“There’s a letter in her pocket,” the state crime scene tech said. “It still has a date on it.”
The tech read it aloud quickly. Fourteen years. The letter was dated fourteen years ago. If it had been in the ground that long, it was a miracle it had survived intact. Considering what had been…decomposing…around it. “The date and name are about all that’s legible. For now. We’ll have someone process it. See if they can figure out what it says, and if it’s significant.”
Joel’s stomach turned. He no doubt knew the victim in some way. In a county this small, it was hard not to know just about everyone in some way or another.
Clint walked over to him. “Luther Beise was an associate of Clive’s. A cousin on his mother’s side. They were good friends.”
“I remember. I was in college at the time, but my brothers kept me informed of what went on around here.” Luther Beise had had a reputation as an isolationist around Masterson. The family’s sudden disappearance had just fueled those stories. Rumors had ranged the entire gamut—from alien abductions to a mass homicide carried out by Luther himself. With bodies everywhere on the ranch. Teenagers sometimes went hunting for those bodies of the Beises’.
Clint had been on sight twenty minutes before Joel had been able to get there.
“I’ve been going over Clive’s files. When this address came over the wire, I asked for the case. Clive tried to find the Beise family for a few years. Then he abruptly stopped looking, and the file stopped. I don’t want my name attached to it, not alone, but I want to follow this trail where it leads. It…might tie into others I’m investigating. If you work the case with me, people won’t object as much.”
No surprise. Clive Gunderson had probably not wanted to put in the work at the time the Beise family had left.
Or he had been too busy harassing people like he had the Tylers.
There was no way Joel wanted to partner up with Clint. No doubt that was what was about to happen, though. “So what’s got you spooked about this?”
“Clive named names that are still…relevant. A case I’m working on is bigger than a single dead woman. It’s complicated. I don’t need eyes in my direction now.” Gunderson’s voice dropped. “I…am trying to untangle everything Clive did. But if something happens to me, I want…a friend…with the FBI to know what’s going on. She was friends with the elder Beise sister. I’ve already called her department and spoken with her superiors. She’ll be pulled to work with us—if we request it down the road.”
“You’re expecting something to happen to you?” Joel sent a look Clint’s way.
The guy was serious.
The man was probably as bat-shit crazy as his father and brother had been. Joel couldn’t overlook that possibility.
“Who knows? Some of what I’m finding, Masterson, it’s not good. Just…if something happens to me, you make sure my baby girl is kept safe.”
Gunderson had an infant daughter he was raising on his own. That he’d brought her into the conversation had Joel’s gut tightening.
Gunderson might be bat-shit crazy, but he believed what he was saying. If he wasn’t off his rocker, then something more was brewing.
“I know it’s a lot to ask. But there’re not a whole lot of people out there I still trust any longer. I know you’re honest. And you’ll do the right thing when needed. You make sure my baby girl stays with the woman who loves her the most. No matter what. The woman who loves her the most. You’ll know who that is, if the time comes.”
Joel just nodded. Something about the look in the man’s eyes had his skin crawling. “You think whatever you have going on here is related to what we’ve found?”
“I wouldn’t, except for the fact that Luther Beise was one of Clive’s old cronies, and there was more going on with that bastard than anyone ever expected. I’ll be paying for the sins of that man for a long, long time to come. Least I can do is make certain what he did isn’t still hurting people.”
Joel just grunted. What Clint was saying was the truth—the entire town of Masterson had practically turned against Clint after what Clive had done to Perci and the rest of her family.
It wasn’t right. Clint hadn’t done a damned thing to anyone that Joel knew about.
Joel should probably make that known when he could. Show the town he had no hard feelings personally against the younger man.
Clint just had the bad luck to be related to Clive.
“We’ll do what we can. And if it comes time to call in the feds, I’ll make room for them without a problem. I don’t care who finds the killer—I just want the killer found.”
Joel wouldn’t hold Clive’s actions against another man. Joel considered himself a better man than that. He would just keep reminding himself of that when the need arose.
Clint was called away, leaving Joel to think about what the man had said.
If this was related to Clive Gunderson, Joel wanted the outside eyes on things, too. He and Clint—they were too close to this, and with the history between their families, the objectivity would cover all their asses.
The last thing they needed was a killer to get off because of the history between the Gundersons and the Mastersons.
He looked up when his two dayshift deputies pulled in, Zach Lowell and his younger cousin, Sage—Joel’s newest hire and the lone female deputy for the county. He hoped they were ready.
Solving a fourteen-year-old murder case was the last thing they needed to deal with now.
What had happened there on Luther Beise’s ranch?
3
Nine Weeks Later
Murder didn’t belong in small towns. Especially this one.
Dr. Miranda Talley studied the idyllic little town and wondered what had changed since she had last been there.
It was dinner time in Masterson.
