Left Hanging

by Patricia McLinn

  “But to give Landry whatever he demanded. Why do you think he’d raised his fees so much to start with?”

  “I only saw the finished bid. For how Landry reached that number, you’d have to ask Oren Street. He might know.”

  “Only might? Street was Landry’s partner.”

  She looked off to the side, narrowing her eyes. “That strikes me as the same category as an abused woman being called the abuser’s partner,” she said. “Partners, because they’re married. Yet, it’s not only not a true partnership, it’s a mockery of the concept.”

  “In what way—for Landry and Street, I mean?”

  She hitched her shoulders. I thought it carried impatience that I’d requested clarification. “Certainly financially, but you already know that, don’t you? I’m sure even less homework than you do would have revealed that.”

  “And beyond financial?”

  “Landry spoke for the company, did the negotiation, set the schedule. Oren carried out the orders, handling everything to do with the livestock.”

  “Did Keith Landry consult Oren Street? Perhaps behind the scenes?”

  “Not that I ever saw. He made decisions on the spot.” She considered. “No. The way he talked about Oren was dismissive. Slighting. The way he talked to him . . .”

  “Taken altogether, you’re saying Street has a motive for murdering Landry.”

  “That’s not . . . No.” Denial, but not shock at the accusation. It had been in her head somewhere. Possibly at the forefront.

  “From what you said, it’s a natural conclusion. And,” I added deliberately, “saying so makes sense from your standpoint.”

  “Why would I . . . oh. Oh, yes, I see. I would be attempting to get out from under a truckload of assumed guilt dumped on me by heaping it on to Oren Street.”

  “As I said, it makes sense from your standpoint.”

  She regarded me for a long, silent moment. Long enough that I felt the drag of it tugging at words from the back of my mind, even though I know that trick and use it.

  She saved me by saying, “I wouldn’t want to live in a world where that sort of sacrificing of others for self-gain is expected.”

  “Might not be expected, at least by some, but you do live in a world where it happens. All the time. Wyoming’s not exempt.”

  Still looking at me, she said, “Tom Burrell speaks very highly of you. I wonder why.”

  “I could say precisely the same thing to you, Linda.”

  “I don’t know what—”

  “Yes, you do. You either killed that man, or hope to protect someone who did. Either way, you’re making a mess of it. Tom says you’re intelligent. Well, intelligent people should know that telling lies during a murder investigation is stupid. A lie—any lie—turns a spotlight on the liar. That spotlight doesn’t care what it lights up. If you try to dodge around underneath it, hiding this or that, you and anybody you’re connected to looks all the more guilty.”

  I stood. She did not.

  “I am cooperating completely with the police,” she said.

  “Are you? Have you taken Deputy Alvaro into your romantic confidence the way you did me?” I didn’t try to curb the skepticism. “You know, I missed one option earlier—in addition to the possibilities that you killed him or that you’re protecting the killer, you might be protecting someone you think murdered Keith Landry. And if that’s so, this half-baked effort to distract me with the tale of the heartbreak Landry handed you—but Zane didn’t—could put the person you’re trying to protect in an even deeper hole.”

  Her mouth worked, but nothing emerged.

  “If it’s Door Number Three—you’re protecting someone you think murdered Landry—who? Stan Newton? Your nephew Cas? Or perhaps Zane? Are you truly that forgiving that you’d protect him?”

  She stood, picked up her bag, placed the strap deliberately on her shoulder, and walked away. Not once looking at me, or displaying any emotion or hurry. Leaving me with my questions unanswered, except by my own, entirely unsatisfactory responses.

  Did I think she’d killed him? Maybe.

  Did I think she was covering up for someone she knew killed him? Maybe again.

  Did I think she was covering up for someone she thought might have killed him? Probably.

  Did I think that the person she was covering up for had killed Landry? Or have an idea who that person might be? How the hell would I know?

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  IN THE TIME we’d talked, the sun had dropped behind the mountains. There were no artificial lights near the picnic table, but the ones around the rodeo grounds started to glow.

  As I walked toward the office and the activity beyond it, Linda reached the porch. The office door opened, and Street stepped out. They stood there, in what from this distance appeared to be neutral conversation.

  Something drew my gaze to the side, and there was Grayson Zane in the shadow of a truck, looking toward the office.

  Over by the arena, I saw Mike talking to Stan Newton. Newton appeared edgy. His gaze traveled past Mike to the office, the parked pickup trucks, the grandstand, the pens.

  Cas was back where I’d seen him the first night, preparing for competition. This time his hands were still as he stared at his father and Mike, though he was too far away to hear them. When Stan’s gaze made another circuit, I saw Cas’ follow the same path.

  Linda and Oren parted. She went inside, he stepped off the porch toward the arena.

  Zane flicked a look toward me, then turned on his heel.

  Beyond him, I saw Evan Watt dart behind a pickup truck.

  I headed after Watt, praying he hadn’t used his concessions earnings to buy chewing tobacco.

  Once I cleared the rodeo office’s corner, I saw Street’s back as he passed two female figures by a patiently standing horse. The Uptons, mother and daughter.

  At that moment, Vicky looked up and spotted me. She headed toward me. Looking determined.

  If I kept after Watt, what were the chances of his talking to me with Vicky on my tail? About as good as my chances of shaking her off.

  “Ms. Danniher.”

  “Please, call me Elizabeth,” I said with a charming smile.

  “Ms. Danniher,” she repeated. Apparently not as charming a smile as I had hoped. “I want to talk to you about the privileged material you obtained last night and—”

  “There is no privilege, Vicky. I’m not a member of the clergy or the bar. I’m a reporter.”

  “You will not put any of that from last night on TV.” It had the air of a threat more than an order.

  Still, I replied with sweet reason. “I will if it has a bearing on Landry’s murder.”

  She opened and closed her mouth twice, in an apparent attempt to swallow my sweet reason. “It does not have any bearing.”

  “If you or Heather murdered—”

  She gasped loud enough to stop me, and that was only a precursor to snapping, “How dare you?”

  “Oh, I dare. You’re strong suspects. Both of you.”

  “My daughter had no reason—”

  “C’mon, Vicky. That won’t fly. By her own admission he was coming after her, and she roped him to put a stop to it. She could have taken the roping farther than she’s admitted—taken the final step. Or—”

  “She did not—”

  “—you could have done the deed yourself.”

  “Ridiculous. Why would I?”

  “As much as you seem to hate Landry? That’s easy. Of course, we only have your word for it that Landry was Heather’s father.”

  “You think I’d claim him as sperm-donor if it weren’t true?”

  “You never told anyone who the father was before telling Heather last week?”

  “Why should I? It’s
nobody’s business.”

  “It was his business.”

  “He dumped me, didn’t want anything to do with me.”

  “You could have gotten help from him.”

  “No.”

  “A paternity test to prove he was the father, and you’d have gotten child support.”

  “We didn’t need anything from anybody. I’ve put away money from the time Heather was born—even before. Sometimes only a couple dimes a week, but every single week, no matter what. She’s worked hard, too. To be rodeo queen and get that scholarship.”

  “You can seek money from the estate. For college . . .”

  “No.” Two letters. As cold and vehement as I’ve ever heard. She collected herself. “I didn’t want anything to do with him while he was alive, and I don’t want anything to do with him now that he’s dead.”

  She turned on the heel of her cowboy boot and stalked off. One very determined woman who had absolutely wanted her daughter’s father out of their lives.

  NO HOPE NOW of tracking Evan Watt, but I still wanted to know what he’d been able to see from where he’d stood.

  I reached the spot and turned for a survey.

  It told me that even with the waning daylight, he’d been able to see everything I had seen—more accurately, everyone. Zane, the rodeo office porch where Linda and Street had stood, where Mike and Newton had talked, Cas’ preparation spot, and the Uptons.

  I stepped to the side, mimicking his dart. Fat lot of good that did me. It appeared to put him out of sight for every one of—

  “What were you talking to Linda Caswell about?”

  I spun around at the voice behind me, already knowing I’d see Grayson Zane. I took my time before answering, watching him. “You. What happened five years ago.”

  He didn’t look away. He didn’t explain.

  “Tell me your side of it.”

  “Nothing to tell.”

  “Then we have nothing to talk about, Zane.”

  He put a hand on my arm—“Wait.”—and withdrew it as soon as I stopped. “You can’t be thinking she’s a suspect in this.”

  “I can be,” I said. “Why would you care?”

  “Don’t want to see the wrong person blamed.”

  “Who’s the right person? You?”

  “I didn’t kill Landry.”

  “We know you and Watt got to the rodeo grounds well before you first said you did. Closer to midnight than as the sun came up. Plenty of time to see and kill Landry.”

  He gave no evidence of falling to his knees and confessing. “That wasn’t me saying the time, it was Watt.”

  “You’re capable of making the throw over the beam that put the rope around his neck, aren’t you?”

  Not a flicker indicated he might know the initial throw was ostensibly accounted for, and it was the neck part that mattered. “Yes. But like I said before, Landry gave me the opening that let me get my career back on track.”

  “What did you do for him in exchange?”

  He looked at me. These silent westerner types were a pain to interview. Give me Hiram Poppinger any time.

  “What do you know about Landry telling Street to bring the stock in early?”

  “Not a thing.”

  “You know more about what’s been going on than you’re saying, Zane.”

  “I got nothing to tell you.” Which in no way denied that he did know more than he was saying.

  DRIVING BACK TO the station, I gave Mike my rundown on the conversation with Linda Caswell.

  He reported that Stan Newton had denied pretty much everything.

  Newton said he wasn’t at the fairgrounds when Landry was killed, having stopped just long enough to swear Zane and Watt had arrived before zero hour.

  He said Cas went to bed at eleven and stayed there, and became snarly when Mike pointed out that by Newton’s own account, he hadn’t returned until after one o’clock and hadn’t checked his son’s bedroom.

  He said the lunch at Haber House the day before Landry died had been a social occasion and a pure delight. No undercurrent of lechery from Landry toward Heather, disgust from Heather toward Landry, smoldering anger from Cas to Landry, coolness between Heather and Cas, or animosity between him and Landry.

  He said he had not heard a single word about under-the-table dealings concerning the choice of a livestock contractor—that was as close to raising the bribe rumors as we’d decided Mike would go. For now.

  Finally, Newton said he’d had no role in Landry bringing in the livestock early and couldn’t venture a guess as to who might have or for what purpose.

  Mike had even less success with the others. Cas did his melting trick. Mike caught a glimpse of blue hair in the vicinity of that melting.

  Oren Street said he had nothing new to add, and he had more work to do than he had hours in the day.

  Mike also encountered Evan Watt. Not a pleasant olfactory experience from Mike’s description.

  “Talk about funky—as in, a man in a total funk—that’s what he smelled like. Sweat and old booze and unwashed.”

  “Got it. What did he say?”

  “Not much. Asked him about what time he and Zane got in last week, and got no straight answer. He was jittery as all get-out. Talked about not sticking around for the Fourth. I said the sheriff’s department might have other ideas. He turned gray. I asked how it was going in concessions. The gray got more sickly, and he said he wasn’t doing that anymore. When I asked if he was working for Street—it seemed a natural question, since he’d worked for Landry and made no secret he needed cash—I thought he’d pass out.”

  We’d reached KWMT. I parked beside Mike’s four-wheel-drive and turned off the engine. With the sun setting, opening the windows to let in the breeze made it comfortable.

  “I asked when he’d eaten last, and it was like I was talking a different language,” Mike said as he fiddled with the seatbelt. “I, uh . . . Maybe it wasn’t the right thing to do—I mean for a story, but I felt bad for the guy. I gave him a twenty.”

  “You don’t tell about my twenty to Kelly on Sunday, and I won’t tell about your twenty to Watt today. At least yours was for food, not cigarettes.”

  “Unless he spends it on booze,” he said.

  “Or chewing tobacco.”

  He grinned. “We’re going to your place, right? Tom’ll be there later.”

  “Wait a second. I also saw Vicky Upton.” I recapped that.

  “Well, she must have wanted something to do with Landry at one time,” he said, “or they wouldn’t have had a kid.”

  I snorted. “That feeling is long forgotten. Besides, it was on the rebound, like his others. And Landry dumped her. That’s quite a one-two punch. Ask Linda or Sonja or the others Jennifer found. That’s not a scenario that engenders fond memories.”

  Mike followed me to my house, parked on the street, and wasn’t far behind as I walked up the steps.

  For a second night in a row, Jennifer scared the socks off me when I opened my front door. This time with more justification, since I hadn’t left her in my house.

  Once again, cookies, chips, candy, and pretzels covered the coffee table.

  She looked up. Her eyes held the empty stare of someone trying to focus at a new distance after too many hours devoted to the computer. The screen’s light gave her face a waxy glow as she said, “I found something.”

  Chapter Thirty

  I LOOKED AT MIKE. He looked back at me. We both looked at her.

  She said, “Your dog really likes those bacon treats. He practically licked my hand raw.”

  “He ate from your—” No. What a stray dog ate, and how he ate it, and whether he seemed to like anyone and everyone better than the person who was feeding and watering him and had given him a n
ame wasn’t the point. I changed the subject to, “I swear the door was locked when I left.”

  “It’s a junk lock,” she said with scorn.

  “That is no . . .” Her earlier words hit. “What did you find?”

  “First, I found two more towns for that list I gave you at the station, all before last year. Then I found something really good.” Judging from her smirk, she was not referring to my cache of junk food. “Remember that woman who was registered as DBA for Sweet Meadows Contracting?”

  “Yeah,” Mike and I chorused.

  The impression that things were near to adding up in my head to produce an answer—even if I didn’t know the steps—returned. If I hadn’t been going full tilt, would it already have surfaced?

  “I went back and looked at the location of her home address,” Jennifer said.

  “It’s not a town Landry’s rodeo has been,” Mike said quickly. “I’d have recognized the name. I’m sure I would. I’ve looked at that list so many times . . . It isn’t, is it?”

  “Nope. But . . .” Jennifer drew it out in triumph. “It’s four miles from where Landry’s rodeo was June, three years ago.”

  “That’s when Sweet Meadows was founded,” Mike said.

  “Yup.”

  “Good job. Can you get background on this woman? As much as you can get legally and ethically,” I added for safety.

  “What does it mean?” Mike asked. “Was she in on this with Landry, or did he use her as a front, and she didn’t know?”

  “Don’t know yet, but it’s another piece of string to tug on.”

  I started to walk away, but Mike lingered, saying, “Jennifer, that information you found about other towns having trouble with a new stock company backing out at the last second, can you put that together for us to look at?”

  And I thought I saw the answer.

  At least to this sub-issue. But we’d still need to work out a lot of steps to have the proof.

  “Excellent, Paycik. Your instinct about the bankrupt contractor was right all along. Jennifer, see if you can find out if any of those other bankrupt contractors are DBA situations. And if there are more DBAs, check their locations against Landry’s schedule.”