Left Hanging (26 page)

Chapter Thirty

I LOOKED AT MIKE. He looked back at me. We both looked at her.

She said, “Your dog really likes those bacon treats. He practically licked my hand raw.”

“He ate from your—” No. What a stray dog ate, and how he ate it, and whether he seemed to like anyone and everyone better than the person who was feeding and watering him and had given him a name wasn’t the point. I changed the subject to, “I swear the door was locked when I left.”

“It’s a junk lock,” she said with scorn.

“That is no
 . . .
” Her earlier words hit. “What did you find?”

“First, I found two more towns for that list I gave you at the station, all before last year. Then I found something
really
good.” Judging from her smirk, she was not referring to my cache of junk food. “Remember that woman who was registered as DBA for Sweet Meadows Contracting?”

“Yeah,” Mike and I chorused.

The impression that things were near to adding up in my head to produce an answer—even if I didn’t know the steps—returned. If I hadn’t been going full tilt, would it already have surfaced?

“I went back and looked at the location of her home address,” Jennifer said.

“It’s not a town Landry’s rodeo has been,” Mike said quickly. “I’d have recognized the name. I’m sure I would. I’ve looked at that list so many times
 . . .
It isn’t, is it?”

“Nope. But
 . . .
” Jennifer drew it out in triumph. “It’s four miles from where Landry’s rodeo was June, three years ago.”

“That’s when Sweet Meadows was founded,” Mike said.

“Yup.”

“Good job. Can you get background on this woman? As much as you can get legally and ethically,” I added for safety.

“What does it mean?” Mike asked. “Was she in on this with Landry, or did he use her as a front, and she didn’t know?”

“Don’t know yet, but it’s another piece of string to tug on.”

I started to walk away, but Mike lingered, saying, “Jennifer, that information you found about other towns having trouble with a new stock company backing out at the last second, can you put that together for us to look at?”

And I thought I saw the answer.

At least to this sub-issue. But we’d still need to work out a lot of steps to have the proof.

“Excellent, Paycik. Your instinct about the bankrupt contractor was right all along. Jennifer, see if you can find out if any of those other bankrupt contractors are DBA situations. And if there are more DBAs, check their locations against Landry’s schedule.”

Her eyes went wide, and she started to grin. “Cool!”

“And—” My mind jumped ahead. “See if that minister’s widow has a daughter who was rodeo queen when Landry was in town.”

“You think
 . . .
” Mike said. “But why?”

“Think? Yes. Know? No. But it’s sure worth having Jenny—uh, Jennifer check.”

She didn’t notice my slip. She was already typing.

TEN MINUTES later, Tom arrived.

“You all look half dead,” said Mr. Charm.

“Comes from an afternoon spent with one of your county’s solid citizens,” I said.

“I heard about that dust-up at Hiram Poppinger’s place.”

“You saw our coverage?”

Tom’s mouth twitched. “No. Wasn’t watching TV. Got a ranch to run. Taking advantage of long daylight. You should be home asleep,” he added to Jennifer.

She didn’t look up, her fingers didn’t slow. “Not yet. But if you’re going to talk, I’ll go somewhere else.”

At that, she did look up—at me.

I offered, “Kitchen, bedroom or bathroom—though I can’t recommend the bathroom unless you want to think you’ve come down with the plague.”

“Kitchen,” she said, balancing her open laptop on her forearm like a waiter, leaving a hand free for a bag of chips, pen, and paper.

With her gone, Tom turned to Mike and me, and I read the intention in his eyes.

“Oh, no you don’t. You haven’t known us since we were born. You can’t order us around.”

“Well, actually, he has known me
 . . .
” Mike started. Tom chuckled, and Mike joined in. “Not that I would leave.”

I was not in a chuckling mood. “Good. Then let’s go over this.”

“You’d both be better for some rest,” Tom said. “Why not come to it fresh in the morning?”

“Because it’s Wyoming’s version of a snow-bound English house party crime scene,” I said.

“Excuse me?” Tom said.

“Crossroads. Tell him, Mike.”

He did, then said, “But I don’t get the English house party connection.”

“All the suspects are gathered only as long as the storm holds them in place. Once the storm’s over, they disperse. No solution. Same here, except no snow, no English countryside, no house party, no lords and ladies, no servants.”

“Other than that, exactly the same,” Mike muttered.

I ignored that. “You told me if the rodeo is canceled, there’s no reason for out-of-towners to stay, and no reason for locals to be even as cooperative as they have been. So, you can leave, either or both of you, but I’m going over what we’ve got so far.”

“Staying,” Mike said, reaching for pad and pen.

Tom sat, took off his hat, hooked it on the corner of the couch frame again, and said, “What did you two pick up today?”

I took that opening. “Linda Caswell called me to the rodeo grounds this evening and proceeded to tell me a.) details about her romantic relationships with Zane and Landry, b.) what a bad relationship Landry and his partner had.”

“Interesting.”

“Isn’t it just. After all the effort to tell me the least amount possible, while portraying them as nearly-forgotten episodes in her distant past, suddenly she takes me into her confidence. And she piles on details about Street and Landry’s business that a couple days ago she knew nothing about.”

“And that has you thinking what, Elizabeth?”

“It has me thinking that she called me out to the rodeo grounds for the express purpose of telling me those things in order to redirect my attention from something or someone. In other words, covering up for somebody.”

“Could be.”

“I’m so glad you think so,” I snapped.

His mouth twitched. But it was dead straight when he said, “Ask what you want to ask.”

“Did you tell Linda about Newton bribing Landry?”

“No.”

“Was she one of your sources?”

“No.”

I believed him. Partly because of those damned Abraham Lincoln eyes. But also because of who else might have told Tom about a potential bribe and told Linda about telling Tom. Cas.

Mike stepped into a silence. “If Linda was covering up for somebody, can we eliminate her as a possible suspect?”

“No,” I said. “Might be an effort to throw us off. I’d have expected her to be more subtle.”

“She’s not accustomed to being subtle about things like murder,” Burrell said.

“If you can’t keep an open mind—”

He interrupted me. “I’m not going to pretend I think Linda murdered anybody.”

“You don’t have to,” Mike said. “Elizabeth and I don’t always agree on who’s a likely suspect. Just don’t interfere with thrashing out the possibilities.”

Tom nodded. “Okay. Here’s what I got today. One source I trust added a couple of tidbits of information, which is the end for what that one knows. But it led me to the second source I trust, and I did more digging. It seems Newton didn’t get one bribe, but more like a series of kickbacks from Landry.”

“For what?” Mike asked.

“For his vote on the first go-round, like we thought. And for voting to bring in Landry last-minute, with all those bonuses. Which, by the way, put him over what he’d asked for to start last fall. Then there was an additional payment in there, too.”

“If he’d heard rumors about Sweet Meadows going under, probably for word if it pulled out so he could get the jump on a last-ditch contract,” guessed Mike.

“That makes sense. Except it sounds, from what my source says, like it was for getting hold of documents and destroying them,” Tom said.

Mike raised his eyebrows at me. I replied with the smallest shake. These vague documents didn’t necessarily have anything to do with Sweet Meadows’ DBA status. What Jenny—
Jennifer
—had told us was so tentative, so new
 . . .
We’d have to see where her research and this conversation took us before trying to make connections.

“What documents?” I asked.

“No idea. Source swears to that. It was right around the time Sweet Meadows pulled out. Can’t pin down if it was before or after. I could use some coffee. Mind if I
 . . .
” He tipped his head toward the kitchen door.

“Help yourself. Mugs are in the cabinet above the coffee maker.”

Mike stood and said, “I need a refill, too. Elizabeth?”

“No thanks, I’m fine.” More accurately, caffeine wasn’t going to help what was bothering me.

I studied the list of women I’d talked to, going back ten years. Then the list of towns where Landry had been with the rodeo. Of course, the rodeos were where he’d met the women. But there was something else
 . . .
a connection like an echo
 . . .
or
something
. It was right there on the edge of the jumble in my head. If it would just come a little closer
 . . .

The kitchen door swung open, and I became aware I’d been hearing more activity from there than coffee required.

Tom came out with Jennifer in tow. “She was sound asleep with her head on the table. I’m taking her home.”

She muttered a weak protest, which he ignored. She did look tired. I thanked her, and she said she’d finish in the morning.

At the front door, Tom said he’d be back in a few minutes, because she lived nearby. I felt vaguely guilty for not knowing that. Or much of anything about her.

Mike set his coffee cup down and settled into the couch as the door closed behind them. “I know you play your cards close to the vest, but you can trust Tom.”

I wasn’t so sure. I didn’t believe he would overtly betray confidences, but he made no bones about having divided loyalties. What I said was, “It would be nice to get more facts before we launch into that. Besides
 . . .
”

“Besides?” he prompted.

“I have a feeling about all those powerful emotions swirling around.”

“But look at what we’ve found out about the business. Landry was cheating the rodeo left, right, and center.”

“You’re right. It’s a possible motive.”

“But you think his relationships are at the core of this?”

“
Relationships
is awfully high-tone for the sleaze he pulled.”

He raised his hands in surrender. “No argument here. Definitely slime. Okay, I buy it’s a possible motive. After all, look at what they say about hell having no fury like a woman scorned. In this case, multiply that by all the women we know about so far.”

“Oh, God, you, too? And that’s not the correct quote. It’s ‘Heav’n has no Rage, like Love to Hatred turn’d, Nor Hell a Fury, like a Linda Caswell scorn’d.’”

He eyed me. “My apologies to Shakespeare.”

“Not Shakespeare. Congreve.” I’d looked it up Friday after the discussion with Burrell on the drive back from the Newtons’. “And you notice the sequence of events here? The guy does the scorning. Not just a heartfelt, sorry, this isn’t working for me any longer, but outright
scorning
. That deserves more than a little fury. That deserves a capital F-capital U.”

My mind had followed a different path while I talked, one hitting the replay button on an unexpected track. Grayson Zane. That first conversation. The one time his calm held an edge.

Men like Landry take the sure thing. And if there’s not a sure thing to be taken, they rig it so there is
.

“But you say to chase the inconsistencies,” Mike said. “And the business side—”

“That’s it. That’s
exactly
it. The inconsistencies disappear if he knew—Oh, my God. He
knew
. Look at how Landry did things. He didn’t leave things to chance. When he wanted something, he arranged it. He stage-managed situations to make sure things came out exactly the way he wanted. The women, the contracts.”

I scrambled out of the chair—an effort hampered because the foot I’d tucked under had fallen asleep, as my mother always warned. I grabbed my phone in one hand and found the list of names and contact info with the other.

“Elizabeth? What—”

“Sequence of events. Maybe. If—Sonja? It’s Elizabeth Danniher from KWMT-TV. I won’t take much of your time. I have just a few questions. Before you started, uh, dating the rodeo cowboy who swept you off your feet when you were rodeo queen, how was he doing in the rankings?” I jotted notes as she talked.