Stripped Bare Read online

  Carly’s sweet face hardened in defense. Most folks said Carly took after the Edwardses, with her Swedish blonde, blue-eyed beauty. But one look in her intelligent, fiery eyes branded her as a Fox, and more specifically, as my oldest sister, Glenda’s, daughter. “We sort of needed each other.”

  As Rope and Nat’s grandson and ward, Danny lived at the Bar J. He’d care about Eldon, too. But Danny wasn’t a solid friend. “Okay. I’m home now. Maybe Danny can take your pickup home and we’ll get it later.”

  She shifted her backpack and her eyes darted to the office, then back to me. “Danny’s pretty upset about Granddad and he doesn’t want to go home.”

  “I’m sure he’s sad, but what about you? Eldon was your granddad. Besides, being with Rope and Nat might be the best thing for him.” What lame reasoning. But Carly should be with me or the rest of the Foxes. Not with a kid who had dragged her into trouble before.

  Her face closed like a window in a storm. “He needs a friend, okay?”

  “And you’re the only friend he has?” Damn. I wasn’t helping her one bit.

  She thrust out a hip in annoyance. “No. But I’m the best one.”

  Danny drove Carly’s ten-year-old Ford in front of the house and tapped on the horn. She’d inherited the black F-150 when Brian died four years ago. She rarely let mud cake its sides or dust settle inside. For her, it was a gas-powered shrine.

  Carly struggled too hard to be tough. I sighed. “You don’t have to be strong for everyone.”

  She frowned at me, then out the window at the pickup. Danny rested his forehead against the steering wheel, looking limp as a pile of dirty laundry. “Danny.” She paused. “He’s not so strong.”

  I backed up a little to give her space, both physically and in conversation. “What are you planning to do?”

  Gallant young man that he was, Danny held the horn down a little longer this time.

  She stepped around me and put a hand on the front doorknob. “We’re going to school. Be around our friends.”

  Apparently tired of waiting, Danny climbed from the pickup. Instead of looking frail like Nat or lanky like Rope, Danny resembled a rhinoceros. He had about as much charm and wit as one, too. His dirt-colored hair always looked like it needed to be washed, and stains pocked his T-shirts. He clomped up the porch steps and flung the front door open, yelling, before he saw me, “Come on.”

  When he recognized me standing in front of the window, he paled and his mouth went slack. His red-rimmed and veiny eyes testified to his tears.

  I ought to show some sympathy for the kid, but my main concern was Carly. “Go on to school. I’ll bring Carly.”

  His eyes lumbered from me to Carly. A whine crept into his voice. “I thought she’d come with me.”

  Carly’s expression put up the generational fence, planting her on one side, sword raised in defense of Danny, and me on the other, no weapons handy. “I want to be with my friends. Don’t you get that?”

  Sure I did. “Okay. Milo Ferguson needs to talk to you first, then I’ll take you to school.”

  Danny drew in a quick breath. Of course, he naturally feared the law.

  Carly stuck out her chin. “What does he want?”

  A cat shrieked and I jumped out of my socks. My heart slammed into my ribs before I realized it was my phone. Carly loved to change the ringtone. Last week it had been a baby crying. Before that, some awful rap song. I scowled at her and her mouth ticked into a hint of a smile before grief quashed it. I pulled my phone from my shirt pocket.

  “Kate Conner?” a male voice more stated than asked. “This is Glenn Baxter.”

  Not what I expected. I held up my hand to Carly in a wait-a-second gesture.

  “I understand you’re Carly Edwards’s guardian,” the voice continued.

  “That’s right.” Was I really talking to one of the world’s wealthiest men? I pictured Glenn Baxter from the few images I’d seen on TV. He had a lanky build and the pasty complexion of someone who spends his days behind a desk. Dark hair with dashes of salt at the thin temples. He was probably somewhere in his midforties.

  “First of all, my condolences for Eldon Edwards’s death.”

  Murder. Eldon’s murder. Ted’s injury. Reality threatened to surge past my feeble wall. “Thank you.” Now I held up one finger to Carly and padded into the kitchen so they wouldn’t have to listen.

  He cleared his throat as if in a funeral parlor. “You may know Eldon and I had an agreement in place for the sale of the Bar J.”

  His respect for the dead only created an avenue to talk business. Mom might be right about him being an East Coast … well, what she said. “Nope. Didn’t know that.”

  Oil dripped from his voice. “The problem is that he passed away before he signed the agreement.”

  “Passed away” sounded so much better than “murdered.”

  I was only slightly more hospitable than Mom would have been. “My niece lost someone she loves. We’ve all lost a respected member of our community. What is it I can do for you, Mr. Baxter?”

  Again, that sorrowful voice felt like biting on aluminum foil. “I’d like to conclude the sale of the Bar J with Carly Edwards. I understand she’s Eldon’s only surviving heir. Five million dollars would go a long way to ensuring your niece a fine future.”

  That was the price Eldon settled on? If he had the hundred thousand acres “they” said he did, five million was about one-tenth of the market value. Sounded like the upstanding Mr. Baxter was fixing to swindle Carly. “I’m not convinced Eldon wanted to sell. Not at that price, anyway.”

  “Oh, believe me, Eldon agreed. He had good reason to get out while he could.” It sounded like those threats used car salesmen toss out: I’ve got three people interested in this beauty. They’re getting their credit checked right now.

  “I’ll let Carly know you called.”

  His voice crawled from my phone on eight spindly legs. “Her grandfather told me working a ranch was no life for a young girl.”

  This had the coppery taste of a lie. Carly spent a good portion of her weekends at the Bar J. She loved working cattle with Eldon. Carly would probably be living full-time at the Bar J if she didn’t have to be at school five days a week.

  “Thank you for passing that along.”

  An undercurrent of frustration soured Baxter’s sweet words. “Of course. I only hope you’ll let me talk to Carly so she can consider carrying on Eldon’s final wishes in good faith.”

  I said something nice that Dad would have approved of, and severed our connection. I stood for a moment. Would Eldon really have sold the Bar J?

  I returned to the living room. The front door stood open, letting in the crisp morning air. Danny and Carly headed for the idling pickup. She was probably telling him she’d see him later. Except she climbed into the driver’s side and Danny ran to the passenger door.

  I took off for the porch. “Carly! Wait!”

  She didn’t. Gravel spewed from her tires before Danny even closed his door.

  Dust rose as Carly gunned it around the bend and rattled over the AutoGate, disappearing between the gap. My fingers tingled with cold before I turned and walked back inside.

  * * *

  I woke up to the smell of chocolate chip cookies, something that ought to draw me to the kitchen with anticipation. Instead, I wanted to run to the toilet and puke. The clock told me I’d been asleep for four hours. I rolled over and grabbed my phone from the bedside table. Because Ted is sheriff and I sometimes acted as dispatch, the number for Broken Butte Community Hospital was programmed into my phone. They told me Ted’s condition was stable and that he hadn’t regained consciousness yet.

  I flopped onto my back again and stared at the ceiling for a second.

  Damn it, Carly.

  I’d stood in the living room after she and Danny drove away. Maybe it would be better for her to be with friends. Teenagers often leaned on each other more than on parents or someone like me, a sad excuse for a surrogat
e mother.

  No one could love her more than I did, though. Trust that she could deal with this new tragedy in her own way warred with my desire to help her. She’d call if she wanted me. That wasn’t enough, but what else could I do?

  I climbed from my cocoon and padded to the dresser for clean underwear.

  “Oh, good, you’re awake,” Louise said from the doorway.

  I jumped and yelped before turning to see my older sister advancing on me. All boobs and belly and outstretched arms, dressed in her mom jeans and decorated sweatshirt. “Louise, what are—”

  “I dropped the kids at school this morning and heard about Ted. I came right out, but you were sleeping. Oh, honey, I’m sorry. How is he?”

  I backed away, but not quickly enough.

  Louise yanked me into a smothering hug. “Oh, you poor thing. Do Mom and Dad know?”

  I disengaged myself. “Yep.”

  “I don’t suppose they were sympathetic.” She folded her arms in disapproval. “That’s why I’m here. At a time like this, family needs to pull together.”

  Or not.

  “You slept so long that now I’ve got to pick up the kids. But we can come back out if you want.”

  Sending the kids out here and leaving herself at home had more appeal. “No. Thanks anyway.” I started pulling on my clothes. If you grow up with four sisters wedged into one bedroom and a bathroom with no door, you’ve got nothing to hide.

  Louise wore her disaster face. “For Pete’s sake. You don’t have any groceries. Carly needs nutrition to grow right.”

  How nice of all my siblings to worry over Carly’s nutritional well-being. Opting for a fresh pair of jeans and clean flannel shirt, I continued dressing.

  “Thank the good Lord I stopped at Dutch’s before I came out. I managed something yummy from what I brought.”

  Of course. For Louise, Dutch’s Grocery was like a pharmacy.

  “How did Carly take the news?” Louise asked.

  I looked for a hair elastic on the dresser top. I mumbled syllables into the mirror, in a useless attempt to avoid the inevitable.

  Louise wasn’t fooled. “You didn’t tell her, did you?”

  “She knows.” I opened a dresser drawer, then closed it.

  “Where is she?” Louise’s voice rose.

  I pretended great concentration on my hair, smoothing it back despite having no ponytail holder.

  She gasped. “You don’t know where she is.”

  I left the mirror and eased out the doorway into the hall. I shouldn’t have let Carly go. I’d need to hog-tie her soon and drag her to see Milo. “She’s with friends.”

  Louise slapped the dresser. In a falsetto voice, she said, “Let Kate be her guardian. She understands her best.”

  I did, actually. Understand Carly best. But that didn’t mean much.

  Louise chased me from the bedroom. “You don’t know the first thing about raising kids. You go after it like Mom and Dad. Letting kids do what they want, never giving them boundaries and discipline.”

  Campaign posters for Ted’s reelection had been knocked helter-skelter from the dining room table. I picked them up and stacked them.

  VOTE FOR TED CONNER

  GRAND COUNTY SHERIFF

  TRUSTED AND EXPERIENCED

  I’d meant to plant those posters in Hodgekiss and the four other little towns in sprawling across Grand County. The primary election was only two weeks away. As incumbent, Ted ought to win, especially with the weight of the Fox clan behind him. Of course, that was before Milo planned to charge Ted with murder. Dahlia had spent a fortune on the signs, and she insisted I place them, since I was related to a high percentage of people with yards and storefronts.

  Louise hounded me to the kitchen. Her lecture gained steam. “It’s like in kindergarten, when the other kids were making fun of her about that stupid stuffed toucan.”

  I’d given it to Carly when she was born and she’d loved it immediately. She’d carried it with her everywhere, talked to it, fed and cleaned it. Carly called it Birdy Bird.

  As far as I knew, Birdy Bird lived on Carly’s bed, upstairs in the attic.

  Louise’s lecture was like little hammers in my brain. But, as a gossip hound, she might be useful. Fortunately for me, Louise didn’t hoard her information. “Who do you suppose might want Eldon dead?” I asked.

  She switched gears without a hitch. “I heard Milo Ferguson is investigating what happened.” Louise picked up a plate of cookies from the counter and set it on the table. She’d left cookies at Mom and Dad’s, which Milo had munched, and now she supplied them here. They were like turds of love that she dropped wherever she went.

  The cookies had all the appeal of day-old roadkill. Emotional upheaval as a diet aid might be effective, but it couldn’t be healthy.

  Louise helped herself to a cookie. Melted chocolate dabbed her upper lip like an edible beauty mark. She lowered her voice, almost to a whisper. “Who do you think did it?”

  Not Ted. Not Carly, either. I brushed my hair from my face and searched my pocket for a ponytail holder. “A thief, maybe.”

  She waved one hand and reached for another cookie with the other. “Eldon didn’t have anything to steal.”

  Glenda told me Eldon kept a boatload of cash on the ranch someplace. He’s not the only old-timer who didn’t fully trust banks. “What else could it be?”

  Louise predictably warmed to the gossip. “They say murder is always committed for love or money. So if it wasn’t money, what about love? I’ve always thought May Keller had a thing for Eldon.”

  “May Keller?” The woman was six days older than dirt and a widow for most of that time.

  Wrinkles lined Louise’s forehead. “Or maybe Eldon was carrying on with Aileen Carson and Jack found out. That’s one creepy guy. He could have shot Eldon without a thought.”

  “Jack’s not creepy. He’s just quiet.” I rummaged in the kitchen junk drawer and found a ponytail holder. “Besides, why do you think Aileen and Eldon had an affair?”

  Louise leaned in. “It’s the way they look at each other.”

  Oh, brother. I smoothed my wild waves and flipped them through the elastic. “I’ve got to check the cows.” And go find Carly, drive to the hospital and see Ted, find out who killed Eldon so Milo would stand down, and in the meantime, keep Frog Creek running during the busiest time of year.

  No hill for a climber, as Dad would say.

  6

  One of my best cows stood alone in the northwest corner of the lot, her tail kinked. That was a sure sign she’d started labor. I stared at her for a long while and finally decided she’d be okay on her own. This would be her sixth calf and I’d never had problems with her before. It rankled, leaving her now, when so much could go wrong.

  While I debated abandoning her, Louise had climbed into her Suburban and headed out. My innards tied and twisted and roped together. Just yesterday I’d mentally complained about calving season dragging on and had wished that this busy time of year would come to an end. If I’d known what was in store, I’d have clung to the fatigue of regular overwork.

  First things first. I climbed into Elvis and pointed him after Louise. I had to check on Carly and somehow get her to talk to Milo.

  Twenty minutes later, Elvis buzzed through Hodgekiss, now bustling with morning activity. Okay, maybe “bustling” was generous, but there were several outfits in front of the Long Branch, and most parking spots on Main Street were full.

  I was surprised to see Rope Hayward’s pickup heading into town as I coasted out the west side. Rope didn’t venture off the Bar J often, and coming to town today would expose him to packs of gossip hounds. Maybe he had business relating to Eldon’s death.

  Grand County Consolidated High School squatted on several acres to the west of town. Since the school couldn’t afford to bus students who lived an hour or more from town, most kids drove themselves. Old beaters filled the lot, and Elvis fit right in.

  I parked and bounde
d to the school and into the carpeted lobby. Louise’s class was the first to graduate from this building, so compared to the courthouse or most businesses downtown, it felt new. They didn’t serve cooked spinach every day, so why did the school always smell like it? Even though the wonderful aroma of the bread the cafeteria ladies prepared almost daily hovered over the top of everything, my stomach rolled over.

  Mary Ellen Butterbaugh rose from her desk when she saw me approach the office window. Easily the smartest and most cultured person in town, she’d been school secretary since the dawn of time. “You didn’t need to come all the way in. I know why Carly isn’t here.”

  Drat. I hadn’t really expected her to be in class, but it would have been nice not to have to track her.

  “Thanks,” I said. Then, without hope, I asked, “Danny Hayward’s not here today, is he?”

  Mary Ellen twitched an eyebrow in interest. “Oh, dear.” Mary Ellen was a good egg. She knew all and kept her own counsel. Insightful enough to know Carly shouldn’t be with Danny, she wisely never tried to change a teen’s mind.

  “Is anyone else out today?”

  She shook her head. “Sorry. Just the two of them.”

  I didn’t like that.

  I zipped my coat as I crossed the parking lot toward Elvis. The sun shone bright but acted stingy with the heat. Typical April, full of tricks and contradictions.

  I drove back into town, thinking about Rope Hayward. As Eldon’s ranch foreman, he’d know who came and went and who might have it out for Eldon. And as Danny’s guardian, he might know where the kids went. I turned onto Main Street and found a parking spot next to the Bar J pickup, in front of the post office. Rope strode out with a fistful of mail, face lined with shadowed crevices, all scowls and squints. Faded Wranglers draped from his bony hips and he wore no coat over his plaid Western shirt.

  It looked like he walked slowly, but those long legs ate up the ground, so I had to scurry from Elvis to intercept him. He’d already climbed inside the pickup and had the engine rumbling when I tapped on his window.

  His deepening frown created a series of Grand Canyons along his chin and cheeks. He rolled down the window but didn’t say anything.