“We’re distantly related. But who am I not related to in these parts?” Laurel managed a grim smile. Jason Delaney. Her third cousin or something. Dead in a cattle field from a gunshot wound to the chest, presumably.
“Rancher called it in.”
Laurel nodded as she studied the body. It was only her second murder since she’d been hired by the county sheriff’s department six years ago, and only her first murder in the detective bureau.
And yes, she was related to the victim. Unfortunately, she wasn’t exaggerating about the number of Bent County residents she was related to. She’d known Jason in passing at best. A family reunion or funeral here or there, but that was all. He didn’t live in Bent, his parents—second cousins, she thought, to her parents—weren’t part of the main offshoot of Delaneys who ran Bent.
“We do have a lead,” Deputy Hart offered.
“What’s that?” Laurel asked, surveying the cattle field around them. This ranch, like pretty much everything in Bent County, Wyoming, was in the middle of nowhere. No highway traffic ran nearby, no businesses in the surrounding areas. Just fields and mountains in the distance. Pretty and isolated, and not the spot one would expect to find a murder victim.
“The rancher says Clint Danvers broke down in front of his place last night. Asked to use his phone. He’s the only one who was around. Aside from the cows, of course.”
Laurel frowned at Hart. “Clint Danvers is a teenager.”
“One we’ve arrested more times than I can count.”
“Had to be a Carson,” she muttered, because no matter that Clint wasn’t technically a Carson, his mother was the mother of a Carson as well. Which meant the Carson clan would count him as theirs, which would mean trouble with a Delaney investigating.
Laurel herself didn’t care about the Delaney-Carson feud that so many people in town loved to bring up time and again, Carsons most especially. Her father could intone about the generations of “bad element” that had been bred into the Carsons, her brother who still lived in Bent could sneer his nose at every Carson who walked into his bank, her sister could snidely comment every time one of them bought something from the Delaney General Store. The street could divide itself—Delaney establishments on one side, Carson on the other.
Laurel didn’t care—it was all silliness and history as far as she was concerned. She was after the truth, not a way to make some century-old feud worse.
A vehicle approached and Laurel shaded her eyes against the early-morning sun.
“Coroner,” Hart said.
Laurel waved at the coroner, Gracie Delaney, her first cousin, because yes, relations all over the dang place.
Gracie stepped through the tape and barbed wire fence easily, and then surveyed the body. “Name?”
“Jason Delaney.”
Gracie’s eyebrows furrowed. “Is it bad I have no idea how we’re related to him?”
Laurel sighed. “If it is, we’re in the same boat.” It was a very strange thing to work the death of someone you were related to, but didn’t know. Laurel figured she was supposed to feel some kind of sympathy, and she did, but not in any different way than she did on any other death she worked.
“All right. I’ll take my pictures, then I’ll get in touch with next of kin,” Gracie said.
Hart and Gracie discussed details while Laurel studied the area around the body. There wasn’t much to go on, and until cows learned how to talk, she had zero possible witnesses.
Except Clint Danvers.
She didn’t mind arresting a Carson every now and again no matter what hubbub it raised about the feud nonsense, but murder was going to cause a lot more than a hubbub. Especially the murder of a Delaney.
She processed the crime scene with Hart and Gracie. Even though Hart had taken pictures when he’d first arrived, Laurel took a few more. They canvased the scene again, finding not one shred of evidence to go on.
Which meant Clint was her only hope, and what a complicated hope that was.
Gracie loaded up the body with Hart’s help, and Laurel tossed her gear back into her car. “I’m going to go question Clint. You on until three?”
Hart nodded. “Let me know what I can do.”
Laurel waved a goodbye and got into her car. She didn’t have to look up Clint’s residence as Bent was small and intimate, and secrets weren’t much of ones for long. He lived with his mother in a falling-down house on the outskirts of Bent.
When Chasity Haskins-Carson-Danvers and so on answered the door, freshly lit cigarette hanging out of her mouth, Laurel knew this wasn’t going to go well.
“Mrs. Danvers.”
Chasity blew the smoke right in Laurel’s face. “Ms. Pig,” she returned conversationally.
“I’m looking for Clint.”
“You people always are.”
“It’s incredibly important I’m able to talk to Clint, and soon. This is far more serious than drugs or speeding, and I’m only looking to help.”
“Delaneys are never looking to help,” the older woman replied. She shrugged negligently. “He’s not here. Haven’t seen him for two or three days.”
Laurel managed a thin-lipped smile. It could be a lie, but it could also be the truth. That was the problem with most of the Carsons. You just never knew when they were being honest and helpful, or a pack of liars trying to make a Delaney’s life difficult. Because to them the feud wasn’t history, it was a living, breathing entity to wrap their lives around.
Laurel thanked Mrs. Danvers anyway and then sighed as she got back in her unmarked car. Most unfortunately, she knew exactly who would know where Clint was. And he was the absolute last man she wanted to speak to.
Grady Carson. Clint’s older half brother and something like the de facto leader of the Carson clan. Much like the men in her family, Grady Carson put far too much stock in a feud for this being the twenty-first century.
A feud over land and cattle and things that had happened over a hundred years ago. Laurel didn’t understand why people clung to it, but that didn’t mean she actively liked any of the Carsons. Not when they routinely tried to make it hard for her to do her job.
Which was the second problem with Grady. He ran Rightful Claim, which she pulled up across the street from.
She glared at the offensive sign outside the bar—a neon centaur-like creature, half horse, half very busty woman, a blinking sack of gold hanging off her saddle. Aside from the neon signs, it looked like every saloon in every Western movie or TV show she’d ever seen. Wood siding and a walk in front of it, a ramshackle overhang, hand-painted signs with the mileage, and arrows to the nearest cities, all hundreds of miles away.
Laurel refused to call it a saloon. It was a bar. Seedy. It would be mostly empty on a Tuesday afternoon, but come evening it would be full of people she’d probably arrested. And Carsons everywhere.
Grady wasn’t going to hand over Clint’s whereabouts, Laurel knew that, but she had to try to convince him she only wanted to help. Grady was a lot of things—a tattooed, snarling, no-respect-for-authority hooligan—but much like the Delaneys, the Carsons were all about family.
Mentally steeling herself for what would likely amount to a verbal sparring match, Laurel took her first step toward the stupid swinging doors Grady claimed were original to the saloon. Laurel maintained that he bought it off the internet from some lame Hollywood set. Mainly because he got furious when she did.
She blew out a breath and tried to blow out her frustration with it. Yes, Grady had always