CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
BLADE HAD PLANNED to drop Maria off at the grocery store, make sure she had all she needed, and then go looking for Dakota. He could still feel her skin on his fingers. After the way she’d kissed him this morning just after he’d stepped out of the shower, there was no way she would walk away from his offer for a short affair. He’d tasted passion, real passion. It had been a long time since a woman had affected him like Dakota did. She stirred up something inside of him, a deep longing he didn’t even know how to define.
He smiled. If she was having trouble sleeping now, wait until tonight. She might as well give up sleep for the next dozen days or so. He planned to. She was worth it.
He couldn’t stop making plans as he unloaded the crates of jams and jellies in exactly the spot the store owner insisted. Wes Whitman reminded him of a hawk as he hovered over Maria. She wasn’t even five foot three, and he had to be six-four. They might both be in their thirties, but he seemed older. You’d have thought she was delivering precious cargo and not just jars of jelly.
“Go, Blade,” Maria said, shooing him away with her hand. “This will take over an hour and I’ll call Dakota when I’m finished.” She smiled. “I might even have coffee with Mr. Whitman before I call for a ride. We like to talk business after the shelves are stocked.”
Whitman nodded, but didn’t smile. “I’ll watch over her.” He straightened, as if he considered himself the palace guard.
Blade backed away, knowing he was leaving her in good hands. With plans of continuing what they’d started in the shower this morning, he climbed into his truck and backed away from the side door of the grocery store. Before he could swing around to leave the parking lot, the sheriff pulled up beside him.
“Park that truck and jump in,” Brigman yelled. “We got trouble.”
A minute later Blade swallowed his swear words and rolled into the cruiser. “What’s up? Don’t tell me it’s time to go back to work. I’ve only been off long enough to take a shower and eat breakfast.” Blade had the feeling being a deputy was one of those jobs where you punch the time clock in and never punch out.
The sheriff flipped on his lights but didn’t bother with the siren. “We’ve got another dead body.”
“Hell.” Blade let the word slip as he felt his daydream of Dakota vanish. “This is way over my head, Sheriff. I investigate fires, remember?”
Brigman shrugged. “I need another set of eyes. You’re trained to observe. So observe these guys you’re about to meet and tell me which ones are telling the truth. I’ve got a feeling one of the men in the crowd we’re heading toward is a killer or knows who is.”
“Fine. Anything else?” The deputy job description seemed to be growing by the minute.
“Yeah, you are carrying, aren’t you?”
“Hell,” Blade said again as he shifted, feeling the shoulder holster tighten against his arm. “This isn’t going to be that easy, is it?”
Brigman laughed. “I’m expecting nothing, but I want to be prepared if I’m wrong. I need to know you’ll have my six.”
Blade nodded. “I’ve got your back.” He could do that. He’d spent two years in combat zones doing just that with a partner. They’d both made it stateside alive.
“We’re going in to ask questions, but to be honest, bodies aren’t something I have to deal with often. Bar fights, speeding, and drunks are more my expertise.”
“Where was the body found?” Blade asked.
“At the site of the first barn fire, but it wasn’t burned. Blunt force trauma to the head was probably the cause of death.”
“How do you know?”
“Dice found him at the Collins ranch. Said the left side of his skull was caved in. He said it looked like someone just dumped him on top of the ashes. Didn’t even try to cover the body.”
“You think the two deaths are linked?”
Brigman nodded. “What are the odds two men die within two days of one another on the same square of land? Before this morning I was hoping the body in the fire at the barn was somehow an accident. You know, like whoever set the fires didn’t know someone was sleeping in the back. But now I have little hope of that being the case.”
“Any ID on the second body?”
“Looks like it’s a cowhand who’d worked on the ranch for ten years. His initials were engraved in his boots. Coffer Coldman, C.C. Dice said he’d moved out with all the others two days ago. Several men saw him drive away. Shouldn’t have even been on the ranch.” Dan pushed his Stetson back. “I’m thinking he came back for something and ended up dead.”
“What’s Dice still doing on the place?” Blade thought about the old guy who’d walked with them around the burn sites. He’d been on a horse so long his long thin legs still took the shape of it even when he walked. Staying around the Collins ranch didn’t seem like a very healthy thing to do.
The sheriff pulled into the ranch. “I tried to tell him that the burned body we found that first morning may be his friend, but Dice won’t believe it. He claims he’ll ride the ranch until he finds either his friend or the horse he was riding.”
The road turned rough but the sheriff didn’t slow the car or his lecture. “LeRoy, Dice’s friend, is the only man missing that I’ve heard about. But the way the ranch hands scattered, who knows? LeRoy’s old beat-up Ford and trailer are still parked behind the bunkhouse. It doesn’t make sense that he’d leave without them. For most of these men, their rig is about all they own.”
They pulled up to the blackened frame of the first barn that had caught fire. Several men were standing around. Only two looked like they belonged on the land. The others, including the owner, were dressed more for the streets of downtown Dallas than the open country.
The sheriff climbed out and handed Blade the rifle. “Carry it easy, but keep it at ready. I have no idea what we’re getting into here, but one of the men standing around looking at the latest body may be our killer.”
“Just a hunch?”
“Yep.” Brigman shrugged.
Blade fell into step with the sheriff. He was starting to feel like Doc Holliday at the OK Corral. “I guess we know one man who is not a suspect,” he whispered.
“Who, besides me and you?” Brigman glanced his direction. “And I’m not positive about you.”
“Lucas Reyes. I know he was in his cell all night because he kept pacing, keeping me awake.”
The sheriff shrugged again. “I tried to let him out this morning after you left, but he refused to go. Said he’d deck me if I tried to make him leave.”
“Isn’t there something wrong with the idea of fighting your way into jail?”
The sheriff lowered his voice. “Sometimes small towns can be a little quirky.”
They moved into the small crowd of men. Reid Collins was there, wanting to do all the talking. He was nervous to the point of panic. The first body had frightened him, but this one seemed to be driving him over the edge.
Blade took his time looking around, and noting the men who refused to turn toward the body, even when the sheriff pointed something out.
Dice Fuller was standing across from Reid, but he didn’t say a word. Neither did the men Reid had behind him. Yesterday there had been two. This morning there were half a dozen.
Blade studied each man. Most, if not all, of the thugs Reid hired to help close the ranch were armed. One had all the knuckles on his right hand scraped clean of skin. Another was limping.
The sheriff was right. Far more was going on here than just barn fires. The thugs, as the cowboys called Reid’s new crew, didn’t fit on a ranch, but it was obvious they were moving in, taking over.
Reid ended his account to the sheriff by adding, “Not one man here has any idea how this body got on my property. I swear, I may have to put a no-dumping sign on the fence to keep people from dropping off bodies.”
Dice finally stepped forward. “Coffer worked for you for ten years. He might not have always been sober at dawn, but he put in his day.” The old man looked straight at Reid. “You may act like Coffer up and died just to ruin your party, but I doubt it went down that way. He didn’t kill himself or walk over here dead to tumble into the ashes, so maybe we need to start looking for who killed him.”
Reid turned away as if he hadn’t heard a word the old man said. The owner looked straight at the sheriff as if this whole mess was his problem.
“Was he your friend?” Blade stepped in front of Dice.
“I can’t say that, but he always pulled his share of the load around here. It was his job to keep the tack room clean. Most nights, when everyone else was filling their dinner plates, Coffer was making sure the gear was all put up right.”
Reid rubbed his forehead. “I don’t have time for this. Sheriff, do whatever it is that needs to be done. When you finish, call the funeral home in Lubbock. I’ll pay for the burial. I’ve already checked his employment records and Coffer listed his dog as his next of kin.”
Dice ignored the boss as he continued to talk to Blade. “We found his pickup out by the old west entrance. Nobody uses that gate except cattle trucks now and then. His truck was pointed toward the county road, like he’d stopped to open the gate before pulling out.”
“Find his dog?” Brigman asked.
“Nope, he’s missing along with my friend and his horse.”
The sheriff nodded once, thanking the old man, then turned to Blade. “Collect all names here. They’ll each have to give statements. I’ll talk to anyone left at the headquarters who might have seen Coffer yesterday.”
Brigman turned back to the crowd. “No one leaves the county until I get their statement. That includes you, Reid.”
A groan went up from the crowd. The thugs settled into silence, but two cowhands swore, not at the sheriff, but at their bad luck. Blade began collecting names and setting times for them to come into the office. He paused long enough to watch Reid Collins storm off. Apparently, he didn’t think the summons should apply to him.
When Blade circled back to Brigman, the sheriff paused his official phone calls long enough to tell him to go back to town. He’d handle everything here and call in any findings. “I need you to start the interviews before these men have time to compare their stories, or in some cases, rewrite what they saw. Also, draw up a timeline. I want to know where everyone was from the night of the first fire to when Dice notified us of the second body.”
Blade looked around at the crowd. “I doubt most of these guys will be able to remember back twenty-four hours, much less forty-eight.”
“Give it a shot.” Brigman smiled. “You know what the deputy’s main job is in a two-man office?”
“What’s that?”
“Doing what the sheriff doesn’t want to do.”
Blade grinned. “We need to do one thing to make this job perfect.”
“What would that be?”
“Hire a deputy in training.”
The sheriff frowned. “You find me one, Hamilton, and I’ll consider it.”
“Me?” Blade sure didn’t want another duty on top of a job he didn’t want in the first place. At the rate duties were piling up, he’d never get back to Dakota and her soft skin. He’d be rewinding the memory of holding her so many times he’d wear it out.
Dice stepped nearer. “How about I take you back to town, Hamilton? I could use a break, and if the coffee’s still free in the sheriff’s office, I might stop in to visit with Pearly. Always did fancy that woman. She still wearing those sexy earrings that hang down almost to her shoulder?”
“Yep,” the sheriff answered as he nodded for Blade to take the offer for a ride.
He had a feeling he and the sheriff were thinking the same thing. Dice’s idea of sexy was more Halloween decoration to them. But, when you’re nearing eighty, a woman in her late sixties might still be wild and sexy.
“Thanks for the offer. I’ll stop by and pick up a few dozen doughnuts to go with the coffee. If you have time, Dice, maybe you could even help me with the timeline.”
“Sounds like a plan, kid.” Dice patted Blade on the shoulder.
“Glad to have your help, old man,” Blade answered.
They both laughed as they walked to his rusty truck.