Her Montana Man

As soon as they finished eating, he asked, “Did you see anything interesting at Harriet’s house?”

Chelsea brought her wayward thoughts in line. “She was a neat person. Her house wasn’t cluttered. She liked flowers and she was fond of her sister and nephew. There were no signs of a past of any kind. Where did she go to college? Where was she born? What was she hiding?”

“I don’t think she was hiding anything. Her diplomas are in her office at the library. She has several. She earned a PhD after she moved here, but she didn’t like being called Dr. Martel.”

“It’s obvious she was very intelligent,” Chelsea said.

Pierce studied her, a questioning frown on his face. “But you see a contradiction in her actions?”

“Yes. How does a smart, independent and wealthy woman get mixed up with someone who would shoot her and try to make it look like suicide?”

“You’re the expert. You tell me.”

Chelsea hesitated, then said, “He was very controlling. I think he wanted her to get rid of the baby. She refused. That triggered the quarrel.”

Pierce leaned toward her, excitement flashing through his eyes. “Can you profile him for us?”

“I can give you some ideas on his personality.” She considered the evidence she’d seen and been given by the lawman. “He’s used to command, and he hates to be thwarted. He has a temper, which he’s generally learned to control.”

“But not always,” Pierce muttered.

“No, not always. He’s in his forties, maybe early fifties. Miss Martel was forty-three. At any rate, he was mature enough to control the first wave of panic and think through corrective steps. He wiped down his fingerprints, then set up the suicide. He was smart enough to use her gun.”

“There’s no record she had one,” Pierce said.

Chelsea shrugged. “The slug was a twenty-two, a caliber a woman would be comfortable with—not too big, but powerful enough for close range, say if a burglar was in the house. He probably gave her the gun and insisted she keep it.”

Pierce was silent for a long minute. “Anything else?”

“He would be drawn to positions of power. If in the army, he’d be an officer. In civilian life, he could be a cop or a CEO. If he owned a company, he’d be a tyrant. To attract a woman like Harriet Martel, he’d have to be intelligent. He’d also be charming. Both are good skills for public office. He’d more likely hold an elective office rather than an appointed one.”

“Why?”

“Self-preservation. Other men would be afraid of him. He’s ambitious and ruthless. Utterly ruthless.”

“A person would have to be without conscience to kill his lover and his child. Is that your conclusion?”

“Yes.”

Pierce grimaced. “I wish I knew what to think. I can’t conceive of a murderer walking around loose in my town. I know everybody within ten miles of the city limits and probably half the rest of the county, too. You and Holt say the man is local. I find that hard to believe.”

Anger blazed from his eyes as he glared at her.

She went on the defensive. “Believe what you wish.

Perhaps you’d like to bring someone else in on the case. I can give you a name. I trained under one of the FBI’s foremost forensic investigators my last year of school.”

“So Kelly said.” He waved a hand in dismissal of her suggestion. “You’re the best, or else I wouldn’t have asked for you.”

Her eyes met his and locked. For an eternity they gazed at each other, questions and awareness rushing in rivers of unappeased hunger between them.

“Damnation,” he muttered.

Then he reached for her.

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