Something in Between

Chapter 1

"Jarrod – " Nick said, taking hold of his older brother's arm.

But Jarrod kept looking at Anita Fowler, lying there on the bed in front of them, the back of her head caved in, by whom or by what he didn't know. She was all Jarrod could see. Her voice was all Jarrod could hear.

Heath came into the small room upstairs from the saloon, the sheriff right behind him. Nick gave them a glance, but Jarrod didn't. Nick squeezed Jarrod's arm. Sheriff Madden asked, "Who found her?"

"All three of us," Heath said quietly. "We did, sort of. Harley McDowell came and got us and we found her here like this."

"Did you send somebody for the doc?"

Heath nodded. "Harley's gone over."

"I'll need to talk to all three of you, and Harley and Harry and the girls down there."

Heath nodded again.

Jarrod reached down and ran his hand gently over Anita's black hair. The shine was gone now. All there was was blood that ran down her neck and onto the collar of her plain dress and came off on his hand. There was also dirt on the front of her dress and her face - she had fallen.

Nick thought his older brother was in a daze. He hadn't said a word since they came in and found Anita's body. "Jarrod, come on, we should get back downstairs."

But Jarrod wasn't in a daze. His voice came out gruff, as if he was ready to growl like an animal but was holding it in. "Yeah," he said, and he turned and went out.

Jarrod didn't realize he was leaving Anita's blood along the bannister as he went downstairs, followed by Nick and Heath. Harry was at the bottom of the stairs. He knew he'd be doing a bunch of cleaning up after the sheriff was through here. Nick and Heath saw two of the other girls at a table in the back of the room, crying with each other. Just as soon as they were all at the bottom of the stairs, Harley McDowell came in with Dr. Merar. Dr. Merar headed straight upstairs.

Heath said to McDowell, "Better stick around for a bit, Harley. The sheriff's upstairs. He'll probably have some questions."

McDowell nodded and looked at Jarrod, who just walked slowly from the stairs to a table in the middle of the room. He sat down, and so did Nick, but Heath stayed on his feet for now. Harry came over to Nick and Jarrod. "You want a drink, Jarrod?" Harry asked.

Jarrod didn't respond. Nick said, "A little brandy, Harry."

"No," Jarrod said, still gruff. "I don't want anything."

Nick took a deep breath, exchanging looks with Heath. They both knew finding Anita had shaken their older brother to the core. They weren't ready for the depth of the rage that was simmering under the surface. Nick said to Jarrod, "You could use something to take the edge off, Pappy."

"No," Jarrod said, the word coming out as a growl now.

Heath sat down with them, across from Jarrod. "Jarrod - "

Jarrod looked up at him, his blue eyes black and livid, but just looking at him and Nick made the darkness leave. Jarrod took a deep breath and just closed his eyes.

Nick and Heath exchanged looks. Before now they had no idea that their brother had anything to do with Anita Fowler, but now it was obvious. He was more disturbed by this than he'd have been if she were a stranger. And Harley had come to get them at Jarrod's office and bring them over here to her – to bring Jarrod over to her. Big Brother was keeping some secret again. "Tell me," Nick said.

Jarrod didn't say anything.

"Was she a client, Jarrod?" Heath asked.

Jarrod just hung his head.

The sheriff came downstairs and talked with Harley McDowell at the bottom of the stairs for a moment. Then he came over and sat down at the table with the Barkley brothers. "Okay, I need somebody to tell me how you three came to be here and what you found when you got here."

"We were in my office," Jarrod said. "I had Nick and Heath signing some papers for me. Harley came over, told me Anita came in here from the street with a head injury. She asked him to come for me and we came over. We found her just as you saw her."

The sheriff looked at Nick and Heath. It was pretty clear they hardly knew the woman, if at all. This was something that involved only Jarrod. "How did you know her, Jarrod?"

Jarrod sighed. "I met her here, in the saloon. She was from Santa Fe, not a young girl. My age. She told me she had a husband she had left Santa Fe to get away from. She couldn't get a divorce there, so she left. Maybe he found her."

"Do you know the man?"

Jarrod shook his head. "I never saw him, to my knowledge."

The sheriff looked up at Harry, who was standing nearby. Harry shook his head, too. "I didn't even know she was married, Sheriff. She came here about a month ago looking for work. That and her name is all I know."

"She went by Anita Fowler, her maiden name," Jarrod said. "Her married name was Ordonez. I haven't seen any new Latino men in town, so if Ordonez is here, he's not anybody I've run into."

The sheriff looked up at Harry again. This time he nodded. "A Mexican I didn't know has been in here the last couple nights, but Anita didn't react to him any way I noticed. Didn't talk to him, but didn't really avoid him either."

"What did he look like?"

Harry shrugged. "Dark, like a Mexican. About five-ten. Not a flashy dresser – wore one of those short Mexican jackets, but his clothes were plain. He did wear a gold ring on the little finger of his left hand – it had a green stone in it. He never said much."

"Did he carry a handgun?"

Harry thought about it. "Yeah. Bone-handled, like Jarrod carries."

"He might not have been Ordonez," the sheriff thought out loud. Then he looked back at Jarrod. "Did Anita say anything to you about this Mexican, Jarrod?"

Jarrod shook his head. "I saw her last night. She didn't say a word, but she did seem a bit more nervous about her husband than she had been. I tried to talk to her about him, but she wouldn't let on anything more than she already had."

The sheriff got the distinct impression that Jarrod's relationship with Anita ran deeper than his brothers or anyone else in here knew. He thought that Jarrod had a lot more to say but wasn't ready to say it in front of anyone else. He looked up at Nick and Heath again as he said, "Jarrod, I'd like you to come to my office with me so you and I can talk privately."

Nick's eyes flashed. "Fred, you can't think Jarrod had anything to do with this."

But Jarrod was already standing up. "He doesn't, Nick," he said. "It's all right. Let me go talk to him and I'll be back."

Nick and Heath thought now that Anita had been a client and that Jarrod was keeping her confidences even though she was dead upstairs. They got up from the table, Heath saying, "Why don't we wait in your office for you, Jarrod?"

"All right," Jarrod said, nodding, and headed for the door. The sheriff asked Harry and Harley McDowell to stick around for an hour or so, that he'd be back. As Jarrod and the sheriff left the saloon, Nick and Heath stood watching.

Nick said, "I think Jarrod knows a lot more than he's saying."

"Maybe he can't say it in front of the rest of us," Heath said. "Maybe she was a client."

"Maybe so, but she's dead. Jarrod doesn't have to keep confidences of a client who's dead."

Heath eyed Nick. "Maybe he just isn't ready for everybody to know them, Nick. Let's go back over and finish signing those papers. He'll come back over there when he's done with the sheriff."

Nick grumbled an assent and they left.

XXXXX

"Sit down, Jarrod," the sheriff said, and as Jarrod sat down in the chair in front of his desk he sat down behind it. "Tell me everything you know about that woman."

Jarrod sighed. "I pretty much already have. She had a husband in Santa Fe, he was abusive, she got away from him and thought he was out of her life."

"Did she say anything else about him?"

"Mexican, owned a bit of land outside Santa Fe. Not gloriously wealthy, but fairly well-to-do. But she thought she was finished with him. She thought he would never come for her or send anyone after her."

"Do you have any idea who could have done this?"

Jarrod shook his head. "As far as I know, she wasn't close to anyone else at all around here. Ask Harry. She wasn't really seeing anyone else at all, not even for one night."

The sheriff eyed Jarrod, who was looking down at his hands. He weighed his next words carefully and hated to ask them, but he had to. "Nobody except you?"

Jarrod didn't even look up as he nodded. "Nobody except me."