Snow Blind-J Collins 4 (19 page)

No mention in any of the papers about the body discovered in Bear Butte County. I surfed the Net, checking my usual sites because I don’t keep a computer at home. Most people found that odd and they’d bestow that pitying look upon me, as if I’m too proud to admit I’m computer illiterate. I’m not. I just don’t see the appeal of e-mail. Ditto for cyber friends. Real friends were hard enough to keep up with.

I smoked. Drank a pot of coffee. Balanced my checkbook. By 2:00 I’d decided to call it a day. My cell phone rang in the stairwell. Trish. I couldn’t stomach any more blubbering thanks for saving Brittney’s life.

Ignore it.

She’d probably keep calling, so I reluctantly said,

“Hello?”

“Julie? Thank God I got a hold of you. Doug is at the sheriff ’s office. I-I don’t know what to do.”

“Slow down. Take a deep breath and tell me what’s happened. Why is he at the sheriff ’s office?”

Trish exhaled loudly. “Sheriff Richards called and asked Doug to come in for questioning about Melvin 189

Canter. And Doug just went! Is that even legal? Is he supposed to have a lawyer present? I don’t know how any of this works.”

I slumped against the cement wall. “Probably routine questioning. The dead guy did work for him and he was found on your land. Did they arrest him?”

“No!”

“Okay. Then he doesn’t need a lawyer”—yet—

“but he also does not have to answer all the questions the sheriff is gonna ask him.”

“So if he says something they don’t like, will they arrest him?”

“Not without evidence. Not without just cause.

Not unless he confesses. Or says something stupid like he hated the son of a bitch and he deserved to die.”

Trish clammed up.

“Shit. Please tell me I’m off base.”

“I-I don’t know. There’s lots I don’t know, Julie.

Doug never told me he’d fired Melvin.”

Maybe he didn’t. Maybe he just killed him.

Not helping this situation.

“Melvin didn’t show up for work last week. Doug shrugged it off. Then Don Anderson informed me Doug and Melvin were in a fistfight at the feed store.

And everyone in the county knew about it except me? I don’t know what to believe, and Doug won’t talk to me.

He always talks to me. It’s like he’s shut me out.”

“When did Dad leave?”

“About ten minutes ago. I-I just . . .”

190

“Tell you what. I was on my way home. I’ll swing by the sheriff ’s office first and see what’s going on.”

“Thank you. I didn’t know if you would . . . I mean, I prayed for it, even when things have always been strained between you and Doug—”

“Trish, my other line is beeping. Sit tight.” I shut the phone. Big fat lie; I didn’t have another call coming in. I just couldn’t listen to her doubts about my father when I had plenty of my own.

I’d returned to my alma mater, aka the Bear Butte County Sheriff ’s Department, a couple of times in the eleven months since I’d quit working as a secretary.

A new woman manned the front desk. Midforties, thick glasses, thick around the middle. No smile distorted the lines of her female mustache. “May I help you?”

Since she didn’t call me by name, ergo, she didn’t know me, I could lie my ass off about who I was. “Yes.

I’m Doug Collins’s counsel. Which room is he in?”

“I wasn’t aware he’d asked for counsel to be present.”

“
I’m
aware of it and that’s all that matters. Which room?”

She debated and reached for the phone, but ultimately dropped her hand. “Room B. Before you get to stairs 191

leading down to booking.”

“Thanks.” I hustled down the hallway, another savvy businesswoman keeping to a tight schedule.

I rapped twice and opened the door.

Three people sat at the conference table. Sheriff Richards, my father, and a buxom woman I didn’t know. They all looked at me with surprise.

“Collins, how did you get back here?”

“Told the TAR I was Doug Collins’s counsel, which I am. Excuse us a minute.” I leaned down to speak in Dad’s ear. “I don’t know what you’ve said. If you haven’t been arrested, you don’t have to stay. Had enough?”

Doug Collins didn’t snap or glare at me or tell me to mind my own beeswax. He nodded. His uneasi-ness with the situation was apparent, if only to me.

I straightened up. “Sheriff Richards, are you finished with your preliminary questions? If not, we’ll need to confer with our attorney before you continue.”

The sheriff excelled at the vapid stare. “I have enough for now. Thank you for your cooperation, Mr.

Collins. You’re free to go. I’ll be in touch.”

Dad stood off to the side of the door, black hat in hand, waiting for me. I lowered my voice, keeping my back to the conference table. “Go home. I’ll see you later.”

He clapped his hat on his head and left.

Richards told the young woman to leave and she bounced out. He gestured for me to sit.

192

“Before you start in on me, Sheriff, I’ll remind you I know procedure.”

“Well, so do I. Can’t fault me for doing my job, Collins.”

“No. But I doubt you told him he had no obligation to be here. Especially without a legal rep.”

“He shouldn’t be reluctant to talk to me if he has nothing to hide.”

“That’s crap and you know it.”

Sheriff Richards set his elbows on the table. His meaty forearms nearly reached the other side. At six feet eight, his size intimidated and he used it to his advantage. “Why are you here?”

I don’t know.

“Why do you care what happens to him? After everything he did to you?”

“Let’s get one thing straight. He shouldn’t have gotten away with beating on me for all those years.

The system failed us both. But that has no bearing on this case.”

“Oh. The case where
his
hired man was found dead on
his
land? That case? He had a physical confrontation with Melvin Canter in front of witnesses, where threats were made. A week later Melvin Canter winds up dead? On a section owned by Doug Collins?”

“You can’t be one hundred percent sure Mr. Canter didn’t get lost out in the snowstorm and tried to take shelter in the haystack and died from exposure. He wasn’t even wearing a coat.”

193

Richards said nothing.

“Where’d they take the body?”

“To the VA in Sturgis. They told me it might be a while before they get to it. DCI from Pierre is coming to assist. But I know what the facts are, Julie.”

“What? No proof Canter was killed there, let alone dumped there. That mutilated body could’ve been outside the fence line when the blade hit it. Meaning in the ditch, which is public domain, which means anyone could’ve left it there, not necessarily my father.”

“You think it’s murder?”

Stumbled right into that one. “I don’t know. But my understanding is that Doug Collins was
not
the only one in Bear Butte County who had run-ins with Mr. Canter.”

“Who else did?”

I shrugged. I didn’t know, but I sure as hell would find out. It was almost too pat, pointing the finger at my dad.

“You really don’t believe your father had anything to do with this situation?”

“Beyond firing the victim? No.”

“Yet you know he’s capable of carrying out extreme violence?”

“Yes.”

“Didn’t you ever suspect that he might’ve killed Ben?”

The accusation provided a jolt. I’d considered the possibility although I’d never told anyone. “Moot 194

point. He
didn’t
kill Ben.”

“Off record? Doug Collins is hiding something.

If I have a suspect, he’s it.”

“Is that a warning?”

“A fact. If you think he didn’t do it, prove it. Not like you ain’t got the skills or the time. Or a plan to work on it anyway.”

I snorted. I hated that he knew me so well.

His caterpillar eyebrows disappeared beneath the brim of his hat. “I’ve said all I’m gonna say, Collins.

You know your way out.”

He’d said more than he should and we both knew it.

The Collins ranch was the last place I wanted to go and the first place I headed.

Trish answered the door. The sour look on my face stopped her attempt to hug me. I didn’t ask about Brittney. Still saw red when I remembered the stupid chance she’d taken and remembered the smart-aleck comments she’d made before she hung up on me.

“Where is he?”

“Kitchen.” Trish shot a glance over her shoulder and whispered, “And he’s been drinking.”

“That’s just fucking great.”

“Yeah, well, good luck. I’ll be doing chores.” She 195

snagged her winter wear, slipped on her boots, and vanished.

I inhaled a deep breath and sauntered into the mouth of the beast.

Dad was hunched over a bottle of cheap whiskey and a half-empty tumbler.

Good plan. I doubted I’d get through this conversation without liquid courage myself. I snagged a Strawberry Shortcake juice glass from the dish rack and plopped across from him.

He didn’t look up as I filled my glass and topped off his. I gulped a mouthful and shuddered. Stuff tasted like crap. My preference for top shelf booze hadn’t come from him.

Holding his glass aloft, he said, “Why’re you here?”

“Why do you think?”

Pause. “To gloat.”

I let him rethink that asinine comment. “Wrong.

But not surprising, since you always think the worst of me.”

Another sip kept his denial in check.

“Did you do it?”

“What?”

“You know what. Did you kill your hired man and throw him in the pasture under a haystack?”

He grunted.

I drained the remaining bourbon and poured another glass. “You
are
gonna have to talk to me if you want my 196

help.”

His hand shook as he upended his tumbler. “Who says I want it?”

“Would it kill you to admit you might need it?”

Another grunt. Another long pause—where the
thwack
thwack
of Trish stacking firewood reverberated against the side of the house and inside my head.

“If the coroner’s report comes back with homicide as cause of death, Sheriff Richards will move you to the top of the suspect list on who killed Melvin Canter.

He won’t go out of his way to prove otherwise.”

“And you will, girlie?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I see the hatred in your eyes every time you look at me. I have for years. I’m s’posed to trust that you ain’t gonna take—no,
enjoy
—the opportunity to put me behind bars? Even if I done nuthin’ wrong? You’re here outta spite. To get me to beg for your supposed expertise. Here’s a hint. It ain’t happenin’.”

I stood up so fast I got an immediate head rush.

“You’re right on one thing. I don’t give a rat’s ass if you spend the rest of your life in jail. Do whatever the hell you want to. You will anyway.”

Trish paused in the entryway, horrified when I pushed past her.

Music blaring, head pounding, I sucked down three cigarettes on the way home. Cursing him. Cursing myself. Wondering why I’d bothered. Why I even fucking cared.

197

At home after I showered, I knew I couldn’t spend another night alone in my house. I called Jimmer to see if he was game to move up our drinking date. No answer. Story of my life.

As I debated whether or not to call Kevin, my cell rang; he was on the line. “Divine karma, my friend.

Wanna go to Dusty’s and shoot pool? Hang out with me and Don Julio tonight? Been a while.”

“That it has.”

“Cool. Where are you?”

“Driving aimlessly.”

Kevin never did anything without purpose. “Get your ass out here. On the way to Dusty’s you can confess how much you’ve missed my oh-so-vindictive sense of humor.”

He snorted. “I don’t buy the Mary-fucking-sunshine act, babe. What’s happened the last couple days when I’ve been a total selfish prick?”

I figured he’d pick up on my mood, but not that fast. “You wanna hear it in person?”