Luck of the draw, p.30
Luck of the Draw,
p.30
More and more people were moving in, the valley changing before his eyes. He wasn’t sure he liked change and had to laugh. He was starting to sound like his father, rest his soul.
He studied the flashing lights for a moment before curiosity got the better of him. Spurring his horse in that direction, he rode to the far end of the ranch where civilization encroached.
A combination of law enforcement and construction workers had gathered at the far end of the pond. A wrecker was pulling something from the water. Shade heard the wrecker motor roar to life, saw the cable tighten and hum as it began dragging a large moss-covered shape out of the water.
The day seemed to grow darker and cooler as Shade recognized the shape as it broke the surface. An eerie silence fell over the pond as his pulse quickened. Weeds clung to the slimed-over surface of the vehicle, and discolored water poured out onto the ground.
He felt as if he’d been hit in the chest with a sledgehammer. He knew that car.
* * *
I NEVER THOUGHT this day would ever come, though I would have preferred that someone found me when I was still alive.
Well, at least everyone is talking about me again. I thought they’d all forgotten me. It’s been a while since the name Ariel Matheson caused a stir in Whitefish. But it is about to.
I’m sure a lot of people thought they’d never hear from me again. They should have been so lucky. Little did most of them know how close I’ve been all these years. And now I’m about to make national news thanks to being the daughter of my illustrious father, the crooked politician. Otherwise, finding the body of a girl who disappeared the night of her high school graduation party over ten years ago would barely get a mention.
So I should be grateful. Thanks, Dad. Funny how things work out. Or don’t, in my case, since the one person I hated the most our senior year in high school will be in charge of finding my murderer. Sheriff Elizabeth “Lizzy” Conners. Now there’s irony for you.
Now it’s up to her to find out whom I tormented enough to make them want me dead. A lover? A friend? A classmate I bullied? That should keep Lizzy busy.
I think I’m going to enjoy this. Much more than I did the night I saw her kiss my former boyfriend Shade Sterling at the party. The same night my killer pushed me into the pond.
Little Lizzy should be very careful though. I’d hate for anything bad to happen to her before she can discover the truth. After all, there’s a killer out there who’s a lot closer than little Lizzy knows.
* * *
LIZZY FROZE WHEN she saw the car being pulled out of the pond. Memories assaulted her, taking her back to the many hours she’d spent riding shotgun in that once baby blue SUV that Ariel’s father had ordered special for her in her favorite color. It had been an early graduation present. The stereo was always cranked up to a deafening volume while Ariel talked over it a mile a minute and drove as if she owned the road. In this state, at least, she had since her father had been the state attorney general—until his arrest.
Not that it often required her father taking care of her tickets. Usually all Ariel had to do was bat her baby blues, twist a lock of her long blond hair and purse those full bow-shaped lips. With that face, she’d breezed through life, laughing at how easy it was to get her grades changed or talk a cop out of writing her a ticket or keep her friends in line and her enemies running scared.
Ariel grew up used to getting everything she wanted and getting out of trouble, guilty or not. It was why some referred to her as Teflon. Nothing stuck to her no matter what she did. At the same time, there was something about her, a shiny brightness that drew people to her and made them want to be her—at the same time they dreaded her. Lizzy knew that better than anyone.
“Sheriff?”
She blinked and pulled her gaze away from the water streaming from the SUV to look at the officer who’d approached.
“Remains?” she asked and cleared her throat. “I’m sorry, you said there are remains in the car?”
The officer nodded. “Hard to say how long the car has been in the water. Long enough for a body to be little more than bones.”
She had a pretty good idea of how long the car and body had been in the pond. No one had seen or heard from Ariel Matheson since she drove away from her high school graduation.
“We called in the license plate,” the officer said.
“QueenB,” she said. “I recognize the car. It and the driver have been missing for over ten years.”
“No kidding?” He checked his notes. “Ariel Matheson.” He frowned. “Related to the former state attorney general?”
She nodded and looked again at the car. “His daughter.” His only child, which explained a lot. Lizzy thought about the day Ariel got the car.
* * *
“GET OVER HERE,” Ariel had called laughing. “You aren’t going to believe this. Hurry. Tell me I don’t have my daddy wrapped around my little finger.” She’d hung up before Lizzy could ask what it was this time.
Having been summoned, she’d ridden her bike the few blocks to Ariel’s house. She slowed as she saw the bright baby blue SUV sitting in the drive, an even brighter huge red ribbon balanced on top.
She’d been the first person to ride in the car, something Ariel never let her forget. “Being my friend comes with benefits. Remember that.”
* * *
BEING ARIEL’S FRIEND also came at a price. Ariel would sling an arm over her as they walked down the hall and smile at her. Lizzy had basked in that ray of brilliant light at first. She’d felt special being singled out. She was a part of the in-group for the first time.
Ariel had latched onto her the moment she walked through the doors of Progressive, the small private high school on the edge of town. The school offered more individual attention with smaller classes and a more imaginative curriculum. Lizzy had found it very different from the public high school—there were only thirteen in her graduating class.
On Lizzy’s very first day, Ariel had insisted she eat with her and her friends. Soon, Ariel was telling her that they would be best friends forever. Ariel used to say it like a promise. Or a threat of what would happen if Lizzy pulled away.
The heavy equipment operator had wiped the slime off the driver’s side window when he’d first uncovered the SUV so he could see inside. She moved to peer in now. She hadn’t seen Ariel or the car since their high school graduation party ten years ago. Yellow polypropylene rope was tied to the steering wheel on both sides. A pile of bones, among what appeared to be what was left of her clothing, lay in the driver’s seat, the seat belt still fastened.
Feeling sick to her stomach, Lizzy stepped back and cleared her throat again. “We’re going to need assistance keeping the area closed off,” she told the city cop. Word would get out soon—if it wasn’t already, she thought, looking up to see cars driving slowly past, drivers gawking.
She made the call to the state Division of Criminal Investigation. DCI would collect evidence at the scene to assist in her investigation. The SUV would be transported to the crime lab in Missoula. But crime scene tape needed to go up until the investigators could arrive and search the area and that would have to be done by local law enforcement.
Not that it would stop people from driving by, staring at the pond and speculating. Locals had been wondering for ten years about Ariel Matheson’s disappearance. Now they really would have something to talk about.
As the cop walked away, Lizzy recognized the reporter making a beeline toward her.
“Interesting timing,” Brad Davis said as he joined her.
“Pardon?” she asked, wondering how he’d gotten in here. Davis had always been pushy even back in grade school when he’d taken her glue stick without asking. He’d ended up at Progressive as well, where he’d been the editor of their school paper and had later gone into journalism after graduating from the University of Montana in Missoula. He’d worked for a variety of papers before starting his own here in the Flathead Valley.
“Your first day on the job. The high school reunion this weekend,” he said, looking over at her as if to see if she was kidding. “Interesting timing, get it?”
She got it.
“So you think she’s been here since the graduation party at my house? Wow. She didn’t get very far after the party, did she? This is all anyone will be talking about at the reunion,” Brad went on, enjoying this way too much. “But then again Ariel would have loved it. She couldn’t stand not being the center of attention, as you might recall.” He scratched his head with the corner of the notebook in his hand. “But she wasn’t the first one of our class to die. Remember Whitney Clark?”
She did. Whitney had been the first person to befriend her when she’d started her senior year at Progressive. But Whitney had died so soon after that the friendship had been short-lived.
“I guess I don’t have to remind you that the driver who killed her in that hit-and-run accident was never caught. I hope you do better with this one.” Brad took a breath and then said, “So what have you got for me?” as he motioned to the notebook and pen he held.
She’d noticed as he was approaching that he had a camera slung around his neck, leaving her little doubt that he’d been taking photos. Page one news. Missing daughter of former ousted state attorney general found in pond ten years after disappearance.
“You know as much as I do at this point,” she said. “Probably more.” She would find out who’d let him in and give them hell.
“Congrats, by the way, on your successful run for sheriff.”
“Your paper didn’t back me. You backed one of my now deputies, I believe. Ace Turner.”
“The publisher is a dick, but you know that,” he said, laughing again. “I bet on the wrong horse, so to speak. Hope you won’t hold it against me.”
She gave him her best smile. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”
His smile faltered. “Seriously, I like a good working relationship with law enforcement.”
“Yes, I’m aware of your...relationship with former undersheriff Ward Farnsworth.”
Brad blanched. “Never saw that coming, although it does make good copy. Ward’s trial for his involvement in the former sheriff’s hit-and-run though is going to be preempted for this. Ariel Matheson is news. How do you think she ended up in the pond?”
She sighed and walked away. Not that she had anything against the media. She believed in the free press. She just didn’t like Brad.
“You aren’t going to use our past as a wedge between us, are you?” he called after her. “Lizzy—”
“That’s Sheriff Conners,” she called over her shoulder. “And if you don’t get out of my crime scene, I’m going to have you arrested.” She motioned to one of the officers to see Brad off the premises.
* * *
DEPUTY JOHN “ACE” TURNER finished helping put crime scene tape around the area as the SUV was being loaded onto the flatbed trailer to take it down to the crime lab in Missoula. He wandered over to the vehicle as it was being strapped down and climbed up on the trailer to look inside.
He felt a small thrill rocket through him when he saw the yellow ski rope tied to the steering wheel. Murder. He would have given anything at that moment to be sheriff. He’d run for the job but the county had voted in a woman. A young woman with less experience than he had. It made no sense. He would have sworn that the election was rigged.
But he knew that the reason he’d lost was because of retiring sheriff Sid Anderson. The man had put his support behind his favorite—Lizzy Conners. Sid had completely overlooked Ace and gone with his neighbor girl. Ace didn’t think he would ever get over that. Sid had clearly lost his marbles. Seriously, maybe his hit-and-run accident had knocked something loose upstairs.
Whatever the reason, Lizzy got the job and this murder—and on her first day as sheriff. It was so unfair. There were so few murders in this part of Montana and this one was one that would get a lot of press. A young woman tied to her steering wheel so she would drown slowly after her SUV was pushed into the pond. Brutal way to die.
Add to that the scandal surrounding her father who was still doing time in prison in Deer Lodge? It was the kind of murder he could sink his teeth into. The kind that would make a name for a man like him who had higher aspirations than just being a deputy sheriff.
Ace considered who might have done it. What type of mind came up with this particular way of snuffing someone out, he wondered as he jumped down. The trailer began to pull away. He’d seen enough. The pile of bones and clothing in the driver’s seat. What was left of the victim. Grisly stuff.
He would have given his eyeteeth to even be involved in this case, but he knew Lizzy would keep him on the periphery. She wouldn’t let him near the important stuff. Hell, she had him putting up crime scene tape. Any idiot could do that.
As he headed for his patrol SUV, he told himself that he would get his chance. He had to believe that. In the meantime, he’d find out everything he could about the deceased—behind the sheriff’s back.
Don’t miss
Just His Luck by B.J. Daniels,
available September 2019 wherever
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Copyright © 2019 by Barbara Heinlein
ISBN-13: 9781488098932
Luck of the Draw
Copyright © 2019 by Barbara Heinlein
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B.J. Daniels, Luck of the Draw
