Rita Herron - Warrior Son

The scent of cinnamon wafted toward Roan, making his mouth water.

The short, chubby lady wiped her hands on her apron as she invited him in. She’d wound a bandana around her chin-length brown curls and flour dusted her blouse and apron. Her brown eyes were so warm and loving that Roan couldn’t help but envy the McCullens. Although alarm tinged them at the sight of him. “Deputy Whitefeather, Is something wrong? Did you hear from Maddox?”

“Maddox is fine,” Roan assured her. “I spoke to him earlier today. He has a lead on Stan Romley.”

Relief softened her face. “Thank goodness. Maybe they’ll lock him up, and my boys can get back to work here on the ranch where they belong.”

Her boys. She said it with such affection that if he’d ever considered the possibility of her doing something to hurt the family, that thought vanished like dust in the wind.

“May I come in? I’d like to ask you some questions.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Something is wrong. Something you don’t want to say.”

Roan jammed his hands in his pockets. She was damned intuitive. “I’m just trying to help Maddox identify the arsonist.”

She nodded, although she scrutinized his face as if she didn’t quite believe him. Still, she waved him in. “You want some tea or coffee?”

“Coffee would be good,” he said. Maybe it would put them both at ease if he at least acted like this was informal, not a hunting expedition. Although, if she knew her boss and family friend had been murdered, he had a feeling she would want to help.

She gestured toward the den where a fire crackled in the fireplace, and she disappeared into the kitchen while he surveyed the room. A family picture of Joe and his three sons hung on one wall—the boys were teenagers then. A bookshelf held other pictures, a couple of Joe and the woman who must have been his wife, Grace. A third one showed Grace holding a baby in her arms with two toddlers beside her—Ray had to be the baby, Maddox and Brett the toddlers.

How would she have reacted if she’d known that Joe had another son at that time? Roan was probably just a few months older than Maddox.

His hand stroked his wallet where he kept a picture of his mother. There had been no father in the picture because she’d chosen not to tell Joe about him. What would Joe have done if he’d known? Would he have offered to marry Roan’s mother?

Would he have grown up a McCullen and lived on a ranch like this?

A wave of disappointment hit him, but he tamped it back. No use wondering. It hadn’t happened.

Footsteps sounded, and Mama Mary waddled in carrying a tray with a coffee craft, two mugs and a plate of cinnamon rolls. She set them on the coffee table, handed him a plate with a cinnamon roll on it, then served them both a mug and offered cream and sugar.

“Black is fine,” he said as he cradled the warm mug in his hand. Even the coffee cups had an M on them for McCullen, another reminder that if his mother had married Joe, that would have been his last name, too.

Mama Mary studied him with a frown. “All right, what’s really going on, Deputy? Maddox is after Romley and we know that he worked for Boyle Gates, the man Maddox put away for cattle rustling. I’m aware you all looked into his cousin Bennett. Do you have new information?”

He sipped his coffee, choosing his words carefully. “We’re still hoping that Romley will give us a confession regarding the fires.”

“So why are you here?”

Roan nodded. “The last few months Joe was sick, Dr. Cumberland came often to check on him?”

She nodded, then stirred sugar into her coffee. “Almost every day. He and Joe went way back. He even delivered Joe’s boys.”

Except for him. And Bobby. But they obviously didn’t count. “Joe and Boyle Gates had trouble?”

Mama Mary sighed. “Well, I guess you could say that. Boyle tried to get Joe to sell some of his land to him. He wasn’t happy at all when Joe refused.”

“Did Gates visit Joe while he was sick?”

Mama Mary nodded. “A couple of times. I couldn’t believe he kept persisting. He must have thought that Joe was weak and would give in, but Joe was adamant that his ranch belonged to the McCullens and didn’t intend to let any of it go.”

Gates would have had to have administered the poison more than twice for it to show up in the tox screen. Maybe he hired someone to sneak it into Joe’s food or drink?

“How about other visitors?”

“Well, a few of the hands dropped by. The foreman and Joe were close. He stopped in at least once a week.”

“You said they were close? Did he have any trouble with Joe?”

“No, Joe was always good to him. They were more like brothers than employee-employer.” She made a clicking sound with her teeth. “Why are you asking about Mr. Joe’s visitors?”

“I’m trying to get the full picture of anyone involved with the ranch or Joe. It’s possible Gates paid someone other than Romley to sabotage the ranch.”

She chewed on her bottom lip and looked away. “Mr. Brett already checked out the hands. Romley turned out to be dirty, and Maddox found out he was working with another hand named Hardwick. They were both on Gates’s payroll.”

“What about visitors outside the ranch? Other than Dr. Cumberland, who came to see Joe while he was sick?”

She set her coffee on the tray and rubbed at her knee as if it hurt. “Barbara stopped by a few times, always when Maddox wasn’t around. Once I heard her up there crying over him. I tried to stay out of the way when she was here. She didn’t much care for me.”

“She was bitter,” Roan said. “Did she bring Joe any gifts or food when she visited?”

Mama Mary’s face crinkled as she scrunched her nose in thought. “Sometimes she brought him cookies. Said they were his favorites, that she made them for him the first time they met.”

“Did Joe eat them?”

“One or two here and there. To tell you the truth, he wasn’t into sweets that much. He was a meat and potato man.”

Still, she could have poisoned the cookies.

“What about Bobby? Did he visit Joe?”

She scoffed. “That boy was like vinegar, sour and bitter as they get. He came some, but I stayed out of his way. He upset Mr. Joe. Sometimes I could hear them shouting all the way in the kitchen.” She made a sound of disapproval. “When Joe took sick, you’d have thought Bobby would have softened and been nicer. But one night I heard him asking Joe when he was going to tell the other boys about him. He was always demanding money, too.”

Roan’s pulse jumped. “What about Joe’s will? Did Bobby know he was included?”

“Joe hinted that he’d included him, but more than once he told Bobby if he wanted any part of the McCullen land, he had to get help.”

Roan considered their argument. “Did Joe ever talk about changing his will?”

Mama Mary glanced down at her fingers where she was knotting the apron in her lap. “He did. I told him once he should take that boy out. He was ungrateful and a mean drunk, and he didn’t deserve what Joe had worked so hard for.”

“Did Joe talk to the lawyer about it?”

“I honestly don’t know,” Mama Mary said with a sigh.

There was one way to find out. Roan had to talk to Joe’s lawyer Darren Bush.

* * *

MEGAN SPENT THE rest of the afternoon working on the autopsy of a car crash victim.

By late afternoon, she was so concerned about the doctor that she phoned him to make certain he didn’t need medical attention, but his voice mail kicked in. Her phone buzzed a second later.

Thinking it was him, she quickly snatched up the phone.

“Dr. Lail, this is Deputy North in Laredo. I got the results for that autopsy on Morty Burns.”