“Don’t care what anybody says about me. I know.”
“Do you care that someone else might care what others say about you? Someone who cares about you and can be hurt by what’s said about you.” Being vague wasn’t as easy as Penny made it sound. But just in case Shelton wasn’t being honest about not listening in, I played it safe.
His red spread wider.
James gave me a questioning look. I shook my head slightly. Not yet. More patience. As much patience as I could manage.
The silence extended past patience into discomfort.
I picked up a pen.
Diana put her hand on my wrist before I started tapping it.
“It wasn’t only him.”
Hiram’s voice made us all start.
The instinct in a situation like this is to blurt out some variant of What the hell are you talking about? But that’s the wrong approach.
Talking to a source in a situation like this is the equivalent of dealing with a wild animal.
No sudden moves. Especially not toward them.
Keep your tone calm and neutral.
“Different people say different things,” I ventured.
“They say damned wrong if they put it all on him. Anybody says anything that puts it all on him, and I’ll tell them to their face they’re damned wrong and if they don’t back down, I’ll do more than that. It wasn’t like that. Nothin’ like that.”
I waited, stretching the moment — no sudden moves, even in asking the next question. “What was it like?”
“He had no choice. No choice at all when you looked at it from where he stood. Not that I did at the start. It was only after—” He broke off, explosively cleared his throat.
Again, I thought the thread was broken, but he picked up, almost as if talking to himself.
“No choice. Not with his girl so sick. And here that snake came danglin’ the chance for the doctors he thought could pull a miracle out of their hat. How could he say no? How could any man say no? Even with his friend yappin’ at him. Even with his wife sayin’ he had to face the truth that there was nothing to be done. He had — he had. He’d accepted it and he was takin’ each day with his girl and lovin’ her, and not thinkin’ about what was comin’. And then to have the hope dangled out there in front of him again… It was more than he could bear. More than any man could bear.”
He turned his profile to us.
Quietly, I asked, “You knew about it as it was happening?”
“Put it together. Pieces. Saw him talking to somebody I didn’t know and we knew everybody the same. Saw the fever in his eyes. The fever of hope. Same time he was sweating like he always did when he’d done something wrong. Got us caught more times than I could count.”
His lips twitched, as if they remembered what it was like to grin, but couldn’t quite get there.
“He told you?”
“No.”
A full stop. A permanent one?
“But…?” I tried softly.
“I asked him what was goin’ on. Told me to mind my own business. So I did. Until, in the jury room, when we got the case and started discussin’. Never crossed my mind until I heard him sayin’ he had too much reasonable doubt to vote to convict. I didn’t want to believe… But there he was, saying those words like he’d memorized them from a poem by the devil. Not believin’, but sayin’ them just the same. It was like a clap of thunder, then the lightning runnin’ right through me, knockin’ me off my feet.
“There were a couple other ones. Sayin’ about the same words like they’d learned it off by heart, too. But I hardly even heard that. All I could see was Earl. Knowin’ what he’d done and why. First chance, I got him off by himself, even though he tried to avoid me. Wouldn’t look at me. Wouldn’t talk to me. Wouldn’t answer me. Told him what I thought. Told him right out it wouldn’t save his girl, but it would damn him to hell.
“We never talked again. Not even at his girl’s funeral a couple months after.”
Into the sorrowful silence, Diana spoke softly. “But, Hiram, that could make your friend and the others vote for acquittal, but what about the rest of you? If you voted to convict, York couldn’t have got off.”
Color spread up under his beard, across his cheeks, and even into his forehead. Not the rosy, rather endearing blush when I’d referred to Yvette. But something dark and dire.
“They wore us down. Simple as that. Suppose I stopped carin’ after Earl turned the way he did… Doesn’t matter. I didn’t do my duty. Turned tail and gave up. Remember that every day. More when I saw Furman York ’round here. That would jam it right down my craw. Even now, with him dead, I’ll carry that shame to my grave. Right beside my grievin’ for Earl.
“He was my friend. Best friend I ever had. And that man ruined him. After the trial, after his girl died, Earl took to drink. Not in a healthy way, mind you.”
Presumably that was the way Hiram drank.
“Drank serious. Wouldn’t even drink with friends anymore. Not me — we’d crossed each other out, like I said. Didn’t mean I didn’t know what he was doin’ and how he was doin’ it. Saw him places. Until he started goin’ cross the county line to the Pickled Cow where it’s not sociable. Not sociable at all. He’d drink fast and steady, like if he drank enough bottles it would fill his soul back up.”
I blinked at Hiram going poetical. Also to hold in sudden tears.
“One night, it was snowin’ and blowin’, but not a blizzard or nothin’. He left that place. Never got back to Cottonwood County. Found his truck right off. Didn’t find him for a couple days.”
Diana dropped her hands below the edge of the table, folding them tight enough to whiten the knuckles.
“Deputies said the truck was fine. Nothin’ mechanical wrong. Had plenty of gas. … Said they didn’t know what happened. Fools. Everybody else sure as hell knew what happened. Knew damn right well. He’d reached the end. Couldn’t go on another minute. He pulled over and he walked out. Kept walkin’ until he couldn’t go on with that anymore, either. Then he sat down and died out there. Because it was the only thing he could see to do.”
The man’s pain was palpable.
He shook his head in sharp anger — at his friend’s death, at his own emotions, at us for witnessing them? At all of it, most likely.
“What’re you all sittin’ there gapin’ at me for? Aren’t you supposed to be the big high muckety mucks who know everything? Well, now you know Furman York and Norman Clay Lukasik had more to answer for than the murder of that poor girl. They killed Earl, too.”
Chapter Forty-Five
“He weren’t the only one, either. Dick took off from here like a scalded cat after that trial. He mighta had some money, but he lost his home. Hear he died in California—” No worse fate, from his tone. “—five, six years later. Heard he was broke and broken. Called his momma, cryin’. Least he outlasted Earl—”
The door to the interview room opened to Lloyd Sampson.
“Uh, sorry folks. Time’s up.”
“No,” I protested. “We haven’t been here as long as yesterday.”
Already getting Hiram up from the chair, Lloyd shook his head. “Sergeant says.”
He closed the door behind them, Diana, James, and I still sitting where we were.
“You were really getting someplace,” Diana said in sorrow.
“Yeah.” In my mind’s eye, Hiram still sat with his profile to us, letting out what he’d held in so long.
His profile…
Unlike yesterday when he’d been facing us full-on. Us and the one-way mirror.
I jerked my head to look at James, then turned straight ahead before I asked, “Can anybody in the sheriff’s department read lips?”
James looked startled. I couldn’t blame him.
The lawyer swung his head around and looked at the mirror.
He shook his head, but I noticed he faced away from it before he said, “It wouldn’t be admissible.”
“Shelton mi
ght not care. Get the information first, find another route to it that would be admissible if he needed to.”
“I don’t know of anyone who can—”
The door opened again to Lloyd Sampson.
“I’ll escort you out now, folks.”
* * * *
“Sneaky.” Mike sounded more impressed than disapproving of Shelton’s theoretical tactic.
He and Tom were settled in a Sioux Falls hotel, having secured their rental car, treated the pilot to a steak dinner, and staked him after-dinner drinks while they returned to their room to video conference with us.
Jennifer razzed them about sharing a room. Mike said he’d never minded a roommate even after his veteran status exempted him. Tom said they’d be sleeping most of the time so what did it matter.
I had a fleeting thought that these two guys in a hotel together was a real waste, but kept that to myself.
Tom sat on one bed, pillows behind him, while Mike sat on the easy chair next to it and adjusted the phone as needed, propped on the desk.
My parents, true to their word, left us with dinner — chicken casserole — and a good amount of yard work accomplished when they left with Tamantha for O’Hara Hill. I’d already told Diana and Jennifer about the trip to the Pickled Cow.
Tom got things started. “We plan an early morning to be at the first place when it opens. No late night tonight. What happened with Hiram?”
Mike whistled at the end of our account. After his comment on Shelton, he added, “All these years Hiram wouldn’t say a word and you got him to talk about it, Elizabeth. Impressive.”
I wondered if it wasn’t another woman who deserved that credit.
“You know, that all fits with what Aunt Gee said about a kind of justice happening. Remember?” he asked. “Something about the hollow trappings of success — Jennifer spotted that as Lukasik. Someone in exile’s that other guy. And not being able to live with himself, that was Hiram’s friend, Earl. So Hiram had a motive.”
“His motive, though, is stronger for his wanting Lukasik dead than York,” I said. “York didn’t bribe jurors. He didn’t have any money. But Earl was bought with the promise of money to try to cure his daughter. That has to be Lukasik.”
“Why would Lukasik go out on a limb like that?” Mike asked. “Especially for Furman York. They didn’t even know each other then.”
“I think I know why Lukasik would do it.”
We all turned to Jennifer.
“It’s in those clips I gave you.”
Sure, make me feel guilty for not finishing them. “Sorry, Jennifer. I haven’t—”
“They all say that case was when he went from small-time lawyer barely making it to big-shot. After he got York off, he moved to Denver. Was the hot defense lawyer. Got big cases. Then bigger and bigger. And every story mentioned it started with the York’s not-guilty.”
“But he couldn’t know that’s how it would turn out.” Diana waved her coffee mug, which had to be nearly empty or we’d be misted. “I mean, he could hope, but he couldn’t absolutely be certain.”
“I don’t know.” Reminded of my own mug, I sipped. “Maybe he couldn’t know for sure what winning might mean, but he would have known losing would mean staying where he was, doing what he’d been doing. Or less.”
“So, his motive wasn’t to succeed, but to avoid failure.”
We all let that sink in.
I raised another point. “Aunt Gee said something this morning we need to consider.”
Mike nodded. “About having an alibi, I was thinking about that. None of the people we’ve considered, seriously considered,” he emphasized, putting his aunt outside that category, “have an alibi that we know about. Lukasik, Kesler, Gable, all out around somewhere on that ranch.”
“Clyde and Tom, too. I mean their own ranches.” Jennifer looked up. “What?”
“She’s right,” I said. “The sheriff’s department considers Tom a suspect, we should look at what they’re considering, too, to fight against it.”
“And, of course, Hiram has no alibi, because he was at the scene within the window of when York was shot.” Diana cocked her head. Alibis don’t eliminate or point to anyone.”
“Actually, I was thinking of something else Gee said. If I could murder, Furman York would have died many years ago,” I quoted. “But he wasn’t killed any time over the past thirty years. He was killed now. And that comes back to Jennifer’s excellent question, Why now?”
“Geez, if not killing him before rules out people, we don’t have anybody left,” Mike groused.
Fighting a grin, I said, “Not necessarily. But it does go back to why now. We’ve asked what sparked Furman York being killed now—”
“And didn’t come up with much of anything.”
“Exactly, Mike. Let’s take it a couple steps back. Instead of why now, ask what’s changed? What was different leading up to the shooting? Without trying to pinpoint whether it caused the killing or not. I’ll start by saying one thing that changed is Tom found out about York’s rustling scheme with Circle B calves.”
I gestured, as if to nudge Jennifer, even though she was out of reach.
“Let’s get these down.”
Diana said, “Grazing association members had cattle rustled.”
Jennifer typed. Fast enough to cover both my point and Diana’s.
“And,” Diana added, “Tom and others made the connection that grazing association members were being hit by rustlers.”
“Which started people suspecting York,” Mike said. “But they didn’t have proof.”
“Let’s not get into proof yet. What else changed is Hiram began, uh, courting Yvette,” I said.
“Hiram asked Clyde for help with Yvette. And Clyde asked Hiram to put a scare into York, which Hiram was only too glad to do.”
After that contribution from Diana, we hit a lull.
Jennifer lifted her head. “Could York have found out Gable directed Clyde to that hidden-away pasture where he had calves from Tom’s cows?”
“We can’t know if York found out, but it’s a change to add to the list that Gable — knowingly or not — opened the door to York’s rustling being exposed.”
“Norman Clay Lukasik was staying at the ranch,” Mike said abruptly.
“That’s good.” Diana leaned forward. “Everyone’s emphasized how he only made flying visits, a few days at a time, but he’s been here, what, two weeks or more?”
“That’s a change all right. We’re not supposed to ask this during this exercise, but it sure makes me want me to ask why he’s here,” Mike said.
I heard him, but my memory also listened to someone else’s words.
“A bunch of what?” Jennifer asked.
I must have said it aloud. I repeated the whole. “A bunch of bones strung together. It was something Needham said at our lunch. He said he’d just be a bunch of bones strung together without Thelma.”
Diana said, “Not only is that sweet, but it shows how smart he is.”
“Yes, yes. But later I remembered the phrase and connected it to Lukasik. Just now, remembering it again, something else struck me hard. From the clips and old video Jennifer sent that I have looked at, Norman Clay Lukasik has always been thin, but not like he is now.”
A memory of him facing off with Tom and seeming smaller popped into my head.
“A bunch of bones strung together,” Diana murmured. Then she leaned forward and looked up at me. “What are you thinking?”
“That he’s not a well man.”
Another memory surfaced. At Aunt Gee’s, thinking about Furman York’s death being part of cleaning the Augean Stables and that if that was so, Norman Clay Lukasik’s life wasn’t worth much. And how that zinged around my head like the mental equivalent of banging my elbow.
…because Lukasik’s life wasn’t worth much. Because…
“I think he’s dying.”
Chapter Forty-Six
“Yes.”
Th
at confirmation came unexpectedly from Mike.
“That’s exactly how an assistant coach looked — great guy — in the last months before he died of cancer. He’d stopped treatment. Said he was done fighting. He was going to live what he had left. He had that same string of bones look… And something in the face.”
“It explains why he’s at the ranch,” I said, “whether from illness or to spend more time with his son.”
“But he’s not spending more time with Gable,” Diana said.
“Doesn’t seem to be.” I pushed my hair back. “Honestly, I don’t know if that advances us any. We’ll keep it in mind, but in the meantime, anything else?”
“We made progress on Asheleigh Vincennes today,” I said. “Found her birthday — month and date — through social media. The year we figured from what the Independence listed in a piece on new teachers. Threw—”
“Don’t tell Needham that.”
“—in a year either side, just in case. Asheleigh spelled the same way. That made it easy. Tracked down her birth certificate, which gave the father’s name. Tracked that back to marriage records. Odessa was married to him when Asheleigh was born, but they divorced two years later.”
“Anything interesting about the father?”
She raised one shoulder. “Not yet. No record of him dying, or being in prison in Maryland or surrounding states.” She sounded almost disappointed. “Now we’ll do the ordinary tracking.”
Did I imagine an underlying bo-ring in her voice?
“But the marriage certificate gave me Odessa’s maiden name and something very interesting.”
“That’s good work,” Diana said.
“What?” Mike and I asked simultaneously, focusing on the very interesting.
“There’s almost nothing about Odessa under her maiden name, either.”
“That is interesting.” Thinking it through, I added, “But does that lead us anywhere? Or are we getting lost in the weeds?”
“We are getting pretty far from where we started,” Mike said. “And all we had to go on was that woman’s weird look. Maybe she knew York from a bowling league or something.”
Reaction Shot (Caught Dead in Wyoming, Book 9) Page 26
