Until Dark - Mariah Stewart [79]
“We’d thought of that,” she admitted, “but the watch is perfectly clean of dirt and tarnish. And it’s still running.”
“See, like I said, someone had themselves a souvenir.”
“Be that as it may, Sheriff, how did that souvenir end up under the body of one of our victims on the opposite side of the country?” Adam asked.
Gamble shook his head. “Now, you’ve got me there. How do you think it got there?”
“We thought perhaps if we looked over some of the statements from the old case, spoke with some of the witnesses. Maybe someone who was living at my aunt’s ranch at the time . . .”
“Well, I’m happy to offer you whatever help you need.” Though I don’t see what good it will do or what you think you’re going to find, he could have added. “Where do you want to start?”
“I guess we’d like to read through the file, maybe we’ll get some ideas,” Kendra told him.
“And we’re going to want to visit with Kendra’s aunt. Kendra hasn’t been out here since the trial and doesn’t remember how to get to her ranch.” Adam took off his jacket and hung it over the back of his chair. “Maybe you know where it is.”
Sheriff Gamble put his mug down on the table and stared at Kendra for a long minute.
“I guess this means you don’t know.”
“Know what?”
“Sierra Smith died almost five years ago.”
Kendra’s jaw dropped.
“How?”
“Her body was found out in a gully about eight miles from her ranch. Looked like she’d taken a bad fall from the rocks, cracked her head, broke her neck, on one of the rocks below.”
“Oh, my God. I had no idea,” Kendra whispered.
“I’m sorry, I thought you’d have known. Being her niece and her not having any other living relatives.”
“There was no way we would have known,” Kendra told him. “I mean, there wasn’t anyone who’d have known to get in touch with us.”
“And she was alone when this happened?” Adam asked.
“Yes. Apparently she’d been in the habit of taking long walks into the hills early in the mornings, but she was usually back by eight or nine o’clock. When eleven rolled around and she still hadn’t returned, some of her friends from the ranch went looking for her. She was already dead when they found her.”
“Then the ranch has been sold?”
“No, no, she left the ranch to several of the people she’d been living with. Three or four women friends who’d been out there with her for a long time. She’d set it up somehow with her lawyer. She had some money that she left to them to pay the taxes and the upkeep on the property.”
“Who was her lawyer, do you know?”
“Not offhand, but I can find out for you.” He turned back to Kendra. “I’m really sorry, Ms. Smith, for not being a little more delicate.”
“That’s all right. You wouldn’t have known. Can you give us directions to the ranch? It’s been so many years, I’d never find it.”
“Sure. I can draw you a map, if you like.” Gamble patted his pockets, looking for a pen.
“What happened to the other boy?” Kendra asked as the sheriff began to draw his map. “The third boy, the one they found in the car with Webster?”
“Oh, Chris Moss?” Gamble looked up from his sketch. “The last I heard he was still in that institution up around Benson. Why?”
“He’s one of the people we want to speak with,” Adam told him. And one other, but that conversation can wait.
“Well, I don’t know that that’s going to be possible. Last I heard, he still wasn’t talking. He hasn’t, far as I know, since this thing happened. Nothing but babble, anyway. But you can ask his mother. She’s one of the ones your aunt left the ranch to.” Sheriff Gamble handed his map to Adam and, pointing to the files, asked, “Now, which box would you like to start with?”
It was almost two in the morning when Kendra stretched out on the bed in the motel where the sheriff had thoughtfully arranged for rooms for her and Adam for the night. Exhausted from the trip and overcome with more emotions than she could deal with, she was grateful for an opportunity to sort it all out. Adam and the sheriff had both walked her to her door, and while she would have been grateful for Adam’s company, she could not very well have invited him