Page 69 of A Mile of Ocean

The Duchess Callum sat at the head of the table, chin in the air, glaring at her grandchildren. “I didn’t realize hiring the husband of a cop to do a genealogy project meant that you’d turn into an amateur detective yourself, nosing around in things that are none of your business.”

Cooper’s smile widened. “Eastlyn is a very thorough cop, especially when things don’t add up. As the old saying goes, she’s like a dog with a bone. As for me, I’ve found something I enjoy doing that goes hand in hand with what she does—solving mysteries—like a forensic accountant. For me, genealogy is more than a pie chart or locating your distant cousins. It’s a venue for an amateur detective to flex his skillset.”

“It’s wonderful to have youandyour skillset here,” Savannah said cheerily. “Have a seat. I’ll get you a cup of coffee. Anything to eat? There’s plenty to choose from. How about a delicious cinnamon roll? Dolly makes them fresh every morning.”

“Sure. I’ll have that,” Cooper said, removing his jacket before hanging it on the back of his chair. He removed his laptop and opened his briefcase. “Did I interrupt anything important?”

Beckett cleared his throat. “I think you must hold the key to all the madness we’ve been dealing with here. We’re waiting to hear the rest of this unsettling discovery you’ve made.”

Cooper turned serious. “I don’t know about unsettling. But Mrs. Callum asked me to do a deep genealogy dive into the history of the families. I think she expected a simple pie chart. I developed quite a bit more by utilizing newspaper articles, archives from libraries, and public records.”

“We’re all ears,” Tate prompted.

Savannah set a cup of coffee and a gigantic sweet roll in front of Cooper. “Something tells me you’ll need the caffeine and sugar kick in a few minutes.”

“I’m sure I will,” Cooper uttered before opening his laptop. “Barrett’s background was straightforward. He grew up in a group home in the late 1930s and into the 1940s, known as an orphanage outside Nashville called Brighton Children’s Home, founded in 1892. He never knew his parents. But I found his birth certificate. He was born to Louellen Callum in 1938. His father had died of respiratory failure earlier that year, leaving his mother to try and make ends meet. However, she also developed a severe infection after giving birth to her son and sadly succumbed to her illness when the baby was just six months old. Unable to find any relatives and with nowhere else to go, the authorities put him in institutional care, where he stayed until he joined the Army at seventeen. His military career lasted almost nine years with a stint overseas in Vietnam, training the South Vietnamese Army how to fight. He was awarded several medals for it.”

“He kept talking about seeing California,” Duchess added. “From the moment I met him, all he talked about was seeing the ocean, living near it, and having horses. He was a dreamer.”

“What was your dream?” Trent asked.

Duchess narrowed her eyes on her only grandson. “I wanted something of my very own, something I didn’t have to share with anyone else.”

“Like the Triple C back in Green River,” Tate implied.

“What became of the Triple C Ranch once Noble Colter died?” Cooper interjected. “Barrett worked there for six years until Colter died. He learned everything about ranching from Colter. But you’re the one who inherited the ranch, not Barrett, skipping all blood relatives.”

“Can I help it if Mr. Colter took a liking to me?” Duchess said with a wry smile. “I was quite captivating even back then.”

“That’s the problem,” Trent began. “It’s the very thing that Noble Colter’s nephew, Josiah Bohannon, fears happened. His entire family thinks you conned him into leaving you everything.”

“I’ve heard this bullshit for fifty years,” Duchess said, slamming her fist down on the table. She tossed her napkin to the side and stood up. “I don’t have to sit here and listen to this garbage at my own breakfast table.”

“I thought you’d never heard of him before,” Tate accused. “I can’t keep up with the lies. Sit back down. You’re not going anywhere. We’re not letting you off the hook to sweep this under the rug this time. You’re not evading our questions the way you have previously. We deserve the truth from you. Did you suspect Josiah of causing Mom and Dad’s accident twenty-two years earlier?”

A horrified look crossed her face as she dropped back into the chair.

But Tate didn’t let up. “Mr. Bohannon tried taking you to court but lost several times over the years. Then he tried offering you three million dollars for the ranch. You even signed an agreement saying you’d return the ranch to him and his family but then backed out on the offer. A Stillwater bank was ready to wire you the money until you backed out of the deal. That happened a year before Mom and Dad died. Did a furious relative from Noble Colter’s family tree show up and shoot the tire out on Dad’s truck because you kept stonewalling him? Is that why Granddad was so upset with you when you refused to pursue anything that had to do with the accident? You even refused to discuss his suspicions. But he didn’t really have all the facts then, did he? He didn’t know what we know now. Because you knew who had caused the accident and didn’t want to rockthe boat. You wanted him to stop asking questions about the accident, pursuing it. By then, you had clearly been running the Triple C by long distance, making occasional trips back there under the false pretense of visiting family.”

Trent picked up the cross-examination. “You didn’t want him to discover that you hadn’t returned the ranch to the family. You let him think you had signed the necessary paperwork until he got that certified letter a couple of days before he died. How much blood is on your hands, Duchess? How many more deaths must happen before you do the right thing?”

Duchess got to her feet again. “I’ve done nothing wrong. The courts agreed with me. Noble Colter’s will was deemed valid. It’s not my fault this monster escalated the situation to where we are now. You can’t blame me for any of this. And I demand that you stop these ridiculous accusations immediately. The Bohannon family has been a thorn in my side for too long. I can’t believe what I’m hearing. It sounds like you’re all on their side. They murdered your grandfather.”

Trent looked at Tate. “See? She’s never going to get it. She will never admit that if only she’d followed through twenty-three years earlier and handed over the ranch for three million, Mom and Dad might still be alive.”

“And Grandad would definitely still be with us,” Tate said as she shot daggers toward Duchess.

But the grande dame remained steadfast and marched out of the room without another word, leaving her guests speechless.

Chapter Twenty-One

“Does anyone want to hear what else I discovered about the de Havilands?” Cooper asked before nibbling his cinnamon roll.

“Everyone wants to know,” Birk replied, picking up his coffee cup. “This is fascinating stuff. And here I thought we might never get to the motive behind all this.”

“The background explains a lot about this crazy mess,” Brogan said. “Think about it. You have a motivated man bent on revenge for something that happened in 1974. The guy running around on the ranch wasn’t even born yet, although he’s picked up the fight and taken it to new heights. As he sees it, his father and his family were cheated out of a rightful inheritance, and the courts slapped them back at every turn. I didn’t have that one on my bingo card.”

Cooper pulled a file from his briefcase and laid the documents on the table. “There’s quite a bit more to the story.”

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