the matches were from, remember? A restaurant in Calgary.”
“But Ryan was away when the fire started, and Adele was here. She was in Calgary a few days ago though. Maybe the matches were hers.”
“Hmm, can’t say as I know.” Katie grinned.
“We need to talk to Adele,” Sheila said.
They found her at the desk in Chris’s office, reading a letter. Adele looked up, bleary-eyed, as Sheila and Katie entered the room.
“Lawyer babble,” she said, shaking her head. “Why can’t they write in plain English so people can make sense of it?”
Katie shrugged. “Maybe they’re trying to impress everyone with how smart they are.”
“Like Ryan,” Sheila said without thinking.
Adele and Katie laughed.
“What are you reading about?” Katie asked, trying to read upside down.
“It’s from Glenmar Development’s lawyers. They’re saying Glenmar has the right to purchase the entire Cottonwood Creek ranch for their development scheme. Imagine, all that beautiful land paved over, filled with houses and a shopping mall! The idea makes me ill!”
“But how can they buy it if you don’t want to sell?”
Sheila was appalled. She had loved this land for as long as she could remember. The Waltons and the Arnesens had always kept their adjoining lands as natural as possible for the wild creatures that had lived here since long before settlers arrived.
“Apparently, after my parents sold that chunk of land to them, Glen and Marla Coutts kept pestering them to sell the rest of the property. Mom no longer understood what was happening, because of her disease.”
Adele shuddered and put her hand to her mouth. “But before Mom became ill, my parents had planned to preserve their land as a conservation easement.”
“What’s that?” Sheila asked.
“It’s an arrangement they were making with the Nature Conservancy of Canada. The environmental value of the land would always be maintained, but our family would continue to own it. That way the natural habitat would be preserved for wildlife species forever.”
What a great idea, Sheila thought, if only it had worked.
“I still don’t get it,” Katie said. “How can Glenmar get your land if you don’t want to sell it?”
“My dad was still making arrangements with the Nature Conservancy when he died so suddenly. It looks like the Couttses zipped right over and got my mother to sign over her land, even though she had no idea what she was signing.”
“But—that’s disgusting!” Sheila said. She couldn’t imagine anyone sneaking around like that, taking advantage of someone with a horrible illness like the one Mrs. Arnesen had.
“Your dad has been helping me,” Adele said, “and he wants to do the same thing with the Triple W ranch. What we’d really like to do is start a guest ranch and ecological reserve where people can come to learn about nature. But, anyway, Chris is helping pay for a lawyer to defend our rights.
My lawyer says Mom’s signature isn’t valid due to her condition.” Suddenly Adele slammed both fists against the desk so hard that both girls jumped.
“Everything’s such a mess!” she shouted. “And now your dad’s in trouble! How can we afford to hire another lawyer to help him?”
Sheila felt ill. It was so unfair! And she was suddenly certain Adele had nothing to do with the shooting or the fire, even though she did have a good motive. But if not Adele, then who? Who else had motive? Not Ryan. He couldn’t get away from here fast enough.
That left her dad.
“Listen,” Adele said, “I need to go back to my place this afternoon for a few hours. The boys are coming with me. Do you girls want to come along, or will you be okay here?”
“We’ll be fine,” Katie said.
18
“I’ve almost got it worked out,” Katie said. She was sitting cross-legged on the grass under the cottonwood trees after Adele and the boys drove away.
On a lawn chair nearby, Sheila wiggled her bare t
oes and paid little attention. She listened absently to the steady clink, clink, clink of metal on metal from the far side of the barn and pictured Ben working away in the heat of his blacksmith shop, designing the perfect horseshoe for whichever horse needed re-shoeing at the moment. “Ben’s a farrier, you know.”
“Oh,” Katie mumbled. Then she looked up.
“What’s a farrier?”
“He looks after horses’ feet—not just our horses, but for all the ranchers in the area, and he makes shoes to fit them properly.”
Katie shrugged and checked her notes. “There’s only one thing that doesn’t make sense.”
Again Sheila paid no attention. She was locked in her own little world, trying to think things through. There was no getting around the fact that, even if Wendell didn’t get a good look at it, the truck at the crime scene pretty much had to be her Dad’s because it left the scene heading across Walton land, not by way of the new road built by Glenmar.
Also, even if she really wanted Adele to be guilty, there was no way anyone could confuse Adele with Dad, not even by moonlight. Adele was short and plump; Dad was tall and muscular. So if not Adele, who?
Her mind leaped to Wendell Wedman. What if Wendell made it all up? What if he did the shooting and started the fire himself, then made up a story about seeing the truck and her dad?
“What about Wendell?” she cried, excited.
Katie looked up and shook her head. “Nope! I thought of that, but it doesn’t work.”
“Why not?”
“How would he get the gun? And the truck was out there that night, we have evidence to prove it, so Wendell couldn’t have made that part up. Besides, what motive does he have?”
Sheila had a sudden inspiration. “Maybe he’s working for Glenmar Development. Maybe they paid him to lie about what he saw so they could get my dad out of the way. Maybe they did it to themselves with Wendell’s help…” Her voice trailed off.
“You’re on the right track,” Katie said. “But that still doesn’t put the rifle in his hands, or put him in the truck. I think I know who did it. I just need to figure out one thing that doesn’t fit.”
“What?”
“Your dad told me he didn’t shoot his rifle when he was out on the north range, but you heard the police say both rifles had been fired. Why would your dad lie to me?”
“He didn’t lie!” Sheila snapped. She thought back, trying to recall his exact words. Then she had it. “Dad never said he hadn’t shot the rifle. He told you he didn’t shoot at anything. Dad would never kill an animal unless it was absolutely necessary. He always fires in the air to scare predators away. He doesn’t shoot at them.”
“Hmm…” Katie chewed on the end of her pen and studied her notes. She flipped pages in her notebook, back and forth, back and forth. “Hmm,” she said again.
Sheila couldn’t stand it any longer. “What?” she shouted.
Katie glanced up, startled. “Okay. There are two things we need to do. Do you think if we rode…”
Katie winced, “…if we rode out to the north range, we could find the bullets your dad fired?”
Sheila shook her head. “No way. Do you know how much land is out there? Covered in grass?
The only person who might be able to find them is my dad; he knows where he was standing and which direction he fired. If we used a metal detector, maybe, but I don’t know. Besides, even if we could, we can’t. The police need to find the bullets themselves or they won’t be any good as evidence. If we pick them up, how do we prove where we found them?”
“Good point,” Katie said and made another note in her book.
“What’s the other thing?”
Just then Ben appeared from the far side of the barn, his right arm cradled against his stomach as if it hurt.
He saw the girls and called, “I hear you girls are on your own! Want to come down to the cottage for lunch?”
“Is it lunchtime already?” Sheila asked.
“What do you mean, already? I’ve been working in a sizzling hot shop all morning. I’m parched and my stomach is so empty it thinks my throat’s been cut!”
Katie was already on her feet. “We’d love to have lunch with you!” she said with such eagerness that Sheila knew she had something other than food on her mind.
“Good, I’ll see you there in a few minutes.” He disappeared down the lane.
“That’s the other thing!” Katie said. “We need to question Ben and talk to Ryan. I’ll explain on the way.”
They found Ben seated on a bench on his front porch, removing his boots. He took off his cowboy hat and wiped his damp brow with his left hand and, still using his left hand, took a drag on his cigarette and stubbed it out in a big ashtray. Sheila wrinkled her nose.
“Hi, Ben,” she said, “want some help making lunch?”
“That’d sure be nice. I’m pooped! I was hoping Ryan would get back before me and have lunch ready.
That’s one thing he’s still good at—he’s a great cook.”
He stood and opened the door. “How do you kids feel about peanut butter and banana sandwiches?
That’s my specialty. Ryan used to like them too, but he turns his nose up at them now.”
“Sounds scrumptious!” Sheila said and followed Ben inside.
Ben took an ice pack from the freezer and wrapped it around his elbow.
“I thought your sore elbow would be better by now.” Sheila remembered how Ben’s elbow bothered him the spring before she left the ranch. It got so bad he finally went to a doctor, who told him he had arthritis and shouldn’t use it so much.
“It’s not so bad,” Ben said now, “if I’m careful.”
He made a pot of coffee and mixed two glasses of chocolate milk while Sheila spread peanut butter on multigrain bread and Katie sliced bananas on top.
“Ryan won’t approve,” Ben said as they carried their lunch to the table. “Not fancy enough for the likes of him. I don’t know what’s gotten into that boy lately—I have my suspicions though.”
“University?” Sheila asked.
Ben shook his head. “Not so much university as the company he keeps in Calgary.”
“You mean his girlfriend?” Sheila said.
“He hasn’t been the same since he met Michelle.
He seems nervous and angry all the time, and nothing anyone does around here is good enough for him. And you know? He won’t be seen wearing a cowboy hat!”
“But I thought I saw him wearing a black one,”
Katie said.
“Black?” He looked surprised. “Not Ryan. He used to have a brown one, like mine, but not anymore.”
“I need to use the bathroom,” Katie said, pushing up suddenly from the table. As before, she gave Sheila a warning glance, but this time Sheila knew what Katie had in mind and shook her head. No!
Katie ignored her.
“You know where it is,” Ben said. As soon as Katie was out of sight, he whispered, “Your friend must spend half her life in bathrooms!”
Sheila laughed nervously. “Not quite.” She bit into her sandwich. Yum, nothing better. But she too had a question for Ben. “Don’t you like Ryan’s girlfriend?”
“Uh, let’s say she wouldn’t be my first choice.
Michelle comes from a rich family. Seems like all Ryan thinks about now is money.”
As Ben spoke, the front door flew open and in walked Ryan.
“Ryan!” Sheila shouted. She hopped off her chair so fast it crashed to the floor.
Ryan looked surprised and Ben gave her an odd look, but Sheila knew she had to do something, and quick. She was sure Katie was in Ryan’s room right this minute, searching for—something. Whatever. She ran over, grabbed Ryan’s wrist and tried to drag him through the living room toward the kitchen. “Come have lunch; we made your favorite!”
After a few steps Ryan pulled back. “What?” He sniffed the air. “Peanut butter and banana sandwiches? Oh, please! I haven’t eaten one since I was a lit
tle kid like you!”
Sheila stifled the anger that flashed through her.
“Try one, you might like it.”
He laughed and shook his head. “I don’t think so.
I’ll make something for myself after I get cleaned up.” He turned and walked toward the hall.
Sheila heard a footstep. “Ryan!” she called.
He swung around. “What now?”
“How about some chocolate milk?” she grinned.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Katie emerge from farther down the hall and pass by the bathroom. Katie didn’t miss a step as she opened the bathroom door on her way past.
Ryan snorted. “Chocolate milk? I don’t think so.”
He passed Katie on her way back to the kitchen.
“Where did you come from?” he asked suspiciously.
Katie looked up with innocent brown eyes. “The bathroom.” She rubbed her stomach. “I drank too much chocolate milk.”
As she passed Sheila, she nodded almost imperceptibly.
The girls sat down again. Ben glanced back and forth between them, but his eyes widened when Katie raised her half-finished glass of chocolate milk.
“Are you sure you should drink that?” he asked.
Katie nodded, her dark eyes wide over the rim of her glass.
“It’s Wednesday today,” Sheila pointed out in an effort to divert his attention.
Ben nodded.
“Do you still go to town every Wednesday afternoon for supplies?”
He nodded again. “I’m heading out right after lunch. Should be gone until after dark. I’m meeting a friend for dinner.”
“A lady friend?” Sheila asked.
Ben grinned. “A friend,” he repeated.
“We’ll clean up the kitchen so you can get going,”
Katie offered. “We don’t mind, do we, Sheila?”
Sheila shook her head. “Don’t worry, we’ll do an excellent job.”
“That’s real nice of you girls.” Ben finished his coffee and took his mug to the sink. “You may as well wait until Ryan’s done. He’ll only mess things up again.”
“We don’t mind,” Sheila said.