Redemption

“Tuck, you can’t put this off. You might be the last person to see him alive—other than the killer.”

“Or Kate LaFond at the café was,” he said, and remembered seeing someone walking down the street that night as he’d driven past in his pickup. The cowboy had been right by the café—if he was the same person. Tucker hadn’t been paying any attention, just anxious to get home before Mary started calling the bar for him.

“You have to call the sheriff and tell him what you know.”

“I’m sure Kate’s already told the sheriff—”

“Tucker? Call the sheriff. Has anyone seen Kate since that night? What if something has happened to her as well?”

He sighed. “I’m sure if the café hasn’t been open someone would have noticed. But I’ll call the sheriff if it will make you happy, all right?”

* * *

SHERIFF FRANK CURRY had spent the morning at his office researching online for information about horsehair hitching, and waiting to see if the photo in the newspaper generated any clues.

Until it did, all he had to go on was the murder weapon—the length of hitched horsehair rope found about the victim’s neck.

Frank took out the evidence bag holding the horsehair rope. Could this length of hitched horsehair help him solve this murder? He sure hoped so.

Jack said he didn’t think the pattern was from Montana State Prison. Frank finally understood what Jack had meant. Apparently there were only four prisons where this old Western art form was practiced still: Deer Lodge, Montana; Rawlins, Wyoming; Walla Walla, Washington; and Yuma, Arizona; and each had their own designs and colors. The painstaking art was popular in prisons, where inmates had nothing but time.

From the bright colors used in the rope, it sounded as if there was a good chance the rope had been made in the Yuma prison. The colors apparently were the result of the Mexican influence at the prison there.

So if it was true that each prison had its own designs and colors and no two hitched ropes were ever identical, then the rope found around the dead man’s neck, along with his morgue photo, might be used to identify either him—or his killer.

Frank had just left a message for the Yuma warden when Tucker Williams walked into his office.

“You’re sure it was the man in the sketch?” the sheriff asked after listening to what Tucker had to tell him.

“Positive. It was right behind the bar under that outside light, so I got a good look at him.”

“And he was asking about Kate LaFond?”

“Not by name.” He took off his hat and scratched his head as if trying to remember the conversation. “The man described her and said he’d heard she was running the café. Now that I think about it, I don’t think he knew she owned it.”

Frank nodded. “So you told him where he could find her.”

“Yeah. I mean, I didn’t think anything of it, you know?”

He could tell Tucker felt badly about that.

“Is she all right? Mary’s worried.”

“She’s fine.” But now that he thought about it, he had noticed a bruise on her cheek that she’d tried to cover with makeup the morning the body was found. “Thanks for calling and letting me know. I appreciate your help.”

“I hope it helps.”

“It does.”

* * *

KATE COULDN’T WAIT until the café emptied out. She kept moving, afraid to stop, let alone reread the note in her apron pocket. She could feel Jack French’s gaze on her. Had he seen her pick up the folded sheet of paper from the table?

She’d felt him watching her all morning. But she couldn’t worry about that. She had much bigger worries than that long, tall cowboy. She had felt like such a fool when his fingers had brushed hers earlier. It had been a shock, like the time she’d gone swimming in the creek and had raced back to her father’s travel trailer. The moment her bare, wet foot touched the metal trailer step, electricity had shot through her. She’d felt that same kind of jolt when Jack had brushed her hand.

With relief she saw that he was leaving. As he walked over to the cash register, Kate motioned to Bethany to take care of him. She busied herself cleaning the last table until she heard the bell over the front door jangle.

She’d been threatening to get rid of that damned bell, but like the Branding Iron, it was apparently part of a long tradition started by the former owner, Claude Durham.

“Where are you off to in such a hurry?” Kate asked Bethany as they both took off their aprons, dropping them in a bin next to the washing machine by the back door of the café.

“Seriously, you haven’t heard? The Sweetgrass County Spring Fair is today and tomorrow. Everyone in three counties will be there. It’s the biggest event of spring.” Bethany was looking at her as if to say, Do you live in a cave? “Didn’t you hear everyone talking about it this morning at breakfast?”

Kate had quit listening to the café chatter when she realized all anyone around this part of Montana talked about most of the time was cows, crops and weather. “Well, have fun,” she said, shooing Bethany toward the front door.

“You should come.”

“And leave Lou in charge of the café?” she asked, joking about the cook running the place. Lou was more reclusive than she was.

“I don’t think you’d lose any money if you just shut down for the rest of the day. Everyone will be at the fair.”

Kate nodded, actually tempted. She could definitely use an afternoon away from this place. And if everyone was going to be at the fair, this would be a great time to do some exploring on her own.

She watched Bethany drive off, seriously considering locking the door and putting out the Closed sign. Lou wouldn’t mind having the afternoon off, she thought as she turned toward the kitchen to talk to him.

Behind her, the bell rang and a draft of cool spring air rushed in. She gave a silent curse and plastered on her welcoming smile as she turned.

“Hey, Kate,” bellowed a large blond woman wearing a Western shirt and jeans with a pair of new red cowboy boots and a straw hat. In the woman’s arms was a stack of brightly colored quilts.

Kate’s smile broadened. Priscilla Farnsworth or Cilla, as everyone called her, was a breath of fresh air. Loud, full of life and with a laugh that was contagious, Cilla was a member of the Beartooth Quilting Society. The group of women, ranging in age from thirty to eighty, came in every Thursday afternoon for pie and coffee. Often they would bring some of their latest quilts to show her.

Kate had been invited to attend one of their meetings when she’d first hit town. Cilla and Thelma Brooks had come into the café her first week one morning after rush to ask if she sewed, if she wanted to learn and if she would buy a raffle ticket for a quilt they were selling to raise money for the one-room schoolhouse down the road.

Both women had apologized for being so pushy. “It’s just that we get so little new blood,” Thelma had said, and Cilla had added with a laugh, “That makes us sound like vampires.” That was when Kate had fallen for the woman’s laugh. She’d bought a raffle ticket, said she didn’t have time right now to quilt—maybe later.

“We quilt and talk and eat!” Cilla had said. “Lord, how we eat. But what’s the point of getting together unless someone bakes something, right?”

Kate didn’t sew and didn’t have a clue about quilting, not that she told them that. Every woman in these parts sewed, gardened and canned—except for Kate.

“I had this great idea,” Cilla said as she bustled in now and dropped the stack of quilts into an empty booth. “I was on my way to the fair and I just swung right in here. Now, if you hate this idea, just say so. You won’t hurt my feelings. What do you think about us putting up a few of our quilts in the café?”

Kate opened her mouth, not sure what was going to come out, but she didn’t have to worry. Cilla didn’t give her a chance to speak.

“Okay, you hate the idea. I just thought these walls could use some color. No offense. Oh, me and my big mouth. You probably had plans to change the paint color and now I’ve gone and—”

“No, I don’t hate the idea,” Kate said. And plans? Her life had been moving so fast that her only plan had been to get moved into the apartment upstairs and reopen the café. She’d needed the money and hadn’t given a thought to sprucing up the place. If it had been good enough when Claude was alive, then she’d figured it was good enough now.

Also the Branding Iron was the only café in Beartooth, and she knew if it didn’t open again quickly after his death, the townsfolk would start going down the road to Big Timber. They were creatures of habit. She didn’t want their habit of hanging out at the Branding Iron to change.