Chapter 27 Claire
“Do you think Pete will come after us?” Beth asked, twisting to peer out the back window of the truck. She was holding Jenny, who had started to wail when the fire alarm had shattered through the hospital.
Claire’s hands slipped on the steering wheel, wet with perspiration.
Pete would definitely come after them. As they sped away from Mammoth Hospital, the Yellowstone fire engine and at least three National Park Service trucks pulled up to the building, blocking every car into the hospital parking lot, including the Henshaws’ red Ford.
That would give them some time, at least.
Claire’s heart was still pounding. What had got into Bridget? It wasn’t like her sister to break the rules, and pulling the fire alarm? She would be in trouble for that and maybe even lose her job.
Beth adjusted Jenny in her lap as the baby continued to cry. “What do I do?”
“She’s probably hungry.” Claire took a sharp right toward Madison Junction.
Then with a sudden sinking of her heart, she remembered the diaper bag, sitting in the examination room at the hospital.
She checked the rearview mirror and weighed her choices.
They wouldn’t be able to stay in Riverside tonight, not with Pete after them.
But they needed food and diapers for Jenny, and money.
“We have to stop at my house, then we’ll go straight to Ennis.
” Beth needed bus fare and they’d have to stay the night somewhere in Ennis.
Thank the Lord she still had some cash in the cookie tin.
Beth had managed to settle Jenny, patting her gently and rocking her.
“You’re good with her,” Claire said.
Beth smiled softly. “Dell was so happy about the baby.” Her voice quivered. “We’d just told his parents the day before he—before he died. Iris and Pete were thrilled.”
So thrilled that they wouldn’t let Beth go. Yes, they’d lost Dell—and their older son, too—but that didn’t excuse Pete and Iris Henshaw.
“Claire?” Beth said. “What I was trying to tell you before, about Red and Dell . . .” She hesitated. “You really don’t know what happened between them?”
Claire’s stomach twisted and she shook her head, her eyes on the road. She should know. Red should have told her.
Beth went on. “That fall, before Dell and I got married. Dell was stashing sheds.” She said it like Claire would know what she was talking about.
Claire wasn’t sure she did. “You mean elk antlers?” Elk shed their antlers, she’d seen them when she’d gone hiking and camping with Red.
“Yes, they’re worth a lot of money,” Beth answered.
“But isn’t that illegal?” Claire asked. Taking anything out of the park wasn’t permitted—not even wildflowers—Red had told her that the first summer she was here.
Beth nodded. “But Dell had a stash—a cache that he’d gathered and hidden—at Winter Creek, but he needed a way to get them to Helena. So he asked Red to drive him up there, then to Helena.”
She hesitated, and Claire wanted to object that Red wouldn’t do anything illegal—least of all in the park. He followed every rule and regulation to a T.
Beth went on. “They got pulled over by a ranger.”
Claire glanced over at her. “So, Dell got a ticket?”
“Well, no.” Beth’s voice was hesitant. “It was Red who got in trouble, not Dell.”
Claire wasn’t following. “Why Red?”
Beth looked at her with surprise. “It’s the Lacey Act.”
Claire shook her head.
“It’s a law saying you can’t take animals or anything related to them out of the park, but it’s all about who is doing the transporting—and it was Red’s truck.”
“So Red got the ticket?” Claire asked, starting to understand and looking over at Beth. “And what—a fine?” Had he been too ashamed to tell her about it?
Beth stared at her. “It’s a federal crime, Claire. Red went to jail in Bozeman.”
Claire took her foot off the gas and turned to look at Beth in shock, and then outrage. “What happened to Dell?”
Beth looked out the window and her face contorted. “That’s the thing,” she got out. “He put it all on Red, said he didn’t know anything about the sheds in the back of the truck.”
“And the ranger believed him?”
Beth nodded miserably. “I told him to tell the truth, but Dell said that would just get him thrown in jail, too. We were getting married that Saturday. Red was supposed to be the best man.”
Claire dragged her attention back to the road in front of her. Red went to jail? This was the “falling-out” Red had with Dell? Why hadn’t he told her?
“I know it was a horrible thing for Dell to do,” Beth went on. “His parents let him do it, and they spread some awful rumors about Red having a whole setup with people smuggling sheds out of the Yellowstone for him to sell in Bozeman. You know how people here don’t trust outsiders.”
Claire knew all too well. Helen and Tom Eagle had made that crystal clear. But Red doing something like that? He couldn’t. Then she had another thought, about Lem Garrison looking for Red, and her stomach soured.
“Was Dell doing that again—smuggling sheds—when he died?” Claire asked.
Beth nodded, and swiped away tears and took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, I just cry all the time.”
Claire reached out a hand to touch her arm. “You don’t have to tell me, Beth. It’s okay.” As much as she wanted to know, the poor girl had been through enough.
“No, I want to,” she said quickly. “Dell told me the day before he died that he was going to get us a lot of money quick—to get a place of our own.” Beth adjusted Jenny on her lap.
“He said he was going to raft the sheds out of the park into Gardiner. He said someone was helping him, someone he trusted . . .” Beth’s voice failed her.
Someone like Red? Claire wished she hadn’t had the thought.
Beth took a trembling breath. “The park superintendent talked to Pete a few days later. I was upstairs, but I could hear them through the floor vent.”
Claire put on the brakes for a slow-moving trailer, worry knotting in her chest at the mention of Lem Garrison. “What did they talk about?”
Jenny started to fuss again and Beth moved her back to her shoulder. “Pete said it was Red’s fault Dell drowned,” she said simply.
Claire jerked the wheel and then righted the truck between the white lines. “Why?”
“He said Red and Dell met up at the Slippery Otter the night before. He had witnesses—Tom Eagle, he said—who saw them talking.”
So Red had been at the Slippery Otter, like Grace Miller had said. The knot of worry tightened.
Beth switched Jenny to her other shoulder. “Pete swore it was Red who made Dell do it. Red was up to his old tricks, he said.”
Claire’s foot pushed down on the accelerator as Jenny’s cries increased. Claire thought about Red lying to her that night when he’d talked to Dell, and again about losing his job. How he’d left for Libby so suddenly. Lem Garrison looking for him. He’s a hard man to track down.
Was she certain Red wasn’t involved with selling sheds, and had nothing to do with Dell’s death?
He’d left for Libby and hadn’t called her, hadn’t returned even after she wrote that letter.
Her stomach turned over with a sickening thought.
Maybe Red hadn’t left because of Bridget’s meddling.
Maybe Red left to avoid Lem Garrison’s questions and the investigation into Dell’s death.
And maybe, Red wasn’t coming back.
Her heartbeat pounded in her ears. Don’t make the biggest mistake of your life, Claire. Had she? Had she married someone she didn’t know at all?