Page 59 of River Wild

Cline shook his head. “I had other things on my mind.”

“Let’s say the man had just come out of the motel room where you were headed,” the chief said. “Who else had motive to kill your wife’s lover?”

The rancher hung his head. “I don’t know. Maybe someone Brock Sherwood owed money to. When I asked around about him down in Wyoming, I found out that he owes everyone and was about to have his pickup repossessed.”

“Little chance of anyone collecting the money they’re owed if the man is dead,” the cop pointed out as he rose. “We’re going to be talking to your wife, but in the meantime, you’ll be a guest of our Miles City jail. You don’t have any trouble with that, do you, sheriff?”

“Just one thing,” Stuart said. “Mr. Cline, would you mind removing your shirt?”

CHAPTER TWENTY

STUARTWASEVENmore discouraged as he watched the chief of police lead Dickie Cline away. There had been sign of a burn on his shoulder. Nor was there any sign of an old wound on his left leg. He’d been the last man on Bailey’s list, and Stuart had struck out.

It had seemed simple since she had wounded the man. Even after twelve years, there should have at least been a scar. He couldn’t understand why he hadn’t found Bailey’s attacker and Willow’s murderer.

Most ranchers had scars because of a lifestyle that exposed them to dangerous situations. A horse putting them into barbed wire or dumping them onto the rocky ground. Using equipment that maimed. Or growing up trying to ride the wildest horses and bulls.

Stuart had found injuries, but none that corresponded to those Bailey had left on the man. Certainly not a brand in the shape of a small horseshoe. It had seemed so easy. Too easy. What he hadn’t realized until he’d done a little research was that in order for the brand to be permanent, the hot branding iron had to be pushed down hard for three to five seconds so it burned through the first two layers of skin and grazed the third.

He doubted Bailey had been able to hold the iron on her attacker that long. Depending on what the attacker had done after being burned with the iron, he could have known what to use on it to make the scarring less noticeable too. Otherwise, after twelve years, there might not even be a scar.

Like the others he’d checked, Cline didn’t have a brand on his shoulder. Like the others, he had scars, but none Stuart could definitely say were from a knife wound, since clearly the wounds hadn’t killed the man.

On top of that, the crime lab had been unable to obtain any fingerprints from Bailey’s door handle or the horseshoe wrapped in the bloody towel. Nor was it a surprise that the blood on the towel matched Willow Branson’s.

Stuart realized that the only man he hadn’t checked for a shoulder tattoo was Earl Hall. The condition the man had been in when he’d stopped by his house had led him to believe that the man couldn’t have killed Willow. But maybe that was what Hall had wanted him to believe.

He told himself he’d go back out there tomorrow. Tonight, he just wanted to go home. All his insecurities about not being able to handle this job taunted him. He was no closer to finding the killer who, if the bloody towel and horseshoe were any indication, was coming for Bailey soon.

Stuart hated what he’d see in Bailey’s face when he told her the news.

BAILEYHADSEENright away that the sheriff had had a rough day. She knew the feeling. She’d been sick for a few hours, but was feeling better. She could tell that Stuart had hoped Dickie Cline was the man—especially after he’d been seen coming out of his dead wife’s lover’s motel room.

“It wasn’t him,” he said as he took the beer Bailey offered him and joined her on the couch.

“But the crime team found evidence left in the outbuilding, right?”

He nodded. “They think there’s a chance they might get lucky and find some fingerprints or DNA at the site. Hopefully enough to tie the man to Willow Branson and her murder. We just won’t know for a while. How are you doing?” he asked, studying her. She knew she was still a little pale after heaving her guts out.

“Better. I went out and talked to Norma. She insisted I have coffee and one of her muffins straight from the oven so she could drug me.”

“What?” he demanded, looking upset.

“Eye drops in my coffee. Made me sicker than a dog, but the good news is that she did see someone put a bundle into my SUV the night before. She swears it was Annette Cline.”

Stuart shook his head. “Do you believe her?”

“I do, and yet she also said she believed me that I didn’t want anything to do with her husband. I suspect that was a lie. Otherwise, why drug me?”

He swore. “I always suspected there was something amiss under all that sweetness, you know?”

“I do. I should have been smarter about eating or drinking anything at her house. She was once questioned for trying to poison her first husband,” Bailey said. “It’s all in my book.” She saw his expression change and wished she hadn’t mentioned the book.

“I didn’t realize that she’d been married before,” was all Stuart said about it though. “Annette Cline? Norma’s sure?”

Bailey shrugged. “Don’t forget, she drugged me. She could have been lying. Annette was having an affair. Norma, in all her righteousness, might have wanted to get her into trouble because Annette was doing something she shouldn’t, sleeping with a man who wasn’t her husband. Who knows what Norma would have done if she really believed I was messing around with her husband?”

“I pity anyone who was after Ralph,” the sheriff said. “He took Willow’s death hard. He might have been the one plying her with Norma’s peanut butter fudge.”

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