by Gwen Moffat
Miss Pink had forgotten the funeral. ‘So that’s why they’re taking Byer,’ she said. ‘Everyone else who was on the search will be at the funeral.’
‘No,’ Clyde said. ‘They took him because he’s the only guy who isn’t family. There’s yourself, ma’am, but he’ll be classing you with us.’
‘Possibly, but surely, with the cloud down, Hilton knows they can’t go in today, not with a chopper, and it’ll soon be dark. They’ll go tomorrow. Why take Byer this afternoon?’
‘They took him because they want information.’ Edna’s eyes went to her daughter. ‘The fellow’s been talking.’
Val licked her lips and looked dubious.
‘What has he said?’ Miss Pink asked.
‘You don’t have to ask,’ Sophie cut in harshly. ‘You said yourself: the police know everything, someone must have talked. It’s obvious. It was Byer.’
‘And now he’s to take them to the site of the accident.’ Miss Pink put no emphasis on the word ‘accident’. She turned to Val. ‘And the night before, when you sent him through the canyon to find out what was keeping your father, he turned back at the landslide, or so he said. Would he have had time to reach the cabin?’
Val said slowly, ‘I have to think about that one… He didn’t report back to me in person, he called from his house — quite late as I remember. But we were in such a state that evening, times and sequences just passed me by.’
Clyde was frowning. ‘You’re suggesting Byer could have had a hand —’ He glanced at his mother, then back to Miss Pink. There was no need for him to complete the sentence. ‘What would his motive be?’ he asked.
‘I can think of one.’ She smiled. ‘It springs to mind, however far-fetched. If Byer were a petty criminal, an opportunist, he could never have made any money out of Charlie, who had a reputation for being — thrifty with his employees. On the other hand, the family, Charlie’s beneficiaries, would appear to be a soft touch. And everyone has secrets they’d prefer not to be publicised.’
‘Call him a blackmailer and be done with it,’ Sophie said. ‘But in that case he’d want to steer clear of the police. Val said he was off like a shot this morning —’ She bit her lip. Unfortunate choice of words. ‘Now he’s working with them.’
The next move was for Edna to say she would fire him and for Sophie to follow suit, stating she wouldn’t have him at the homestead. Val looked uncomfortable. Edna said, ‘I shall be sorry to lose him. I’ll advertise, maybe outside the state.’ She nodded at her son. ‘Someone has to be here when you’re helping Val with the trail rides.’
‘Jen and Bret will run the ranch, Mom.’ He was gentle with her.
‘I guess I’m jumping the gun, the will not probated yet an’ all.’ She made an apologetic gesture towards Miss Pink. ‘We’re going to make some changes around here,’ she explained superfluously. ‘Going to have our hands full for a while. We have to think where Jen and Bret are going to live. I can’t picture them here, not as it is; I’ve been wondering how we could make the place into apartments: for Jen, Clyde, me; that is, if that’s what they would like.’ She sparkled happily at them.
‘My sister’s lost it,’ Sophie said viciously as they drove away, leaving Val at Glenaffric. ‘She’s blocked out Charlie’s death and the significance of detectives coming here; all she can think about is plumbing and extra bathrooms.’
‘Displacement activity,’ Miss Pink murmured.
11
The weather broke in a fierce summer storm. Through the evening and for much of the night thunder crashed above the town, raged away through the mountains and came rolling back, heralded by lightning flashes that were momentarily blinding. When the onslaughts were at their most sensational, sleep was impossible. Miss Pink stood at her window, amazed that the town lighting should still be working. With the rain at its heaviest, it was like being on the inside of a waterfall, but fascinating so long as you were safe indoors. They were to learn that three calves had been killed by hail the size of golf balls.
By dawn the rain had stopped and everything steamed: water, trees, the roofs of Ballard. Long wraiths of cloud layered the slopes and the Thunder river came roaring through its narrows with a force that threatened to bring down rock.
Asked out of courtesy if she would care to attend the funeral, Miss Pink had declined. She was putting the finishing touches to Sophie’s outfit — a stunning suit in black and rose — when the doorbell rang.
‘Russell?’ Sophie murmured in surprise. But it was Hilton, dressed, like yesterday, as if his horse were waiting downstairs, which was almost literally so. He apologised for the untimely intrusion, his eyes absorbing Sophie’s appearance with frank admiration, looking past her to Miss Pink, in slacks and shirt. Would she accompany him on a little trip?
Anticipating that she was being asked to assist them in their inquiries (a phrase as loaded as ‘the usual suspects’) she was wary. ‘Tell me more,’ she commanded.
Sophie was hesitating at the door, reluctant to leave without knowing the reason for this call.
Hilton said, ‘You’ll be away to the funeral, ma’am.’ It was a hint.
Her nostrils flared. ‘Miss Pink is my guest.’
He looked abashed. ‘I know, and she’s not used to our ways but’ — turning to the visitor — ‘you’ve ridden in the back country. D’you think you could go in there again, start from Benefit? Someone has to show us where the body was found.’
‘What happened to Byer?’ It was jerked out of Sophie. Miss Pink closed her eyes in despair.
A smile touched Hilton’s lips — but he’d know that the family would discuss every new development, every nuance; they’d all know that Byer was to have guided the police to the site of the accident. ‘He’s gone missing,’ he said.
Miss Pink wasn’t surprised; the news confirmed her belief that Byer had a lot to hide, possibly more than blackmail — ‘There’s only yourself, ma’am,’ Hilton was saying, ‘Everyone else who was on the search will be at the funeral.’
He was right. Someone had to go. After all, with a mountain rescue, investigators have to be shown the site of the accident — incident, whatever — and that by one of the rescue team. ‘Of course I’ll come,’ she said. ‘What do I do about a horse?’
Hilton supplied the horse. He had arranged everything. He had a trailer waiting outside the sheriff’s office, four horses already loaded, Cole and an elderly man called Breslow completing the party. Breslow was introduced as a former policeman. Blandly regarding the lean body, the worn chaps and thick shirt, Miss Pink thought: hunter, horseman, tracker; Hilton wasn’t leaving anything to chance.
They drove to Benefit where the Ryans’ cabin was closed and their pick-up absent. They unloaded and Miss Pink was mounted on a chunky grey with black points, whose movement was as neat as his appearance. Cole, she noted, looked a trifle strained but he should be all right on the relatively easy ground. It was fortunate they weren’t going to ride through the canyon.
By the time they came out on the rim above the lake all the long cloud wraiths had evaporated and the world sparkled. New flowers had appeared after the rain: the big pale stars of bitterroot leafless on the drying soil, prickly pear with blooms of yellow tissue and always the haze of lupins drifted with Indian paintbrush. They halted on the lip of the escarpment and the lake below was gentian-blue, junipers deep green. A wren trilled bravely among the rocks.
They turned to her. At least, Hilton and Breslow turned, Cole seemed fascinated by the steep slope below their feet.
‘Further on,’ she said, and checked. ‘No, it was the horse that was to the south, the body was below here, a little way back perhaps, in trees. We didn’t see the body from this point, only the horse.’
‘We’ll start with the horse,’ Hilton said.
They descended, Miss Pink now in the lead, the grey happy on steep ground, hopping neatly down rocky steps. The older men followed closely but Cole trailed behind, both hands clutching the horn, unable to
straighten out his mount’s lazy zigzags.
The night’s torrential rain had removed nearly all signs of tracks; they had to look closely to see that horses had been here before today, particularly since the ground had been so dry that hoofs had made only shallow prints, now washed away. In fact, Miss Pink couldn’t be sure at which cluster of boulders they’d found the stallion.
‘So we’ll leave the stud,’ Hilton said comfortably after she’d described how they’d found the animal, with the saddle under his belly. ‘And no rifle?’ he prompted. No, there had been no sign of a rifle.
‘Then where did you go?’
That was easy because she’d been leading Ali who was lame and didn’t want to go downhill so they’d contoured the slope, staying on a thin game trail. That showed clear enough, marked by deer who had passed along it this morning while it was muddy.
The fresh tracks brought them to the trees and a scatter of sodden horse droppings where the party had waited for Miss Pink and Val to return from the cabin with the blankets. They dismounted and walked the few yards to the place where the body had been found, the location obvious from the trampled vegetation.
Hilton looked further into the trees. ‘Now what?’ he asked Miss Pink.
‘This is as far as I came. It was the others who looked for his clothing while Val and I went to the cabin.’
‘And the rifle. They looked for the rifle.’
She nodded. He knew it all, he was verifying accounts, looking for discrepancies. How much had Byer told him, what had he told him?
They continued on foot. Now Breslow took over and Miss Pink — who thought that the storm would have erased all trace of the stallion’s passage — was astounded at the ease with which the man followed an apparently invisible trail over pine needles.
The belt of trees was thin and within a couple of hundred yards they emerged to open ground again. Above them was the escarpment, while steep slopes dropped away to meadows below. The ground was rougher here: bedrock on the trail, rocks jutting beside it, scree chutes below the scarp. This was where so much damage had been done to the body.
Here and there they found scraps of rag. Miss Pink came on a dime washed clean and shining. As she stood up, easing her back, she saw that the hunting camp had come in sight way below them, the pale thread of the main trail passing the cabin on a higher level. Ahead of them now was the start of the forest proper and, above, a break in the cliffs where a scatter of conifers climbed to the skyline. The slopes this side of the trees were covered with huckleberries and the trunk of a fir was raked with long claw marks: bear country.
They found his rifle in a patch where brambles hadn’t recovered from being squashed by a heavy body, as if the stallion had reared and fallen over. There was a hat too, a Stetson clearly indented by a horseshoe.
The rifle was loaded. Charlie hadn’t shot himself.
Breslow started to scramble upwards towards the escarpment. The men watched him but Miss Pink turned away, thinking that if there had been a bullet track in the body then there must be a bullet and, given the rest of the pointers, this would be the place to look for it. She considered the brambles and winced. No way was she going to search for it. She became aware that Hilton had turned to her.
‘What did you do last Saturday, ma’am?’
Of course, everyone would be a suspect — well, everyone who was in the vicinity when Charlie died, everyone close to the family. She blinked but it was no good playing the doddery old lady; from her ability to cope with the country they knew she was a tough nut. What they didn’t know was how devious she could be, although on that score she had the feeling Hilton might have suspicions, as she had of him. It took one to know one. ‘I went to Irving,’ she said, reflecting that at least she had an alibi, then, wryly, that the only person for whom she could vouch was Russell Kramer.
‘Where was Miss Hamilton?’
‘With her sister at Glenaffric.’
‘So she left her house guest alone all day?’
‘No. I was with Kramer from the hotel. I went back to meet her in the apartment for lunch.’ Only a marginal lie.
‘And Val Jardine and her brother?’
She couldn’t resist a glance across the line of the river. ‘They were clearing the trail, out there somewhere.’ She gestured vaguely, aware once again that he would know all this already.
Breslow came sliding down through the trees. He looked at Hilton. ‘A horse come down there,’ he said.
Hilton looked at Miss Pink. ‘That would be you, ma’am?’
‘I didn’t even know there was a way down there. When we came here on the search we came the same way as today: to come out on the rim towards where the stallion was trapped.’
He wasn’t listening. He was staring up the slope, and now Cole had caught on and his eyes were shining. Benefit lay over the top and a man on a sure-footed horse could drop down this slope and return the same way as quick and quiet as a deer. Of course he would have to know that Charlie would be at the cabin. Jen Ryan had known. Miss Pink tried to ease her facial muscles. She said inanely, ‘We haven’t found his other boot.’
Hilton’s mind returned to her. ‘It’s not important.’
No, they didn’t need the other boot, they had enough. Hilton had his motive: a multimillion-dollar fortune, and he was focusing on the suspect who would receive the lion’s share, and her husband.
With suspect courtesy he suggested that she might like to go back to the horses and rest a while, maybe eat a sandwich — he had brought food for all of them. The others were going to climb the cliff. By that he meant the break in the cliffs. She suggested it might be safer if she remained with the party since this was bear country. He said blandly that she was quite safe, any old bear would steer clear if she made plenty of noise as she walked. He wanted her out of the way. She wanted to point out that a horse’s tracks could have been made at any time: by poachers, hunters, day trippers, all could come down this slope from Benefit, thus avoiding the dangers of the lower canyon. She said nothing, aware of the risk of protesting too much.
On her return she found the missing boot. It lay below the path, drifted with silt. It told her nothing. She looked back and down the slope, and saw that the cabin was still in view, appearing curiously abandoned in its wild setting. Her eye travelled up the fringe of the forest to the break where presumably the men were now conferring, speculating on the identity of the rider whose track they were following. But if he — or she — had come this way to meet Charlie with the intention of killing him, wouldn’t he have been more careful about leaving tracks? Not necessarily; in a place such as this, horse tracks were the flimsiest of circumstantial evidence, the courts would need something considerably more substantial on which to convict a suspect. And Byer came to mind; did he possess the kind of evidence needed, was that the nature of his hold over Val?
A movement caught her eye. Figures were emerging from the timber. Two of them started down the slope in the direction of the cabin while the third moved towards her — Hilton to judge by his heavy walk.
He arrived, sweating profusely. ‘I’m not built for this kinda country,’ he complained.
‘You could have ridden.’ She was tart.
‘You’re right, ma’am; I made a mistake there. But I figured the going could get tough for a horse.’
Her eyes went to the timbered skyline. ‘Someone managed it.’
‘Oh, yes. You can’t miss the tracks. It’s the shoes: they make scratches on the rock, easy enough for an old hunter like Breslow to see.’ She was looking meaningly at the figures moving down the slope. ‘He reckons they went to the cabin.’
‘They?’
‘The tracks, ma’am.’
‘Why didn’t you go with them?’
‘I’m far too old for that slope. I come back for my horse — and to let you know what’s happening, ease your mind.’
She took that at face value. ‘I’m quite happy since you’re sure there are no bears around.’
>
‘Good, good. So tell me how you come to be here, in the wilds of Montana. The Black Canyon’s not on the tourist route. Yellowstone, yes, but what brings you to Ballard?’
He was in no hurry to reach the horses. He appeared to be engrossed in the progress of his men but she knew that this exchange hadn’t come about by chance. His purpose was to pump her, although the first question could have been innocent, the kind any curious native might ask of a visitor. She told him how she’d met Sophie, that her staying at the Rothbury was no more than return for hospitality she’d extended in Cornwall.
‘It’s the best way to do it.’ He nodded approval. ‘Visit with folk in their own homes: the best way to get to know a new country. Do they strike you as very different from folk at home? I guess you have lots of houses like Glenaffric in England.’
She was amused. Nice day, nice man — now sitting down, herself following suit: nice man sitting on a bank fishing, herself the big fish and well aware of the hook inside the bait. ‘You mean Scotland,’ she said. ‘Glenaffric is in the Highlands, where Charlie Gunn’s people came from originally. Actually, Scottish houses of similar size would be very different.’
‘Not so much money around, maybe. Charlie was a multi-millionaire. Did you —’
‘Oh, just as much money,’ she exclaimed, blocking his question by rushing to the defence of Victorian entrepreneurs. ‘But darker, you know? Glenaffric, at least on the outside, is bright, quite dazzling, in fact. A large house in Scotland would be built of granite, not whitewashed, very dull, with dark slate roofs and shrubberies. A little brighter inside: no blinds but cluttered. There it would be like Glenaffric: full of ornaments and stuffed heads.’
‘You didn’t like Charlie.’
A slight pause. ‘What makes you say that?’
‘You’d have said “trophies” if you admired his den.’