CHAPTER 16

The sheriff was waiting alone in the reception area when Beau and Tori arrived. His hair and mustache were freshly trimmed, his uniform crisp, his badge polished to a blinding gleam. He looked ready for a high-profile press conference, Beau thought. It wasn’t what you’d call a hopeful sign.

Beside him, Tori was as tense as a greyhound at the starting gate. Beau could tell she felt it, too—the dark sense of impending disaster.

“Come into my office, you two,” Axelrod said, stepping aside as if to usher them in the right direction. “We need to talk.”

They entered ahead of him. The room was small, much of it taken up by the massive solid oak desk and the two empty chairs that faced it. The walls were decorated with framed citations, awards, and photos of the sheriff with Texas dignitaries, including both the first and second President Bush. The blinds on the glass windows that flanked the door were closed. A prickle of anxiety crawled up the back of Beau’s neck as he waited while Tori took her seat, then lowered himself onto the remaining chair. Across the desk, Hoyt Axelrod smiled at them from his throne-sized leather chair. Lord, he’d even had his big horsey teeth whitened.

“Sheriff, shouldn’t you have the county prosecutor, or at least one of your deputies, present for this meeting?” Tori asked.

He dismissed her question with a shrug. “The prosecutor’s out of town and my deputies are all busy. Anyway, we don’t hold much with formalities around here. So let’s get right down to business.”

He shifted in the chair and cleared his throat. “As I expected, the ballistic test shows conclusively that the bullet found near Slade Haskell’s body was fired from Slade’s own Barrett fifty-caliber BMG rifle.”

“We’d like a copy of the results,” Tori said.

“I knew you’d ask, so I had this made for you.” The sheriff slid a plain manila folder across the desk. The single page inside, along with some printed data and a photograph of the gun, showed two magnified pictures of the bullets—one from the test firing, the other supposedly from the crime scene. The striation pattern on both bullets was identical.

Beau swore silently. Given the procedures for handling evidence, it wouldn’t be easy to switch a bullet fired from Slade’s gun with the original, but someone whose authority was beyond question—like the sheriff—could manage it. It was hard to believe that a man with Axelrod’s record would stoop to evidence tampering, but what other explanation was there?

“There’s more,” the sheriff said. “As you know, Beau, we found gunshot residue on your hands and your prints on the murder weapon.”

“Both of which have already been explained,” Tori said. “Beau moved the rifle and put it back in the safe. And he’d been target shooting with his niece before he was tested.”

“So you say.” The sheriff dismissed Tori’s words with a shrug. “But more evidence has come to light. Beau, your fingerprints weren’t found on the dial or anywhere else on the outside of that safe. So you weren’t the one who opened it, correct?”

“That’s correct. Nat—Dr. Haskell opened the safe for me.” Instinct and experience told him the direction this so-called interview was taking. Beau took a tight hold on his temper.

“You and Dr. Haskell were high school sweethearts, yes?”

“Anybody who’s lived around here for a while knows that.”

“And the two of you have rekindled the old fires since you came back.”

Tori spoke up before Beau could respond. “They were old friends. That didn’t change until after Natalie had filed for divorce. And that occurred after Slade had assaulted her and wrecked her clinic.”

“That’s what I was told. Still, there were reasons for Dr. Haskell to want her estranged husband dead.” The sheriff ’s pale eyes went cold. “Not only was he a physical threat to her, but she was also faced with the possibility of losing her clinic in a divorce settlement.”

Beau saw that Axelrod was deliberately baiting him. It was a tactic he had used many times himself. And the sheriff was damned good at it. “Why don’t you get to the point? Say what you’re really getting at,” Beau challenged.

“Fine.” The sheriff leaned back in his chair with the expression of a man holding all the aces in a poker game. “It appears to me that Natalie Haskell could be as deeply involved in this crime as you are. By opening her husband’s gun safe so you could take one of his weapons, at the very least she could be charged as an accessory. Or she could be a coconspirator, plotting with you to do away with her husband. Maybe it was even her idea and she talked you into it.”

“That’s a damn lie!” Beau exploded, nearly coming out of his chair. “She’s the victim in this.”

“And she’s played the role well, hasn’t she?” the sheriff taunted. “It’s only her word that she was attacked and raped by her husband. You two could have staged it all.”

Tori gripped Beau’s arm, holding him in the chair when he wanted to reach over that desk and jerk Axelrod across it by his shirtfront. Retaining the tight hold on his arm, she turned to the sheriff.

“You do realize that everything you’re saying is pure conjecture. Even as a circumstantial case, it’s weak.” Her words were as crisp as her voice. “You don’t have a shred of proof against her.”

“Not yet,” he conceded, never losing his smug look. “But I’m guessing that if we bring her in for questioning, we’ll get what we need to charge the lady.”

Rigid with contained anger, Beau glared at the man, who continued to watch him the way a well-fed cat watches a cornered bird. This was all part of some carefully laid plan. But what?

Suddenly Beau saw the end game.

“It occurs to me that if this case goes the full distance, the trial could be months away. Which would be too late to make a difference in your campaign for Congress, wouldn’t it, Sheriff? The primary is coming up soon. To win, you need all the good exposure you can get. That’s why you called us here today, and why there are only three of us in your office.”

Beau paused. Beside him, Tori sat frozen in shocked silence, but the smile on Axelrod’s face didn’t even twitch. “Go on, Beau,” he said. “I’m interested in hearing where you’re headed with this.”

“I think you know,” Beau said. “The one thing that will get you a fast conviction, and maybe enough exposure to win the nomination, is my signed confession or a promise to plead guilty at the arraignment. And your only chance of getting that from me is to go after Natalie.”

Tori gasped. “That’s enough, Beau! Not another word until we’ve had a chance to talk! Sheriff, this is highly irregular! I strongly object—”

“Be still, Tori.” Beau’s voice was gentle but firm. “Otherwise I’ll have no choice but to fire you.”

She made a sputter of protest but otherwise kept quiet.

“So, do you have an offer to make me?” the sheriff asked. “I don’t have to remind you that Texas is a death penalty state. If Dr. Haskell is convicted as a coconspirator, you could both be facing the same punishment.”

“I know that,” Beau acknowledged.

As Beau took in the sheriff ’s calculating smile, he felt the trap close around him. Hoyt Axelrod was holding all the trumps, and they both knew it.

Beau said, “If I plead guilty to Slade’s murder at the arraignment, would you grant Natalie full immunity?”

The sheriff ’s smile broadened. “Not good enough. Here’s the deal. You plead guilty to Slade’s murder and to the murder of Jessica Warner, and your girlfriend gets a free pass. Do that, and your service record and your history of PTSD should be enough to get the death penalty taken off the table. You might even get probation down the line in, say, twenty years. If you’re prepared to sign a confession, we can take care of this right now.”

“That’s enough, Sheriff!” Tori was on her feet, quivering with fury. “You’re in no position to bargain with my client! Any plea deal has to be made with the county prosecutor and cleared with the judge. You should know that.” She glanced at Beau. “Both of you should know that. This stops here and now!”

“Aw, now, take it easy, Tori.” The sheriff’s demeanor had turned warm and folksy. “I was only trying to put things in order for when Clay Drummond gets back from his daughter’s wedding on Monday. Once he’s here, we can wrap this mess up nice and legal like.”

Beau recognized the name of Clay Drummond, Tori’s former law partner and now, evidently, county prosecutor. He remembered little else about the man, but he could be sure Drummond would do anything within the law to put him behind bars. That included extending the plea deal the sheriff had offered.

Tori swept the ballistics report into her briefcase. “We’ll talk again when Clay is back in town,” she said to the sheriff. “Meanwhile, my client is complying with the terms of his bail. If you want this process to go smoothly, you’re not to harass him or Dr. Haskell. Anything you have to say to them is to be channeled through me. Do I make myself clear?”

“No need to be so feisty, Tori. We’re still friends, aren’t we?” The sheriff ’s smirk didn’t waver.

Tori flashed him a disgusted look and opened the office door to stalk out through the reception area. Beau quickened his step to keep up with her determined stride. Only as they reached the parking lot did she speak.

“Still friends, he says! For two cents I’d have given the man a black eye! And you!” She turned on Beau with fury. “You didn’t do yourself any favors in there, offering to plead guilty! What in heaven’s name were you thinking?”

“I’m not letting Natalie get dragged into this.”

He opened the car door for her. She slid into the driver’s seat and started the engine as he climbed into the passenger side.

“I know you’d do anything to protect her; she said she’d do the same for you, which makes her even more vulnerable. You saw how Axelrod tried to spook you into a confession so he could call his press conference and play the hero. What he did back there was way out of line.”

“You’re right,” Beau conceded. “He had me cornered and all I could think about was Natalie. But my first concern is still keeping her out of this mess. How would the county prosecutor handle a plea?”

“Clay’s a by-the-book kind of man. Whatever he does will be up front and according to policy. But make no mistake, he likes to win. And he’ll be out to get you.”

“So I could make the same deal with him?”

“No question. But Clay would have the power to make it stick, so if you’re crazy enough to take the fall, which would kill your brother, at least don’t be in a hurry. If you can wait Clay out, he may offer Natalie her own deal—immunity in exchange for her testimony against you.”

“You might suggest it to him and make sure she takes the deal. Knowing she’s out of harm’s way would at least give me a chance to fight this.”

Tori paused at the town’s only stoplight. “We have to fight this, Beau,” she said, swinging left onto the highway. “Listen to me. You mustn’t sacrifice yourself on a plea deal, not even to save Natalie. We can win this.”

“We can also lose.”

“Do you have a better idea?” Tori asked.

“Yes. Find out all we can about the real killer.” Beau forced a mental shift, trying to think more like a federal agent again. “It’s Friday morning. We have three days until the prosecutor gets back. Right now Lute is the only solid lead we have. We need to find him.”

 

Sky faced Stella across the bar. He’d already stopped by the trucking company and found no sign of Lute or the truck he’d driven. Stella had just confirmed that he was two days overdue.

“And the last you heard from him was four days ago?”

“That’s right, Blue Eyes.” She leaned against the bar, giving him a glimpse of her ample cleavage. “I phoned the ranch in Mexico yesterday. They said he’d left two days ago, a little late, but he should have gotten in before nightfall. It’s an easy day’s drive from there to the border. Mexico can be a dangerous place. I hope nothing’s happened to him.”

Her face looked older in the slanting afternoon light. Was she hiding something? Maybe not this time, his instincts told him. Stella was a good actress, but she seemed genuinely worried—if only about the truck. He decided to tell her what he knew.

“Beau has connections in the border patrol,” he said. “According to their records, Lute crossed the bridge from Piedras Negras to Eagle Pass three days ago. But he checked through the border as a pedestrian. He wasn’t driving anything.”

Stella muttered an unladylike curse under her breath.

“My guess is that something happened to the truck—might have been wrecked or stolen. Which means Lute’s out there somewhere, trying to work up the nerve to come in and tell you about it.”

“Why, that little—” She broke off, then laughed and shook her head. “The poor kid is probably scared to death. But these things happen. Anyway, the truck had U.S. and Mexican insurance. If you find Lute, tell him it’s covered and he can come back to work. No hard feelings. I’ll just be happy to know he’s safe.”

This time Sky recognized the signs. The subtle narrowing of Stella’s absinthe eyes and the twitch of a jaw muscle told him she was fuming inside. Wherever Lute was, he was in big trouble.

Where would Lute go to hide out? Sky asked himself. Back to Oklahoma, maybe? If he had money, he could have headed for one of the big cities. But where would he get money unless he’d done something to double-cross Stella?

Stella could be asking herself the same questions. That might explain why she was furious. Sky would bet a month’s pay she’d had a lot more to lose than a truck.

What if Lute was close by, keeping out of sight to see what would happen? That sounded more like the sort of thing Lute would do. Hole up in the back country. Finding him wouldn’t be easy. Lute was coyote clever. He would know how to lie low and cover his tracks.

 

Lute felt the hunger gnawing at his gut. The snacks he’d bought on the road were long gone, and the jackrabbit he’d snared, skinned, and roasted yesterday hadn’t had enough meat on it to satisfy a cat. It wasn’t that he didn’t have money. Except for the seven hundred dollars he’d paid for the sputtering Vespa motor scooter in Eagle Pass, plus a few bills for meals, gas, and a cheap pistol he’d bought off the street, most of his cash from the Mexicans was intact. But he was going to need it later. And here in this abandoned line shack, deep in the escarpment on the western boundary of the Tylers’ ranch, there was nothing to buy.

No way was he going back to Stella. He knew exactly what she would do. She’d greet him with open arms, tell him all was forgiven; then soon after that, when he was somewhere alone, he would die. The way Slade had died. The way Jess had died. He would die because he knew too much and could no longer be trusted.

Not that Stella would pull the trigger. She was too smart for that. Someone else did her killing, someone with a dead aim and complete loyalty. Given a chance to bet, Lute’s money was on the bartender.

Maybe he’d made a mistake, coming back here to Blanco Springs and the ranch. It would’ve been safer to hit the road, put Texas and all he knew behind him. But the money he had wouldn’t last for long. And he had plans—big plans and big dreams.

Everything hinged on his getting the palomino foal to Don Ignacio in Mexico. With the money the rancher had offered him, Lute could live a comfortable life south of the border, get a cozy house in an out-of-the-way town, maybe find a pretty senorita for company. With his dark coloring he could pass for Mexican, and he knew enough Spanish to get by.

But getting the foal to the ranch would be complicated. First, he’d need a truck. His own pickup would do, but he’d left it in the Haskell Trucking lot. If it was still there, he’d have to find a way to get it, or steal another one. And he would need a two-horse trailer for the mare and foal. Then he remembered that the Tylers had several trailers lined up behind the machine shed. All he needed to do was hitch a trailer to the truck, load the mare and foal, and drive away.

Now he needed to figure out a way to get the truck and trailer to the border. If he remembered right, one time, while helping Sky round up some strays, they had crossed a dirt road. It was little more than a double-rut trail through the mesquite. At the time, Sky had mentioned that it was part of a network of old wagon roads that crossed the south boundary of the ranch and cut east across the rolling plains, skirting towns and eventually joining up with the highway to Eagle Pass. Taking that route, Lute knew he could cover a lot of distance without being spotted.

His best bet would be to reach the highway before daylight and mix with the border traffic. Once he crossed the bridge, getting the horses into Mexico shouldn’t be a problem. If the Mexican guards gave him any trouble, a few large bills should be enough to grease their palms. He’d be home free.

Around 11:30, Lute rode the Vespa into town. It was Saturday night, and the Blue Coyote was busy. Country music punctuated by raucous laughter drifted out the open windows. All to the good, Lute reasoned as he drove past. Anybody wandering the streets at this hour would likely be too drunk to pay him much attention.

Reaching the far end of Main Street, he parked the Vespa in an alley and walked the rest of the way to Haskell Trucking.

The lot was surrounded by a chain-link fence, but, as usual, the gate had been left unlocked. Slipping through the shadows, Lute had no trouble finding his pickup. He’d been required to leave the keys in the office, in case the vehicle needed to be moved. But the previous owner had left a spare set of keys in one of those little magnetic boxes on the frame under the driver’s side. Even in the dark it was easy enough to find.

The starter took some coaxing, but when the engine caught on the third try, Lute began to breathe again. The gas gauge read half a tank. He’d need more to get to the border, but he’d worry about that later.

Getting the trailer and the horses would be his biggest challenge. He knew Beau Tyler had updated the ranch’s security system. There could be alarms, even cameras. And if that mare decided to make a fuss, she could wake the whole ranch, or at least set off the dog. He needed to create a distraction—something spectacular.

Pulling out of the gate, he closed it behind him and headed around the block to pick up the Vespa. There was no turning back now. In the morning, when Stella learned his truck was missing, all hell would break loose. If he wasn’t long gone by then, Lute knew he was as good as dead.

 

It was almost one in the morning, but Natalie couldn’t sleep. She’d come home late, exhausted after an emergency procedure on an injured gelding. Calmed by a warm shower and a relaxing cup of chamomile tea, she’d expected to drift off as soon as she closed her eyes. But after an hour of trying, she was wide awake, the pillow smashed out of shape and the covers tangled around her legs.

Tori had called on Friday to warn her about the sheriff ’s ploy with Beau. At first Natalie hadn’t been surprised. Hoyt Axelrod would do anything to get his face in the media, and bringing a murderer to justice would cast him as a champion of law and order.

“How can I help him, Tori? There has to be something I can do.”

“Just keep a low profile,” Tori had advised her. “Don’t do anything that will draw attention to yourself. And if Clay Drummond offers you immunity to testify against Beau, for heaven’s sake, take it. If Beau knows he doesn’t have to protect you, he’ll be free to fight this.”

“But what can I say against Beau? I know he’s innocent.”

“You can tell the truth. Nothing that’s true can hurt him. Remember, if it comes to that, I’ll be cross-examining you for the defense. Meanwhile, don’t talk to anybody about this, especially Beau or the sheriff. And if the prosecutor calls you, I want to be there for any offer he makes. Call me if you have any questions.”

Trying to sleep was just frustrating her. Natalie rolled out of bed and reached for her robe. The house could use tidying and she had a week’s worth of laundry to do. Maybe burning up some nervous energy would leave her relaxed enough to sleep.

The sight of her purse on the dresser reminded Natalie that her phone battery was low. She would get the wash started, then put the phone on the charger for the night.

After dumping the contents of the dirty-clothes hamper into a basket, she carried the load down to the laundry room at the far end of the hall. As she set the basket on the utility table, her foot stubbed something under the table.

Glancing down, she saw a cardboard box—the box of Slade’s dirty clothes and bedding from Haskell Trucking. Until that moment, she had forgotten about it.

Natalie pulled the box into the open. The sour male odor of his body lingered in the sheets and garments, triggering emotions she never wanted to feel again.

Why had she kept these things? She should have tossed them in a Dumpster on her way home. So why not do that now? Just take the clothes outside and stuff them in the trash for tomorrow’s pickup.

She was headed for the door with the box when a sudden thought struck her. What if she was holding evidence, maybe even a clue to Slade’s murder?

Donning latex gloves to avoid contaminating any potential evidence, she dumped the contents onto the table. First she shook out the sheets and pillowcase—nothing there. The underwear and socks, apart from their smell, held no secrets. But the khaki trousers, jeans, and work shirts had pockets, as did the lightweight baseball jacket.

The shirts and pants yielded six Burger Shack receipts, two candy bar wrappers, $2.74 in loose change, a pen, a movie ticket stub, and a wad of chewing gum. Nothing to make a difference, but finding these small, meaningless items was like opening a grave and letting a flood of memories escape—the good times and bad, the things they’d built together. All gone now.

She picked up the tan fleece-lined canvas jacket with the Haskell Trucking logo on the front. The weather had been warm for weeks, so he wouldn’t have worn it recently, probably not since their separation. She imagined it hanging on a hook in his office, forgotten till the next cold season.

Opening it up, she felt a crackle in the zippered inside pocket. Her exploring fingers found a folded slip of paper. It was a bank deposit receipt.

Puzzled, she studied it. The bank wasn’t the one where she and Slade had their joint personal account, nor was it the one used by Haskell Trucking. But the Lubbock address beneath the header jogged her memory. She’d driven past the bank once, a small branch office, sharing a building with a real estate company, in an out-of-the-way part of town. Had Slade made the deposit for someone else, or was this account one he’d kept secret from her, as he’d kept other aspects of his life?

She was still puzzled when she noticed the computer-printed figures on the receipt. She gasped. The deposit amount shown was $26,550. The balance in the account was given as $821,633.11. Almost a million dollars.

Natalie’s knees went slack. She leaned against the table for support. That kind of cash had to be connected to something illegal.

Her first impulse was to phone Tori. But it was almost 2:00 in the morning. Tori would be asleep and even if she wasn’t, there’d be nothing she could do at this hour.

If Slade had been involved in something dirty, there was a good chance that this receipt could prove someone other than Beau had killed him and framed Beau for it.

She wanted this nightmare over—for Beau and for herself. The fastest way to end it would be to find the sheriff, show him there had to be other suspects, and insist that he check them out. If he ignored her, she would go to the local TV station, tell them what she knew, and blast his political dreams to kingdom come.

Today was Sunday, the sheriff’s day off. Fortunately she knew where he lived. As soon as the sun rose a respectable distance above the horizon, she vowed to be on his doorstep with a copy of the receipt in hand.

She would make him listen.