Warrior Son. Rita Herron

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      “No, Joe was always good to him. They were more like brothers than employee-employer.” She made a clicking sound with her teeth. “Why are you asking about Mr. Joe’s visitors?”

      “I’m trying to get the full picture of anyone involved with the ranch or Joe. It’s possible Gates paid someone other than Romley to sabotage the ranch.”

      She chewed on her bottom lip and looked away. “Mr. Brett already checked out the hands. Romley turned out to be dirty, and Maddox found out he was working with another hand named Hardwick. They were both on Gates’s payroll.”

      “What about visitors outside the ranch? Other than Dr. Cumberland, who came to see Joe while he was sick?”

      She set her coffee on the tray and rubbed at her knee as if it hurt. “Barbara stopped by a few times, always when Maddox wasn’t around. Once I heard her up there crying over him. I tried to stay out of the way when she was here. She didn’t much care for me.”

      “She was bitter,” Roan said. “Did she bring Joe any gifts or food when she visited?”

      Mama Mary’s face crinkled as she scrunched her nose in thought. “Sometimes she brought him cookies. Said they were his favorites, that she made them for him the first time they met.”

      “Did Joe eat them?”

      “One or two here and there. To tell you the truth, he wasn’t into sweets that much. He was a meat and potato man.”

      Still, she could have poisoned the cookies.

      “What about Bobby? Did he visit Joe?”

      She scoffed. “That boy was like vinegar, sour and bitter as they get. He came some, but I stayed out of his way. He upset Mr. Joe. Sometimes I could hear them shouting all the way in the kitchen.” She made a sound of disapproval. “When Joe took sick, you’d have thought Bobby would have softened and been nicer. But one night I heard him asking Joe when he was going to tell the other boys about him. He was always demanding money, too.”

      Roan’s pulse jumped. “What about Joe’s will? Did Bobby know he was included?”

      “Joe hinted that he’d included him, but more than once he told Bobby if he wanted any part of the McCullen land, he had to get help.”

      Roan considered their argument. “Did Joe ever talk about changing his will?”

      Mama Mary glanced down at her fingers where she was knotting the apron in her lap. “He did. I told him once he should take that boy out. He was ungrateful and a mean drunk, and he didn’t deserve what Joe had worked so hard for.”

      “Did Joe talk to the lawyer about it?”

      “I honestly don’t know,” Mama Mary said with a sigh.

      There was one way to find out. Roan had to talk to Joe’s lawyer Darren Bush.

      * * *

      MEGAN SPENT THE rest of the afternoon working on the autopsy of a car crash victim.

      By late afternoon, she was so concerned about the doctor that she phoned him to make certain he didn’t need medical attention, but his voice mail kicked in. Her phone buzzed a second later.

      Thinking it was him, she quickly snatched up the phone.

      “Dr. Lail, this is Deputy North in Laredo. I got the results for that autopsy on Morty Burns.”

      “Yes.”

      “Did you find any forensics?”

      “I’m afraid not,” Megan answered. “But the bullet that killed him was from a .45.”

      “Hmm.”

      “Something bothering you about the report?” she asked.

      “Not the report per se. But I talked to Sheriff McCullen from Pistol Whip. Apparently Morty Burns was married to a woman named Edith Bennett.”

      “Yes, I saw that,” Megan said.

      Deputy North grunted. “Well, her brother is Arlis Bennett, a man the sheriff suspects is working with Boyle Gates.”

      There was the name Bennett again. “Has Burns’s wife been notified of his death?” Megan asked.

      “Not yet,” the deputy said. “I phoned and there was no answer at her place. She lives near Pistol Whip, not Laredo.”

      Megan drummed her fingers on the desk. “I can go out and talk to her.”

      “We really should have an officer present. This is a murder investigation now.”

      “All right, I’ll get Deputy Whitefeather to accompany me.”

      “Good. Sheriff McCullen thinks Burns’s murder may be related to the trouble at his ranch. That he might have been paid to set the ranch fires and that he might have been killed to cover up what he did.” He paused. “Anyway, I was hoping you’d found some DNA to tie his death to Gates or Bennett.”

      “I’m sorry, I wish I could tell you more.”

      He thanked her and hung up, and Megan stewed over the information.

      It hadn’t occurred to her that a murder victim who’d been on her table might be connected to the McCullens.

      She texted Roan to relay the deputy’s statement and explained that she’d meet him at the woman’s home to make the death notification—and question the woman in case she knew who’d taken her husband’s life. There was always the possibility that this murder was not related to the McCullens, that it was a domestic dispute gone bad or that Burns had gotten himself in some kind of trouble. Maybe he owed someone money...

      Her phone beeped indicating a response to her text, and she read Roan’s message. At Horseshoe Creek now. Will meet you at the Burns farm. Wait for me.

      She texted back OK, then grabbed her purse and rushed down the hallway.

      Outside, the sun was setting, storm clouds rolling in, the wind picking up. The parking lot at the hospital was still full, though; the afternoon-evening shift hadn’t arrived, and an ambulance was rolling up.

      She hit the key fob to unlock her car, jumped in and headed toward the address for the Burnses’ farm.

      Traffic was thin as she drove through town, the diner starting to fill up with the early supper crowd. She made the turn to the highway leading out of Pistol Whip, and ten minutes later found the farm, a run-down-looking piece of property that had seen better days.

      Overgrown weeds choked what had once been a big garden area, the fences were broken and rotting and the house needed paint badly. Her car rumbled over the ruts in the dirt drive, dust spewing in a smoky cloud behind her.

      She scanned the property for life, for workers, but saw no one. Just a deserted tractor and pickup truck in front of the weathered house. She parked and glanced around, suddenly nervous.

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