by Cindi Myers
“Maybe the wind blew it away,” Lacy said.
“We haven’t had any high winds,” Brenda said. “And I watched the city crew hang that banner—it was tied down tight to the utility poles on either side of the street. It would take a hurricane to blow it away.”
“Do you think this has anything to do with those nasty letters you received?” Lacy asked.
“What letters?” Travis was all business now.
“Let’s take this into your office,” Dwight said. “I’ll fill you in.”
They all filed down the hall to Travis’s office. He hung his Stetson on the hat rack by the door and settled behind his desk. Lacy and Brenda took the two visitors’ chairs in front of the desk, while Dwight leaned against the wall beside the door. “Tell me,” Travis said.
So Brenda—with Dwight providing details—told the sheriff about the two threatening letters she had received: the cheerful yellow stationery, the black marker, the photocopy of the horrible crime scene photo and all about the book the letter writer wanted her to destroy. Travis listened, then leaned back, his chair creaking, as he considered the situation. “What’s your take on this, Dwight?” he asked.
Dwight straightened. “I think this guy has a real mean streak, but he isn’t too smart.”
Brenda turned in her chair to look at him. “Why do you think he isn’t smart?” she asked.
“Because if he really wanted to get rid of the book, why not try to steal it? Get rid of it himself?”
“Maybe he knew I’d keep something so valuable locked up,” Brenda said.
“Maybe. I still would have expected him to try to get to it before resorting to these threats. There’s a lot of risk in writing a note like that—the risk of being seen delivering the notes or of someone recognizing that stationery.”
“He—or she—I’m not going to rule out a woman,” Travis said, “must think there’s a good chance he won’t be noticed. Maybe he thinks people wouldn’t be surprised to see him around the museum or your house, or he’s good at making himself inconspicuous.”
“So someone who looks harmless,” Lacy said. “That could be almost anyone.”
“Where is this book now?” Travis asked.
“It’s in my purse.” Brenda opened her handbag and took out the small cloth-bound volume and handed it across the desk. “After we found that second letter, we never made it inside to put it in my safe.”
Travis opened the book and flipped through it. “I think you’re right that this guy isn’t very smart,” he said. “By demanding you destroy this book, he’s focused all our attention on it.”
“Or maybe he’s really smart and he’s trying to divert our attention from what’s really important,” Dwight said.
Travis closed the book. “I think it would be a good idea to keep this here at the sheriff’s department until the auction,” he said.
“Fine,” Brenda said. “I’ll sleep better knowing it isn’t in my house.”
“You can’t go back to your house,” Dwight said.
He was giving an order, not making a request, and that didn’t sit well with her. “I won’t let some nut run me out of my home,” she said.
“Someone who would threaten you with that crime scene photo might be serious about hurting you,” Travis said. “We can run extra patrols, but we can’t protect you twenty-four hours a day. We don’t have the manpower. You need to go somewhere that will make it harder for this guy to get to you.”
“And where is that?” she asked. “A hotel isn’t going to be any safer than my home.”
“We can try to find a safe house,” Travis said.
“Sheriff, I have a job that I need to do. I can’t just leave town and hide out—if I do, then this jerk wins. I won’t let that happen.”
The two men exchanged a look that Brenda read as Why do women have to be so difficult? She turned to face Dwight. “If someone were threatening you like this, would you run away?” she demanded.
He shook his head. “No.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “But what about a compromise—somewhere near town where you would be safer, but still be able to work at the museum?”
“Do you know of a place?” Lacy asked.
“I do.”
“Not with you,” Brenda said. “No offense, but if you want to really start wild rumors, just let people find out I’ve moved in with you.”
Something flashed in his eyes—was he amused? But he quickly masked the expression. “I don’t want to start any rumors,” he said. “And I’m not talking about moving in with me. But my parents have plenty of room at the ranch, and I know they’d love to have you stay with them. There are fences and a locked gate, plus plenty of people around day and night. It would be a lot more difficult for anyone to get to you there.” He let a hint of a smile tug at the corners of his mouth. “And my cabin isn’t that far from the main house, so I can keep an eye on you, too.”
Brenda recalled Bud and Sharon Prentice as a genial couple who had cheered on their son at every basketball game and helped out with fund-raisers and other school functions. They were the kind of people who worked hard in the background and didn’t demand the spotlight.
Lacy leaned over and squeezed Brenda’s arm. “You don’t really want to go back to your house alone, do you?” she asked.
“Where are you going to be?” Brenda asked.
Lacy flushed. “I think I’ll be staying with Travis until this is settled. I’m no hero.”
Brenda didn’t want to be a hero, either—especially a foolhardy one. “All right,” she said. “I’ll take you up on your offer. But only for a few days.”
“Let’s hope that’s all it takes to find this guy,” Dwight said.
* * *
DWIGHT RODE WITH Brenda to his family’s ranch west of town. He wasn’t going to risk her wrath by coming right out and saying he didn’t want her alone on the road, so he made an excuse about having to get his personal pickup truck and bring it into town for an oil change. He wasn’t sure if she bought the explanation, but she didn’t object when he left his SUV parked in front of her house and slid into the passenger seat of her Subaru. She had packed up her laptop and a small suitcase of clothes—enough for a few days at the ranch. “Do you remember visiting the ranch when we were in high school?” he asked as she headed out of town and into the more open country at the foot of the mountains.
“I remember,” she said. “Your parents threw a party for the senior class. I remember being in awe of the place—it seemed so big compared to my parents’ little house in town.”
“As ranches go, it’s not that big,” Dwight said. “To me, it’s just home.” The ranch had been the place for him and his brothers and sister to ride horses, swim in the pond, fish in the creek and work hard alongside their parents. For a kid who liked the outdoors and didn’t enjoy sitting still for long, it was the perfect place to grow up. He had acres of territory to roam, and there was always something to do or see.
Brenda turned onto the gravel road that wound past his parents’ property, the fields full of freshly mown hay drying in the sun. Other pastures were dotted with fat round bales, wrapped in plastic to protect them from the elements and looking like giant marshmallows scattered across the landscape. She turned in at the open gate, a wrought iron arch overhead identifying this as the Boot Heel Ranch.
“The house looks the same as I remember it,” Brenda said. “I love that porch.” The porch stretched all across the front of the two-story log home, honeysuckle vines twining up the posts, pots of red geraniums flanking the steps. Dwight’s parents, Sharon and Bud, were waiting at the top of the steps to greet them. Smiling, his mother held out both hands to Brenda. “Dwight didn’t give any details, just said you needed to stay with us a few days while he investigates someone who’s been harassing you,” Sharon said. “I’m sorry you’re having to go through that, dear.
”
“Thank you for taking me in,” Brenda said.
“I’m sure your mother would have done the same for Dwight, if the shoe had been on the other foot,” Sharon said. “I remember her as the kind of woman who would go out of her way to help everyone.”
Dwight remembered now that Brenda’s mother had died of cancer while Brenda was in college. Her father had moved away—to Florida or Arizona or someplace like that.
“Thank you,” Brenda said again. “Your place is so beautiful.”
“I give Sharon all the credit for the house.” Bud stepped forward and offered a hand. “I see to the cows and horses—though she has her say with them, too. Frankly, we’d probably all be lost without her.”
Sharon beamed at this praise, though Dwight knew she had heard it before—not that it wasn’t true. His mother was the epitome of the iron fist in the velvet glove—gently guiding them all, but not afraid to give them a kick in the rear if they needed it.
“Let me show you to your room,” Sharon said.
“I can do that, Mom,” Dwight said. He had retrieved Brenda’s laptop bag and suitcase from the car and now led the way into the house and up the stairs to the guest suite on the north side of the house. The door to the room was open, and he saw that someone—probably his mother—had put fresh flowers in a cut-glass vase on the bureau opposite the bed. The bright pink and yellow and white blossoms reflected in the mirror over the bureau, and echoed the colors in the quilt on the cherry sleigh bed that had belonged to Dwight’s great-grandmother.
“This is beautiful.” Brenda did a full turn in the middle of the room, taking it all in.
“You should be comfortable up here.” He set both her bags on the rug by the bed. “And you’ll have plenty of privacy. My parents added a master suite downstairs after us kids moved out.”
“Where do you live?” she asked.
“My cabin is on another part of the property. You can see it from the window over here.” He motioned, and she went to the window. He moved in behind her and pointed to the modest cedar cabin he had taken as his bachelor quarters. “Years ago, we had a ranch foreman who lived there, but he moved to a bigger place on another part of the ranch, so I claimed it.”
“Nice.”
The subtle floral fragrance of her perfume tickled his nostrils. It was all he could do not to lean down and inhale the scent of her—a gesture that would no doubt make her think he was a freak.
“I hope you didn’t take what I said wrong—about not wanting to move in with you,” she said. “It’s just—”
He touched her arm. “I know.” She had been the center of so much town gossip over the years, first with her husband’s murder, then with the revelations that he had been blackmailing prominent citizens, that she shied away from that sort of attention.
“I had the biggest crush on you when I was a kid,” he said. “That party here at the ranch—I wanted to ask you to dance so badly, but I could never work up the nerve.”
She searched his face. “Why were you afraid to ask?”
“You were so beautiful, and popular—you were a cheerleader—the prom queen.”
“You were popular, too.”
“I had friends, but not like you. Everyone liked you.”
She turned to look out the window once more. “All that seems so long ago,” she said.
He moved away. “I’ll let you get settled. We usually eat dinner around six.”
He was almost to the door when she called his name. “Dwight?”
“Yes?”
“You should have asked me to dance. I would have said yes.”
* * *
SEEING THE ADULT Dwight with his parents at dinner that evening gave Brenda a new perspective on the solemn, thoughtful sheriff’s deputy she thought she knew. With Bud and Sharon, Dwight was affectionate and teasing, laughing at the story Bud told about a ten-year-old Dwight getting cornered in a pasture by an ornery cow, offering a thoughtful opinion when Sharon asked if they should call in a new vet to look at a horse who was lame, and discussing plans to repair irrigation dikes before spring. Clearly, he still played an important role on the ranch despite his law enforcement duties.
Watching the interaction, Brenda missed her own parents—especially her mother. Her mother’s cancer had been diagnosed the summer before Brenda’s senior year of college. Her parents had insisted she continue her education, so Brenda saw the toll the disease took only on brief visits home.
She had met Andrew Stenson during that awful time, and he had been her strongest supporter and biggest help, a shoulder for her to cry on and someone for her to lean on in the aftermath of her mother’s death. No matter his flaws, she knew Andy had loved her, though she could see now that he had assumed the role of caretaker in their relationship. By the time they married, she had grown used to depending on him and letting him make the decisions.
But she wasn’t that grieving girl anymore. And she didn’t want a man to take care of her. She wanted someone to stand beside her—a partner, not just a protector.
After dinner, she insisted on helping Sharon with the dishes. “That’s my job, you know,” Dwight said as he stacked plates while Brenda collected silverware.
“The two of you can see to cleanup,” Sharon said. “I think I’ll sit out on the porch with your father. It’s such a nice evening.”
“You don’t have to work for your room and board,” Dwight said as he led the way into the kitchen. “I could get this myself.”
“I want to help,” she said. “Besides, we need to talk. I never got around to notifying the paper this afternoon.”
“You can do it in the morning,” he said. “The deadline for the weekly issue is the day after tomorrow.” He squirted dish soap into the sink and began filling it with hot water.
Brenda slid the silverware into the soapy water. “I’ve been racking my brain and I can’t come up with anyone who would want to harm me or the museum.”
“Maybe one of Andy’s blackmail victims has decided to take his anger out on you,” Dwight said as he began to wash dishes. “We don’t know who besides Jan he might have extorted money from, though the records we were able to obtain from his old bank accounts seemed to indicate multiple regular payments from several people.”
“Why focus on the book?” She picked up a towel and began to dry. “Part of me still thinks this is just a sick prank—that we’re getting all worked up for nothing.”
“I hope that’s all it is.” He rinsed a plate, then handed it to her. “I want to dig into Parker Riddell’s background a little more and see if I can trace his movements yesterday.”
“Why would he care about me or a rare book?” Brenda asked. “He’s a kid who made some mistakes, but I can’t see how or why he’d be involved in this.”
“I have to check him out,” Dwight said.
“I know. I just wish there were more I could do. I hate waiting around like this.” She hated being helpless.
“I know.” He handed her another plate. They did the dishes in companionable silence for the next few minutes. The domestic chore, and the easy rhythm they established, soothed her frayed nerves.
Dwight’s phone rang. He dried his hands and looked at the screen. “I’d better take this,” he said. He moved into the other room. She continued to dry, catching snippets of the conversation.
“When did this happen?”
“Who called it in?”
“What’s the extent of the damage?”
“I see. Yes. I’ll tell her.”
She set the plate she had been drying on the counter and turned to face him as he walked back into the room. His face confirmed her fears. “What’s happened?” she asked.
“There was a fire at your house. A neighbor called it in, but apparently there’s a lot of damage.”
She gripped the counter, tryi
ng to absorb the impact of his words. “How did it start?” she asked.
“They think it’s probably arson.” He put a hand on her shoulder. “We aren’t dealing with a prankster here. Someone is out to hurt you, and I’m not going to let that happen.”
Chapter Five
The smell of wet ashes stuck in the back of Dwight’s throat, thick and acrid, as he stood with Travis and Assistant Fire Chief Tom Reynolds in front of what was left of Brenda Stenson’s house the morning after the fire. The garage and apartment where Lacy lived were unscathed, but the main house only had two walls left upright, the siding streaked with black and the interior collapsed into a pile of blackened rubble. If Dwight let himself think about what might have happened if Brenda had been inside when the fire was lit, he broke out in a cold sweat.
So he pushed the thoughts away and focused on the job. “We found evidence of an accelerant—gasoline—at the back corner of the house,” Tom said. “Probably splashed it all over the siding, maybe piled some papers or dry leaves around it and added a match—boom—these old houses tend to catch quickly.”
“Do you think the arsonist chose that corner because it was out of view of the street and neighboring houses, or because he wanted to make sure the rooms in that part of the house were destroyed?” Dwight asked.
Tom shrugged. “Maybe both. The location was definitely out of view—someone in the garage apartment might have seen it, but he might have known Lacy wasn’t in last night.”
“Maybe they knew Brenda wasn’t here last night, either,” Travis said. He scanned the street in front of the house. “If they were watching the place.”
“We’ll canvass the neighbors,” Dwight said. “See if they have any friends or relatives who have recently moved in, or if they’ve noticed anyone hanging around or anything unusual.”
“What’s located in this corner of the house?” Travis asked.
“I think it’s where Andy’s home office used to be,” Dwight said. “I remember picking up some paperwork from him not too long after I started with the department.” Brenda hadn’t been home, which had disappointed Dwight at the time, though he had told himself it was just as well.