Death on Heels (15 page)

“Even that ballad, ‘The Streets of Laredo,’ says, ‘I see by your outfit that you are a cowboy.’”
Of course that song was about a cowboy’s funeral
. Lacey didn’t want to think about that. “Clothes give people a particular attitude and history and they tell stories about them. All you have to do is look at them the right way.”

“I’m sure it comes in handy in your line of work now,” he said. “Fashion articles and murder stories.
There are more parts to you, Chantilly Lace, than ever I thought.”

She shifted in her seat. “Back to Corazon Reyes. Unfortunately, dressing well is tricky for a woman in a place like Sagebrush. Her stylistic range of expression is limited, because her shopping choices are limited. It’s not so bad if you’re a cowboy or a miner or a construction worker.”

“Are you slamming Sagebrush again?”

“I’m thinking here. Don’t interrupt. There’s a new Wal-Mart and a couple of discount outlets. A secondhand store. Everyone dresses out of the same bins. Some people here will go shopping in the city, once or twice a year, in Steamboat, or Grand Junction, or even Denver. Yet a woman with an imagination or sense of style can make any outfit her own.”

Accessories could make a difference, and the way a woman put things together, she thought. And in Sagebrush, Colorado, the men really
looked
at women, and women liked to be noticed. It wasn’t Washington, D.C., where the female of the species could wear a fabulous dress to a glittery party and still feel like wallpaper.

Again the question: What was it about Corazon Reyes that had attracted her killer? What was different about her? And what about the other women? Lacey had only seen their snapshots in the news stories. How did they see themselves?
If a picture is worth a thousand words, then so is a woman’s wardrobe.

“Okay. I get it. This stuff matters.” Tucker’s voice softened. “There’s no one here like you, Chantilly. They don’t have your sense of style.”

“They don’t have Aunt Mimi’s trunk.” Lacey stroked her velvet skirt, the deep nap, the comfort of a garment well designed and well made. A legacy from Aunt Mimi. “The locals always thought I was crazy, didn’t they?”

“But crazy in a good way.” He grinned at her. “You always were like a star out of an old movie. A film noir femme fatale.”

It was Lacey’s turn to laugh. “Thank you, I think. But tell me about Corazon. What did she wear?”

“What I remember most is that Corazon liked to dance. We only went out a half dozen times. Not even that. Maybe half those times we went dancing. Why on earth would I want to hurt her? Why even set me up to look like I did? Makes no damn sense. But her duds? She usually wore a tight little shirt, the kind with the pearl snaps, maybe a jean skirt, cowboy boots. Silver and turquoise jewelry. Stuff like that.”

“Denim skirts and cowboy boots.” Like the women who shopped at Crybaby Ranch. “But you said something about boots. Like mine?”

She propped one green and brown boot on the dash, and Tucker spared a quick glance away from the road. “I helped you pick those out, didn’t I? That was quite a day.”

“Yes, it was.” Lacey didn’t want to think about that day. A day when she was in love with Tucker. They’d made a special shopping trip to Steamboat Springs, to F. M. Light & Sons. “Back to Corazon’s boots.”

“Hers were fancier than those. I guess I’d call them Texican. Flashy. Hand-tooled sombreros and cactuses all over them, all different colors. She said she could wear them with anything.”

“Everything except death,” Lacey said. “She was found barefoot. Do you know whether they ever found her boots?”

“No idea.”

“New question. Who has a reason to frame you?”

“Nobody, but—” Tucker slapped the steering wheel. “Hell, I got my suspicions.” He swallowed hard. “Listen, the ranch has got to survive, no matter what happens to me. It’s always been touch and go, but if I’m not there to keep it going, I’m worried the vultures will swoop down and take it.”

Maybe it’s time to stop thinking about the ranch. And start thinking about yourself
, Lacey thought. But she knew that wouldn’t go over well. “It’s like you to put the ranch above everything else.”

There were always cattle to feed and herd, horses to tend and water and run. He told her once that as long as
grass grew and the Yampa River ran, there would be Tuckers to ranch that land.

“It’s more than a job. You know that, Chantilly Lace. I’m just afraid—”

“You think someone’s after the Tuckered Out Ranch?” She always thought
Tuckered Out
was a silly name for a ranch, but several generations of the ranching Tucker family thought it was downright hilarious. And appropriate.

“Not the ranch. The land. And what’s under it.”

“Who? Certainly not housing developers.”

“No, I don’t see a bunch of yuppie town houses filling the horizon out there. Some kind of energy development. The whole history of this area is boom and bust. And it’s been bust for too long now.”

“And the energy companies are banking it will boom again?”

“It’s all a matter of the price of things. Coal or oil or natural gas, even water. Price goes up enough to make a profit and they’ll tear this county apart and suck the land dry. They’re ready to do it. I know you don’t like this landscape, Lacey, though I never understood why. You can see forever out here. Nothing between you and the sky.”

Almost like living on the moon.
She gazed out at the desolate landscape passing them by at top speed. Not many trees, but plenty of rocky bluffs and cliffs, in shades of tan and sandy brown and pale pink and dusty rose. There was an occasional shed or stable, and here and there a playful pack of pronghorn antelopes bounding through the sagebrush.

“I like it green.” Lacey already missed the green of the East Coast, the woods that wrapped her in an emerald green blanket. She especially missed the bright spring green of Virginia and D.C. Soon the trees there would be budding in their annual ritual of spring, bursting into pink and yellow blossoms. Lawns in the Mid-Atlantic stayed alive and green over the winter, unlike this wild and rocky place. And the mountains were less spectacular in this corner of the state. It was a high arid
plateau, and from Sagebrush the mountains ringing it looked more like foothills, though some were eleven thousand feet tall.

“This land is valuable. Mineral rights and water rights are like gold,” Tucker said. His voice turned harsh. “Out-of-state carpetbaggers swooped in a while ago and bought up a lot of land from ranchers, the ones who were sick and tired, sick of breaking their backs, tired of breaking their hearts. The buyers spun a big fantasy about what they were going to do to keep the range and preserve the land. They turned around and sold the water rights for golf courses in Nevada, swimming pools in California. Robbed this land. This state is nothing without water.”

She nodded. “That can’t be legal.”

“It’s not anymore. County commissioners finally did something, but not until a lot of damage was done. Colorado water was already flowing out of state. Right now the remaining water rights have got to stay with the land. But there are still minerals and natural gas to plunder. The energy companies have their sights on all of us, the Tuckered Out Ranch too. I’ll never sell as long as I’m a free man. But if Kit and Starr end up having to sell the land or the mineral or water rights to defend these damn phony charges against me, well, it’s all over.”

“Why did you stop? Where are we?”

Tucker took a sharp right off the county highway and plunged down a dirt side road. He pulled the pickup off into the sagebrush where it couldn’t be easily spotted. Lacey looked for signs of life up and down the lonely road. Nothing. A barbed wire fence broke the line of the horizon.

“We’re getting out,” Tucker said. “Come on.”

“How about I just stay here until the police come?”

He sighed loudly. “We’ve gone through this before. I’m not leaving you out here all alone.”

Lacey opened her side door and stepped down, grateful for her leather jacket that kept the wind out. “And if I just start walking back?” She figured a car had to come by sooner or later.

He shook his head. “It’s a mighty long walk back to Sagebrush, Chantilly. And a little lonely out here all alone, what with the coyotes and the rattlesnakes. This is rattlesnake country, you remember that?”

“Rattlesnakes sleep in the winter. Don’t they?”

“That’s what they say. Unless you step on one.”

“But you’ll be on foot too,” Lacey protested.

“Not for long. We have horses sheltered right off the road here, in a little shed out of the wind.”

“I don’t see any shed. And just how do you know that?”

“That’s where I put ’em. Before they arrested me. Kit was supposed to be out here to feed and water ’em.”

“We’re close to your ranch? I’m all turned around, Cole.”

“You probably never saw this end of the spread. Let’s go.”

Tucker started walking into the bitter cold wind. Lacey reluctantly followed him. She slung her bag over her shoulder and pulled her hood up, her scarf wrapped around her face.

“You look like an Eskimo,” Tucker said, looping one arm through hers. “It’s not that cold.”

She pulled her arm free. “Speak for yourself.”

They trudged through the sagebrush in silence for several minutes before Lacey saw something that looked like a low shed in a little draw. Inside were two horses.

“Why are they all the way out here?” she asked.

“Change of scenery for them, what with the nice weather and all.”

“Nice weather, my eye.” She shivered.

“We’re having a heat wave. It got to thirty below this winter. Must be thirty above now. Course, March can be unpredictable, you might recall.”

Tucker stroked the horses, which seemed happy to see him, and hefted a saddle off the back wall onto a pretty palomino. He nuzzled her neck and the horse whinnied to him. “Hey, Buttercup, this here is Lacey. You remember Chantilly Lace, don’t you? She used to ride you way back when.”

The horse neighed softly. Tucker pulled a couple of dried apples from a bag hanging on the wall and gave one to Buttercup. She gazed at him adoringly.

“You want me to ride a horse?” Lacey asked, eyeing him suspiciously.
No. Impossible
. “Buttercup?” She hung back at the entrance to the shed.

“You remember how, right?”

“They say it’s like riding a bike, but I hadn’t exactly planned on riding a bike either. Especially not in a skirt. In vintage velvet.” Tucker had taught her to ride. But that was in the warm golden days of autumn.
Long ago and far away.

Tucker seemed a little exasperated. He grabbed Lacey’s
hand and trotted her over to Buttercup. He cinched up the saddle on the palomino mare. “Buttercup’s gentle as a kitten. Just hang on and ride astride. Don’t be worrying about your skirt.”

“I’m not. I’m worried about my neck.”

She patted the horse’s nose and whispered to her not to throw her off. The horse snuffled and nodded, fluttering long lashes over her big brown eyes as if she were amused. She nuzzled Lacey.

“She likes you, Chantilly Lace.” Tucker saddled Buttercup’s companion, a big black horse with a white star on his forehead. “Now, this is Ricochet. He can be a handful.” The black horse danced back and forth in a show of impatience. He reared and came down with
a snort. Tucker patted his neck. “Chill out, little Ricky. I know you been bored out here. We’ll run later, buddy.” Buttercup didn’t bat an eye. She was used to Ricochet showing off.

Tucker led the two horses out of their stalls and turned to Lacey. “Here, let me help you.” Lacey found it hard to focus when Tucker was standing so close to her.

“Where are we going?”

“Where there aren’t a lot of roads. If we’re lucky, we still have a decent head start.”

Lacey’s stomach growled. “I’m starving, Tucker.”

“Running from the law sure gives you an appetite,” he cracked.

“I’m not running from the law. You are,” she corrected him. “Couldn’t I just go to the ranch? I mean the house, your house, wherever it is from here.” She imagined a warm fire on the stone hearth.

“It’s miles from here, and I imagine Sheriff Rexford and his boys might be there waiting for us.”

“Great. I can’t believe T-Rex is still the sheriff.”

Lacey had had her share of run-ins with Sheriff Theodore Rexford, widely known around Yampa County as T-Rex. Folks in and around Sagebrush thought he somewhat resembled that ferocious dinosaur found in fossilized form in Northwestern Colorado. Like the tyrannosaurus, Sheriff T-Rex had a forward-thrusting jaw and a big nose,
and rather jagged teeth. And he could be fierce when crossed.

“Yep, still sheriff.”

“Fine. He could take me back to Sagebrush. You could go some other way.” Lacey’s shoulders slumped and she felt defeated. For a moment. Just one. “What the hell do you think you’re doing, Cole Tucker? Playing Lone Ranger?”

“Long as I got Tonto along for the ride.” He grinned at her, his teeth showing white and even. “Those are the breaks, Chantilly. I know you think justice will just naturally win out, and the law will do the right thing. But why would that happen when they’ve got a perfect fall guy?”

“You have a point,” she admitted. Reluctantly.

“I’m afraid we’re gonna have to figure this out, whoever killed those girls.”

“Grady Rush took that anonymous tip—” Lacey started.

“This is Yampa County, Chantilly Lace. Think about it. We don’t have ‘anonymous tipsters.’ Everybody knows everybody else.”

Tucker was right. There were damn few secrets anyone could keep in Sagebrush. Except for who killed those three women. She looked at her watch. It was barely noon.

“You think Grady’s involved?”

“Don’t know about
involved.
He knows something, even if he doesn’t know he knows it.”

He looped her tote bag onto the saddle and gave her a boost onto Buttercup. Lacey was glad her skirt flared out at the bottom so she could ride without hiking it up to her hips. Trying to ride in a short tight skirt would be a nightmare. She flinched when she sat down. “Yeow! This thing is cold as ice.”