just long enough to murmur, “No, no, dear, I think another week, don’t you?” Her gaze flew upward past her determinedly auburn curls to home in once more on the vivid marks on Mary’s face. “Did you put some ice on those bruises? And I know you don’t wear makeup, but you know, a little dab of pancake and some face powder would do wonders.”
“Oh, like I said, it’s nothing, really,” Mary said cheerfully as she tilted the chair back and settled Miss Ada’s neck on the lip of the wash basin. “Just a little embarrassing. So…have you been having a good week? Anything exciting going on over at the courthouse?”
Keeping her blue lids firmly closed, Miss Ada gave a hoot of laughter. “Oh, well, today there’s nobody talking about anything but what happened to Clifford Holbrook’s boy. You heard about that, I suppose?” She sighed heavily, then went on without waiting for Mary’s answer, her forehead wrinkling in distress. “It is a shame-a terrible thing. My heart just goes out to Clifford. He always was a good boy-I was tempted to vote for him in the last election, even if he is a Republican-but that son of his-that Jason…it’s hard to know, isn’t it, how a child from such a nice family can turn out so wrong?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Mary murmured the all-purpose response she’d learned in a former life from a dear Southern friend, warming her fingers in the stream of water and ignoring the deeper chill inside her. “How’s that, Miss Ada? Is that gonna be too hot?”
“No, no, dear, it’s fine. Well, I suppose Clifford did the best he could, with his wife being in such delicate health most of the time. But that boy always was a bully.” She sniffed, then added, “Still and all, nobody deserves to die like that. Shot dead right in his own driveway. Makes you wonder if any of us is safe anywhere nowadays.” She gave a genteel shudder.
“Yes, ma’am.” Mary watched her fingers massage moisturizing shampoo over Miss Ada’s scalp.
“A good thing we’ve got a decent sheriff in this county,” Miss Ada said with a sniff, her festively painted features settling into stern and uncompromising lines. “Roan Harley-now there’s a fine young man. A real fine man.” She opened her eyes and aimed them upward. “Have you met our sheriff yet, Mary?”
“No, ma’am, I don’t believe I have-except to see him driving by, maybe.” She wrapped a towel loosely around the old lady’s head and raised the chair to its upright position.
Miss Ada pulled one knotted, blue-veined hand from under the drape to touch away a drop of water that had taken the liberty of trickling down her forehead, then gave one of her little hoots of laughter as she met Mary’s eyes in the mirror. “Well, I suppose that is a good thing, isn’t it? Not that I expect
“Yes, ma’am,” Mary agreed as she began to divide Miss Ada’s sparse wet hair into quadrants, twisting each segment loosely and securing it with a clip.
Miss Ada’s face seemed to droop with sadness as her eyes shifted focus to something only she could see, and she spoke more to herself than to Mary. “Oh my, that poor man has had more than his share of trials and tragedies to bear, yes he has…”
“Ma’am?” Mary said politely, only half listening, her mind already numbing with the tedium of winding thin strands of Miss Ada’s hair onto the old-fashioned rollers she favored.
The old lady’s eyes snapped back to Mary’s, light kindling in them now as she prepared to enjoy the kind of harmless gossip people are wont to indulge in with their hairdressers. “The boy didn’t exactly have a happy beginning, you know. No, he didn’t. His mother-Susan Roth, her name was, a perfectly lovely girl-never married, and to be unwed and pregnant in a small Western town…well. You can imagine. You had to admire her, though, she held her head up. Never let her son feel ashamed, either. She worked hard to support herself and the boy-I have an idea the father, whoever he was, might’ve helped out some-and she managed to put money away for Roan’s college. He applied for scholarships and won several-he was a very bright young man. He was going to become a lawyer-that was his mother’s fondest wish. But then she got sick and died suddenly.”
Normally it was Mary’s habit to let this sort of gossip flow in one ear and out the other, but for some reason she was finding this particular story hard to ignore. She made murmurs of sympathy, and Miss Ada sighed.
“Yes…it was sad. Roan came home to bury his mother and never did go back to the university. Instead, he stayed on, married his childhood sweetheart, enrolled in the state law-enforcement academy-I believe he’d had a minor in criminology, or forensics, or some such thing, in college. Anyway, he became a deputy, and when Jim Stottlemyer retired, ran for sheriff and got himself elected first try. Youngest sheriff in the history of the county, and I must say, it was the legal profession’s loss and Hart County’s gain. Roan’s been a fine sheriff.” She paused for another sigh. “It should have been one of those and-they-lived-happily-ever-after stories, but it wasn’t. No, indeed. Roan Harley’s troubles were just beginning.”
“Really? What happened?” Mary turned the chair in order to reach the other side of Miss Ada’s head, and Miss Ada’s eyes met hers directly instead of in the mirror. Mary was startled to see a sheen in them that could only be tears.
“I’m sorry, dear,” the elderly clerk of court said with a halfhearted smile. “Oh my. It’s been four years, but it’s still hard to talk about it. Seems like it happened just yesterday, yes it does. It was such a terrible tragedy, the kind of thing a small community like this never does get over.” She paused, lifted a hand and absently patted the neat row of curlers that marched down one side of her head.
“Well, now…I told you Roan married his childhood sweetheart. Erin Stuart-she’d been a classmate of Roan’s, all the way back to kindergarten, I believe. And her dad, Boyd Stuart, he’d befriended the boy, too, knowing he was growing up fatherless. Roan looked up to Boyd and respected him as he would a father, and Boyd…well, you could tell he loved Roan like a son. In fact, Boyd was so tickled when Roan married Erin, he signed over the deed to his ranch to the newlyweds and moved into the ranch foreman’s cottage.” Miss Ada chuckled, then took a quick breath as if it were a shot of whisky she was tossing back to fortify herself before going on.
“Well then, two years later Erin and Roan had a little girl. They named her Susan Grace, after their late mothers-Erin’s mother, Grace-she was a Pascoe, from over in Lewiston-had passed away, too, when Erin was still in high school. For the next three years-that was when Roan ran for and was elected sheriff-the family was so happy. Truly blessed.” She paused, and when she went on her voice had a quiver in it.
“Then…one night while Roan was out of town on a case, there was a fire. It woke up Boyd down in the cottage, and he came running… Oh, he tried his best, but he was only able to save the little girl. His own daughter, Erin, died in the fire. Boyd and the child were both seriously burned.”
“My God,” Mary whispered. She felt cold clear through, and a little queasy-and how in the world had she let this county sheriff’s unhappy story slip past her radar and take dead aim at her heart? She’d taken care to keep her feelings sandbagged and fortified against just such an assault. She couldn’t afford the luxury of caring. Now more than ever.
Miss Ada’s tear-bright eyes flicked upward and softened when they found Mary so obviously touched by the story. “Yes…yes. Poor Roan, he was just devastated, as you can imagine. He tried to pick up the pieces after the tragedy, I think for his little girl’s sake as much as anything, but I do believe he carries scars from that fire still, just as surely as Susie Grace and Boyd do. The only difference is, Roan’s scars don’t show.” She heaved another sigh. “I don’t imagine it helps, either, that he’s never been able to find out who did it-who killed his wife and maimed his child.”
Mary’s hands stilled, a curler half rolled. She fought to control a shudder of horror. “You mean…it wasn’t an accident?”
“Oh, no, dear,” Miss Ada said softly. “The fire was deliberately set, no doubt about it. It haunts Roan, I think, that the crime remains unsolved to this day.”
“I’m sure it does. It must be awful for him,” Mary murmured. But it was only words, and once again safely distanced from feeling. Her defenses had slipped momentarily, but they were back in place, now.
“It was terrible for everyone,” Miss Ada said, firmly, reaching up to pat the tissue paper band Mary was fastening around her hairline to protect her skin from the dryer’s heat. “The worst time this town’s had since the mines closed, I do believe. And now this.” She threw Mary a look as she accepted the hand she was offering to help her out of the chair. Her eyes were fierce again, and her voice brisk-it was the tone and the look that had kept jurors in line for so many years. “I am sure of one thing: Roan won’t let it happen again. Whoever it was shot Jason Holbrook, the sheriff will find him. I know he will.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Mary murmured. She was confident that, with the dryer humming away, even Miss Ada’s keen senses couldn’t have caught the tremor that had just rippled through her.
Dave Salazar, Hart County’s coroner, was also both a licensed physician and deputy medical examiner for the
