Sign Off

by Patricia McLinn

  The answering machine was also for such early-morning calls as this.

  I stayed in bed and listened to my recorded voice telling the caller what it could do, though in much politer terms than I was feeling at the moment.

  The beep beeped, and I waited.

  Until I heard Mel’s voice, I didn’t realize I’d expected it to be Mike, informing me he was on his way.

  “Danny, are you there? I know you monitor this thing, you antisocial hermit you.” When I’d gone three weeks without answering the machine at the cottage in January, he’d come in person. That’s when he’d told me I had to work out the rest of my contract in Sherman. “It’s Mel. Are you there? No? Well, call me back. I need to talk to you. I know you could use a bit of good news, with no income right now, and this is good, kid.”

  I had a fair idea of what Mel might view as good. Sorting out what I would consider good was beyond me. I pulled the pillow over my head and went back to sleep.

  When the phone rang the next time, I was ready to get up. I caught it on the second ring, answering with a hello muddled by a stretch.

  Remembering Mel’s call now that I was awake, I paused in mid-stretch. Wait a minute, how had he known I didn’t have any income right now? I hadn’t told him or any of the rest of my family about being suspended without pay. So how did he know about what was happening at KWMT?

  “Ms. Danniher?”

  The rushed woman’s voice pulled me back to the present call. Mel, what he knew and what he shouldn’t know got bumped from the lineup as long as murder was the lead story. “Yes.”

  “This is Myrna Johnson. Can we meet somewhere?”

  I swallowed, pushing down the memory of Mona’s call to Mike.

  “Where?”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Myrna Johnson chose a pull-off overlook on Highway 27A along the Jelicho River as it rushed to meet up to the south with the Snake River.

  Locals wouldn’t have any reason to stop this close to town, and a hillock obscured parked cars from the road. So it was a considerably more private meeting than our talk in the park.

  A blue pickup with Idaho plates was parked to one side of the gravel area, and I saw a young couple with a toddler at a picnic table near the water. As I pulled in, Myrna got out of a white Chevy and started walking toward me.

  Her hands were empty.

  I felt a little stupid noticing that, considering this was the woman who looked like Mrs. Claus’ younger sister. But I’d rather feel a little stupid than a lot dead.

  Whoever had killed Redus apparently had felt vulnerable enough to not let Mona keep living, so who was to say the same logic might not apply to me?

  Myrna met me near a wooden sign explaining the geological significance of the striations in the wind-scoured cliffs across the river. She didn’t glance at the sign or the cliffs. A path wound down to a rock bench at the water’s edge.

  I mutely gestured for her to lead the way.

  When we were seated, she looked straight ahead for five seconds, then turned to me. “If I tell you something, will you swear not to use it on TV?”

  “I can’t swear that, and I think you know that, Mrs. Johnson.” I kept my tone unhurried, in contrast to her rush of words. “Why don’t you just tell me what it is?”

  “I checked you out—your degrees and your awards. What I can’t find out is if you are a compassionate woman, Ms. Danniher.”

  “Compassion only comes after the fact, it can’t be dispensed beforehand. I’ll tell you this, though, I do my damnedest to deliver what the public needs to know and what’s necessary to see that justice is done. What the public might think it wants to know doesn’t interest me much.”

  She turned away, facing the water and cliffs, back straight, head tilted as if examining the ragged silhouette against the blue sky. “I want you to understand.” When I said nothing, she faced me. “About my husband. He told me what he said to you after they found Deputy Redus. That he—that we’re both relieved—to know Redus is gone from this town for good.”

  Relieved and gone from this town were definitely understatements, but I wouldn’t haggle over word choices.

  “Yes, he made that feeling clear.”

  She winced. “You think we’re vicious people for being glad of another human’s death, don’t you? I don’t suppose you’ve ever hated the way we have. Not unless you’ve had a child die.”

  I couldn’t argue with her there. I could question. “But why do you and your husband blame Redus for Rog’s death? There’s no question about it being suicide, is there?”

  She drew in a breath on a faint rattling sound, and her eyes hazed over. “No, there’s no question.” And I remembered she had found her son.

  “Rog hung himself in our shed. My husband took that shed apart with his bare hands. Board by board. Ripped them free and burned them. Then he stood out by that fire all night after the last spark was gone. I’m just glad I’m the one who found Rog.”

  I tried to come at the issue another way. Matt’s information had provided a number of answers, but not all of them. Myrna Johnson, with her knowledge of the county and its people, might provide more answers. If I could get her past this huge hurdle. “Do you know specifically what about being arrested would have caused Rog to kill himself?”

  She shook her head. I didn’t believe her. “There was something odd about that whole night. Disorderly conduct,” she said scornfully. “That wasn’t Rog. And why wasn’t Frank arrested?”

  “That’s a good question. Why do you think Frank wasn’t arrested?”

  She hovered at the edge, then retreated. “I don’t know.”

  But she did. And so did I. Frank Claustel wasn’t arrested because his father was Ambrose Claustel. What I didn’t know was if Redus let Frank go in hopes of future favors from the judge, or for something more concrete.

  “Did you ever ask Frank Claustel about that night?”

  “I haven’t seen or talked to Frank since he picked up Rog to go to the movies in Cody that night.” I must have shown my surprise. She smiled, more sadly than bitterly. “The Judge sent Frank off to Europe the day Rog died. He didn’t even come to the funeral. Just a big wreath from the Judge. Not a call, not a visit. Just those damned lilies. Frank went off to Europe, finished up his classes by correspondence we were told, and then to college. Rog isn’t going anywhere.”

  She sucked air in through her teeth, letting it out slowly.

  “Do you know anything about Frank’s activities at college, Mrs. Johnson?”

  “No.”

  I told her what Matt Lester had told me about Frank editing the gay newsletter. She flicked one look at me, then stared straight ahead. When I finished, there was silence.

  “You knew your son was gay, didn’t you, Mrs. Johnson?”

  For a moment neither of us breathed.

  “I knew he was worried about it.” She shifted against the stone. “He never said anything to me, but I knew him. And I saw him with Frank. It wasn’t . . . it wasn’t like I was used to.” She shook her head at the inadequacies of language. “I suppose the idea of a boy killing himself over being a homosexual seems strange to you, but it’s different around here. The expectations are . . . different.” She drew in a shaky breath. “At least the fear of the expectations is.”

  “Mrs. Johnson, with what we’ve found out about Redus, it would fit if he tried to blackmail Rog, or you and Mr. Johnson.”

  “I don’t know. I mean, I know he never came to Roger or me, but Rog . . . I don’t know.” She clasped her hands. “Do you think that’s why . . .?”

  I could only echo her answer. “I don’t know. You’d know better than anyone. Some kids from the high school said Redus would roust them and their girlfriends out of parked cars. If Redus came across Rog and Frank—” She flinched. “—he could have tried to use that information. Especially if he thought their parents would pay—one way or another—for his silence.”

  “Rog was trying to protect us?” She
put her hand over her mouth, but I could make out the words. “Oh, God, Rog was trying to protect us.”

  “The only way you can help him now, Mrs. Johnson, is to help me find the truth. Tell me what you know about Judge Claustel and Foster Redus.”

  She was shaking her head before I finished. “I don’t know anything.”

  “But Frank and Rog—”

  “Were good friends. That’s all. And that’s all I’ll tell you.” She’d retreated. Back to where we’d started.

  She stood, and so did I.

  “How about justice, Mrs. Johnson? Don’t you care about justice?” She started to walk away. “Mrs. Johnson, was Rog right? Would you and his father have been ashamed?”

  “I don’t know. I just don’t know.” Her head came up, and she met my eyes. “I would have fought for Rog if he’d let me. No matter what. But that’s not how it is now. Now I only have my husband to fight for, and I won’t let anything hurt him. Rog gave his life for that, if I have to give up justice in order to protect my husband, then I’ll give up justice.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  “I wish you were the murderer.” I flipped the legal pad to the coffee table. It held only doodles. “It would simplify my life considerably.”

  Mike Paycik, slumped so low on my couch that his very nice butt barely clung to the seat cushion and his legs stretched halfway to the kitchen door, did not look particularly willing to simplify my life. We’d been talking in circles for two hours.

  “You just want me to be the murderer because you know I want to ask you out. And if I’m in jail, I can’t. That would make your life simpler, wouldn’t it?”

  Oh, shit.

  Had I known? I didn’t know any more because now I did know and it colored my view of everything I’d thought before. If I had sensed something beyond ambition and professional regard, wasn’t it telling that I hadn’t let it come to the surface? God knows I could use some ego boosters, yet had something in me held off the recognition?

  And what did it say about my frame of mind that I considered having a funny, intelligent, hot guy, ten years younger asking me out an oh, shit?

  If that didn’t make it clear I wasn’t ready for this, I don’t know what could.

  “Mike, I could give you the bad-to-mix-professional-and-personal speech, and after my experience I’d mean every damned word of it. But the truth is, it’s more than that. I don’t know where my life is going right now. I don’t know where my career is going. Until I get those things straight, I couldn’t even think about—what’s so funny?”

  “Sorry, Elizabeth. It’s just that I’ve given that speech so many times. First it was because I was building my football career, and then the need to stay on top. No time to even consider a serious relationship. Then my knees went, and the speech changed to needing to put everything into figuring out what I was going to do in the next phase of my life.” His smile faded. “It’s strange to be on the other end of it.”

  I didn’t know what to say.

  “I’ll give you time, Elizabeth. But I won’t give up. That’s one of the things you don’t know about me . . . yet.” He looked at me intently a long moment. Abruptly, he sat up. “Okay, so . . . I still think the Johnsons are the most likely candidates.”

  He’d been saying that with some regularity since I’d reported on my meeting with Myrna Johnson, as per our agreement. With only slightly less regularity, he’d been saying I’d been damn stupid to meet her alone.

  “Everybody had the means and opportunity to kill Redus,” he added, “but the Johnsons have the strongest motive—wanting revenge on the man they blame for their son’s death. Otherwise, why would Myrna clam up on you?”

  “Because if Claustel killed Redus to keep him quiet, why Claustel wanted him quiet would be sure to come out, and then the secret Rog died for would come out. She couldn’t stand that. Besides, can you see one or both of them shooting Mona in the face with a shotgun?”

  “Self-preservation is a powerful motivator,” Paycik said.

  “Yeah, but—” I started, also not for the first time, when a knock at the front door interrupted me.

  It was Jenny, the assistant from KWMT.

  “Hi. I thought you might want the stuff from your inbox at the station. It’s just awful what they’re doing to you. Hey, Mike. Everybody’s up in arms. Well, not everybody. They know Thurston’s just scared of you. Because you have so much more experience . . .” She looked in my general direction for a split second as her gaze bounced around my living room with the speed, intensity and randomness of a strobe. “. . . and because you . . .” A nanosecond of attention to Paycik. “. . . are an up-and-comer, and he’s afraid you’ll get to a Top Ten market before him, as if he has a chance,” she added with a snort.

  “And, of course, everybody knows Haeburn is pissed as hell that the owners said he had to take you . . .” A glance at me again. “. . . and even more pissed that he’s been told to give you a free rein.”

  “What do you mean—”

  If I’d ever had her attention, it was gone now. “Hey, neat set-up,” she squealed as she spotted computer components huddled on the big walnut desk in one corner of the living room. “But you don’t have it plugged in. Here . . .” I’d trailed her across the living room, and now she capitalized on my proximity by dumping two fat manila envelopes into my arms. She turned with relish to the computer. “Your cords look like spaghetti.”

  “That’s why it’s not plugged in,” I muttered, tossing the envelope with his name on it in Paycik’s general direction. “The laptop does what I’ve needed.”

  From the way she was slinging cords, plugs and steel gray rectangles, Jenny had trained on Bill Gates’ assembly line.

  “What do you mean, Haeburn’s been told to give me free rein?” My ex had finagled to have my contract assigned to KWMT as the smallest speck on the map he could find, so there was no way he would have lobbied for me to be given freedom. “Who told him that?”

  “Mmm. Heathertons, I guess. Here, hold this.” I took the disentangled cord she handed me. “Or maybe Craig Morningside.”

  The Heathertons owned the station. Or, more accurately, their matriarch, Val Heatherton, owned it. I’d never met them. “Who’s Craig Morningside?”

  “Now if I could just . . .” Jenny dove under the desk trailing a length of black electrical cord behind her like a spelunker’s safety line.

  “Station manager,” Paycik said.

  I should have known there was one lurking somewhere. Was this part of Haeburn’s they whose rules he was flouting by suspending us?

  “Son-in-law,” Paycik continued elliptically as he leafed through pink message forms from his envelope. “Val gave him a cushy job to keep him out of trouble. She’s the real power. She . . .” He stood, leaving all but one pink slip on the coffee table. “I’m gonna use your phone, okay?”

  Not waiting for an answer, he headed for the kitchen. I started after him to ask about the station hierarchy, but just then Jenny emerged from the nether regions of the desk. “You shouldn’t let these things get so dusty.” She sneezed reproachfully.

  “Sorry,” I muttered. Too late to ask Paycik now. He was already on the phone. I tried to listen to his end of the conversation without getting in his line of sight. I was almost certain he was talking to his Aunt Gee.

  “You need a surge protector. Better yet, a UPS.”

  “UPS?” The people in brown trucks?

  “Uninterrupted Power Source.” She wiped the desk with her sleeve and began arranging components. “Around here’s it’s a necessity. Gives you time to save everything if the power goes off. The better ones turn off your computer before the power runs out.”

  In the kitchen Mike was muttering, darn him. But then I heard clearly, “Damn! They just better run the right damn tests.”

  Then silence from the kitchen. Not so from the other end of the living room, with Jenny’s continued commentary on dust, static and smudges. When she examined my keyboard, cr
umbs joined her litany. She was still complaining when Mike came back.

  “Well?” I demanded.

  “Sure, I can get it going,” Jenny said, answering my question aimed at Mike.

  “Uh . . . good. Thanks.” I prodded Mike again with a sharp look.

  “They’ve run through the contents of Redus’ truck. All the keys fit what they should, nothing extra, nothing missing except—”

  “The shotgun.”

  He nodded. “Widcuff has taken Tom’s shotgun from the office to run tests. He’s sure it was the murder weapon—as a club for Redus and shot for Mona.”

  “I thought shotguns couldn’t be connected to a wound that way.”

  He shrugged. “Widcuff seems to think he can. Another thing. Widcuff has a witness who was passing the trailer when Mona drove up and got out of her car. Alone. Her Mustang was the only vehicle there. They’re thinking from the position of her body and the safe being open and all, that the killer came in after she did.”

  Before I could chew on that for long, Jenny came up for air. “There. It should run now.”

  Sure enough, with the punch of a couple buttons, the familiar hum started and light flickered across the screen.

  “That’s great, Jenny. Thanks.”

  She dropped to the floor in a graceful fold and snagged the open bag of chips off the coffee table.

  “No problem. Now, where was I? Oh, yeah, the Heathertons.” I wondered if she was related to Penny at the supermarket—neither dust, nor cords, nor computer disarray shall turn me from my appointed rounds of gossip. “Val told Craig, and Craig told Les that you were to be given free rein. That was about three days after you were hired. Haeburn was a real thundercloud about it, and Thurston . . . You’d think somebody had taken out all his hair with tweezers!”