He drove around until he found a rundown bar on the south side of Billings. Then he crossed the river, and found an old abandoned farm house. Driving into the yard with his lights off, he parked the truck behind one of the out buildings.
He’d seen enough CSI to know exactly how arsonists set fires. With the pack of cigarettes he’d bought at a convenience mart and the extra gas in the back of the truck, he’d soaked the front seat and set the makeshift fuse.
He’d been about a half mile away, walking down the road, when the pickup blew. RJ smiled to himself as he walked the rest of the way to the bar. The back parking lot was cloaked in darkness. Ideal for what he had in mind.
The jukebox blared inside the bar, one of those serious drinkers’ bars where patrons went to get falling-down drunk. There was a pile of junk behind the bar and a stand of pines.
Given the late hour, it wasn’t long before a man came stumbling out of the bar, clearly three sheets to the wind. RJ stayed hidden in the dark behind one of the cars and waited until the man started to put his key into the door lock before he called to him.
“Harry?” RJ called, pretending to be drunk as he approached the man, the tire iron behind his back.
The man turned.
“Oh, sorry, I thought you were Harry Johnson.” RJ was close now, close enough to smell the man’s boozy breath.
“Nope, maybe he’s still in the bar.” The man turned back to his car, fumbling with the keys.
RJ hit him in the kidneys, then brought the tire iron down on the man’s skull. He went down like a ton of bricks.
Unfortunately, the drunk was heavier than he looked, especially considering he was now dead weight. RJ dragged him behind the pile of junk and laid a scrap of sheet metal over him like a blanket.
He figured it would be a while before anyone found the guy and probably even longer before someone started searching for his vehicle.
Picking up the keys from the ground where the man had dropped them, RJ opened the car door and climbed into the large older model American-made car. He swore. The man was a smoker, and the inside of the car reeked.
Well, beggars couldn’t be choosers, as his father used to say. Just the thought of Ray Sr. made him grit his teeth. He wasn’t the least bit sorry that old son of a bitch was dead.
RJ started the engine, turned on the radio, pulled away from the bar and headed for Whitehorse. Like the driver of the yellow Cadillac, he had the directions to the Winchester Ranch.
“It’s out there and gone,” the clerk had told him. “About as remote as it can get.”
Josey didn’t know it, but she’d chosen the perfect place to end this.
MCCALL WASN’T SURPRISED to hear from Detective Diaz in Palm City, California. She figured he was calling for an update, and while she had little in hard evidence, when she finished telling him what they had so far, he came to the same conclusions she had.
“That sounds like him,” the detective said. “RJ skated on more than a few run-ins with the law, from breaking and entering, theft and assault to allegations from prostitutes who claimed he’d abused them. None of them ever made trial. I’m sure his father paid the people off.”
McCall heard something in his voice. “And Josephine Vanderliner?”
“She went through a wild time when she was younger, nothing big. Speeding, drinking, a couple of marijuana possession charges, but she’s been out of trouble since her mother’s accident.”
“What about Ray Sr.?”
“Nothing on the books, but he was living pretty high on the hog and running out of money fast when he married Ella Vanderliner.”
“What about her car accident?”
Diaz chuckled. “Like minds. There was some question since it was a single car rollover. She had been drinking. The daughter was convinced it was foul play, saying her mother never had more than a glass of wine.”
McCall could almost hear him shrug. “You said the mother is in a nursing home? Have you checked it to see if Josephine has called or stopped by?”
Diaz cleared his voice. “Actually, that’s why I called. The mother was apparently moved, but the home swears they have no idea where.”
“Someone had to sign her out.”
“Apparently her daughter had made arrangements before...” His voice trailed off.
“Then she must have known she was going to come into some money,” McCall said.
“It does give her more motive for killing Ray Sr.,” Diaz agreed. “The battle she was waging in court was for control of her mother, which means control of her mother’s money.”
“Ray Sr. wouldn’t have wanted that to happen.”
“Nope,” Diaz agreed. “But then neither would his son, RJ.”
Chapter Eleven
On the way to the Winchester Ranch, Ray popped some of the pills he’d stolen and realized he felt better than he had in days. He could hardly feel his shoulder and he was thinking clearly, maybe more clearly than he ever had.
He’d realized how crucial it was to his plan that he found Josey. He wanted the money in that backpack, but more important he needed to make sure she never surfaced.
Once she was dead, he would inherit his father’s money—which was the Vanderliner money. His father had been broke when he married Ella Vanderliner. It had been a godsend when she’d gotten into that car wreck and he’d gained control over all her money—including Josephine’s, as luck would have it.
RJ laughed, wondering if his old man had planned it that way. Maybe the acorn hadn’t fallen that far from the tree after all. But if that was the case, Ray Sr. had been holding out on
