Riordan wished she hadn’t asked that, but he wasn’t going to lie. It would all come out later anyway.
“It appears Wayne forged Blake’s signature to embezzle money from quite a few accounts in the family company. It was to help facilitate a series of questionably legal foreclosures that removed a number of local homeowners from property the Waynes’ partners in the development of a resort here on the mountain wanted, and he was angry that when Stanton paid off your relatives’ loans and protected two key pieces of land, he made the resort impossible. Once the investors pulled out, his financial misdeeds were going to be found out.”
Leigh was stunned, shaken, but also filled with disbelief. “I can’t imagine the board would have had him arrested.”
Riordan sighed. “But they would have removed him as CEO, and he couldn’t have stood the embarrassment.”
Leigh moaned. “Killing Stanton wouldn’t have changed any of that! Oh my God. He did it out of spite?”
Riordan shrugged. “I can’t say exactly what was in his head, but I’m so sorry for your loss.”
Bowie saw his mother’s eyes lose focus, and then she was falling.
He caught her before she hit the floor. Despite the pain, Talia quickly got up from the sofa so Bowie could lay Leigh down. She went to get a wet washcloth. She wrung it out, folded it up, and came back and put it on Leigh’s forehead.
In that vulnerable position, Leigh looked more like the teenager who’d run away with the boy she loved than the woman she’d become.
“I’m sorry,” Riordan said. “Is there anything I can do to help?”
Bowie shook his head. “We’ve got this, but thank you for taking the time to come tell us in person.”
The back door banged again, but this time the steps were slower and halting.
“It’s Jesse,” Bowie said.
Leigh was already rousing, and she began trying to sit up. “I just got dizzy. I’m okay,” she said.
“Sit!” Bowie ordered. “I’m going to get you a drink of water.”
Riordan was heartsick for this family on so many levels.
“If there’s nothing I can do to help, then I’ll be getting out of your way,” he said, and let himself out.
“Who’s that?” Jesse asked, as the door swung shut.
“Just Constable Riordan,” Bowie said. “Go wash your hands real good—and use soap. We’ll be eating supper pretty soon.”
Jesse glanced at his mother, but when she smiled and nodded, he went to do what he’d been told.
“Help me up,” Leigh said.
“No, ma’am. You stay seated a bit longer,” Talia said. “I can stand at a stove and turn chicken. My knees are sore, not broken.”
“And I’ll help her,” Bowie said. “You sit there and make the calls you need to make.”
Leigh had been blindsided, not by who’d done it, but by the shallowness of the reason. It was a petty gesture from a man who’d lived his life with too much of everything.
“Sweet Lord, give me strength,” she whispered, and began calling her sons.
After that she had to call Stanton’s sister and brother. Then the news would spread, and gossip with it, but it didn’t matter. Her sweet man was gone, and no amount of grief or righteous indignation was going to change that.
Twenty
The church service was a blur for Bowie, and when it was over, instead of going home, the mourners all lingered, wanting their moment with Leigh Youngblood.
When the family came out of the church, Leigh didn’t get into a car but stayed and let them come to her. Because they were burying Stanton on family ground, most of the attendees would not be at the cemetery, so they swarmed around her, all sincere in their sorrow, too many people all saying the same thing: “We’re so sorry for your loss.”
As the widow, Leigh bore the brunt of so many kindhearted people not knowing when to stop talking, and accepted it with grace. Last night, during a heart-to-heart talk with God, it had finally hit her that she had to let go of the way Stanton had been taken from her. He was just as dead as if he’d died in a wreck or from a lingering disease. Other women bore the same loss, and with just as much grief. She wasn’t unique. She wasn’t special. Her loss wasn’t worse. She had to let go of the rage, because it was not her cross to bear.
Stanton’s sons, with Jesse among them, stood in their mother’s shadow, never very far away should the need to step in arise, tending to their own families while making sure she didn’t need to be rescued.
After a while Bowie had moved through the crowd, whispered in his mother’s ear and then led her away.
Now the hearse was on the way to the Youngblood property, where the body would be laid to rest. It was a silent trip on a narrow winding road, with only family and a few close friends as escorts.