Perfect Touch: A Novel Read online

  “ATVs make a racket,” Sara said. “Wouldn’t that have warned the Solvangs?”

  “We get visitors up at Fish Camp after the melt,” Jay said. “Not a lot of them, but enough. One of the problems of having an inholding on national forest land. Besides, the ATV could have been muffled or even electric. We had both in Afghanistan.”

  “Electric? Is that what hunters use?” Barton said.

  “Hunters use a horse and their own two feet,” Jay said.

  “This wasn’t a casual jaunt that ended badly, was it?” Sara asked.

  Cooke breathed out a sigh that was also a curse. “It’s coming down that way. Planned. And here I thought it was going to be simple. A messy kind of simple, but still simple.”

  “Wait, wait, wait,” Barton said. “You’re saying this was planned? Some kind of hit? Like in the movies?”

  Sara wondered how he would look wearing hash along with his vomit. Her disgust must have shown on her face, because he stood and leaned over the table toward her.

  “I used to live up here. I knew Inge and Ivar,” he said in her face. “You’re just a tourist.”

  Jay gave the top of Barton’s head a shove, sending him back into his chair. “She saw a lot more of the mess than you did. Unless you want to go back and help move the bodies, zip it.”

  “But you’re saying someone planned this.” His voice broke. “Inge and . . . Damn it, that’s crazy,” he said, tears magnifying his eyes. “Why would anyone do that?”

  “Because they could,” Jay said evenly. “Now all that is left is to bury the dead and make sure the jackals don’t run free to kill again.”

  “You still sure that you weren’t followed?” Cooke asked. “This is looking less like a robbery and more like an ambush.”

  She looked at Jay with wide eyes that were too dark against her suddenly pale skin. Beneath the table he squeezed her thigh soothingly.

  “I should have let you stay in town, away from all this,” he said.

  “How do you know I didn’t bring it?” she asked.

  “What do you mean?” Cooke asked.

  “My room was robbed, remember?”

  “And?” the sheriff pressed.

  “Nothing. Just that.” She took a deep breath. “I feel like some kind of Jonah, with trouble following me around.”

  “You could always go home,” Barton said.

  “I plan to, thanks.”

  “Barton,” Jay began.

  He held up his hands. “Just trying to help.”

  “Start on the dishes,” Jay said. “That would help a lot.”

  “Whatever.”

  Barton sucked up another peach half before he took his plate to the sink.

  “Just bag up anything that would attract a bear,” Jay said to his brother. “We’ll take it out with us. When the sheriff’s done with Inge and Ivar’s cabin, you can do the same there.”

  “Do I look like the garbageman?”

  “Do I look like I care?”

  A glance at Jay’s expression shut Barton up.

  Cooke saw Sara’s pale face and sighed. It was always the innocents who were hurt, and sometimes it seemed like his job was to make sure they stayed alive to feel the pain.

  “It could have been a setup to ambush you,” the sheriff said again, watching Jay.

  “If it was, they must have run out of patience.”

  “Did you take extra time on the trail?”

  “Quite a bit,” Jay admitted. “I was enjoying being on a horse on a beautiful spring day. I’d been cooped up way too long.”

  “Tired of paperwork?” Cooke asked sympathetically.

  “All the way to my soul. Now that I’m not paying lawyers, I’m thinking of hiring an accountant.”

  How can they talk so casually? Sara asked herself. If we had arrived hours earlier, we could have been murdered along with Ivar and Inge.

  “You make any enemies since you got back?” Cooke asked.

  “Liza was mad enough after she lost in court,” Jay began.

  “Mother wouldn’t—”

  “Ease down. I know she’s not a murderer. She reached for more lawyers, not a gun,” Jay said. He turned to Cooke. “My enemies are all behind me and halfway around the world.”

  Sitting next to him, soaking in his strength, Sara wanted to believe him. She couldn’t imagine being alive and knowing that there was some cold-blooded madman hiding out in the woods, waiting for a chance to murder her.

  “What about the crazy mountain man?” she asked.

  “Crazy doesn’t mean killer,” Cooke said. “The half-assed hermits out here run at the sight of people. How about your enemies? Did they follow you here?”

  “I don’t know of anyone in San Francisco who cares enough to cross the street to harass me, much less get on a plane.”

  “Figured, but I had to ask.”

  “Everybody finished eating?” Barton called from the sink.

  A chorus of yeses went up from the table, with Sara in the lead.

  Cooke looked at Jay. “Something eating at you besides lunch?” the sheriff asked.

  “An idea just came to me. I don’t like it, but I can’t ignore it.”

  “I’m listening.”

  Jay hesitated and said, “In the last few months, I’ve had some personnel issues on the ranch. Henry said the two men were trouble after the first time I hauled them up short for drinking on the job. I kept them on anyway. They were good hands when they were sober, and one of them was supporting a kid. I fired them the second time I caught them drunk at work.”

  “According to JD, pity is a sucker’s game,” Barton said as he retrieved the empty pot of hash.

  “He also said, ‘Second chances often take first place.’ JD had a hat full of sayings he’d pull out when he needed to.”

  The sheriff had his phone out again. “Names.”

  “Jimmy Duggan and Monty Valentine. They said they were Montanans, but hands like them drift a lot. They could have been from anywhere in the West that has cattle.”

  “What did they say when you fired them?” Cooke asked.

  “A lot of trash. Then they went to town and started trouble at the Boot, ended up in jail.”

  “I remember that. Those boys had real foul mouths on them. We all hoped someone would bail them out.”

  “Not me,” Jay said flatly.

  “You think that’s enough to make them want revenge?” Barton asked.

  “Duggan and Valentine had a streak of mean between them. Good with livestock and hell on humans. If it hadn’t been drinking, I probably would have had to fire them for fighting in the bunkhouse with the other hands.”

  “Where are these two now?” Cooke asked.

  “Pretty sure they left Jackson,” Jay said. “Maybe went to Cody. They didn’t exactly leave a forwarding address for Christmas cards.”

  Sara listened and tried not to think they might be talking casually about murderers.

  “I’ll shake the record book and see what I can come up with,” Cooke said.

  “Do you have anyone who can check in Cody?” Jay asked.

  Cooke nodded and made a note to himself. “What about your other cowhands?”

  “They’ve been with us for years. No problems with them. Their wives and kids keep them too busy for that.”

  The sheriff grinned faintly. “I know how that works.”

  Jay looked out the window. The sun had passed its zenith. “When did you expect the deputy for the bodies?”

  “An hour more, maybe two,” Cooke said. “But even with Vermilion Ranch paying for the helicopter, I don’t plan on wasting time here. I’ll fly out soon.”

  “Do you have room for six cardboard cartons?” Jay asked.

  “Should. That’s a big machine.”

  “Are you flying out with him?” Jay asked Barton.

  “So you and Sara can have some alone time? Chooka chooka,” he said, with an accompanying hand gesture for the deaf.

  Sara felt Jay go rigid.<
br />
  Barton frowned at his brother’s scowl. “What? You’d have to be blind not to see it, bro. And I’m happy for you. I mean, about time you got a little somethin’-somethin’, right?”

  “I know you mean well and you and I live in different worlds and all that happy horseshit,” Jay said through his teeth. “But if you don’t stop sharing your sophomoric insights, I’m going to take you to the woodshed in a way you won’t forget. Got that, bro?”

  “Yeah. Sure. Jesus, when did you get so touchy?”

  Cooke shoved back his chair. “Show me where the cartons are.”

  “I’ll help you load,” Jay said. “Sara and I will fly out with you.”

  “Be a tight squeeze, with Barton and all,” Cooke said doubtfully.

  “He isn’t coming,” Jay said.

  Barton jerked. “Hey, how will I get back?”

  “Not my problem. Chooka chooka, bro.”

  CHAPTER 18

  HENRY STOOD WITH Jay and Sara, watching the helicopter lift off from the pasture that had recently held thirty-five cows and calves.

  “We can go to the moon, but we can’t make a quiet helicopter,” Henry said, holding on to his hat while his salt-and-pepper hair flew up over his ears.

  “We can make them pretty damn quiet,” Jay said, remembering, “but it’s expensive.”

  “Worth it,” Henry muttered.

  Sara sighed as the helicopter faded rapidly to a dot in the cloud-studded sky. “It was a beautiful ride. It reminded me of some of Custer’s paintings. Did he go up in a helicopter or a small plane?”

  “Probably,” Jay said, picking up two of the cartons that had been dropped off with them. “Before mother got sick, JD loved to go up and look at the ranch. If he and Custer weren’t fighting, likely they went together from time to time.”

  Sara whipped out her phone and started taking notes.

  He looked at her intent face and her hair burning darkly beneath the sun. Smiling, he headed toward the truck Henry had driven to the pasture.

  “What’s all this?” the foreman asked, gesturing to the remaining boxes.

  She started to tell him that they were Custer’s papers, then remembered how Jay had answered when Barton had asked.

  “Old ranch records, from his mother’s time,” Sara said, which was mostly true. “Jay mentioned something about doing a ranch history.”

  “Damn fool waste of time.” The foreman picked up a box and headed for the truck.

  She made a few more fast notes on her phone and reached for a box.

  Jay was already there, scooping up the remaining boxes. She admired his easy strength and remembered some of the startling, sensual ways he used it.

  After a glance to be sure no one else could hear, she said, “Henry asked what was in the boxes. I told him what you told Barton.”

  “Good.”

  “Why didn’t you want him to know?”

  “He’s a gossip,” Jay said softly. “We don’t need to let the world know we found something that might be valuable and a lot smaller than the Custer paintings.”

  “Oh.”

  “I’ll take one of those,” Henry said a moment later. “Unless you’re showing off for the pretty lady.”

  Jay handed one over.

  During the short walk to the truck and even shorter ride home, the two men talked about ranch things—what had to be repaired first, which cows were too old to breed, and if the old bulls would be up to a few more breeding seasons. Sara did a fast review of the photos on her phone, mentally grouping the paintings under themes such as distance and space, sky and mountains. She was itching to get to her tablet and start listing paintings by date, title, subject, and her personal shorthand for okay, good, better, and best. Then she would—

  “You want to work out here or in the house?”

  Startled, she looked up into amused, navy-blue eyes. She glanced around. Henry was gone and Jay was leaning against the open door of the truck.

  “Sorry,” she said. “There’s so much to do with the Custers, and the papers, and planning for a book and generating buzz and—”

  He leaned in and took her mouth in a slow, devouring kiss. Reluctantly he lifted his head. “Save time for us, too.”

  She licked her lips. “Oh, yeah.” Then, laughing, “When do we sleep?”

  “When we can’t stay awake any longer.”

  “That works.”

  “And don’t answer a phone unless you know who is calling,” he added.

  “What?”

  “Reporters. I can keep them off my land, but I can’t do anything about phones. A double murder on Vermilion Ranch will have the newshounds slavering.”

  The reminder of sudden, bloody death made her flinch. “Right. No phones.”

  He put his hand on her cheek. “I’m sorry you had to be part of this.”

  “So am I. And we’ll both live.” She blew out a breath. “Work helps. So does making lo—sex.”

  “I’ve had sex,” he said. “This was a lot better. Now come inside before I kiss you again and Henry decides to go all nanny on my ass.”

  She tried to visualize Henry as a nanny. She couldn’t. “Where did you put the cartons?”

  “In your bedroom.”

  “Good. I’ll—”

  “You want me to doctor that cow with the wire cuts?” Henry called from the back of the house.

  “I’m on my way,” Jay called.

  “Nanny,” she said. “Never would have guessed it. Did he fuss over JD like this?”

  “Only toward the end. Despite my age and experience, Henry thinks of me as the kid who went to military school and didn’t come back for too many years. It grates sometimes, but I owe Henry a lot. He kept the ranch afloat when JD was too sick to do it and I was overseas.”

  “Does that mean I sleep alone?”

  “What do you think?”

  “I think you’re in for a lecture from Nanny Henry.”

  “As long as it doesn’t include the words ‘chooka chooka,’ I’ll take it with a straight face and memories of what it’s like to lower you onto—”

  The back door slammed again. The foreman was headed toward them.

  “I’m out of here,” she said. “Have fun with the cow.”

  She passed the foreman with a nod and headed upstairs to open the cartons. But first she downloaded the photos from the phone onto her tablet, along with the notes she had taken.

  Then the savory smells of cooking registered on her senses. She shouldn’t have been hungry, but suddenly she was. The cartons seemed less urgent than finding the source of the hungry-making scent. She followed it to the kitchen where a woman in jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt was standing over the stove, adding ingredients to a huge, bubbling pot.

  “Hi, I’m Sara. Will I be smacked with a wooden spoon if I steal a taste of whatever you’re cooking?”

  A rolling laugh came out of the woman’s sturdy body. Smiling, she turned and pulled a tasting spoon from a nearby drawer. “I’m Elena. My daughter Ria is working upstairs.”

  “That’s why my room looked so good,” Sara said, accepting the spoon. She dipped it into the pot and blew across the savory contents. “I’ll have to thank her.”

  “No need. It is what we do.”

  “A good job deserves thanks as well as money,” Sara said and gingerly licked the spoon. “Oh, yum. Chili on really savory steroids. Beautiful, beautiful chili. I can’t get a really good bowl of it in the city.” She licked her lips and smiled at Elena. “When is dinner?”

  “Lunch,” Elena said, pointing toward the pot. “Dinner is Jay’s favorite—prime rib roast, twice-baked potatoes, and fresh green beans. Since Inge, God keep her soul, always baked pie for Jay, dessert will be berry cobbler and ice cream.”

  “Comfort food of the first order. I really appreciate it. And in case you’re wondering, I’m here to help Jay handle Custer’s paintings, for however long it takes.”

  “That’s what I heard in town. Ah, that man Custer.”
Elena shook her head. “Always causing trouble when he wasn’t painting.”

  “Do you remember Custer?”

  “I was a girl, fourteen, and I made sure never to be alone in the same room with him after Virginia—Mrs. Vermilion—died. It was a relief when Custer left. He was always after Ms. Neumann, even though he knew she was engaged to JD.”

  “That was probably a lot of the attraction,” Sara said drily. “From what I’ve learned, Custer was a court jester and world-class womanizer who resented the hand that fed him. And he never had a chance with Liza. That woman is all about money.”

  Elena gave her a sideways look. “You learn very quick.”

  “Where I come from, not learning fast meant getting stepped on twice by a dairy cow.”

  “Those cows,” Elena said, making a face, “always waiting for a chance with that hard, smelly tail. I remember when I milked our cow as a girl.”

  “Nasty beasts. But the butter is almost worth it.”

  The mudroom door opened and then slammed on a gust of wind. Henry came into the kitchen a few moments afterward.

  Sara was already on her way back upstairs. Unlike Jay, she didn’t have years of fond memories to make nanny lectures go down more easily.

  She opened the first carton she put her hands on and started pulling out papers. Surprisingly, some of what she had been thinking of as the Solvang cartons had papers mentioning Custer. She opened all six cartons and concentrated on the ones holding Custer’s notes. Soon she was sorting papers on her freshly made bed. The stack that interested her most was the one containing Custer’s thoughts about paintings he had done, wanted to do, and burned. His observations about the ranch went into another pile, his commentaries on people and politics made a third pile, and the rest went into a mound that she didn’t know how to sort yet.

  She scrounged in her big purse for paper clips and found enough to secure the most important piles.

  The downstairs phone rang. And rang. And rang.

  Either the ranch didn’t have an answering system or someone had unplugged it. Knowing Jay, she would bet he had gagged the answering machine.

  Wonder how he gets his calls.

  Or if he cares.

  “Probably he does what I do,” she muttered, putting the papers back into a carton. “People who know me use my cell phone. The rest get frustrated.”