Hard Rain (16 page)

“So what can I do for you?” she asked, eyeing each of them.

“We’re here about my grandmother,” Harper said.

“Well, your grandmother’s out of luck. I’m not doctoring anymore.”

“My grandmother was Grace Hamilton.”

“I see.”

“I’m Harper Hamilton and this is Brody McTavish. We need to ask you some questions about Grace’s...health.”

“Seems a bit late to be worried about that now,” Ella said. “She’s been dead...”

“Thirty-five years,” Harper supplied, and got right to the point. “My grandmother was confined to a wheelchair before her death. Was there a medical reason?”

Ella Franklin nodded. “You want to know if she could walk. You’ve heard of doctor-patient confidentiality, I’m assuming.”

“But she’s dead,” Harper said. “Not to mention there is now a murder investigation.”

Ella sighed and looked from Brody to Harper. “Your grandmother, by her own choosing, was an invalid. Could she walk?” The doctor tilted her head. “Let me just say there was no medical reason she couldn’t.”

“So her illness was all in her head?” Harper asked in surprise.

“Don’t act as though that doesn’t make it real. Psychological or not, she made herself sick because she believed it was true. I can’t swear that she could even stand, let alone walk.” She narrowed her eyes. “What you really want to know is if she was capable of killing Maggie... That I can’t say. But couldn’t we all, under the right—or is it wrong—circumstances?” The doctor moved toward the door as if the interview was over.

“One more question,” Brody said, speaking for the first time. “You were also Maggie’s doctor. I need to know if she came to you after she was raped?”

* * *

“M
AGGIE
WAS
RAPED
?” Harper said, looking over at him in shock.

Brody didn’t answer and for a moment he thought the doctor wouldn’t, either. “Please, I have to know.”

Ella seemed to weaken. “I wanted her to go to the hospital,” she said as she came back into the room. “They have rape kits...”

“But she refused. Did she say who did it?” Brody asked.

She shook her head. “She wouldn’t even have come to me if he hadn’t insisted.”

“He?”
Harper said.

“The man who brought her to see me. I got the impression he’d insisted she get checked out. He stayed in his vehicle, but I recognized him. Senator JD Hamilton.”

Brody couldn’t believe this. “But if he’d been the one who—”

“He didn’t rape her. From the marks on her wrists and ankles, it was more than one man,” the doctor said.

“But she wouldn’t tell you who?” Brody said again.

“No. I got the feeling she planned to take care of it herself,” the doctor said. “I advised her to call the sheriff, but again she refused.”

Brody’s head was still spinning when he and Harper left the doctor’s home. Once inside the truck, they sat for a long moment, neither speaking. Like him, Harper seemed too shocked to speak. It was all too much to take in.

“How did you find out?” Harper finally asked.

“My dad told me, but they didn’t know who was responsible. They’d read something in her diary...”

“So she did have a diary.” She still had the key in her purse, she realized, where she’d put it after Brody had given it back to her.

“They said the diary disappeared after they confronted her. They definitely didn’t know what the doctor just told us.”

“That there was more than one. Or that my grandfather was the one who insisted she see the doctor?”

“Neither,” Brody said as he started the engine and pulled away from the Ella’s house. “There’s more.” He told her what he’d learned from his father and uncle.

“You think she was planning to get...
married
?” Harper said. “To whom?”

He shook his head.

“JD was already married. Even if he’d promised to divorce my grandmother, it would have taken time.”

Brody looked toward the Crazies. The sun glowed on the snowcapped peaks against a cobalt blue sky dotted with white puffy clouds.

“I talked to my father, and from everything he told me about JD...” she said. “He wasn’t the kind of man to have hurt Maggie. Nor was he the kind who would have left an invalid wife. But it sounds as if Grace might have been losing it. Now that we know from my mother and the doctor that she probably was able to walk...and that JD wasn’t happy in the marriage. If he’d fallen in love with Maggie—”

“Apparently, the sheriff is getting DNA together to find out whose baby she was carrying,” Brody said. “Once we know that...”

“Promise me that we aren’t going to let this keep us apart,” Harper said.

He glanced over at her, his expression solemn, pain in his gaze. “I wish I could.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

JD
COULDN
’
T
BELIEVE
how late his flight had come in. He was exhausted from the days of meetings about the possibility of him running on the Republican ticket for president. All he wanted now was to get home. He reached Big Timber and took a back road toward the ranch, hoping to make it home a little sooner.

As he passed an old section of town, a beat-up flatbed truck came roaring out, almost hitting him and throwing gravel and dirt across his windshield. He’d seen that there were three boys in the front of the truck an instant before he threw on his brakes to avoid the crash. Now he skidded to a stop as the pickup disappeared in a cloud of dust.

“Kids,” he grumbled under his breath, still shaken from the close call. He had started to drive on when he saw her in a shaft of moonlight and his heart dropped.

She came stumbling out from between two of the abandoned houses, her long red hair around her shoulders in disarray. He could see that she was hurt, her clothing torn, blood on her face. He quickly pulled over and, jumping out, ran to her.

“Maggie,” he cried. “What happened?”

She shook her head, but it was clear what had happened.

He’d never felt such fury. “Those boys... Who were those boys?” he demanded.

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Like hell it doesn’t. I’m taking you to the hospital, then I’m going to call the sheriff.”

“No!” She grabbed his arm. “I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine. You have to go to the hospital. You have to press charges against those boys.” He was breathing hard, seeing red as he helped her to the car. If he’d known what they’d done when they first came tearing out, he would have chased them down and— He hated to think what he might have done.

“I’m all right,” she said more quietly as he got her into the passenger seat. She looked concerned for him. “There is no reason to call the sheriff. I won’t press charges.”

“They have to be punished for what they did.”

“No, they won’t ever be punished, and all it would do is embarrass my family.”

“You can’t let those boys get away with this.” He stared at her in the ambient moonlight coming in the car windows. “Look at you. I could tear those boys limb from limb. Tell me who they were.”

She shook her head. “You should get home. If you could just drop me at my car. It’s a few blocks from here.” He started to argue, but she cut him off. “Please. I hate having you see me like this.”

“Maggie.” It came out a cry. He touched her shoulder. She winced and he pulled away. JD knew that this would be something he would regret to his grave, but he could see that her mind was made up. “Maggie, I won’t call the sheriff, but I’m taking you to the hospital.”

She shook her head.

“Then your father.”

“No, I can’t. Please, I can’t.”

“You need to see a doctor.”

“Ella, then... I’m sure I’m fine, but you can take me to her.”

“That quack doctor?”

“Please. It’s the only place I will go. Otherwise, you can just take me to my car or let me out and I’ll walk.”

Dr. Ella Franklin would have been burned at the stake a hundred years ago, JD thought. While she’d become a medical doctor, she dealt in strange concoctions. Grace swore by her, but JD thought of her as a witch doctor.

Maggie held her head up high, tears in her eyes. “Well?”

“I’ll take you to her.”

* * *

A
FTER
LEAVING
H
ARPER
, Brody returned home in even more turmoil than before. He wasn’t that surprised when he heard a pickup tearing up the road toward his house a few hours later. He hadn’t seen either his father or uncle since they’d told him about Maggie being raped.

He’d been expecting a confrontation. It had made his already sleepless nights even darker knowing that he’d gone against their wishes and that there would be hell to pay for it.

Stepping out onto the porch, he watched the truck come to a dust-boiling stop in front of his house. His uncle was out before the commotion settled.

“You’ve been talking to people about Maggie,” Flannigan boomed as he advanced on Brody.

His father climbed out of the truck behind his uncle and tried to intervene. “Flan, wait.”

Flannigan ignored him, shoving him aside when Finn got in front of him. “I told you to keep out of this, Brody, and stay away from those Hamiltons. I warned you not to tell anyone because I didn’t want Maggie dragged through the dirt.” His voice cracked. “You were with that woman, that Hamilton woman.”

Brody knew he should tread carefully but doubted it would make any difference at this point. He couldn’t let his uncle railroad this investigation—and not just for Harper’s sake.

“It’s better if everyone just assumes it was JD Hamilton’s baby? That he killed her?” Brody demanded as he came off the steps to face his uncle. “You want to make sure he is blamed for her death. Don’t want the truth coming out and possibly the real killer caught?”

His uncle made a grab for him as if to hit him.

Finn stepped between them, his back to Brody as he tried to calm his brother. “Enough! We aren’t going to let this tear our family apart.”

“He’s already done that,” Flan said. “If he wants to stay on this ranch—”

“He’s my son. This ranch is his. You always said—”

“That was before he betrayed his family,” Flannigan yelled. His voice broke again. “He betrayed us. Betrayed Maggie.”

“I seem to be the only one who wants true justice for her,” Brody said.

“Justice?”
Flannigan wheeled around and took a few steps away as if trying to calm down, before he whirled around again. He pointed his finger at Brody, his face livid. “You’re chasing that Hamilton girl. You’re the last one to get Maggie justice.”

“You’re wrong. Harper wants to find out the truth as badly as I do.”

His uncle’s laugh had an edge to it that cut through the air like a hatchet. “She wants to protect her family and she’s using
you
.”

Finn turned to look at his son. “What
are
you doing? Are you willing to give up everything for this girl?”

Brody looked toward the horizon. “I guess I am.”

“I begged you to stay away from her,” Finn said quietly.

He shook his head as he met his father’s gaze. “I
can’t
.”

“Then get the hell off my property!” his uncle yelled.

“It’s also my father’s ranch,” Brody said. “A ranch I’ve worked all my life that was to be mine one day.”

Brody looked to his father, saw the answer in his pained face. “I guess I was wrong about that, as well.” He turned and headed for his pickup. He could hear his father behind him trying to calm Flannigan down, but the message had been clear.

* * *

C
LAUDIA
D
UNCAN
B
ARNES
answered the door to the sheriff with a baby on her hip and a toddler clinging to her leg. Both children were crying along with what sounded like several others in the background.

Frank did some quick math. Bobby and Claudia’s oldest, Tamara, was in her early thirties and doing time for drugs in the state pen in Deer Lodge. Which meant at least some of these children had to be grandkids unless Claudia had opened her own day care.

She looked confused to see the sheriff standing on her doorstep, then angry. “If this is about Tamara—”

“It’s not.” Before Claudia could ask if it had something to do with Bobby, he said, “I need to ask you some questions about Maggie McTavish.”

Claudia looked momentarily stunned. She shifted the baby on her hip. “She’s dead?”

“You hadn’t heard?”

She let out a bark of a laugh. “No, but you wouldn’t be asking about her if she wasn’t.” Her expression seemed to take years off her face. “Does Bobby know?”

Frank nodded.

She looked away, her mouth tightening into a hard, thin line, before she said, “Well, then I won’t expect him home for dinner, huh.” She stepped back. “You’d best come in. But I have to warn you, I’m not going to mince words.”

He hoped that was true as he entered the house, closed the door behind him and followed her through the obviously financially strained houseful of children.

Claudia put the baby she’d been holding into a high chair, unlatched the toddler clinging to her leg and set him in a playpen, then turned to deal with three older children seated at the kitchen table.

“Watch the baby,” Claudia ordered a girl of about ten who it appeared had been arguing with the other two children at the table. “Bobby Joe, quit teasing your brother and you, quit sniveling,” she said, pointing at the younger brother. “Both of you, get out front and pick up your toys before your grandpa gets home.”

She headed for the back door, motioning for Frank to follow her. They stepped outside onto a creaking wood deck. Claudia went to the far end of it, reached in a cubbyhole and pulled out a package of cigarettes and a lighter.

“I’m trying to quit, but I suspect this conversation will call for making an exception.” She offered him one. He shook his head and moved upwind as she lit up and took a long drag.

“So you want to know about Maggie.” She coughed out a laugh and picked a piece of tobacco off the tip of her tongue before she said, “I could have killed that bitch.”

Frank cocked his head at her, making her laugh at his surprise.

“You wouldn’t be here unless you thought I was capable of it.”

“Actually, I wondered if Bobby was capable of it.”

“Bobby?”
she said with a snort. “He couldn’t do it, even if he wanted to, which of course he didn’t, did he?” She sighed and looked at her watch. “I would imagine he’s down at the bar nursing his broken heart right now.”

He heard the bitterness in her voice.

She turned away to take a long drag on her cigarette. Her body was rigid with anger. “Bobby wasn’t her first, although he might not know it.”

“Who was?”

Claudia smiled. “Kyle Parker for one.”

Frank listened to her tick off on her fingers the boys Maggie had been with in high school. What he heard was the story of a troubled, beautiful girl who gave herself away too easily. Claudia’s portrayal of Maggie, though, was of a heartless tramp.

“Do you think she cared what she did to Bobby, the boy I had loved since grade school?” She cursed under her breath. “I gave her a piece of my mind, for all the good it did, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“When was this?”

Claudia shrugged. “A few months before she disappeared. I thought maybe I was the reason she left town. I guess not, huh.”

“The confrontation didn’t get physical?”

She looked at him almost sadly. “I wish I’d killed her. I wanted to. Did Bobby tell you he asked her to marry him?” She nodded to herself. “Maybe I would have killed her if he’d gone through with it. But she disappeared and Bobby...” She shook her head and looked out at the mountains in the distance. “Our marriage might not be perfect, but I love him.”

He watched Claudia savagely grind her cigarette into the wooden deck before hiding her cigarettes and lighter again. “He saved for months to buy her that damned diamond engagement ring.” There were tears in her eyes, in her voice. He glanced at her ring finger. She wore a slim gold band. He silently cursed Bobby for being a fool.

She straightened and dried her eyes. “I love him, but I’ll never understand him.” Frank couldn’t, either, but reminded himself how he’d hurt his first wife by marrying her when he was still in love with Lynette. He had helped bring out the psychosis in Pam and would always feel guilty for that, not to mention what it had done to her daughter Tiffany.

Just the thought of the daughter he’d once thought was his made him feel vulnerable and a little afraid. Tiffany was still locked up in the mental ward, but he knew that one day she would find a way to get out and when she did, she would come after him and Lynette.

“Who would have wanted Maggie dead?” Frank asked, pushing Tiffany as far from his thoughts as possible.

“Who wouldn’t?” Claudia snapped. “How about all the people she hurt?”

“Will Sanders, Kyle Parker, Collin Wilson. Not to mention the women who loved them.” She narrowed her eyes at him suddenly. “Are you purposely not asking about JD Hamilton?”

“I’m covering all the bases. I’ve heard the rumors, but do you or anyone else know for a fact that Maggie McTavish and Senator JD Hamilton had an affair?”

One of the kids inside the house yelled, “Grandma!” Claudia didn’t seem to hear. “Maggie used sex to get what she wanted. Everyone knew she wanted JD. I’m betting she got him and, faced with her ruining his life...” She shrugged. “Or maybe she broke his heart and, finally, here was a man who had the balls to put her out of her misery for the rest of us.”

“Grandma!” a child called from the back door.

“Thank you for your help,” Frank said. As he walked back through the house to leave, he noticed the photo album open on the coffee table and a dozen others piled off to the side. “You have a lot of photos.”

“I always wanted to be photographer,” Claudia said wistfully.

“These are from high school?”

She nodded.

“Would you mind if I borrowed them? I’ll get them back to you. I might have more questions down the road.”

“Don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere and neither is Bobby now that Maggie is finally put to rest once and for all.”

The sheriff didn’t correct her as he gathered up the thick photo albums. Maggie was far from put to rest. He thought of her trying to claw her way out of her grave. At night, he would wake up thinking he had heard her screams.

* * *

B
UCKMASTER
KNEW
HE
’
D
done fine in the debate so he didn’t wait to get the poll results. He caught the first flight home. All he’d been able to think about was the past. He knew memories were often tainted and that he shouldn’t trust them. But he kept remembering little things, strange bits of conversation overheard, odd looks he might not have paid any attention to at the time and, of course, his mother’s accusations against Sarah.