Left Hanging (24 page)

“We are, too,” I said.

He growled. “Hiram’s got a gun, and he’s a crap shot. I said stay put.”

And he was gone. Dodging behind a rusted out tractor and a man-high attachment that seemed to grow out of the ground, he made his way to the back door.

“I’ll see what I can get of them coming in.” Diana shifted her new, smaller camera to fish out the keys and gave them to Mike. He trotted back to the Newsmobile. He’d be closer to the action but able to see only the front door. I decided to go with Diana and keep watch on both doors.

We went in a side door of the barn, into dim, dusty heat. Staying well outside the shaft of light streaming in from the open front doors, Diana maneuvered toward the corner that would give her the best angle and be least visible. I followed.

Outside, I heard Mike start the Newsmobile. That was smart—that way he’d avoid having a new sound possibly alert the thieves.

“Here they come,” Diana said, looking through the viewfinder.

I peered over her shoulder. A plain white van notable only for the amount of dust it carried slowly cruised toward the house, going straight to the porch, before making a circle. Three heads inside turned this way and that, apparently looking for signs of life. After one complete, slow circle, the van pulled around again, facing out, with its back doors at the steps.

Two men and a woman, all in jeans, black T-shirts, and black cowboy hats, got out quickly. They went to the back of the van. The woman opened the doors, the men positioned a ramp straight across from the porch into the van.

“Spares wear and tear on the knees from going up and down steps,” I whispered.

The smaller man went to a window. I thought it was to check inside, but he barely looked before getting to work with a tool. He had the window open, was through it, and was opening the front door to his compatriots practically before we drew a breath.

Diana mouthed a word we would have had to edit out if she’d given it any volume.

After a brief pause, the men came out carrying a mammoth wide-screen TV. From inside, the woman’s voice said something about silver.

As soon as the men went back inside, the Newsmobile came around the barn and pulled across the van’s front. Not only could the van not get out, but Mike couldn’t either.

My attention snapped away from his efforts to scramble over to reach the passenger door when shouts, followed by a shot, erupted from the house.

Instinct had me running back through the barn, then following the path Deputy Shelton had taken, since it offered some semblance of cover. Diana came right behind me.

We cleared the tractor and dashed to the unidentifiable farm implement. And came face to face with the black cowboy-hatted female of the band of thieves. She made as if to dodge us.

“Stop!” I shouted. “We’ll shoot!”

Diana made a sound, but I was distracted by the appearance of an ill-tempered gnome at the open back door with a shotgun that had to be as tall as he was.

“If they don’t, I will!” shouted what could only be Hiram Poppinger, as he advanced on us.

The woman threw her hands up. “Don’t let him shoot me. He’s crazy!”

“Oh, for Pete’s sake, Hiram, put that thing down,” commanded Deputy Shelton from the doorway. He grabbed the barrel of the gun and neatly wrested it away as he walked past the rancher. “If you shot at her, you’d hit those TV vultures, and what’d I tell you about the world of trouble you’d have?”

Poppinger grumbled, but was distracted when Mike emerged from the house and asked, “Everything okay?”

“Just peachy,” Shelton said. “You and Hiram keep an eye on those two in the front room.”

“Mike Paycik! You’re Michael Paycik!” shouted the gnome as they disappeared inside. Hiram no longer appeared to be a threat, unless his adulation distracted Mike enough that the two male thieves got away.

Shelton held out the shotgun. “Here, hold this, Diana.”

“I can’t, I’m shooting.”

The thief jerked in alarm, but Shelton clucked and turned his glare on me. “You ever handled a gun?”

“Ever? Yes.”

He looked at me from under bushy brows and muttered a curse that would never make the air—not that I planned on any of this being in our package.

He pointed the gun toward the unoccupied distance. “Come over here and hold it like this. Whatever you do, don’t point it at any living creature, especially not me.”

I accepted the shotgun and the strictures, watching over my shoulder as he handcuffed the thief.

“Now,” he said, “let’s get back inside.”

He started off with a hold on the thief’s handcuffs and Diana shadowing them from the side, filming all the way.

“What about me?” I called.

“I’ll be back.”

Chapter Twenty-Eight

HE TOOK HIS time about it, but he did come back and relieve me of the shotgun.

“Suppose you’ll insist on going inside, joining those other two,” he grumbled.

“Since you already charged me the price of admission by leaving me out here, you’re damned right I do.”

He grunted, but I caught a glimmer of humor.

Mike appeared in a doorway at the far end of a kitchen that would give a location-finder for a 1930s drama and an HGTV designer heart palpitations for opposite reasons. “Deputy Shelton, they’re talking.”

Diana and I reached the door in a dead heat, with Shelton handicapped by tugging the third evil-doer. Poppinger shuffled along last, apparently losing interest now that shooting was out.

I let Diana go ahead, since she had the camera running, and found myself off to the side in a room that was overcrowded by the two male thieves and Mike, and threatened to burst with the addition of Diana, me, the deputy, his prisoner, and Hiram.

Deputy Shelton read them their rights, while they protested it was all an honest mistake. No standing on their right to remain silent for this trio. Theirs was a well-told story. Each had a part and a few key phrases. They were passing through the area, and they’d promised a buddy they would gather items he’d left behind when he moved out last year.

“No buddy of yours ever lived here,” interrupted Poppinger.

“Oh, we can see that now,” said the woman, going wide-eyed. “It’s so embarrassing.”

This buddy was, perhaps, the worst direction-giver ever—a veritable anti-GPS in human form—and here they supplied a pair of examples that caused the trio to chuckle in fond remembrance.

Poppinger gave them a narrow-eyed glare. “You had my silver coins. Ain’t no one told you to pick up my silver.”

“He did say he’d left money,” the bigger guy inserted.

“What’s this buddy’s name?” Deputy Shelton asked.

“Tom Johnson,” supplied the smaller guy.

“Nobody by that name’s lived in this country since I’ve been here,” Deputy Shelton said, deadpan.

I found that hard to believe, since it combined two of the more common names in the United States without stooping to John Smith. Apparently the three thieves found it even harder to believe.

The big guy recovered first. “Good God, we must be in the wrong county!”

“Then why’d you call me first with that malarkey about winning a contest? That was you, missy.” Hiram stabbed a stubby and dirty finger toward the woman.

She did the eye-widening bit again. “I never called you. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

While Hiram replied—I don’t think he used a single air-worthy word—I stepped to the side to relieve my hip, which was being pierced by the corner of an old cabinet, and to get a better view of everyone. Apparently that gave the smaller of the male thieves his first look at me.

“Hey, I know you,” he piped up. “You’re that lady on TV. Saw you on the news last night talking about us.”

He smiled at the camera, as the other two groaned.

WITH AMPLE backup from the sheriff’s department having arrived, and the routine well underway, I cornered Deputy Shelton.

“Can we ask you a few questions on camera?”

He heaved a capitulatory sigh. “Where do you want me, Diana?”

Without wasted words or long pauses, he delivered exactly what we needed like a pro.

When we finished, Diana headed to the Newsmobile, where Mike was being peppered by reminiscences from Hiram, joined by deputies.

I put out a hand. “It’s been a pleasure, Deputy Shelton.”

“Not sure I’d go that far.” He met my grip with one that would have turned my bones to dust if it had lasted much longer.

“Do you find it surprising that they’d seen the story on KWMT last night, knew the community was warned, and still tried to pull it off?”

“Nope. Once they’ve done it a few times, some of them just can’t stop,” Shelton said. “Doesn’t matter that sense says they’ll get caught. There’s something talking a lot louder in their heads, telling them they can get away with it. It’s ego, but it’s beyond ego. It’s like they can’t
not
do it.”

I nodded slowly. “You’re right. They can’t not do it.”

“And this time ego caught them real good, because of you putting that report on TV.”

“Why, Deputy Shelton, I thought we were vultures.”

“Vultures serve a purpose in nature,” he said, in perfect deadpan. “Besides, Michael Paycik was one hell of a ballplayer.” He nudged his hat brim. “And this’ll get Thurston Fine’s goat for sure.”

FINE SPUTTERED A few protests about airing the report on Hiram Poppinger and the thieves on Live at Five, but his heart wasn’t in it. I knew that, because he barely turned dark pink, and the veins in his forehead didn’t throb.

Well, maybe one twitch. I said on-air, all in a rush, that it was due to Fine breaking into the coverage of Keith Landry’s death the previous night to air my piece that Mr. Poppinger had been forewarned, allowing the sheriff’s department to lock up these dangerous criminals.

Fine then had to say he’d aired it for the good of the community, and that the action today was an important story.

A nice moment, compounded by Cheshire Cat grins from a number of staffers outside the studio afterward.

Jennifer, who’d already finished her KWMT shift, called and said she’d found two more towns with the same scenario as Sherman and the town near Denver—one in Texas and one in southern Colorado, both last summer. She was still digging. She also would email us the list of names of rodeo queens from towns where Landry had run the rodeo right back to the beginning.

Diana and I put together a shorter package for the late news with backseat editing by Mike. I was debating whether to do my intro live when another call came in for me.

Linda Caswell. Asking me to come to the rodeo grounds this evening. I said sure, in an hour.

I taped the intro. Mike and I ate at Hamburger Heaven, while Diana headed home to no doubt fix a nutritious and balanced meal for herself and her two kids.

Along with dinner, we chewed over why Linda might want to see us. “Not us, you,” Mike said with a touch of chagrin.

“To confess?” I suggested.

Mike frowned. “Tom says—”

“Spare me. But I agree confession’s a longshot. More likely she’s found out word of the bribe’s gotten to us—”

“You.”

“—and wants to spin that to us.”

“You.”

WE ARRIVED AT THE rodeo grounds along with the evening’s influx of entrants and workers, but well ahead of the spectators. The protestors didn’t bother to get out of their lawn chairs.

It reminded me of Thursday evening, with the arena, rodeo office, and pens stretching long shadows across the open areas. The population of vehicles had swelled with the continuing arrival of competitors for the weekend events. A few vehicles ranked as decidedly upscale—in the Grayson Zane category.

Linda met us outside the rodeo office. She gave Mike a dismissive greeting and said she was glad I could come.

He faded away graciously with only an I-told-you-so look. She led me around the far side of the office, and across a scrub area to a picnic table amid cottonwood trees by a creek a couple hundred yards away.

She sat on the attached bench, with her back against the table and a view of the dry creek bed. I sat beside her, the seat warm, but the shaded spot otherwise pleasant.

“I want to talk with you.” She didn’t say
woman to woman
, but it drifted between us.

“I prefer asking questions. Let’s start with the end of your relationship five years ago with Grayson Zane.”

She was ready for that. “As I said yesterday, he broke it off abruptly, but there’d been no promises or pledges.”

“What about heartache?” I asked.

This smile was rueful. “Entirely self-inflicted from falling from castles I’d built in the air all by myself. As I said, he made no promises or pledges, so he never broke any.” Then she went a step too far. “I can look back now and say we had a wonderful time, and wasn’t I fortunate to have had such an experience.”

“I don’t know how anyone can feel that way when they’ve been kicked in the teeth by love.”

“I heard you’re recently divorced, Ms. Danniher.”

Ouch. “Yes. As I said, I don’t know how anyone can feel that way when they’ve been kicked in the teeth.”

She relented with an expelled breath. “You’re right. I was much less philosophical at the time. I became quite
 . . .
low. That’s when Landry appeared.”

Clearly not a woman who enjoyed talking about this, so why was she? Trying to lead me toward something? Or only away?

“You immediately started dating Landry on the rebound?”

“Rebound
 . . .
yes. Though
dated
is more than it deserves. He showed up right after Grayson left. Keith offered a shoulder to cry on. I thought a kind shoulder, to pick up the pieces of someone shattered by another man. I suppose I needed someone
 . . .
to tell me—show me—I was attractive. As attractive as I’ve ever been.”

I let the silence extend. Some people over-explain in situations like this, giving more information than they ever intended.

“We had sex,” she said succinctly. “Frequently over the next week and a half. That was all we did. I finally took a look at myself, what I was doing. I didn’t like it
 . . .
I invited him to a cookout with friends. It seemed a logical step toward a more normal situation. He was gone the next morning. I was humiliated.”

“Your friends
 . . .
”

She waved that away sharply. “Humiliated in my own eyes.”

“By Zane, as well as—”

“No. He made no promises. Landry did. With Zane, it just ended. But with Landry
 . . .
He’d done it deliberately. Some things he said, about my family, about getting back at the Caswells for never thinking he was good enough for our rodeo
 . . .
I was sure.”

Did she recognize her words gave her additional motive to murder Landry? Did she care?

“I didn’t hear from him again until we were looking for someone to take over after Sweet Meadows folded. Then it was strictly in my role as committee chair.”

“Why didn’t Landry get this year’s contract to start? He’d had it for several years, right?”

“Yes, he had. But his fees had mounted at a rate that had already pushed us, and this year they jumped significantly. We looked at other bids, and Sweet Meadows won.”

“What did you know about the company?”

“I can’t tell you how, or if, their references were vetted, but they were glowing. When I became chair, I tried to reach them, without success. That was worrying, then with the bankruptcy, we were left with no choice
 . . .
”

“But to give Landry whatever he demanded. Why do you think he’d raised his fees so much to start with?”

“I only saw the finished bid. For how Landry reached that number, you’d have to ask Oren Street. He might know.”

“Only might? Street was Landry’s partner.”

She looked off to the side, narrowing her eyes. “That strikes me as the same category as an abused woman being called the abuser’s partner,” she said. “
Partners
, because they’re married. Yet, it’s not only not a true partnership, it’s a mockery of the concept.”

“In what way—for Landry and Street, I mean?”

She hitched her shoulders. I thought it carried impatience that I’d requested clarification. “Certainly financially, but you already know that, don’t you? I’m sure even less homework than you do would have revealed that.”

“And beyond financial?”

“Landry spoke for the company, did the negotiation, set the schedule. Oren carried out the orders, handling everything to do with the livestock.”

“Did Keith Landry consult Oren Street? Perhaps behind the scenes?”

“Not that I ever saw. He made decisions on the spot.” She considered. “No. The way he talked about Oren was dismissive. Slighting. The way he talked
to
him
 . . .
”

“Taken altogether, you’re saying Street has a motive for murdering Landry.”

“That’s not
 . . .
No.” Denial, but not shock at the accusation. It had been in her head somewhere. Possibly at the forefront.

“From what you said, it’s a natural conclusion. And,” I added deliberately, “saying so makes sense from your standpoint.”

“Why would I
 . . .
oh. Oh, yes, I see. I would be attempting to get out from under a truckload of assumed guilt dumped on me by heaping it on to Oren Street.”

“As I said, it makes sense from your standpoint.”

She regarded me for a long, silent moment. Long enough that I felt the drag of it tugging at words from the back of my mind, even though I know that trick and use it.