Crime Scene at Cardwell Ranch - B.J. Daniels [64]
"What are you saying, Hud? You can't seriously think your own father was behind it."
"Stacy was being threatened with jail, isn't that what she said? Now she seems to be running scared." Hud glanced over at Dana. "I think she's afraid because she knows the truth about that night."
"You can't believe your father killed the judge."
He sighed. "I don't know what I believe. The judge had Alzheimer's. He was about to be asked to step down from the bench. Unless he had hard evidence against Brick, then the judge wasn't really a threat."
"So then your father had no motive."
"So it would seem," Hud said as he turned off Jack-rabbit Road onto Cameron Bridge Road.
"Maybe the fact that the judge was killed that night was just a coincidence," Dana said.
He wished he could believe that.
Stacy was in between husbands right now and living in the house she was awarded in the divorce settlement from Emery Chambers. The divorce that, according to Lanny, Hud had helped her get.
"It has to be about more than just splitting us up. Who would care enough to go to all that trouble?" Hud said.
"Stacy for one."
"What about Lanny?" He saw Dana shiver. "What?"
"When he heard you were back in town he was very angry."
Hud rubbed his still sore jaw. "I noticed."
He drove a few miles down the river before turning into a graveled yard in front of a large older house. There were no fresh tracks in the snow. No one had been in or out since Dana had stopped by last night.
Through the windows in the garage, Dana could see that Stacy's car was still gone.
"Let's give it a try anyway," Hud said, and opened his door.
Dana followed him up the unshoveled walk and waited while he knocked. Through the trees, he could see an open hole in the ice on the Gallatin River, the water a deep, clear green. The air smelled of fresh snow and cottonwoods.
He knocked again, then turned to see Dana bend to pick up something from the snow beside the front step. A black glove.
"It's one of the cashmere gloves my sister was wearing yesterday when she came to the house."
His mouth went dry. Stacy had come back here after the family meeting, then left again?
He reached for the doorknob. It turned in his hand, the door swinging into the empty living room. He signaled Dana to wait as he moved quickly through the house, weapon drawn. Something about the empty feel of the house made him fear he wasn't going to find Stacy. At least not alive.
Upstairs, the bedroom looked as if a bomb had gone off in it.
"It's clear," he called down to Dana.
"My God," Dana said as she saw the room, the drawers hanging open and empty, clothes hangers on the floor or cocked at an odd angle as if the clothing had been ripped from them.
She moved to the closet and touched one of the dresses that had been left behind. "She's either running scared or someone wants us to believe she is."
He nodded, having already come to the same conclusion. If Stacy was as scared as Dana had said and decided to blow town, she would have grabbed just what she needed. Or left without anything. She wouldn't have tried to take everything. Or would she? Maybe she wasn't planning to ever come back.
"Who are you calling?" Dana asked, sounding worried.
"I'm going to have some deputies search the wooded area behind the house," he said. "Just as a precaution."
Dana nodded, but he saw that she feared the same thing he did. That Stacy had been telling the truth. Her life had been in danger.
While they waited for the deputies to arrive and search the woods around the house, they searched the house again, looking for anything that would give them a clue.
They found nothing.
"Do you want me to take you home?" Hud offered.
Dana shook her head. "Please just take me back to the shop."
"Hilde's working with you all day, right?" Hud asked.
"Yes, I'll be fine. We both have work to do. And maybe Stacy will contact me."
He nodded. "I just don't want you alone. Especially now with your