Read the book: «Killer Cowboy»

Chapter 1

An elephant stood on Cassie Peterson’s head. Boom. Boom. Boom. No, not standing. The darned behemoth was happily dancing on her skull, shooting out excruciating pain with each two-step.

She closed her gaping mouth and frowned at the nasty taste. Apparently, a carnival had also set up camp there and left behind a fuzzy tongue and the lingering taste of apple cider.

She cracked open an eyelid and groaned. No elephant in the bedroom. It was just a hangover from hell. How many glasses of Abe Breckenridge’s famous apple cider had she drunk last night? And what on earth had he spiked it with?

Her headache continued to bang as she rolled over on her back and stared up at the ceiling. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d suffered this kind of a hangover.

She also remembered very little of the last hour of the barn dance she’d thrown the night before. Despite her head pain a small smile curved her lips.

The barn dance had been a rousing success. Nearly everyone who lived in the small town of Bitterroot, Oklahoma, had attended.

Besides the fancy Western wear, some of the attendees had gotten into the Halloween spirit and dressed in costumes. The Croakin’ Frogs band had provided the music and there had been plenty of eating, dancing and drinking.

Oh, she’d danced and drunk way too much. She needed to get out of bed. She had a barn to get cleaned up, but before that she hoped a long, hot shower would make her feel at least halfway human again.

With a groan she rolled out of the bed and padded into the adjoining bathroom. She stared at her reflection in the mirror and another low moan escaped her. Her curly blond hair was in tangles and mascara had moved from her lashes to form dark shadows beneath her eyes.

She looked like she’d been ridden hard and put away wet. “You wish,” she said ruefully to the reflection and then turned her back and started the water for a shower.

Thirty minutes later Cassie headed down the stairs, feeling only marginally more human. Clad in a pair of her favorite jeans and a navy blue sweatshirt, she almost felt ready to face the day, although her head still banged with a fury, and she swore she would never drink apple cider again.

The scent of coffee wafted in the air and she assumed the ranch foreman, Adam Benson, had come in and was waiting for her in the kitchen.

She stepped into the bright, airy room and halted at the sight of Halena Redwing seated at the table with a cup of coffee in hand.

The old Choctaw woman wore a floral caftan from Cassie’s closet and a cowboy hat and smiled with a knowing glint in her eyes. “You look like a woman who had too good a time last night.”

Cassie moved over to the coffeepot and poured herself a cup and then joined Halena at the table. “I’m not sure my good time last night was worth my headache this morning.”

“Greasy eggs, that’s what you need.” Halena got up and walked over to the refrigerator and pulled out the egg carton and a container of bacon fat.

“Ugh, that sounds awful.”

“Greasy eggs and toast are great for a hangover.” She leaned down and pulled out the skillet from a lower cabinet. “And I hope you remember that last night you said it was okay if I crashed out on your sofa and got something out of your closet to wear.”

Cassie nodded and took a sip of her coffee. She vaguely remembered Tony Nakni, her ranch hand, asking her if Halena could spend the night because he and Halena’s granddaughter had to get home early to take care of their precious little baby boy, whom they had left with a babysitter for the first time.

“Whose hat are you wearing?” Cassie asked in an attempt to get her mind off the pounding of her head and the slight nausea that arose from the scent of the melting bacon fat.

“Sawyer’s.” Halena turned from the stove and flashed Cassie a slightly naughty grin. “That boy is handsome as sin but he can’t hold his liquor worth a damn. He passed out on one of the hay bales and I thought he might roll over and crush this hat, so I took it for the night.”

Cassie couldn’t help but smile as she thought of Sawyer Quincy. He was one of twelve cowboys she’d inherited when her aunt Cass had been killed in a tornado and left the huge ranch to Cassie six months before.

“Have any of the other men been in this morning?” she asked.

“Haven’t seen hide nor hair of them.” Halena cracked two eggs into the skillet.

Cassie wasn’t surprised. She’d told the men to take the morning off, knowing that everyone would need some time to recuperate after last night’s festivities. If they all felt as bad as she did, it might take a month for everyone to recuperate.

She sipped her coffee and stared out the window to the big barn in the distance. The party was supposed to be a turning point for her. She’d promised herself that once it was over she’d make a final decision about staying in Bitterroot or selling the ranch and returning to her old life in New York City. But this morning her head was much too fuzzy to even contemplate making a life-changing decision.

“Here you go.” Halena set a plate in front of Cassie.

Cassie stared down at the toast and the two eggs with bright yellow, runny yolks and her stomach threatened to rebel.

“Eat up. Consider it medicine.” Halena sat back down at the table.

“I’m more of an egg white kind of person,” Cassie replied uneasily.

“That’s just the big city in you doing the talking,” Halena scoffed. “A little egg yolk never hurt anyone.”

As Cassie forced herself to eat, Halena regaled her with stories from the night before. “I danced with every one of your cowboys. I even grabbed Dillon Bowie and forced him to two-step with me.”

Cassie’s heart jumped just a little at the mention of Bitterroot’s chief of police. She had a bit of a crush on the dark-haired, gray-eyed man. But he’d given her no indication that he returned the feeling. In any case, it didn’t matter if she was going to sell out and move on.

The back door opened and Adam Benson, the ranch foreman, walked in. “Good morning,” he said and then smiled wryly. “Or is it?”

“She has a hangover, but she’ll be fine once she finishes those eggs,” Halena said.

Adam walked over to the coffeepot, poured himself a cup and then joined the two women at the table. “Heck of a shindig you threw last night.”

“Remind me never again to drink Abe’s special apple cider,” Cassie replied.

“We all think his special ingredient is pure grain alcohol.”

“Whatever it is, it’s deadly,” Cassie replied.

Adam turned to smile at Halena. “You were definitely the belle of the ball.”

“I can’t help it that men desire me and women envy me,” Halena replied and tossed one of her long silver braids over her shoulder. Cassie would have laughed if she wasn’t afraid her head might fall off.

“I’m assuming barn cleanup is on the agenda for the day,” Adam said to Cassie.

She nodded and shoved her half-empty plate aside. “I’ll walk through it this morning and see exactly what needs to be done to put things back to normal.”

Halena got up and filled a large glass of water and then set it before Cassie. “Hydrate,” she commanded.

Cassie smiled at the old woman. “Thanks, Halena.”

“Thanks for what?”

“For taking care of a stupid woman who drank way too much last night.”

“I think everyone drank too much last night,” Adam replied.

Halena stood and took off Sawyer’s cowboy hat. “I’d better get upstairs and change. Tony and Mary should be here anytime to pick me up. Will you see to it that Sawyer gets his hat back?”

“No problem,” Cassie replied. “I was glad to see that the new hires seemed comfortable last night,” she said when the older woman had left the kitchen. Two weeks ago she’d hired three new ranch hands.

“They’re working out great and all the other men like them,” Adam replied. “I was surprised to see some of Humes’s men here last night. I wasn’t aware you were going to invite them.”

“I didn’t.” She paused to gulp down the glass of water and then continued, “They crashed. Thank goodness they didn’t hang around too long.” Raymond Humes owned the ranch next to hers, and his ranch hands were ill-mannered, mean-spirited men who enjoyed wreaking havoc anywhere they went, but especially on the Holiday ranch.

There was plenty of bad blood between her ranch and theirs. However, Raymond had made a generous offer to buy the ranch from her if she decided to sell.

She and Adam chatted for another half an hour and by then Halena had left, and the two of them got up from the table to head down to the barn.

“Halena’s greasy eggs actually worked,” she said as they stepped out the back door. “I’m feeling much better than I did when I first pulled myself out of bed.” She drew in a deep breath of the clean country air and was happy to notice her headache had vanished.

The late-October sun was warm, although a cool breeze rustled through the last of the autumn leaves on the trees. New York’s Central Park would be beautiful this time of year. She shoved the errant thought out of her head. She needed to stay focused on the here and now.

Still, there was beauty here, too. The sky was a gorgeous shade of blue, and the acres of land wore various shades of greens and browns like a patchwork quilt.

“I hope you keep feeling good after you see the condition of the barn,” Adam replied ruefully.

“Oh, I’m expecting a mess,” she assured him.

“One thing is for certain. People will be talking about the party for days to come. They’ll gossip about who danced with whom and whose dress was too short or whose blouse was too tight.”

“Uh-oh, that sounds like they’ll be talking about me,” Cassie said jokingly.

Adam’s dark brown eyes were warm as he grinned. “You looked beautiful last night, as you always do.” He quickly averted his gaze from her.

“Thanks, Adam,” she replied. “Now, let’s go see the damage.”

As they took off walking, Cassie thought about the man next to her. She’d come to the ranch as a city girl, a struggling shop owner, who had dreams of being a famous artist. She hadn’t known anything about cattle or ranches.

It had been Adam who had taken her by the hand and walked her through a learning process. He’d been so patient and kind and she never would have been able to manage running this place without him. She still learned something new from him every day.

He was also very easy on the eyes, with his dark brown hair and strong features. His shoulders were broad, his hips lean, and at times when he looked at her he made her feel like a desirable woman. But having a personal relationship with her ranch foreman wasn’t a particularly good idea, and she just didn’t feel that way about him, not that he’d ever made an advance.

They walked past the stables, and in the distance were the cowboy quarters, or the cowboy motel as they all called it. There were twelve small apartment units and in the back of the building was a large dining/recreation space.

Her aunt Cass Holiday had built an empire here, along with the help of twelve fiercely loyal cowboys. But this had never been Cassie’s dream. She’d been here for almost six months and it still didn’t feel like home.

As they approached the barn entrance she stifled a moan. The remains of the night’s fun were already evident. Plastic cups were strewn around the area, along with paper plates and beer and other alcohol bottles.

“Doesn’t anyone know how to use a trash bin anymore?” she said more to herself than to Adam.

“Hopefully knocking down the bandstand and picking up trash are the only real jobs needed,” Adam replied.

They walked through the large double doors and Cassie’s nose was instantly assaulted by the lingering odors of body sweat, booze and barbecue.

Many of the bales of hay had been transformed into loose hay piles, and the orange and black streamers and Halloween decorations were either on the floor or tilted drunkenly on the walls.

A large tin tub held a few sad apples that bobbed listlessly on the small amount of water that remained, and a red-and-white woman’s blouse hung on the arm of the blow-up skeleton.

“Uh-oh, who went home topless?” Cassie asked.

Adam grinned. “Amanda Wright, although she wasn’t completely topless. She had on a red, white and blue sparkly bra last time I saw her.”

“That must have been after I went to bed.” Cassie leaned down and picked up a couple of beer cans and tossed them into a nearby trash barrel.

“Don’t worry. By tonight we’ll have this place back the way it belongs,” Adam assured her.

She smiled at him. “I’m not worried. Aunt Cass was darned smart when she hired all of you.”

A flash of pain darkened Adam’s eyes. “She gave us all a chance at a new and good life. Most of us would have been dead or in jail by now if it wasn’t for your aunt.”

Cassie knew the story. When her uncle Hank had died of cancer, all the men who had worked on the ranch had walked off, convinced that a fifty-three-year-old widow would never be able to run the big place.

Cass, along with the help of a social worker, had hired on a dozen runaway boys. That had been fifteen years ago and those boys had turned into fine, honorable and hardworking men who had been devoted to Cass.

“She loved all of you very much,” Cassie said softly.

“She was the mother we never had. But now our loyalty is behind you.”

Cassie knew that, and it only made the decision she had to make more difficult. She had no idea about the troubled backgrounds that had brought all the men here, but she knew they had embraced her as their own. The men who had been big Cass’s cowboys had become hers.

She kicked at a pile of hay and frowned as her boot connected with something. “There’s something under all this hay,” she said.

She bent down and grabbed an armful of the hay and gasped as an arm appeared. “Oh, my God, there’s somebody under here.”

Adam quickly joined her and together they moved more of the hay, exposing Sam Kelly, one of the new hires. Cassie stumbled backward in horror.

It was obvious the man wasn’t just dead drunk. He was dead. He lay on his back, his blue eyes unseeing, and a pool of blood surrounded the back of his head.

Shivers shot up her spine and bile rose up in the back of her throat. “Oh, no,” she whispered faintly. Adam grabbed her and quickly guided her out of the barn.

“He’s dead,” she said and heard the beginning of hysteria in her own voice. She gulped in several deep breaths in an effort to calm herself, but it didn’t work.

“Oh, my God, he’s dead. He’s dead, Adam.”

Adam put his arms around her and she leaned weakly against him as tears burned hot at her eyes. How had this happened? Sam had been an affable young man who had instantly fit in with the other men.

What had happened to him? Dear God, who had done this to him?

“Cassie.” Adam smoothed her hair away from her cheek. “We need to go back to the house and call Dillon.”

Still she clung to him, the vision of Sam horrifying her as she thought of the seven skeletons that had recently been discovered beneath the old shed they’d torn down.

Fifteen years ago somebody had killed those seven young men with an ax or a meat cleaver to the backs of their heads, and those crimes had yet to be solved.

Was this the beginning of a new spree of death? Had the killer been inactive for all these years only to become active once again?

She hoped not. Maybe there was something beneath the hay that she hadn’t seen, something sharp and deadly. Maybe Sam had fallen backward and hit his head on that something. But if he’d accidentally fallen, then who had covered his body with hay?

As Adam led her toward the house she could only pray that Sam’s death was something far different than the evil that had taken place here so many years ago.

* * *

Chief of Police Dillon Bowie eased down in his office chair, pulled open his top drawer and grabbed the bottle of aspirin he kept there. He shook two pills out in his hand and chased them down with a swig of cold coffee.

It was his own fault he had a headache. He’d stayed too long at the barn dance, had drunk one too many glasses of whiskey and soda, and had burned with more than a little jealousy as he’d watched Cassie Peterson dance with practically every man in attendance.

Every man except you.

Of course he hadn’t asked her to dance, even though he would have liked to hold her in his arms for just a bit. Since the minute she’d taken over the Holiday ranch, he’d entertained some lusty thoughts about the petite blonde, but they had remained just thoughts without any follow-through.

He leaned back in his chair and took another sip of his coffee. For the moment there was nothing pressing on his desk. The last six months had been a frenzy of crimes that had kept him busy and on edge. But nobody was in danger right now that he knew about, and he looked forward to just having some time to breathe.

While the fifteen-year-old crime that had taken place on the Holiday ranch continued to torment him, he had no leads to follow at the moment.

He finished his coffee and then leaned forward and glanced through the reports that had come in overnight, seeing nothing earth-shattering. Most of the time crime-fighting in Bitterroot wasn’t that challenging. There was an occasional domestic dispute or theft, and speeding down Main Street was a fairly common occurrence.

If things continued to stay quiet then maybe he could get some things done that he’d been putting off...like getting a haircut and doing a little maintenance work around his house.

A knock fell on his door and his dispatcher, Annie O’Brien, stuck her head in. “Just got a call from Adam Benson. They want you out at the Holiday ranch. One of the ranch hands is dead.”

Dillon jumped out of his chair. So much for a minute to breathe. “Did he give you any other details?” he asked as the two of them stepped out of his office.

“Nothing,” Annie replied.

Dillon walked into the squad room, where several of his men were seated at their desks. “Juan, Mike and Ben, we need to get out to the Holiday ranch. One of the cowboys is dead. You all follow me there.”

Minutes later Dillon was in his vehicle with two patrol cars following behind him. What now? As if the mystery of seven dead young men on the ranch wasn’t enough.

It was probably an accidental death with alcohol playing a big part. There had been a lot of people who had imbibed too freely at the barn dance the night before. He’d even thought he might have to arrest Amanda Wright for indecent exposure if her patriotic sparkly bra had followed the way of her blouse.

Cassie must be beside herself. She’d grown so close to all the men who worked for her. She’d certainly been horrified by the discovery of the seven skeletons on the property, as had the entire town.

What had happened on the Holiday ranch all those years ago, and who was responsible for the carnage? It was a question that would haunt Dillon until he had the answer, and he was convinced the answer lay with one of Cassie’s cowboys.

He turned into the entry of the Holiday ranch and hoped that this was nothing more than a tragic accident. He parked close to the back porch of the house and Cassie and Adam walked out the door before he got out of his car.

Cassie looked achingly fragile and the sight of her tightened a ball of tension in his stomach. He left the car and approached the couple.

“He’s in the barn,” Cassie said. “It’s Sam Kelly.” Tears glistened in her bright blue eyes. “We think he was murdered.”

Dillon’s heart fell to the ground. “What makes you think that?”

Adam turned to Cassie. “Why don’t you go back inside the house? I’ll take Dillon down to the barn.”

Cassie looked at Dillon for confirmation. He nodded. “Go ahead. I’ll be in to talk to you later.”

They both watched as Cassie turned and disappeared inside the house. When the back door closed, Adam turned back to Dillon.

“Cassie and I went to the barn earlier to see what kind of cleanup needed to be done after last night. When we found Sam, we came right back to the house. I called Sawyer and he’s standing guard at the door to make sure nobody else enters the barn.”

“Thanks,” Dillon replied. Dammit, there was enough DNA in that barn to keep a lab busy for ten years. And that was only going to make a murder investigation even more difficult.

He and Adam headed to the barn with Dillon’s officers following just behind them. Several of Cassie’s cowboys were gathered around the barn doors, all of them wearing sober expressions and all of them a potential suspect if this was, indeed, a case of murder.

He didn’t even want to think about the fact that everyone who had attended the barn dance would now be a suspect. “Adam will take me in. Everyone else stay out here,” he said.

As the two of them walked into the barn, Dillon immediately spied the man half covered with hay. There was no question that he was dead.

“I need to get Teddy out here,” Dillon said. Dr. Ted Lymon was the medical examiner and there wasn’t much Dillon and his men could do here until Teddy arrived.

He made the call and then stepped closer to the body while Adam hung back. “This is how you found him?” he asked the ranch foreman.

“No. He was completely covered up in hay when we came into the barn. Cassie just happened to kick at the hay mound and realized something...somebody was beneath it.” Adam grimaced. “As soon as we saw it was Sam we went back to the house to call you.”

Dillon sighed. “Round up your men and make sure they’re available for questioning later this afternoon.”

Adam nodded and took the sentence as the dismissal it was meant to be. He turned and left the barn. Once again Dillon looked at the dead man.

Sam Kelly was a local. His parents had died in a car accident several years ago and since then he’d bummed around town doing odd jobs until he’d landed here on the Holiday ranch a couple of weeks ago.

He’d been a friendly young man, easygoing and seemingly without an enemy in the world. Yet somebody had killed him and buried his body with hay.

Dillon fought the impulse to lean down and gently brush the last of the hay off the man’s face. He didn’t dare touch anything until photos had been taken and Ted had done his job.

Whoever had done this had to have known his body would be discovered when the barn was cleaned up. On the portion of Sam’s body that had been uncovered, Dillon saw no other wounds. The blood that had seeped out around the man’s head tightened Dillon’s gut.

Seven skeletons buried under the ground, each one showing deadly trauma to the back of the head. Now this, a man buried under hay with deadly trauma to the back of his head.

The similarities were hard to ignore, and Dillon’s stomach churned with acid. Was it possible a serial killer had been dormant for all these years and now had become active again? Was the murder no more than a drunken brawl turned bad, or was it something far more insidious?