Left Hanging (18 page)

“Hi, Sonja, this is E.M. Danniher with—”

“Oh, hi! Jen said you couldn’t find me because of the name.” She giggled. She did that a lot in the next forty-five minutes. This, the first giggle, was for the fact that she’d changed her name to her step-father’s last name of Davidson when her mother remarried last year. “Because, really, Osterspeigel? Do you have any idea how many ways people mess up a name like that?”

I did after she spent five minutes telling me.

I broke in to ask—to try to ask—about her experience as rodeo queen. I had to break in to that answer to say I’d understood she had a relationship during her reign as rodeo queen.

She giggled. Then she sighed. Then she told me her version of what Penny Czylinski had conveyed in a few succinct sentences.

A circuit rodeo cowboy whose name meant nothing to me (but which I noted to check with Mike or Diana), had swept her off her feet two days before the rodeo started. “The best sex ever. I mean, ever,” she said, and giggled. It had continued as an intense, whirlwind relationship until immediately after the rodeo. She had then heard from a third party, a jealous bitch of a third party, whose expectations of being rodeo queen had been laughable, that her cowboy had told others he intended to leave town without a word of farewell.

She had rushed to his camper
 . . .
it was gone.

She’d been sitting in her truck by the empty spot, bawling over the tarnishment of her crown—her phrase—when the passenger door opened and Keith Landry got in, gathered her in a hug, and offered her the solace her lacerated heart required—again, her phrase.

Then ensued a period of six days, spent mostly in a motel room. To my relief, she did not describe these days or the sex, other than to say that was what had occupied them.

Until the evening Landry left to get takeout, he’d said, but he’d been gone an awfully long time—and Sonja received a phone call. The same jealous bitch of a third party informed Sonja that Landry was at the Kicking Cowboy talking about her.

Sonja had arrived at the Kicking Cowboy in a swirl of righteous anger. There’d been shouting. There’d been glass breakage. There’d been a slap. There’d been remonstrations from Badger. There’d been a law enforcement escort out for her.

“I was so young.” She giggled. “And such a fool.”

I thanked her. She giggled. I told her Landry had died. She said she’d heard, then giggled, though it sounded nervous. She said to call back if I needed anything more. And giggled.

I went out, sat on the back steps to look at the light-pricked expanse of sky over my head and to listen—not to silence, because there were the usual night sounds of trees and animals moving, two voices, a car-door closing at a distance. But no giggling.

I spotted Shadow living up to his name as he slipped around in the darkest patches, yet somehow giving me the sense he was keeping me company. Maybe it was wish fulfillment, but I don’t think so.

Sunday ended, and I had not gone to the Sherman Supermarket once.

Penny Czylinski is off on Sundays and Mondays.

DAY FIVE – MONDAY

The phone on my desk rang as I walked into the KWMT newsroom Monday morning.

The Denver contact had come through, getting approval for me to use their video. We finalized arrangements, including the courtesy super that credited his station.

“Oh, one last thing—that rodeo contractor you asked about?” he said. “Turns out a rodeo committee nearby was in deep trouble because the new contractor they’d hired evaporated at nearly the last minute, and your guy mounted a rescue mission.”

That was
not
the last thing in our conversation, considering the similarity to Sherman’s situation. I had dozens of questions. He only had answers to two—the town’s name and a possible contact.

It was intriguing, but I forced myself not to jump to a conclusion, because that was a sure way to prematurely close mental doors.

In a rendition of the time-honored Pass the Reporter game, the possible contact sent me to someone else, who in turn referred me to the committee chair. I had partially dialed the number for the committee chair when my cell rang.

It was Dex.

I stopped dialing, told Dex to hold on a minute, and headed outside. No way was I talking to him inside the KWMT newsroom.

Chapter Twenty-One

“THEY FOUND FIBERS,” Dex said as soon as I reached the parking lot and told him to go ahead. The sun was beating down on my head. I should have worn a hat. And a vat of sunblock.

“Fibers from somebody’s clothes?”

“No. Fibers that could be consistent with the appearance of hanging.”

I had a vivid image of the wooden beam that had so interested the deputies Saturday. “He was hanged, and that’s what caused the ligature marks.”

“Fibers were found that could be—”

“Fine, fine. Consistent with the appearance of hanging. So, fibers were around his neck.”

“The area of the neck that would be consistent with hanging was too compromised. But fibers were found inside his collar and on his chest.”

“But not around his neck? Then how would fibers get on his chest and inside his collar, and remain there to be found?”

“Very good, Danny. They could be expected to come from whatever was used to hang him, both as he was yanked to a hanging position and during a period of struggle, which would be expected. That friction would cause fibers to detach. Fibers also would have been around the neck initially, but, since that area was exposed, those fibers would have been dispersed by the bulls. Fibers that slipped inside the front and back of his collar, however, were afforded more protection, being caught between his clothing and his body.”

Remembering how little protection his clothing had provided parts of his body, I said, “Were there many fibers left?”

“One can be enough,” Dex said. “And there were more than that, because they were protected by the multiple layers of fabric. The collar and placket were less disturbed than areas covered by a single layer of fabric.”

Compromised. Dispersed. Disturbed
. Somehow the euphemisms were worse than the fact.

“They’re trying to identify the fibers?”

“Yes, indeed. Looking first for class characteristics, then individual characteristics for a specific identity.”

“Talking generally—” At his disapproving sound, I amended it to, “For the layperson, these fibers would be consistent with rope?”

“In the broadest, least useful terms, yes.”

“Thank you, Dex.” And I meant it, because I knew it pained him to talk in such terms. “Anything else? The autopsy—”

“Showed compression of the carotid arteries that is consistent with hanging.”

I whistled soft and short. Score one for Richard. Actually, score a couple thousand for him. If this evidence hadn’t been found to back his hunch, he would have been hip deep in agricultural byproducts for a very long time when the big shots returned.

“Could it be suicide?”

“Marks from the knot are wrong to be consistent with most suicides, and that region was not as severely compromised.”

“Okay, Dex, I hear it.”

“Hear what?”

“That smug tone that says you’ve got something you know you’ll enjoy telling me. Spill it.”

“Your deceased was strung up.”

“Strung up? Is that the scientific term?”

“It fits,” he said primly. “Either he stood still in that pen of bulls and let someone slip a lasso over his head, then let himself be strung up—”

“You like saying that, don’t you?”

“It sounds so
Western
. Or,” he picked up, “someone very good with a rope tossed it so it went over that beam—”

“Wait a minute. How do you know about the beam?”

“I’ve seen the crime scene photos, of course.”

“The guy—your contact—sent them to you?”

“Professional courtesy.”

“Since it’s not an FBI case, you could send them to me and—”

“Oh, no. That would be a slap in the face to a colleague who shared them with me.”

I knew he wouldn’t budge on that.

“As I was saying,” he resumed, “either he let someone put what was in essence a noose around his neck then toss the loose end of the rope over the beam, or someone very good with a rope tossed a looped rope over that beam in such a way that it came down around his neck. Either way, the person used the beam to yank him off his feet.”

“But when Landry was found, there was no rope.” I’d have to triple check with Jenks, but I hadn’t seen one in the footage, and no one had mentioned a rope.

“Nevertheless, a rope, or similar implement, was used. A definitive quantity of fibers was found.”

“That throw would be pretty tricky, wouldn’t it?” Like champion-caliber roping. Unless, as Dex had said, the roper lassoed Landry first and then got the rope over the beam. No. Landry would have realized something was up and fought. “Somebody threw a rope over the beam and around a human head with all those bulls trampling around there?”

“It was only after he was dead that he was dropped and the bulls did damage,” he said without much interest.

He wouldn’t dismiss those bulls so readily if he’d seen them up close. Or, perhaps, that aspect wasn’t geeky enough for him.

He added credence to my second conjecture when he added, “But you’re not asking the most interesting question, Danny.”

“I give. What’s the most interesting question?”

“Was he dead or alive when he was roped and strung up?”

“That is an interesting question,” I conceded. “Which was he?”

“They don’t know yet.”

“Dex!”

“I said it was the most interesting question, not the most interesting answer. It’s quite fortunate they found evidence of the ligature considering the condition of the body, that he appears not to have been suspended for long, and the fact that he was—”

“Strung up,” we concluded together.

“Danny, there’s something else quite interesting.”

“Oh?” I asked cautiously. Dex’s
interesting
often was other people’s
disgusting
.

“As one would expect, there are rope marks on the beam.”

“From when he was strung up.”

“Those, yes. Also others. The marks from the hanging are angled and quite deep. There are other, as yet unexplained marks, at a 90 degree angle to the beam and not as deep.”

“Made before or after the, ah, fatal marks?”

“That has not been determined. Further tests will be required.”

“Dex
 . . .
” I closed my eyes. Sometimes, I swear, this mild, rather sweet scientist was the biggest tease on the planet.

I CALLED MIKE inside KWMT and told him to meet me outside. While I waited, I called Jenks, on assignment covering the opening of a new exhibit at the local museum, footage that wouldn’t air unless Fine unexpectedly lifted his all-Thurston edict.

“No rope,” Jenks said in response to my question.

“Positive?”

“Positive. Unless it was shredded.”

I thanked him as Mike approached.

“The question is, who could have roped him,” I said at the end of my report. Mike had whistled when I’d described the throw over the beam. “That has to be an extremely difficult throw, right?”

“It’s not one I’d ever expect to make.”

“Good, that narrows the field. I know we watched Cas Newton win that tie-down roping. And Heather Upton is a champion roper, her mother bragged—why are you shaking your head?”

“The field’s wider than that. Think about it. Who taught Heather to rope?”

“How should I kno—oh. Her mother?”

“Yup. And Newton taught Cas. Linda’s real good with a rope. Don’t forget Grayson Zane.”

“I don’t suppose Evan Watt’s a horrible roper?”

He shook his head again. “Not Zane’s or Heather’s level, but good. So’s Oren Street. Most times, most places, I’d say that throw narrowed the field a lot. But these are people who know how to throw a loop. I’m not saying all of them could hit it every time, not even half the time. But every one of them would have a chance.”

“So it’s still any one of them.” I looked at my watch. “I’ve got to go. I have an interview for a ‘Helping Out’ segment your aunt set up. Diana’s probably already there.”

“Give me a call when you’re done.”

I agreed and was in my car, turning to head out, when he ran up beside the driver’s side, asking something I couldn’t hear with the AC on and the window up. I opened the window.

“Poly or nylon?”

“What?”

“The rope—was it poly or nylon? Knowing that would narrow it. And if they know the twist—”

“He said rope.” Actually, he hadn’t. But I was paraphrasing. “Rope. Fibers. Hanged. That’s what I concentrated on. I’ve got to go.”

DIANA AND THE subject were waiting.

The subject wasn’t the least bit annoyed, because Diana had kept him talking about himself while she set up. If
she
was annoyed, she didn’t show it.

The interview went great. Walking out, I told Diana she was such a good set-up person I’d have to be late all the time. She said, “No,” in her mother-of-two voice, and I apologized sincerely. She forgave me enough to let me follow the Newsmobile on a shortcut to the station that avoided what passed for traffic in Sherman.

I called Mike, but it sent me to voicemail. I left a message.

In the newsroom, Jennifer told me the Denver tape was in.

Even though it consisted of a cameraman walking through a house, it had impact. The place resembled an animal carcass picked clean.

With the interview fresh in my mind, I roughed out the package in record time. A little polish, a lead-in, and I’d have another deposit in my “Helping Out” bank. With this gang working its way through the region, I logged it in as the first to be used. And hoped the all-Thurston-all-the-time programming wouldn’t last much longer at KWMT.

AFTER A MOMENT’S hesitation, I accepted Burrell’s telephoned last-minute invitation to lunch.

If he wasn’t going to come clean about his editing job on the bull calls from Landry’s phone on his own, I would use this opportunity to bring it out in the open myself. It was way past time.

But when he picked me up at the station, he announced he was glad I’d said yes because I’d have a chance to get to know somebody. So, lunch was out for raising the phone calls. And the drive to the Haber House Hotel didn’t allow enough time before joining his not-so-mysterious third party.

In the cool dimness of the restaurant, the hostess walked us to a corner table with one occupant. Linda Caswell. Suspicion confirmed.

Our server was Kelly. She showed no sign of remembering me.

“Linda’s real busy with the rodeo and all,” Burrell said after reaffirming our introductions, “but like I told her, she’s got to eat. Thought you two could get to know each other this way.”

I would have preferred to interview her without a buffering presence. But I wouldn’t let this opportunity go by. Except it became clear as the meal progressed that to get in serious questions, I’d need to make the opportunity happen.

First, a steady stream of people stopped to say hello to Tom or Linda or both. One or two acknowledged me.

Second, when the stream faltered, Tom fed Linda lines like “Tell Elizabeth about how your family got started in Cottonwood County” and “Tell Elizabeth how the Fourth of July Rodeo started” and “Tell Elizabeth about the state Claustel left the committee in.”

Considering those puffy lead-ins, her responses were relatively restrained, though they covered ground I knew and took up time.

“Excuse me,” I interrupted after Linda had refused Tom’s suggestion of dessert. I suspected that even if I ordered a slice of chocolate pie, she would plead the press of business and leave us. “I want to get the server’s attention to be sure the bill comes to me.”

Tom frowned. “You’re not paying.”

“Oh, KWMT will pick it up.” In the ultimate proof that I was not Pinocchio in a previous life, my nose remained its same size.

“You are not paying,” he repeated, placing his napkin on the table and standing.

“Really, the station—”

“No.” He strode off in search of Kelly, whom I’d seen slip out the side door seconds before I’d started this diversion.

“What do you want to ask me?” Linda asked.

So she’d recognized my ruse. Good. That saved time. “How does your former romantic relationship tie in with the Sherman Rodeo?”

She gave me a hard look. “I thought you might be going to ask me about Tom. But I’m not entirely surprised you’re curious about that aspect under the circumstances,” she said with dignity.

It was the dignity, nothing else, that persuaded me to go for honesty. “Specifically, I’d like to know what about your relationship with Grayson Zane would make him tense up about it five years later?”

“
Grayson?
I thought
 . . .
He tensed up?” Sad eyes and a slight smile added wistfulness to her plain face. “No reason he should.”

“But he broke it off?”

“Yes.”

“There was nothing—?”

“No.” Now the eyes and mouth erected a fence with a
No Trespassing
sign plastered on it.