Nodding, Rhett smiled. “That sounds like a plan, but it will be some time before I move in. I can’t live in a museum. I’ll get the valuables secured and the old furniture placed into storage first.” He looked at Julie. “Will you help me select what I need? I figure this house needs a woman’s touch.”
“I’d love to.” Julie squeezed his hand. “I love shopping. Maybe Dad can fly us to Helena and we can look at some of the stores there.” She glanced around the house. “Or we could look online. You’ll need a ton of things.”
Glad to have Julie at his side, he leaned into her. “I have a few interviews for positions I’ve applied for coming up and I’m sure you do too. I’d love to have this place ready to move into before I start work. It would make life easier.” He frowned. “I can’t stay at your house for much longer. It was meant to be a short stay.”
“I’ll speak to my dad.” Julie frowned. “He’s easier going than you imagine. He just wants the best for me, is all. I figure he likes you.”
“He does like you.” Carter rolled his eyes. “He told me. Now can we stop all this mushy stuff and get back to the tour?”
Laughing, Rhett headed for the door. “Yeah, let’s just hope we don’t run into any problems.”
After taking a tour of the outbuildings and stepping around cowpats and massive puddles, Rhett had seen enough for one day. Both of the leading hands had taken their crews out to work moving cattle or mending fences, so apart from a few people cleaning the stables, the place was deserted. The buildings had been well maintained, the bunkhouses fitted with separate rooms that offered privacy, rather than what he’d envisaged. He noticed a number of women working in a huge cookhouse. “Those women, are they regular or seasonal workers?”
“We have four regular cooks.” Bowman smiled. “We offer our workers four meals a day here. Our running crew is at least a dozen full-time workers. During the busy season, we might employ another ten or more, depending on the workload.”
Rhett scanned the mass of buildings. “Where do you live?”
“In the first house.” Bowman indicated to four separate residences set apart from the main buildings. “The leading hands take the other two and we have one spare.”
As they walked back to Bowman’s office, Rhett took the man to one side. “It seems to me you’re doing a fine job managing the place. Once I get the place fixed up, I’ll be living in the house, but I have no intention of getting in your way. The kitchen in the house needs to be upgraded and I’ll call someone to examine the furnace. If I’m not available to supervise these workers, I’ll need someone in the house with them to make sure nothing goes missing. I’ve noticed valuables spread throughout the house.”
“That’s not a problem.” Bowman nodded slowly. “Just call me when they’re expected and I’ll make sure they’re never left alone. What you might not have noticed is that every door has a key. They’re left in the locks but there is a spare set in the desk in the study. You would need to lock only the kitchen door to isolate the kitchen fitters. The access to the basement is in the mudroom, which is adjacent to the back door, so no problem there either.” He led the way inside his office, opened a drawer in his desk, and took out a set of keys. “These are the house keys. If you want to keep things private from now on, you should lock the house before you leave. The cleaning service isn’t due back again this week, but they will be back next Wednesday. If you want them to clean the house, you will need to leave a key with me.”
Rhett nodded. “I’ll speak to Mr. Cross and hopefully by the time the house requires cleaning again we’ll have the kitchen fitted and a housekeeper to run things. I’m sure he’ll find someone suitable we can trust. He hasn’t let me down yet.”
Seeing Carter’s skeptical view as he turned to walk back to the truck, he walked beside him. “I’ll be happier when I get some of those valuables into storage. There are some beautiful pieces in the house but they’re a temptation for thieves.”
“They’ve been safe so far.” Julie frowned and stared into the distance. “It’s a beautiful place. Let’s hope the person who threatened your parents is long gone.” She indicated toward the office. “Bowman seems okay. He has run the place to expectations. He didn’t act like a threat to you.”
He appreciated Julie’s insight into people and, like her, hadn’t found Bowman deceitful at all. “He’s younger than I expected.” Rhett rubbed his chin. “Cross mentioned doing a regular inventory on the items in the house. It might be a good time to get another. I don’t really want valuables left lying around. The paintings are great, but the entire house needs to be brought up to date. The kitchen is a priority, but I need a family room too and right now there’s no TV.”
“Why not build a vault in the basement? Some of those things might be family heirlooms that you’re not aware of. It would be foolish to sell them without doing the necessary research.” Carter cleared his throat. “As the letter from your pa doesn’t name names, we have no idea who might have been involved. Until you can evaluate the risk of living here, you might want to consider a security alarm and maybe ask Raven if you can have the dog he trained for the woman who died recently? I figure if anyone out here is a threat to you, you’ll need to take all the precautions you can. Seems to me your dad had the same people around him and they didn’t do anything to save him, did they?”
Thirty-One
Black Rock Falls
Rio parked his truck a few houses away from Jade Ellison’s house. It was an old redbrick home, built from the same local materials as many of the original buildings in town. The front yard showed no signs of a garden and only overgrown grass filled the front yard on each side of the walkway. He’d always believed that arriving to interview a suspect without warning was the right course of action. Prewarned usually meant that the suspect had an opportunity to make up a story and have it ready for when they arrived. Some would often get themselves an alibi, and right now, Jade Ellison had no idea they were on their way to speak to her. As her neighbor had informed him that Jade had suffered a breakdown recently, he’d need to tread carefully while interviewing her. There would be a problem if she was mentally unstable and unable to give testimony in court. He’d discussed the questioning with Rowley during the ride to the house.
He slid from behind the wheel and his boots sunk into the wet grass along the edge of the sidewalk. The air had a strange damp smell of forests and leaf mold. It seemed that this area of town had been lucky and none of the houses had been engulfed in floodwater. There had been a few floods since he arrived in Black Rock Falls, and the interior of the houses needed to be completely relined and the stinking mud removed before they were habitable. Nothing seemed to survive the floodwater—it destroyed everything.
They followed a pathway made of cobblestones to the front porch and took the five steps to the front door. They stood with their backs to the wall on each side of the opening before Rio knocked and announced their arrival. It didn’t surprise him when the door opened and a woman stood there brandishing a shotgun. Rio poked his head around the door. “Morning, Jade. You recall me and Deputy Rowley here, don’t you? Why don’t you put down that shotgun? We’d like to have a word with you.”
“What do you want to speak to me about?” Jade waved the shotgun from side to side, but the barrel was pointing down. “I told you when you called, I don’t want to return to the group. Those women are nothing like me. They all look down their noses at me as if I stink or something.”
Nodding, Rio blew out a long sigh. “I’m not asking you to return to the group, but I do need to speak to you about some of the other women.” He eyed the end of the shotgun suspiciously. “Just put down the weapon. I don’t want to take it from you because when I do, you won’t be getting it back.”
“Okay. Fine.” Jade turned away from the front door and then her face came into view as she stepped into the open space. “I put it away.” She leaned out of the door and peered at the neighbor’s house. “You’d better come inside or the woman peeking at me behind her curtains will have spread our conversation all over town before you leave.”
Rio and Rowley followed her along a hallway and into a kitchen. The house held a strong smell of disinfectant. As Rio walked along and peered into the rooms of the small home, he noticed most of the rooms had been scrubbed clean. In the family room, a bucket and rubber gloves sat in the middle of the scrubbed wooden floor. “Are you spring-cleaning?”
“Mold.” Jade marched into the kitchen and indicated to them to sit at the kitchen table. “Every time that darn river overflows, this house gets covered with mold. I spend most of my time making sure it doesn’t take over the entire place.” She dropped reluctantly into a chair and glared at them. “I’m busy, so what exactly do you need to ask me about the women in the self-defense classes?”
“Do you recall a woman by the name of Jan Pierce?” Rowley took out his notebook and thumbed through the pages.
“Yes, I recall her.” Jade leaned back in her chair with a disgusted expression on her face. “She thought she was all that. In the changing rooms she’d boast about having Deputy Raven wrapped around her little finger. She took all his attention.”
Rio leaned back in his seat, surprised by the woman’s hostility. “Why was this a problem for you?”
