Bitter Past, page 7
“I meant to recommend the Snowdrift for lunch. I’m glad you found it,” she said. “Good, isn’t it?”
“Very. Are you grabbing lunch?”
“Just here for a coffee and a muffin. I’m meeting a client in ten minutes. How is your first day on the research trail going?”
“Fine. I spent most of the morning at the Courier.”
“Were they helpful over there?”
“Yes. Jessica Hardy really knows her stuff.” Joelle hesitated, then asked, “How old is she, do you think?”
Myrtle laughed. “No one knows for sure. She was somewhere in her fifties when she first moved here. But that was over thirty years ago. Did you meet Edward?”
The quick look she gave Joelle as she asked this put her on alert. Joelle wondered if it had been Myrtle, and not Sam, who’d mentioned her to the old publisher.
“I did. He invited me into his office and we chatted for a while.”
“I’m not surprised. Edward never could pass up a chance to chat with a pretty woman.”
Interesting. “When did Edward and his wife split up?”
“A long time ago. Shortly after that summer your brother-in-law spent here, in fact.”
“Must be hard when friends get divorced in such a small community.”
“Not really. I think Sam mentioned the other day that they still live on the ranch they moved into when they married, albeit in separate houses. Vera manages the ranch with the help of a hired hand, while Edward works full-time at the Courier. I think in many ways they get along better now than when they were married.”
*
Obviously converted from a two-story home, the library in Lost Trail had a cozy and welcoming vibe. To the left of the foyer was a table with an intriguing collection of Montana-based books, covering subjects ranging from ranching and mining history, to detailed guides of the state’s famous national parks.
In the next room, which had probably once been a dining area, a young woman with a half-shaved head and multiple ear and facial piercings sat at the main desk.
Joelle gave her a friendly smile. “Hi. I’d like to speak to Amanda Cocker if possible.”
“She’s in her office.” The young woman pointed down the hall. “The second door on your right.”
“Thanks.” Joelle made her way to the back of the building. Amanda’s door had a glass panel, through which she could see a dark-haired woman working on her computer. Dressed in a navy blouse with her hair pulled back in a classic ponytail, Amanda projected a stereotypically conservative librarian image. When she glanced up, Joelle immediately recognized her from Brent’s photo. She’d hardly aged at all.
*
Wyatt hadn’t wanted Amanda to go to work today. He’d said he was worried the journalist who was asking questions about Brent would track her down. “Phone in with a headache or something,” he’d said. “God knows you have enough accumulated sick leave.”
“I’m not going to act like I have something to hide,” Amanda had insisted, going to her closet to pick out an outfit. All her work outfits were conservative dresses and skirts in dull colors of navy, beige, or black. She’d learned early in her marriage that things were easier with Wyatt if she didn’t try to look too attractive.
“You made a promise,” Wyatt reminded her.
“You think I’m likely to forget that?”
“No. I just think it would be easier if we hunkered down on the ranch and waited for her to leave.”
“We can’t do that. You need to go to town for supplies today, remember? And the kids have plans to visit their friends in the afternoon.”
In the end, Wyatt had let the subject drop, even giving her his usual kiss before she got into her vehicle to drive to work.
The morning had dragged, even though Amanda had lots of work to do. She kept dreading the appearance of the unwanted visitor. Every now and then she left her desk and strolled through the various rooms, on the lookout for the intruder. But she only saw the familiar faces of regular patrons, some of whom smiled and waved when they noticed her looking their way. When lunchtime came and went, Amanda finally began to relax. Maybe this Joelle Medler wasn’t interested in talking to her after all.
But no sooner did she have that thought than she noticed an attractive woman with shoulder-length auburn hair, dressed in a pale blue summer dress, bearing down on her office. Amanda took a deep breath and tried to prepare herself, but now that the moment had arrived, she was so tense she thought she might be sick.
The woman paused at the threshold to her office. “Hi. I’m Joelle Medler. Do you have a few minutes to talk to me?”
“I suppose.” Reluctantly Amanda closed the spreadsheet she’d been updating. “How can I help you?”
“I’m a journalist with the Flathead Journal, but I’m not here in that capacity. My sister has asked me to follow up on an investigation her husband was working on before he died. You worked with him one summer. Brent Culver?”
Amanda dropped her gaze. “It was quite a shock hearing about his accident,” she finally said, quietly. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
“Thanks. It’s been awful for my sister and the twins. You have kids, too, I see.”
Self-consciously Amanda adjusted the framed photo on her desk. The picture had been taken last summer. She, Wyatt, and the kids were perched on a wooden rail fence, with their classic post-and-beam barn in the background. “Yes, Candace is just as crazy about horses as I was at her age and Bruce is like a mini replica of his dad.”
“How do they like living on a ranch?”
“It isn’t easy. Some years are pretty lean and there’s always lots of work. But mostly they love it, thankfully.”
Amanda started to relax. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad after all. But then Joelle asked her next question.
“My sister told me Brent came to Lost Trail the day before he died. Did he talk to you when he was here?”
“He did. Briefly. To both Wyatt and me.”
“Would you mind sharing the gist of your conversation? It might bring my sister some peace. She just doesn’t understand what brought him out this way.”
“He wanted to talk about the summer we all worked out here. What happened on our last night together.”
Joelle leaned in. “This is just a guess. But did you and Brent date that summer?”
Amanda hesitated. “We had some fun together. Nothing serious.” At least not on Brent’s side.
“And what did happen the last night you were all together?”
Oh Lord. If only her phone would ring, or someone would come to her office with a question. She could always ask the woman to leave. But wouldn’t that only make her look guilty?
“To celebrate our last day on the job we all drove out to Chief Joseph Pass and hiked up to a viewpoint for a cookout. We had some drinks and some laughs.” She shrugged. “That’s pretty much it.”
“What did you talk about?”
“Mostly our plans for the fall. Wyatt had a job as a ranch hand lined up, while both Shawn and Brent were going back to college—Shawn to Colorado, Brent to Missoula. I asked Brent when I would see him again, and that’s when I found out he’d never seen our relationship as anything but a summer fling.” She tried to sound like it hadn’t been a big deal.
“That must have hurt.”
She’d been devastated. Not that she would admit it now, especially not to Brent’s sister-in-law. “I got over him and within a few months I was dating Wyatt. He and I were a much better fit. So much so we got married that winter. A few years later, when my father died from a stroke, we took over running the ranch. Wyatt has been an absolute rock. Believe me, I have no regrets about Brent.”
The journalist was looking at her very skeptically. Amanda rubbed her damp palms on the cotton of her skirt and forced herself to meet Joelle’s gaze directly.
“Did you know, about a month before he died in that hit-and-run accident, Brent won a million-dollar lottery?”
Amanda’s gaze dropped to her desk again. “I saw the article, yes. He found the ticket just a few weeks before the deadline, right?”
“Yes. Did he mention his lottery winnings when he met with you?”
“No.” At least this she could answer honestly. “He just wanted to talk about our last night together.”
Joelle leaned over the desk, her expression earnest. “Amanda, I doubt Brent would have come all this way to talk about a simple end-of-summer party. Something else happened that night, didn’t it?”
Amanda wanted to say no, but she was such a terrible liar. So she held her tongue and shrugged. Let it drop, she pleaded in her head.
“Did you find a body that night?”
Amanda felt a spike of fear. “Why would you ask that?”
“As she was going through Brent’s papers, my sister found a note about a body being found in the forest. There were also newspaper accounts of a missing hiker. Do you remember hearing about Eve Brooks?”
Amanda could feel her cheeks flaming. “Maybe… I’m not sure…” Oh Lord, Wyatt would kill her if she said more. But she felt like such an idiot. “It was—”
“Mom?”
The desperately needed interruption came from her daughter. Candace, dressed in denim shorts that showed off her long legs, with her light hair freshly washed, and mascara highlighting her blue-gray eyes, suddenly looked far too grown up to Amanda. What had happened to her little girl? Where had the years gone?
“Sorry to interrupt,” Candace continued. “But Dad dropped Bruce and me off to get ice cream. Do you want to come?”
Amanda grabbed her purse. “Sure, honey. We’re done here.”
Joelle took the hint and left the office. Amanda prayed for her to keep walking, but she paused, obviously hoping for some sort of conclusion to their conversation. Amanda did her best to meet the journalist’s gaze. “I’ve told you all I can about that night. And I really am sorry about Brent. It was a terrible accident.”
“It was terrible all right. I’m just not sure it was an accident.”
Amanda stared at her in horror. “What do you mean? It had to be an accident. What else could it be?”
But before Joelle could reply, Amanda heard Wyatt call out her name. He and Bruce were heading toward them. In their jeans and cowboy hats, they looked so much alike. Bruce didn’t yet have his father’s powerful, barrel-shaped chest, but he had the same dark hair and black eyes. He even walked with the same gait that Wyatt had when he was younger.
“I decided to join you guys for ice cream,” Wyatt said.
Amanda could see the annoyance behind her husband’s smile. He’d warned her against talking to the journalist on her own, and now it had happened.
“Wyatt, this is Joelle Medler. We were just wrapping up, so it’s a great time for ice cream.” She rounded her family up like cattle, trying to push them quickly out to the street.
“Thanks for your time,” Joelle called after her.
“No problem,” Amanda lied, without looking back. She hoped she never had to see the woman again.
*
Well, that had been interesting, thought Joelle. She’d certainly pressed a button when she’d mentioned Eve Brooks to Amanda. And something had definitely happened at that end-of-summer party. Amanda had almost fainted when she mentioned the body.
As she watched the family head toward the exit, she noticed Wyatt had a funny hitch to his stride. Maybe that was something that happened when you rode horses a lot. She wished she’d had a chance to talk to Amanda’s husband. She had faced hostile interview subjects before, but the loathing emanating off him, during that short moment when they’d made eye contact, really made her wonder. In her experience, hatred was often a disguise for fear. So what was Wyatt so afraid of?
Joelle headed down the street and around the corner to where she’d parked her car. It was time to go home and take Trix for a hike. She did a lot of her best thinking when she was out in nature, and she sure had a lot to think about today.
When she got to her Jeep, though, she noticed two things right away. First, she’d forgotten to roll up her driver’s-side window. Second, something smelt bad. That’s when she saw a big brown pile on the driver’s seat. She’d gone to enough rodeos, and visited enough ranches to recognize horse manure when she saw it.
Chapter Six
Though Joelle wanted desperately to clean the stinky horse manure from her car, she forced herself to call the Sheriff’s Department first. The dispatcher assured her someone would be with her shortly. So, she sat on a bench close to where she’d parked her car and watched to make sure that rotten vandal didn’t return to do more damage.
In less than fifteen minutes, a tall, athletic-looking woman in brown pants and a khaki shirt came striding toward her. She had striking blue eyes and long blonde hair, which she was wearing in a ponytail. When Joelle noticed the deputy badge pinned to her chest, she went to meet her.
“Hi, I’m Joelle Medler. I called about my car.”
“I’m Deputy Black.” She swept a no-nonsense look over Joelle then turned to the Jeep and peered inside the front window. She made a face when she spotted the sizeable mound of hay-speckled manure.
“That’s a ripe pile. Not very pleasant.”
“Definitely not.”
“How long were you parked here?”
Joelle checked her watch. “About three hours.”
Using her phone, the deputy took a few pictures, including one of Jo’s license plate. She paused at the bumper stickers. “You’re the journalist from Flathead County.”
“Word gets around.”
“I’m married to the Sheriff. I hear things.”
This was an interesting development. “I guess you would.”
“You’ve only been in town two days and already you’ve pissed off someone enough they put horse shit in your car?”
Funny how she managed to make this sound like Joelle’s fault. “I guess it was someone who owns a horse,” Joelle said, trying to be helpful.
“That doesn’t narrow it down much. Almost everyone with more than a few acres of land around here owns a horse. And those who don’t could park on the side of a road next to a barn and scoop up as much as they wanted.”
Until that moment Joelle had been thinking this was a stupid prank by a kid. But actually it had taken some effort to collect this manure, transport it to town, and deposit it in her vehicle. She thought of something her father would say when he knew she or Olivia were lying. Horse manure.
Horse manure. I don’t believe you. Was this someone’s way of telling her they didn’t believe the reason she was giving for asking questions about Brent? Maybe even a warning that she should stop asking questions?
Joelle thought about the people she’d met in town so far. Myrtle and her husband, Sam, and son, Shawn. Edward Cocker and the staff at the Courier. Amanda and, briefly, her husband, Wyatt, and kids, Candace and Bruce. Could they have been the culprits? They certainly had access to horse manure. But they hadn’t looked like kids who’d been up to trouble.
“I’m going to check with nearby businesses. See if anyone saw something.” The deputy pointed to a used bookstore and some dentists’ and lawyers’ offices, all of which had views of Joelle’s car, though partially obstructed by the leafy trees.
“Can I clean out my car now?”
The deputy wrinkled her nose. “That’s a good idea.”
Using some of Trix’s doggy poop bags and an entire package of wet wipes, Joelle made a decent job of the cleanup. But she couldn’t get rid of the ripe odor lingering in her car. She’d have to do a deep clean of the interior once she was back at the cottage. For the interim, she spread an old towel—also Trix’s—over the seat.
She was going to check with the deputy to see if she’d learned anything when she noticed Deputy Black had been joined by Sheriff Waller. The two were deep in conversation outside the Read & Repeat Bookstore. Though they kept a respectable distance apart and never touched, she thought she could sense an intimacy between them.
*
“You never told me she was so pretty,” Nadine said.
“How is that relevant?” Zak replied.
“You’re right. Totally not relevant to mention that the journalist you went out of your way to have dinner with the other night is an adorable redhead.”
“I don’t think she’d turn all the male heads in the bar the way you did when you first moved to Lost Trail.”
“Good recovery,” she allowed, giving him a hint of a smile.
“Back to the horse shit. Did anyone see anything?”
“Nope, not a thing. Want me to go back to our outraged visitor and suggest she roll up her windows next time?”
“Nah, I’ll talk to her.” Zak ignored his wife’s raised eyebrows. He knew she wasn’t seriously threatened, just giving him a hard time. He headed toward Joelle wondering just how worried he should be about this incident. It wasn’t a good sign, that was for sure.
“Hey, Sheriff.” She greeted him with her arms crossed at her chest.
“I hear there was a situation.” He stuck his head inside her open driver’s side door.
“There was. I’ve taken care of it.”
“I see that. Doesn’t smell so good though. The manure must have been in here for a while, stewing in the hot sun.”
Joelle cringed. “Does this sort of thing happen often in your town?”
He straightened. “First time that I know of.”
“Don’t I feel special,” she muttered.
“You could take it that way,” he agreed. “Or you could wonder who you’ve managed to offend in the two days you’ve been here.”
“You think this is my fault?”
“I didn’t say that. Want to grab a coffee?”
She looked surprised but nodded. “I could use some caffeine.”
*
Joelle could almost feel the skin on her arms and face burning as she and the Sheriff headed to the Snowdrift Café. It was a relief to step into the air-conditioned space, where they were hit with the intoxicating scents of coffee, cinnamon, and freshly baked bread.
“Oh good,” the Sheriff said, “Patsy’s just made her cinnamon buns. How do you take your coffee?”
