Left Hanging (17 page)

“No.”

Guesstimating Vicky’s and Heather’s ages, having a baby might have been the reason.

“Did you know Heather’s father?” I asked.

“He was not from Cottonwood County,” she said, “and to my knowledge never resided here. So I cannot give you information on him beyond what you likely know.”

“I know Heather Upton’s father died—” A tiny nod acknowledging a correct answer. “—when she was quite young.”

A tuck appeared between her brows, quickly smoothed away.

“He didn’t die when she was young?” I turned to Mike, passing on the blame. “You told me her mother’s been a widow a long time.”

“She has been. Long as I can remember.”

“You have made an incorrect assumption, Michael.”

“It wasn’t an assumption. People said it.
Vicky Upton is a widow
. My Mom said it. Everybody said it.”

Mrs. Parens cleared her throat. “At times a certain amount of delicacy has been valued over absolute accuracy. In addition to delicacy, there is a responsibility in discussing personal lives. In that regard, I place greater reliance on both of you than on our county’s officials.”

Ah. I’d wager a dollar or two that Mrs. Parens was Tom’s source about the big shots being out of town—and his guide in deciding it was better to let them stay uninformed of recent events.

“I see Elizabeth wondered and now has drawn the correct conclusion,” Mrs. Parens said.

We both looked at Mike.

He looked back. “Don’t look at me like I’m stupid. What
 . . .
? Oh. She was never married?”

“That is accurate to my knowledge,” Mrs. Parens said.

“Why did everybody say she was a widow? It’s not like other women around here haven’t had kids without being married.”

“True. However, in Vicky’s case, there were circumstances that inclined much of Cottonwood County to accept the account of a deceased husband. Vicky was a late-in-life baby for her parents, who were from a generation not as open about such matters. They sent Vicky away. When she returned after more than a year with a child, a wedding ring, and an account of a husband’s tragic death, it was not questioned. I don’t know if Vicky has maintained that construct since her parents’ deaths out of respect for them, or because she has no wish to disturb her own standing.”

“I wonder if she’s told her daughter?”

Mrs. Parens gave me a searching look. “That would be between mother and daughter, Elizabeth.”

“So, who’s the father?” Mike asked. “Does anyone know?”

Her disapproval was clear. “I should imagine that Vicky Upton knows. She was never of a temperament to not know such a thing.”

Neither Mike nor I pushed.

“Now, we should depart for Gisella’s house, or we’ll be late for dinner,” Mrs. Parens said. “Ah, I see you’re surprised, Elizabeth. Gisella has her faults, but she is generous, as well as being an excellent cook.” A glint of humor lit her eyes. “I allow her the pleasure of demonstrating her skill and her generosity by having me as a dinner guest.”

Chapter Twenty

MRS. PARENS WAS not the only additional guest next door. Donald from the sheriff’s department dispatch staff and his wife Doris were there, along with Jack, a gray-haired ranch foreman Mike had worked for in his youth. Also a woman named Connie and her three teenage sons.

It was a close-run thing whether those three eating machines or Aunt Gee’s colossal spread would hold out longer. Aunt Gee won.

While we watched the final rounds of that battle, Connie came and sat beside me, surprising me by starting her remarks with, “I’m pleased to have this chance to thank you for what you did.”

Unless a “Helping Out” segment had saved her from a travel scam or taught her how to get her toaster fixed, I couldn’t imagine how I’d helped her.

“I work in the office of Burrell Roads,” she said. That was the name of the road construction company, started by his father, that Tom Burrell ran in addition to his ranch. “My husband’s not well, and Tom insisted on keeping me on full pay even when there was so little business this spring that he told me not to come to the office. I couldn’t have gone on that way, but thanks to what you did—you and Mike and Diana—making it clear Tom was innocent, we should be back to full capacity next season.” A smile lifted the lines of her face. “I just wanted you to know the good you did.”

I uttered useless, but socially acceptable phrases. She smiled again, patted my hand, and went to talk with Aunt Gee. From across the room, Mrs. Parens gave me a small, approving smile.

Only after the other guests left, and Aunt Gee allowed Mike and me to carry dishes into her surgically clean kitchen, did we have an opportunity to pick up information from her. She allowed us to provide no other assistance.

We heard that Aunt Gee was pleased that Richard Alvaro was in charge of this big case because, “He’s a good boy.” Mike and I looked at each other, but neither of us had the answer to whether Aunt Gee knew it was murder, and neither of us asked.

We also heard that Stan Newton had two major balloon loans coming due later this year, while a number of other enterprises, including the rodeo grounds, were experiencing dips. If nothing else went wrong, the expectation was he’d survive, though likely need retrenchment. If more problems arose—say, the rodeo grounds’ biggest weekend being a bust—the outlook wasn’t as optimistic.

She had no further information for me on Sonja Osterspeigel. Nor had Keith Landry’s time of death been narrowed from between midnight and when Thurston Fine discovered him shortly after seven a.m.

Finally, we heard that county leaders were a pack of fools who thought scurrying off to a hidey-hole and weaving grandiose plans about how to keep the people of Cottonwood County in the dark was what passed for leadership.

“You tell ’em, Aunt Gee,” Mike said, while I clapped.

With great severity, but a smile in her eyes, she kicked us out of her kitchen and sent us on our way with leftovers stowed in twin cool packs for each of us, along with another set for Jenny-Jennifer “because that poor girl’s stuck out there at the station without any way to get a meal.” I was past being surprised that Aunt Gee not only knew everyone in the county, but also their work schedules.

I drifted off as we headed back to Sherman. The amount of food Aunt Gee provided, the comfort of Mike’s four-wheel drive, and the warmth of the sun starting to beat back the overcast had me drowsy. Mrs. Parens’ teacherliness might have influenced the direction of my thoughts.

I’d been a good student all through school. Except in math.

Oh, not arithmetic. I can do that well enough for ordinary life. My checking account balances. I can double or halve a recipe, figure percentage off for shoe sales, or appropriate tips in my head.

No, I’m talking about Mathematics. After the first mid-term in Advanced Algebra, my teacher, a soft-spoken man named Mr. Gladner, called me in. He sat beside me in the otherwise empty classroom and asked me to solve a few problems on the spot. With each one, he looked more perplexed.

Finally, he pulled out my mid-term. “I don’t know how to grade this, Elizabeth. Your answers are almost all right, but the only time you had all the right steps, your answer was wrong.”

What did the steps matter? If the answer was right, it was right. If the answer was wrong, it was wrong.

“How do you do that?” he asked.

“Um, I sort of look at the problem to get a big picture. Then I do a few steps, and then I just sort of
see
it—the answer.”

“See it? Before doing the other steps?”

“Uh-huh.”

He looked at me so long I remember heat coming into my cheeks. “Elizabeth? Do you like math? Algebra?”

“No.” All those boring steps.

He murmured something that sounded like
Thank God
. “Since you’ve more than fulfilled your requirement, I suggest that after this course you consider taking no more Mathematics. I’m not sure we’re ready for you.”

I was more than happy to take his suggestion.

It wasn’t until years later that I abruptly realized that quiet Mr. Gladner must have at least wondered if I was a remarkably slipshod cheater. That’s why he’d asked me to do problems while he sat beside me. It had never occurred to me before. I’d been focused on the resolution—no more math!—not the steps to reach it.

In journalism, the steps do matter, though not the way they do in Algebra. And I’ve become adept at supporting my answers while digging for the right solution.

Still, that’s the way I’ve mostly operated, grasping the outlines of the big picture long before the details are in order. Then testing and checking that big picture as I add details. Being alert to the chance that new details might wipe out the big-picture sketch.

That wasn’t how things had worked this spring however, when I’d been tracking a missing sheriff’s deputy. I’d never gotten a full grasp on the big picture until it almost was too late.

Somehow, this issue of Keith Landry’s death felt more familiar. As if I had started, if not getting back into the groove, at least walking on solid ground.

WE SWUNG BY the station to deliver Aunt Gee’s bounty to Jennifer. She dug in, but between bites told us, “Didn’t find a single bankruptcy in that name—Sweet Meadows Rodeo Stock.”

“Damn. I suppose it was too much to hope,” Mike said.

“But I did find a DBA. That’s Doing Business As. In Oklahoma.”

“Sweet Meadows was doing business under another name?” I asked.

“No. A person was doing business as Sweet Meadows Rodeo Stock. Betty Gates. She’s the widow of a minister.”

“Why on earth would the widow of a minister do business as Sweet Meadows? And what about the guy who came here to make the bid? Could it be a family business?”

She shrugged at each of my questions. “I found her right before you came in. I’ll keep digging.”

“Thanks, Jennifer. Something else
 . . .
I’ve done the basic searches, but do you have other suggestions for finding someone? With a last name like Osterspeigel, you’d think I could find her.”

She turned. “Sonja Osterspeigel?”

How on earth
 . . .
? “Yes. Do you know her?”

“She was in my homeroom in eighth grade. We keep in touch.”

“Do you have her phone number?”

“No, but I can IM her and ask for it. Want me to?”

“Yes. See if there’s a time I can talk to her this evening.”

“Sure thing. I’ll let you know when I hear back.”

Mike smirked at me and said under his breath, “The pleasures of small-town journalism.”

MOST TABLES AT the Haber House Hotel’s dining room were empty when we arrived.

The Haber House celebrated its status as a historic hotel with quantities of red plush that seemed more in keeping with a historic bordello. But the food was several steps above Hamburger Heaven, and the chocolate pie was worthy of acclaim. Though not after an Aunt Gee meal.

While I contemplated how to find out which server was the Kelly that Tom had mentioned this morning, Mike applied his smile to the hostess and had the answer. Kelly was the black-haired young woman heading out a side door.

We were slowed by people exchanging greetings with Mike. I was antsy she’d be gone, but when he opened the door onto a closet-sized space nearly surrounded by brick walls, she eyed us through cigarette smoke and heavy eye makeup. She might have given off a goth vibe, if she hadn’t been wearing a white blouse and a frilled red apron with black slacks.

“Customers aren’t supposed to be out here. Employees only.”

“We’d like to talk to you a few minutes,” Mike said with a smile. “Hope you can help us out with something.”

For the first time, we encountered a female who did not appear entranced with the prospect of helping Michael Paycik with anything and everything.

“I’m on break.” She took a last, deep drag on the cigarette, dropped it to the ground, and stepped on it at the same time she pulled out a pack of gum. “Hate this crap, but tips go to hell if your breath smells like smoke.”

Ah. That book on dogs I’d read might not have been a waste of time after all. We’d established Kelly was not Paycik-motivated, but adding in what Tom had said, she just might be tip-motivated.

“We realize we’re taking your time. We’ll compensate you for what you’re losing in tips.” I ignored that she’d have missed out on tips regardless, since she was on a cigarette break.

She ignored that piece of logic, too. “Yeah?”

“Yes. That is if you can give us information about the lunch Wednesday that included Keith Landry, the rodeo contractor who was killed.” She continued to look blankly at me, so I added, “The lunch the sheriff’s department asked you about?”

“Oh, yeah. You don’t want to know like what the people ate or anything, do you, because that was days ago, and about a million tables ago. I have no—”

“Not what they ate. But did you hear what they said?”

“No. Deputy asked that, too, especially if there’d been any yelling. That I would’ve remembered, especially considering all the yelling that guy did at dinner when the manager told him to get out. But there wasn’t anything exciting about the lunch. Like I told that deputy, I was too busy doing my job and avoiding that dead guy’s roving hands. Not that he was the dead guy then. Though I wouldn’t have minded if he had been, because his hands wouldn’t have been all over. And I wasn’t the only one. That girly-girl could’ve used a fly swatter to keep his hand off her leg. The boyfriend would’ve used a shotgun if there’d been one handy.”

“How do you know if you don’t remember what they said?”

She rolled her eyes. “Like you have to memorize words to get the atmosphere. You gotta be good at reading people to get good tips. Like reading body language shit. Know when to leave ’em alone, when to ask if they want more. I’m good. I get
great
tips.”

“So, what was the atmosphere?”

“Nasty. Real, real nasty. Like a big pot of nasty stew.”

“Can you be more specific?”

She cracked her gum and stared at the side of the building. “Girly-girl was pissed at Boyfriend, but as the lunch went on, she was even more grossed out by Mr. Hands. When he wasn’t trying to feel me or Girly-girl up, Mr. Hands was trying to get Boyfriend to do something, and getting fed up with Boyfriend not toeing the line.

“That was all said hush-hush between the two of them. No, don’t ask. I didn’t hear any of it, and besides, I’d’ve forgotten it along with the rest by now.” She frowned slightly. “Wasn’t clear if Boyfriend was dense or being a Boy Scout.”

“How about the other man at the table?” Mike asked.

“Oh, yeah, Mr. Double-Double-and-Keep-Em-Coming. He was trying to drown something that was eating at him. And from a couple looks Mr. Hands sent that way, he was the one doing the chewing, and ready for his next big bite. Mr. Hands was no slouch on the double-doubles, either, by the way. Boyfriend was split between worried and disgusted with Mr. Double-Double. Seemed like he thought he was on his own to handle Mr. Hands.”

We asked a few more questions, but it was clear these impressions were all she had.

I forked over a twenty, got a smile and a blast of wintergreen riding on a wave of cigarette smoke.

WE SAT IN THE hovel’s driveway in Mike’s four-wheel-drive and went over what we had. His vehicle was considerably more comfortable than the couch inside.

After a pause, I summed up, “It could be anyone we’ve talked about. And it’s not impossible it’s someone we know nothing about.”

“Yup. And the rodeo folks will scatter when the Fourth of July Rodeo ends eight days from now. Unless it’s canceled, then they go any minute. What do we do?”

“Go back to the beginning to find more inconsistencies. Hope we scrounge up more leads to follow. Hope Jenny—”

“Jennifer.”

“Damn, I was doing so well, too. Hope
Jennifer
comes through. And hope my law enforcement source has something wonderful for us.”

“That’s a lot of hoping.”

I agreed and said good-night.

ONE HOPE WAS fulfilled. Jennifer texted me Sonja’s phone number.