Читать книгу Warrior Son - Rita Herron - Страница 11

Chapter Five

Dr. Cumberland looked completely distraught.

Megan stepped over to him and squeezed his shoulder. “I’m sorry, Doctor, I know this is upsetting.”

The man’s face contorted with emotions. “How could I have missed that? I saw him all the time...”

“It happened so slowly, there was no reason for you to look for it, not with Joe already dying.”

“This makes no sense,” he said. “Why would anyone kill Joe? He didn’t have long to live.”

“That’s the big question,” Megan said. “And one I’m sure his sons will want the answer to.”

Dr. Cumberland looked stricken, and then he slumped into a chair and dropped his head into his hands. “Good God, Joe...what have I done?”

The guilt in the man’s voice tugged at Megan’s heartstrings. “You didn’t do anything. Joe knew you were his friend. If he’d thought someone was poisoning him, he would have told you.”

“But I was his primary physician. I should have realized, should have seen something.”

“Like I said, whoever poisoned him did it in small doses over a long period of time.” She drummed her fingers on the desk. “Can you think of anyone who had a grudge against Joe?”

“Just Barbara. And maybe Arlis Bennett, but he’s in jail.” He pushed himself up, but staggered slightly. His pallor was gray, his breathing unsteady.

Megan reached out to steady him. “Are you okay? You aren’t having chest pains, are you?”

He shook his head no, then straightened and swiped at the perspiration beading on his forehead. “I have to go.”

“Wait.” She caught his arm. “Maybe you need to see a doctor.”

“I’m fine, I just need some air.” He shrugged off her hand and hurried toward the door before she could stop him.

* * *

ROAN’S GUT CHURNED with the news of Joe McCullen’s murder.

For a fraction of a second, he considered the possibility that this could have been a mercy killing. Mama Mary supposedly loved the McCullens like family—she’d taken care of Joe during his illness.

What if she’d hated seeing him suffer and decided to speed death along?

Although slowly poisoning someone was not merciful. If Mama Mary or someone else, say Dr. Cumberland, had wanted to keep Joe from suffering, he or she would have found a faster way.

As he drove down the long winding drive to the main farmhouse at Horseshoe Creek, he scanned the property. It was an impressive spread. Now it belonged to Joe’s three sons.

Horses galloped across the fields while cattle grazed in the pastures. Brett had brought more horses in to train and planned to offer riding lessons and was rebuilding the barns that burned down. He’d taken his wife, Willow, and his son away for a couple of weeks in hopes Maddox would track down the culprit sabotaging the McCullens.

Hopefully Maddox would arrest Romley and the trouble would end.

But the fact that Joe had been murdered changed everything. Was Gates responsible? Or...Barbara or Bobby?

Sunshine slanted across the graveled drive and farmhouse as he parked. The ground was dry from lack of rain, although winds stirred dust and scattered leaves and twigs across the yard. Hopefully spring would come soon with warmer weather, new growth and the ranch could get back on track.

But he wouldn’t be a part of it. He didn’t belong.

Still, he had to get justice for his father.

The sound of cattle echoed above the low whine of the wind, and he spotted a cowboy at the top of the hill herding the cows toward the pasture to the east.

A gray cloud moved across the sky shrouding the sun as he strode up to the front porch.

He knocked, noting that the repairs on the house were complete.

He knocked again, then heard shuffling inside. “Hang on to your britches, I’m coming.”

Roan shifted and scanned the perimeter of the property again, searching for anyone lurking around, but nothing suspicious stood out. A second later, Mama Mary lumbered to the door and opened it.

The scent of cinnamon wafted toward Roan, making his mouth water.

The short, chubby lady wiped her hands on her apron as she invited him in. She’d wound a bandana around her chin-length brown curls and flour dusted her blouse and apron. Her brown eyes were so warm and loving that Roan couldn’t help but envy the McCullens. Although alarm tinged them at the sight of him. “Deputy Whitefeather, Is something wrong? Did you hear from Maddox?”

“Maddox is fine,” Roan assured her. “I spoke to him earlier today. He has a lead on Stan Romley.”

Relief softened her face. “Thank goodness. Maybe they’ll lock him up, and my boys can get back to work here on the ranch where they belong.”

Her boys. She said it with such affection that if he’d ever considered the possibility of her doing something to hurt the family, that thought vanished like dust in the wind.

“May I come in? I’d like to ask you some questions.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Something is wrong. Something you don’t want to say.”

Roan jammed his hands in his pockets. She was damned intuitive. “I’m just trying to help Maddox identify the arsonist.”

She nodded, although she scrutinized his face as if she didn’t quite believe him. Still, she waved him in. “You want some tea or coffee?”

“Coffee would be good,” he said. Maybe it would put them both at ease if he at least acted like this was informal, not a hunting expedition. Although, if she knew her boss and family friend had been murdered, he had a feeling she would want to help.

She gestured toward the den where a fire crackled in the fireplace, and she disappeared into the kitchen while he surveyed the room. A family picture of Joe and his three sons hung on one wall—the boys were teenagers then. A bookshelf held other pictures, a couple of Joe and the woman who must have been his wife, Grace. A third one showed Grace holding a baby in her arms with two toddlers beside her—Ray had to be the baby, Maddox and Brett the toddlers.

How would she have reacted if she’d known that Joe had another son at that time? Roan was probably just a few months older than Maddox.

His hand stroked his wallet where he kept a picture of his mother. There had been no father in the picture because she’d chosen not to tell Joe about him. What would Joe have done if he’d known? Would he have offered to marry Roan’s mother?

Would he have grown up a McCullen and lived on a ranch like this?

A wave of disappointment hit him, but he tamped it back. No use wondering. It hadn’t happened.

Footsteps sounded, and Mama Mary waddled in carrying a tray with a coffee craft, two mugs and a plate of cinnamon rolls. She set them on the coffee table, handed him a plate with a cinnamon roll on it, then served them both a mug and offered cream and sugar.

“Black is fine,” he said as he cradled the warm mug in his hand. Even the coffee cups had an M on them for McCullen, another reminder that if his mother had married Joe, that would have been his last name, too.

Mama Mary studied him with a frown. “All right, what’s really going on, Deputy? Maddox is after Romley and we know that he worked for Boyle Gates, the man Maddox put away for cattle rustling. I’m aware you all looked into his cousin Bennett. Do you have new information?”

He sipped his coffee, choosing his words carefully. “We’re still hoping that Romley will give us a confession regarding the fires.”

“So why are you here?”

Roan nodded. “The last few months Joe was sick, Dr. Cumberland came often to check on him?”

She nodded, then stirred sugar into her coffee. “Almost every day. He and Joe went way back. He even delivered Joe’s boys.”

Except for him. And Bobby. But they obviously didn’t count. “Joe and Boyle Gates had trouble?”

Mama Mary sighed. “Well, I guess you could say that. Boyle tried to get Joe to sell some of his land to him. He wasn’t happy at all when Joe refused.”

“Did Gates visit Joe while he was sick?”

Mama Mary nodded. “A couple of times. I couldn’t believe he kept persisting. He must have thought that Joe was weak and would give in, but Joe was adamant that his ranch belonged to the McCullens and didn’t intend to let any of it go.”

Gates would have had to have administered the poison more than twice for it to show up in the tox screen. Maybe he hired someone to sneak it into Joe’s food or drink?

“How about other visitors?”

“Well, a few of the hands dropped by. The foreman and Joe were close. He stopped in at least once a week.”

“You said they were close? Did he have any trouble with Joe?”

“No, Joe was always good to him. They were more like brothers than employee-employer.” She made a clicking sound with her teeth. “Why are you asking about Mr. Joe’s visitors?”

“I’m trying to get the full picture of anyone involved with the ranch or Joe. It’s possible Gates paid someone other than Romley to sabotage the ranch.”

She chewed on her bottom lip and looked away. “Mr. Brett already checked out the hands. Romley turned out to be dirty, and Maddox found out he was working with another hand named Hardwick. They were both on Gates’s payroll.”

“What about visitors outside the ranch? Other than Dr. Cumberland, who came to see Joe while he was sick?”

She set her coffee on the tray and rubbed at her knee as if it hurt. “Barbara stopped by a few times, always when Maddox wasn’t around. Once I heard her up there crying over him. I tried to stay out of the way when she was here. She didn’t much care for me.”

“She was bitter,” Roan said. “Did she bring Joe any gifts or food when she visited?”

Mama Mary’s face crinkled as she scrunched her nose in thought. “Sometimes she brought him cookies. Said they were his favorites, that she made them for him the first time they met.”

“Did Joe eat them?”

“One or two here and there. To tell you the truth, he wasn’t into sweets that much. He was a meat and potato man.”

Still, she could have poisoned the cookies.

“What about Bobby? Did he visit Joe?”

She scoffed. “That boy was like vinegar, sour and bitter as they get. He came some, but I stayed out of his way. He upset Mr. Joe. Sometimes I could hear them shouting all the way in the kitchen.” She made a sound of disapproval. “When Joe took sick, you’d have thought Bobby would have softened and been nicer. But one night I heard him asking Joe when he was going to tell the other boys about him. He was always demanding money, too.”

Roan’s pulse jumped. “What about Joe’s will? Did Bobby know he was included?”

“Joe hinted that he’d included him, but more than once he told Bobby if he wanted any part of the McCullen land, he had to get help.”

Roan considered their argument. “Did Joe ever talk about changing his will?”

Mama Mary glanced down at her fingers where she was knotting the apron in her lap. “He did. I told him once he should take that boy out. He was ungrateful and a mean drunk, and he didn’t deserve what Joe had worked so hard for.”

“Did Joe talk to the lawyer about it?”

“I honestly don’t know,” Mama Mary said with a sigh.

There was one way to find out. Roan had to talk to Joe’s lawyer Darren Bush.

* * *

MEGAN SPENT THE rest of the afternoon working on the autopsy of a car crash victim.

By late afternoon, she was so concerned about the doctor that she phoned him to make certain he didn’t need medical attention, but his voice mail kicked in. Her phone buzzed a second later.

Thinking it was him, she quickly snatched up the phone.

“Dr. Lail, this is Deputy North in Laredo. I got the results for that autopsy on Morty Burns.”

“Yes.”

“Did you find any forensics?”

“I’m afraid not,” Megan answered. “But the bullet that killed him was from a .45.”

“Hmm.”

“Something bothering you about the report?” she asked.

“Not the report per se. But I talked to Sheriff McCullen from Pistol Whip. Apparently Morty Burns was married to a woman named Edith Bennett.”

“Yes, I saw that,” Megan said.

Deputy North grunted. “Well, her brother is Arlis Bennett, a man the sheriff suspects is working with Boyle Gates.”

There was the name Bennett again. “Has Burns’s wife been notified of his death?” Megan asked.

“Not yet,” the deputy said. “I phoned and there was no answer at her place. She lives near Pistol Whip, not Laredo.”

Megan drummed her fingers on the desk. “I can go out and talk to her.”

“We really should have an officer present. This is a murder investigation now.”

“All right, I’ll get Deputy Whitefeather to accompany me.”

“Good. Sheriff McCullen thinks Burns’s murder may be related to the trouble at his ranch. That he might have been paid to set the ranch fires and that he might have been killed to cover up what he did.” He paused. “Anyway, I was hoping you’d found some DNA to tie his death to Gates or Bennett.”

“I’m sorry, I wish I could tell you more.”

He thanked her and hung up, and Megan stewed over the information.

It hadn’t occurred to her that a murder victim who’d been on her table might be connected to the McCullens.

She texted Roan to relay the deputy’s statement and explained that she’d meet him at the woman’s home to make the death notification—and question the woman in case she knew who’d taken her husband’s life. There was always the possibility that this murder was not related to the McCullens, that it was a domestic dispute gone bad or that Burns had gotten himself in some kind of trouble. Maybe he owed someone money...

Her phone beeped indicating a response to her text, and she read Roan’s message. At Horseshoe Creek now. Will meet you at the Burns farm. Wait for me.

She texted back OK, then grabbed her purse and rushed down the hallway.

Outside, the sun was setting, storm clouds rolling in, the wind picking up. The parking lot at the hospital was still full, though; the afternoon-evening shift hadn’t arrived, and an ambulance was rolling up.

She hit the key fob to unlock her car, jumped in and headed toward the address for the Burnses’ farm.

Traffic was thin as she drove through town, the diner starting to fill up with the early supper crowd. She made the turn to the highway leading out of Pistol Whip, and ten minutes later found the farm, a run-down-looking piece of property that had seen better days.

Overgrown weeds choked what had once been a big garden area, the fences were broken and rotting and the house needed paint badly. Her car rumbled over the ruts in the dirt drive, dust spewing in a smoky cloud behind her.

She scanned the property for life, for workers, but saw no one. Just a deserted tractor and pickup truck in front of the weathered house. She parked and glanced around, suddenly nervous.

She didn’t know anything about this woman, except that her husband had been murdered.

Suddenly the door on the side inched open and a cat darted out. Megan’s stomach knotted when she noticed blood on the cat’s fur and paws.

Fear momentarily immobilized her, but her instinct as a doctor kicked in, and she threw the door open and climbed from her car. She scanned the area for someone suspicious but saw no one. The cat ran into the barn behind the house.

She eased to the porch, one hand on the mace in her purse, her phone at her fingertips in case she needed to call for help. Wind beat at the house, banging a shutter that had come loose against the weathered wood.

She crept up the rickety steps, the squeaking sound of rotting boards adding to her frayed nerves. By the time she reached the front door, perspiration trickled down the back of her neck. Senses honed, she paused to listen for sounds inside.

The wind whistled through the eaves. Water dripped from a faucet or tub somewhere in the house.

The smell of something acrid swirled in the air as she poked her head inside. The living room with its faded and tattered furniture was empty. She took a deep breath and inched inside the door.

A sick feeling swept over her when she spotted the woman lying in the doorway from the kitchen to the den.

She lay in a pool of blood, one arm outstretched as if she was reaching for help, her eyes wide-open and filled with the shock of death.