Читать книгу Rugged Defender - B.J. Daniels, B.J. Daniels - Страница 13

Chapter Five

The next morning, Chloe woke more determined than ever. She knew her sisters were right about the possible danger, but that wasn’t going to stop her. In the first place, she didn’t believe that Justin was guilty no matter what anyone thought. In the second place, she couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong with the accidental death ruling.

Yesterday, she’d gotten the impression that the sheriff had thought it was a suicide but was willing to let the coroner rule it accidental. Bert didn’t believe that any more than he would have believed that his oldest son shot himself.

If she was right, someone had murdered Drew and gotten away with it. All she had to do was find out who wanted him dead five years ago. Even as she thought it, she recalled what the sheriff had said about Justin and Drew having an argument earlier in the day.

What if she was wrong about Justin and her investigation ended up leading her straight to him? Wasn’t that what the sheriff had been trying to warn her about?

It was a chance she was going to have to take.

She’d stayed up late last night going over the case file and coroner’s report on Drew Calhoun’s death. So when the phone rang, it took her a moment to wake up, let alone find it and answer.

As she hit Accept, she realized it could be Justin. “Hello?”

Silence.

“Hello?” She blinked at the clock beside her bed. Two thirty in the morning? A wrong number? A drunk butt-dial after the bars closed?

She started to hang up when she heard a raspy whisper and couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman on the line. “Stop nosing into things that aren’t your business. Drew Calhoun is dead. Leave it alone or you’ll regret it.”

“Who is this?” she demanded. But the caller was gone. She felt a chill as she disconnected. She hadn’t expected word to get out so soon that she was looking into Drew’s death—let alone to get a threatening phone call. Why would someone be worried about what she might find unless Drew really was murdered?

With a shudder she realized she just might have heard from the killer who would be watching her and waiting for her to get too close.

* * *

IT TOOK A while for her to get back to sleep. With daylight though, she was even more determined to get to the truth.

But where to begin? A name came to mind. She groaned, dreading it, but if anyone knew something back then, it just might be the woman Justin was seeing five years ago. She showered, dressed and had a quick breakfast before her sisters got up. It didn’t take but one phone call to find out where Nici Kent was now living. It was a short walk, since crossing the entire town took only about fifteen minutes on foot.

Nici answered the door with a scowl. “Really?” She didn’t look any different than she had yesterday at the soup kitchen—except she wasn’t wearing a hairnet.

“Really,” Chloe said. “I need to talk to you.”

“I can’t imagine why.”

Chloe smiled. “Let me in and maybe you’ll find out.”

Nici shook her head. “My sister’s kid’s been squalling all morning at the top of his lungs. You want to talk? Then we’d better take a walk.” She grabbed her coat and, pulling it on, closed the door and started down the steps.

They walked toward the park near the river.

“I was hoping you might be able to help me,” Chloe said. The morning was cold and clear. She could see her breath with each word. Hands stuffed into her coat pockets, she debated how to get Nici to talk.

“Help you?” The woman gave her a skeptical look. “I doubt you’d be dumb enough to ask me for money, so you must need—”

“Information.”

Nici laughed. “What kind of information is it you think I can give you?”

They’d reached the park and were almost to the footbridge that crossed the river. Everything close to the water was covered with a thick coating of frost, making the world around them a winter white. “Drew Calhoun.”

The woman stopped walking to turn to look at her. “Why would you be asking about him?”

Chloe could see that she was going to have to lay all her cards on the table. “I got a call in the middle of last night from someone warning me to stop investigating Drew Calhoun’s death. You wouldn’t know anything about that call, would you?”

Nici said nothing as she climbed up on the bridge.

Chloe followed, stepping up onto the snow-covered bridge and starting across the frozen river. “You were dating his brother, Justin, five years ago. If anyone knows what was going on with Drew and his brother it would be you.”

Nici stopped so abruptly, Chloe almost collided with her. It took her a moment to get her balance on the slippery snow.

“What is it you’re after?” Nici demanded.

“The truth.”

The woman scoffed and began walking again, stopping in the middle of the bridge to look down. “It’s over. Best leave it alone.”

“That’s what the caller said, but is it over? Is it over for Justin?”

Leaning on the metal railing, Nici looked at her, her eyes narrowing. “I know about you and Justin.”

“There isn’t much to know,” Chloe said. “But I’d like to see him vindicated.”

“So it’s like that,” the woman said, studying her. “You know he’s back in town.” She chuckled when she saw Chloe’s surprised expression. “So you didn’t know. He said he’s come back to make amends. That tell you anything?”

“I don’t believe he killed his brother.”

Nici shrugged. “You could be right. But you also could be wrong. Drew was one mean bastard to Justin from the time they were kids.”

“Justin can’t be the only person who had reason to hate Drew. What about you?”

“Me?” Nici shook her head and laughed.

“Drew had scratches on him that the coroner believed were from a woman’s fingernails.”

Nici looked down at her gloved hands. When she looked up she smiled. “Sounds like he got what he deserved.”

“Let’s assume you didn’t kill him, then how about one of his friends or associates?” Chloe asked wriggling her toes in her boots to keep her feet warm. Nici didn’t seem to be the least bit cold even though she was wearing a much less insulated coat and thinner gloves.

“Friends? I’m not sure Drew had any. But associates...”

“Yes?”

Nici met her gaze. “You do realize that there are some people in town who won’t like what you’re doing.”

“I’m not worried about them.”

“Maybe you should be.”

“Tell me about his associates,” Chloe said.

Nici took her sweet time, but finally said, “There were a group of guys he played poker with. I heard he got caught cheating.” She shrugged. “The man who caught him was one who’d lost the most money to Drew, a man named Monte Decker. He works at the bank.”

Chloe didn’t know him. “Anyone else?” She waited, cold, her cheeks and nose feeling icy and her skin stinging. The air along the frozen creek felt as if it was at least ten degrees colder than in town.

“Al Duncan. He bought a horse from Drew and later found out that it was lame. The day he bought it, the horse was so full of drugs, he couldn’t tell. Drew refused to give him back his money. Al was drunk one night down at the Mint threatening to kill Drew.” She shrugged again. “I’m sure there are more. Like Pete Ferris. Rumor was that Drew was sleeping with his wife. They almost got a divorce over it. Still might even all these years later.”

“Thanks,” Chloe said as Nici pushed off the bridge railing making it clear that she was done. “I’ll walk you back.”

“Don’t bother. I know the way.” Nici brushed past her but turned before exiting the bridge. “Seriously, why stick your neck out like this? Why stir this all back up? I can tell you right now Bert Calhoun isn’t going to like it—not to mention Justin. So I’m not sure who you think you’re going to make points with—”

“Hasn’t there been a time when you did something just because it felt like the right thing to do?” Chloe asked her.

“Whatever,” Nici said with a shake of her head before turning and leaving.

Chloe stood for a few moments longer on the bridge, looking down at the frozen river. Fall leaves had gotten stuck in the ice making strange dark patterns. She thought of what Nici had told her. She heard her grandmother’s voice in her ear.

Best be ready for the consequences when you go poking a porcupine with a stick, missy. Someone’s bound to get hurt and it won’t be the porcupine.

* * *

JUSTIN’S CELL PHONE rang as he was headed into town from the Rogers Ranch. He’d spent part of the morning having breakfast and visiting with Dawson’s mother, Wilhelmina. Willie was a tall, wiry ranch woman with a true heart of gold. She’d taken him in and fed him more times than he could remember.

He’d always had the feeling that she would have loved to have given his father a piece of her mind. But had hesitated because she feared that Bert would take it out on him.

He saw it was Nici calling and picked up. “Hey,” he said.

“I thought I should give you a heads-up,” she said. “Chloe Clementine.”

Justin felt his chest tighten. “What about her?”

“You know she’s an investigative reporter, right? Well, guess what she’s investigating?” She didn’t give him time to guess, even if he had been about to. “Drew’s death.”

Justin swore under his breath. “How do you know this?”

“I just went for a walk with her. She wanted to know who hated Drew enough to want him dead.”

He could see the outskirts of town ahead. “What did you tell her?”

“I thought about not giving her anything,” Nici said. “But then I thought, it’s her funeral. So I gave her some names.”

He swore again. “Who?”

“Monte Decker, Al Duncan and Pete Ferris.”

“Why is Chloe doing this?” He hadn’t realized he’d asked the question aloud until Nici answered.

“She says all she’s after is the truth and that it’s the right thing to do. Some BS like that. But I can tell she’s doing it for you.”

He swore. That was the last thing he wanted.

“I thought the sheriff ruled Drew’s death an accident?” Nici said.

“She did.”

“So why is Chloe—She said that someone threatened her if she kept looking into Drew’s death.”

“It wasn’t you, was it?” He had to ask.

She laughed. “No, maybe if I’d thought of it and known she was looking into Drew’s death. So you didn’t know.”

“No, but I’ll make a point of asking her what she thinks she’d doing when I see her. Thanks.” He disconnected as he entered Whitehorse and headed for the house where Chloe and her sisters had grown up.

* * *

CHLOE WALKED INTO Monte Decker’s office at the bank and closed the door. Monte was a forty-something rangy former Eastern Montana farm boy with a small bald spot in his short dark hair. He wasn’t bad looking in his expensive suit, although as he tugged at the neck of his shirt she got the feeling he wasn’t comfortable with his position. Or maybe she just had that effect on men, because he had a strangled look when he glanced up from the paperwork on his desk and saw her.

“You probably don’t know me,” she said as she took a seat. Other than papers strewn across his desk, there was a framed photo of Monte holding a huge walleye. From the background, it seemed he’d caught it at Nelson Reservoir. Why it caught her attention was because it was the only framed photo on his desk. No wife and kids. No favorite old dog. Just Monte and a fish.

“I’m Chloe Clementine.”

“Clementine? Frannie’s...”

“Granddaughter. I’m an investigative reporter.”

Before that, he’d looked as if he’d expected her to ask for a loan. Now though, he leaned back and took her in, clearly speculating on why she was sitting in his office.

“What was your relationship with Drew Calhoun?”

The question startled him. He glanced out through the glass partitions that formed his office as if worried about who was watching them.

Monte began to perspire. He tugged at his collar. “What kind of question is that?”

“I know you played poker with him, that you caught him cheating and that you lost a lot of money to him.”

Monte looked around as if he wanted to run. “I don’t know where you got your information but I really don’t have time for this. Drew is dead. Why are you asking questions about him?”

“Because I believe he was murdered and not by Justin Calhoun.”

Monte opened his mouth, closed it and opened it again. “I—I thought it was an accident.”

“You must have been angry when you caught him cheating,” she said.

Realizing there was no place to run, he took a deep breath and said, “This really isn’t the place to talk about this.”

Chloe reached back and closed the door of the small glassed-in office. “Help me out here. You had reason to want Drew dead if you lost a lot of money to him and then realized he’d been cheating.”