Page 11 of Lawman’s Witness

She didn’t have to finish. Josie knew that her sister wanted closure on her own near-death experience at the hands of a killer. She wasn’t going to quit until she got it for the woman she saw killed. But it was her obvious determination that settled it. Once Amy Sue made up her mind about something, there was no changing it. “Do you have a plan?”

“I will,” she said firmly. “Don’t worry. I figure he’ll want to shut me up, but he can’t kill me because that would look suspicious. Instead, he’ll use his clout and the legal system to protect himself. Hopefully by the time he does, I’ll have enough damning evidence to put him away before he resorts to murder again.”

“I certainly hope you’re right.”

“You just worry about your big trial. I appreciate all the help you’ve already given me, but we both can’t get arrested. Who’d get us out of jail?”

Josie couldn’t help being proud of the woman her sister had become, but at the same time she was terrified how this might end. She wanted to try to talk her out of what she was thinking of doing but saved her breath at the look on Amy Sue’s face. “Call if you need me.” Otherwise, she feared, it could be the police calling her with bad news.

Detective Tate hadn’t been surprised to hear that attorney Josie Brand Lander was calling. She’d been badgering the chief as well as Detective Hanson and himself to take her sister’s eyewitness murder report seriously.

He assumed this call was her wanting an update. He wished he had something to tell her as he answered his phone. Along with finding Amy Sue a reliable witness, he found her lawyer sister very sharp and competent. Like her sister, it didn’t appear she was going to give up wanting to know the truth. Short of Jack Marshall in handcuffs, he doubted anything about her sister’s claim was going to give her what she wanted.

“Jack Marshall wasn’t just on our ranch, he threatened my sister.” She went on to tell him the rest, her words coming as a shock.

Jack Marshall had gone out to Amy Sue Brand’s ranch, actually parked, and spied on her and the house? Why would an innocent man do that? Nor did it sound like the man he’d come to know through the media. Jack wasn’t just a celebrity, he was a prominent businessman with both social and political ties in high places. He shouldn’t have even known about Amy Sue—unless he saw her the night of the murder and took down her license plate number.

With a silent curse, he recalled his partner telling Marshall the woman’s name. Russ had later argued with Hanson about that.

“Doesn’t he have the right to know who his accuser is?” Hanson had demanded. “How else could we find out if he knew of a grievance this woman might have against him?”

Still, Russ thought it more than risky and out of character for Marshall to go out to the Brand ranch, let alone apparently spy on Amy Sue and later threaten her. He wondered if the man would deny it when questioned. If not, what excuse would he come up with?

“I’m glad you called me about this,” Russ told Josie.

“I’m aware it will again be a case of my sister’s testimony against Jack Marshall’s,” she said. “But it concerns me. This man who claims he’s innocent is suddenly so interested in my sister that he comes out to the ranch, parks where his rig can’t be seen and watches her in our house? Later he makes a point of trying to scare her by pretending to shoot her?”

He listened as she explained that Amy Sue had taken photographs of his tracks in the damp earth from the spot where he had been watching the house with her visible inside. She asked for his cell phone number so she could send them to him. He gave it to her, afraid this was going to prove nothing.

Josie also gave him a description of the vehicle Marshall had been driving with the dealer plates. “This should concern you, detective, and make you as upset as it does me that he came anywhere near my sister. This is not the behavior of an innocent man. But it is the behavior of a man who believes he is above the law and thinks he can scare my sister into keeping her mouth shut. Doesn’t that sound dangerous to you, Detective?”

“It does,” Russ said. “I will definitely take it up with Mr. Marshall.”

They fell silent for a few moments. “There is still nothing on the missing murdered woman?” she asked.

“I check missing persons every day. So far nothing. But I assure you, I am taking your sister’s allegations seriously.” He could hear in her tone that she questioned that. “Please don’t hesitate to call me if anything else comes up.”

“Until Jack Marshall is behind bars, you’ll be hearing from me,” she said, and hung up.

Russ replaced the receiver at his desk and looked at what the attorney had sent him on his cell phone. Tracks in the soft damp earth still couldn’t prove that Jack Marshall had been there any more than Amy Sue swearing he’d threatened her. He didn’t doubt that it had happened, but he needed solid evidence.

Again he checked for a missing woman about the age and description Amy Sue had supplied. Still nothing. He knew from experience that the body might not turn up for years—if at all. Montana had thousands of acres of mountains, rivers and ravines. Jack Marshall, who’d grown up in Billings, could know a lot of places to bury a body.

If the man was a killer and had taken the time to dispose of the body outside of Billings before returning to Great Falls. That was a lot of ifs.

More and more, Russ suspected Marshall had done it. The problem was proving it with his hands tied by the department. The only way he could dig deeper into Jack Marshall and his whereabouts on the night of the murder would require probable cause that a crime had been committed. Without a body or evidence, there was no way a judge would issue a warrant.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Amy Sue had wanted to come up with a plan before she reached Billings. Her ultimate mission to get justice seemed insurmountable as she drove into Montana’s largest city. The noise, all the people and the traffic were bad enough, but she kept feeling the scope of Jack Marshall’s reach here.

There’d been billboards on the way into the city. When she stopped for gas, she saw Jack Marshall’s smiling face looking out at her from an ad in the newspaper. Once at the hotel, she spotted a flyer about some fundraiser he and his wife were attending next month. She was afraid to turn on the television for fear of seeing one of his car commercials.

The man was everywhere smiling into the camera, those mocking blue eyes daring her to come after him.

After unpacking, she felt at loose ends and questioned what she was doing here. She reminded herself that he’d come out to the ranch, trespassed and spied on her where she lived before threatening her. Anger replaced feeling as if she was in over her head. She knew she was, but she couldn’t let that stop her. She found his address and left the hotel.

The Marshalls lived in a house on the edge of the rock rims that circled the city. It was a pricey neighborhood, but Amy Sue would have expected nothing less. Ostentatious was the only word that described the massive house with its huge windows that looked out over the city. She parked on the street to study the house as if it could tell her what to do next.