“Absurd. You have no proof. You can’t possibly—”
“You think we can’t have proof because you’re obsessive about getting rid of ranch records, because you thought that was the only way the blackmail could be traced. It’s not.”
I glanced toward Jennifer. Lukasik tracked that look.
A sliver of confusion came into his eyes.
Of doubt.
“He said—”
“Shut up, Gable. Now.”
“But—”
“Not a word.” After that cracked-whip order, Lukasik turned to me, trying for his doubt-instilling sneer. “Let Elizabeth Margaret Danniher dig herself even deeper before we end this.”
I ignored his implicit threat, and explained to the rest, as quickly and succinctly as I could, how Furman York, knowing Lukasik bribed jurors to win his case, secured evidence when Lukasik repeated three years later, in Bonedrin, Colorado. Then York converted that evidence into a lifetime position of generous guaranteed income, room and board, free transportation, and more.
“Of course, he didn’t expect it to end so abruptly,” I concluded.
Odessa surged forward, but Tom, stationed beside her, cut her off.
She shouted at Lukasik, directly across from her, “I will kill you. I will kill you for what you have done. You murdered my parents.”
Asheleigh made a sound. Gable’s hold on her tightened.
“Kill me?” Lukasik repeated in nearly his best courtroom voice, turning away from her as unimportant. “You should thank me. I relieved you of the task your incompetence kept you from achieving for decades. You and all the rest. None of you acted, for all your whining about Furman York. Only I did.”
Norman Clay Lukasik confessing to murdering Furman York?
But he’d never confess.
That’s why we needed Shelton.
We thought — hoped — we could get Lukasik far enough into the corner of guilt with this confrontation that Shelton would take over, using law enforcement resources to fill in our broad outlines.
But this… this didn’t fit Lukasik. He would try to outsmart everyone — us, Shelton, the legal system. He wouldn’t just give up.
“You? You killed him?” Scorn burned Odessa’s words. “And now you think you finally made right all the wrong you did?”
Lukasik spun on her. “Hell, no. I killed him to get him off my back. A bloodsucker who’d been leeching off my blood — and money — far too long. I could never reach around to yank him off me until that day.”
“I said it, I said it, I said it,” Hiram crowed, jangling the handcuffs like a percussion instrument suitable to a jig. “Said all along Norman Clay Lukasik was the killer. Could’ve had him in jail days ago. Nobody’d ever listen to me.”
“Because all you did was say he did it.” Shelton said.
“Can’t expect me to do all your work for you like the little lady does.”
Shelton’s reaction was like feeling the earth tremble and crack as molten rock surged up inside a volcano, waiting for it to spew lava, ash, and flames.
And then he had himself under control. It would have been a sight to behold, but I was relieved.
We’d needed Shelton more than ever with Lukasik reacting so unpredictably.
I needed to think. Adjust on the fly.
Abruptly Hiram puffed up. “Hey! You meant to frame me.” He tried to get in Lukasik’s face, but was foiled by Lloyd Sampson’s hold and Lukasik staring over his head.
“I had no need to frame you. You shoveled all the doubt yourself, then rolled in it like a pig in a wallow. I simply sat back and watched.” With Hiram sputtering himself toward apoplexy, Lukasik swept a contemptuous look around the circle. “You all did. Tom Burrell threatening him—”
Had Lukasik picked the day to kill York because that dispute cast suspicion on Tom?
“—over a few cows — or was there more behind his anger? There were rumors about his former wife and York… Or Clyde, sending Hiram to avoid the temptation of murder — so he says. Kesler would have risen to killing York if he’d known. The old cowman, revered by all — how could he not know? This woman. Of loving Gable in his own way disappointed she didn’t kill the man she proclaims murdered her sister — waiting for decades, she says, yet failing to act when he was right in front of her. Hiram threatening York as he has so many — did he hide a murderous tree among the forest of his threats?”
This was more like it. This Norman Clay Lukasik we could have predicted. A thunderous offering of alternatives, deflecting from him. It’s how he’d started.
When had he shifted? When had he stopped denying?
Mike, Diana, Tom, Jennifer, even Shelton watched me.
I should pound Lukasik with questions, get him to make statements, give him no time to regain balance…
But my concentration shuddered.
Something…
“You’ve got what you need. I’ve said I killed him. I’m not making any further admissions.” Lukasik slashed the air with the edge of his hand. “I have no regrets for what I’ve done in my life, in my career. If I hadn’t won that case, I wouldn’t’ve had the career I’ve had. Wouldn’t’ve had my ranch to…”
Leave to his son.
Diana jumped in. “You haven’t told us about… getting York off.” Tactful of her to not bring up bribery.
“Hah. You never figured that out, did you? It doesn’t take all the jurors to be with you—”
The latest in euphemisms for bribery.
“—to swing a jury. Juries have a rhythm. They get rolling, like a bicycle. Hit at the right time with a holdout, a vote that switches sides, and it’s a stick in the spokes. Instant crash. Right then, one, two in the right place and boom it’s your jury.”
“One or two in the right place because you exploit weaknesses,” Diana said. “Someone’s greed. Someone’s desperation to keep his dying child alive. Not jurors being with you, not persuaded, but bribed. By you. To get a murderer off.”
“The murderer of my sister.”
“Not proven,” Lukasik snapped.
“I know it,” Hiram shouted. “What it did to Earl. What he did.”
Voices exploded. Hiram shouting about his friend. Shelton telling him to be quiet. Odessa not shouting, all the more chilling for it, telling Lukasik what punishment he deserved in this life and the next.
In full oral sail, Lukasik dismissed them, but did not deny his guilt.
He had been denying, confident he could not be touched … and then he stopped. When?
I turned my back to shut out the whirling emotions, so I could think. I had to think.
The wind tossed confetti rose petals against the faded house, my thoughts scattering with them. Memories coming instead.
Mike and his family ranch.
Tom, carrying Tamantha’s bag.
Tamantha saying, You need roses here. Like the grazing association has.
Not now, not now. I needed to think, not remember. Not feel. I needed to figure out when Lukasik stopped denying.
Mom’s voice. Until you’re forced to face it.
Had Lukasik been forced to face something? Forced to feel…
Tamantha’s hand in mine. The slide of her thumb.
In that instant, thinking had no power against what burst open. Whatever I felt for Tom, for Mike — and I felt so much for each of them — I loved Tamantha Burrell.
I would do whatever I could to ease her way.
For this girl, I would sacrifice anythi—
My mind flooded with an incongruity — Norman Clay Lukasik and the concept of sacrifice.
When had he stopped denying?
After he told Gable to shut up, which followed…
Words about proof of blackmail, then his son saying He said—
Those two words and Lukasik knew.
He knew York. He knew the hold the man reveled in. He knew he would not let it go. He knew York had told his son he would carry the blackmail into the next generation.
In that moment, he knew that his son also knew the burden of this legacy he would carry.
And Norman Clay Lukasik had been forced to face what he felt.
I spun around.
“You didn’t kill him. Gable did.”
* * * *
Odessa gasped.
But the voice that said, “No. Tell them you didn’t,” was Asheleigh’s.
Gable didn’t respond. Might not have even heard. He stared straight ahead.
His silence absorbed all other sounds.
As I’d seen before, the planes of his face shifted, drawing tauter, as if the skeleton of his father surged closer to the surface of the fuller and — even in this moment — kinder face.
I remembered then…
Remembered him saying York must have gotten up early because his truck was gone when Gable left … yet he’d never answered whether he’d seen York.
“He ordered you to come here that morning,” I said quietly.
“Don’t answer,” his father ordered. “Don’t say—”
“Usually it’s no problem to avoid him, but he was up early that day. He made me climb up here to get my orders. He pointed that gun of his to where two pastures meet and told me to tear down fence so the cattle would mix. I said that would mix Lukasik brand and Circle B. He laughed. Nasty. Said I was a bright one. Started bragging he’d have everybody thinking Tom Burrell was trying to steal Lukasik cattle before he was done. Then he said to get started, because he was the foreman and I was just a hand. I said no. He got—”
“Be quiet, Gable. Shut up now.”
I don’t think his son heard.
“—real mean and said I’d be taking his orders on more than fences from now on. He said when my father finished dying it would be my turn to take care of him the way he expected, or he’d see to it that everything blew up in my face. I told him I wouldn’t pay him blackmail the way my father had for—”
“There’s no basis— It’s false. He had no knowledge. No basis in fact. Shelton. No motive.”
As far as I could tell, no one looked at Norman Clay Lukasik.
Gable held this audience.
“—all these years. All these years him holding the ranch hostage. And there he stood, saying he’d go on doing it. He said he had proof that would take everything away. Everything. The ranch.”
I heard Tom’s words echoing beneath Gable’s.
…like your heart’s too big for your chest because it’s yours. You’re its, too, though. It holds you…
“I said I’d kill him before I let him interfere with the life Asheleigh and I want. He laughed again, the way he did. Then he raised his shotgun and pointed it at me, and said, ‘Who’s going to kill who?’
“I grabbed it. I suppose that surprised him. Surprised him enough that I got a good hold on it, even with my work gloves on. He—”
Those unlovely work gloves. Spattered and stained. Not only from cows.
“—didn’t let go. We fought for it — I don’t know how long. And then I had the butt in my hands and got my finger—”
“Ridiculous. I told you. I killed him. I shot Furman York.” Even now, Norman Clay Lukasik was really good. The right amount of dismissal, utter conviction. But his words came too late. Far too late.
His power was gone. Shattered by his son.
“—around the trigger and pulled it. He went down to his knees. Exactly like he was praying. Only he never prayed. And he stayed there the longest time, but his eyes… There was nothing in his eyes. Not the meanness, not the calculating. Just… the darkest night you’ve ever seen, without a single star.”
Asheleigh sucked in oxygen, as if she’d held her breath until she couldn’t hold it any longer. She hardly seemed to move. No one did.
“I dropped the gun. And when he started to fold down, I pushed it with my foot, under him. Get it out of sight, I guess. And then I looked all around and nobody was there. Nobody else was anywhere. But all those marks in the dust… Didn’t look like anything to me, but science can do all sorts of stuff. So, I took my hat off—”
His hat.
“—to brush the marks away. I said I wouldn’t let him ruin everything. But in the second I pulled the trigger … I don’t know. Maybe I wanted to make up for… Maybe I wanted him gone so her life could be free of him, of my father, of the trial, of her aunt, of her mother, of all of it. Even of me.”
“No, Gable. No.”
Odessa jerked Asheleigh around by her arm. “You told him?”
Her daughter pulled free.
“Of course I told him. He loves me and I… I love…” Turning to Gable, Asheleigh’s voice rose, the words tumbling together. “I do love you. Whatever they did, whatever they planned, it’s not us, Gable. It’s not us. Don’t leave me. Please, please, don’t leave me.”
Odessa Vincennes stared at her, her mouth open, her eyes dead.
Jerry said it when he showed us her footage — It’s all reaction shot.