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Callie’s body lay sprawled and broken on the rocks below. Lying next to her lifeless hand was an open box of rat poison.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“LORD, I NEVER WOULD’VE FIGURED CALLIE FOR THE ONE DOING that deviltry.” Aaron stood next to Tess, behind the yellow crime scene tape, watching the recovery team hoist the stretcher bearing Callie’s body.
Still in shock, Tess forced herself to reply. “I still can’t believe it. She was like a mother to our family. We loved her, and I thought she loved us. Why would she do those awful things?”
Aaron thrust his hands into his pockets and squinted into the cloudless sky, where a single vulture still soared and circled. “I know a few things,” he said. “Callie never let on to you folks, but she was pissed about Bert’s will. All those years of raising his family and nursing him through cancer, and all he left her was a few thousand in cash. The rest—the whole kit and kaboodle—went to his kids. Can’t say as I blame her for lashing out.”
“But Callie understood—at least I thought s
he did—that the ranch belonged to our mother’s family, and it was to be passed down to her descendants. It was part of the agreement Dad signed with our grandfather when he married her.”
“Well, Callie may have understood it, but she didn’t have to like it.” Aaron fell silent as the stretcher came up over the rim of the wash, with the body on it—an impersonal, lumpy shape, already zipped into a black bag.
Tess had called 9-1-1 after finding the body. The sheriff and his deputies had arrived from Ajo an hour later in their white crime scene van. They’d taped off the area, taken photos, bagged the rat poison, and interviewed everyone at the scene before bringing the remains up. Tess had sent Ruben and the two boys off to finish the chores. Only Aaron had stayed.
Your family owes me. Tess remembered the words on the note Lexie had thrown away. They fit with what Aaron had just told her. But Callie couldn’t have put the note on Lexie’s windshield. She’d been at home all day.
Of course, there were other ways. She could’ve paid someone else do it. Still, for Tess, it was impossible to believe that a sweet, loving woman like Callie could be responsible for the awful things that had happened on the ranch. But the evidence argued otherwise.
“How do you suppose it happened?” Tess asked, thinking out loud.
“Her falling, you mean?” Aaron watched as the body was loaded into the back of the van. “I’m guessing she decided to throw the poison into the arroyo—maybe got too close to the edge in the dark. That’s about the only thing that makes sense—unless she jumped.”
“Either way, it’s hard to believe.”
With their work done, the crime scene team was ready to leave. The sheriff, a middle-aged man with the weary look of someone who’d seen it all, walked over for a few last words with Tess.
“The medical examiner’s report will take a few days—longer if the state lab gets involved,” he said. “I’ll let you know what we find out. Will you be wanting the body when it’s released?”
“Yes. I’ll make arrangements,” Tess said. “Whatever the real story is, she was family. Is it possible to keep this out of the news? I really don’t want reporters and camera crews up here.”
“I can’t control the folks who listen in on the dispatches,” the sheriff said. “But until we know more, I’ll try to keep things quiet. Call me if you find anything else that might help.”
Tess thanked him, took his card, and watched the van drive away. Then, leaving Aaron, she headed back down the road to the house.
Memories swept over her as she walked—Callie making birthday cakes, cutting paper dolls, and reading stories to her sisters; Callie listening to her teenage troubles and hugging her tight when she got the news about Mitch; Callie by their father’s bedside, holding his hand as he died. Warm, laughing, loving Callie.
This couldn’t be real.
But there was no getting around the truth. When it came to the acts of destruction on the ranch, Callie had motive, means, and plenty of opportunity. Even so, Tess couldn’t shake the feeling that something wasn’t right.
She reached the house and crossed the porch—the porch where she and Callie would no longer sit in the lawn chairs with a cold drink while they watched the sunset and talked over the events of the day. She passed into the kitchen where the coffee sat cold on the counter, and no one had even started breakfast—not that anybody, except maybe the boys, would have much appetite.
Standing at the back door, looking out over Callie’s lovingly watered garden, Tess sucked in her tears and prepared to call her sisters.
* * *
When Lexie got the call from Tess, she was in the hospital parking lot, clearing Shane’s personal belongings out of his truck. Except for the pistol and ammo clip in the glove box, the other odds and ends, like his spare keys, sunglasses, and faded baseball cap, along with his boots, clothes, and the things Casey had taken from his locker, would go with him when he went to rehab tomorrow morning. After he left, she would be driving the truck back to the ranch.
Yesterday she’d bought a nylon zipper bag and filled it with several sets of sweatpants, shirts, tees, socks, and underwear, along with a pair of sneakers for Shane to wear in rehab. Seeing to these small needs was becoming routine. It even gave her pleasure. Tomorrow, when they went their separate ways, she would miss being there for him. But she knew that Shane needed to move ahead with the next chapter in his life, and she needed to let him—even if it meant losing him.
She was locking the truck when her phone rang. The connection was a bad one, cutting out Tess’s too-calm voice. Only when Tess ended the call and switched to texting did Lexie get the essence of the message.
Callie is dead. Come home.
Coming.
