Left Hanging

by Patricia McLinn

  “Honor of the Caswell name,” Mike said promptly.

  “Oh, c’mon. He’s not a Caswell. He makes a big deal of being a self-made man. Why would he care?”

  “His son’s a Caswell,” Tom said.

  Sometimes I felt as if I’d stepped back a century. Or stayed in this century and ventured to another continent. But just because it was foreign to me, didn’t mean it wasn’t valid. Besides, if we considered only motives for murder that weren’t foreign to me, our suspects would be limited to ex-wives of men who took the Jack Nicholson character in Heartburn as a role model.

  “What about Oren Street?” I asked. “They didn’t travel together, but they overlapped at most rodeos. He must have seen Landry in action.”

  “The rodeo was the set-up,” Mike said. “The payoff didn’t come until after the woman had been dumped, and Landry was there for the rebound. By that time, Street would have moved on.”

  “After all those women, over all those years, he’d have to start noticing something. He can’t be that blind to anything other than livestock.” They looked back at me. “Okay, maybe he is. But I’m leaving him as a possibility. What about on the business side? Street emphasized he didn’t know anything about the business, and what Linda and Newton have said backs that. So, who else?”

  “Evan Watt,” Mike said. “Several of the women named him, and, remember, he said early on that he’d worked for Landry, being real cagey about exactly what he did.”

  “Landry was using Evan Watt . . .?” Tom looked as if Abraham Lincoln’s good looking cousin had bit into a wormy apple.

  I shrugged. “Some women go for that type. A walk on the wild side.”

  Mike muttered something about the unwashed side.

  “Watt’s on the list, along with the other men Landry hired or bribed to be his setup man,” I said. “But, just like the women, they had to be here to have opportunity. That means Watt and Zane.”

  “I can’t believe it of Grayson Zane,” Tom said.

  “Setting up a woman for Keith Landry? Or murder?”

  He gave me a long, level look. He wanted to say both. And he knew I knew it. He also knew I would refute half with ease. “Murder.”

  “Ability to ride a bull or rope a steer does not equate to a stellar moral center,” I said. “As he proved with Linda.”

  “No one can know for sure what he—”

  “She knows.” He had no response to that. “Anybody else either of you think might have known what Landry was up to?”

  “Penny,” Mike said promptly. “She knows everything.”

  As our chuckles fueled partly by tension faded, Burrell said, “What do you want me to do?”

  “Give us your thoughts on which of these guys is our best bet to talk to,” I said. “With Landry dead, that’s our only way to confirm what was going on with these women.”

  Burrell’s gaze held mine a moment, then deliberately shifted. From where he sat, he must have been looking at the irregular, roundish blot on the living room wall I hoped was the result of a bad job of washing red crayon. He looked grim. The room was enough to make anyone grim, but I didn’t think it was the decor.

  Finally, Burrell leaned forward, transferred his gaze to the list on the coffee table that we’d gathered from the women and directed one long finger to a name.

  Grayson Zane.

  “Talk to him,” he said.

  “Even though we only know of one time with him?” Mike objected.

  “One of the men who’s not here might be more open to talking, since they’re not a murder suspect,” I said. “On the other hand, Watt was the most frequent, uh, introductory act among the women we talked to. If we get him to talk, it opens the floodgates.”

  “That’s why he won’t talk,” Tom said, withdrawing his pointing finger. “Too much to lose.”

  “Seems like Zane has a lot more to lose,” I protested. “Being a big shot in rodeo, I mean. It would be a big story.”

  Tom shook his head, not denying what I said, but indicating something outweighed it. “He did it once and never again.”

  “Because his conscience bothered him,” Mike supplied. Tom nodded, and they exchanged a look.

  I interrupted their Code of the West moment. “Or because he didn’t need to repeat because his career took off. You can’t know—”

  “Elizabeth, you were the one who pointed out his reaction,” Mike said.

  “Possibly embarrassment or fear of being outed. If we appeal to his conscience when he’s thinking about protecting his own hide, we lose any hope of getting him to open up.”

  “You’ll get him to talk.”

  “Gee, thanks for the vote of confidence, Burrell, but you’re saying it doesn’t make it so.”

  He picked up his hat, as if his proclamation settled the issue. “Because his conscience bothers him,” he said, echoing Mike. “Also, because it was Linda. She’s a fine woman. He knows it. And he knows he did wrong by her.”

  And damned if Mike didn’t nod.

  Tom rose. “I’ll say good-night now.”

  “You’ll get back to us about the business angle?”

  “Yes.” He kept heading for the door.

  He had closed it when I rose, said to Mike, “I’ll be right back,” and followed Tom out.

  “Burrell,” I called from the crooked steps. He kept going, around to the driver’s door of his truck, parked behind my car. I jogged after him. “Tom.”

  He turned at that, releasing the door handle.

  “If we get Zane to talk, it gives Linda double motive—business and personal.” I don’t know why I felt the need to give that warning.

  “She didn’t kill him.”

  “How can you know?”

  He looked at me with those Abraham Lincoln eyes. “I know.”

  I threw up my arms. It didn’t fluster him one bit. “Even assuming you’re 100 percent right, it could be miserable for her.”

  “I considered that before I gave my opinion of which one of those boys to talk to. I’ve had cause to think about the matter,” his eyes glinted at me from under the brim of his hat, “and I don’t believe a murderer should go free.”

  “You had different ideas when you thought your wife—”

  “Ex-wife. And since then, I’ve decided I was wrong. I wouldn’t have been doing Tamantha any favors.”

  I blinked at him.

  If I’d been asked to rank Thomas Burrell on a stubborn-o-meter, I’d have said he would break the thing. Yet here he’d changed his mind about a vital matter, and admitted it. More than that, he’d admitted he’d been wrong—not that circumstances were different or any of those other face-saving phrases, but that he’d been wrong. And he was prepared to back his words by helping dig into Keith Landry’s business practices.

  “So, you go on inside now, and you and Mike get back to work finding a murderer, Elizabeth Margaret Danniher.” He reached out as if to brush hair off my cheek with the back of his fingers.

  “Elizabeth!” came Mike’s call from the open doorway. “Your cell. ID says it’s Watt—Evan Watt.”

  Aware of Tom following, I jogged up the walk and inside to hear the phone still ringing. I scooped it up from the coffee table and answered in one motion.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  THE NIGHT’S RODEO had been over for hours. We rolled right up to the entrance.

  I’d tried to persuade Tom and Mike that I should come alone, since Watt had said he had something to tell me because he didn’t hold with that sort of thing. He wouldn’t elaborate on the phone. Said he’d tell me when I came. Paycik said no way was I doing this alone. Burrell said his truck was behind my car, and he wasn’t moving it. Paycik drove all of us in his four-wheel-drive.

  The number of protestors had swelled with th
e Fourth of July nearing and the news coverage of Landry’s death. But they were clearly off-duty, sitting in rackety lawn chairs around small fires contained in cut-off barrels. Some were roasting marshmallows.

  In the prime spot closest to the gates were the familiar faces of the original group. I waved.

  Mr. and Mrs. Gray-Hair waved back with smiles. Ellie and Pauline, the protestor previously known as Ms. Blue Hair, gave me nearly identical scowls. Roy Craniston gave me the finger.

  As we pulled past the protestors, a small truck heading out slowed to clear the gates.

  “Vicky and Heather,” Mike said from the driver’s seat.

  I turned, caught a glimpse of mother and daughter looking straight ahead, not acknowledging us or any protestors.

  Mike pulled into a spot between a rusted pickup and a motorhome that out-swanked the presidential palace of several countries I’ve been in.

  “Stay in the car, you two,” I ordered as I reached for the door handle.

  “No way,” Burrell said from the back seat.

  “There are lots of people around. I’ll be fine.”

  “Wonder if Landry thought that,” Mike contributed.

  “Watt won’t show himself, much less talk to me, with you two lumbering along.”

  “You said he sounded like he’d been drinking,” Mike said grimly. “Lowers inhibitions.”

  “So he’ll talk more. Which is exactly what happened with you, right, Burrell? Watt’s your source you don’t trust on the bribe.”

  “Yeah.”

  “See?”

  “Alcohol can also lower other inhibitions,” he added.

  “See?” Mike retorted.

  “Oh, c’mon, Evan Watt?”

  “Hey, he took part in Landry’s sleazy dealings with women a number of times we know of. Who knows what else he did. And this place is emptying out fast.”

  “I’ll be fine.” If Watt talked, we’d have absolute confirmation that Landry set up these women. I got out. They each did the same. “This is ridiculous. Do you have any idea the places I’ve been?”

  “With a camera crew and bodyguards,” Paycik shot back.

  Not always. I started off, and they started behind me like big, cowboy-hatted shadows.

  I stopped, hissed, “Stay back. Don’t let him see you,” and started again.

  “Do not get out of our sight,” ordered Burrell.

  Watt had said to meet him by the concession stand. Just this side of it were the easternmost pens, with an alley left between them and the grandstand structure. The animals from this first tic-tac-toe column were gone, likely back in their distant, more spacious pens for the night. Their odor lingered, no doubt from agricultural byproducts. Judging from some faint sounds, animals remained in pens farther to the west.

  I turned my back on the pens, focusing on the concession stand.

  Watt had said he had something to tell me—needed to get it off his chest was how he’d put it. My logic said it was not to confess to murdering Landry. My logic said Watt was not dangerous. My heartbeat wasn’t convinced.

  The wait didn’t help. I must have stood there half an hour—or at least ten minutes.

  Maybe he’d seen my bodyguards, though I couldn’t see them in the shadows.

  Maybe he’d changed his mind.

  Maybe he’d had more to drink and wasn’t mobile.

  Maybe—

  I heard something behind me. Not close. I spun around, staring toward the sound. Through the shadows, I caught a glimpse of motion, down close to the arena. Something moving slowly, even stealthily, from east to west, probably along the open path between the pens and the arena chutes. I moved cautiously into the more deeply shadowed alley, with the grandstand on my left and the empty pens on my right, heading toward the arena, closing in on the figure.

  It stilled, and so did I. Waiting.

  It started again. If there’d been an aisle leading to the west that paralleled the figure’s path, I would have followed it, but there wasn’t. Our paths were at right angles, but I was moving faster, cutting the distance.

  I was maybe twenty feet away when the figure seemed to look up the alley. I stopped, not wanting my motion to catch attention.

  The figure moved again. A slant of light from a distant security pole gave me a second’s impression of size, shape, and walk. Possibly Evan Watt. Or not.

  I’d started moving when the figure’s head jerked around—toward me? I couldn’t tell. And I didn’t stop to consider it, because the figure was running to the west. I ran, too. Down the rest of my aisle, a right-hand turn to follow the figure along the corridor between the chutes and pens. My flats slid on the dirt, as they had at Newtons’ ranch. I should have worn my still stinky shoes.

  I saw the figure in front of me.

  And then I didn’t.

  I kept moving, now just past the end of the arena, reaching the spot where I thought I’d last seen him.

  Straight ahead was the truncated wooden arch structure and the police-taped crime scene. To the left were the timed event boxes attached to the western end of the arena. To the right was another alley parallel to the one I’d come down, this one with pens on both sides. On the alley’s east side, the pens were empty, on the west side, judging by the sound, animals were being held.

  I had nothing to go on. Nothing. No movement. No sound, except the animals. Surely they would’ve reacted to an interloper.

  I’d lost him.

  Then I heard it. Clanking that announced something was happening with a section of portable fence. It came from the alley to my right, back among the pens. I ran toward the noise.

  I spotted a figure ahead, atop fencing that formed the right boundary of this alley. It turned toward me, then dropped out of sight on the far side, into one of the empty pens.

  “Watt! Evan Watt! Wait! I want to talk to you.”

  I reached the same spot and started up the fence, catching glimpses of the figure running diagonally across the pen.

  From my perch, I saw that portable panels blocked the end of the alley that usually opened up to the rest of the grounds, creating a deadend. I also saw the figure reach the far fence and start climbing. The narrow-waisted back and cowboy hat stood out as a darker silhouette against the sky’s faint lightness for an instant.

  I dropped into the empty pen and ran. Climbing the far fence, though, I saw the figure’s diagonal path across the next empty pen now angled back toward the alley, completing the first zig of a potential zig-zag route.

  I followed. But I was losing ground. My flats gave me no purchase on the ground or the panels’ rungs.

  Climbing as fast as I could, I spotted the figure at the fence on the far side of the alley. So not zig-zag. What was he doing?

  I dropped from the fence back into the alley. This time, my tired legs sent me stumbling forward and down hard on my knees. I scrambled up, refusing to consider agricultural byproducts left by previous passers-by as I brushed off my hands without slowing my angled route toward where the figure disappeared.

  I heard a metallic clank from behind my left shoulder and some distance back down the alley, like someone messing with panels, followed by yelling in an unidentifiable voice.

  But that didn’t hold my interest long. Because then I heard something else.

  Something living and breathing. Breathing with a low, asthmatic rumble.

  Something on the move and headed right toward me.

  I ran.

  DAY SEVEN

  WEDNESDAY

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  I DIDN’T TURN my head, because I didn’t need to see them to know what was coming at me. I heard them and smelled them. I also felt the vibrations through the ground as their hooves hit.

  By instinct I started running toward my de
stination—the spot where the figure had disappeared.

  Two steps in, and a shout came from my right. “Elizabeth! This way!” Mike.

  I caught a glimpse of two figures silhouetted atop the fence farther down the alley and on the right side.

  “Here!” came a second voice. Tom.

  Even as I turned toward them, trying to run despite the thick, slippery ground, one figure dropped down, no longer silhouetted.

  “Here!” shouted Tom again. Closer.

  His hand closed around my arm, swinging me almost off my feet, toward the fence.

  “Up! Climb up!”

  I grabbed for a rail, tried to get a foothold, but my shoe slid off it. Tried again. Got up one rail, a second.

  The thunder came nearer and nearer.

  From above, I felt Mike pulling my arms and shoulders. A hand on my butt pushed me hard, and I was hooked over the top rail.

  Mike grabbed my leg and pulled it over and around, shifting my center of gravity. Now if I fell off the fence, I’d fall into the empty pen, not the alley.

  “Okay?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I panted. “But—”

  He was gone. He’d dropped down into the empty pen. Tom was still in the alley with the bulls.

  And now I could just barely see, from my position hanging over the top rail like a useless old rug, that he stood with his back to me, waving both arms—one extended by his cowboy hat—and shouting. He was a good three feet away from the fence.

  “Tom! Get out of there!” I shouted. It was lost amid the other sounds. “Tom!”

  The first bulls came up, shifting away from the human waving and shouting. But I’d seen video of Pamplona. Not all the bulls would be that polite. And as the bulk of them reached this spot there wouldn’t be anywhere for them to shift to.