Читать книгу Warrior Son - Rita Herron - Страница 11
ОглавлениеRoan studied Barbara for a reaction. She seemed shocked at his accusation. “Did you poison Joe McCullen, Barbara?”
Barbara’s handcuffs jangled as she waved her hands dramatically in the air. “Of course not. I can’t believe you’d ask me such a thing. I loved that man more than life itself.”
“You loved him, but we both know you resented the fact that he never married you.”
Barbara looked down at the jagged ends of her nails. “Did someone really poison him?”
“There were traces of cyanide in his system.”
She jerked her gaze up, eyes flaring with surprise. Or guilt? “Cyanide?”
“Yes. Fertilizer has cyanide in it, Barbara. And you have plenty of that at your house. You use it in your gardening.”
Another flicker of unease in her eyes. Then she seemed to pull herself together. “Gardening was a hobby of mine. But a lot of people garden. That’s not a crime.”
“No, but slipping cyanide into food or a drink that someone ingests is.”
“I didn’t slip cyanide into anything.”
Roan worked his mouth from side to side. “Then maybe your son did.”
Anger slashed her tired-looking features. “My son did no such thing.”
Roan arched a brow. “Are you sure about that, Barbara? He resented Joe more than you did. He hated all of the McCullens. Maybe he even went to see Joe and Joe told him not to come back, that he didn’t want his real sons to know about him.” He paused. “Maybe he told Bobby that he’d never be a McCullen. That if he got any of the land, he’d have to work underneath Maddox like he was some kind of servant.”
Barbara shot up. “Stop it. Joe wouldn’t have talked to Bobby like that. He loved our son.”
“But not like he did Maddox or Brett or Ray,” Roan pressed.
Rage darkened Barbara’s eyes. “Listen to me, Deputy. Bobby and I have suffered enough. We have both been locked up because of that family, but we did not kill Joe. Now leave us alone.”
She whirled around and gestured toward the guard. “Take me back to my cell, please.”
The guard glanced at Roan, and he shrugged and gestured okay. But before Barbara stepped through the door, he cleared his throat. “Know this, Barbara. If you or Bobby did kill Joe, I’ll find out. And any chance of you getting free will disappear.”
She shot him a venomous look, then shuffled out the door with the guard.
Roan contemplated her reaction.
Had she been so desperate to protect her son and see him get what was owed to him that she killed the man she loved?
* * *
MEGAN’S HEART HAMMERED as tires squealed and the car roared toward her. Terrified for her life, she rolled sideways toward the sidewalk seconds before the car screeched to a stop.
If she hadn’t been so fast, the car would have hit her.
Her life flashed in front of her. Playing with her sister when she was little. Losing her. Losing her mother... Her father looking at her like she was nothing.
Being so lonely sometimes she thought she’d die...
Then that night with Roan...his handsome face. Him bending over her, making love to her.
She wanted to live, to be with him again.
Shouts and screams echoed around her, then a man raced to her and helped her up. “Are you all right, miss?”
The driver of the car jumped out, the woman’s face ashen as she stumbled toward Megan. “Oh, God, honey, are you okay?”
“Yes,” Megan said. She glanced around the street and saw several people watching while others had dispersed in fear. “Someone fired a gun.”
“I heard it,” the man who’d helped her up said. “But I didn’t see where it came from.”
“I think it was a car backfiring,” a gray-haired man said.
“No, no, it was definitely a gun,” another woman said.
Megan didn’t know what to think. But...she’d also thought she’d felt someone push her before she fell.
You’re just being paranoid.
Although she had expressed suspicions about Joe McCullen’s death, the only people who knew that were Howard and Roan. And they were on her side.
Of course Tad Hummings’s brother had cornered her in the bar—would he try to kill her because she’d helped send his brother to prison?
“Are you sure you don’t need an ambulance?” the driver of the car asked.
“I’m sure.” All she wanted to do was call Roan.
Then hide in the morgue where she was safe.
Except she needed to talk to Dr. Cumberland. And he wasn’t going to like what she had to say.
* * *
ROAN CONSIDERED QUESTIONING Bobby but decided he needed concrete proof before he did. Something that would force Bobby to confess.
He climbed in his SUV to leave the prison and phoned Megan as he drove onto the highway. Her phone rang three times before she answered. When she did, she sounded breathless.
“Megan, are you all right?”
“No. I mean, yes,” she said. “I’m on the way back to the morgue.”
“What’s wrong?”
“I went to meet Howard to discuss the tox results, but on the way back to the hospital a gunshot sounded. The crowd panicked and started running, and I fell in the street.”
Roan went very still. “You fell?”
“Yes, well, I don’t know. I thought for a minute I was pushed, but I could have imagined it. Everyone was running to get away.”
“Who fired the gun?”
‘I have no idea,” she said. “The street was crowded and it happened so fast. One man said he thought it was a car backfiring, but I don’t think so.”
“Did you see anyone suspicious?”
“No. But like I said, it happened really fast and a car was coming so I had to roll out of the way.”
He didn’t like this one damn bit. First, she’d come to him questioning Joe McCullen’s death. Now a gun had gone off in the street and she’d fallen and nearly been hit by a car.
Too coincidental.
Roan clenched the phone with clammy hands. “Who else did you tell about the tox report?”
Tension filled the air. “Just you and Howard, the lab tech and Dr. Cumberland. But I haven’t seen him since I met with Howard earlier.”
“What were the results?”
“There was definitely cyanide in Joe’s system, Roan. Probably administered in small doses over a long period of time so as not to draw suspicion.”
Roan veered onto the road leading toward the McCullens’ ranch, Horseshoe Creek. He needed to find out who’d visited Joe on a regular basis.
“I know this will upset Dr. Cumberland,” Megan said. “He and the McCullens are good friends.”
“So how did he miss the fact that his patient was poisoned?”
“Like I said, it was probably administered in slow doses. Since Joe was already ill, Dr. Cumberland must have assumed his weakening condition was due to the disease.”
Roan’s mind raced. Barbara was his prime suspect, but her shock had seemed real. “But one question is still bothering me—why kill a dying man?”
“Maybe Barbara and Bobby knew about the will, but thought Joe was going to change it and take them out. She could have wanted him dead before he could make the change.”
“That’s possible. I put a call in to Joe’s lawyer to find out.”
His phone beeped. Maddox. “Listen, Megan, Maddox is calling. Let me talk to him.”
“Are you going to tell him his father was murdered?”
Roan hesitated. That was not a conversation he was eager to have.
“Not yet. I want some proof of a viable suspect before I go to him.”
“I don’t blame you. The McCullens have been through a lot. But they will want to know.”
He was well aware of that. “Don’t worry. I’ll tell him when the time is right.” He hesitated, then remembered her close call on the street. “Be careful, Megan. And don’t talk to anyone but Dr. Cumberland about this.”
She agreed, and he hit Connect to respond to Maddox. “It’s Roan.”
“I think I’ve tracked Romley down. I’m staking out a motel where he was last spotted.”
“Do you need backup?”
“Not yet. I’ll let you know if I do. Is anything going on there?”
Roan swallowed hard. He hated to lie, but...he wasn’t ready to divulge the truth. “No. I’ll ride out and check on the ranch soon.”
“Thanks. That security detail Brett hired should have it covered. But I’m worried about Mama Mary and Rose staying at the house while I’m gone. I tried to get them to stay with a friend, but they’re both as stubborn as they come. Mama Mary said no one would run her off from her home, and Rose insisted on staying with her.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll check on them.” In fact, Mama Mary was the one person who’d been by Joe’s bedside when he was ill. She’d lived with the family since before the boys’ mother passed and was the cook, housekeeper and surrogate mother. According to Maddox, she was as much a part of the family as anyone.
She would know exactly who’d visited Joe. And if he had other enemies, she could provide them with a list of names.
* * *
MEGAN COULDN’T SHAKE the uneasy feeling that someone had meant to harm her in the street.
The man from the bar, Tad Hummings’s brother?
She should report her altercation with him to the police. To Roan.
But...she had no real proof that he’d pushed her today. And he was already angry with her over the injustice he’d perceived she’d done to his family. If she accused him of pushing her in front of a car or firing a weapon at her, he would be furious.
She didn’t want to deal with that kind of rage. Or to falsely accuse anyone of anything.
She finished filing the results on Morty Burns and sent them to the sheriff in Laredo. This was his case, not one for Roan or Sheriff McCullen. But she was curious about the man so she entered his name in her database and ran a background check.
Information filled the screen.
Morty Burns, age fifty-nine, five-ten, a hundred and ninety pounds, no preexisting conditions.
He was married to a woman named Edith Bennett.
Bennett—why did that name sound familiar?
A knock sounded at her office door, but before she could respond, Dr. Cumberland stormed in.
“What the hell are you doing, Megan?” He slashed his hand through the air. “I just found out you ran more labs on Joe McCullen. I thought we settled that issue.”
Megan pivoted, forcing a calm to her voice.
She hadn’t let her father intimidate her and she wouldn’t let this man.
“I’m sorry, Doctor, but the fact that there were two different results bugged me. So I decided to run it one more time.”
Dr. Cumberland rammed his hands through his hair, spiking the white strands in disarray. “I can’t believe you’d go behind my back—”
“This is not about you,” Megan said. “It’s about your good friend Joe. If someone did hurt him, wouldn’t you want to know?”
“Of course,” he stuttered.
“I still don’t understand about the false negative.”
Dr. Cumberland looked away. “Sometimes our samples get contaminated and it throws off the results.”
That had happened before. “I know you cared about him,” Megan said softly. “And so did his sons. I just want the truth.”
He paused in his pacing and turned to look at her, his expression pained. “What are you saying, Megan? That someone killed my best and oldest friend? That it happened while he was under my care?”
