Excerpt of Man With A Past by Celeste Hamilton

Whitehorn, Montana, was the last place Elizabeth Monroe would expect to find a funky-looking little restaurant called the Hip Hop Café. A town like this, a speck of civilization amidst ranches and wide-open spaces, was supposed to be filled with eateries called Mom's or the All-You-Can-Eat Canteen. But here in the heart of Whitehorn, the neon-lit Hip Hop appeared to be doing a brisk business. A family of four was coming out the door, while two men in cowboy hats and faded jeans paused beside an easel that advertised grilled salmon and quiche primavera as the specials of the day.

"Small towns have obviously evolved," Elizabeth murmured to herself as she surveyed the busy scene. This definitely bore little resemblance to the tiny part of Colorado she had fled from some fifteen years ago. She could almost imagine she was in Denver, the cosmopolitan sprawl she now called home.

The aroma of grilled meat and fresh bread wafted through the cool evening air. Her stomach rumbled in response, reminding her she was hundreds of miles from Denver and hours from the sandwich she had grabbed on her way to the airport earlier today.

Inside the Hip Hop, the smells were even more delicious, the atmosphere even more of a surprise. The walls were jammed with an eclectic mix of art and memorabilia. Cool jazz spilled from the stereo speakers, harmonizing with the laughter and conversation. Tables formed a palette of primary colors. Every table and booth was occupied. In fact, Elizabeth spotted only two empty chairs, one each at a pair of small tables situated close together near the front. A busy waitress thrust a menu into her hands, calling over her shoulder, "It'll be just a few minutes," before dashing off in the direction of the kitchen.

Elizabeth's stomach rumbled again, loud enough for anyone close by to hear.

"Do you want to share?"

Turning, Elizabeth stared into the bright blue eyes of the bleached blonde who sat alone at one of the small tables. She looked to be fiftyish, but was dressed much younger, in a rhinestone-studded T-shirt with gaudy green-and-purple earrings to match. Her smile was friendly as she added, "You can join me if you want."

"Why, thank you," Elizabeth said. "I'm so hungry, I wasn't sure I wanted to wait."

The woman chuckled. "The food here is worth waiting for. Please sit down."

Elizabeth took the offered chair gratefully, depositing her heavy purse at her feet and shrugging out of her tweed blazer. After traveling most of the day, she was happy she had chosen jeans and a light cotton sweater over more professional attire.

As it was, she still felt grubby and tired, and hoped her dinner would be served quickly, so she could find her accommodations and get some sleep.

While she was settling in, the man at the small table beside theirs glanced up from the newspaper he was reading. The paper's familiar masthead, Denver Free Press, caught Elizabeth's attention, and she smiled. Though the man nodded, no warmth touched his dark eyes before he turned back to the pages in front of him.

The blonde leaned toward Elizabeth, lowering her voice a few degrees, although it was by no means a whisper. "I've never understood why a person would want to read at the dinner table when they could have a good conversation."

Murmuring something noncommittal, Elizabeth slanted another glance at the attractive man at the next table. He seemed to be absorbed in his reading, but she noticed the telltale quirk of one corner of his mouth. He had heard the comment. Her guess was he had been invited to join the blonde before Elizabeth arrived. And maybe the fact that he had chosen to eat alone and bury his head in a newspaper meant he knew something about the older woman that Elizabeth didn't.

"I'm Lily Mae Wheeler." Half an armful of silver bracelets jangled as the woman extended her hand. "And you're not from around here."

"I'm from Denver. I flew into Billings this afternoon and rented a car."

"And drove this way? Where are you headed?"

"Here."

The unmistakable gleam of a true busybody had come into Lily Mae's eyes. "Vacationing or visiting family?"

Before Elizabeth could reply, the waitress arrived with her companion's dinner and took Elizabeth's request for a glass of white zinfandel and the grilled-salmon special.

The minute the flurry of activity was over, Lily Mae leaned close again, her rhinestone earrings swinging forward like two exclamation points on either side of her animated features. "Now who is it you're visiting?"

"Actually, I'm working," Elizabeth said, amused by the woman's excitement. "I'm a reporter for the Denver Free Press."

"A reporter?" Lily Mae's voice rose to an excited squeak. "A reporter from Denver? Tell me your name. Do you write for the women's section?"

The waitress brought the glass of wine while Elizabeth introduced herself to Lily Mae and explained that she usually wrote articles that focused on state and regional government issues. She felt, rather than saw, the man at the next table look at her as she answered her companion's questions about the paper. She glanced his way, and for a moment their gazes locked, but he quickly turned toward the passing waitress and asked when his dinner would be ready. His voice was as deep, as rich as the midnight black of his eyes and hair. As smooth as brandy-flavored coffee. Elizabeth frowned, wondering at her whimsical comparison, before her attention was once again captured by Lily Mae.

"What in the world would a Denver reporter want way up here in Whitehorn, Montana?"

"We cover news from all over the Rocky Mountain states. The paper even publishes a regional magazine-style section every week—"

"I read it every Sunday," Lily Mae said. "But what would Whitehorn—" She broke off in a startled gasp and her blue eyes widened. "I bet you're up here to do a report on Dugin Kincaid's death."

"Dugin Kincaid?" Elizabeth turned the name over in her mind, wondering why it sounded so familiar.

"Jeremiah Kincaid's son," Lily Mae offered, as if that was all the explanation needed. "Everybody's talking about the tragedy. They can't believe Dugin is dead, killed in that awful fire, and with his poor daddy gone only two years. Just when it seemed Dugin might be filling his poor dead brother's—"

"Are you saying Dugin's father was the Jeremiah Kincaid?" Elizabeth interrupted. As a investigative reporter focusing on the movers and shakers of the Western states, she made it her business to know a little something about most of the prominent power brokers in the region, a group to which Jeremiah Kincaid had definitely belonged.

"Yes, the Jeremiah Kincaid." Lily Mae arched her eyebrows, mimicking Elizabeth's emphasis. "Rancher, rich man and, if I do say so myself, a bit of a rogue."

Elizabeth's mind was whirling. About the time of Jeremiah Kincaid's death two years ago, there had been a scandal involving a ranchers' association using its influence with a Montana congressman to steal grazing rights on land owned by one of this area's Indian tribes. Jeremiah Kincaid had headed that association before his death. The tribe had ultimately held on to their grazing rights, and their victory had been used as a precedent by other Native Americans facing similar situations.

So Whitehorn was home to the famous Kincaid ranching empire, Elizabeth mused to herself. Maybe this story assignment in the outer reaches of nowhere wouldn't be so deadly dull, after all. She smiled in encouragement at Lily Mae. "I guess I didn't realize the Kincaids were from around here."

"Their spread's not far out of town, up near the reservation. Jeremiah's granddaddy was one of the first to settle this area.

He made a pile of money on cattle, invested it wisely, and the family's been raking in the dough ever since." Lily Mae sniffed. "My family settled here over a hundred years ago, too. But we're still waiting to make our fortune, and I—"

"Refresh my memory." Elizabeth broke in before the woman could get sidetracked. "How was it that the father, Jeremiah Kincaid, died?"

"He drowned after falling in the shower and hitting his head, poor man." Lily Mae chuckled, her merry expression at odds with talk of death. "Frankly, I always expected him to die a little more spectacularly. A mysterious hunting accident, maybe." Her voice dropped. "You know, something along the lines of a bullet in the back."

Though Elizabeth had already figured out that Lily Mae was a first-class gossip and speculator, she was still intrigued. "You really think Kincaid had that many enemies?"

"Glory be, the Cheyenne up on the reservation have been feuding with him for just forever. And for that matter, there were a lot of fathers, husbands and brothers who didn't weep at Jeremiah's funeral, either."

"Why is that?"

"Why do you think?" Lily Mae returned, chuckling suggestively.

Elizabeth laughed, too, which drew a glance from the man at the next table. The arrival of her dinner forestalled any other reply to Lily Mae's statement, as did the growing suspicion that the man nearby was listening to every word they were saying. Elizabeth toyed with the idea of inviting him to pull up a chair. He probably hadn't wanted to sit with Lily Mae because she was such a chattering magpie. But he shouldn't be eavesdropping now. It was unbelievably rude. To underline that opinion, Elizabeth gave him a cool, disapproving look. He met her gaze blithely for a moment, then looked down at the plate the waitress was placing in front of him, pretending to be absorbed in his meal.

Lily Mae ordered brownie cheesecake, sighing as she patted one ample hip. "I don't usually indulge in sweets, but Melissa's desserts are the very best."

"Melissa?" Elizabeth echoed, spearing a tender portion of salmon.

"Melissa Avery North owns the restaurant." Lily Mae nodded toward the attractive woman who was threading her way from the kitchen to the front register, laughing and pausing to speak to her customers as she went. "She's a dear girl, married just about a year and a half to that handsome Wyatt North. As you can see, they're expecting their first baby in a few months. Melissa grew up around here, left town as a teenager to live in California with her mother. Her mother…" Lily Mae put a hand to her chest in a dramatic gesture. "What a saint Melissa's mother was, raising her children all alone after her no-good husband disappeared."

"Oh?" Elizabeth murmured politely. Though she was eager to turn the conversation back to the wealthy Kincaids and away from the usual trials and tribulations that occupy most of the energy and time of any small-town gossip, she was very aware of Mr. Big Ears at the next table.

"It was such a shock when Charlie Avery's remains turned up out on the reservation."

Lily Mae's pronouncement sunk in and Elizabeth blinked. She forgot about the man who was probably listening. "Whose remains?"

"Charlie Avery's, Melissa's father," Lily Mae explained, looking as if Elizabeth should know these people. "They found him—or at least his bones—a few years ago, out on the reservation." She paused to shake her head. "And to think that for twenty-eight years I figured Charlie had skipped out of town with the little tart he was supposed to be seeing. He was dead all along, buried up there all this time."

"Are there any ideas about what might have happened to him?"

"A massive blow to the head." Lily Mae appeared to relish the information.

"Any suspects?"

"For goodness' sakes, no. They don't have a clue. They tried to convict one of the area ranchers of the murder, but couldn't. I wasn't surprised. Ethan Walker might be a loner, but I knew he was no murderer. My first husband always said—"

"When did you say all this happened?" Elizabeth cut in smoothly, hoping to forestall a pointless digression.

"Like I said, they found poor Charlie over two years ago, and then it took them some time to identify him. Ethan Walker was found innocent of his murder late last summer. The sheriff's department doesn't have any idea where to turn next, or they would have arrested someone else by now. I have to wonder what that does to poor Melissa, not knowing what happened to her father."

"Well, after all, it is a thirty-year-old murder," Elizabeth murmured, sympathizing with the sheriff.

"The more-recent murders are more important, I guess."

"Recent murders?" Elizabeth's fingers fairly itched to reach for the notepad in her purse. She didn't dare, however. While Lily Mae knew she was a reporter, the sight of her taking notes might stem the flow of information.

Lily Mae shook her head. "It seems like every time I turn around, there's someone else dead."

"People you know?"

"Not entirely. I knew Charlie and Dugin Kincaid, but of course they weren't murdered, or weren't supposed to be murdered, anyway."

"Do some people think they were?"

Lily Mae leaned forward, lowering her voice. "There is some talk, but I wouldn't want to spread any rumors, you know."

"Of course not," Elizabeth agreed, suppressing a smile. "Are those the only suspicious recent deaths?"

"Well… a woman died when a car exploded out on Route 191. She's never been identified, and that happened over a year and a half ago, as well."

"So the police are trying to identify the body of a woman killed in a car explosion?" My, but the local police were busy, Elizabeth thought.

"That's right." Lily Mae accepted her cheesecake from the waitress and sliced into it with gusto. "She was hitchhiking, I believe. She got in the car with a private investigator who was trying to figure out what had really happened to Charlie Avery." Lily swallowed, her features becoming transfixed with bliss. "You must try some of this," she said, pushing her plate forward.

Elizabeth shook her head, leaning closer. "You said there had been murders, plural."

"Around the time that poor Charlie's bones were found, a body showed up out at the Kincaid ranch—right after Dugin and Mary Jo Kincaid's wedding ceremony."

"Another unidentified body?" This was becoming stranger and stranger.

"I think they know who the man was, but no one has a clue what he was doing at that wedding. And poor Mary Jo." Lily Mae sank back in her seat, momentarily ignoring the dessert. "To lose her husband in such a tragic way."

"Her husband?" The body count was leaving Elizabeth hopelessly confused, but definitely intrigued. She thought small towns with this many dead bodies could only be found on network television.

"Dugin Kincaid," Lily Mae said, a frown drawing her plucked eyebrows together. "Like I told you, he was injured in this awful fire in a barn out at the Kincaid ranch. They got him to the hospital, and everyone said he was going to make it. Then boom! He's dead. Isn't Dugin's death the reason you're in town?"