Left Hanging

by Patricia McLinn

  “Sorry, Newt. There were all these people. It happened fast—”

  “It’s coming out of your wages. If you ever manage to earn any. And quit your damned spitting back here. People lose their appetite when they see you spitting.” Newt slapped his hand on the counter hard enough to make the napkin dispensers jump, not to mention Evan and the other two workers. He spun around and disappeared from view.

  Watt saw us, tried a smile, gave up on it, and turned away to move something on the back counter with a clatter.

  Mike and I had nearly reached the stairs to the grandstand when Newton emerged from a door under them, stopping just short of running into us. Coming face to face, it was only polite to say hello, so Mike and I did.

  Newton, his face still red, said, “That sorry-assed piece of shit. I knew I shouldn’t have given him a job. If he worked for Landry all the time like he said, why didn’t Street hire him on?”

  “Hope it’s nothing serious . . .” Mike dangled artfully.

  “It’s serious, all right. Give that broken-down never-was idiot a chance to earn a stake, so he’ll leave me short in concessions on the busiest weekend of the year, and what does he do but hand some wahoo forty extra bucks in change.”

  “How do you—?”

  “I saw it. Saw it with my own eyes! I’d be better off having those morons outside the gate in here. At least I know they’re trying to ruin me.”

  “Forty bucks—”

  “Oh, it might not be much to you, Mr. Big Shot NFL player, or to some TV reporter from New York, but forty bucks is forty bucks. I’ve worked hard for every damn penny, and nobody’s screwing me.”

  “Your son said—”

  “My son says a lot of things. Thinks he’s smarter than his old man and runs his mouth. I never had the advantages Caswell has had. I had to claw for everything. Work damned hard, and I’m not about to see a bunch of weirdos with signs, or half-witted rodeo bums, take any part of it away from me.”

  I wondered if he considered marrying Inez part of that clawing.

  “And they’re not taking anything away from my boy, either,” he added with a sudden shift. “None of them.”

  What would he think of his boy canoodling with one of those weirdos? If he got this hot with a near-stranger over a forty-dollar mistake, how would he view his son’s betrayal?

  Before I could follow up, he said abruptly, “I heard someone say Grayson Zane got to town Thursday morning after Landry was dead. But that’s not right. I happen to know that rig of his got to the rodeo grounds right around midnight.”

  “Oh? How do you know?” Mike asked mildly.

  “Had a drink with a business associate at the Kicking Cowboy. Saw that rig of Zane’s. Figured . . . It brought the rodeo grounds to mind is all, so I drove by, to see things were right. Followed them in. Zane, then the clunker that idiot Watt drives. Saw ’em set up, made a circuit, everything was quiet, and I took off,” he said.

  “Did you see Landry?” My voice appeared to snap Newton back to awareness.

  “No. And I don’t have time to stand here talking about this crap. I’ve got work to do.” He strode off.

  As we started up the steps, Mike said, “Not sure how clear you are on Cottonwood County’s geography?”

  “Kicking Cowboy’s on the south end of Sherman. He drove from there to the west outskirts of town to come here to the rodeo grounds, before going back south and east to his place.”

  “Right. The other weird thing? There’s no highway near the K.C. Nowhere Zane would be driving coming into town. Either Zane went out of his way or Newton—”

  “Lied.”

  “Even without that, why would Newt follow Zane’s truck onto the rodeo grounds and stick around while he set up?” Mike asked.

  And be so focused on Zane that he didn’t notice he’d put Watt in town several hours before Landry’s death, too.

  I glanced toward the concession stand. Or had he known he was doing that?

  DAY THREE

  SATURDAY

  Chapter Fifteen

  “WHAT?” AT LEAST that’s what I tried to say when I answered the phone at an obscene hour Saturday morning.

  “Danny, I have news.”

  “Dex? Dex? Do you know what time it is?”

  “Eight-oh-six a.m.”

  I blinked at the alarm clock that wouldn’t have gone off at all, since it was Saturday morning. Saturday. “That’s six-oh-six here.”

  “Of course it is. You’re in the Mountain Time Zone,” he noted, clearly not getting the point.

  “I was asleep, Dex. I’d like to still be asleep.”

  “Do you know what they say about those who can sleep when they’re being questioned about a crime?”

  “It’s the sleep of the innocent?”

  “Opposite. The sleep of the guilty.”

  “Guilty of killing people who woke them up?”

  “It’s not limited to a specific motive.” He was serious.

  I yawned and shoved another pillow under my head. “How do you figure it’s the sleep of the guilty?”

  “It’s the experts—forensic psychologists—figuring, not me. For the innocent, being questioned is the high tide of anxiety and adrenaline. For the guilty, high tide was committing the crime. By the time they’re being questioned, the tide’s going out. They put their heads down and fall asleep.”

  “Lucky them. Phones must not ring in the middle of the night where they are.”

  I never knew if Dex didn’t get the points aimed at him, or understood them but didn’t consider them worthy of consideration. “You know, time’s a funny thing.”

  “It frequently gets me chuckling,” I muttered, expecting no reaction to that, either, and thus avoided disappointment.

  “A crime’s committed when it’s committed for a reason. It’s never truly random. Even what are referred to as random murders, there’s a reason the act happened then. Most often it has to do with the murderer’s pathology. The compulsion to kill has been building and building, and this is the moment it reaches critical mass. Other stranger-on-stranger murders can be because the victim was in the wrong place at the wrong time, perhaps a witness to something.”

  “Stranger-on-stranger doesn’t seem likely here. Assuming this is a murder.”

  “Ah. That’s even less likely to be random. Why it happened then and not another time will involve the old standbys—means, motive, and opportunity.”

  “So, working backward from the when might provide insight into the other elements? And possibly the killer?”

  “Unlikely, but possible.”

  I huffed out exasperation. “Well, if it’s unlikely, why bring it up?”

  “It’s another element you need to keep in mind. It’s another piece that has to fit a solution.”

  “Thanks for that, Dex. But now that I know the guilty can sleep, and they commit their crimes when they commit them for a reason, I think I’ll see if I can’t get more sleep myself.”

  “Hey, I thought you’d want to know this.” He sounded hurt. As only a squirrel-feeding FBI scientist can sound hurt.

  “Know what?”

  “There were ligature marks around your victim’s neck.”

  For a moment, all I could do was stare at the mottled wall opposite my bed. “Ligature marks?” I managed at last. “Dex, in journalism that’s called burying the lead. You couldn’t have told me that right at the start?”

  “I’m telling you now. There were ligature marks around his neck.”

  I sat up, swinging my feet out of bed. “He was choked?”

  “Not by hands. Ligature means it was produced by something strung around the neck.”

  “What?”

  “I said ligature means—”

  “No, I was a
sking what was put around his neck to create the ligature marks?”

  “That has not been determined absolutely.”

  “Not absolutely,” I repeated. “But they have an idea?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “And this idea, they might have shared it with you?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you could share it with me.”

  “Oh, no. Not until the evidence makes it much clearer than it is now.”

  “Dex . . .” But he wouldn’t change his mind on that. “So it’s murder.”

  “That is not determined.”

  “C’mon, Dex. Ligature marks? You think he committed suicide?”

  “That is not determined,” he repeated.

  He would not add more. Vintage Dex. Woke me up at six on a Saturday morning to tell me that while the apparent means of death was a bunch of bulls, the bulls were actually red herrings.

  MIKE AND I HAD agreed to meet at the station at eleven before heading for the rodeo grounds to poke around more. With my second straight earlier-than-I’d-intended awakening, I got there early.

  I checked in with the senior citizen who served as security two nights a week and all day Saturday and went right to the KWMT library that would have made Edward Murrow feel right at home. I locked the door from inside, so nobody could get in without my letting them in. That precaution was the result of a lesson learned.

  After nearly two hours with the clips and my Thermos of coffee, I emerged to find a spattering of weekend staffers around the newsroom. Mike and Jennifer sat huddled at her computer. I headed their way.

  “What are you two doing?”

  “Plotting out where Keith Landry’s rodeo has been since the season started. I figured it was a better use of Jen . . . uh, Jennifer’s skills than to start on the bankruptcy of some contractor who never came here,” Mike said. Clearly he, too, had received the now-Jennifer edict. “The fact that Landry was killed here, probably means something different happened or came to a head. But to know what’s different, first I have to know what was normal.”

  Although Jennifer wouldn’t pick it up, his expression and a faint emphasis on the word killed telegraphed to me his belief that Landry hadn’t died accidentally. Wait until he heard what Dex had said.

  “Not bad—both of you. Not bad at all.”

  “But?” Mike asked. “I heard a but in your voice.”

  “Won’t the sheriff’s department have better resources for this.”

  Jennifer answered. “Nah. I did some work for them last winter. For Mike’s Aunt Gee, actually. A hack of the program they bought to make their call center work better. The sheriff’s department doesn’t have anywhere near as good a setup as I’ve got.”

  “KWMT has a better system than the sheriff’s department?”

  She scoffed with a sound that consisted mostly of the letter P and a lot of air. “Not the station’s. I’m hooked into my own setup.”

  I met Mike’s eyes, then coughed. “Maybe you both could win points with the sheriff’s office by sharing the info when you get it.”

  MIKE WAS SO full of theories about why the big shots had disappeared—none involved body-snatching aliens—that all I had time to tell him of this morning’s call from my “federal law enforcement source” was about the sleep of the guilty before we reached the rodeo grounds.

  Apparently, Mike had viewed Diana getting there before us Thursday as a challenge. His attempt to set land speed records tossed me from one extreme of the seat-belt’s limits to the other.

  We skidded to a stop. I was waiting for the dust kicked up by the vehicle to subside enough to get out without asphyxiation when I spotted Linda Caswell approaching the office from the direction of the arena.

  “How about introducing us?” I asked Mike.

  “Sure thing.”

  We intercepted her five yards from the rodeo office steps. She had a firm handshake, a pleasant voice, and worried eyes.

  “I’m trying to get background and hoped to ask a few questions.” Taking for granted that she’d agree, I added, “I read that you’re also on the rodeo queen committee. It wasn’t clear—are you also chair of that?”

  She smiled. A lovely smile, with a dose of mischief in it. “Not at all. The permanent chair of that committee is Mrs. Parens.”

  I felt my eyebrows shoot toward my hairline. “Mrs. Parens?” Mrs. Parens was Aunt Gee’s neighbor in O’Hara Hill and a retired teacher. Which told as little about her as saying Michael Jordan was a retired basketball player.

  “Oh, yes. Didn’t you know?” Linda Caswell’s mischief graduated to deviltry. “Mrs. Parens established the scholarship. She was one of our early rodeo queens.”

  I shelved that to consider later. The rodeo queen committee had been an opener to pave the way for real questions. But before I could ask, she said, “I understand you talked with my nephew earlier. We’re very proud of Cas.” Her smile warmed, and I felt the tug of its charm in that otherwise plain face. “I consider him one of the good guys in training.”

  “Yes, we met.” Would Heather agree with that good-guy-in-training designation if she knew about Ms. Blue Hair? “About this rodeo, I read you voted against Keith Landry when the committee first awarded the contract?”

  “I did.”

  “Why?”

  “His production—” She gave the word an edge of distaste. “—had become more theatrical and less traditional over the years. More flash, less substance. I felt, along with the committee’s majority, that we should return to tradition with the annual rodeo.”

  “In the end, though, you must have been grateful when he rescued the rodeo after your chosen stock contractor went bankrupt.”

  “It was a choice between Landry’s company and no rodeo.”

  “Yet your phone number was on Landry’s cell phone,” I said.

  No smile now. “There was business to conduct. For the good of the Fourth of July Rodeo.”

  “Putting aside personal feelings—” I thought something flickered in her eyes at that. “—I understand you have a rodeo livestock business, Ms. Caswell.”

  She smiled. “A very small operation, Ms. Danniher. Nothing to rival Landry’s. Though when the original contractor fell through, if I could have supplied the livestock for Sherman, I certainly would have. My grandfather started the Sherman rodeo.”

  “Why couldn’t you?”

  “Cottonwood Drive is a small operation, primarily to keep a tradition alive. I was surprised Landry could step in, even with so many more head.”

  A voice called her name from the rodeo office door. I looked around and saw Stan Newton. He raised a hand. Possibly in greeting, though quickly seguing to pointing to his watch.

  “You’ll have to excuse me, the committee’s meeting. There’s a lot to decide in light of . . . this horrible accident.”

  Mike and I said the right things. We watched her walk into the rodeo office, with Newton closing the door firmly behind them.

  “Pick up anything?” he said.

  “You mean that she didn’t want Landry to be contractor, even after that new company left them hanging? But why was she so against it?”

  He gave me a slanted smile. “I think it’s time you have another History of Cottonwood County lesson with Mrs. Parens.”

  “I’m sure I will benefit greatly from such a lesson.”

  “Teacher’s pet.” He shifted tone. “You were a little cold about Cas.”

  “One of the good guys in training? She and Vicky Upton are selling what a good kid he is awfully hard.” I looked around. “I have something more to fill you in on. Is there someplace to sit where we won’t be overheard?”

  “Sure.”

  He led me to a fence with a good view of the office, parking lot, and pens behind the arena. In
one smooth move, he sat atop it, his boot heels hooked over a lower rail. “C’mon, you gotta learn the fine art of fence-sitting to get the most out of living in Wyoming.”

  “No fence-sitters among the people I’ve met here,” I said.

  “Ta-dum-dum. Good one. Now get your, ahem, self up here. It’s not hard.”

  The climb wasn’t difficult. But he was wrong about it not being hard. That rail was definitely hard. At least with the sky temporarily overcast, it wasn’t a hot seat.

  First, I told him he was sworn to secrecy.

  “With Tom helping—”

  “No. What I know changes things. If you don’t agree to keep it to just us, I won’t tell you.” He was troubled, but agreed. Without revealing my source’s identity, I told him what Dex had said.

  Mike whistled. “How reliable—?”

  “My source is 100 percent. His source? I’d say ninety-eight percent. My source wouldn’t have told me if he didn’t trust the information.”

  “And nobody knows except us?”

  “Alvaro might. Through official channels, or through his sister. This explains why there was less blood than Richard would have expected. Landry was dead before the bulls started, so his blood wasn’t pumping.”

  “So it’s a murder. And not death by bull.”

  “Yet the body ended up in that pen with the bulls. So, a crime of opportunity? Or a body dump of opportunity? Was he killed in the pen? Or killed elsewhere then brought there?”

  “That would be risky, wouldn’t it?”

  “Any riskier than killing him there?”

  “Not many people around overnight. When the circuit cowboys start coming in, there’ll be trailers and trucks and such here each night, but it was barebones that night.”

  I huh’d. “Except Grayson Zane and Evan Watt,” I said.

  “If we believe Newton.”

  “Right.” I considered another aspect. “Was the damage the bulls did a lucky break? Or would someone who knew bulls, which appears to be everyone in Cottonwood County—”

  “Except you.”

  “—except me, know they’d be displeased about having a body dumped in their midst and expect a fair amount of, uh, disruption to the evidence?”