Crime Scene at Cardwell Ranch. B.J. Daniels
around him as Hud lowered the container down and watched the coroner place what appeared to be a dirt-caked piece of once-red fabric inside. Just as in his memory, the woman had worn a red dress. Rupert continued to sift through the dirt, stooped over in the small area, intent on his work.
Hud pulled his coat around him. The mountains across the canyon were no longer visible through the falling snow. And to think he’d actually missed winters while working for the police department in Los Angeles.
From down in the well, Rupert let out a curse, calling Hud’s attention back to the dark hole in the ground.
“What is it?” Hud called down.
Rupert had the video camera out and seemed to be trying to steady his hands as he photographed the well wall.
“You aren’t going to believe this.” The older man’s voice sounded strained as if he’d just found something that had shaken him—a man who’d bragged that he’d seen the worst of everything. “She was still alive.”
“What?” Hud asked, his blood running cold.
“Neither the gunshot wound nor being thrown down the well killed her right away,” Rupert said. “There are deep gouges in the earth where she tried to climb out.”
Chapter Three
Long after Rupert came up out of the well neither he nor Hud said anything. Snow whirled on the wind, the bank of clouds dropping over them, the sun only a memory.
Hud sat behind the wheel of the SUV, motor running, heater cranked up, drinking coffee from the thermos Rupert had brought. Next to him, Rupert turned the SUV’s heater vent so it blew into his face.
The older man looked pale, his eyes hollow. Hud imagined that, like him, Rupert had been picturing what it must have been like being left in the bottom of that well to die a slow death.
The yellow crime scene tape Hud had strung up now bowed in the wind and snow. The hillside was a blur of white, the snow falling diagonally.
“I suppose the murder weapon could still be up here,” Hud said to Rupert, more to break the silence than anything else. Even with the wind and the motor and heater going, the day felt too quiet, the hillside too desolate. Anything was better than thinking about the woman in the well—even remembering Dana’s reaction to seeing him again.
“Doubt you’ll ever find that gun,” Rupert said without looking at him. The old coroner had been unusually quiet since coming up out of the well.
Hud had called the sheriff’s department in Bozeman and asked for help searching the area. It was procedure, but Hud agreed with Rupert. He doubted the weapon would ever turn up.
Except they had to search for it. Unfortunately this was Montana. A lot of men drove trucks with at least one firearm hanging on the back window gun rack and another in the glove box or under the seat.
“So did he shoot her before or after she went into the well?” Hud asked.
“After, based on the angle the bullet entered her skull.” Rupert took a sip of his coffee.
“He must have thought he killed her.”
Rupert said nothing as he stared in the direction of the well.
“Had to have known about the well,” Hud said. Which meant he had knowledge of the Cardwell Ranch. Hud groaned to himself as he saw where he was headed with this. The old homestead was a good mile off Highway 191 that ran through the Gallatin Canyon. The killer could have accessed the old homestead by two ways. One was the Cardwell’s private bridge, which would mean driving right by the ranch house.
Or…he could have taken the Piney Creek Bridge, following a twisted route of old logging roads. The same way he and Dana used when he was late getting her home.
Either way, the killer had to be local to know about the well, let alone the back way. Unless, of course, the killer was a member of the Cardwell family and had just driven in past the ranch house bold as brass.
Why bring the woman here, though? Why the Cardwell Ranch well?
“You know what bothers me?” Hud said, taking a sip of his coffee. “The red high heel. Just one in the well. What happened to the other one? And what was she doing up here dressed like that?” He couldn’t shake that flash of memory of a woman in a red dress any more than he could nail down its source.
He felt his stomach tighten when Rupert didn’t jump in. It wasn’t like Rupert. Did his silence have something to do with realizing the woman in the well hadn’t been dead and tried to save herself? Or was it possible Rupert suspected who she was and for some reason was keeping it to himself?
“The heels, the dress, it’s almost like she was on a date,” Hud said. “Or out for a special occasion.”
Rupert glanced over at him. “You might make as good a marshal as your father some day.” High praise to Rupert’s way of thinking, so Hud tried hard not to take offense.
“Odd place to bring your date, though,” Hud commented. But then maybe not. The spot was isolated. Not like a trailhead where anyone could come along. No one would be on this section of the ranch at night and you could see the ranch house and part of the road up the hillside. You would know if anyone was headed in your direction in plenty of time to get away.
And yet it wasn’t close enough that anyone could hear a woman’s cries for help.
“Still, someone had to have reported her missing,” Hud persisted. “A roommate. A boss. A friend. A husband.”
Rupert finished his coffee and started to screw the cup back on the thermos. “Want any more?”
Hud shook his head. “You worked with my father for a lot of years.”
Rupert looked over at him, eyes narrowing. “Brick Savage was the best damned marshal I’ve ever known.” He said it as if he knew only too well that there were others who would have argued that, Hud among them, and Rupert wasn’t going to have it.
Brick Savage was a lot of things. A colorful marshal, loved and respected by supporters, feared and despised by his adversaries. Hud knew him as a stubborn, rigid father who he’d feared as a boy and despised as a man. Hud hated to think of the years he’d tried to prove himself to his father—only to fail.
He could feel Rupert’s gaze on him, daring him to say anything against Brick. “If you’re right about how long she’s been down there…”
Rupert made a rude sound under his breath, making it clear he was right.
“…then Brick would have been marshal and you would have been assistant coroner.”
“Your point?” Rupert asked.
Hud eyed him, wondering why Rupert was getting his back up. Because Hud had brought up Brick? “I just thought you might remember a missing person’s case during that time.”
“You’d have to ask your father. Since no body was found, I might not even have heard about it.” Rupert zipped up his coroner jacket he’d pulled from behind the seat of his truck. “I need to get to the crime lab.”
Hud handed Rupert the coffee cup he’d lent him. “Just seems odd, doesn’t it? Someone had to have missed her. You would think the whole area would have been talking about it.”
The coroner smiled ruefully. “Some women come and go more often than a Greyhound bus.”
Hud remembered hearing that Rupert’s first wife had run off on numerous occasions before she’d finally cleared out with a long-haul truck driver.
“You think this woman was like that?” Hud asked, his suspicion growing that Rupert knew more than he was saying.
“If she was, then your suspect list could be as long as your arm.” Rupert opened his door.
“You almost sound as if you have an