Michael saw the figures only for an instant, just long enough for something strange about them to register vaguely on his brain, then his foot slipped on something and he fell, landing hard on the charred planks of the floor. Splinters gouged painfully into the palms of his hands. Michael tried to scramble to his feet, slipped again, and fell once more. Several seconds passed while he clambered upright again, searching for more secure footing in the ruins.
"Oh, God!" a woman said.
And this time Michael was sure that the voice did belong to Simone McKay.
"Mrs. McKay!" he shouted as he hurried forward. "Mrs. McKay, are you all right?"
"Michael?" Simone's voice sounded strange, all stretched and out of shape, but definitely hers. "My God, Michael, is that you?"
Panting from the exertion, Michael came closer to her. He could barely see her in the gloom, but he could tell now that she was alone. That didn't make sense. He was sure he had seen two people. He fumbled a match out of his pocket as he came up to Simone and said, "It's just me, Mrs. McKay. What's going on h—"
He was scratching the lucifer into life as he asked the question. The words froze in his throat as the match flared and spread its glow in a rough circle. By the light of the match, he saw Simone standing there, a small handbag clutched tightly in her hands, a horrified look on her face. There were sooty smudges on her dress and shoes from climbing through the rubble of the church. She was staring down at the ground in front of her, and Michael followed her gaze with his own eyes.
A young woman lay there on her back in the ruins, staring sightlessly into the night. The fingers of one hand were wrapped loosely around the hilt of the knife that protruded from her breast. A crimson stain spread slowly on the cheap dress around the blade of the knife.
She was dead. Michael knew that without even checking.
And from the looks of things, Simone McKay had killed her.
Simone suddenly reached toward Michael, her fingers digging painfully into his arm as her hand gripped him. She said, "Is . . . is she . . ."
"I'm pretty sure she's dead," Michael replied, his own voice wavering. "I. . . I guess I'd better make certain."
Reluctantly he sank to one knee beside the body and reached out with his free hand, checking for a pulse in the young woman's neck. He didn't find one, just as he had expected. When he held his hand in front of her open mouth, there was no warm breath to be felt. She was gone, all right.
Michael looked up at Simone and shook his head. "I'm sorry. Who . . . who was she? Did you know her?"
He was afraid he already knew the answer to at least one of those questions. This young woman had to be the blackmailer, the person Simone had come here to meet.
Before Simone could answer, the forgotten match burned down to Michael's fingers and made him yelp in pain. He dropped the match, which flared out and allowed darkness to plunge down again.
He was reaching for another one when both he and Simone heard the rapid hoofbeats of an approaching horse. Michael had no idea who could be galloping up the knoll, but after what he had already seen this evening, he didn't think anything would surprise him now.
Michael came to his feet, and both he and Simone swung away from the body and toward the sound of the horse. A moment later Michael saw the animal, its light-colored hide making it more visible in the darkness. The rider swung down from the saddle and called out, "Who's in there?"
Simone gasped, "Cole!"
Michael knew the lawman probably had his gun drawn and was ready for trouble, so he said loudly, "It's Michael Hatfield, Marshal! I'm going to strike a match!"
"Go ahead," Cole said as he began to make his way through the ruins of the church toward them. Ulysses, his big golden sorrel, would stay where Cole had dropped the reins.
Michael struck a second match. Cole was squinting against the light as he came up to them, but that didn't prevent him from noticing the body right away. He nodded grimly toward the young woman and asked, "Is she dead?"
Michael nodded. "I checked for a pulse or breathing. I didn't find either one."
Just as Michael had thought, Cole's heavy .44 revolver was in his right fist. He holstered the weapon and turned to Simone. "Are you all right?"
She nodded shakily. "I'm fine."
"Billy and I heard somebody scream up here. Since Ulysses was already saddled and at the hitch rack, I thought I'd ride up and see what was wrong. I sent Billy for Dr. Kent in case somebody was hurt." Cole glanced at the body again. "Looks like Judson's going to be too late to help her. Do you know who— Wait a minute! That's Becky Lewis, isn't it?"
Michael was getting lost. He didn't know any Becky Lewis, although he had to admit that the dead woman looked a little familiar, as if she was someone he had seen before but didn't really know. Cole obviously knew her, though, and so did Simone.
"Yes," Simone said, her voice as bleak as her expression, "that's Becky Lewis."
"I didn't know she was back in town. What happened?" Cole's voice was sharp as he asked the question, and he was clearly upset.
"I don't know," Simone began, but then the sound of more people approaching the church made her fall silent.
Judson Kent's buggy rolled to a stop near the burned-out shell of the building, followed closely by Billy Casebolt on horseback. The deputy dismounted and joined the physician as they both hurried through the rubble.
Casebolt was carrying an unlit lantern, Michael saw as the two men came up to join the group. He was grateful for that, because he didn't want to have to keep striking matches.
Casebolt took the match from Michael as it was about to burn down and lit the lantern with it. The circle of light widened, and Kent got his first good look at the woman on the ground. "My God, Simone!" he exclaimed. "You didn't have to—"
"What?" asked Cole as Kent stopped short. "Didn't have to what, Judson?"
"I didn't kill her, Judson," Simone said raggedly. "You've got to believe me, I didn't kill her!"
"Was this Becky Lewis the person who was trying to blackmail you, Mrs. McKay?" Michael asked.
Cole looked at him in surprise while Kent exclaimed, "Good Lord, how did you know about that?"
Cole's eyes turned back toward Kent. "You knew about this so-called blackmail?"
Billy Casebolt scratched his jaw and said, "I ain't understandin' a durned bit of this."
"Neither am I," Cole said, "but I'm damned well going to. Billy, get a blanket from Dr. Kent's buggy and cover up that woman. Then you can go back down to town and tell the undertaker to bring a wagon up here." His hard gaze swept over Simone, Kent, and Michael. "The rest of you come with me. We're going to my office and sort this out."
Simone held a hand out toward him. "You've got to believe me, Cole. I . . . I didn't have anything to do with this woman's death."
"Right now I don't know enough to believe or disbelieve anybody. Come on, all three of you."
He stepped back and motioned for them to precede him. Kent sighed and went first, then Michael, and finally Simone. Cole brought up the rear of the procession.
He had come up here to get a story, Michael thought. From the looks of things, he had gotten one, all right.
He had gotten a hell of a lot more than he had expected, more than he had ever wanted.
Chapter 13
"All right, start from the beginning," Cole said as he sat down behind his desk and looked at the other three people in the marshal's office. All of them wore expressions that seemed at least a little guilty to him.
"You can't blame Simone for this, Cole," Kent said. "She's been under a great deal of pressure—"
"I can speak for myself, Judson," Simone broke in.
"Yes, of course you can, but I was simply trying—"
Once again she didn't allow him to finish. "You're trying to protect me. I know that, and I appreciate it. But it's not necessary. I haven't done anything wrong."
Cole tried to rein in the impatience he felt. They weren't getting anywhere this way. May
be he ought to ask some specific questions, he decided.
"What about the blackmail?" he said as he looked intently at Simone. "Was Becky Lewis holding something over your head?"
"She thought she was," replied Simone. Her chin lifted defiantly. "She claimed that she saw me murder Andrew."
Cole's eyes widened in shock. That was an answer he certainly hadn't expected. His mind went back to the day he had first arrived in Wind River. He remembered the brawl that had broken out on the platform of the Union Pacific station and how the fight had been abruptly ended by the crack of a gunshot and a woman's scream . . .
Simone's scream when she saw that her husband had been wounded. He recalled as well how she had come to his hotel room that night to plead with him to accept the job he had already been offered by a committee of the town's leading citizens, including Judson Kent and Michael Hatfield. Cole had turned down that proposal, but he had been unable to refuse when the grieving widow had asked him to pin on the marshal's badge and track down the person who had killed her husband.
After the showdown with William Durand, Cole had been convinced that the man was responsible for Andrew McKay's murder, but then Kent had told him about Becky Lewis's pregnancy. It was possible that Becky had killed McKay in a fit of anger when he refused to acknowledge that he was the father of her child. But by that time, Becky had left town, Durand was dead, and it had seemed best to just let the whole matter drop.
Now Becky Lewis had come back to Wind River, only to be murdered herself.
Those thoughts flashed though Cole's mind in a matter of instants, but his silence was long enough to make Simone ask worriedly, "You don't think I had anything to do with Andrew's death, do you, Cole?"
"I never did before," he replied honestly. "But if you were innocent, why were you up there meeting with the Lewis woman tonight?"
Kent didn't let Simone answer. Instead he said hotly, "Because the sheer fact that Simone was being accused of such a heinous crime would have damaged her chances in the election—which is assuredly what Hank Parker intended to do when he sent that trollop to bedevil her!"
Cole held up his hands. "Hold on there. Parker's mixed up in this now?"
"He came to see me this morning," Michael said. "He told me somebody was blackmailing Simone and that if I wanted to find out about it, I should be up at the church an hour after dark."
"And you believed him?" Simone asked the young newspaperman.
Michael looked extremely embarrassed, and Cole didn't blame him. Simone was his boss, after all. "I thought the whole thing was ridiculous," he said. "But I wouldn't have been doing my job if I didn't check it out."
"You could have asked me," Simone said coldly.
"I didn't want to bother you. Like I said, I never thought it would amount to anything. I was as surprised as I could be when I saw your buggy parked up there."
"What else did you see, Michael?" Cole asked quietly.
Michael glanced at Simone again, obviously reluctant to go on. Then he said, "I heard a woman scream, and I thought Mrs. McKay might be in some sort of trouble. So I started into what's left of the church, and I caught a glimpse of somebody. Two people, really."
"What were they doing?"
Michael's reply was little more than a husky whisper. "They were fighting." He hesitated, then went on, "I fell down in the ruins and had trouble getting back up, and when I did, there was only one figure still on its feet. I went over to it and struck a match and found Mrs. McKay standing there over the body."
"I . . . didn't . . . kill . . . her," Simone grated. "I found the slut there, just like Michael did."
Cole's brain was still whirling, but everything he had heard was beginning to form a pattern. He didn't like the picture, but it was undeniable. To make sure everything was straight in his mind, he looked at Simone and said, "You went up there to meet Becky Lewis because she was blackmailing you."
Simone started to say something, stopped, then nodded curtly and said, "Yes. I did."
"Had you already given her any money?"
"I paid her five hundred dollars."
"Why?"
Kent said in exasperation, "Surely you can see why, Marshal! Simone couldn't afford to have such rumors spread around town only a few days before the election!"
"Is that the only reason you paid her, Simone?"
She nodded. "Yes. I thought if I could stall her until after the election, I could deal with the problem then, perhaps offer her enough to get her to leave town again."
Cole looked at the doctor. "You knew about all this, Judson?"
"I was aware of what a strain Simone has been under, and when I saw that she needed my help, I offered it gladly." Kent's back was stiff as he replied, and his tone was none too friendly.
Cole didn't feel very friendly himself. I'll just bet you offered to help, Judson, old boy, he thought. Was that before or after she kissed you?
He shoved that unwanted image out of his mind and went on, "Did you know about this meeting tonight?"
"No," Kent answered after a second's hesitation. "I didn't."
"The Lewis woman came to see me again today," Simone said. "I hadn't seen Judson since then, so I didn't have a chance to tell him about her demand for a meeting at the church. I might not have told him anyway, even if I had seen him. This was my problem, not his."
Cole leaned back in his chair. "This looks bad for you, Simone, mighty bad. Most lawmen would have had you locked up by now."
"My God!" Kent burst out. "You can't really believe that Simone—"
"I believe what the evidence tells me," Cole said, letting some of his own anger come through at last. He looked at Simone and said, "You went to meet Becky Lewis in a deserted place. She was a threat to your election campaign. You knew about her and your husband and the baby. For all I know, you may have thought she killed Andrew. She winds up dead with a knife in her chest and you standing over her. What do you think it looks like, Simone?"
"I didn't kill her," Simone repeated. "I had just gotten there myself. I heard the scream, just like Michael. I went out into what's left of the church, and I . . . I practically tripped over her body. Then Michael came up and struck a match and I . . . I. . ." A great shudder went through her, and she lifted her hands to her face. "I shouldn't have gone up there," she said hollowly. "That's what he was trying to warn me about."
"Who?" asked Cole.
Kent leaned forward suddenly and said, "No, Simone."
She ignored the doctor. "Andrew," she said. "Andrew came to me again tonight, but he didn't say anything this time. He just looked at me so solemnly." She started up out of her chair. "He was warning me not to go to the church!"
Kent was on his feet by now, as were Cole and Michael. The physician took hold of Simone's shoulders and pulled her against him. She began to sob. Kent looked past her at Cole and said fervently, "You can see how upset she is! You've no right to treat her this way, no right at all. You can't pay attention to anything she says while she's in such a state."
Cole felt a little dizzy from everything that had happened. He had never run into anything like this when he was hunting buffalo for the Union Pacific or scouting for the army or guiding wagon trains, that was for sure. But he could see it all clearly enough to know what he had to do, whether he liked it or not.
"Simone," he said. "Simone!"
She turned her tear-streaked face toward him, even as Kent tightened his grip on her.
"You're under arrest," Cole said, "for the murder of Becky Lewis."
"No!" Kent shouted. "That's insane! You can't—"
Simone shook her head. "No, Judson. It's all right. Cole's just doing his job." She pulled away from Kent and stepped toward the desk. "Go ahead, Cole. Do what you have to do. But then do the rest of your job . . . find out who really killed Becky Lewis."
Once again she was pleading with him to solve a murder, Cole thought. Once again he was feeling the power of those dark eyes. But there was one vital difference.
* * *
The rainstorm Cole had halfway expected the night before had never materialized, but a storm of another sort certainly had. He was still feeling the effects of the emotional tempest that had resulted from his arrest of Simone when he stopped at the Wind River Cafe the next morning for breakfast.
"Good morning, Marshal," Rose Foster greeted him from the other side of the counter. There was an expression of concern on her pretty face. "I hope you don't mind me saying so, but you look like you had a hard night, Cole."
"Hard enough," Cole said with a nod.
"I . . . heard about Mrs. McKay," Rose said as she reached for the coffeepot and a cup. "I guess the whole town has heard about it already. That must have been difficult, having to arrest her like that."
"Yes. It was."
"I'm sorry," Rose said quickly. "You don't want to talk about it. I understand. Let me get you a stack of Monty's flapjacks—"
"It's all right, Rose," Cole told her, breaking into her apology. He smiled a little. "I reckon you're right about the whole town knowing about it, so there's no point in pretending it didn't happen."
"Maybe not, but there's no point in rehashing it, either." Rose poured the coffee.
Cole was grateful that she understood. It would have been easier to discuss the case if he knew what to think about it. But even after pondering the facts all through a long, mostly sleepless night, he still wasn't sure what to believe. It was hard to accept the idea that Simone McKay could be a killer. She had been a friend to Cole during his time in Wind River, even if things between them had never really developed the way he thought they might.
When he came right down to it, though, all he really knew about Simone was the face she had presented to the public in the past year and a half. He knew little of her background, little about the real woman behind the public figure. What was she really capable of? Cole couldn't answer that question.
Judgement Day (Wind River Book 6) Page 13