Body Brace (Caught Dead in Wyoming, Book 10)

by Patricia McLinn

  This time I’d been able to be a body brace for her. Nice to be able to return the favor. Well, me and my dog.

  She sighed. “It’s going to be a process. I might have hugged Shadow a time or two, myself.”

  “That bad?”

  She chuckled, then looked surprised at herself. “Russ was still there when I came out. He said you threatened him if he didn’t stay.”

  “That’s accurate.”

  “Thanks. We talked. A good talk.”

  “I sure hope that’s not all you did.”

  “That’s all I’m prepared to tell you about.”

  “Fair enough. When do I get my dog back?”

  “I’m taking off work early, I’ll pick him up and bring him over then. Both kids have activities until late.”

  Chapter Sixty

  With difficulty and using her left hand, Sally Tipton took up a fat pencil from the table that extended over her bed. She wrapped her fingers around the barrel with the point straight down.

  “She wants the paper,” Aunt Gee said.

  When Mrs. P didn’t move to fulfill that want, Aunt Gee clicked her tongue in impatience and moved up the left side of the bed.

  Mrs. Parens had made her objections clear — even clearer than before — in the hallway, stating that Sally was in no state to see me or Diana.

  When a nurse said Sally had been so agitated last night when the TV news came on and had worn herself out so completely with writing see and my initials that fulfilling her wish had to be better for her than not, Mrs. P gave her a look she usually reserved for Mike’s worst Wyoming history gaffes.

  The nurse withstood it better than the former NFL player. She even added that Sally’s further agitation when Diana appeared for a moment on a station promo that was nine-tenths Thurston and one-tenth the rest of the staff from two years ago, persuaded her in consultation with Gee that Diana needed to be here, too.

  “This is entirely against my best judgment. This is ill-advised,” Mrs. Parens declared. “If you insist on this, however, you shall not mention the announcement made by the sheriff’s department.”

  “How do you already know—?”

  “Oh, it’s all over the hospital,” the nurse said.

  Mrs. Parens ignored us. “Not under any circumstances shall it be mentioned. Do you understand?”

  With that caveat, here we were, in Sally’s room.

  For the second time.

  The first time we went in, Sally had grown agitated again, nodding and jabbing her left hand in the direction of Diana with an odd circling motion.

  Diana got it first. “My camera?”

  Sally stopped gesturing.

  Diana returned with it, giving me an eyebrows-up look.

  I lifted one shoulder half an inch.

  Diana began filming.

  As Gee told me Monday, one side of Sally’s face drooped. She seemed shrunken, but more so on the right side, which did not move. But her eyes, devoid of her usual mask of coyness and silliness, were more direct and determined than I had seen them.

  Now, Gee cleared a space on the table and put the pad under the erratic point of the pencil.

  Sally focused on the paper, but her pencil didn’t contact it.

  After a pause, Mrs. Parens blew out a short breath. Impatience? Sorrow? I couldn’t tell.

  Sally’s head came up slightly, as if she intended to look at Mrs. P, but the move wasn’t enough to reach that destination. In the next instant, her head dropped back down and the pencil tip finally connected to the paper.

  She drew one wavery line down the paper, started another, even more irregular. A second try at the initial line or another part of the design? Either way, it appeared destined to cross the first line, until her hand jerked and the pencil tore the paper.

  Sally looked toward Gee.

  “A fresh sheet? Just one moment.” Gee pulled away the first sheet and arranged the second.

  Sally panted with exertion, her hand shook more, and the pencil did not make contact.

  It seemed she started to look toward Mrs. P, but if so, she changed her mind and directed her gaze to Gee again.

  “What if I support your arm, Sally. Will that help?”

  Sally gave no response. Her face had gone gray, but she seemed determined to convey something with that pencil.

  Gee said, “Blink once if you want me to support your arm and twice if you do not want me to.”

  Without moving her head, Sally looked toward Gee and blinked once.

  We waited. No second blink followed.

  Gee cupped her hands under the older woman’s forearm, then positioned Sally’s fisted hand over the paper.

  “Ouija board,” Mrs. P muttered.

  A new shaky line emerged down the sheet. After a few panting breaths, Sally began another line, this one intersected with the first more emphatically than her previous attempt. Sally sank back against the pillows of her raised bed, her eyes closed. She held onto the pencil as if the effort to release those muscles was too much.

  Aunt Gee and I looked at the paper, though Mrs. Parens appeared to ignore it.

  When Sally opened her eyes, she looked from Gee to Mrs. Parens to me, with an exhausted air of inquiry. Having arrived at me her gaze remained there.

  “An X?” I asked.

  Mrs. P gave me a peeved glance.

  I ignored her.

  Sally stared at me, then blinked twice.

  “Okay, I can see that one tail is longer than the other, so not an X.” I squinted at the marks. “Two creeks? Or rivers? Two Rivers Camp? Or— Sorry. I should only ask one thing at a time.”

  Sally blinked twice.

  Trying to decide if that was no to creeks or rivers or the camp or my asking one thing at a time, I moved to the side table and poured water into the mug there with a straw. When I turned back, though, the notion of negotiating the logistics of giving the woman the water without usurping her autonomy yet without setting her up for failure swamped me.

  Without a word, Mrs. Parens took the mug from my hand and moved with it to the top of the bed by Sally’s head. She placed the end of the straw in Sally’s slightly open mouth.

  Mrs. P’s move shunted me back, giving me a new angle on the paper.

  “A cross?” I asked.

  Above the mug, Sally blinked once.

  “A cross.” I heard a thread of triumph in my voice at getting it right.

  That faded quickly. Because what did a cross signify?

  “The hospital chaplain?” Aunt Gee asked. “You want for folks to pray for you?”

  Two blinks for each.

  “A Christian burial?” Aunt Gee tried again.

  Sally blinked once.

  “You shall receive one.” Mrs. Parens spoke quickly. Almost as if she’d been prepared for that, yet she hadn’t offered it as an interpretation. She hadn’t offered any interpretation at all. In fact, she could be seen as trying to circumvent this entire line of communication.

  Sally blinked twice.

  “Yes, you shall,” Mrs. Parens said in her sternest voice.

  Sally blinked twice, waited, then blinked twice again, a pause, then two more blinks, a pause, then two more.

  As she did, I thought about Mrs. P’s reactions concerning Sally and today’s hot news topic around Cottonwood County.

  Mrs. P knew something I didn’t.

  That wasn’t all that unusual.

  But this something appeared to be also unknown by Aunt Gee, which was highly unusual, and to involve Sally Tipton.

  Taking a leap, I asked the woman in the bed, “You’re not concerned for yourself?”

  One blink.

  “Is your concern for the man they found?” I was aware of Mrs. P stirring beside me, but kept my gaze on Sally.

  She blinked once.

  “Do you know who it is?”

  She blinked once. Then moved the pencil to the paper. Aunt Gee supported her arm. She created a stick figure with a lopsided head and shaky limbs, but ident
ifiable. Then she moved the pencil next to this and created another one half the size of the first.

  Breathing hard at the exertion, she looked up at me.

  “Two people?” I didn’t want to jump to conclusions or push her in any direction.

  She blinked once. Then her hand and the pencil hovered over the smaller figure before bending her arm to bring it closer to her chest.

  She looked up at me again.

  “You? It’s you?”

  She expelled a breath that sort of whistled out of her mouth, and blinked once.

  Then she jerked her hand from the smaller figure to the larger one and back. The pencil touched the paper, creating jagged lines between the two as she made two more passes.

  “You’re connected to this other person. You were a child and—”

  “Your mother?” Aunt Gee asked.

  “No.” Mrs. Parens’ tone made both Aunt Gee and me look at her. She pressed her lips tightly together. “We shall leave now. Clearly, we have tired Sally and that cannot be good for her. As well as likely making her mind wander.”

  I might have gaped at Mrs. P. My reaction inside was pure gape, I just don’t know if my mouth muscles got with the program.

  She was abrupt. She was almost rude. She certainly wasn’t considerate of Sally’s possible feeling about her abilities.

  Gee did not gape. Instead, apparently seeing this as an opportunity to move ahead in an arena when Mrs. P was retiring from the lists, she said in a low tone, “She was reading Needham’s article about Palmer Rennant and what you found in that cave at the butte when she had the stroke. She must have guessed… She must have.”

  “We will not—” Mrs. Parens started.

  More loudly, Gee asked the woman in the bed, “Your father, Sally?”

  She blinked once.

  Frowning, I asked, “You want a Christian burial for your father?”

  She blinked once.

  Then she pointed at me.

  Chapter Sixty-One

  I placed a cup of tea in front of Emmaline Parens where she sat by the windows in the mostly empty hospital cafeteria.

  “Sometimes,” I said, “I feel I’m way behind on these inquiries because I’m not from here, don’t know the layers of origin stories, don’t know the ins and outs of the connections and eruptions of more recent events, don’t know the intricacies of the land, don’t even speak the language.”

  Mrs. Parens regarded me, possibly waiting to see if there were more cars on that freight train of self-pity. Or, possibly, of frustration.

  “Sally wants a Christian burial for her father. Wanted Diana to tape her request. Oh-kay. But a request of me to see to it? And you didn’t want her to communicate that to me? I don’t get it.”

  I raised my hands and let them drop on a loud exhale.

  “It occurs to me that in this situation, as in those you have resolved, not knowing the things you listed has given you a connection with and an understanding of others who have more recently come to Cottonwood County. In addition,” Mrs. Parens continued, “what you have listed as absences of knowledge or skill have the effect of giving you a different, one might even say fresher, view of relationships, events, and personalities than might be drawn by those of us with the history, language, and knowledge.”

  “Great. Except now I’m tasked with seeing to a Christian burial for this guy, when…”

  When I suspected the woman who’d given me that task of being involved in his murder.

  And why not Mrs. Parens? She was the natural— Ah.

  That sense I’d had Monday that Mrs. P hadn’t been talking only about her stance on the Montana Road and the railroad crossing southern Wyoming clicked.

  She’d been talking about Sally, her stepmother, and Luther.

  I have not found research that sheds direct light on any connection much less confirms one. … As long as certain other facts remain out of your grasp, a hypothesis is what it remains. Not a conclusion, nor a demonstrable fact.

  She’d suspected — strongly suspected — but never had the facts to… What?

  She’d been a teenager herself when Luther was killed. Not sure of her own suspicions or simply knowing they couldn’t be substantiated? But over the years, had she watched Sally closely?

  Had she drawn me into Sally’s orbit in an earlier investigation not to protect Sally nor to prove her innocent, but to make sure she was looked at closely in case she had killed again?

  I didn’t have answers. Only more questions: What would I have done in those circumstances? What was I going to do now?

  “You have looked at your watch twice in the past minute, Elizabeth. If you have an appointment, do not let me make you late.”

  Actually, I planned to be late.

  “Saturday, up at the butte, when I showed you a photo of Palmer Rennant’s watch, you said you were no expert in men’s watches. That was not an answer to my question.”

  She met my gaze squarely. “It was the only answer I was prepared to give until I talked with the authorities. As it turned out, the authorities knew his identity before I was called upon to offer my suspicion.”

  That was the only reason? To give Shelton first dibs on her information?

  “To your knowledge, does Palmer Rennant’s death and finding Luther Tipton’s body in that cave intersect in any way?” At a glimmer in her eyes, I added, “Beyond geography.”

  “No.”

  We looked at each other for a long moment.

  Mrs. Parens wasn’t lying.

  She also wasn’t telling me everything.

  * * * *

  I shoved my sunglasses to the top of my head as I took in the reality that I was first to arrive at the Circle B Ranch.

  How on earth had that happened, when I was twelve minutes after the time James Longbaugh set?

  Tamantha sat on the porch steps, alone.

  I parked and went to sit next to her, exchanging hellos.

  “We couldn’t really talk at the camp with all those kids around.” Before I fully processed that warning, she said, “Mike’s gone. Why aren’t you Daddy’s girlfriend again?”

  I pulled in a breath. “I’m going to tell you something hard, Tamantha.”

  She turned to better aim her direct gaze at me.

  “That’s not your business. That’s between your father and me. But I’ll tell you something else. What’s between you and me is strong on its own and it doesn’t need me dating your father.”

  Under her open, intelligent examination I felt her doubt. “I don’t want you to go away.”

  I swallowed. Had we left not dating her father and arrived at the death of her mother?

  I put my hand on her back. “I could tell you I won’t ever go away, but you know I don’t control ever. What I do promise is I’ll always be your friend. Remember, you and I knew each other first.”

  She blinked, clearly struck by that. “We were friends first.”

  More like she gave me orders, but this wasn’t the time for such nuances. “Yes.”

  She put her hand on my knee. “Okay.”

  Behind us, the front door opened and Tom came down the porch steps.

  “Mrs. George is waiting for you to decide what flavor cupcakes you’re making, Tamantha.”

  She hopped up. “Gotta go. See you, Elizabeth.”

  “Bye, Tamantha.” I stood, too. To face her father.

  “You’re early.” He sounded justifiably surprised.

  I took the sunglasses off the top of my head. Something to hold onto might come in handy.

  “I suspect you can thank James for that.”

  Our gazes met and filled in the blanks that it was just like at the law office.

  He hitched one shoulder. “Gives me a chance to say this could be a bit tricky. Not entirely sure what reception we’ll get at Teague Ranch.”

  After his daughter, armed guards should be a snap.

  “We plan to go in groups,” he continued. “You’ll ride with me.”

&nb
sp; “I don’t—”

  “Also, Mrs. Parens and Gee Decker. If we single out them and a couple others to not drive solo, we’ll never get there…”

  He was right. “But I don’t have to—”

  He reached up to push back the short hair around my face. Or maybe to straighten it, considering what my sunglasses had probably done to it.

  I backed away.

  His hand remained extended with nothing to brush away for a moment before he dropped it. At the same time, the brim of his hat tipped down, shadowing his eyes.

  “We’re not doing this, Tom.”

  “Sorry. You’re right.” His head came up. “But that doesn’t mean I’m not going to care about you and watch out for you. Won’t let any friend walk into a bad situation, sure not going to let you.”

  “You don’t let me do anything.”

  “Elizabeth—”

  “I’m not stupid enough to do something just because you said not to or to prove how independent I am even if… Anyway, I make those decisions.”

  After a pause, he gave a deliberate, single nod. “Okay. When you’re making those decisions, though, would you factor in what Tamantha would do to me if something happened to you?”

  I couldn’t stop the twitch at the corner of my mouth, but subdued it. “I will factor that in.”

  The sound of another vehicle approaching reached us.

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  The guard looked through the windshield as Tom’s truck rolled slowly to a stop. It seemed to me he stared at me.

  Ahead of us, James Longbaugh had gone in with Clara Atwood and Nadine Hulte. Behind us came O.D. Everett, with Anna Price-Fox and Ivy Short. I’d recognized a light blue SUV with a single occupant that approached the gate before our group and there were more vehicles behind our group.

  Tom, looking around our surroundings as if casually, lowered the driver’s window and identified himself. If he was looking for an exit strategy, I didn’t see one. We had a rock ridge on our right, which also masked the entry from the highway. On the left was a little building beside the gate, then strong fence through rough country.