The Sheriff of Heartbreak County

stab; it was a knife thrust deep in his guts and then twisted. But it was a pain he was used to, so he was good at hiding it behind a warm and welcoming smile.

“We wanted to surprise you,” Susie Grace said as she danced across the room and into Roan’s arms and gave him a loud smacking kiss.

“Uh-huh,” he grunted, swiveling away from his desk to make room for her in his lap. “Well, you sure did that.” His eyes lifted over her head to the man who’d followed her into his office. “Boyd… What’re you guys up to so early?”

“We brought you some breakfast,” Susie Grace announced. “Grampa made bacon-and-egg samwiches.”

“Figured you could use some coffee, too.” Boyd hefted the old-fashioned, black-painted metal lunch-box he was carrying, the kind that holds a thermos bottle in the lid. Being the sort of man who never liked throwing things away, he had a lot of that sort of antique junk around his place. “If you don’t mind the good stuff, instead of that swill you got here.”

A Montana cattleman by birth, ancestry and tradition, Boyd still perked his coffee in a big enameled pot, which sat and simmered on the back of the cookstove throughout most of the day and by evening, Roan happened to know, the contents came to resemble something a man could waterproof his boots with.

This early in the morning, though, Boyd’s coffee sounded like pure heaven, especially after a night like he’d just had. With a growl of gratitude, he shifted Susie Grace to one knee while he opened up the lunch-box, took out the thermos bottle and poured himself some in the red plastic lid. He closed his eyes and savored the smell of his first cup of coffee and the sweet warm weight of the child in his lap and decided this day might not turn out to be so bad after all.

While Roan slurped down some coffee, Susie Grace got busy unwrapping one of the two fat foil packages from the lunch-box. “You have to eat, Dad,” she told him sternly. “If you’re going to work so long you have to keep your strength up.”

“Grampa tell you that?” Roan winked at Boyd.

Keeping her eyes lowered, watching her scar-stiffened hands painstakingly unfold the sandwich wrappings, Susie Grace lifted her chin a notch, giving Roan a glimpse of the shiny puckered skin that covered most of her neck and the right side of her face. “No, I told myself. I have a mind of my own, you know.”

Boyd snorted and Roan came near losing the swallow of coffee he’d just taken. “Yeah, you do,” he said, chuckling, while Boyd rolled his eyes toward the ceiling.

Tom Daggett tapped on the open door and leaned into the room. “How you doin’, Mr. Stuart? Hey there, Susie Grace. When you’ve got a minute, Sheriff?”

Roan gave him a nod, then swiveled around and nudged the little girl in his lap. She hopped off obligingly, but with a pitiful sigh for effect. “I know…you have to go to work.”

“I do, peanut. Sorry. What’ve you guys got planned for today?”

Susie Grace’s eyes danced and her mouth formed its quirky lopsided smile. “We’re goin’ fishin’. Grampa says I’m old enough now, he’s gonna teach me how to fly cast. Only I can’t wade in the creek, ’cause the current’s too strong.”

“Not to mention you’d freeze your fanny off,” Boyd said in his crotchety way, making an impatient come-here gesture with his gnarled and burn-scarred hand. “Come on, now, little bit, let’s us get out of your daddy’s way and let him do his job.” The hand was gentle as it ruffled his granddaughter’s hair, then settled protectively onto her shoulder. “Guess we’ll see you later, Roan.”

Roan said, “I’m gonna expect some fried trout for supper tonight.”

Boyd snorted and Susie Grace threw Roan a cheeky grin over her shoulder. “Then you hafta come home or you won’t get any.”

Roan laughed. “Well, I guess I will, then.” He kept the smile on his face and gave a good-bye wave as he said, “Have fun,” and Susie Grace waved back and blew him a kiss. Then he sat with a heavy ache at the bottom of his throat and watched the old cattleman and the seven-year-old child go out the door together, the one bent over and rump-sprung from too many years spent on the back of a horse, the other skip-hopping and holding on to his hand, her flame-red pigtails bouncing. All the family Roan had left in the world, and both of them wearing the scars that were a constant reminder to him of the dear one he’d lost, and of how near he’d come to losing the two of them as well.

“That Susie Grace sure is growin’ up fast,” Tom said as he came on into the room.

“Yeah, kids have a way of doing that.” Roan picked up a bacon-and-egg sandwich and bit into it, adding as he chewed, “What you got for me, Tom?”

“That evidence you mentioned? Lori’s on her way to Helena with it right now-just drove out of the parking lot. And, uh…I thought you’d want to know, Jason’s dad-Senator Holbrook-he just pulled up out front.” The deputy shifted uncomfortably. “How much do you want me to tell him, Sheriff? About the investigation, I mean. I know the usual procedure, but him being a United States Senator, and all…”

Roan looked at what was left of the sandwich, then put it down, having lost his appetite. “Might as well give him everything we’ve got,” he said, frowning into the plastic thermos lid, now empty. “He’ll just get it anyway-” he looked up at his deputy and grinned without humor “-him being a United States Senator, and all. You get hold of the judge yet?”

“Miss Ada’s workin’ on it. Said to meet her over at the courthouse and she’ll put me in touch with the judge. I’m about to head over there now.”

“You say the senator’s coming in the front?”

“Yes, sir.”

Roan picked up his sandwich again and made a face at it. “In that case, you might want to go out the back.”

Of course, he knew the inevitable couldn’t be avoided forever. By mid-afternoon, with both state detectives, Ruger and Fry, and Roan’s deputy, Lori Thrasher, back from Helena, and Tom having reported in from the courthouse, Roan knew the inevitable had arrived. He was going to have to bring Senator Cliff Holbrook up to date on the investigation into his son’s murder. More specifically, the investigation into the background of the only viable suspect in the case so far, namely, the woman who called herself Mary Owen.

The senator’s response was about what Roan expected.

“What do you mean, she doesn’t exist?”

Tom and Lori both winced, and Roger Fry shifted restlessly and looked over at his partner. All four lawmen looked as though they’d rather be anywhere but where they were.

Roan folded his arms and carefully leaned back in his chair, just far enough so it wouldn’t squeak. “Well,” he drawled, “that’s maybe overstating things a bit. Mary Owen did exist, but unfortunately she died in 1971.” He paused, then added, “At the ripe old age of eighty-three.”

“The hell you say!”

“The woman we know as Mary Owen,” Roan went on calmly, ignoring the senator’s exclamation, “moved here from Coeur d’Alene last winter. Before that she lived in Cheney, that’s in Washington state. She’s moved around a lot, our Mary, but we’ve been able to trace her back about…what, Tom? Ten years? That’s when she showed up in St. George, Utah. Before that, nothing. Nada. According to all the records we’ve got, prior to ten years ago this woman did not exist. Anywhere.”

He spoke calmly, but there was a slow burn in his belly. He had a bad feeling about where this was headed. What he felt like was a passenger on a fast train heading straight off a cliff, knowing there wasn’t a damn thing he could do to stop it.

“Well, what are you waiting for?” The senator’s voice was a low, tense growl. “You said this woman was the last person to see my son alive, that she might have had reason to want to hurt him. Now you’re telling me she’s got a shady past? Why haven’t you got her in here? Why aren’t you questioning her?”

“No, now, I never said she had a shady past. What I said was, she had no past. That means she’s got secrets, maybe even something to hide. It doesn’t make her a killer. Her fingerprints aren’t in the system.”

“You said she had a gun.” The senator had that wolf-look in his eyes again-burning cold and hungry. He had his prey in his sights and wasn’t about to let her go.

“Which isn’t the murder weapon,” Roger Fry pointed out, after a deferential cough.