Winds of Wyoming (A Kate Neilson Novel) (33 page)

Mike remembered his dad talking about the time he’d walked out of a stall to find Todd leaning against a wall waiting for him. “Why does he want our property? His place is plenty big. Almost seventy-five-thousand acres, I’ve heard.”

“That’s what we always asked. Why?” She brushed hair back from her face. “Since your dad died, Todd’s been on my case to sell. He’s only called four times, but the last time, he said something about him being a widower, and now that I’m a widow and we share a property boundary, we should get together. I slammed the phone down before he could finish.” She shivered. “Gives me the willies just thinking about it.”

Mike rapped his knuckles on the countertop. “Like father, like daughter. Next time he calls, hand the phone to me.” He walked around the end of the counter. “I’d better go see if I can accomplish something before any more fires break out around here.”

“Fires? On the ranch?”

The radio on Mike’s belt hissed to life. “Hey, Duncan, can you hear me?”

He lifted the two-way. Clint was evidently still mad. After their argument, his foreman had quit calling him
Bossman
.

“I hear you, Clint.”

“Got an SOS down at the bison pasture.”

Mike pointed the antenna at his mom. “Should have known. Another fire.”

***

Jerry Ramsey ate by himself, pretending to ignore the inmates at the other end of the table.

“Hey, Honky, where you get your hair done? Auto Zone?”

“With hair like that, you ought to sit with the Beaners.”

They ridiculed him for attacking a woman in a hospital bed and hooted with laughter after each insult. He glanced at a guard. How he wished he was on the other side of the billy club. The things he’d do to his tormentors.

County jail brought back memories of his years at St. Agatha’s. It wasn’t just the pig swill they fed him. Once again, he was the outsider. But he’d found ways to get even at the orphanage and he’d do the same here. Snickering, he stabbed at the dry mound of instant potatoes and watched the watery gravy to run into the channels.

“Hey, honky, what you laughing at? Probably something stupid.” The dark, pupil-less eyes of the big man seated on the opposite bench flickered from Ramsey to the guard, across the other inmates in the cafeteria, and back again. “Who’s the broad?”

Ramsey turned back to his potatoes.

“I said, ‘Who’s the broad you talk to at visitation’?”

“A friend.”

“Next time, you be sure to introduce your
friend
to me. Such a fine woman shouldn’t be wasting her time on a pansy like you.”

The other men howled as though that was the funniest joke they’d ever heard.

Ramsey picked up his plate and walked to the slop bucket. The inmates were as sickening as the food. He scraped his plate and joined the line to return to the cells. Neilson would pay for every miserable moment he spent in this hell hole. He rubbed at the scars her fingernails had left on his wrists. He would get revenge, and it would be sweet. Very sweet.

“What’s her name?” The voice whispered in his ear.

Ramsey spun around.

The man who’d mocked him stood directly behind him. “Me and her,” he whispered, “we’ll make beautiful music together. You can’t give her what I can.”

Ramsey pushed the man, knocking him into the inmate behind him, and a circle formed.

Then the big man, bigger than he’d realized, was coming at him, a glint in his eye—and in his hand.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

KATE TOOK A BITE
of the quiche she’d prepared using ingredients from Dymple’s refrigerator. Not bad considering she hadn’t cooked in years.

Dymple nodded her approval. “This tastes as good as it smells. You’ll have to give me your rhubarb.”

Kate laughed. “I don’t have a recipe. If I wrote anything down, it would be: ‘Open refrigerator door. Dig through contents. Find appropriate ingredients. Combine and pour into pie crust before placing in hot oven.’”

Dymple grinned. “You must cook like my mother did. She could root around an empty cupboard and come up with a meal fit for royalty. But she never had any recipes to pass on, so I have to use cookbooks.”

“Your meals are always delicious.”

Dymple cut another piece with her fork. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“What’s going on between you and Mike?”

Kate slanted her head. “Now that’s a radical change of subject.”

“I talked with him and Laura after church on Sunday. He acted funny when I mentioned your name, so I thought I’d ask.”

“Did anyone—”

“No. No one else was close enough to hear what I said.”

“Good.” Kate breathed a sigh of relief, remembering the last time she and Mike talked. The truth hurt, but it was the truth. “Nothing is going on between us.”

“Are you sure?”

“What’re you getting at?” Kate took a bite of toast.

“I sense a tension between the two of you, and I don’t want you to lose him.”

Kate nearly choked on the toast. She reached for her water. “I don’t see how I can lose someone I don’t have.”

“Kate, sweetie, Mike is in love with you.”

Kate set the glass down without drinking. “How can you possibly say that?”

“It’s obvious.”

“Well, it’s not to me. And even if what you say is remotely true, I’m not worthy of him. We’re night and day, black and white. He’s a good person. I’m a felon. He deserves a wholesome woman like you or his mom.”

“We’ve had this discussion before.” Dymple placed her fork on the edge of her plate, wiped her mouth with a napkin, folded her hands and sat back. “Would you still think I’m a
wholesome
person if I told you I murdered my husband?”

***

Mike parked behind Clint’s pickup on the road below the pasture. The two men exited their pickups at the same time. Mike closed his passenger door. “Thanks for calling, Clint, although I’m not sure I want to know what’s going on this time.” He studied the bison grazing on the other side of the fence.

Clint scratched at a red bump on his wrist. “It may not be important, but I thought you should see what I found.”

Mike slapped at the pest he could feel crawling on his neck. “Mosquitoes are hungry today.”

“Yeah, bloodthirsty little buggers.” Clint motioned toward the hill Mike had just driven down. “When I topped the rise on my way to the pasture, I saw someone on an ATV. Looked male—hard to tell from a distance. Whoever it was hightailed it over the ridge. I followed as fast as I could in my truck, but when I got to the top, I couldn’t see anything other than tracks in the grass leading into the trees.

“I inspected the fence and found the upper gate open and lying on the ground.” He scratched his wrist again. “I looked for strays but didn’t see any, so I closed the gate. Then I checked the wires. They were hot. I figured if the electricity was still running, the fence wasn’t cut. Whoever it was must have opened the gate instead of cutting through.”

“No dead bison?”

Mike held his breath as he waited for Clint’s reply, the screensaver on Kate’s computer at the forefront of his memory.

“No dead bison, but …”

“But what?”

“It’s hard to tell.” Clint hesitated. “I think there’s dried blood on the ground near the gate. Maybe a hawk or a coyote killed a rabbit in that spot, or maybe …” He shrugged his shoulders.

Mike followed Clint’s truck up the hill, steering around rocks and sagebrush. He studied his herd, looking for signs of injury or agitation. The animals he could see appeared calm, thank God. He rubbed the bite on his neck. Somehow, he had to put an end to the harassment.

Clint was already out of his pickup when Mike parked Old Blue at the upper end of the pasture. Together, they stooped to study the dark stains in the soil, which became a smeared trail of brown leading out of the enclosure toward a stand of trees thirty yards away.

Mike frowned. “This blood isn’t fresh. Does that mean the gate was open a while?”

Clint shook his head. “I don’t think so. We check it every couple of days.”

“Then somebody is going in and out of the pasture doing God knows what. Maybe they left the gate open this time because you scared them away.”

“Could be. But what are they doing in the pasture?”

“Let’s find out.”

***

Kate’s fork clattered onto her plate. “You
what
?”

“I killed my husband.” Dymple’s face held no expression.

“No you didn’t.”

“Yes I did.” Dymple flipped her braid behind her neck and picked up her fork.

“I can’t believe it. I
won’t
believe it.” Kate backed her wheelchair away from the table and wheeled toward the garden. She’d prayed God would send a good Christian woman to mentor her when she got to Wyoming. Dymple seemed to be that woman. Surely, she didn’t …
God, I can’t—

Dymple called her name. “Please, Kate, come sit with me.”

Kate slowly rolled back to the table.

Dymple smiled a sad smile. “I’m sorry to shock and disappoint you. You’re the only one in the world, other than my sisters, who knows what I did.”

“But …” Kate swallowed hard. “I didn’t even know you were married.”

“When I was young, younger than you, I couldn’t wait to get away from Copperville. I thought I would die of boredom in this isolated mountain community devoid of night clubs and movie theaters. So I saved my money and bought a bus ticket to California, where I found a job at a taco stand.” A faraway look crossed her face. “I was enthralled with the ocean and spent hours at the beach every day. I’d walk on the shore or sit on a sand dune to watch the waves roll in and out.

“Then I fell madly in love with Raymond, the manager of the taco stand. He said he loved me, too. But I often wondered if he just needed someone who was better with numbers than he was. He had plans to set up stands all the way to New York.”

Kate’s mind still reeled from learning Dymple had murdered a husband she didn’t know existed. “You really were married?”

Dymple nodded.

“How long?”

“A year and a half.”

“What happened?”

Dymple sighed. “He became abusive.” She ran her finger along the edge of the table. “At first, I thought it was my fault. I forgot to put the garlic in the salsa. Or I closed the store five minutes early and missed a curtain.”

Kate raised an eyebrow. “Curtain?”

“What I meant to say …” The older woman enunciated her words. “Was that when I closed too early, Raymond was convinced we lost customers.

“Then he started hitting me for practically no reason at all. I took too long in the shower, bought too many groceries, talked too much, or too little, with him or with the customers, etcetera, etcetera.”

She stopped for a breath and a sip of water. “I’ve only told this story three times—once to the police, once to the court, and once to my family. It’ll take some time.” She pointed at Kate’s plate. “You should finish eating.”

“I’m not sure I can.” But Kate picked up her fork. “Why are you telling me this? I don’t need to know.” She didn’t want to hear another tale of abuse. She had enough stories of her own. Mostly, she didn’t want to believe Dymple had committed a crime worse than anything she’d done. But like catching a cat that escaped a bag, she couldn’t stuff Dymple’s revelation, with all its dreadful claws and teeth, back inside.

“I have a purpose for telling you this.” Dymple’s voice broke. “I’m not unloading ancient history on you without a reason.”

Kate took a long breath and released it. “Go on.”

“One night my husband was raging drunk, but not so drunk he couldn’t hit me. We went round and round our little apartment.” Tears began to run down her cheeks, catching in the wrinkles. “Me trying to get away from Raymond, Raymond grabbing anything he could get his hands on to throw or swing at me.”

Kate started to cry, too. “Oh, Dymple.” The thought of her dear friend being chased by an abusive drunk, fearing for her life, broke her heart.

Dymple’s eyes became distant. “He cornered me in the kitchen. I saw him going for the rolling pin on the counter, so I reached my hands behind my back and opened the knife drawer.” She paused. “I felt inside and grabbed the first knife I could get my fingers around. Then I slipped it out and held it at my side. When he came at me again, I …” She swallowed. “I lifted the knife, wrapped both hands around the handle and jabbed it forward.”

She looked at her plate. “I released my grip when he fell to the floor. For a moment, I just stood there staring at him staring back at me with a horrified look on his face.” She shook her head back and forth. “I will
never
forget his expression.

“I ran out the front door to the next-door neighbors’ apartment. They called an ambulance. They knew about our fights, they knew how it was with Raymond. Some of them tried to help him, but by the time the medics arrived, he was dead.”

Kate wished she couldn’t picture the scene so vividly. She hadn’t killed anyone, but she had fought for her life. The results were never pretty.

“I was in jail for a month before I called my parents to ask them to bail me out—one of the hardest things I ever did.” She paused, her gaze blank. Then she focused on Kate. “Eventually, a jury determined Raymond’s death to be self-defense on my part. When the trial was over, I sold the business, gave away all our possessions, even my clothing, and moved to Laramie to go to school.

“After I graduated from UW, I returned to Copperville to take care of my parents and teach third grade, which I did for thirty-three years.” By now she was hoarse, her voice just a whisper. “My family never told a soul. You’re the first non-relative to hear my story since my court appearance.” She blotted her face with the napkin.

Kate picked up her own napkin and did the same. “I feel honored, although I have to say it hurt when you popped my bubble.”

“Bubble?”

“Yeah, the bubble that held Dymple Forbes on a pedestal and dubbed her the most saintly woman in the world.” She sniffed and wiped at her nose.

“Good. That’s part of my purpose in telling you my story. But there’s more.”