Boots and Bullets

by B. J Daniels

  AT CYRUS’S INSISTENCE, Kate went through the shop and her apartment upstairs, looking for anything out of place or missing. She was more upset than she’d let on. Angry and scared. Not just angry and upset. She hadn’t wanted to fall apart when Jasmine needed her to hold it together. Nor did she want Cyrus to see how upset she really was after what she’d seen in the newspaper.

  When she’d seen her friend standing there with a poker in her hands… Kate was just thankful that Jasmine hadn’t confronted the burglar.

  She felt violated just knowing that someone had gone through her things and at the same time thankful for her friend and Cyrus. He was downstairs now, inspecting the locks and windows to see if he could find out how the intruder had gotten in.

  “With all the wonderful things you have sitting around, I’m surprised he didn’t take anything,” Jasmine said, frowning at her from across the room. They’d gone through the shop and found nothing missing. Not even from the broken case.

  Now, back upstairs, Kate spotted the first thing she’d found out of place in her apartment, even though it was clear whoever had broken in had been looking for something.

  “What is it?” Jasmine asked, seeing her reaction.

  “My photos,” Kate said in a voice that broke. She rushed to it but stopped herself from snatching up the album. “Fingerprints. There could be fingerprints,” she said to herself out loud.

  Going in the kitchen she pulled a wooden spoon from the canister by the stove and returned to the album the burglar had left out.

  Using the handle of the spoon, she carefully opened it. Her heart thudded in her chest. Hadn’t she known what would be missing the moment she saw that the intruder had pulled down the photos?

  “What’s going on?” Cyrus asked as he came into the room.

  “I think the burglar took some of Kate’s photographs,” Jasmine said. “Why would he break in to take photos and try to steal something out of your memento case? That doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.”

  It did to Kate. She looked at Cyrus as she let the album fall open on the page with the missing photographs of her aunt and mother and saw that it made sense to him, as well.

  Chapter Nine

  Sheriff McCall Winchester had known it was just a matter of time before she met her cousin Cyrus. She’d heard he was in town asking a lot of crazy questions. Some of the same questions she’d already answered for his brother when he’d called from Denver asking about a murder.

  Rumors were flying and Cyrus Winchester was now the talk of the town.

  Given all that, she hadn’t been that surprised to get a call from him about a break-in at Second Hand Kate’s. Since meeting his twin, Cordell, she’d come to expect wherever the Winchester men went, trouble was never far behind.

  “It’s nice to finally meet you,” McCall said as she shook Cyrus’s hand upon arriving at the shop. One of her deputies was busy shooting the scene and checking for prints. “I visited you a few times in the hospital, but I’m sure you don’t remember.”

  “No, sorry.” He had the Winchester dark eyes and hair just like her. She saw him studying her, no doubt seeing the Winchester resemblance, and had to smile. Fortunately she looked like their grandmother, but it had taken Pepper’s acceptance to make people quit questioning her birthright. “You’re Uncle Trace’s daughter?”

  She smiled. “Not all the stories about my mother turned out to be true.”

  He seemed to relax. “I was sorry to hear about your father.”

  McCall nodded. Finding out that her father hadn’t abandoned her mother and her before she was born had been a double-edged sword. Trace Winchester hadn’t run off—he had gotten himself murdered. Either way, she’d never known her father.

  “Why don’t I start with Jasmine and Kate, if you don’t mind hanging around until I’m finished with them,” McCall said.

  “I’ll be right here.”

  She smiled, sensing that protectiveness she’d seen in his brother and wondering how it was that he and Kate had met. All in good time, she thought as she went upstairs to where the other two were waiting.

  “Why don’t you step in here, Cyrus,” McCall suggested a while later. She motioned to one of the small rooms in the shop that had been decorated as a parlor, much like the real one at her grandmother’s lodge on the Winchester Ranch.

  “I’ve heard Jasmine’s and Kate’s stories as to the break-in,” McCall continued. “I can’t wait to hear yours, since Kate tells me it has to do with her aunt and mother and some dream you had while in the coma.”

  “We don’t know that for a fact,” he hedged, but at her prodding recounted his dream.

  She listened as he told her about what he’d thought he’d seen at the hospital and how the woman had been wearing the silver bracelet he’d seen in the glass cabinet—the same cabinet someone had broken into but either hadn’t been after the bracelet or had gotten scared away before taking it. A bracelet that could have belonged to Kate’s aunt rather than her mother.

  McCall raised a brow when he told her about the newspaper article. The woman named Candace Porter had been murdered just like in his dream—and she had turned out to be Kate’s aunt, Katherine Landon, only she was going by an assumed name.

  “Kate and I both recognized her,” Cyrus said.

  “And it was her photo and Kate’s mother’s photographs that were taken from the album upstairs.” McCall got the feeling he was leaving something out and wondered why. Perhaps to protect Kate? There was definitely something going on between Cyrus and Kate.

  “How exactly did you meet Kate?” she asked and could have sworn he blushed. She listened as he told her about seeing her at the hospital and thinking she was the woman from his dream, only to realize she had to be a relative of the dead woman.

  McCall couldn’t miss the way he talked about Kate. These Winchester men, she thought with no small amount of amusement, since her father had broken more than a few hearts, including her mother’s.

  “Wow, that was some dream,” she said when Cyrus finished. “So you’ve been asking a bunch of questions around town about a murder and now you think the murderer broke in here, took some photographs and tried to take the bracelet.”

  “Believe me, I wish it had been nothing more than a bad dream. There was a point where I was starting to believe it was—even against all odds.”

  “Until you found Kate in the basement after someone cut the cable and Andi found the newspaper article about a thirty-year-old murder at the hospital, and now this break-in.” McCall studied him. “Nothing else was taken besides some family photographs?”

  He shook his head. “Apparently not.”

  “This silver bell bracelet that you saw in your dream, is it the same one in the case that was broken?”

  “It looks pretty similar. Apparently there were two bracelets. Kate’s grandfather made them for his daughters. Whoever broke in must have seen the bracelet, recognized it and thought…” He hesitated. “Who knows what he—or she—thought.”

  “Or she?”

  “Jasmine didn’t see the person. I wouldn’t rule out that it might have been a woman. Whoever cut the cable wasn’t particularly strong. When I inspected the cable just before you arrived, I noticed that it had taken several attempts to cut it.”

  “Interesting.” McCall had heard Cyrus and Cordell were damned good private investigators in Denver. She’d gotten the chance to work with his brother in June and could attest to how devoted they were. Both had almost gotten killed. “So what’s your theory?”

  “I just got over thinking I was crazy. I was hoping you’d look into the Candace Porter murder. She was apparently killed in the nursery at the old hospital. She was a nurse, according to the story, but Kate says she’s sure her aunt never went to nursing school. Unfortunately, we don’t have any photographs of her—other than the one in the newspaper article. Whoever broke in took them.”

  “But you and Kate are sure Candace Porter was her aunt, Katherine Landon
?”

  “Yes. The same woman I dreamed about while in my coma. Don’t ask me to explain it.”

  “Very strange,” McCall agreed, thinking this could be the strangest investigation she’d come across yet. “I’ll see what I can find out.”

  AS CYRUS WALKED McCall to the door, she asked the one question he’d been dreading. “Have you been out to see Grandmother?” He must have raised a brow, because she laughed.

  “Yeah, it still seems odd calling her Grandmother, but she’s accepted that I’m one of you,” McCall said. “Not sure that’s a good thing, but she seems to be trying to make up for the past.”

  “You think that’s why she invited my brother and me back here?”

  “No,” she said with a laugh. “From what I can gather it has something to do with my father’s murder. I don’t believe she’s happy with the outcome of the investigation. Which is probably how I became acting sheriff—until the election, at least. Not that she isn’t above interfering with the election to get what she wants.”

  He had to smile at her honesty. “Doesn’t sound like Pepper can put much over on you.”

  “Our grandmother gets whatever she wants one way or another, but I probably don’t have to tell you that.”

  “No,” he admitted. “I heard from Cordell that she seems to think someone in the family was involved in your father’s death.” He saw from McCall’s expression that there might be something to that and felt sick inside at the thought. He knew his father, Brand, wasn’t involved, but wouldn’t put anything past his Aunt Virginia.

  “These things have a way of coming out in time,” McCall said.

  “Didn’t I hear you’re getting married in December at Winchester Ranch?”

  She laughed. “That’s probably when Grandmother will drop her bombshell, huh? I’ve thought of that. But doesn’t every bride want a wedding she will never forget? You should go see her. Maybe I’m wrong, but I think she isn’t as uncaring as she pretends to be.”

  “I might before I leave.”

  “So you’ll be staying around for a while?”

  “For a while,” he said noncommittally. He couldn’t leave now because of Kate and whatever was going on, even if he wanted to.

  At the back of his mind a part of him still worried that the dream wasn’t about getting justice in a thirty-year-old murder case. It was a premonition that Kate was the real victim he’d come to Whitehorse to save—or die trying.

  “YOU TOLD THE SHERIFF about your dream?” Kate asked Cyrus, still feeling shaken. She’d cleaned up the broken glass after Jasmine, the sheriff and her deputy had left.

  Cyrus had gone around the house making sure the place was locked up for the night. He’d composed a list of locks that needed to be changed and security measures to be added.

  “She’s going to see what she can find out about Candace Porter. I’m sorry, Kate.”

  She nodded. Growing up, she’d believed she could handle most anything. She’d already lost her mother and aunt all those years ago, and recently her grandmother.

  But it had been one thing to believe there was merit to Cyrus’s dream and another to find out that her aunt had really been murdered, then right on the heels of that to find her shop broken into, her treasured photographs taken and the bracelet nearly gone, as well.

  Not to mention that whoever was involved might still be in Whitehorse after thirty years—and knew not only who she was, but that she and Cyrus were looking into her aunt’s murder.

  “They were looking for something, weren’t they?”

  “That’s my thought, but what? Whoever it was recognized the bracelet. I think that is why they decided to take it as they were leaving. I remember my reaction when I noticed it on my way out the first time. The killer must have been shocked to see it, as well.”

  “Which means my aunt’s killer is still in town,” Kate said.

  “It would seem so.”

  “What could the person have been looking for?”

  “I would imagine the killer thinks we must have some kind of evidence. Otherwise, how could I know the things I do?”

  “Your dream,” she said with a nod. “The killer thinks you made that part up.”

  “I wish.”

  “Maybe there is evidence,” she said suddenly. “I need to go to West Yellowstone to my grandmother’s cabin. After she died I couldn’t go through all her things. I started, but the woman was a pack rat. I doubt she ever threw anything away. It was just too overwhelming. But now, I can’t help but wonder what else she kept from me.”

  “Well, I’m going with you. I’m not letting you out of my sight until this is over.”

  She liked the sound of that. Except for the “until this is over” part.

  “I probably should mention that West Yellowstone is seven hours from here. If we leave now we’ll get there late but we can stay over, if you don’t mind.”

  “Sure.” Cyrus looked worried and she wondered if, like her, he was thinking about the two of them alone in a cabin in the woods and that kiss.

  Or maybe that was the last thing on his mind.

  “Thank you for going with me,” she said. In truth, she wasn’t sure she could have faced this alone.

  As she quickly packed to leave, she couldn’t get out of her head that her aunt had lived and worked in Whitehorse. No wonder her mother had sent the postcard from here. But why would her aunt have been using another name? And how was it that her aunt was working as a nurse? Kate was almost certain Katherine had never been to nursing school.

  Kate suddenly remembered one of Dimple’s friends telling her about her aunt once at a wedding, after her grandmother’s friend had had too much champagne. “Katherine was your grandmother’s wild child,” the friend said in confidence. “Your mother made up for it. Elizabeth was the perfect child. Do you know what she did? When she was little she would take the blame for things her sister did, just to protect Katherine.”

  Is that why her mother had left her so soon after she was born to come to Whitehorse? Had Katherine been in trouble? Kate could only assume so, given that Katherine hadn’t been using her real name.

  What else would Kate discover about her aunt and her mother once they got to West Yellowstone?

  Whatever trouble her aunt had gotten into thirty years ago, it apparently was still in town, Kate thought as she glanced toward her broken glass case. She’d taken her mementos out for safekeeping. The bracelet was now in her purse.

  The photographs of her aunt and mother were gone and it broke her heart. But she thought the person responsible had left them a clue.

  “The burglar took both my mother’s and my aunt’s photographs,” she said to Cyrus. “Why would he take both?”

  “Maybe he couldn’t tell them apart.”

  “Or maybe he knew my mother.” She just hoped the answer was somewhere in her grandmother’s cabin.

  MCCALL COULDN’T BELIEVE all the things she was supposed to do just to get married, and said as much to her fiancé, Luke, later that afternoon.

  “We could elope,” he suggested.

  She looked at him to see if he was serious, because at that moment she would have taken him up on it.

  He quickly shook his head as if he knew her too well. “It’s going to be a beautiful wedding that we will remember the rest of our lives.”

  She laughed. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

  He pulled her into his arms. “You deserve this wedding.”

  “Still scaring me. I know you’re worried about what my grandmother might be up to as much as I am.”

  “Honey,” he said after kissing her. “We’re getting married at the Winchester Ranch. It’s what your father would have wanted, and if you don’t go through with it, your mother will never forgive you.”

  That convinced her. Ruby would never forgive her. “You’re right.”

  “Not to mention your grandmother seems more excited about your wedding than anyone—even us. I really think she wants to welcome you
to the family.”

  “I went to pick out flowers. Luke, there are too many decisions to make without some help.”

  He looked panicked, as if he was worried she would ask him to go along. “How about your mother?”

  “Ruby?” McCall cried. “She’d want plastic flowers, large, bright ones.”

  “You need to give your mother more credit.”

  “You think? The other day she suggested that she thought it would be cool if she and I had a double wedding at the ranch.”

  “Are she and Red to that point?”

  McCall shrugged. Her mother had been dating Red for a few months, longer than most of her boyfriends lasted. “Can you imagine what my grandmother would have to say about Ruby getting married at the ranch? It’s going to be nerve-racking enough just having Ruby and Pepper in the same room for our wedding.”

  “They both want you to be happy. Neither would dream of spoiling the wedding.”

  She wished she shared his optimism.

  “I heard there was a break-in at Second Hand Kate’s.”

  She told him about it and about her cousin Cyrus’s dream—and the murdered nurse going by the name of Candace Porter.

  “Are you telling me he saw a murder that happened thirty years ago while he was in a coma?” Luke asked, looking as skeptical as she’d first felt.

  “A woman was murdered who, according to her niece, looks exactly like her aunt,” McCall said. “But that isn’t the worst part of all this. I suspect there is something Cyrus is holding back. I think it might be the killer’s motive.”

  CYRUS WATCHED the landscape change from the rolling prairie where thousands of buffalo once roamed to mountain ranges, dark green with pines. The wind howled across the open spaces, bending over the tall yellowed grasses as antelope dotted the hillsides and eagles soared on the thermals.

  The two-lane highway dropped southward, the majestic Beartooth mountain range coming up out of the horizon like a mirage. They turned at the Crazy Mountains, caught Interstate 90 and headed west toward Bozeman as the sun sank. As other mountain ranges came into view, all were dusted with snow, another sign that winter wasn’t far off.