B.J. Daniels the Cardwell Ranch Collection (9 page)

“The doctor and dental records the crime lab sent down came back with a match on both dental and emergency room records,” Rupert said.

Good God. Ginger Adams. In a flash, Hud saw her. A pretty redhead with a stunning body and the morals of an alley cat.

Hud closed his eyes as he kneaded his forehead. “You’re sure it’s Ginger?”

“It’s a ringer,” Rupert said, not sounding any happier about it than Hud. “I told you your suspect list could be as long as your arm, didn’t I?”

“You were right about her being a waitress, too,” Hud noted. Was that why Rupert had been acting strangely after coming out of the well yesterday? Because he’d suspected it was Ginger?

Ginger had waited tables
at the Roadside Café, the place where locals hung out every morning, gossiping over coffee. Both of his deputies had been there just this morning. It was an old hangout for sheriff’s department deputies, the local coroner—and the marshal.

Hud swore softly under his breath. “I thought she left town with some guy.”

“Guess that’s what we were supposed to think,” Rupert said. “I gotta go. Calving season.”

“I didn’t realize you were still running cattle on your place.”

“Helping a friend.”

Hud had that feeling again that Rupert knew more about this case than he was saying. “Thanks for letting me know.”

“Good luck with your investigation.”

“Yeah.” Hud didn’t mention that he’d found the owner of the ring. He was still trying to figure out how it ended up in the same well as Ginger Adams—years later.

Holy hell. The woman had been rumored to have broken up more marriages in the canyon than Hud could shake a stick at. But there was at least one marriage that had definitely bit the dust because of Ginger—the marriage of Mary and Angus Cardwell.

Damn. As he hung up, he wondered how Dana was going to take the news. He started to dial her number. But he realized he couldn’t tell her this over the phone.

Everyone knew the Cardwell marriage had been on the rocks, but Ginger, it seemed, had been the last straw. And now her body had turned
up on the ranch. Add to that, someone was targeting Dana.

He picked up his hat, grabbing his new marshal jacket on the way out the door. His left arm still ached, the skin around the cut bruised, but Dana had done a good job of patching him up.

It was only a few blocks to Needles and Pins. He knew he had more than one reason for wanting to tell Dana the news in person. He wanted to see how she was doing. She’d left the ranch house so quickly this morning he hadn’t even had a chance to talk to her.

Clearly she’d been avoiding him. Last night after he’d announced he wasn’t leaving her alone, she’d started to argue, but then got him some bedding from the closet and pointed at the couch.

She’d gone to bed and he hadn’t seen her again until this morning—and only for the length of time it had taken her to grab her coat and leave.

He was her least favorite person in the world, true enough. Except maybe for whoever had put that doll in the well—and called and threatened her afterward.

But he also wanted to see her reaction to the news that the body had been Ginger’s. He was the marshal and he needed to find Ginger’s killer as fast as possible so he could put a stop to whoever was threatening her. He couldn’t help but believe the two incidents were connected somehow.

As he started to cross the street to Needles and Pins, Lanny Rankin stepped into his path.

Hud hadn’t seen Lanny since he’d returned, but he’d known eventually he’d run
into him. The canyon wasn’t wide or long enough for their paths not to cross.

“Lanny,” he said, seeing the set of the man’s broad shoulders, the fire in his eyes. There’d been bad blood between the two of them as far back as Hud could remember. Lanny seemed to have a chip on his shoulder and it didn’t help when Hud had started dating Dana.

Hud had known that Lanny would move in on Dana as soon as he was out of the picture. He’d seen the way Lanny had looked at Dana back in high school. In fact, Hud had wondered over the past five years if Lanny hadn’t just been waiting for Hud to screw up so he would have his chance with Dana.

“Stay away from Dana,” Lanny said. “I don’t want her hurt again.”

“Lanny, I don’t want to get into this with you but my relationship with Dana is none of your business.”

“Like hell,” Lanny said, advancing on him. “I know you’re the marshal now and you think you can hide behind that badge…”

“Go ahead. Take your best shot,” Hud said, removing the marshal star from his coat and pocketing it.

Lanny’s eyes narrowed as if he thought it was a trick. “You think you can get her back after everything you did to her?” He took a wide roundhouse swing.

The punch caught Hud on the left side of his jaw, a staggering blow that about took his feet out from under him.

He rubbed his jaw, nodding at Lanny who was breathing hard. “That’s the end of it, Lanny.” He reached
into his pocket, took out the silver star and re-attached it to his coat. “Dana’s a grown woman with a mind of her own. She’ll do whatever it is she wants to do no matter what either of us has to say about it.”

Lanny rubbed his bruised knuckles.

Hud waited. He wanted this over with right here, right now.

“What the hell are you doing back here anyway?” Lanny asked, cradling his hand, which looked broken the way it was swelling up. “I would have thought you wouldn’t have the nerve to show your face around here after what you did to her.”

Hud ignored him. “Might want to have Doc Grady take a look at that hand, Lanny,” he said, gingerly touching his jaw. Fortunately it wasn’t broken but it hurt like hell. Lanny packed quite a wallop for a lawyer.

“She wasn’t worth it,” Lanny snarled, evening his gaze at him.

Hud knew Lanny was talking about Stacy now. And he couldn’t have agreed more.

“She used you. She wanted a divorce in the worst way, but Emery didn’t want to lose her. The old fool loved her for some crazy reason. But then she found a way to force his hand. After what happened between the two of you while he was out of town, he couldn’t wait to get rid of her. Better than being the laughingstock of the canyon.”

This was news to Hud. For years he’d tried to remember that night. He’d been told he got stinking drunk. He remembered
wanting to. But after that, there was nothing in his memory banks until he woke up the next morning—in Dana’s sister’s bed.

After getting the anonymous note, Hud had come back to Montana convinced Stacy had somehow manipulated the incident just to get back at Dana. It was no secret that Stacy was jealous of her younger sister. He’d just never considered there might be more to it.

The thought gave him hope that he really had been set up. Maybe nothing had happened that night, just as he’d always wanted to believe. More to the point, maybe there was a way to prove it.

“You played right into Stacy’s hands,” Lanny said.

Hud nodded, saying nothing because he had no defense.

Lanny seemed to consider hitting him again, but must have changed his mind. “You hurt Dana again and that badge isn’t going to stop me.” With that, he turned and stormed off.

Hud watched Lanny go, hoping this really would be the end of it. But he couldn’t get what Lanny had said about Stacy out of his head.

He needed to know what had happened that night. Nothing could have gotten him into Stacy’s bed. At least nothing he remembered.

With a curse, he turned and saw Dana standing in the doorway of the sewing shop. From the expression on her face, she’d not only witnessed the ugly display between him and Lanny, she’d overheard it, as well.

D
ANA QUICKLY TURNED
and went back
inside the shop, not wanting Hud to see her shock.

It was bad enough that everyone in the canyon knew about Hud and Stacy, but to hear Lanny talking about it…And could it be true that Stacy had done it—not to spite her—but to force Emery to give her a divorce?

She had to remind herself that whatever her sister’s reasoning, Hud had gone along with it. So why was it getting harder and harder to call on that old anger?

She heard Hud come into the shop and tried to quit shaking. She’s the one who should have left here and never come back, she thought. Instead it had been Hud who’d taken off, a sure sign of his guilt, everyone had said. While she’d stayed and faced all the wagging tongues.

“Dana?”

She turned to Hud, just as she’d faced the gossip that had swept through the canyon like wildfire.

“I’m sorry you heard that,” he said.

“I’m sure you are. You’d much rather pretend it never happened.”

“As far as I’m concerned, it didn’t,” he said.

“Let me guess,” she said with a humorless laugh. “Your story is you don’t remember anything.”

“No, I don’t.”

All the anger of his betrayal burned fire-hot as if she’d just found out about it. “I really don’t want to talk about this.”

“We’re going to have to at some point,” he said.

She gave him a look that she hoped
seared his skin. “I don’t think so.”

He shifted on his feet, then held up his hands in surrender. “That isn’t why I came by.” He glanced around the shop as if trying to lasso his emotions. In an instant, his expression had transformed. He was the marshal again. And she was…She saw something in his gaze. Something that warned her.

“We got an ID on the remains found in the well,” he said. “Is there someplace we could sit down?”

She gripped the edge of the counter. If he thought she needed to sit, the news must be bad. But what could be worse than having a murdered woman’s body found on your property?

Meeting Hud’s gaze, she knew the answer at once—
having the marshal suspect that someone in your family killed her.

Hud had expected more
resistance but Dana led him to the back of the shop where there was a small kitchen with a table and chairs. The room smelled of chocolate.

“Hilde made some brownies,” she said, then seemed to remember brownies were his favorite and something
she
used to make for him using a special recipe of her mother’s.

“I’ll pass on the brownies, but take some coffee,” he said, spotting the coffeemaker and the full pot.

She poured them both some, her fingers trembling as she put down the mugs and took a chair across from him. He watched her cup her mug in both hands, huddling over it as if it were a fire.

“So who is she?” Dana asked.

“Ginger Adams.”

Dana paled as the name registered. She took a sip of the coffee, her hands shaking. “Ginger,” she said on a breath, and closed her eyes.

He got up to get some sugar and cream for his coffee. He’d never really
liked coffee. How could something that smelled so good taste so awful?

He took his time adding the cream and sugar before taking a sip. Her eyes were open again and she was watching him intently, almost as if she was trying to read his mind. If she could have, she’d know that all he could think about was how she used to feel in his arms.

“Have you talked to my father?” she asked.

“Not yet.”

Her spine seemed to take on a core of steel. “It was over between them almost before it began. Ginger wasn’t the reason my mother divorced Angus.”

He said nothing, but wondered if she was defending her father. Or her mother. He’d known Mary Justice Cardwell. He couldn’t imagine her killing anyone. But he knew everyone had the capability if pushed far enough.

And Mary was a crack shot. He doubted she would have only wounded Ginger Adams.

“I know it sounds like I’m defending him, but Ginger dumped him months before she supposedly left town with some other woman’s husband,” Dana said.

“Ginger dumped
him?
”

Dana seemed to realize her mistake. She’d just given her father a motive for murder. No man liked being dumped. Especially if he felt the woman had cost him his marriage. And then there was her father’s old .38.

“Did Angus tell you Ginger was involved with a married man?” he asked.

She shrugged. “I can’t remember where I heard that.”

He studied her. Was there a
grain of truth to Ginger being involved with another woman’s husband? Maybe, given Ginger’s propensity for married men. But he got the feeling Dana might be covering for someone.

“Any idea who the man was?” Hud asked.

Dana shook her head and looked down into her coffee mug. Whatever she was hiding would come out. Sooner or later, he thought.

In the meantime, he needed to talk to Kitty Randolph about her emerald ring.

“I
NEED TO RUN
an errand,” Dana said the moment Hilde returned. “Can you watch the shop?”

“Are you all right? I saw Hud leaving as I was pulling in,” her friend said.

“The woman in the well was Ginger Adams. That’s what he came by to tell me.”

Hilde frowned. “Ginger Adams? Not the Ginger who your dad…”

“Exactly,” Dana said, pulling on her coat. “I’ll be back.”

Her father had a small place along the river on the way to Bozeman.

Dana took the narrow dirt road back into his cabin. His truck was parked out back. She pulled up next to it and got out. A squirrel chirped at her from a nearby towering evergreen; the air smelled of river and pine.

When she got no answer to her knock, she tried the door. Of course it opened. No one locked their doors around here. She stepped inside, struck by a wash of cool air, and saw that the
door leading to the river was open. He must have gone fishing.

She walked out onto the deck, looked down the river and didn’t see him. Turning, she spotted her father’s gun cabinet and moved to it.

There were numerous rifles, several shotguns and a half dozen different boxes of cartridges and shells. No .38 pistol though.

“What are you looking for?”

Dana jumped at the sound of her father’s voice behind her. She turned, surprised by his tone. “You startled me.” She saw his expression just before it changed. Fear?

“You need to borrow a gun?” he asked, stepping past her to close the gun cabinet.

“I was looking for your .38.”

He stared at her as if she’d spoken in a foreign language.

“The one you always kept locked in the cabinet.”

He glanced at the gun cabinet. “I see you found the key.”

“You’ve hidden it in the same place since I was nine.” She waited. He seemed to be stalling. “The .38?”

“Why do you want the .38?”

“Are you going to tell me where it is or not?” she said, fear making a hard knot in her stomach.

“I don’t know where it is. Wasn’t it in the cabinet?”

Her father had never been a good liar. “Dad, are you telling me you don’t have it?” She could well imagine what Hud was going to think about that.

“Why do you care? It wasn’t like it was worth anything.”

She shook her
head. “Do I have to remind you that Ginger Adams was killed with a .38 and her remains were found on our property?”

All the color drained from his face in an instant. “Ginger?” He fumbled behind him, feeling for a chair and finding one, dropped into it. “Ginger?”

His shock was real. Also his surprise. He hadn’t known it was Ginger in the well. “They’re sure it’s Ginger?” he asked, looking up at her.

She nodded. Had her father really cared about the woman? “Dad, you know Hud will want to see a .38 owned by someone with a connection to Ginger.”

“Well, I don’t know where it is. I guess I lost it.”

“That’s it?” Dana said aghast, thinking what Hud would think.

Angus frowned and shrugged, but this time she saw something in his expression that made her wonder again what he was hiding from her. Was he protecting someone?

When she didn’t say anything, he said, “I don’t know what you want from me.”

Her heart caught in her throat. She wanted him to tell her he was sorry for what he’d done. Splitting up their family. What she didn’t want was for him to have killed Ginger Adams. Or be covering for someone else.

“I know that you and Jordan were both interested in Ginger,” Dana said, the words coming hard.

His head jerked up in shock. “You knew?”

She’d found out
quite by accident when she’d seen Jordan kissing a woman in the alley behind the building that would one day be Needles and Pins. Who could have missed Ginger Adams in that outfit she was wearing? The dress and shoes were bright red—just like her hair.

“It isn’t what you think,” her father said defensively. “I was never…” He waved a hand through the air. “You know. I can’t speak for Jordan.”

Like father like son. She shook her head in disgust as she sat in a chair next to him.

“Ginger was a nice young woman.”

“You were
married,
” she pointed out. “And Jordan was just a kid.”

“Your mother and I were separated. I only lived at the ranch so you kids wouldn’t know. Jordan was eighteen. I wouldn’t say he was a kid.”

“And you were forty.”

He must have heard the accusation in her tone.

“And you’re wondering what she could have seen in a forty-year-old man?” He laughed. “Sometimes you are too naive, sweetheart.” He patted her head as he’d done as a child. “Dana,” he said patiently, his eyes taking on a faraway look. “We can’t change the past even if we’d like to.” He got up from his chair, glancing at his watch. “I’m going to have a beer. I’m sure you won’t join me but can I get you a cola?”

She stared at his back as he headed into the kitchen and after a moment she followed him. Sometimes he amazed her. Talk about naive.

“I don’t think the past is going to
stay buried, Dad, now that Ginger has turned up murdered and at the family ranch well. You and Jordan
are
suspects.”

He glanced around the fridge door at her, a beer can in one hand, a cola in the other. He raised the cola can. She shook her head.

“If I were you I’d come up with a better story than you lost the .38,” she continued, angry at him for thinking this would just pass. But that had been his attitude for as long as she’d known him. Just ignore the problem and it will fix itself—one way or another. That was her father.

Only this time, the problem wasn’t going to go away, she feared. “Hud knows you had the gun. You used to let the two of us shoot it, remember?”

Her father nodded as he popped the top on his beer and took a drink. “Ahh-hh,” he said, then smiled. “Of course I remember. I remember everything about those days, baby girl. Truthfully, honey? I don’t know what happened to the gun. Or how long it’s been gone. One day it just wasn’t in the cabinet.”

She was thankful that Hud didn’t know about Ginger and Jordan. She’d never told Hud about the kiss in the alley she’d witnessed. And she doubted Jordan would be forthcoming about it.

She watched her father take a long drink and lick the foam from his lips. His gaze settled on her and a strange look came into his eyes. It was gentle and sad and almost regretful. “Sometimes you look so much like your mother.”

H
UD CALLED
the judge’s number, a little surprised to learn that Kitty Randolph
still lived in the same house she had shared with her husband. The same house where he’d been murdered five years before.

The maid answered. Mrs. Randolph had gone out to run a few errands and wasn’t expected back until after lunch.

Lunch. Hud felt his stomach growl as he hung up. He hadn’t eaten all day, but he knew a good place to get a blue-plate special—and information at the same time.

Leroy Perkins had been a cook at the Roadside Café back when Ginger had been a waitress there. Now he owned the place, but hung out there most days keeping an eye on his investment.

Leroy was tall and thin and as stooped as a dogwood twig. His hair, what was left of it, was gray and buzz-cut short. He was drinking coffee at the end stool and apparently visiting with whoever stopped by and was willing to talk to him.

Hud slid onto the stool next to him.

“Get you a menu?” a young, blond, ponytailed waitress asked him. She looked all of eighteen.

“I’ll take the lunch special and a cola, thanks,” Hud said.

She was back in a jiffy with a cola and a glass of ice along with the pot of coffee. She refilled Leroy’s cup then went back into the kitchen to flirt with the young cook.

Leroy was shaking his head as he watched the cook. “Hard to find anyone who knows
anything about the grill. There’s a knack to cooking on a grill.”

Hud was sure there was. “Leroy, I was wondering if you remember a waitress who used to work here back about twenty years ago.”

“Twenty years? You must be kidding. I can barely remember what I had for breakfast.”

“Her name was Ginger Adams.”

Leroy let out a laugh. “Ginger? Well, hell yes. That cute little redhead? Who could forget
her?
” He frowned. “Why would you be asking about her? It’s been…how many years? It was the year we got the new grill. Hell, that was seventeen years ago, the last time I saw her.”

There was no avoiding it. Everyone in the canyon knew about the bones. Once he started asking about Ginger, any fool would put two and two together. “It was her bones that were found in the Cardwell Ranch well.”

“No kiddin’.” Leroy seemed genuinely surprised.

“You ever date her?” Hud asked.

The old cook let out a cackle. “She wasn’t interested in some cook. Not that girl. She was looking for a husband—and one who could take care of her.”

“Someone with money.”

“Money. Position. Power. And it didn’t matter how old he was, either,” Leroy said grudgingly.

“Like Angus Cardwell.”

Leroy nodded. “He was old enough to be her daddy, too. Guess she thought the Cardwell Ranch was his. Dropped him like a hot
potato once she found out Mary Cardwell wasn’t going to let loose of that land though.”

“Know who she dated after Angus?” Hud asked.

Leroy chuckled and took a sip of his coffee before he said, “Sure do. Went after the eldest son.”

Hud couldn’t hide his surprise. “Jordan?”

“Oh, yeah,” Leroy said.

He wondered why he’d never heard about this. “You’re sure? You said you could barely remember what you had for breakfast this morning….”

“I was here the night Jordan came by and the two had quite the row,” Leroy said. “They didn’t see me. I was just getting ready to bust the two of them up when he shoved her and she fell and broke her arm.”

Hud felt a start. The broken wrist bone. “Jordan broke her arm?” he asked in surprise. “How, in this canyon, did something like that happen and not be public knowledge within hours?”

Leroy flushed. “Well, that could be because she was ready to file an assault charge against Jordan—until he promised to pay for all her expenses, including medical costs and lost wages.”

“He paid you off, too,” Hud guessed.

Leroy shrugged. “Cooking is the most underpaid profession there is.”

So that’s how Leroy started his nest egg to buy the café. “So what were Jordan and Ginger arguing about?”

“Seems he thought they had something going on,” Leroy said. “She, however, had moved on to higher ground, so to speak.”

The waitress
returned and slid a huge plate covered with thick-sliced roast beef and a pile of real mashed potatoes covered with brown gravy and a side of green beans and a roll.

“So they didn’t patch things up?” Hud asked in between bites.

Leroy laughed again. “Not a chance. Jordan tried to make it up to her, but she wasn’t having any of it. Nope, Jordan was history after that.”

“And this higher ground, you spoke of?” Hud asked.

Leroy wrinkled his brow. “I just knew Ginger. She’d found herself someone else, probably someone with more potential than Jordan. Ginger didn’t go five minutes without a man.”

“But you don’t know who he was?”

Leroy shook his head. “She took off time from the café while her arm healed. Didn’t see much of her and then…she was just gone. I assumed she’d taken off with the guy. Her roommate said she packed up what she wanted of her things, even gave away her car, and left.”