“My breathing provokes him.”
Callen walked out. Clintok leaned back against a porch post, nodded. “Let’s hear your side of it.”
“That’s an interesting way to put it. We were riding to work,” he began.
“You and Bodine? You do that a lot?”
“First time, but then I haven’t been back long, and only started working at the resort officially as of last night.”
Tipping down his sunglasses, Clintok aimed those hard eyes over them. “I heard you were working at the Bodine Ranch.”
“Things changed.”
“They fire you?”
Don’t provoke him, Bodine had asked, but doing so held too tempting. Knowing how to get under Clintok’s skin, Callen smiled a little. “Logic says if they had, I wouldn’t be working at their resort. We were riding to work,” he said again.
“Whose idea was that?”
“I’d say mutual. I was planning on it. She was planning on it. We ended up planning on it at the same time.”
“Looks like you took a big detour. Quicker ways to get from the ranch to the resort on horseback.”
“We wanted a ride.”
“Who picked the route?”
“Bodine.”
Clintok’s mouth twisted into a nonverbal Liar. “Uh-huh. How well did you know Billy Jean Younger?”
“I didn’t know her. I never met her.”
“Is that so?” Now Clintok hooked a hand in his gun belt. “You’re working at the resort, but you never once met her.”
“That’s right, seeing as I just started there.”
“Where were you last night, Skinner?”
“I’m living on the Bodine place, and that’s where I was.”
“In the bunkhouse?”
“No, I’m in the shack.”
On a long, slow nod, Clintok stepped closer, crowding Callen’s space. “Alone then.”
“Most of the time. Bodine and I had a conversation and a beer last night, pertaining to me taking over for Abe Kotter while he’s gone.”
Rather than move back, Callen simply edged forward. “Are you seriously trying to wind what happened to that girl around to me? Does it stick that deep for you, Clintok?”
“I know what you are, what you’ve always been. Did Billy Jean get a piece of you there when you went at her? She give you that eye?”
“I never met Billy Jean. Bo gave me a shot.”
“Now, I wonder why she’d do that.”
“Ask her.”
“Be sure I will.” With his mouth twisted in a sneer, Clintok tapped a finger on Callen’s chest. “You’re back here a handful of days, and we’ve got a dead woman. You’re back here a handful of days, and you want me to believe you never once stepped foot into the Saloon at the resort and made yourself known to the good-looking woman working the bar? I know bullshit when I smell it, Skinner.”
“Seems to me you’re shoveling that shit so deep you’d be hard put not to catch a whiff. There’s a boot scraper by the door, if you don’t want to go tracking it around behind you.”
Clintok’s face went red as boiled beets, a transition Callen knew—from past experience—generally presaged a sucker punch.
“Go on, follow through with that.” Callen’s invitation blew as cold and stiff as the wind. “We’ll see where we end up.”
Clintok’s teeth set—Callen would have sworn he all but heard them grinding. But the deputy backed off.
“You can go on to work, for now. Don’t make any traveling plans.”
“I’ll leave when Bodine does.”
“I told you to move along.”
Deliberately Callen walked down the porch, sat in one of the rockers. “Now, tell me what law I’m breaking.”
Clintok’s right hand closed into a fist. “It won’t take me long to deal with you. That time’s coming.”
But he walked inside, leaving Callen sitting in the rocker.
“There’s coffee,” Bodine said immediately.
“I wouldn’t say no to that.” Clintok, the red still staining his cheeks, sat at the long table in the kitchen area. “Would you know if Billy Jean was working last night, and when she’d have left?”
“She was working, and I can’t be sure exactly when she left, but it would’ve been after midnight. We leave closing up to the staff, as long as they’re available until midnight. It could’ve been as late as one. Then there’s closing up. So I can only say she’d have left somewhere between twelve-thirty and one-thirty.”
She set coffee in front of him, sat herself. “I really need to tell my parents about this, Garrett, and some of the staff.”
“In a bit. We got our own men blocking off this area, so you can tell yours to go on once I get your statement here.”
“All right.”
“Now, what were you doing riding with Skinner way over this way? Did he ask you to take the long way?”
“No. I wanted to give my horse a good run. I haven’t had him out for over a week. It’s why I left early this morning, and when I ran into Callen saddling his own horse, we rode together.”
“His idea?”
“God, I don’t know, Garrett.” Weary, half-sick, she shoved at her hair. “It was just the natural thing to do. We’re leaving at the same time, going to the same place.”
“All right, but—”
“Look.” She was done with the weak-kneed ploy. “I know you’ve got a deep dislike for Callen, but that’s beside the damn point here. We left the ranch together, and I decided how we’d get to the resort. I wanted a good ride. I started to head in, but I just wanted a little more, so I took this road to get another gallop in, and I saw Billy Jean’s car. I didn’t think that much of it, except she must’ve had car trouble and called somebody to come get her, but then I saw her purse still in the car, and I got worried. I called her. I took out my phone to call hers, just to check. And…”
Now she had to take a moment. She rose and poured a glass of water. “I heard—we heard—her phone ring. I know her ringtone. And her phone was on the ground, lying in the snow, and then I saw … I looked over where you could see somebody’d been going off the road, walking or running through the snow, and I saw her coat. I saw her. I told you, I just reacted, and I started running, trying to … to get to her, and Callen grabbed me, told me to stop. That I couldn’t help her.”
“Now, how did he know that?”
“Oh God, Garrett, anyone could see!” Anger reared up, through the weary, through the sick. “I just didn’t want to see, to believe, so I tried to get away. I even punched him, but he held on until I calmed down. I don’t know why you’re letting some idiot high school feud make you try to point fingers his way, but I can damn sure tell you, whoever did that to Billy Jean wasn’t Callen Skinner.”
“I got a job to do.” Clintok pushed to his feet. “And unless you can tell me you know just where Callen Skinner was when this happened to Billy Jean, I’ll point where I need to point. You ought to be careful of him. You can go on into work if that’s where you’re going. The sheriff ’ll come around to talk to you himself when he’s done here.”