Body Brace (Caught Dead in Wyoming, Book 10)

by Patricia McLinn

  “So I shouldn’t have complained?” she asked with a snap.

  I said nothing.

  “I’ll have you know that without my income — dwarfed as it was by his — he would not have been able to walk away from his career when he did. My income, my making a home for him as well as the kids, and, yes, my handling the finances. All vital. He loved the theory, but I did the work. He went off and played, I was the grownup.”

  After two slow breaths, she was back to calm.

  “As you no doubt have recognized, that was a source of friction in our marriage. He never devoted the time to the family that I or our children hoped for. It wasn’t that his work demanded time away from us, he enjoyed the time away. He preferred that to his family. Once here, he added on to the work and subtracted from the family. I said we would have continued to be connected by our children, but that tie endured only to the extent that I nurtured — no, nagged him about it.”

  Her exhalation gusted.

  “Yes, he provided extremely well for us, and we didn’t need half of it. I will say, in fairness, that his decision to move us here — and it was his decision — turned out to be excellent for the three of us.”

  When she seemed inclined to stop there, I nudged her along, like my entry in a turtle race. “What about for Palmer?”

  “He was not as happy here as the rest of us. Not until—” She smiled dryly. “—I told him I wanted a divorce. Though I do not believe that was the direct cause of his change in attitude. He’d tried several new ventures in the years we were here and they failed or he lost interest or both. But something caught and held his interest about six months before I asked for the divorce. He didn’t share what it was. He never did. With the kids gone… I chose not to be alone in a marriage. Better to have my solitary state be official.”

  Chapter Forty-Five

  I reached Diana’s appointed rendezvous spot outside the Walterstons’ Red Sail Ranch just as Connie Walterston and her youngest son, Austin, braked to a stop at the end of the ranch road.

  I hadn’t blocked them in, because I was parked off to the side, where turning vehicles packed the dirt solid. A matching spot awaited Diana on the far side of the ranch road.

  They’d stopped to say hello, Connie in the passenger seat and Austin driving the pickup.

  “Hope you don’t mind,” I said. “Diana’s coming. We thought we’d leave the Newsmobile here for an hour or so, if that’s okay.”

  “Sure thing. Or drive up to the house if you want.”

  “This is perfect. I was hoping to talk to you sometime soon, Connie.”

  “I thought you might.” Her wryness confirmed that Penny’s reference to the widow with three nearly grown sons and a good head on her shoulders fit Connie. “I’ll be at the trailer all morning.”

  The trailer was where she ran the office for a road paving company Tom Burrell took over when his father retired, along with the ranch.

  “Great. Hey, Austin, I had a question for you, too. When you and your friends go up to the buttes, you go into the cave, right? Did you ever see the body there?”

  “No. Must’ve been a slide afterward.” Lost in his disgust at that rotten luck, it took him an extra beat to catch his mother’s look. “I mean—”

  “Don’t add a lie to it, Austin,” she said.

  He swallowed.

  I swooped right in, taking advantage of his chastened state. “When was the last time you or your friends were up there?”

  “A week ago last Friday night.” Careful not to look at his mother, he added, “We knew about the practice for the reenactment the next day and all the stuff last week. Didn’t want to take a chance at being caught.”

  “Did you go in the cave?”

  “Yeah. But we didn’t see anything. And we had good lights.”

  “Do you know Paytah Everett and a friend of his named Aleek?”

  He looked puzzled, but said, “Yeah. They’re older.”

  It reinforced Paytah and Aleek’s reaction.

  “Were they there the last time you and your friends were?”

  “No.”

  “Ever seen them there?”

  “No. Except — well, saw them from a distance Saturday when we were waiting for the reenactment to start.”

  “If you had seen a body in the cave, what would you have done?”

  He thought about it a moment. “Probably let a bunch of them pretend they hadn’t been there, but a couple of us would’ve told Sergeant Shelton. Can’t hide something like that.”

  I knew exactly how he felt.

  “Thanks. Didn’t mean to hold you guys up.”

  Austin gratefully reapplied himself to driving. Connie waved as they departed.

  With no sign of Diana, I tried another call to Dex’s connection.

  This time Radford Hickam answered.

  “Hi, I’m Elizabeth Margaret Danniher from KWMT-TV—”

  The voice chuckled. “He said you’d be calling.”

  “Did he?” That didn’t sound at all like Dex.

  “Also said not to tell you anything.”

  Not Dex.

  “Shelton,” I concluded.

  “Yep. Wayne Shelton from the Cottonwood County Sheriff’s Department.”

  “Ah, but I’m calling because a mutual friend gave me your name. A mutual friend from back east?”

  In a different voice, one filled with respect, he said, “He said Danny would call me.”

  “That’s me. Danniher. Danny.”

  “Well, this is awkward, considering my promise to Sergeant Shelton. Although…”

  “Although,” I prompted.

  “Come to think of it, actually, what Sergeant Shelton said was to not share anything I told him with you. If you ask questions that don’t have the same answers as his… Further, we have done only the most preliminary of examinations. Much, much more to come. It’s up to you if you want to try questions.”

  Dex might have been able to give me another recommendation, but this was his first choice. And now the guy had challenged me to come up with questions that drew answers that Shelton hadn’t already scooped up.

  You bet I was going to try.

  “Could you tell from the photographs how recently the rock slide that revealed the belt and the skull might have happened?”

  “Ah, excellent. Not only not a question the Sergeant asked, but one I wondered about. I’m not an expert on rocks, but I would say quite recent.”

  Before the breath I drew came out as words, he continued.

  “No, I wasn’t satisfied with that answer, either. I checked with a colleague who is an expert on rocks and she went even further. First, she said likely within a week, two at most, of the photograph being taken. Then, she noted there had been mild seismic activity centered on that area. Mild to us, but to precariously piled rocks, potentially significant. That was on the Tuesday before the photograph was taken.”

  When Palmer Rennant was certainly still alive. Significant?

  Could he have seen the body? Said something about it to the wrong person—? But why would someone wanting to keep the cave body a secret take Rennant’s body there? That made no sense.

  Still, we had likely narrowed the time when the body was exposed. And that significantly cut the chances anyone spotted it before I did.

  Which made it more likely — at least to my thinking — that the cave body was not related to the reason Palmer Rennant was taken to the buttes.

  “Was the belt previously protected by rocks while the shirt and jeans above and below it were previously exposed?”

  “Well-observed, Ms. Danniher. Or may I call you Danny?”

  “Please do.”

  “That is exactly what appears to have happened. Although that previous exposure does not mean those items were visible, but rather that more oxygen reached them than the belt. From what I saw, I suspect there were repeated shiftings that covered up, then exposed different areas at different times as a result of shifts in those rocks.”
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  That confirmed what I’d thought, though I wasn’t sure how it advanced anything.

  “Did the missing piece of the skull indicate a blow? An attack?”

  “Alas, that is a question Sergeant Shelton asked.”

  Darn him. Of course, he did.

  “Can you confirm that the cause of death was natural causes?”

  “No, we cannot.”

  “Is that based on the difficulty of establishing the cause of death or from the physical evidence of the body? Or likely associated with the body?” I tacked on, thinking how rock slides could have moved around evidence.

  “Hah. Adroit. We cannot confirm the cause of death was natural causes based on physical evidence. As I have yet another meeting I am now late for, I’m afraid…”

  “Just a couple more.”

  Physical evidence ruling out natural causes must point to an accident or foul play.

  Asking about foul play would track too closely to Shelton’s forbidden territory.

  I asked, “Does the physical evidence point to an accident?”

  He paused a moment. “It does not point solely to an accident as a cause.”

  A fatal blow on the head could come from a falling rock… A bullet could still mean an accident. Or not.

  Radford Hickam said, “Your final question for now—”

  “Is there anything you can answer that I haven’t asked that is likely to be of interest to me?”

  He laughed. “Superb, Danny. Absolutely superb. I will need to think about that to give you a complete answer. I will call you back, but I should warn you it might be some time for the examination and final report.”

  Just as well he couldn’t answer now, because the dust trail approaching promised to be Diana.

  We said friendly good-byes and I immediately messaged him all my contact info.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  First thing Diana said when she got in my SUV was, “As a cameraperson, I’m telling you to quit pushing your sunglasses on the top of your head, your bangs look like spikes of tumbleweed.”

  “Just for that, I won’t tell you what I’ve learned today. And I don’t have bangs.”

  She looked at the shorter hair around my face. “Not halfway up your forehead like Elizabeth Taylor in Cleopatra or Claudette Colbert in It Happened One Night, no, but—”

  “I do not have bangs.”

  She regarded me for a moment. “Childhood bang trauma? Tell your sad story to Diana, dearie.”

  “My mother claimed I wouldn’t hold still and she had to keep cutting to—”

  “Even them out,” we said together.

  “How short?” she asked with a measure of brisk sympathy.

  “Guys with a two-day beard had longer hair than my bangs.”

  “Photographic evidence?”

  “Kept in a vault by my brothers for blackmail.”

  “Okay, no bangs. But put down your sunglasses anyway so that short hair doesn’t permanently spike, then tell me all.”

  Sometimes a friend can be a body brace, too, taking the wobble out of even old traumas.

  I told her most rather than all because it wasn’t a long drive to Otto Chaney’s place.

  The green paint on the compact house had gotten duller since I’d seen it last. And I either hadn’t noticed the screened door before or it had acquired several punched-in areas that seemed designed to funnel bugs into the house, rather than keep them out.

  Otto, sitting in an old metal kitchen chair, and two old dogs occupied the porch.

  Otto held onto one barking dog by his collar, while a second trotted amiably down the steps to greet us.

  Turning off the SUV engine made no impression on the barking dog, but when Diana and I emerged, it quieted.

  Otto, however, did not release the dog. Probably because it wore a cast on one back leg and a brace on the other, as well as having a patch of fur shaved from one front shoulder.

  “What do you want?” Otto demanded.

  “Hi. Do you remember me? Elizabeth Margaret Danniher from KWMT-TV and this is my colleague, Diana Stendahl.” Who had stopped to rub the ears of the amiable dog at the bottom of the stairs.

  I kept climbing them. “We met—”

  “I remember. Don’t have any call for TV reporters being here asking—”

  “Oh, poor baby.”

  I said that to the injured dog. Not Otto Chaney.

  The animal was a white-muzzled cross section of dogdom, with crafty eyes and a roguish side-lolling tongue. He glanced at Otto, then me, standing on the second step, my arm stretched out with something in my hand.

  With one deft twist, he escaped Otto’s hold and came to me, taking the treat neatly from my palm. Shadow would never know one of his supply went to a stranger.

  I rubbed under the dog’s chin, which was passable with him. Then found that spot on his good shoulder and just behind it where his braced leg couldn’t reach to scratch. I applied my nails and he melted into a puddle of dog bliss.

  “Huh. Never seen him like that. Not even when I rub there.”

  “You need fingernails.”

  “Fingernails,” Otto scoffed.

  This dog was too long to have made the scratch marks on Rennant’s front door. He would have scratched a good five or six inches higher.

  “What’s his name?”

  “Devil.”

  My spurt of laughter seemed to please the old man.

  Surprisingly good cooking smells came through the porous screen door to us.

  I sat on the porch beside the dog, still applying my nails. Diana and the other dog joined us.

  “And that’s Max.”

  “Hello, Max.” Diana punctuated the formal introductions with more petting.

  “What do you want?” Otto asked.

  “Ask a few questions.”

  “Suppose it’s about that Palmer Rennant getting himself killed. I’ll tell you this, free of charge — I didn’t kill the evil-hearted yuppie.”

  I couldn’t remember the last time I’d heard someone called a yuppie. “Someone did. It’s not good for the neighborhood to have murderers loose,” I pointed out.

  “Especially not with your great-niece around.”

  Score one for Diana.

  “Suppose.”

  “When was the last time you saw Palmer Rennant?”

  “Saw him inching down the road in that red truck of his Thursday afternoon, like he’d reformed for good. Only to hear the truck driving crazy fast middle of the night, like he hadn’t nearly killed Devil on Tuesday. But if you’re asking when I talked to him, that was Tuesday at the vet’s office when I near took his head off, apology or no apology. Paul shoved me into where Devil was and wouldn’t let me out. Hannah took care of letting that piece of crap ease his conscience with money. They can say all they want about him being sincere, but if he was, he wouldn’t’ve been driving that way in the wee hours, days later.”

  “Tell us what happened with Devil.”

  Even from his highly colored account, it was possible it had been an accident. Seemed safe to say Rennant had been going too fast. Also safe to say Devil chased the car.

  In fact, Otto said, chasing and being hit by a car was how he was hurt earlier. Vehicle-chasing was the reason he was adopted out to someone on a ranch.

  “Only got one truck to chase here and Rennant doesn’t leave every day. Just Devil’s luck the man drives like a maniac.” Abruptly, he said, “I’ll tell you one thing. If you’re trying to figure out when that guy was dead, it was by Friday morning.”

  Startled, I flicked a look toward Diana. Couldn’t tell if Otto’s timeline matching with what we’d figured for the rigor surprised her as much as me.

  “Fool dog woke me like he had to go out during the dark hours. With me not moving as fast as I used to, he slipped out before I closed the gate, and went right to Rennant’s place. Barking his fool head off. Rennant would’ve raised a fuss if he’d been around to raise one.”

  “How do you kn
ow that?”

  “He called and complained and whined to the sheriff’s department every other time, didn’t he?”

  “I meant how do you know the dog—”

  “I can tell when my dog got out, can’t I?”

  Without betraying the patience I called on, I asked, “How do you know he went right to Rennant’s place?”

  “Well, can’t say for sure he went right there, but he was there. When he got back, had leaves in his fur from the plant Rennant said he picked on purpose for by his porch because it’s called dogbane. I know that stuff. Gets in hay and can kill horses, too. Damned white-collar idiot, trying to kill our animals.”

  “Came back with something else, too, but his wife — ex, now — won’t make a big deal over a few scratches in that truck of his, specially not with him dead and all.”

  He sounded quite satisfied with that state of affairs.

  “Scratches? How do you know there were scratches on Rennant’s truck?” A vision of scratches in the red front door came to mind. “Did you see it?”

  “Didn’t need to. Devil came back with red flecks in his paws. Not a lot, but with him getting out like that and needing to change him to a clean bandage, I was working close with his paws and saw it. Both front paws. None on the back. I knew that color. Color of that killer truck.”

  Same color as the front door. But there was that problem with where the scratches were…

  “Did you go to Rennant’s house to check?”

  “Hell no. Seemed like justice to me — Devil scratching up the paint after Rennant nearly killed him with that truck.”

  “Did you hear or see anybody at Rennant’s house Friday, Friday night, or Saturday morning?”

  “Not a sound. And don’t go over there, so didn’t see anything, either.”

  A buzzer sounded from inside. “I’ve got supper to fix. These dogs don’t feed themselves.”

  The good smells from inside were for the dogs.

  We thanked him and went to the SUV, while he leashed Devil to the porch railing and went inside, leaving the dogs outside the decrepit screened door.

  “Be careful Devil doesn’t chase the vehicle,” Diana warned me.