Left Hanging

by Patricia McLinn

  “Roy shouted some stuff about telling the world the creeper’s history if he didn’t leave Roy’s women alone. Made me gag.” Her eyes narrowed. “Why do the police want to know about that?”

  “Landry was killed the next night. They want to know about any disputes he had.”

  “From what I heard that’s all he had.” Gee, I wondered who her source was on that? “The police can go—”

  “They want to talk to everybody who was around last night.”

  “Shit.”

  It was uttered in such a resigned, disinterested tone that I dropped her arm. “You should go see Deputy Alvaro now. He’s by the rodeo office.”

  “I’m not supposed to be in here,” she said with curled lip. But beneath the curl, there was more. Hurt? Or was I hallucinating from lack of sleep?

  “Was somebody yelling at you about that? Is that what sent you running?”

  “Yeah.” Lie.

  “Or is there trouble with love’s young dream?”

  She looked up. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

  That was a genuine reaction. “You and Cas. I notice you didn’t mention him, though he was around last night, too. Protecting your love?”

  She made a derisive sound. “Love. Yeah, right.” She sidestepped me and headed toward the gate.

  “Police still want to talk to you.”

  She gave me the finger without turning around. Or maybe the finger was for law enforcement. That thought gave me a nice cozy feeling about the progress of our relationship.

  AS I HEADED back toward the rodeo office by another route, I spotted Stan Newton supervising removal of crime scene tape from where Landry’s body had been found. It seemed the man might have wadded up a bunch of tape himself. Instead, he was supervising two other men doing it.

  Richard Alvaro stood a few yards away, dressed in the Wyoming uniform—jeans, boots, plain shirt, and black cowboy hat—rather than his deputy’s uniform. He looked glum.

  “Deputy Alvaro, I’m glad to see you. There’s something—”

  “I’m off duty and off the case. In fact, there is no case. Except an attempted suicide.”

  “I heard. I’m sorry, Richard.”

  “Not your fault.”

  “What are you doing here on a day off?”

  He still didn’t look at me, but the corner of his mouth lifted. “Same thing you’re doing here. Trying to solve the damn case.”

  “I have something you might be interested to hear. Pauline—she of the blue-streaked hair—just went out the front gate and is likely to be with her fellow protestors. Unless she’s fleeing the law.”

  His head jerked around toward the gate.

  “I told her,” I continued, “the cops want to talk to her. I didn’t happen to mention that some idiots think there’s no longer a case.”

  He gave a quick nod, strode toward the gate.

  At the same time, Oren Street appeared at the edge of the warren of pens.

  “Good morning, Oren.”

  “Good for some,” he snapped. “Oh, yeah, this time they’re fine with letting the bulls move, since they belong to the regular contractor. But mine they kept separate like they’d got a disease or something. A day or more it was they kept ’em isolated. But since it’s the regular contractor, it’s all hunky-dory to take ’em back and let ’em rest. I’m not saying they shouldn’t rest after they got run like that—they should. But my stock got—”

  “I’m fine, thank you for asking.”

  He stared at me without comprehension.

  “Tom Burrell wasn’t hurt, either. Although he did lose a favorite hat, I understand.” Still the blank stare. I added, “When the bulls tried to run us down last night. Bulls. Hooves. Trample. Human beings.”

  He blinked. “Oh, yeah. It’s good you’re okay. Sorry. Got a lot on my mind. Got to get this fence ready for loading and my animals on their way, or they won’t be fit for the next rodeo.”

  “Has Sherman’s Fourth of July Rodeo been called off officially?”

  “Not official. But there’s no sense keeping livestock with half the entries pulled out.”

  “How do you—”

  My phone rang. As I pulled it out, he muttered, “Got to get started. Truck’ll be here for these,” and hurried off.

  I didn’t even get out hello. Jennifer said, “Elizabeth! I’ve found two more DBAs that went bankrupt, leaving rodeos in a bind. Just like here and Denver. These two and the one near Denver—every one of ’em listed in the name of a relative of somebody Landry dumped.”

  My heart rate kicked up the way it often did when a pattern started to look like a solution, even if I didn’t yet know the final answer. “Great work.”

  “Thanks! I found a couple DBA applications online, and I swear he forged them. Not even a halfway decent effort.” She went on, describing what she’d found and how she’d found it.

  As she spoke, I watched Street pull up a pin from hefty metal loops welded to the fence panel’s upright. One at the top, one at the bottom. Next, he swung that first panel around to lean against the second. On to the third panel in no time at all.

  That must be what Mike had done last night to get Tom out of harm’s way, swinging the panel only part way. Thank heavens he’d been quick about it and had the presence of mind to open the correct side, so the bulls hadn’t been able to follow Tom and—

  “Oh, my God.” I didn’t pull an Archimedes, sprinting through the streets shouting, Eureka! But I did enjoy knowing I had more pieces of the puzzle. I looked around, but no one was near enough to have heard. Except Jennifer on the other end of the phone.

  “What?” she asked.

  “I’ve got to go. Keep at it, get as much confirmation as you can, as many supporting documents. You’ve done great work, Jennifer.”

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  I WENT IN SEARCH of Mike and came across Cas begging Heather to listen.

  She gave every sign of not listening. She appeared to be buffing the side of her horse, though there’s probably another name for it.

  Her mother, a few feet away and fiddling with equipment in a large canvas bag, murmured a critical, “Heather.”

  And got a sharp, “Be quiet!” in return.

  “Heather, please, let’s just talk. I can explain.”

  I wrapped a hand around Cas’ upper arm, realized there was too much muscle there for one hand, and joined it with the other.

  “Don’t bother,” I said. “She won’t listen to you. But I will. Talk and explanations are exactly what I want.” Along with questions and answers.

  He might have given up on Heather listening, because he followed along.

  “Hey! You leave him alone,” Heather commanded.

  “Oh, no, you can’t drop him then prevent anybody else from picking him up.” I saw in her eyes when she recognized how that shot applied to Pauline.

  With the picnic table off-limits, I steered Cas to an open spot near a fence. Nobody could get within hearing distance without us seeing them.

  Perhaps to prove Heather hadn’t sucked all the spirit out of him, he said, “I’m not saying anything.”

  “Yes, you are.” I was way past subtle. “What was the deal Keith Landry offered you?”

  “How did you—Nothing. I don’t know what you—”

  “Forget it, Caswell Newton. You’re a lousy liar. Landry thought you’d broken up with Heather. No, don’t deny it. She told us he said that. So, was breaking up with her your deal with Landry?”

  “No! That was never—and I told him I wouldn’t do the other thing. I told him no way.”

  “That was later. First you said you would do it. Because he what? Said he’d get you in the Fourth of July Rodeo?”

  “It’d be my big break,” he mut
tered.

  “So, you said you’d get Pauline to fall for you, then dump her.”

  Color surged up his neck and face like a time-lapse sunburn. “He took me aside the day he got in town, and I thought—but he started in about how I was too young to be tied to a girl, and if I broke up with Heather and stayed away from her a few weeks, he’d get me in the rodeo.

  “I told him—I told him he was crazy. No way. I’d heard how he dumped the older sister of a friend a couple years ago. Then he said there was this other girl, somebody I didn’t know, and all I had to do was, you know, talk to her. I said I’d meet her. That’s all—I swear. He said a lot things, but that’s all I said. I went by where she was, and we started talking, just talking.”

  The color turned up a notch. “But . . . well, she’s older, and she’s not like Heather and . . .”

  “What about Landry? Did he know?”

  He looked sick. “He . . . he must’ve seen or something. At that lunch he slapped me on the back, said things. Dad didn’t notice, but Heather . . . She gave me this look. Then he—Landry—started in about all he could do for her in rodeo, real oily. Creeping her out. I took her hand, even though she was mad, held it so he saw, and he backed off.

  “After lunch he got me aside and said it was clear I’d decided on the other one—Pauline, and I said, no, not either of them. And he got . . .” He met my eyes. In his, I saw relief at unburdening himself, and was reminded how young he was. “He said he’d ruin Dad—that’s just what he said, ruin him. Said if I didn’t dump Pauline by Friday night he’d be sure Dad went to jail and lost everything. I didn’t know what he was talking about, and he was saying weird things about moving up his timetable and not waiting around like he used to for—well, crude talk about women.”

  “What did you do, Cas?”

  “Nothing! I swear I didn’t—”

  “Cas. Slow down. I mean, what did you do when he told you that?”

  “I told him he was crazy and left him swearing a blue streak. I didn’t do anything after, either. I was working out what to tell Dad. Then Landry died.”

  MIKE FOUND ME still standing by the fence, well after Cas had left. I had no idea how long I’d been there.

  “Zane says he doesn’t know anything about why Street was asked to bring the stock early. He doesn’t think Watt does either. I double-checked with Newton, and he absolutely denies asking Landry to bring them in early. Tom says Linda does, too. He says he looked into it closely.”

  “In other words, he asked her and took her response as gospel. And Newton? Since when do we accept his word?”

  “Newton, sure. But Linda and Tom? I don’t believe it. I suppose if Linda told Tom, he’d accept it, but why would she lie? And to lie with Newton?”

  “She’d protect him. For Cas’ sake.”

  “Maybe, but I still don’t see why they’d want to deny asking Landry to bring the bulls in early once we knew the bulls didn’t kill Landry. Except for the fact that it’s a stupid move. Absolutely no upside for the rodeo.”

  “Yet they demanded it for some reason, and now they’re covering it up. Because it has something to do with the murder we’re not seeing, or because they’d look stupid. If we figure out why they feel it’s worth covering up . . . It’s the cover up—always the cover up—that does in politicians.”

  “Cover-up of what?”

  “I don’t know. That’s what’s bugging me. When a cover-up is . . . Unless . . .”

  “Unless what?”

  Thoughts and fragments clicked into place. And I knew. In fact, I realized, I’d known for a while. Maybe since last night. I just hadn’t known I knew. Just like Algebra.

  Also like Algebra, I didn’t know precisely how I knew. Only this time, I didn’t have a bemused and understanding teacher. I had the decidedly un-understanding legal system to deal with. I needed to recreate my solution in a way other people followed.

  “Unless what?” Mike repeated.

  “Unless it isn’t.”

  “Isn’t what?”

  I faced him. “I’ve got it, Mike. At least . . . No, I’ve got it. The solution. But not all the steps. Not the proof. That will take time. Maybe a lot of time.”

  Wait. There was something else. Something Mel said on the phone . . . Oh. About the thieves pursuing their plan even after the report aired. Deputy Shelton and I had passed a couple comments about the same thing. About how they could not not do it.

  Then it clicked. The reason it had resurfaced now.

  It was what Keith Landry had done with rodeos. It was what he’d done with women. He’d been an emotional scam artist. He’d set up his scam and worked it so many times, he couldn’t not do it.

  Yet on his last day, he’d been stymied every way he’d turned. His old standby, Evan Watt, would arrive late and likely too drunk to serve. Zane didn’t buckle under blackmail. Cas withstood the lure of a boost into the big-time of rodeo and the threat of harm to his father, and refused to help with either of his marks.

  Landry had become increasingly less discreet, less subtle. Jennifer’s findings that he’d pulled the DBA scam more frequently, even going back-to-back with the Denver rodeo and here, were evidence. It was the same with his sexual scam. The scene at the Haber House Hotel demonstrated that. So did his approach to Pauline, which resulted in the fight with Roy Craniston, with Roy shouting about Landry keeping away from his women.

  So, driven by who knew what, Landry went after Heather directly . . . only to be told she was his own daughter.

  What did that do to Landry? Would it make him give up? Not likely. What would he do? How would he get what he wanted?

  “What sort of proof?” Mike asked.

  Yeah, that was the problem. I had to have proof, and the English country house visit was about to break up, with the suspects going on about their lives, instead of being centered here on the rodeo grounds where—

  Wait a minute . . . No, I didn’t. I didn’t need them to follow my solution step by step. Law enforcement needed that to satisfy the legal system, but all I needed was to have them trust me long enough to persuade them that my solution was the right one. That would slow the scattering enough for law enforcement to find the step-by-step solution.

  That was a heck of a lot easier than Algebra. Thank God.

  “Elizabeth? Elizabeth.” But I was already dialing a number.

  The collected voice answered, and I said, “Linda, this is E.M. Danniher. I need all the people involved with this brought together and—”

  “The sheriff’s department—”

  “No. Richard’s been pulled off the case. The county leaders want it to go away. If it does, so will some of the people. But the questions—the questions never will go away. You can say you don’t care about yourself, but you do care about Cas. What about Stan? What about Grayson? Or Vicky and Heather Upton? Do you want all of them to go on living with suspicion? And the rodeo will suffer, this year and beyond. Do you want that? This has to be settled.”

  There was a pause, so silent that I wondered if she held her breath. “What do you want?”

  “I want you to get everyone together. There. In the rodeo office. Right away. Most of them are around anyhow.”

  Another pause. This time I held my breath.

  When Linda spoke again it was clear she wasn’t talking into the phone, but to someone there. “It’s E.M. Danniher. She wants me to get everyone concerned together.”

  Thomas David Burrell said, “Do it.”

  FIRST, I CALLED Richard Alvaro and asked him to bring Pauline, Roy, and Ellie. He had questions, but I held him off. In the end, he said he would bring them.

  Next, I called Diana. She’d started back to the station. I asked her to do a U-turn.

  “Will this get me in trouble with Haeburn?”

  “Pro
bably.”

  “Is it a great story?”

  “Maybe. I hope—”

  “Will it piss off Fine?”

  “Definitely.”

  “I’ll be there.”

  Mike and I went to sit in the top row of the otherwise empty, sun-drenched grandstand, to watch the arrivals at the rodeo office. I told him what I thought—no, what I knew.

  He confirmed a couple technical elements for me. We smoothed over some rough spots, leaving others.

  That couldn’t be helped. Shock treatment was the only shot at doing it now. Otherwise, they’d disperse, and it was unlikely the officials would pursue the evidence.

  Burrell called three times. I let it go to voicemail.

  DIANA MET US on the office’s porch, eyebrows raised. I ignored her unspoken questions.

  Because I’d just thought of another question of my own to ask.

  I stepped down from the porch, aware of Mike and Diana looking at me, then each other, as I hit speed dial. “I need to see if I can get Jenks. Something he said when we came out here Thursday . . .”

  Jenks answered. I asked my question and got my answer. I thanked him, hung up, and said, “Let’s go.”

  Mike opened the door and gestured first Diana, then me in ahead of him.

  The grumble that started at Diana’s entry with a camera melted away as all but two sets of eyes swung toward me. The exceptions—Heather and Pauline—glared at each other.

  Besides Diana, Mike and me, there were a baker’s dozen: Linda Caswell, Tom Burrell, Stan and Cas Newton, Vicky and Heather Upton, Oren Street, Grayson Zane, Richard Alvaro, Pauline, Roy Craniston, Ellie Redlaw, and a man I recognized as a rodeo committee member.

  I didn’t waste time on preliminaries like thanking them for coming or saying why they were here—that would just give them a chance to protest. About being here, about me, about the camera. No sense in that, especially since Diana had slipped behind the counter at the side of the room, where no one seemed to notice her.

  “Let’s start with last night and Evan Watt’s near-death.” I turned to Pauline, slouched against the wall beside Richard, pulling sullenly at her bottom lip. “You were there.”