Run Wild (37 page)

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Jim Burrows stopped talking when the door to his den opened and Ethel pranced in and up to his desk. Natasha followed slowly behind, her face flushed but not appearing upset. If anything, Trent wasn’t sure he’d ever seen the look she had on her face right now before.

“How dare you not tell me about Nellie Burrows.” Ethel sang out, her voice too much forced cheer.

He turned and stared at her, with her body stuffed into jeans at least a size too small. Natasha snapped her attention to Ethel as well. When Trent glanced at Natasha, she met his gaze.

She looked stressed. But also almost amused. He could definitely tell she was holding some emotion back. If she was pissed, if Ethel had raked Natasha over the coals for being George King’s daughter, Natasha was doing a better job than Trent ever would have guessed her capable of keeping her anger under lock and key. He’d obviously misjudged her.

At the same time, she appeared awkward, uncomfortable. He watched her shift her weight from one foot to the other, then mess with her hair, combing it with her fingers. Natasha didn’t know what to do with her hands or whether to stay where she was, just inside the den door, or move closer. Seeing her like this would have been comical if he hadn’t sensed some level of pain, or other dark emotion simmering just under the surface.

“All this time the legend was true?” Ethel was saying. “And everything in the coffin? Do we have it? How much money is there?”

“Forty grand,” Jim said.

Ethel plopped down in an expensive, leather-backed chair next to Jim’s desk. Her ass hit the wood hard enough to make a slapping sound. Trent was sure he heard her jaw snap open and shut as she sat there stunned.

“You’re kidding. Forty thousand dollars?” It was hard to tell if Ethel was going to laugh or cry. It was a reaction similar to the one Jim had when Trent answered his questions about what he’d found, which Jim seemed certain were the contents of Nellie’s coffin. “All of the feuding was over a mere forty thousand dollars?”

“Hush, Ethel.” Jim used a tone with his wife Trent hadn’t heard out of the man. It was soft, nonaggressive. Jim reached over his expensive desk for Ethel’s hand. “Don’t get yourself upset. If you wish to listen to our conversation, that’s fine, but please don’t get all worked up.”

“I’ll try,” she said sulkily.

Trent caught Natasha rolling her eyes and dared gesture for her to sit in the chair next to him. If she made a show of not listening to him in front of the old rancher, it would be something Trent would never live down with the good old boys in the area.

“It really would help to hear what you know about Nellie Burrows,” Trent pressed, getting Jim to look at him and not the women. “I need to rule out any connection between these items and Carl’s murder.”

“What items?” Ethel scooted to the edge of her seat.

Natasha slid into the chair next to Trent and pressed her hands in her lap. She hadn’t said a word since entering the room.

“Nothing of importance, sweetheart,” Jim said, using that doting tone of his again as he smiled at her. It didn’t look like Jim smiled often. His expression was almost unnatural. “Just some old clothes and a picture.”

“Huh.” Ethel inched back in her seat and began checking out her painted nails, her grunted response and mannerism showing her sudden lack of interest.

Obviously, anything not of monetary value bored the probably already-bored housewife.

“You were saying…,” Trent encouraged, nodding for Jim to continue with what he’d just started explaining before the women entered his den.

“Yes,” Jim said, once again using his deep, raspy voice. “Back in 1850, I believe, two brothers, Stephen and Jericho Burrows, came to Northern California from Chicago. They were after gold, just like everyone else. And they found some, struck it rich. These two brothers saw their surroundings in a way most didn’t. They took a good look at this land, and although it was being torn to pieces from all the mining, it was good and wealthy land. They used their gold and purchased a good chunk of it. The Trinity and Excelsior ranches were born,” he said dramatically, then took a drink of his beer.

“Eighteen-fifty?” Ethel said, wrinkling her nose. “Now I’ve heard the legend of Nellie Burrows from my grandmamma and even some of the folk around town. It didn’t start until around the depression, I think.”

“Now sweet pea, no interrupting.” Jim used that nauseating soft voice again.

Ethel blew him a kiss and resumed checking out her fingernails.

Trent managed a side look when Natasha looked at him. Her face was so void of expression, reaction, of anything. It was damn weird. As much as he wanted to hear this story, he really wanted to know what had been said out there. Whatever it was, Ethel certainly didn’t act as if she’d just chewed Natasha out. If anything, Ethel seemed in higher spirits than usual. On the few occasions Trent had seen her with Jim she was sullen and moody and seldom smiled, as if she was absolutely miserable.

“We’ll skip a few generations, just for you, my love,” Jim said, although this time he was back in his deep presentation voice. “And I don’t have to tell you both ranches flourished. The land was rich. The railroad was nearby. Trinity Ranch and Excelsior Ranch made the two families very wealthy.” He paused, but this time to tap his finger on his desk, looking down, as if trying to remember the order of the story.

Trent sat, anxious, although not sure why. Maybe he really wanted a strong lead to pop out for them. He glanced at Natasha. Her hands were folded in her lap and she was glancing down, her hair partially blocking her profile. When Jim began speaking again, she focused on him, her placid expression making it impossible to know if he was boring her to death or her mind was just hundreds of miles away.

“The ranches remained in the family. Always have,” he added proudly. “Trinity Ranch was passed down to sons, sometimes daughters. Excelsior Ranch did the same, although there were a couple who passed on early in life along the way, leaving the ranch to their spouses. Eventually, with in-laws taking possession, then leaving the ranch in their will to a relative they’d felt earned it, there came a point when the neighboring ranches weren’t owned by blood relatives anymore. And as my beautiful wife just said, in 1920 a young boy and a young girl from each ranch fell in love. They had a daughter, Nellie.”

“So the story goes,” Ethel said, giving Trent a knowing wink.

When she also gave him an interested once-over, letting her heavily made up eyes travel up and down his body until she looked at his face and grinned, Trent swore Natasha straightened, grabbing the armrests of her chair, as if to keep herself from flying out of it.

“Sweet pea, we now know it’s a true story,” Jim reminded her.

“Oh yeah,” Ethel said, switching her longing look from Trent to Jim.

Jim continued with the story. “Neither ranch approved of this courting going on between these two young people. But young folk being what they are, they didn’t listen. As the story goes, they ran off and got hitched. When they come back, she’s pregnant. Now when that baby girl was born, it was obvious she wasn’t quite right. Sheriff, I don’t have to tell you how stories get blown out of proportion. I’ve heard everything from little Nellie being blind, to just being too slow for school, to that little girl looking like a monster.”

Trent hadn’t mentioned the picture being of Nellie. Natasha looked at him but apparently was as anxious as he was to hear the story out. She remained quiet.

“I heard she was so ugly she scared the cows,” Ethel said, her eyes wide as she whispered to them. “They couldn’t even take her off the ranch.”

“Now this is when the parents of this young man and woman come forth and tell the two of them that they are actually more related than anyone had let on before. And I don’t have to tell you, when that young man found out he had married and birthed a daughter with his own kin, he was mortified. The way of it is he ran off, joined the army, and never returned home,” Jim said gravely.

This time when he paused his wife didn’t interrupt. He downed a good portion of his beer, then placed the bottle on a coaster and leaned back in his chair.

“Whatever was wrong with that little girl, it was real. She didn’t live long. Her tombstone is worn out to where you can hardly read it, but I’ve been told it says she was born in 1920 and died in 1950. Her mother buried her on the property line between the two ranches in honor of her mixed blood.”

“So you know where this grave is?” Trent asked.

“Yup. Can take you there myself if you like.”

Trent nodded and Jim continued.

“It wasn’t long after that the rumors started about an unknown amount of wealth being buried with Nellie. Now, I will say, when her mama had her buried, she did it privately. Through the remaining days of her life, she never told a soul where her daughter was buried and her ranch hands were loyal. Each of them that helped her bury her daughter took the secret to their grave.”

“So how do you know where she was buried?” Trent asked.

“Now Sheriff, when I took over this ranch, I knew a good business is run by not buying into speculation. Something is, or it isn’t. And we don’t make money on the isn’ts.”

“That’s why you’re so rich,” Ethel said, grinning at him.

“I found that grave myself, set my men out to take on the property line. We were having issues with it anyway, if you remember. Our cattle get across the fence from time to time today, but back in the day it was bad. Your daddy came out more than once to resolve disputes with my dad and Excelsior Ranch folk.”

Trent wasn’t positive things were as calm as Jim claimed they were right now. Trent just nodded and let Jim continue.

“My Jimmy wasn’t going to have anything to do with that nasty curse.”

“Curse?” Trent asked at the same time Natasha did.

Everyone looked at her. Ethel looked smug and rather satisfied that she knew something they didn’t. Natasha nodded at Jim. “Go on,” she prompted.

“It’s a good story.” When he smiled at Natasha, Ethel scowled, obviously not liking her husband giving anyone attention but her, in spite of how she behaved.

Jim didn’t notice his wife’s praise, or he didn’t care. “Yes, they called it Nellie’s curse. Within years of her dying, if not sooner, both ranches began having unexplained difficulties, things that just hadn’t ever happened on either ranch before. There was a bout of bad feed on Trinity. That was back in the late fifties, I think. Lost almost a hundred head of cattle. Excelsior experienced their fair share of woes, too. Then there was the feuding. All of a sudden the two ranches began quibbling over water rights. One year there were quite a few calves birthed that Excelsior claimed, yet it was apparent they were the offspring of one of Trinity Ranch’s bulls. It went on and on, decade after decade. Even when I was a boy, when something went wrong my daddy would blame it on Nellie’s curse.”

“What did you do with the contents of the grave once you dug it up?” Trent asked, pretty sure Jim knew there were laws protecting graves.

“Oh no,” Jim said immediately, leaning back and smiling as he held his hands up in defense. “I never dug up the grave. I told you I found it. And I did. I found a hole, freshly dug up and deep and long enough to be a grave site. Since we went over every inch of the property line and that is the only thing remotely resembling a grave, I knew it was Nellie’s. Of course, up until today I thought someone had dug it up to play a practical joke. I honestly didn’t think the young girl ever really lived.”

Ethel remained focused on her nails and crossed one foot over the other, rocking it, as if really bored. Jim watched her a moment before shifting his attention to Trent.

“Where did you find the items buried with Nellie?” he asked Trent.

“In a cabin on Piney land,” Trent told him, and watched for Ethel’s reaction. “Then some of it was in a safe-deposit box over at the bank. That was in MaryAnn Piney’s name.”

“MaryAnn Piney is Ethel’s great-aunt, isn’t she, sweet pea?”

Ethel looked up, nodded, and grunted, then resumed her attention to her nails.

“Yup, the Piney’s are my wife’s kinfolk. Guess that really makes the contents ours by law, right, Sheriff?”

“Right now all of it is labeled and in evidence bags.”

“Sweet pea, didn’t you tell me a couple weeks ago you were going to close out a safe-deposit box for your great-aunt?”

“Yup.” Ethel looked up quickly, her hair bobbing around her head when she nodded. “I guess I never got around to it.” When she looked at Trent her eyes were wide and her smile plastered to her face. Trent narrowed his brow and frowned, curious about her going to the bank for her aunt when MaryAnn Piney hadn’t remembered having the box.

Ethel jumped up, almost causing her chair to teeter backward. “If you’ll excuse me. I need to go to the little girls’ room.”

Chapter Seventeen

Natasha watched until Ethel had walked out of the room. She exhaled with relief when Jim got up, excused himself, and followed his wife out of his den, leaving the door open.

“She looked a little flushed, didn’t you think?” Jim asked, but then disappeared into the rest of the lavish home before either of them could respond.