by Paty Jager
“So you want to spend the night? Or even attend the party?” Ryan asked. He’d received mixed messages from her acceptance to attend the dinner since she’d first mentioned it.
“No. I don’t want to go. I only said yes to ask Mother and Adam questions.” Shandra stopped a few doors down from Ruthies. “Adam only wants me there to make him look good to a new rodeo committee member.” She scowled. “He only allows me to show my heritage if it’s to his benefit.”
“Then what if we go earlier in the day. Talk to them before the party. You’re pretty sure they’ll be upset. That means we won’t have to stay for the party.” Ryan knew it was underhanded, but he would rather see Shandra’s mother and stepfather in their natural environment and not surrounded by people they were trying to impress.
Shandra hugged him. “That’s perfect!” She grabbed his hand. “I’m starving.”
They entered Ruthie’s holding hands. Ryan liked that Shandra was slowly allowing their relationship to show to others.
Maxwell Treat, the son of the local mortuary owner who worked as a mortician and was on the Sherriff’s Posse, waved them over to a booth where he sat. Treat and Ruthie were engaged, and the man spent every minute he wasn’t working in the café.
“The detective and the artist. You two are looking cozy.” Treat smiled big, his white teeth shining in his dark face and offered them the bench across from him. He took up half of his seat with his broad shoulders. He was over six foot and all muscle. An asset when the Sheriff’s Posse needed to haul someone out of the wilderness.
Usually Ryan would have avoided company when he had so little time with Shandra, but they would see each other Monday and Tuesday and the following weekend. He’d allow the man to cut in on some of his time.
“Thank you, Maxwell,” Shandra said, sliding into the booth and scooting clear to the wall making room for Ryan.
“You on a date or working together?” Treat asked as Ruthie sauntered over, carrying glasses of water and the menus.
“Lil broke her leg,” Shandra said. “We’re waiting for Dr. Porter to get it set.”
“How did she do that?” Ruthie asked, placing the menus and water in front of them and sliding into the booth alongside Treat.
Shandra retold how she found Lil.
“Poor thing. Will she be staying in the clinic overnight? I can take her some breakfast in the morning,” Ruthie volunteered.
“No. I’m sure she’ll be going home with me.” Shandra picked up the menu. “After the day I’ve had, I think having my usual would be comforting. Cheeseburger, sweet potato fries, and a caramel shake, please.” Shandra set the menu on the end of the table.
“And for you, Ryan?” Ruthie asked.
“I’ll have cheeseburger, regular fries, and coffee. I’m still on duty and need to stay awake.” Ryan set his menu on Shandra’s.
Ruthie picked them up as she stood. “I’ll have that right out for you.”
Treat watched Ruthie as she walked away.
“When are you two going to get married?” Shandra asked, taking the words out of Ryan’s mouth.
Treat smiled. “Soon as I can persuade her living above the restaurant may be convenient, but it also puts you at work twenty-four-seven. I want her to have down time.” He leaned in. “There’s a place out your way, on county fifteen that is going on the market. I told Sam over at the realty office to not show it to anyone else until I get Ruthie to look at it.” His whole face glowed. “She will love it!”
“Love what?” Ruthie asked, placing Ryan’s coffee and Shandra’s shake on the table.
“It’s a surprise,” Shandra said, her eyes shining.
Ryan liked how the serious Shandra could become dreamy-eyed, and all for a friend.
Ruthie studied Treat. He raised his eyebrows a couple of times and continued smiling like a man who had everything.
“He can’t keep a secret. I’ll find out soon enough what he’s up to.” She pivoted and headed back to the kitchen.
Treat’s smile faded. “She’s right. I can’t keep nothin’ from her.”
Shandra laughed. “I’m sure this time you can because it means your futures.” She enjoyed watching the interactions between Maxwell and Ruthie. They were two people in love and not afraid to let anyone see. She’d not had that kind of relationship with a man. What would it feel like for everyone to know you loved someone and they loved you?
Maxwell slid out of the booth. “Going to see if I can help Ruthie.”
“Why do you look so serious? Are you worried about Lil?” Ryan asked.
“Yes. I wonder how much help she’s going to need.” She’d forgotten about Lil but didn’t want Ryan to know she was contemplating her relationship.
“Knowing that woman, she’ll insist on staying in her room in the barn and doing her chores.” Ryan smiled and sipped his coffee.
“True. That’s what worries me. I think I’ll keep her in the house with me until you arrive on Monday. That way she can’t sneak off and do the chores.”
Ryan laughed. “That’s a good idea.”
Maxwell arrived with their plates of food. “You two are having a good time.” He placed the plates in front of them.
“Talking about how Shandra’s going to keep Lil chained to a bed while her leg heals,” Ryan said.
“That I’d like to see.” Maxwell laughed.
“Laugh all you want. You’re not the ones who will have to deal with her.” Shandra picked up a fry and nibbled on it. Not only did she need to do some digging on the computer, she’d have to contend with Lil’s less than sunny disposition.
Maxwell wandered back to the kitchen. Shandra picked up her burger and asked Ryan, “Have you had a chance to check out Dicky Harmond?”
“No. This weather has had me out of the station all day. I was hoping to get on the computer at the end of shift.” He swirled a fry in ketchup. “You said something about him attacking your mom?”
“Yeah, I guess he had a thing about knocking around women to get what he wanted. He picked the wrong woman one night. I’m still unclear as to why she was in a bar alone and why my father followed her and Dicky out to the parking lot. But according to Phil, that’s what happened and when the crowd heard there was a fight, they all went out and found my father beating up Dicky and my mother’s clothing ripped.”
Shandra peered into Ryan’s eyes. “Dicky could have tried to get revenge by killing father and making mother a widow. But everyone knew she’d been dating Adam. Unless Adam’s prejudice toward Native Americans was so vocal, Dicky didn’t think Adam would take Mother back…” she liked this line of thinking. It did meld well with what she knew of Adam. He was adamant he was right and it would take a lot of talking and persuading to get him to change his mind on a subject. Did her mother have that much pull with him to change his mind about her?
“If this Harmond is as violent as he sounds, I’m sure I’ll come up with a record on him somewhere.” Ryan took a sip of coffee before turning his head and studying her. “Have you found any proof that your father’s accident was anything else? It’s one thing to be drudging up all this information about who had grudges but in the end, if it was an accident…it all doesn’t mean much.”
This was where Shandra had to be persuasive. “How do I go about getting a file opened up to have the forensics rerun?”
Ryan didn’t say anything for several minutes. “I don’t think there’s a thing you can do to get the autopsy records looked at unless you have proof there was a murder committed.”
His words felt like a challenge. “I have to prove there was a murder before they will even open the case back up? That means I have to get someone to confess.”
Ryan nodded. “Unfortunately the records won’t be opened without a good reason to do so.”
They finished the burgers and walked back to the clinic and emergency care facility. Walking through the door, Lil’s voice carried down the hall.
“Call Shandra and tell her I’m ready to go
.”
“Lil. I’m not done. As soon as we have your leg properly cast and given you pain killers, you may go.” Dr. Porter sounded like he was getting tired of being nice.
Lil had a way of wearing on people. And not in a good way.
“I’ll see you Monday,” Shandra said to Ryan. “I better go keep things civil between Lil and Dr. Porter.”
“It sounds like Porter needs some help.” Ryan leaned, kissing her cheek. “See you Monday. I’ll get Lil’s statement then.”
Watching Ryan walk out the door, she wished he were coming home with her and helping with the obstinate woman, now calling Dr. Porter names. Shandra rushed down the hall, finding the room with no trouble.
“Lil, behave yourself. Dr. Porter is only trying to help.” Shandra stepped up to the bed and took Lil’s hand. She felt tremors in the small fingers and realized Lil’s nastiness came from fear.
While Dr. Porter finished up, Lil was quiet. Shandra stayed by her side and started wondering if Lil had ever been to a doctor before. Her miscarriage had happened on the mountain and no one had known about it. The way the woman remained a recluse most of her life, Shandra had a pretty good idea, Lil was more naïve than she’d first thought.
Forty-five minutes later, Dr. Porter wheeled Lil out to Shandra’s Jeep in a wheel chair. Sheba stuck her head between the seats when the door was opened.
“Is that a bear?” Dr. Porter asked.
“That’s a dog. If you can’t tell that, you shouldn’t be fixing people up,” Lil retorted.
“She’s Newfoundland and Border Collie. Or, so she was advertised. I have a feeling there is another large breed mixed in,” Shandra said. She helped ease Lil into the passenger seat. Sheba licked the side of Lil’s face.
“I think she’s happy you’re up and around,” Shandra said.
“I don’t need a bath,” Lil said but with more warmth than anything she’d said to poor Dr. Porter.
“Like I said, it’s a clean break. Keep the leg elevated for forty-eight hours. After that she can use these crutches to get around, but I’d advise to stay inside. With the snow and weather, she’s more likely to slip and break something else if she’s hobbling around outside. If the leg swells, elevate.” He handed Shandra a small envelope of pills. “If she gets too ornery and you think it’s from pain, crush one of these and put it in a drink.”
Shandra stared at Dr. Porter. “You mean drug her without her knowing? You can do that?”
“If the pill is a powder and in something with enough flavor to mask it, yes.”
Shandra shut the Jeep door and glanced around, relieved to see the nurse had returned to the warm building. “Dr. Porter, as a coroner in Weippe County could you request coroner records from other counties and states?”
“If I’ve heard of a similar death, I can. Why?” He watched her closely.
“I don’t think my father’s death was an accident. I’ve had a couple people explain what happened that day, and it sounds to me like he was drugged before he got on that horse.” She shoved the pills in her pocket. “I was wondering if you could get the records and see if he had any drugs in his system?”
“Your record on helping solve murders is pretty convincing to me that you may be on to something. I’ll see what I can dig up.”
“Thank you. Don’t tell anyone this is what I believe. It’s all just me digging into the past. And thank you for putting up with Lil. She only acts that belligerent when she’s scared.”
“I figured, but it does get trying after an hour or so. Good night.” Dr. Porter hurried through the emergency room doors.
Shandra climbed into the Jeep and headed toward home. With Dr. Porter checking on the coroner’s report for her and Ryan digging up information on Dicky Harmond, she would start putting everything she knew into columns and see who wanted her father dead more than anyone else.
Chapter Sixteen
Over the weekend Shandra had a reoccurring dream. Ella sat in the middle of an open area. Three triangles spun about her, dropping on points and bouncing. Faces flashed in and out of the points. Faces she was beginning to know. Dicky, her father, her mother, Adam, Charlie, Jessie, and a woman she didn’t know. The faces faded and emerged as the triangles bounced and rolled.
She didn’t know what it meant but knew with Ella in the middle of the chaos, it meant something.
Monday morning, Shandra helped Lil hobble from the guest room in the house out to Lil’s room in the barn. She’d been complaining that at least in the barn she could find things to do. In the house there wasn’t anything she could do that didn’t involve walking. Lil wasn’t happy if she wasn’t busy.
With Lil settled in the barn, happily cleaning tack, Shandra pulled the sheets on the guest bed and tossed them in the washing machine. She wasn’t sure when Ryan would arrive, he’d been busy the last few days and they’d barely talked. As of last night, he was still waiting on information about Dicky Harmond from law enforcement in two states.
She had tuna salad for lunch and had pulled steaks from the freezer the night before. Ryan liked steak and she grew up with beef for every dinner. Adam had refused to see anything else on his table. She narrowed her eyes. It’s no wonder I allowed Carl to manipulate me and run my life, that’s what my stepfather did from the moment he married Mother. He did it to me and to Mother.
Could he have orchestrated the fall that killed Father?
Sitting on the couch, she pulled her laptop onto her lap and continued her digging into the people associated with the rodeo where her father lost his life. She’d found out who the secretary was during that time and now needed to find out how to contact her. There had to be a way that her father ended up riding a horse known to stomp the rider if he hit the ground.
She’d entered the name in every conceivable search engine she could think of. The woman led an isolated life or she was no longer alive. The later bothered Shandra. If the woman was alive there was always a way to find her and talk to her, but if she was dead…
Shandra paid the fee for the online search of the woman and stepped into the kitchen to replenish her tea while she waited to see if the search revealed anything.
Sheba barked and the sound of wheels crunching in the snow made Shandra smile. Ryan had arrived.
She wandered to the front door.
“Hey, Sheba, what are you doing out in this?” Ryan asked. He stomped his boots and Shandra opened the door.
“Hello.” She stood back as he moved through the door with a small duffel bag over his shoulder.
“Where do you want me to put my boots?” he asked, standing in the entry.
“On the rug beside the hall tree.” Shandra looked down at the snowballs clinging to the hair on Sheba. “Sheba, shower.”
Sheba slunk down the hall and into the laundry room. Shandra followed. She had the shower installed in the room for the big dog. A large bathing stool stood in the middle of the shower.
“Up,” Shandra ordered.
Sheba climbed up on the stool. Shandra used a wide-toothed comb to break up the balls of snow and comb out the rest. She didn’t like to deny Sheba the fun of playing outside, but this was a chore she didn’t like to do more than twice a day.
“She tolerates that well,” Ryan said from the laundry room door.
“I’ve been doing this to her since she was a puppy. If she gets too dirty I give her a shower.” Shandra ruffled the fluffy ears. “She knows the routine. Okay, girl, you can go.”
“Woof!” Sheba jumped off the stool, slamming it against the shower wall and charged out of the room, shoving Ryan out of the doorway.
“She really likes getting that over with,” he said.
Shandra laughed. “She knows she gets a treat for being still.”
Ryan laughed too.
They wandered into the kitchen. Sheba sat with her nose pointed to the cupboard that held her treats.
“Let me guess, the third cupboard from the door has her treats in it,” Ryan said.
&
nbsp; “Yes. And she knows it.” Shandra opened the cupboard and picked a treat. Sheba swallowed it without chewing. “If you weren’t such a good girl about staying clean, you wouldn’t be in the house.”
Sheba woofed and headed into the great room.
“Tea, coffee, or hot chocolate?” Shandra asked, pouring hot water into a cup with her favorite blend of green and white tea.
“Coffee if you have some made.” Ryan sat at the counter.
She filled a cup and slid it over to him. He had something on his mind. His brow was furrowed and his lips pensive.
“What did you discover about Dicky Harmond?” she asked, sitting on a chair beside him.
“He was one bad apple.” Ryan faced her. “He’s dead. There isn’t any way to talk with him.”
The news wasn’t the worse she could have heard but it made that link harder to follow. “How?”
“His temper seemed to be his downfall. He was arrested multiple times for beating up women, two were his wives. And he was jailed for several barroom brawls. The last one, he didn’t walk away from. That was ten years ago.”
Shandra shook her head. “Given what we know about him, and we’re strangers, why would two women marry him?”
“I don’t know. The first one, Denise Collins, pressed charges when he beat her up so bad she lost the child she was carrying. And the second wife, Melody Dean, pressed charges against him when she ended up in the hospital, needing reconstructive surgery on her face.”
Shandra shivered. How could a man be that mean. “I don’t like him. I’m glad he’s no longer alive to hurt more women.” Then one of the names started repeating in her head. Melody Dean.
“That’s the name of the secretary. Melody Dean.” Shandra hurried into the great room, sat on the couch, and pulled her laptop onto her lap. “I’d started a search for her before you came.”
Ryan sat on the couch beside her.
“It’s done. Melody Dean married Dicky Harmond the same year my father died. In fact, a month later.” She peered into Ryan’s eyes. “Do you think that’s a coincidence?”