Page 76 of River Justice

Stuart couldn’t help questioning all of it. He’d known Charlotte Stafford for years. She hadn’t been the kind of woman anyone seemed to get close to—except for Holden McKenna, if the rumors were true. Which they seemed to be, given Brand’s DNA results, he reminded himself.

Arrangements were being made to send Charlotte to Billings to await trial because Powder Crossing wasn’t set up to house a long-term prisoner, and that was where the trial would be held. The judge had moved the venue, afraid that Charlotte couldn’t get a fair trial in her hometown.

He’d accepted that she was guilty—until Elaine walked into his office.

“Charlotte didn’t kill Dixon,” she said. “I did.”

He stared at her. “Let me get this straight.Youkilled Dixon.”

“Yes.”

“Why would Charlotte lie about it?”

Elaine sighed. “I’m not sure, but you know that Birdie Malone is in town looking for her father’s killer. Birdie saved Charlotte from Boyle. Maybe she thought by confessing to the murder, she was paying Birdie back. I don’t know. Who knows what makes Charlotte do what she does?”

She had him there.

“Maybe she also lied to protect me,” Elaine said.

“Protect you? Why would she do that? I didn’t even realize that the two of you were...acquainted, really.”

“We’re friends,” she said with a lift of her chin. “I’ve been trying to get her and Holden back together for years.”

The sheriff shook his head in surprise. “Maybe you’d better sit down and tell me how it is that you killed Dixon. Did Charlotte hire you to do it?”

“No,” she said, frowning. “I just told you. We’re friends.” She took a seat. “Don’t you want to record this?”

“Sure,” he said and turned on the video recorder.

Elaine cleared her throat and began. The sheriff had heard this confession already from Charlotte, only in her story, Charlotte had done what Elaine was now confessing to. What the hell was going on?

“I was at the ranch alone that night when Dixon Malone came by. He wanted to see Holden. I told him he was out of town. He was very agitated, said he had to see him, that he needed money, he was leaving town.”

Stuart waited while she took a breath, reminding him that Elaine would have been in her early twenties when this happened. Her mother, newly widowed, had taken the McKenna Ranch housekeeper job when Elaine was a baby, with Holden providing a home for both of them. Elaine had grown up on the McKenna Ranch and gone away to college, returning to the ranch when her mother got sick and taking over the housekeeping job. She’d been at the ranch ever since.

“Dixon had been drinking.” She hesitated, tears pooling in her eyes. “He said he knew things that Holden would pay to keep quiet. He demanded I give him money, said he needed it to start over, just him and his daughter. When I tried to throw him out...” She looked away. “He got rough. Said he wasn’t leaving without something. He grabbed me. I told him he was hurting me. He backed me into the wall by the fireplace. I picked up the poker and hit him. The first time only stunned him. I hit him harder. He went down hard, striking his head on the hearth, and didn’t get up.” She wiped her tears. “That’s it.”

“Not hardly,” the sheriff said. “What did you do with the body? And how is it that Charlotte told this same story with just a few minor changes? Not to mention your statement that she might have lied to protect you. How about the whole truth here?”

Elaine swallowed. “I panicked when I realized I’d killed him. I...I called Charlotte to tell her what happened and ask for her help. We’d become friends when I tried to get her to forgive Holden and Margie. She and Margie had been such good friends before...” Elaine shrugged.

He knew where this story was going. “She helped you get rid of the body and cover up the crime.”

“Yes.”

“The two of you kept this secret all these years,” the sheriff said. “So what changed?”

“I didn’t know Dixon had a daughter who would someday come looking for the truth.”

“Also, Birdie Malone saved Charlotte the other day,” Stuart said. “I suspect that’s why Charlotte confessed.”

Elaine nodded. “And forced us both to finally face the past.”

“Here’s what I want to know,” the sheriff said. “After you struck Dixon the second time, did you stay there in the room?”

“No, I went outside to make the call to Charlotte. I didn’t want to go back inside by myself, so I walked down the road to meet her. Then we both went back to take care of him.”

“Take care of him?”

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