by Janet Dailey
For an instant, Luke recalled all the family pictures that had been destroyed in the fire that had claimed the lives of his wife and son. Just as abruptly, he banished it from his mind.
“Come on.” He took her by the elbow and turned her again toward the door. “We’re calling the sheriff.”
Angie hung back. “But—”
“Your purse was stolen. You were robbed, Angie.” Impatience made him curt with her. “This has to be reported.”
The half-formed protest died on her lips. Without another word, she let him guide her to the door.
When he reached ahead to open it for her, she murmured in amazement, “Can you believe it? I traveled all the way to Wyoming just to get mugged.”
She laughed, only the sound wasn’t really a laugh. There was more confusion than amusement in it.
“Yeah, the irony of it is hilarious,” Luke muttered grimly and steered her through the doorway.
Ima Jane was behind the bar, putting away glasses, when Angie walked in. “Angie. Did you change your mind about—” The instant she saw Luke behind Angie, she shouted over her shoulder to the kitchen, “You’d better turn the grill back on, Griff! Luke just walked in.” All smiles, she directed her next words to him. “I had just about decided you weren’t coming in tonight.” Ima Jane reached for the bottle of Wild Turkey. “You’ll want the usual, I imagine.”
“Forget the drink for now,” he said, and Ima Jane froze in surprise. “You need to call the sheriff. Angie’s been robbed.”
“Robbed?!” The shock of his announcement didn’t last. A pulse beat later, Ima Jane was hurrying out from behind the counter, throwing a brief glance at Griff when he pushed through the swinging door from the kitchen. “Did you hear that, Griff? Angie’s been robbed. Quick, call the sheriff.”
Fargo came strolling out of the back hall, idly drying his right hand on his shirtfront, just in time to hear Ima Jane’s order. “What happened?” he demanded, suddenly alert.
Big eyed with surprise, Tobe jumped in. “Did someone break into your camper again?”
“No,” Luke answered for her and led Angie to a table near the door. “They hit her over the head and stole her purse.” He pulled out a chair and all but pushed her onto it. “Sit down.”
“How bad are you hurt?” Ima Jane was immediately all over her. “Should we send for an ambulance?”
“No, I’m fine,” Angie insisted and again gingerly touched the extremely tender knot on her head. “I just have a bump up here. That’s all.”
By now, the others had gathered around her chair, but Luke remained in charge. “We’d better get an ice pack on that to keep the swelling down. Dulcie, get some ice from behind the bar and a clean towel to wrap it in.”
When Dulcie sprinted for the bar, Griff joined them. “There’s a car on the way. It should be here in thirty or forty minutes.”
“Who hit you?” Fargo questioned.
Tobe immediately added, “Did you see him?”
“No, I didn’t see anything,” Angie admitted, resisting the impulse to shake her head, “except a bunch of stars.”
“Have you got a penlight around here, Ima Jane? We’d better check her eyes and make sure she isn’t concussed.” Luke dragged another chair away from the table and sat down facing her.
“I’ll get it.” She hurried off, passing Dulcie as she ran back to the table, dropping ice cubes out of the towel she carried. She managed to arrive with most of them and rather proudly presented the bundle to Luke.
“Maybe we should go outside and look around, see if anybody’s still out there,” Tobe suggested while Luke expertly tied the bar towel together.
“No point,” Griff grunted.
Fargo agreed with his summation. “Whoever ran off with her purse is long gone by now. Besides, the sheriff wouldn’t like us messin’ up any tracks the guy might have left.”
“How’s he gonna leave any tracks?” Tobe wanted to know. “That parking lot’s all gravel.”
“So maybe he didn’t leave any tracks,” Fargo agreed irritably. “But he could’ve dropped something. It’s better if they find it instead of one of us.”
No one bothered to ask Luke if he had seen anyone, and he didn’t volunteer the fact, preferring to keep that information to himself for the time being.
“Here.” He handed Angie the makeshift ice bag. “Hold that on the bump.”
“This really isn’t necessary.” But she applied it against the area behind her ear and sucked in a hissing breath at the fresh pounding it ignited.
Ima Jane returned with the penlight and a cup of coffee. “Here you go.” She passed the light to Luke and set the cup on the table, then heaped sugar into it. “I brought you some coffee, too, Angie. With plenty of sugar in it. There’s nothing better to ward off shock.”
“Thanks.” But the way her head was hurting, Angie wished all of them would just go away and leave her alone.
“Look at me.” Luke hooked a finger under her chin and lifted it, turning her head to face him.
“What are you? A paramedic?” Angie asked, half in jest.
“He’s a fireman,” Dulcie inserted.
“A volunteer.” Luke qualified her answer, flicking the bright penlight off and on to check the dilation of her pupils. “Advanced first-aid courses are part of the training since fire units are often the first to arrive.”
“I didn’t know,” she murmured, suitably chastised.
“Now you do.” Finished, he turned off the light.
“What’s the verdict, doc?” she asked, forcing a smile.
He smiled back, and the lazy gentleness of it warmed her. “I don’t think you’re suffering from anything worse than a hard knock on the head, but it wouldn’t hurt to have a doctor check you.”
Angie made a slight face at that advice. “No thanks. He’d probably tell me to take two aspirins and go to bed. I can do that on my own.”
Luke didn’t argue, but he didn’t agree either. “We’ll see how you’re feeling later on.”
“What do you wanta bet that guy was after the letter?” Tobe issued the challenge to no one in particular. “When he didn’t find it in her camper this afternoon, he probably figured she was carryin’ it in her purse.”
“If he did, he figured wrong,” Angie informed him tiredly and received a sharp, admonishing kick from Luke. Her glance flew indignantly to his face and observed the small, barely perceptible shake of his head that urged silence.
“You mean, you still have it!” Tobe’s eyes were wide with surprise.
“I still have it,” she admitted, then added in a rush, “if the guy had just asked to see it instead of hitting me over the head, I would gladly have shown it to him.”
“I left my truck running, Tobe,” Luke said. “Go park it for me.”
“Sure.” But he went reluctantly, worried that he might miss something important.
A curious frown carved deep lines in Fargo’s forehead. “You know I could have sworn I saw you put that letter back in your purse.”
“Obviously she didn’t if she still has it,” Luke stated. “Let’s all give it a rest for now. The police will have enough questions for all of us to answer once they get here.”
Less than thirty-five minutes after Griff had placed the call, a patrol car from the sheriff’s office pulled into the lot. Five minutes later an officer of the state police arrived, and Angie found herself repeating the same story over again, sketchy as it was. Once she had answered all the questions to their satisfaction, she and Luke accompanied the two men outside.
After she had shown the location of the attack and again described it, the officers turned to Luke. “Where was Miss Sommers when you first saw her?”
“On the ground, here by the truck, just starting to get up.”
“Did you see anything else?” The question came at last.
Luke chose his words carefully. “I’m not sure, but I may have seen someone in the shadows over in that general area.” Ignoring Ang
ie’s surprised look, he pointed to the spot. “He was caught in my headlight beams for no more than a split second; then he was gone.”
“What did this person look like? Can you give us a description?”
“Not really. Like I said, the glimpse I had was brief.”
“Male? Female?”
“I had the impression it was a man.”
“Was he tall? Short?” The questions came at him rapid fire.
“I couldn’t say.”
“How was he dressed?”
“I don’t know. I only had a glimpse of his face. The rest was all shadow.”
“Probably had on dark clothes,” the deputy murmured to the state patrolman.
The officer nodded, more in an acknowledgment of the comment than an agreement with it. “Which way did he go?”
“It’s just a guess, but since he didn’t cut across the parking lot, he probably ducked into the alley behind the Rimrock.”
“Would you show us approximately where the man was when you saw him?”
“I can try, but I doubt I’ll be able to narrow the area down very much. It all happened too quickly. He was there, and then he wasn’t. For all I know, I might have only imagined that I saw someone.”
“It’s possible, but not likely.”
Luke walked them to the shadowed side of the lot and indicated a ten-foot-long strip that might have been where the man was standing.
When they had finished, the state patrolman advised, “You two might as well go back inside. We’ll look around out here, check the alley, see what we find. Then we’ll be in to take your written statements.”
“How’s your head?” Luke asked as they walked back to the entrance.
“Until you asked, I had almost forgotten it was still hurting,” Angie admitted, aware that her thoughts had already turned to the new problems she faced now that she was hundreds of miles from home with no money, no credit cards, and no driver’s license. Distracted by the myriad of details she would have to handle, it was becoming difficult to focus on the actual mugging itself. “You never said anything about seeing someone.”
“I didn’t?”
“No, you didn’t.”
“Just because I saw someone, that doesn’t mean he was the one who attacked you,” Luke reasoned.
“But if he wasn’t, what was he doing out here?”
“Maybe he was taking a walk.”
“Maybe,” Angie conceded, thinking about her own leisurely stroll across the parking lot and her initial enjoyment of the evening. “It was a lovely night for one.”
He caught her use of the past tense and smiled. “But not anymore.”
Her smile held the same trace of dryness that had been in his. “It doesn’t seem as peaceful as it did before.”
“I don’t imagine it does.”
As they climbed the steps to the Rimrock’s door, her flitting thoughts jumped back to the man Luke had seen. “That man in the shadows might have seen the person who knocked me down and took my purse.”
“It’s possible.” Luke paused with his hand on the doorknob. “I wouldn’t say anything to the others just yet about the man I saw.”
“Why?” She frowned at his odd request.
There was a mocking lift of one eyebrow, accenting the gleam in his eye. “With Ima Jane inside, you have to ask? She’ll have people pointing fingers in every direction as it is. I think it’s best if we keep this little piece of information strictly between ourselves and the police.”
His reasoning sounded both sensible and wise. “That’s probably a good idea.”
Ima Jane rose from her chair the minute they walked through the door. “Where’s the patrolman and Deputy Sparks?” she asked, glancing behind them. “They haven’t left, have they?”
That possibility seemed to worry her. “They’re outside looking around,” Luke explained, then wondered at her barely suppressed agitation. “Why?”
“Well—” She glanced uncertainly at her husband. “Griff just reminded me of something that we probably should have told them.”
“What’s that?” But Luke had already put two and two together and come up with the answer.
“Saddlebags was here tonight,” Ima Jane announced as if the news were momentous.
“Really.” Luke knew his lack of any real interest wasn’t what Ima Jane expected. “When was that?”
“I never noticed the time,” she admitted, half disgusted with herself. “But it must have been somewhere around eight. Wouldn’t you say, Griff?”
“Sounds about right,” he agreed.
“It probably wouldn’t hurt to mention he was around tonight.” Luke sensed Angie’s questioning glance. He avoided it and pulled out a chair at the table for her.
“There’s more, Luke,” Ima Jane said, exhibiting an unusual tension. “I didn’t think too much about him showing up at the back door earlier. I assumed he was here to get a hot meal, so I had Griff fix him a plate of beef and noodles.” She paused, her glance darting to Angie. “This might be all my fault, Angie.”
“How could this be your fault?” Angie countered, ready to brush off the whole idea as ridiculous.
“Because . . . right from the minute Saddlebags sat down to eat, he started asking me about you. I told you that,” she reminded Angie.
“I remember.” The pounding in her head seemed to get worse, making it difficult to think. “You mentioned something else, too—something about suspecting he already had a copy of the letter. You thought he might have found the one my grandfather had with him.”
“That’s what I thought then. But, what if he only pretended not to be interested in the letter so he could divert suspicion from himself?”
“So you’re saying,” Luke began, a crooked smile slanting the line of his mouth, “that you think that old man waited outside for Angie, snuck up behind her, hit her over the head, and took her purse.”
“Why not?” Griff reasoned. “For an old man, he gets around pretty good.”
“And you know how obsessed he is with finding that gold, Luke,” Ima Jane reminded him. “He’s devoted his entire life to it.”
“I know.” As damning as it all sounded, Luke still had trouble believing Saddlebags was responsible. “In all these years he’s been here, he’s never given anyone a single reason to question his honesty. He doesn’t even take a can of beans off a shelf without paying for it in some way.”
“But think how desperate he must be feeling,” Griff argued, “knowin’ he might die any day without ever layin’ his hands on that gold. Desperate people can do desperate things.”
“It’s got to be Saddlebags.” Tobe pitched himself into the conversation. “Who else would do it?”
That was a question no one wanted to answer. If the finger of suspicion wasn’t pointed at Saddlebags, a recluse who was virtually a stranger, then it would have to search out someone they knew—and knew well.
Luke closed the discussion. “You wouldn’t happen to have any of those beef and noodles left, would you, Griff? I haven’t had supper yet, and my stomach is beginning to complain.”
“I could use some coffee, too.” Fargo pushed his empty beer bottle aside.
“I’ll get it.” Ima Jane plucked the bottle off the table and glanced at Angie. “How about you? Would you like another cup?”
“No, but I could use a couple of aspirins if you have any.” She rubbed her fingers over her throbbing temple. “I had a bottle in my purse, but . . .”
“Say no more.” Ima Jane laid a consoling hand on her shoulder. “We always have aspirins on hand around here.”
Griff was halfway to the kitchen when the swinging door rocked open and the uniformed patrolman came striding into the bar area. A handbag swung by the strap hooked over the ballpoint pen in his hand.
“That’s my purse!” Angie said incredulously. “You found it!”
“It was in the alley.” With a faintly triumphant expression, he dumped the contents onto a table and used the pen to sep
arate the various items. “It looks like everything’s here. Driver’s license, credit cards, cash.” He flipped the wallet open to show her.
“And my pictures, too,” she said happily and started to reach for them.
The patrolman stopped her before she could touch them. “We’ll have to dust for fingerprints, but I wanted to make certain nothing was missing first.”
“Of course.” Angie pulled her hand back and made a visual inventory of the items. “It’s all there.” She was dazzled by the discovery. “I was so sure I’d seen the last of all this.”
“You were lucky,” the officer told her.
“Very lucky,” she agreed, thinking of all the phone calls and money transfers she wouldn’t have to make—and all the time that would have been lost doing it.
But the recovery of her purse made it obvious that the thief hadn’t been after money. The cash was still there in the fold of her wallet. If any of it was missing, it couldn’t be more than a few dollars. Which left the question: Why take the purse at all?
Again, it seemed to come back to the letter. The realization sobered Angie.
“It appears we may have also found the object your attacker used to hit you over the head,” the patrolman informed her.
Her head came up, the movement igniting twinges of fresh pain. “What was it?”
“A dead tree limb. See these strands of red hair caught in the bark?” he replied. “As branches go, this one is pretty lightweight. It’s not surprising it didn’t do much damage to your head. I think it’s safe to say your attacker wasn’t out to hurt you. He just wanted to stun you enough to get the purse.”
“Maybe.” Fargo’s voice held a wealth of skepticism. “And maybe it was the only thing at hand to do the job.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure.” The patrolman’s chest puffed up with a slow indrawn breath. “There were definitely heavier objects scattered between the parking lot and the alley. Ones that could have been much more deadly—like a rusted fence post, a two-by-four, and part of a broken bat, to name a few. If he had used any one of those, you’d be in an ambulance on your way to the hospital right now.”
“If she was still alive.” When Ima Jane glanced at Angie, guilt and remorse haunted her expression. Head down, Ima Jane turned away. “I’ll get your aspirins.”