was shot,” Abner said. “A thirty-eight bullet through the heart at close range. At least you can go forward knowing he didn’t suffer.”
Stella’s jaw tightened, holding back a cry of rage. Whoever had pulled that trigger was going to pay. “Who did it?” she demanded. “Who murdered my brother?”
“It was Will Tyler.”
“Will Tyler.” Stella uttered the name like a curse. Of all the families in Blanco County, she hated the Tylers most. It was as if they held themselves above ordinary people, like damned royalty. And now, she had even more reason to hate them. The head of the clan had murdered her darling Nicky.
“Tyler claimed it was self-defense,” the sheriff said. “According to him, his pickup blew a tire. While he was outside the truck, the motorcycle came up the road and pulled off. The rider had a helmet on, visor down, and he was packing a pistol. Tyler assumed he was the biker who’d robbed the convenience store. He drew his thirty-eight and ordered the man to drop his gun. Your brother did, but then he pulled a knife. That was when Tyler shot him. He swore he didn’t know it was Nick, not till we showed up and took the helmet off.”
“But Tyler did admit to shooting Nicky.”
Abner nodded. “No doubt about that.”
“And you believe his story?” Stella felt the anger boiling up in her. She glared at the sheriff, her eyes narrowing to catlike slits.
“No reason not to. Nick’s gun was on the ground. The knife was still in his hand. And Tyler said he’d had his little girl in the truck. Protecting her would’ve made his trigger finger extra jumpy.”
“So you haven’t arrested him?”
“He hasn’t been charged. There’ll be an inquest. But unless some new bit of evidence turns up—”
“I see.” Stella could imagine, now, what had happened. Nicky had been told to look for a dark blue pickup. On the way he’d spotted Will Tyler’s dark vehicle with a flat tire and assumed it was his buyer. He’d stopped to make contact, and Tyler had drawn his pistol. When poor Nicky panicked, Tyler had killed him.
And the Tylers, every last one of them, were going to pay.
Stella’s hand flashed across the table and seized the sheriff’s wrist. Her red-lacquered nails dug into his flesh.
“Listen to me, Abner,” she hissed. “I know you want to keep your job. You may not have broken the law, but you’ve skated the edge a few times, and I know enough to hurt you. I want Will Tyler prosecuted, hear? If you can’t find a reason to bring him in, invent one. Plant evidence if you have to—whatever it takes. The bastard murdered my brother. He’s going to pay—in blood!”
* * *
It was barely dawn when Will gave up on sleep. Gritty-eyed and restless, he dragged on his clothes, started the coffeemaker in the kitchen, and wandered out onto the front porch of the rambling stone ranch house. It was still dark, the air chilly, the clouds tinged with pewter above the rolling prairie to the east. The high escarpment, which backed the ranch on the west, lay deep in shadow, its craggy buttes and turrets still awaiting the first touch of light.
The windmill next to the barn creaked as it turned in the faint breeze. There was no other sound at this hour, not even the chorus of birdcalls that would signal the start of a new day. Everything was quiet. Too damned quiet, Will thought. He wanted to shatter the silence with the foulest curses his mouth could form. But it wouldn’t help him feel any better. And it sure as hell wouldn’t change what had happened last night.
His black pickup was parked next to the porch, where he’d left it, with the ruined tire in the bed and the spare on the right front wheel. By the time he’d finished being fingerprinted, checked for gunshot residue, and grilled by Abner Sweeney, it had been almost midnight. After the lawmen had left, he’d changed the tire and driven home to a silent house, with nobody awake to meet him.
Drawn by the smell of fresh coffee, he returned to the kitchen, poured himself a cup, and took it back outside. As he stood at the porch rail, sipping and trying to focus his thoughts, a voice from behind startled him.
“Say, Will, that coffee smells mighty good. I could use a cup, myself.”
Jasper Platt, the Rimrock’s retired foreman, had come up onto the porch in Will’s absence. He sat