The Calamity Janes Read online

  “I am. I just want all the facts so readers can make up their own minds. Of course, you said it yourself back there, this is an open-and-shut case. And that comment was not off the record.”

  Ryan’s scowl deepened. “Then I suppose you’d better add this to go along with it. It would be an open-and-shut case if Emma Rogers hadn’t agreed to handle it.”

  Ford jotted down the new quote. “Duly noted.” He studied the bleak expression on the sheriff’s face. “Why do I get the feeling that this whole mess is personal where you’re concerned?”

  “Like Emma said, Sue Ellen is a friend.”

  “And that’s all? What about Donny? Wasn’t he one of your classmates, too?”

  Ryan stiffened visibly. “What are you implying?”

  Ford held up a placating hand. “I’m not implying anything. I’m asking straight out if there’s something between you and Sue Ellen. I noticed you were quick to jump to her defense at the dance, and you sound mighty protective right now. I don’t hear a lot of regret for the fact that her husband is dead.”

  “Of course I regret it, though to be perfectly honest, my reason for regretting it has more to do with what this will do to Sue Ellen than any sorrow over Donny. He was a pitiful excuse for a man.” Ryan frowned at Ford. “And that is definitely off the record.”

  Ford studied him curiously. “How do you see her? As a suspect or as a victim?”

  “A victim,” Ryan said without hesitation.

  “I still get the feeling that your concern for her runs deeper than it might for some other victim,” Ford said, watching Ryan’s face for a reaction. There was an unmistakable tightening of the sheriff’s jaw before he spoke.

  “She was a married woman,” Ryan said finally. “And she loved her husband.”

  “That wouldn’t necessarily stop another man from caring about her,” Ford pointed out.

  “No more than I care about any other citizen in Winding River who’s the victim of a crime. As for my actions at the dance, they were meant to keep the peace. I didn’t want Donny starting a brawl and ruining the night for everyone else.”

  “If you say so.”

  “I do. Now leave it be and tell me how you intend to get back in Emma’s good graces.”

  Ford accepted the change of topic, even though the new one put him on the defensive. “Being in Emma’s good graces doesn’t concern me one way or another,” he said flatly.

  Ryan gave him a wry, disbelieving look. “Yeah, right.”

  “It doesn’t.”

  “Your denials aren’t getting any better despite all the practice you’ve had making them today.”

  Ford sighed. “Look, there was never a chance of anything happening between me and Emma Rogers. She’s an uppity, uptight lawyer from Denver. I’m just a small-town journalist.”

  “Aw, shucks,” Ryan mocked. “I guess Chicago and Atlanta must not have left any marks on you after all. You still struggling to figure out which spoon to use to stir your coffee?”

  Ford laughed despite himself. “Okay, wise guy, maybe we do have a few things in common. I don’t know her well enough to say. The odds are good that I never will.”

  “And that’s the way you want it?”

  “That’s the way it has to be, now especially.”

  “Because she’ll be handling Sue Ellen’s case?”

  “Exactly.”

  “I could fill in a few details,” Ryan offered. “Save you some time getting to know her.”

  Despite everything he’d just said, Ford craved more information. He still wanted to know what made Emma tick. She was as fascinating as she was aggravating.

  “I imagine what you see is what you get,” he said, waiting to see if Ryan denied it.

  “I suppose that depends on what you see. For instance, I doubt you know that she was a helluva shortstop.”

  “She played baseball? That game I saw wasn’t some sort of fluke?”

  “She played when we were kids,” Ryan confirmed. “On my team, as a matter of fact. I took a lot of teasing over that, until she started throwing people out and hitting everything that was pitched to her. Then everybody wanted her on their team, but Emma was as loyal as they come. She stayed with me.”

  “Did the two of you date?”

  “No way. She never looked twice at any guy in town. She had her goals all carved out for herself very early on. And they didn’t include getting married and sticking around Winding River.”

  “She was a snob?”

  “No, just driven. She had ambition, and she was determined to achieve her dreams. She didn’t intend to let anything hold her back.”

  Driven. Ambitious. Determined. All were words Ford would have agreed applied to Emma. But somehow they added up differently when Ryan used them. He turned them into compliments. It was obvious he admired and respected her. No, more than that, he genuinely liked her.

  Fascinating, Ford thought again. Maybe there was more to Emma Rogers than he’d wanted to believe. Thanks to this shooting tonight and her determination to represent Sue Ellen, he was going to have more of an opportunity to observe her. Maybe he’d invite her out to dinner, spend a little time with her, all in the interest of getting his story about Sue Ellen Carter, of course.

  Of course.

  At the pleadings of her friends and, most of all, persuaded by the glazed look in Sue Ellen’s eyes, Emma knew she had no choice but to go all the way through this as Sue Ellen’s attorney. Whatever hope she’d held that she could turn the case over to someone else after the arraignment vanished when she looked around for a likely candidate.

  Seventy-year-old Seth Wilkins, who’d been the only practicing attorney in Winding River for the past forty-five years, thought Sue Ellen ought to plead guilty to manslaughter and accept a reduced sentence.

  Emma was having none of that, not after she’d heard Sue Ellen’s story and talked to all of her neighbors. They had confirmed the frequency of the fights with Donny, the times the police had been called. There was a record of those 9-1-1 calls, which would add to her case, even if Sue Ellen had failed to press charges even once.

  “Mommy, are we gonna stay with Grandma?” Caitlyn asked eagerly when another week came and went and they hadn’t left.

  “For a while,” Emma told her. She had flown to Denver with the rest of the Calamity Janes to be with Cassie during her mom’s surgery, then taken the time to stop by her office to talk with her secretary and her associates and arrange for them to take over the most pressing appointments, at least for the next few days. Because of her workaholic tendencies in the past, all the partners had agreed that she deserved the time off.

  She studied Caitlyn’s hopeful expression. “Would you like that? Are you having fun here?”

  Caitlyn nodded, then threw her arms around Emma’s neck. “I love it here,” she said enthusiastically. “There’s horses and cows and kids my age. And Pete’s birthday is coming, and Uncle Matt says there’s gonna be cake and ice cream and everything. And Grandpa’s promised me that I’ll be able to ride my pony all by myself really, really soon.”

  Emma grinned. “Well, we definitely wouldn’t want to miss any of that, would we?”

  “No way,” Caitlyn said. “And then Jessie’s birthday is a month from now. And then pretty soon after that school starts. Jessie says the teacher for second grade is really, really nice. We could be in the same class. Wouldn’t that be the best?”

  “Whoa, baby. I didn’t say we were going to stay forever, just until I can wrap up some of the business I have here. After that we’ll just come back and forth when I need to be in court.”

  Caitlyn’s face fell. “But, Mommy, I want to live here. I really, really want to.” Her lower lip trembled, and tears spilled down her cheeks. “I hate Denver. I don’t ever want to go back. Not ever!”

  With that she turned and ran into the house, letting the screen door slam and leaving Emma staring after her. This was a turn of events she definitely hadn’t counted on. With every day th
at passed, Caitlyn was clearly going to become more and more attached to the family and friends she had here. Tearing her away was going to break her heart.

  “What’s wrong with Caitlyn?” her mother asked, stepping onto the porch. “She just ran through the house sobbing. And now she’s clinging to your father’s neck as if she’ll never let go.”

  “She’s gotten the idea that we’re going to stay here forever. When I told her that we weren’t, she got upset.”

  “Then maybe you should consider doing what she wants,” her mother said.

  Emma was appalled by the suggestion for any number of reasons. “Give in to a six-year-old? She doesn’t know what’s best for her.”

  “Oh, really?” Her mother sat down beside her, her expression somber. “Maybe she does, Emma. Maybe even a six-year-old can see that here she has family, that she has room to run and play, that her mother gets home at a decent hour and has time to spend with her. Maybe she’s aware that her mother’s not really happy in Denver, either, that she’s been using her work as a way to hide out from her feelings.”

  Emma bristled at the criticism. “I work hard to make a good life for us.”

  “To make money, you mean.”

  “Are you suggesting that money’s not important?”

  “Of course not, but there are things that are more important. I’ve just named a few of them. Can you honestly tell me that you’re happy?”

  Emma sighed. “Mom, I’m doing the best I can.”

  “Are you really?” Millie challenged. “Best for whom? You?”

  “Both of us,” she insisted.

  “Obviously Caitlyn doesn’t see it that way.”

  “She’s six, dammit.”

  Her mother frowned at the language. “You know better,” she chided gently.

  “Sorry.”

  “I doubt that.” Millie kissed Emma’s cheek. “Just think about what I’ve said. You’ve evaded my question about whether you’re truly happy. Think about that. Think about what your daughter’s said. Just because she’s a little girl doesn’t mean you can dismiss what she wants so easily.”

  “I’ll think about it, Mom. I promise. Right now, though, I’m going to saddle up a horse and go for a ride.”

  “Good. There was a time when that soothed you, put things back into perspective. Maybe it will again.”

  “Maybe,” Emma agreed, though she didn’t hold out much hope for it.

  With the sun beating down on her shoulders, she rode up into the foothills of the Snowy Range, letting the horse set the leisurely pace. Whenever troubling thoughts began to creep in, she shoved them aside. Keeping her mind blank was harder than she’d expected, especially when her mother had just given her so much to consider.

  On the ride home she let the horse gallop full out, relishing the way the wind whipped her hair and stung her face. She felt exhilarated, if not any less conflicted by the time she got back to the corral.

  Finding Ford sitting on the front porch waiting for her destroyed what little equanimity she had managed to achieve. She was still seething over his initial report on the shooting, which had all but condemned Sue Ellen on the front page. Fortunately, thanks to the tightness of the deadline, it had been little more than a four-inch blurb with a comparatively small headline. His report on the town’s success stories had been much longer but it hadn’t offset Emma’s reaction to that small item about the shooting. He’d been calling ever since for a follow-up interview for this week’s edition. She hadn’t returned his calls. No matter how fair he’d been to Lauren and the others, she didn’t fully trust him.

  “What are you doing here?” she demanded, pausing at the bottom of the steps, her hand on the railing.

  “Waiting for you. I’ve left several messages. You haven’t called me back.”

  “What do you suppose that means? Could it possibly be that I don’t want to talk to you?”

  “Sarcasm doesn’t become you.”

  “If you have a question, now that you’re here, just spit it out.”

  “I want to talk to Sue Ellen.”

  “Not a chance. Anything you want to know, you’ll have to ask me.”

  “Will you answer me?”

  “That depends.”

  “On?”

  “Whether I like the question.”

  “In other words, you have all the cards.”

  She grinned. “Pretty much.”

  “Are you sure that you’re operating in your client’s best interests? Or are you letting some vendetta you have against the media interfere with getting her story out in a way that might help her?”

  “You want to help Sue Ellen? Now why do I have a tough time buying that?”

  “Because you have a suspicious nature?”

  “No, because you’ve already made it plain in print and in conversation that you’ve got an ax to grind against her.”

  “I reported the bare facts in last week’s paper. As for any conversation that you and I have had, it was in the heat of the moment.”

  “Then you don’t consider Sue Ellen to be guilty of a cold-blooded murder?” she asked, quoting him precisely.

  “I never said that.”

  “You did,” she corrected. “At the jail on the night she was arrested. That’s not exactly the kind of open-minded reporter I want her to talk to.”

  “If you won’t let me talk to her, have dinner with me. You can give me her side of things.”

  Emma hesitated. He was right about one thing. She did need to build sympathy for Sue Ellen’s cause, if only to plant a subliminal message in the minds of potential jurors. And, sadly, the Winding River News was the only game in town, though many locals took the Cheyenne newspaper as their daily paper. Emma resolved to try to reach someone there first thing in the morning. In the meantime, putting her spin on things for Ford made sense.

  “Okay,” she said at last. “I’ll have dinner with you.”

  “Tonight?”

  “That’s as good a time as any.”

  He grinned. “Your enthusiasm overwhelms me.”

  She bristled. “It’s not a date, it’s an interview. If you can’t keep that fact straight, why should I trust you with any others?”

  “An interview, not a date,” he said solemnly. “Got it.” He gestured toward his car. “Coming?”

  “I’ll meet you in town. That way you won’t have to drive me all the way back out here.”

  “Ah, that’s the date thing again, isn’t it?” he asked.

  “Pretty much,” she said. “I wouldn’t want you to get confused just when things are starting to go so well.”

  “Oh, I’m sure I can keep it straight for a couple of hours…maybe even all evening long.”

  “A couple of hours should be enough. I don’t want to tax you,” she said acidly.

  He left that unchallenged. “Where should I meet you for this non-date dinner?”

  “Tony’s,” she said at once. Maybe Gina would be there. She could offer additional insights into the kind of person Sue Ellen had been when they were growing up.

  “The Italian place on Main Street,” he said. “Great lasagne.”

  “Better pizza,” she countered.

  “Are we going to argue over that, too?”

  She gave him a faint smile. “More than likely. I’ll see you there. Give me an extra couple of minutes to check in on Caitlyn and let my parents know I’m going out.”

  “I’ll get you a glass of wine.”

  “Forget the wine. It might loosen my tongue.”

  “That’s the whole idea,” he said with an unrepentant grin.

  “Make it coffee.”

  “Whatever you say, Counselor,” he said with a jaunty salute.

  If only, Emma thought as she watched him drive away.

  When Ford spotted Gina Petrillo coming out of the kitchen at Tony’s, he understood why Emma had picked this particular restaurant. She’d wanted backup. Was that because she was afraid of what she might say about Sue Ellen and Do
nny Carter? Or because she felt—and feared—the same sizzling awareness that had aroused him? Did it even matter? The bottom line was that they were going to be well chaperoned.

  Gina greeted him with a smile. “I’m filling in for Tony, and the waitress is on a break. Are you here for dinner?”

  “Of course. Tony must really rate, if he can lure you into substituting,” he said.

  “He got me into the restaurant business,” she told him. “So, are you here alone or are you expecting someone?”

  “Actually, your friend Emma will be joining me,” he said. “How about that booth over there? It looks fairly private.”

  Gina studied him with a penetrating look. “You intending to whisper sweet nothings into Emma’s ear?”

  “Nope. This is an interview, not a date,” he said, dutifully reciting the ground rules.

  Gina grinned. “Your choice of words or Emma’s?”

  Before Ford could answer, she said, “Emma’s, I imagine. I really need to have a talk with her. What can I bring you to drink?”

  “Red wine for me, coffee for her.”

  “Two red wines,” she corrected.

  “As long as I don’t end up wearing that second glass,” he said, chuckling at her audacity.

  “Blame it on me. She’d never toss it at a friend, especially once I explain to her that wasting a perfectly good wine is a sin.”

  Gina had delivered the two glasses of wine and retreated to the kitchen by the time Emma arrived. She scowled at him.

  “I thought I made myself clear about the wine,” she said.

  “You did,” he agreed. “To me, anyway.”

  “What does that mean?”

  He nodded toward the kitchen. “Your friend had other ideas.”

  “Gina?”

  “She’s subbing for Tony tonight.” He studied the guilty flush on her face. “Which you were hoping for, right?”

  She didn’t answer. He took that for a yes.

  “In that case, drink your wine. I promise if you get wild, I’ll drive you home and never print a word about it.”

  “As if I’d believe that.”

  He frowned at her. “Is it me you distrust, or all reporters?”

  “All media,” she said succinctly.