by Paty Jager
“I’ll tell him. Melody was a nice person. I’ll make sure.”
“Thank you. I have to go.” Shandra hung up before her mother could say any more.
Ryan watched her over the burger he bit into.
“She said she’ll make sure he doesn’t say anything. She liked Melody.” With that fear off her mind, Shandra dug into her cheeseburger and fries with more gusto and appetite than she thought possible given her internal turmoil.
“I have a feeling you’ll be sleeping the rest of the way home.” Ryan said, his eyes twinkling.
“I think you may be right. Some of the worries on my mind are gone, others are at bay for the moment, and my stomach is full.” Shandra slid the empty basket to the middle of the table and finished her tea.
“When we get back to my place, maybe we should go over the list of people who have been showing up in my dreams and see if we can’t narrow down the suspects.” Shandra said, standing.
“That’s a good idea. Then we’ll match that with the information Cathleen comes up with.”
“While we’re in Missoula, I have a couple questions for Phil,” Shandra said as they exited the café.
“Next stop, the retirement home.” Ryan held the door for Shandra as she climbed into the Jeep.
She glanced in her mirror and a shiver raced up her spine. The car parked behind them in the parking lot looked like one that had followed them on the freeway into Missoula.
Ryan started up the Jeep.
“Keep an eye on that Chevy behind us. I saw it several times while driving,” she said.
“There isn’t anyone in the car,” Ryan replied.
“If you do see it behind us. We shouldn’t go see Phil. I don’t want to get him mixed up in this.” She would never be able to live with herself if Phil was hurt from her digging up the truth behind her father’s death.
Ryan pulled out of the parking lot and headed down the main street. He turned two streets early for the retirement home. “I don’t see that car following,” he said and continued to the retirement home.
In the parking lot of the retirement home, Shandra scanned the cars that drove by and didn’t see the gray Chevy.
They entered the lobby.
The receptionist looked up and smiled. “No dog today?” she asked.
“No, this was a spur of the moment decision to visit Phil,” Shandra said, heading down the corridor.
The nurse caught up to her. “Phil has been moved. He’s on the other side. Where our residents go when they are having medical issues.” Her brown eyes softened with sadness.
“How bad is he?” Shandra asked.
“He’s on oxygen and his heart is giving out.” She smiled weakly. “But you’ll brighten his day. He’s in room one-seventy.”
“Thank you.” Shandra sought Ryan’s hand. He’d been her anchor all day.
Hand in hand, they walked through the swinging double doors into the other side of the retirement home. Over here she could feel the despair.
They encountered several helpful nurses and soon stood at the door of one-seventy.
Ryan squeezed her hand, and she walked into the room.
Phil lay in a regular hospital bed. A machine to his left beeped and an oxygen tube protruded from his nose. This was the first time she’d seen him in a hospital gown and not his western attire. He appeared a faded representation of the former rodeo bronc rider and announcer.
“Mr. Seeton? Phil? It’s Shandra Higheagle.” She released Ryan’s hand and captured one of Phil’s boney hands in between her two hands. His fingers were cold.
His eyelids fluttered up. He smiled. “I didn’t expect to see you before I went,” he said in a whisper.
“I came to ask you a couple more questions, but I don’t want to bother you.” She smiled even though her chest was constricting with sorrow. Now that she had reconnected with her father’s family she had a connection to him, but Phil had given her the strength and courage to discover the truth behind her father’s death. He’d become a special person in her heart.
“There isn’t much time for me to answer them.” He inhaled oxygen. “What are the questions?”
Ryan stepped forward, allowing her to cling to the man.
“We’ve discovered that the horse Edward Higheagle rode had been manipulated. Walter Malcolm had switched the horse, wanting Higheagle to not be in the money at the rodeo. What we need to know is; how soon before the rodeo starts are the riders and animals announced?”
“They drew names in the morning and posted the list as soon as it was typed up.” Phil sucked in more oxygen. “Walter was always saying things against the Indians.”
“Do you remember if Dicky Harmond was there that day?” Ryan asked.
“Can’t remember. But he was at most of the rodeos on that circuit.” Phil drew in more oxygen and started coughing.
Shandra grabbed the tissues and handed them to him. He nodded and pointed to the cup of water with a straw. Shandra helped him get a drink.
“What about Jessie? Was she there?” She was another who had a grudge against her father. Dicky might have had it in for her father, but they say poison is a woman’s murder weapon. Painkillers would have been the same difference in this case.
“Jessie was always at the rodeos on that circuit. Either as a barrel racer or a buckle bunny.” Phil’s watery, faded blue eyes looked into hers. “I’d put my money on Dicky, but he’d have needed someone to get whatever he gave Edward into him. Your father wouldn’t have accepted a thing from Dicky.”
Shandra had an idea. “Phil, you were there that day. What about my mother and Adam Malcom? Were they there?” Shandra asked. It was a long time ago to ask him about people who wouldn’t have been participating in the rodeo.
Phil stared up at the ceiling for a long time. “I’m not sure about Adam, but now that you mention it, they couldn’t find your mother when Edward was pronounced dead.”
Shandra tamped down the rage swirling in her stomach.
“Did the police question you?” Ryan asked.
“No. They only talked to the men running the chutes and the officials. I don’t think they talked to a single cowboy.” Phil inhaled more oxygen.
“What about cowgirls? Any of them?” Shandra asked, wondering if Jessie had talked to the police.
“Can’t remember.” Phil closed his eyes. “I’m mighty tired. It was good seeing you. I’m happy to be going to see my angel. I’ve missed her since she left me.”
Shandra patted his hand. “I wish I would have known about you sooner. Thank you for being a good friend to my father.”
“I’ll give him your love when I see him.” Phil smiled and took a long drag on his oxygen.
“Thank you.” Shandra leaned down and kissed his dry, white cheek.
Ryan tugged on her sleeve, and she slowly backed away from Phil.
Out in the hall, she wrapped her arms around Ryan and held on. She’d only known Phil a short time, but he’d left a mark on her heart and helped her to realize what kind of a man her father was.
Ryan hugged her and moved to her side. With one arm still around her shoulders, they left the retirement home.
The grey Chevy was parked three cars over from her Jeep.
Chapter Twenty-seven
“Ryan, look. There’s that gray Chevy. You can’t tell me this is a coincidence.” She rested her head on his arm as if they were having an intimate conversation. She didn’t want the person to know they suspected him.
“It isn’t a coincidence. It’s the same license plate.” Ryan kissed the top of her head. “I’m going to put you in the passenger side. Slide over and start the Jeep and drive it in front of the car so he can’t drive away. I’ll sneak up behind him.” Ryan opened the passenger side.
“Be careful,” Shandra whispered and crawled in the Jeep, moving over into the driver’s seat. She tweaked her ankle a bit maneuvering into position, but she turned the ignition and drove forward, cranking the steering wheel and stoppi
ng in front of the car.
She didn’t recognize the man behind the wheel.
He started his car.
Ryan jerked open the driver’s door and pulled the man out by the collar of his jacket. With efficiency, Ryan splayed the man out over the hood of the gray car and frisked him. Ryan placed a small revolver on the top of the car, out of the man’s reach.
She could see they had a running dialog going on the whole time. Ryan shook his head and put cuffs on the man. While the man remained bent over the hood with his hands cuffed behind his back, Ryan pulled out his phone.
Shandra wanted to ask the man questions. But this wasn’t Ryan’s jurisdiction, and she could get him in trouble more than when he was working with people he knew.
Within minutes the shrill scream of sirens grew closer.
Two city police cars pulled into the parking lot and stopped beside her Jeep. She thought it was overkill to send two cars with four people to pick up someone who was already apprehended.
Once the man was in the back of a police car, Ryan walked over to the Jeep and motioned for her to join him.
She stepped up to his side acknowledging the young and older officer talking to Ryan.
“When did you first notice this man following you?” the older officer asked. His name tag said Sgt. Quinn.
“Shandra noticed him first,” Ryan said.
Sgt. Quinn transferred his fuzzy gray eyebrows her direction. “When did you notice the suspect?”
“When we were on I-90 headed west to Missoula. I noticed because even when I slowed down, the car stayed behind me unlike all the other cars that passed. If I sped up, the gray car would stay with one car between us. Then it was at the restaurant parking lot on the edge of town.” She glanced at Ryan.
“That’s when she mentioned it to me, and I memorized the license plate.” Ryan put an arm around her shoulders.
“Then you came out to get in your vehicle and found him waiting?” Sgt. Quinn asked.
“Yes.” They both answered.
“Why do you think this—” the sergeant looked at a driver’s license.
Shandra could see it was a Washington driver’s license just like the car license.
“Jack Jamison was following you?” The sergeant finished.
Shandra studied Ryan. What would he say?
“I don’t know who he is, but I would like to know why he was following us.” Ryan said, his anger at the man stalking them evident in his tone.
“Did you ask him what he does for a living?” Shandra asked, watching both Ryan and the sergeant.
“According to this piece of paper, he’s a private detective,” Sergeant Quinn said.
“Who’s he working for?” Shandra and Ryan said in unison.
If they knew who he worked for, she’d bet her best cowgirl boots they’d find out who killed her father.
“I’ll take him to the station and see if I can learn anything. What kind of charges do you want to stick him with?” Sgt. Quinn asked.
“Tell him we’ll drop the stalking charges if he tells you who he’s working for. Then call me.” Ryan held out a business card.
Sgt. Quinn nodded. “Pleasure doing business with you, detective.”
Ryan hustled Shandra into the passenger side of her Jeep, and he slid in behind the steering wheel.
Once they were pulling out of the parking lot, Shandra shifted to watch Ryan. “Did he say anything when you grabbed him? You two looked like you were doing a lot of talking.”
“He was trying to tell me he was going to call the cops on me for harassment. I told him go ahead, but I could save him the time since I was the police.” He shook his head. “He didn’t say he was a private detective or spill anything to me. Not even his name.” Ryan glanced over. “But with his driver’s license and car tags being Washington, we can bet our trouble is coming from there.”
“That’s what I thought. The only person there I can think of is Jessie.” Shandra had felt sorry for the woman when she’d tried to get information out of her. But if the woman was having them followed and sent someone to run them off the road…she no longer felt sorry for her.
“We need the records from the accident before we can try to get her to slip up about that day.” Ryan maneuvered the Jeep back onto I-90.
“I still want to take a shot at looking at the drawings I made of my dreams.” Shandra yawned.
“Go ahead and sleep. I don’t think we’ll run into any more trouble before I get you back to your place.” Ryan reached across the space between them and brushed the backs of his fingers across her cheek. “Go to sleep. You’re safe.”
She smiled, closed her eyes, and drifted to sleep to the rumble of the tires on the pavement.
Ella swirled in the air. Her hair stood out like the ghost of Christmas past in the Charles Dickens story. “Ella, you’re scaring me,” Shandra said, standing below her grandmother. The tornado started, this time it picked Shandra up, swirling her into the gray funnel. She whirled around and around. She grasped at whatever passed her hands. She yanked and found her dead father. She whimpered. “Ella, please. I’m trying.” The twister turned faster. Panic froze her body. She found staying still, the tornado didn’t carry her where she didn’t want to go. If she remained calm, she could see the others tumbling around her. Mother clinging to Adam. “I know about them, Ella.” Dicky Harmond swirled by. He held his leg as if it pained him. “That is where the pills came from, isn’t Ella?” She was slowly getting the pieces. “But who gave Father the pills? How did they disguise it?” Her father’s body appeared. Shandra gasped and started crying.
Ryan had hesitated to wake Shandra when she’d whimpered. If her grandmother was showing Shandra clues, he didn’t want to wake her up. But her tears and sniffles, he couldn’t ignore.
He reached across and grasped Shandra’s shoulder, giving her a gentle shake. “Shandra? Shandra, honey. Wake up.” They were only twenty minutes from turning down her drive. He didn’t want Lil to think he’d made Shandra cry.
“Come on, wake up.” He gave her shoulder another little shake.
“Take me out of here, Ella. I don’t want to see him like this.” Shandra’s plea sounded like a small child’s.
Ryan pulled the Jeep onto the shoulder of the road, parked, and pulled Shandra into his arms. “Wake up, Shandra. It’s a dream. All a dream. Come on, honey. Wake up and talk to me.”
Shandra’s head moved back and forth as if she were trying to shake the dream from her mind.
“That’s it. Come on. Tell me about it.” Ryan pushed her long strands of dark hair out of her face.
Her eye lashes fluttered and her lids opened, giving him a close-up view of her golden eyes. They reminded him of a topaz stone he saw in a jewelry store in Chicago.
She stiffened in his arms.
“It’s okay. I’ve got you.” He brushed a thumb across her cheek, wiping away tears.
“Why are we stopped?” she asked.
“Because you sounded so sad and were crying. I wanted to wake you up.” He allowed her to move out of his arms and sit up in her seat.
“It was a dream with Ella. She showed me Mother and Adam.” The scorn in her tone, told him what she’d seen. “Then Dicky Harmond, holding his knee as if he were in pain. I think it’s a clue to where the painkillers came from. But if he gave them to Father, and Phil was pretty certain Father would never take anything from Dicky, then someone connected to Dicky had to have slipped them to Father.”
“Was there anyone else in the dream?” Ryan wondered that any of that would have made her cry like a child.
She gulped and stared out the front windshield. “Only my father’s battered body.” She wiped at tears that had slipped out of her eyes and down her cheeks. “Why does she keep showing me Father all torn up and bloody?” Shandra peered at him with such sorrow his heart ached.
Chapter Twenty-eight
Shandra took a long hot shower and was dressed in her favorite pajamas, but she was reluc
tant to go to bed. The dream she’d had while sleeping in the Jeep, didn’t bode well for what she might encounter should she lay down on her bed.
Ryan sat on the couch, his computer on his lap, and a beer on the table in front of him.
“Mind if I join you?” she asked, motioning to the couch beside him.
He smiled. “I never turn down a chance to sit next to you.” He clicked some keys and started to put the computer on the table.
“No, you don’t have to stop what you’re doing. I just don’t feel like closing my eyes.”
Sheba rose from her spot in front of the fireplace and lumbered over to the couch, placing her basketball-size head on Shandra’s lap.
“Do you need to go out?” Shandra asked.
Sheba woofed and trotted toward the kitchen and back door.
“I’ll take care of it.” Ryan rose and followed Sheba to the kitchen.
Shandra peeked at what Ryan was studying on his computer. It appeared to be arrest records. But whose?
Ryan’s slippers slapped the wood floor as he returned to the room. “I’m glad Lil moved back to her room in the barn while we were gone today. I don’t think my back could take another night on this couch.”
“Yes. But I still worry about her out there with her cast. She could fall and injure something else swinging around on crutches.” Shandra was also glad to have Lil out of the house. It was hard to feel comfortable around Ryan with Lil watching their every move.
“She’s a tough old bird. She’ll be fine.” He placed his computer back on his lap.
“Whose arrest record are you looking up?” she asked.
He glanced at her. “Everyone who might have something to do with your father’s death.”
It took a minute for his words to sink in. “Everyone? Including Mother and Adam? They have arrest records?”
“No, but two people bailed Dicky out of jail numerous times. Before the ‘accident’ Jessie Preston bailed Dicky out twice for assault. After the ‘accident’ Walter Malcolm bailed Dicky out three times.”