Left Hanging (16 page)

“You make it sound like negotiating a cease fire between World War II combatants.”

“At least they had the Geneva Conventions. Pick you up at one-thirty.” We hung up.

Burrell said, “Dinner at Gisella’s?”

“Yes.”

“Can’t do better than that. I suggest you leave room for chocolate pie.”

How could he think there’d be room left for anything after being fed by Aunt Gee? “Chocolate pie? The Haber House Hotel?”

“Yep. Sit in Kelly’s section. But don’t go until Sunday rush is over. I don’t know her, she’s just signed on this summer, but I’m told she won’t give you any time if you interfere with her tips.”

“Why do I want Kelly’s time?”

“Because of who she served lunch to Wednesday.”

Chapter Nineteen

ONE-THIRTY LEFT me wallpaper-chipping time before getting cleaned up. The bathroom of this rental house featured
Night of the Living Dead
green paint covering the light fixture and window, plus wallpaper with platter-sized cabbage roses of purple and black.

As a break from the tedious paint-chipping, I had started removing the wallpaper, only to discover that behind this layer were previous layers, each covered in paint. So, my break from tedious paint-chipping had become tedious paint-covered wallpaper chipping. Ah, the glamour.

But first, I called Matt Lester at his home in a suburb of Philadelphia. His wife, Bonnie, answered.

“Danny! How are you? I hate you being off by yourself in the middle of nowhere living in what sounds like a shack.”

“Hovel,” I amended under my breath. “But how do you know about my living quarters?”

“Oh. Uh, you know, I, uh, heard.”

“Good God, Bonnie, did my mother call you?”

“No!”

“So it was Mel.”

Silence greeted that stab in the not-so-dark. “Actually, I called him. He is your agent now. He was so nice those times we’d met him and
 . . .
We’d heard nothing for so long, I was worried.”

Guilt surged as it could only for someone trained in the Catherine Danniher School of Guilt-Riddenness.

Bonnie and Matt had taken me in for several weeks during the first shock-waves of my life upheaval, but I had steered clear of them until a few weeks ago when I’d called asking Matt for Philly-related research. And here I was, doing the same thing.

“Bonnie, I’m good. Well, maybe not all the way to good, not every day, but better. Really, truly, and honestly.”

“I’m glad,” she said simply.

“And I will be better about staying in touch. I will. I promise.”

“Except that right now you need to ask Matt questions.”

I chuckled. “You are the ideal wife for a journalist, you know that?”

“I remind Matt of it several times a day. Here he is.”

“Hey, Danny. Bonnie giving you a hard time about not being in touch?”

“A little, but—”

“Good. You deserve it. So, what can I do for you?” That was the way Matt wrote, too—to the point, but never belaboring it.

“You did a series of pieces on animal rights protestors a while back, didn’t you? Two years ago?”

“More like four. But, yeah.”

“If you’ve still got the contacts and can find out anything about a group out here led by a guy named Roy Craniston, I’d appreciate anything you can get. On him and his associates.”

He repeated the name, clearly noting it and the descriptions I gave him of the others. “Sure thing. I’ll make calls tomorrow.”

And then we said good-bye, so he could get back to his family. And I could chip more painted wallpaper off the bathroom wall.

NOT MUCH WALL had been freed of wallpaper when my cell rang from the pocket of the sweater hooked on the bathroom doorknob.

Caller ID allowed me to answer with, “Hi, Mel.”

“I’m glad I got you, Danny. I feared you might have left Friday’s call with a mistaken impression.”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“I have great respect for you. I don’t want you to think for a second otherwise. You have always been so impressive. And even when you and Wes were moving frequently, driving so hard, I was impressed with all that you did, how much you achieved. Have achieved
 . . .
are achieving. Impressive. Achievement, I mean.”

When Mel beat a word into the ground, it was a clear sign of discomfort. When he stuttered around tenses, it was serious.

“Thanks, Mel.” I crunched that out.
I
achieved? Or Wes achieved through me? “But—”

“But,” he nearly shouted over me. “But things have changed now. And you seemed so unhappy when we saw you. Perhaps it’s time for something new, something different. Different priorities.”

“Of course I was unhappy at Christmas and before I headed out here—I’d been demoted from New York to Sherman, Wyoming.”

“Before that.”

“I wasn’t—”

“Yes, you were,” he said, stubbornly. “And we
 . . .
I hate to think of you all alone out there. If you moved closer—”

“Forget the St. Louis talk show. And I’m not alone.”

That stopped him. But not for long. “You’re not? Well! That’s splendid. Already! I know
 . . .
” He broke off into coughing.

When it subsided, I said, “I seem to have acquired a dog.”

I hadn’t missed that
I know
. But he was on guard about it now. Far better to pump him later.

I let the silence stretch, until he said, very carefully, “A dog? Well
 . . .
that’s good. That’s very good. Isn’t it? What breed?”

“Possibly collie.”

“Oh, those are beautiful dogs.”

“Don’t start thinking Lassie, Mel,” I scolded, remembering Tom’s laughter and grinning. “I’m told he’s a
 . . .
a ranch collie.”

“Is that like a border collie? They’re very intelligent.”

“There are similarities.” Four legs, two ears, a nose and a tail.

“Where did you get
 . . .
him, you said?”

“Yes. It’s more like he got me.”

“A stray?” Mel and his family had segued from a Dalmatian to a lab to a golden retriever, each with a lineage more impressive than Queen Victoria’s. “Are you certain that’s a good idea?”

“Sure. Everyone deserves a chance at a new life, right, Mel? I’m fortunate that the owners at KWMT were willing to give me one. You know them, don’t you? The Heathertons. Val Heatherton, I understand, is the real power, and she named her son-in-law Craig Morningside the station manager. You might not know him, because I hear you called Val, went right to the top when you—”

“Danny, I
 . . .
oh. Just a minute, Eileen!” He called away from the mouthpiece. I had not heard a peep from his wife in the background. “Sorry, Danny. Got to go now. Eileen’s calling. We’ll talk again. Soon.”

“Okay, Mel. Give Eileen my love.”

“Of course, of course. Bye.”

I grinned at the phone. As much as I like getting answers to questions, it might be worth delaying finding out precisely what Mel Welch was up to for the pleasure of tormenting him.

“I KNOW FINE’S officially got the story, but I’m glad we’re doing this,” Mike said abruptly. We’d been driving toward the mountains and O’Hara Hill, which sat in a narrow valley just east of them, in easy silence. “Besides, it’s another chance to have you mentor me on a big story.”

He coated the last line with nearly enough dryness for me to pretend he hadn’t meant it seriously. But not quite. “I am not mentor material. You do not want me as your mentor, Paycik.”

“Yes, I do, along with other things. And you already are,” he added, which allowed me to ignore the other phrase. He’d indicated interest, but hadn’t been pushy about that. And it wasn’t that I was
un
interested. It was just one more thing I wasn’t ready to think about quite yet. “But tell me why I wouldn’t want you as a mentor.”

Under the direct challenge, I skidded sideways. “I’m hard news, and you’re sports.”

“You think sports is just scores and what happens on the field? Reporting sports, really reporting it, means knowing exactly the things I’m learning from you. Digging for facts and putting together the truth. It gets my goat when people don’t realize sports reporting is everything in hard news,
plus
keeping score.”

“Keeping score,” I repeated. “That has a lot of appeal, doesn’t it. Knowing exactly where you stand. I wonder if that’s some of the appeal of sports. The clarity. No wondering if you’ve done okay or not. It’s all there to see on the scoreboard.”

“Not all sports.”

“But rodeo
 . . .
”

“Cut and dried in rodeo. If you don’t win, you don’t earn anything. Period.”

“Is it hard to figure out if you’ve done a good job—played a good game, I mean—when you’re on a football team?”

”Not really. Each player has a specific assignment on each play. Watching film, you see if you did the job or not. Were you at the right spot at the right time, did you make the right move, did you accomplish what you were supposed to do? And if you don’t see it,” Mike went on, “the coaches will point it out.”

“What if the coach isn’t
 . . .
impartial?”

He slanted a look at me. “Like I said, it’s there on the film.”

There was no film, no replay for me, except in my own head.

“Your teammates know, too. That’s what a lot of people outside of football don’t understand. It takes the team to make any individual player look good over the long haul. A team can have a top quarterback, and if his offensive line doesn’t give him time to throw, if his receivers don’t hold onto the ball, if the coach doesn’t put in the right plays, heck, if the equipment guys don’t get the right shoes, it can all go south.”

“Can an individual coast on the ability of his teammates?”

“Some. More often the individual pushes himself to play better than he has before to match the rest of his team.”

I considered that. I’d worked with some of the best in the business. Maybe I’d pushed myself to match them. I could live with that. “What about the other way around?”

“The whole being greater than the sum of its parts? Sure. But there’s got to be a level of competence. Otherwise, it pulls down the team eventually.”

I hadn’t dragged down my team. That I was sure of. There was a zing, like hitting the sweet spot on a tennis racquet, when your team produced good work, and I’d had that zing plenty of times. Too many to have been a fluke.

“Sorry. Chewing your ear. You shouldn’t get me on to football.”

“You miss it, don’t you?” I asked.

“Probably about as much as you miss big-time TV news.”

“More.”

I saw my response surprised him nearly as much as it surprised me.

MRS. PARENS welcomed us and led us to her front room, which doubled as a Cottonwood County archive. Each wall was filled with maps and photographs.

“You never told me you were a rodeo queen,” I complained after greetings.

She tipped her head. “My dear, Elizabeth, I have lived a good many years. I have known you for a short period of time. I am entirely certain that there are any number of my activities of which I have not informed you.”

It was reasonable and reasoned. Why did I still feel as if she’d been holding out on me? I said, “I would be interested in hearing anything you’ll tell me about the rodeo or those involved with it.”

“That’s far too wide a net. I would have you and Michael here for more time than would be comfortable for any of us.”

“Tell her about Cottonwood Drive.” Mike received a reproving look from the woman who wasn’t much taller than his elbow. He added, “Please.”

“Rupert Caswell drove a herd of longhorn cattle up from Texas as the open range was ending. He was the first to bring his herd to this area of what was then Wyoming Territory. He was reported to be quite a
 . . .
” An uncharacteristic hesitation from the former teacher. “. . . forceful man.”

“Shot homesteaders he said were on his property,” Mike said.

“That was never proven in a court of law,” Mrs. Parens said.

“And sheepherders when he was over ninety.”

“Flesh wounds,” she clarified. “He was nearly blind.” I wasn’t sure if she was excusing his shooting people or merely wounding them. “He guarded his legend. As an element of that, he named his ranch Cottonwood Drive, to forever serve as a reminder that his cattle drive had given the county its start.”

“He was Linda Caswell’s grandfather? He started the rodeo?”

“Rupert was her great-grandfather. His son, Rupert Junior, began the Fourth of July Rodeo. Cottonwood Drive provided the livestock each year from its beginning, until Keith Landry’s company won the bid twenty years ago. That was the end of an era. Walter was bitter about that until the day he died. Didn’t set well with any of the Caswells.” She squared her shoulders. “Yes, Rupert Junior was quite a different sort of man from the original. Linda is much more like him than her own father, or certainly Rupert Senior. I recall Rupert Junior fondly from my youth. Indeed, he crowned me as rodeo queen.”

It was the opening I’d hoped for. “About this year’s rodeo queen and—”

“I never had Heather as a student. I know little of her outside the screening process.”

“What about her mother, Vicky?”

“She was a student when I was principal. I knew of her but not as I would if I had taught her.”

“You were on the rodeo queen committee that selected her?”

“Yes.”

Remembering things Vicky had said, I hazarded the guess, “But she didn’t use the scholarship money?”