Redemption (16 page)

“So that’s how you ended up with the café,” she said, more to herself than to him. “And my mother? Where does she come into your life story?”

“Months went by before I heard about some crazy survivalist who had holed up in an isolated hollow deep in the mountains outside town. His name was Cullen Ackermann.”

She took a guess. “Your older brother?”

Claude nodded. “He no doubt remembered our mother’s stories, too. My brother had always been a bully. I wasn’t looking forward to seeing him. I was enjoying my job at the café and I wanted to put that old life behind me. Fortunately, he hardly ever came to town. When I finally ran into him, he didn’t recognize me. I was so relieved, I left it that way. Over time, I was able to buy out the former owner of the café. By then Cullen had become even more reclusive and fanatical. Then the rumors started about him having a young, beautiful second wife.”

Kate felt a start, knowing even before she said it. “My mother.”

“Her name was Katherina, but everyone called her Teeny. She was a tiny young thing, all right. I had no idea how Cullen got her to marry him—he was much older than her and already had four nearly grown boys. I later learned that he tricked her. She didn’t know what she was getting into, since he found her out in Washington and brought her back here. She hadn’t seen what a lunatic he was.”

He took a shaky breath and continued. “But it didn’t take long before she realized her mistake in marrying him, let alone letting him take all her money. Teeny came from a wealthy family. It also wasn’t long before she came to realize Cullen was getting more paranoid, more violent, and so were her four stepsons.”

Claude coughed and stopped for a few moments.

Kate’s heart was in her throat. “He was violent with my mother?”

“Not in the way you think. He patrolled his land up the hollow armed with every kind of weapon you could imagine. He wouldn’t let anyone on the property and he wouldn’t let Teeny or the children leave. Teeny was homeschooling his boys best she could. She was a virtual prisoner, since they raised all their own food and killed what animals they needed for food, and the only person allowed to go into town was Cullen.”

Claude stopped again, and she could see that this was the hard part of his story. “My brother had booby-trapped the whole area and had his boys standing guard ready to shoot to kill. But I kept hearing stories about Teeny and I became more curious about her.”

“Curious enough to go up there even though it was armed like a fortress?”

He smiled and nodded. “I used to be a lot braver than I am now.”

* * *

“
D
ID YOU FIND
a computer?” Carson asked with a grin when he and Jack took a break from the branding the next day.

“As a matter of fact, I did.” His friend shook his head as Jack added, “Kate was very obliging and let me use hers.”

“I’ll bet.”

“Just as I suspected, Hitch McCray was set to go before Judge Hyett two weeks after I was arrested for rustling.”

“You said it would take at least two men to pull off stealing that bull.”

Jack nodded. He’d found several names he recognized. He figured it wouldn’t be easy for a man with a conscience to frame an innocent man—unless he already knew Jack, knew about his family legacy of getting in trouble, and had a lot to lose. Jack had been far from innocent on numerous occasions. Everyone in the county expected the worst from him. The rustling charge had proven them all right.

It wasn’t until he’d found a name he hadn’t expected that Jack knew he’d struck pay dirt.

“Cody West,” he said, and saw his friend’s shock. Rylan West’s younger brother had been arrested just three weeks before Jack had been awakened to find a prized bull in his backyard and the sheriff reading him his rights.

“Cody’s arrest was for a minor in possession of alcohol and driving under the influence. He’d probably been busted at a kegger down by the river,” he told Carson, who knew as he did that kids had partied down there for years. Probably Judge Hyett had too when he was young.

But for years, Hyett had been making a name for himself by busting up keggers and getting tough on drinking teens. He always pointed to the decrease in automobile accidents by young drivers and took all the credit.

“Cody got off with a slap on the hand,” Jack told his friend. “The other kids didn’t fare as well.”

Carson shook his head. “I can’t believe Taylor West would let his youngest son make such a deal with Judge Hyett. You know Taylor. He would have been furious with his son about the arrest and probably harder on him than anything the judge would have given him.”

“True, but getting the sentence busted down to only a minor in possession? The kid made a deal with the judge knowing how furious his old man would be if he got a DUI on top of it.” Taylor West was the kind of father every young man wished he’d had. Unless you ticked him off. Then Taylor could be tough as iron railroad spikes. “Cody would have been scared. I get how scary Judge Hyett can be.”

“I hope that’s true, because quite frankly, Jack, you’re scaring
me.
Do I need to remind you how dangerous going after Hyett is? If you’re right, the man has already committed a crime. As powerful as he is, who knows what he might do to get rid of you this time.”

Having the judge drop the serious charges would have indebted both Hitch and Cody to the judge. But indebted enough to help frame a man for rustling? That was the question. Jack was still trying to decide if he wanted the answer badly enough to go up against the judge.

* * *

I
HAVE A
DAUGHTER.
It was Sheriff Frank Curry’s first thought the next morning. He’d directed traffic until late in the evening, then gotten called out on another accident. He’d spent most of the time cursing Pam. Of course, he had a right to be angry. He’d lost seventeen years with his daughter.

If she’s even my daughter.

If Pam hadn’t bothered to tell me about the child all these years, then isn’t there also the possibility Tiffany isn’t mine?
Maybe Tiffany had misunderstood her mother. Or maybe Pam had never told her who her father was and Tiffany had just concluded that it had to be him.

He had to talk to Pam.

But in the meantime, he needed to see Tiffany again.

Tuesday after work, Frank found her in the apartment over the store. Beartooth General Store was closed for the day, so Lynette wasn’t around, something he was grateful for as he climbed the stairs and tapped on the apartment door.

Tiffany didn’t answer the door right away, but all the lights were on and her car was parked out front, so he knew she was home.

When she did open the door, he saw that she’d been crying.

“Are you all right?” he asked, alarmed.

“What do you think?” With that, she turned and went deeper into the apartment.

He followed her, closing the door behind him. She stood with her back to him, looking out the window. He realized she’d probably been watching for him when he’d driven up, growing more irritated with him by the minute because he hadn’t come back last evening.

“I’m sorry I had to take off like that yesterday. I had to work today or I would have come out sooner.” The truth was, he’d needed time to think—and also to try to track down Pam. All the thinking in the world hadn’t helped. Nor had he been able to find Pam. He’d realized that she could have remarried, changed her name, moved out of the country.

He couldn’t jeopardize his job by searching too deeply for her without probable cause. Unfortunately, finding out he had a daughter wasn’t enough.

“You didn’t have to come by now if you didn’t want to,” Tiffany said, hurt dripping from each word.

His heart went out to her. She was the true victim here. Hesitantly, he touched her shoulder. She flinched, but turned to look at him.

“I want to get to know you,” he said. “If I’d known about you sooner—”

“What would you have done?” she demanded.

“I would have never let your mother leave.”

His words seemed to help, but he knew if he said the wrong thing, she would be off again, angry and upset with him.

As he searched for what to say to his daughter, he felt as if he was tiptoeing through a minefield. He looked around the small apartment, surprised how nicely Lynette had fixed it up. It was a side of her he’d never seen. He felt that old tug on his heartstrings. There were so many sides to her he’d never seen.

“So you like to draw.” It seemed a safe thing to say, but she instantly made a face. “Tiffany, give me a break. I don’t know anything about you. Why don’t you try to help me out here?”

She moved past him to sit, legs crossed on an overstuffed chair. He followed and sat down on the edge of the couch, his hat in his hands.

“I’ve never ridden a horse. Do you have horses?”

He smiled and nodded, finally feeling on familiar ground. All young girls loved horses, right? “I have a half dozen horses. Would you like to learn to ride?”

“Is it hard?”

“No, I have a gentle mare that you would like. I can teach you.”

“Mother said you were a cowboy sheriff.”

He chuckled at that. “I guess that’s true. I ride and raise a few cattle, along with being sheriff. What else did your mother tell you about me?”

She must have picked up the edge in his voice. “You didn’t love her.”

“That’s not true. Look, I need to talk to your mother. Can you give me her number?”

“No.”

“No, you don’t have it. Or no, you won’t give it to me.”

Tiffany scowled across the space at him. “This is between you and me.”

“But there are things that only your mother can answer.”

Her eyes widened. “You don’t believe I’m your daughter.” Suddenly she was on her feet. “She said that’s what you would say. Get out.”

“Tiffany, I didn’t say—”

“Get out!” She was crying again.

He got to his feet. “I’m sorry, but I’m angry at your mother for keeping you from me. I need to know why.”

“Why?” she screamed. “Because you didn’t love her or me. Because you divorced her.”

She divorced me.
Fortunately he only thought it and didn’t say the words.

“I’m sorry that’s what you believe, but it isn’t true. I would have never let your mother go if I’d known about you. Never.”

She stopped crying and brushed angrily at her tears.

“I’m taking tomorrow off. Why don’t you come out to the ranch about ten? Wear jeans and boots if you have them. If you don’t, we’ll get you a pair. You’ll need them when you ride. You’ll like my mare Princess, and she’ll like you.”

Tiffany swallowed. She looked even more like a child than she had before. So small and skinny, so young even for seventeen. He wanted to take her in his arms and hold her and never let her go. He couldn’t bear how much she’d been hurt. He wanted to kill Pam with his bare hands.

He walked to the door and turned to look back at her. With a smile, he said, “I really do want to get to know you. There’s no better place to visit than on the back of a horse.”

On the way to Big Timber, he forced his thoughts away from Pam and Tiffany to his job. He had a dead Ackermann on a slab at the local mortuary and at least one more in the wind. As he pulled into the sheriff’s department parking lot, he latched on to a stray thought and, like grabbing a loose thread, he pulled, knowing that with one phone call the whole scenario could unravel.

Walking into his office, he closed the door and grabbed his phone. His heart was pounding as the warden at Montana State Prison came on the line.

“I need to know if Cullen Ackermann had any visitors the week before he died,” Frank said.

“I can check.”

“I’ll hold, if you don’t mind.”

The warden was gone long enough that Frank was questioning his theory.

Finally the warden came back on the line. “I don’t know if you were old enough to remember, but when Cullen Ackermann was sent up, he was bombarded by the media and every crackpot that crawled out of the woods. He loved the attention. But as the years went by, he didn’t want any visitors. In the end, he had only two he agreed to see.”

Frank held his breath as the warden read off the names.

“Cecil Ackermann.”
Another
son. That meant that three of the sons had survived, two of them now at large. Frank swore under his breath, his suspicions confirmed.

“The other visitor was a man named Claude Durham.”

Frank let out a surprised sound, unable to contain his shock. Why in the hell would Claude go see Cullen Ackermann? “One other question, Warden. I understand Ackermann bragged about his buried treasure.”

The warden chuckled. “Said he married a young woman with money, turned it all into gold and buried it. Carried around an old photograph of his family—at least he said it was his family—with a map on the back of where the gold was buried. He showed it to me once. I couldn’t make heads or tails out of it. Anyone who looked at the so-called map knew he was a lunatic. It was nothing more than a bunch of chicken scratches.”

Frank thought of the photograph he’d found. So Cullen had given it to one of his sons. Cecil. He thanked the warden and hung up, sitting for a long moment just staring at nothing. His mind whirled. Another thread ran from Cullen to Claude to Darrell Ackermann to Kate LaFond. Why, he had no idea.

Picking up the phone, he called the Branding Iron, only to learn that Kate had taken the rest of the day off and was last seen driving north out of town.

CHAPTER TWELVE

I
T WAS LATE AFTERNOON
by the time Jack loaded his pickup and drove toward his family homestead. He knew why he’d been putting it off. This is where he’d been living when the sheriff had arrested him.

At the time, he hadn’t been sure what hurt the most, being dragged off in handcuffs after seeing the bull in his corral or realizing that he’d been set up by one of his neighbors. He had no doubt it was someone he knew.