Deadly Sanctuary (18 page)

I felt a twinge of remorse as Tally looked upward blinking and clearing his throat loudly the way men do when they’re trying to conceal tears. Would I ever learn to keep my big mouth shut? “Guilt is a heavy mantle to carry,” he said in resignation.

My heart contracted. “What do you have to feel guilty about?”

He pressed two fingers to his temple. “This is not easy for me to talk about. I’ve never discussed this with anyone else except Ronda.”

I braced myself for the worst.

“The hardest thing of all to face these past two years is knowing that I’m responsible for my father’s death.”

His father’s death? As the information sank in, my shoulders sagged in relief. “Tally, how can you say that? Ginger told me he had a stroke.”

“That’s true. But, if it hadn’t been for my stupidity he’d be alive today and my mother wouldn’t still be blaming me for what happened.”

He urged the horses forward and, little by little, poured out the story of how he’d met, been bewitched by, and married the beautiful, but spoiled, Stephanie Tate. With the exception of a few new details, I was amazed that Ginger’s version had been so accurate.

“But, Tally, it’s not fair to blame yourself. You were gone for four years. Isn’t it possible your father might have had a stroke anyway?”

As if he hadn’t heard me, he squinted toward the distant horizon. “I failed him in every possible way a son could fail a father. I abandoned the Starfire, which he loved more than life itself, and then brought into his home a vicious, conniving little witch who drove him mad with her constant tantrums and outlandish behavior. She made no effort to conceal her disdain for ranch life and my family. My father held a very important standing in this community and he just couldn’t handle the shame she heaped on us all.”

“If she hated it here so much why did she stay?”

“That’s the rub. One evening at dinner, she grandly announced that even if I chose not to accompany her, she was returning to her parents’ house.”

“Did you try to talk her out of it?”

“No. None of us did. Something else stopped her.”

“What?”

“Her illustrious father, who’d made no secret of his dislike for me, was convicted of income tax evasion and sent to prison. As it turned out, he left her family disgraced, and so heavily in debt that she was too ashamed to go back East and face all her snooty high society friends.”

My horse shied when a jackrabbit bolted across the path. I grabbed onto the saddle horn as Tally reined in beside me.

“You okay?”

“Fine. What happened next?”

“She decided to stay here and divorce me. Her plan was to grab half the ranch and sell it off to a bunch of grubby land developers just for spite.” He threw an accusing look in my direction. “That’s what she and your smooth lawyer friend Eric Heisler were cooking up together right before she died.”

It wasn’t hard to see how John Dexter had reached his supposition about Tally. I couldn’t think of anyone who had a stronger rationale for wanting the woman dead. I wanted to snap back that Eric wasn’t my friend, but that wasn’t true, was it?

He must have decided he’d said enough because all at once his expression became withdrawn and sullen, inviting no more questions. We rode on, not speaking, while the hot wind parched my lips and threatened to steal my hat. Overhead, hawks coasted on air currents, and a lone jet chalked its way across an endless bowl of blue sky. Looking ahead, as far as I could see, there was no sign of civilization. The sense of isolation was so complete it felt as if we were the only two people on earth.

I was burning to get down to the nitty gritty about the night of Stephanie’s death, but decided it might be better if he volunteered it. The agonizing admission had granted me another new insight into this moody man.

I shifted uncomfortably in the hard saddle and wondered again where we were going. What little patience I had was wearing thin. It was time to stop, get off this horse and eat. Thoughts of food conjured up visions of last night’s extraordinary meal.

“Okay,” I sighed. “You know how cranky I get when I’m hungry. So, what’s the plan? Are we going to skin a rabbit for dinner or did you have something more substantial in mind?”

At the change of topic, Tally’s stiff shoulders relaxed and the troubled look faded from his eyes. “How about fried chicken, beans and biscuits?”

“Yeah, I could go for that,” I said shading my eyes while peering into the distance. “Is there a KFC around here someplace?”

“No. Something far better than that. Let’s pick up the pace and we’ll be there in a few minutes.” He coaxed Summer Rain into a smooth lope and without inducement from me, Sheba followed suit. Even though there was some apprehension that I might fall, I couldn’t help but feel a thrill as we galloped across the desert.

Before long our lathered horses labored up a rocky hill sprinkled with prickly pear and spiked with fat green forks of saguaro cactus. As we reached the plateau, I got a whiff of cattle manure. Entranced, I stared down into a wide dust-choked valley filled with an enormous herd of bawling cattle chaperoned by whistling, shouting cowboys on horseback. A narrow tree-lined creek shining like a ribbon of aluminum foil snaked across the valley floor and disappeared into the crinkled brown hills.

“Wow!” I marveled. “This looks like a scene from every western movie ever made.”

Pride glittered in his eyes. “Welcome to the world of cattle ranching. What do you think?”

“I think it’s probably a lot of work.”

“More than you might imagine.” His eyes held mine and he said quietly, “Kendall, do you like Arizona?”

I shrugged. “Yes and no.”

“Now that your health has improved…do you think you’ll stay?”

“I don’t know, Tally. Wherever I end up, the climate has to be dry. To be truthful, I’m really not sure I want to spend the rest of my life in Castle Valley.”

“Too primitive for you?”

“Don’t put words in my mouth. If you love it so much how come you left?”

I could tell by his wounded expression I’d hit home. When he finally spoke, bitterness tinged his voice. “Because I was a brainless idiot, that’s why. At twenty-four I was sure the last thing I wanted was to spend my life running cattle. I finally got up enough nerve to tell my father I wanted to try for a career in journalism, and he hit the ceiling. What kind of a son was I? The Talversons had worked this land for three generations. When I didn’t back down, he never missed an opportunity to ridicule me. We had some awful fights.”

“What happened then?”

“I took the money from the trust fund my grandfather left me and hightailed it out. I never planned to come back.” He paused, staring vacantly at the distant mountains. “But, life has a way of sneaking up behind you and grabbing you by the ass, doesn’t it?”

“You could still leave and try to find your dream.”

He shook his head slowly. “No. I know now what I didn’t know then. I’d never be truly happy anywhere else. Plus that, I gave my word to my mother that I’d stay on. She never has really recovered from…”

Suddenly the realization of what he said struck me. “So, that’s why you write for this crummy little newspaper. You don’t need the job. It’s simply a tool to fulfill the creative needs you’ve denied yourself.”

He gave me another of those penetrating looks. “Well, Miss Psychologist, you seem to have all the answers.”

“Not all of them.”

Before he could respond, Jake, the old cowboy who’d been with Tally at our first meeting, came riding up the hill toward us calling, “Miguel is about to have a fit; he’s been waitin’ supper for the last half-hour. You people gonna eat or not?”

Tally grinned and lifted his hand in greeting. “Sorry we’re late.”

Jake and I exchanged friendly hellos, and on the way down into the valley, he explained to me that Miguel was their cook. For a second, I had a romantic vision of an old-fashioned, horsedrawn covered wagon, but had my bubble burst when he informed me that the modern-day frontier cook worked out of a four wheel drive truck fitted with a camper shell.

As we neared the throng of noisy animals, I expressed surprise that cattle drives still took place and he explained that four times a year they were herded to different pasture lands to prevent the severe plant damage caused by overgrazing. It was a relatively new concept called rotational grazing and was contrary to the traditional methods used in the past by most ranchers.

As we approached the camper, the tantalizing odor of food overruled the stench of the cattle grazing nearby. With a sigh of relief, I dismounted and hoped I wasn’t walking bow-legged. I wished I could massage my aching behind, but refrained. It wouldn’t do for him to still think of me as the delicate damsel.

I’d obviously been expected, as curious ranch hands pressed close for introductions. Miguel, the tiny, almost toothless Mexican cook, greeted me enthusiastically and handed me a tin plate piled high with food along with a cup filled with cold lemonade. After several minutes of talk, the men politely withdrew, leaving Tally and me alone to eat. He led me to a shady spot beside the shallow creek bed and I sat down on the ground, my back resting against the sturdy trunk of an ancient cottonwood tree.

With the plate balanced in my lap, that feeling of unreality crept over me again. Last night with Eric I’d dined under the stars on caviar and poached salmon, and now, I was with Tally, sitting under a tree in the middle of this vast windswept vista, hunched over a plate of chicken, beans and biscuits. The contrast in lifestyles was mind boggling. Did I belong in either of them?

I thought about how I’d describe the last two days to my parents when I phoned them in the morning. They absolutely would not believe it.

After sopping the last bite of biscuit in savory bean juice, I looked up to see Tally watching me.

“So, I gather you liked the dinner?”

I sighed and set my plate aside. “It was wonderful. How I wish all my debts were this easy to pay.”

His eyes crinkled with pleasure. “You know something. You don’t look so much like a snowbird dressed like that. The hat and boots were just the right touch. You can keep them if you like.”

“Really? Don’t you think we should ask Ronda first?”

He looked down and fiddled with a long blade of grass. “I’m sure Ronda won’t mind.”

Perhaps it was the way he said it, I don’t know, but on a hunch I ventured, “These don’t belong to Ronda, do they, Tally?”

He rose, combed his fingers through his hair, and without looking at me answered, “No.”

It was like pulling teeth, but we were definitely making progress. In his own roundabout way, he’d opened the forbidden subject. Hard as it was, I kept quiet and waited while he paced back and forth, apparently struggling for words.

“Kendall,” he began quietly, “I would be less than candid with you if I didn’t concede that the relationship between Stephanie and me had deteriorated to the point where I would actually find myself daydreaming about her being dead. I wouldn’t have thought I was capable of violence, but at times, she drove me to the edge of reason.”

I stood up and dusted off the back of my jeans. “What did happen that night two years ago?”

He hesitated for a fraction of a second. “I don’t know for sure. There is one thing I am sure of, however, and that is I didn’t kill my wife.”

Finally hearing the words I’d been waiting for made me feel giddy with relief. “Then who did?”

“What makes you think it wasn’t just an accident?”

“But how is that possible? I read John Dexter’s article. Someone deliberately tampered with the reins.”

“He was such a cocky son of a bitch, so quick to point the finger. Just remember, John had the hots for my wife. He wasn’t writing objectively. He was writing to sell papers and take a jab at me. If you’d done your homework more thoroughly, you’d have seen that a month later, he had to retract his story.”

“You mean the reins weren’t cut?”

“I don’t know. I never saw the bridle in question after that night, but John quoted Duane Potts as saying that the tears looked suspicious to him.”

“I remember reading that you were the prime suspect because of the rather…er…public quarrel you’d had before Stephanie died. But you were never charged. Why was the case closed so suddenly?”

He shook his head. “Because someone in Roy’s office botched the job. Somehow the bridle disappeared. Without evidence, they had no case. Her death was ruled accidental.”

Shocked, I turned away from him and stared blankly out into the desert. Tally’s statement probably explained why John had been so hot on Roy Hollingsworth’s trail. His personal vendetta against Tally had been squelched, and to even the score, he’d decided to make life miserable for the sheriff when he discovered yet more blundering in the subsequent cases of the two teenagers.

I wondered if this was just another example of Roy’s ineptitude, or if the evidence had been deliberately lost. But, why would the sheriff cover up the murder of Stephanie Talverson?

I didn’t realize Tally had moved close behind me until his voice scattered my thoughts. “What are you thinking?”

Still facing away from him, I said, “Just that it was certainly lucky for you since you had the motive and the means, that the evidence was conveniently lost.”

He put a hand on my shoulder and turned me to face him. “So, you still think I’m guilty.”

“No. I believe you, Tally. But…do you really think it was an accident?”

“That was the conclusion.”

His answer didn’t sound very convincing. “What are you saying? That you think it’s possible someone did kill her, but you chose not to pursue it?”

His hands tightened on my arms. “Listen to me, Kendall. Some things are best left alone. This is one of them. It’s a terrible thing for a person to die like that, but I’m not sorry she’s gone, none of us are. She made all our lives a living hell.”