Death on Heels (17 page)

Tucker dusted the dirt off the canned goods with a finger. “We won’t starve.”

“We don’t know how old those cans are.”

“They won’t go bad as long as they’re sealed.”

“Says you.” Lacey resisted the idea of eating anything out of those cans, but her stomach growled, betraying her.

“Why don’t we eat the bagels and decide later on the stew or the chili.” Tucker produced from his saddlebag the last bakery sack from Tasso Petrus’s Jeep. “We got poppy, sesame, and a couple of plain. Hard as rocks, but we can fix that. And look what I got!”

He tossed her a big tub of cream cheese and Lacey yelped with relief. They each picked a bagel and Tucker put the remaining two away for later. He split them with one of the dull knives and toasted them in the frying pan. He slathered them with cream cheese and handed her one.

“You spoil me, Cole.”

“Eat your bagel, smart-ass.”

The sesame seed bagel and hot tea from boiled springwater tasted better than it had any right to. As Tucker predicted, Lacey started to feel better and less like snarling at him. The lovely carbohydrates were calming her down, but chocolate would be better, she thought. She promised to have something sinfully chocolate when she made it back to civilization. If she made it back.

The room was getting warm enough for her to take off her coat. She hung it on the back of the chair, but kept her scarf and the bolero jacket. She began the process of unkinking and stretching her limbs. Tucker eyed her, as if he wanted to offer her a back rub but didn’t
quite dare. She handed him a fragrant moist towelette from her tote bag.

“You are a wonder, Chantilly Lace. Is that satchel of yours bottomless? You got any top sirloin in there?” He chuckled and cleaned his face and hands with the towelette. “I almost feel civilized.”

She checked her small mirror and shuddered. Her cheeks were chapped and so were her lips. Her makeup had caked. Dark circles had moved in under her eyes. Her hair was a fright. “I look terrible,” she mumbled.

“No. Beautiful. Best thing I’ve seen in years.”

She shot a dirty look his way and squeezed some cold hand lotion into her hands to smooth her wind-burned face. She combed the tangles out of her hair and felt slightly better. At least, better under the circumstances: on the run with Cole Tucker, her former boyfriend and current least-favorite fugitive from justice. She put a dab of makeup on her chapped nose and almost felt human again.

“That’s not necessary, you know,” Tucker said. “You look great without that stuff.”

“I’m doing this for me. Not you. And I bet you’d like to see my skin if I wasn’t using sunscreen and lotion in this climate. I’d look like an old saddlebag.”

“Why don’t you sit on the sofa, Chantilly. It’s way more comfortable than the chair.”

She cast a glance toward the plaid eyesore of a sofa. “I don’t know what kind of wildlife might be living in it.”

“Bugs? Gets too cold up here for that kind of wildlife. Unless you mean raccoons. It’s just a little dirty. Don’t be afraid.” Tucker smacked the arm and a cloud of dust rose for emphasis. He sat down. More dust rose around him like a halo. “See, it’s fine. Cozy.”

“That’s okay.” Lacey didn’t want to get too close to him.

“Suit yourself.”

Why haven’t they found us yet?
By now, her mother and sister would know about the incident at the courthouse. They would be springing into—into what? Some kind of action. Some inappropriate and mortally embarrassing
kind of action. At the moment, Lacey didn’t know what she was more afraid of: Vic’s reaction, or her mother’s.

Then there would be the media. Camera crews had been staking out the entire courthouse. Did they get footage of their escape, with Lacey slung over Tucker’s shoulder, like a caveman abducting his prehistoric bride? Surely she and Tucker would be filling the local news at six and ten p.m. Lacey almost cried.

She knew if she’d been handed a juicy story like this when she was writing for
The Sagebrush Daily Press
, she’d have sunk her teeth into it and never let go. But now this story had sunk its teeth into her. And those teeth felt a little different from this angle.

“What are you doing?” Tucker asked.

“What do you think I’m doing?”

She pawed through her bag for her notebook and pen. After years of being a reporter, Lacey always thought more clearly when she could jot down notes, even if she never looked at them again. The act of putting words on paper helped sort things out in her head. It was getting dark outside, but the soft light from the stove and the candle lanterns kept the gloom at bay in the cabin. She could see just enough to write.

“Writing a searing exposé? The private life of the notorious outlaw, Cole Younger Tucker?”

“Yeah, right. I’m jotting down notes on who you think might have set you up.”

“Oh.” He settled deeper into the dusty plaid sofa. “But what about my exposé?”

“I still have to write an article for my paper.” What was it supposed to be about? Justice in the West? Cowboy hats? T
HE
L
IFE AND
T
IMES OF
C
OLE
Y
OUNGER
T
UCKER
? It all felt so far away from her now. She put her head in her hands.

“What’s the matter, Chantilly Lace?”

“This is another story where I wind up looking like a fool.”
What kind of reporter gets herself kidnapped by her ex-boyfriend, the murder suspect?
No reporter Lacey Smithsonian knew. Except her.

“Chantilly, if anyone looks like a fool, I do. How do you get yourself arrested for murder when you didn’t do
anything? It’s the height of ridiculousness. I’m the idiot here. You’re just a—a victim of circumstances.”

“Yeah, circumstances. Like you carrying me out of that courthouse thrown over your shoulder like—like an old carpet.”

“Seemed like a good idea at the time.” Tucker looked exhausted.

“I suppose that’s a quote. Maybe I can finesse it later for my editor.” Tucker groaned. Lacey sat up and ran her hands through her hair. “Back to business. When Rae Fowler went missing, Vic was still top cop here. It was one of his unsolved cases. It still bothers him. One of the key suspects was a man named Yancey.”

“Zeke Yancey. He’s part of the furniture at the Little Snake Saloon. Other bars too, I hear.”

“I didn’t think you ever hung out at the Snake.”

“Everybody’s been to the Snake once or twice. Even you’ve been to the Snake, Chantilly.”

“Long time ago. I was on some kind of story. All of a sudden, chairs started flying around the room and a couple of guys were duking it out.” Lacey fiddled with her pen. “Anyway, Vic said Yancey was at the top of his short suspect list. But there was no evidence, no arrests, and Vic had left town by the time Ally and Corazon disappeared. So Zeke Yancey fell off the radar. What do you think of him?”

“Bad news. Never had much to do with Yancey. He always had a reputation as a bully. Loser with women. I can see him pushing around a small woman. But I can’t see
these
women getting within fifty yards of him. Out of his league.”

“What if he didn’t know that? You didn’t know he was a suspect?”

“Working on the ranch doesn’t leave a lot of time to peruse
The Sagebrush Daily Mess
. Since you left Sagebrush, I don’t consider it a daily necessity. And I don’t listen to gossip unless it’s about the price of cattle.” Tucker paused for a moment. “Honestly, Chantilly, I can’t get the ranch out of my mind, how those girls’
things showed up there. I don’t think Zeke’s after the Tuckered Out Ranch.”

“And the two things go together?”

“I think they have to,” Tucker said.

They were back to the land issue. She sipped some tea. She wondered if the tea bags still had any caffeine left in them, and she wished it was something more energizing, like black coffee.

Someone had gone to a lot of trouble to set up Cole Tucker. Someone who had possession of the victims’ personal effects.
A killer, or just a thief?
Who had reached out to Grady Rush? Why the “dope-uty,” not the sheriff or the chief of police? Was it really an anonymous call and Deputy Rush just happened to answer the phone? Or did he, or she, decide the deputy would be their dupe? Why wasn’t there any record of the call? Was Sheriff Rexford in on the frame?

“What do you think of Grady Rush?” she asked.

Tucker raised his face to her. “Good old Grady. Not quite as dumb as a stump. But close.”

“Do you think he set you up?”

“Maybe without knowing it? Of course, maybe I’m underestimating him.”

“Do you think he could have killed those women?”

“Physically, sure. They were little, all of them. You saw how big he is.” Tucker placed his hands on the table.

Lacey searched her bag for Advil. It was the only thing she’d forgotten. “Tell me about the people who want the Tuckered Out Ranch.”

“Dodd Muldoon’s one of them. His offers always come through the Avery brothers. Biggest real estate agents in town.”

“Muldoon?” Muldoon’s name kept popping into the discussion. First Vic and now Tucker. She didn’t like it. “Muldoon has no interest in ranching.”

“That’s what I thought. But he’s got connections. He knows things, and he made an offer.”

Lacey knew Muldoon had bought and sold property around Sagebrush for years. But he was more of a slumlord
than a gentleman rancher. He had flipped his share of shabby houses in the heyday of local real estate, when Sagebrush was booming and there wasn’t enough housing for all the energy and mine workers flooding the town. Muldoon had even tried to get Lacey to rent one of his slum properties, which came without appliances.

“How recently?”

“’Bout a year, year and a half ago.”

What did Muldoon know about energy development? Did he know the victims’ property was buried at Tuckered Out Ranch?

“That doesn’t make sense, unless he had some inside information, a way to turn a quick buck,” Lacey said.

“Maybe he did. And since then, Virgil Avery’s made other offers, including his own, for the ranch. And he’s no rancher, even if he does wear a cowboy hat.”

“Avery? Why do I know that name?” An image of little green and white real estate signs featuring a covered wagon popped into her head.

“They’re from Sagebrush,” Tucker said. “Virgil and Homer Avery. Virgil’s the front man, the smart one. Homer is his brother. He’s a strange one. Makes people uncomfortable.”

“Uncomfortable how?”

“He’s real big, about six-four, weighs two-fifty or more. Doesn’t know his own strength.” Tucker drained his tea and added some more hot water to the cracked cup. “I don’t know whether you’d call Homer slow or special or mentally differently-abled or what, now that you can’t say
retarded
anymore. But then, Homer was never stupid, just very odd. Growing up, he’d just sit and rock back and forth in class. That’s what Belle always said. She was in the same class.”

“Autistic?”

“Something like it.”

“So he was picked on.” Lacey added the last of the hot water to her own tea.

“Yes, he was.” Tucker smiled at some memory. “Until one day Dustin Green, class bully, did something or said something and Homer just hauled off, one fist flying,
then the other, awkward as all get-out, and he just flattened the little bully. Knocked him out cold. Homer didn’t even look back. He kept on walking home. Nobody ever bothered Homer Avery again, that I know of.”

Lacey could picture the scene. The large awkward kid people tormented finally had enough. “Was he punished for it?”

“Nope. Dustin had it coming. Jackass. Got killed in a bar fight when he was eighteen.”

“What happened to Homer?”

“I hear he does all the bookkeeping and accounting for his brother. He always was good with numbers. Not so much with people though. And he makes these mobiles, things hanging from antlers? Strange-looking stuff. Sells them in town at the crafts shop.”

“And Virgil Avery?”

“The capable brother. Older. Always trying to make a buck, mostly in real estate. Thinks he’s slick with the ladies.”

“Sounds a lot like Muldoon.” Lacey stretched out her legs. She was beginning to feel drowsy. It must have been the bagels and all those carbs and the fire finally warming the place. “Is Virgil married?”

“Nope. Came close once, I think. Don’t know what happened.”

“Two bachelor brothers,” Lacey mused. “What would they want with the Tuckered Out?”

“My guess is they’re after the mineral rights. And the water rights. They don’t care about the land on top.”

“And once they’ve got their hands on these rights?”

“Sell them to Mitchell Stanford, for one. Oil and gas man for some of the energy companies. Stanford’s been haunting the Clerk and Recorder’s Office in Sagebrush for months, looking for mineral owners. One particular geologic formation runs right through Yampa County, just brimming with natural gas. The Tuckered Out Ranch sits on part of it.”

“There’s always been drilling in Yampa County.”

“Sure, but they couldn’t reach much of the oil or gas
before. Now they’ve got some kind of new technology and drilling methods where they can reach it. They drill sideways, fracture the rock, all kinds of new stuff. Finally this whole Niobrara Formation is drillable. And Stanford is buying up mineral rights like a drunken sailor on shore leave. He’s leasing hundreds of thousand of acres. But not my land. My great-grandfather homesteaded our land.”

Lacey knew that. For reasons unknown, Tucker’s great-grandfather thought this remote, godforsaken corner of the state was a good place to homestead. And for the same unknown reasons, Tuckers ever since felt their land was some kind of sacred trust. It was in their blood.

But why hadn’t Old Man Tucker gone for something more scenic? Lacey had seen the tiny dugout house Great-grandpa Tucker had carved into the side of a hill overlooking the Yampa River, where he and his wife had raised six children. The family was pretty proud of that collection of logs and stones, impossibly small for a home with all those kids.

“Your great-grandfather was probably an outlaw too, you know that, Cole.”