“Yeah. I could get Dale to fill in for me, if there’s something important.” She looked at me hopefully.
“Not important enough to pull you off your shift, especially since Dale worked late last night. Besides, you have work to start on already.”
“What about you?” Mike asked me.
“I’m going to call Odessa Vincennes to schedule the end of our interview—” That drew nods all around, recognizing that would be a great opportunity to pump the woman about her reaction to the news of Furman York’s death. “—then do a little grocery shopping.”
This time the nods were joined by grins.
Chapter Twenty
Odessa didn’t answer her phone. I left a message, sufficiently vague that she would need to call me back if she wanted to know what I was talking about.
My phone rang as I pulled into the Sherman Supermarket’s wide-open-spaces parking lot, built for mega-pickups and people who didn’t like to be fenced in.
For about two seconds I congratulated myself on crafting a message that got such a prompt response. Then I saw the call was from my parents.
“Hi. Having a good time at Yellowstone?” I answered.
“It’s amazing. Stunning,” my mother’s voice responded. With that talking-from-inside-a-tin-can quality — or lack of quality — that said she had speakerphone on. “We should have brought you children here as a family. I can’t believe we never made this trip then.”
“Accident-prone daredevils, thermal springs, canyon, forest fires,” my father said in the background, presumably from behind the wheel, since I heard road noises.
“Nonsense,” Mom said firmly, rewriting history. “Our children would have gotten so much out of a trip here. I’m going to strongly recommend that Rob and Anna bring the children — maybe this summer.”
Dad groaned.
Mom willfully misinterpreted it. “Your father has been absolutely mesmerized by Old Faithful, Elizabeth.”
“Saw it erupt four times, Maggie Liz,” Dad exulted in the background.
“And we’ve seen the canyon and thermal springs and buffalo—”
“Bison,” I corrected on behalf of Mrs. Parens’ efforts to educate humanity on the difference. Not loudly. Maybe Mrs. P would have another shot at her when they came back through Cottonwood County on their return trip to Illinois — after a satisfactory conclusion to this murder investigation, I hoped.
“—deer, elk, wildflowers, mountains — oh, and so much more. Maybe we’ll come back out with Rob and Anna.”
That might be a record fast transition from considering suggesting to my brother and sister-in-law to a definite trip … and coming with them.
Dad said, “Rather take you off someplace alone, Cat.”
“Now, Jimmy.” Her voice had a grin in it, though. “The Lake Yellowstone Hotel has been lovely, Elizabeth. I’m so glad you recommended it.”
Uh-huh. Did Mom realize she’d connected being off someplace alone with Dad with the hotel, which had the bedrooms, which had the beds… Nope, wasn’t going there. Even though I suspected my face wore a bit of a grin at the moment. They were pretty cute together, my parents.
“And I’m glad you’re both having a good time.”
“Oh, we’ve had a wonderful time.”
Had? Not having? “But—”
“We thought we’d head out tomorrow.”
“Not too early in the morning,” Dad said.
“Jimmy.” That level of scolding wouldn’t stop a butterfly, much less a bison. “Not too early and spend the day leisurely, getting back to your house about dinner time. We’d—”
“Tomorrow?”
“—like to take you out for dinner. Yes, tomorrow.”
Did I say cute?
Only when they weren’t driving me nuts.
Especially by planning to arrive on my doorstep while we were trying to figure out who killed Furman York.
“You shouldn’t miss a chance to spend time in Cody on your way back. There’s a great museum — the Buffalo Bill Center of the West — and the Irma Hotel there was built by Buffalo Bill Cody. There are good restaurants and shopping. You shouldn’t miss it. You can go straight there from Yellowstone, have a nice few days. I’ll make reservations for you. Let me do that. I’d like to do that. Stay four or five days, then come back here to the small charms of Sherman.”
“I don’t know…”
“Really you need to see Cody. You can’t have come all this way and miss it. And I’d love to treat you after all you did for me while I was transitioning from New York, moving here, and everything.” That included the collapse of a career not long after the dissolution of a marriage. “Please.”
“Jimmy?” Mom asked him.
“The girl wants us to see Cody, I think we should visit Cody.” Yay, Dad! “She was right about Yellowstone and the hotel, wasn’t she?”
Mom giggled softly.
Yeah, they were pretty cute.
* * * *
I delayed entering Cottonwood County’s center of culinary staples and delights to call Jennifer.
“If I have Leona send you a couple hotels and several restaurants in Cody, can you make reservations over the next few days?”
“What? You’re going to leave now?”
“No. It’s for my parents.”
“But they’re at Yellowstone.”
“They’re leaving in the morning.”
“Oh. Oh.”
“Exactly.”
“Sure. I can slip in making reservations, no problem. Soon as I get the places from Leona.”
I called Leona next.
She answered with, “Busy.”
I explained concisely, without getting into why I wanted to stall my parents’ return to Sherman. She didn’t ask.
“Will get those to Jennifer.”
“Thank—”
She hung up before you.
* * * *
I had my packages of Pepperidge Farm Double Dark Chocolate Milano cookies in my shopping basket. Wished I could open one now to stoke me for what I was about to face, as the previous customer trundled out of Penny Czylinski’s checkout lane with a “Bye now” sendoff.
Listening to Penny was like buying one of those five-dollar boxes at an estate sale. For the chance of finding a treasure, you endured the certainty of taking home junk. You paid for the privilege. And you did it over and over.
“Well, hi there, Elizabeth. On the trail, aren’t—”
I lunged in with, “Do you know Odessa Vincennes?”
“—you. Figured. Told Carol Sue yesterday you’d be on it. Words barely out and news of Elizabeth Margaret Danniher being at the grazing association comes streaming in with all the rest. Pity for Tom Burrell. If he thinks he can come in here singing Love Me Tender—”
Tom? No, she couldn’t mean Tom. Had to be part of her indiscriminate pronoun use.
“—going to find out he’s mistaken. Won’t have that. Him singing in here. Not that.”
My brain skipped from Love Me Tender to Tamantha’s morning warbling. The two pieces didn’t connect, slowing me in picking up the threads of what Penny was saying.
“…and can’t expect much different with that apple not bouncing far from the tree. Like my granny said—”
I threw in a name, hoping it would bob up downstream in her flow. “Lukasik.”
“—at least they don’t ruin another couple. That woman’s as original as him. And—”
“Lukasik and—?”
“—that’s mighty original. His shenanigans—well, you know. You’ve been in the middle of them. With—”
“Wait, go back. The woman as original as him? Who? Odessa Vincennes?”
“—him shooting — shooting off his mouth and shooting off a gun, though can’t hardly fault him for that—”
My hopes spiked at the reference to shooting. For a blink, connections among Odessa Vincennes and Norman Clay Lukasik, then Lukasik and a gun, specifically shooting it, flared brightly.
Hopes splattered around me. The gun, the shooting, fell back to earth. Her reference to my witnessing an attempt at stealing, connected to my early months in Cottonwood County and made the him in this episode of Penny’s scattergun pronouns Hiram Poppinger, not Lukasik. And I saw no way to connect either man with Odessa Vincennes. Unless Penny knew of an aspect I didn’t…
“…talk to the old man. Not—”
Darn. I’d missed parts. Always dangerous to think while listening to Penny.
“What old man? Hiram?”
“—that he’d know everything, because he chooses not to. First one didn’t do it. Slide, sliding back to where he’d started. Hated that worse than anything. Needed another one and did it again. Him?” she scoffed. “Old man at the ranch. Knew that nice wife of his, too. Strange friends, real friends. And the boy. Turned around, though. Happy now. Hope it lasts for him. Not likely, considering the complications,” said Ms. Sunshine. “Sins of the father shouldn’t, but do, and wider than fathers. Well, bye now. Hi, there.”
I stumbled out of the end of the checkout lane, feeling I hadn’t gained anything. Except cookies.
* * * *
Back in the Sherman Supermarket parking lot with one of my packages of Pepperidge Farm Double Dark Chocolate Milano cookies already open, optimism resurfaced along with an idea.
I called Tom’s cell.
From the background noises he was driving his truck — not his ranch truck, because the engine noise wasn’t loud enough for that.
I explained about Odessa Vincennes, starting with yesterday’s interview and ending with the footage Jerry had shown us, while skipping the side issue of Thurston Fine. I finished with, “Do you know Odessa Vincennes?”
“No.”
“Hah. Finally found someone new enough to Cottonwood County to have slipped through the web you and your cohorts have spread.”
“Slipped past me, probably not Mrs. P.”
That deserved a heel-of-the-hand-to-forehead thunk.
“Of course. If her daughter’s a teacher…” Retirement had not cut Mrs. Parens off from the school system information network. “I’ll have to try her. In the meantime, I need your help deciphering Penny’s references to locals.”
“You’re usually good at translating her yourself.”
“Getting better at translating her, but as I said, these are local references. She was hopping around talking about Hiram, and then about a woman. I thought she meant Odessa.”
“Then what do you need me for?”
“Because, the more I think about it, the more I think Penny didn’t mean her. Here’s what she said.” I repeated, as precisely as I could, Penny’s comments about the old man at the ranch and having an odd friendship with a nice woman. “Not Hiram?”
“Not Hiram and not his ranch. Unless Penny was referring to something else entirely, I’d bet on Kesler, who works on Lukasik’s ranch. Kesler’s worked on the place most of his life from what I know. And the nice woman was Lukasik’s wife. Heard they were close before she died.”
“Oh?”
“Not that way. Kesler was like an uncle to her, maybe a granddad.”
Lovely for them, less promising for me. I moved on. “So, if he’s the man, the ranch is Lukasik’s, and the woman is the deceased Mrs. Lukasik, then the boy must be the son, Gable, right?”
“Seems likely. Don’t know it for a fact.”
“Thanks.” We ended the call.
Adding the people Tom had identified to my mental who-to-talk-to list shot Lukasik Ranch to first among places I needed to visit.
The question now came down to whether I waited for my colleagues to be free of their pesky jobs versus how much apologizing I would have to do for not waiting for them.
Chapter Twenty-One
I opted for apologizing.
My SUV’s navigation system informed me I’d reached the Lukasik Ranch and still had a stretch to go to reach the home ranch.
I finally spotted a handsome ranch house by a creek bed, with a cluster of working buildings well to the side and behind a screening of trees in the distance. That view also informed me the distance would take considerable time to traverse, with all the bends and curls in the road ahead.
But I was fortunate.
After a few bends and curls, I came into a long valley. Straight ahead as the crow flies, but not as the road went, was the home ranch, seeming no closer than it had at that first glimpse.
On my left, at the far side of a pasture greener than most I saw in this area, I saw a distant cowboy on horseback. Too far to call to. Past a couple of roadside cottonwoods, however, I came to a cowboy off his horse, doing something to a cow I preferred not to focus on too closely, all near to the fence that divided the pasture from this road.
I pulled over and got out, taking my time until the cow rumbled away and the man turned toward me.
By his movements, I’d expected a much younger man. By the creases in his face he could have been well into his eighties.
“Hi. I’m looking for Kesler.”
“You found him. Who’re you? What do you want?”
I extended a hand over the fence, hoping he took off the decidedly unlovely glove he’d been using with the cow. “Elizabeth Margaret Danniher. KWMT-TV.”
He took the glove off and shook my hand — crunching the bones slightly.
His expression did not convey delight or even neutrality at discovering my identity.
I pulled out the big guns fast.
“Penny from the supermarket—”
“Penny. There’s a good woman.”
“She is.” Over his shoulder, I saw the rider across the paddock watching us. “She sent me to talk to you.”
“Penny did.” A statement, not a question, and filled with skepticism.
Justifiable skepticism, I had to admit, considering Penny’s indirect mode of communication.
“Not that succinctly. But that was the gist.”
“Gist.”
Bolstered by the mildness of this repetition, I said, “She said you could fill me in on a few things. In fact, she said you were the best possible person to give me background.”
He spit. “You mean blabbing all over about people so you can figure out who killed Furman York and make another one of those TV programs? Why would she think I’d want to do that?”
Skipping arguments about truth and justice and how one person’s murder going unsolved hurts us all, I said, “So that the wrong person isn’t charged.”
That caught him. But he approached it sideways. “Like who?”
A gamble to guess whom he might be worried about without more guidance.
But how much time did I have to be subtle? He hadn’t exactly welcomed me. As much as I wanted to push Kesler, that risked he’d close the door completely. Plus, I feared my alone time with him was running out. The other rider turned toward us, advancing at a slow trot.
“Hard to tell who might catch the attention of the authorities. Say, someone known to have argued with him shortly before he was killed.”
His face hardened. “Furman York was forever arguing with somebody. Pure chance of who was the last one when he got himself killed. Cottonwood County Sheriff’s Department should be able to figure that out.”
Too bad Shelton or Sheriff Conrad, wasn’t here to hear that.
Agreeing with him, though, wasn’t a good tactic for what I wanted.
“Maybe. But once something like that points in a direction, they’re bound to dig deeper. Find out things otherwise innocent people might not want found out.”
He squinted at me, not giving an inch.
There had to be a way in with him. Time to toss spaghetti against the wall and see what stuck.
�
��How long have you worked here?”
“Long time.”
“The same long time Norman Clay Lukasik has owned this ranch?”
“Pretty close.”
That meant a lot of overlap with Furman York.
“Did Lukasik bring you here from somewhere else? Did you already work for him?”
“No.” His tone said No way in hell.
One piece of stuck spaghetti.
“Did you know Furman York before coming here?”
“No.” And didn’t bother to hide that he hadn’t wanted to know York at all.
“Who were his friends on the ranch?”
“Hell if I know.”
“You must be aware of who he spent time with, went for a beer with after work. Or friends outside of the ranch.”
“Didn’t keep his social calendar.”
The approaching rider slowed his horse to a walk. Kesler didn’t turn, didn’t shift his eyes, or betray any overt indication awareness of the newcomer’s presence.
I was sure he knew, though.
Now he’d braced for more on York. Time to switch gears.
“Penny said — indicated—” I corrected the word with a smile. “—the Lukasiks’ son basically grew up here, works on the ranch now. Not just being the owner’s son. Good worker?”
“Yep.”
“Some say he — Gable — is getting more and more valuable when the ranching community works together. Roundups, branding and such.”
“As long as he’s not mooning after that girl.”
Jessica Stendahl, Penny, and now Kesler. This must be some romance.
“Growing up, he spent a lot of time with his mother here at ranch, right?” A silence was as good as a yep with this man. “Penny told me about Mrs. Lukasik being a very nice woman.” No need to spell out Tom’s interpreter role. “And her tragic accident.”
“Real nice lady. Nobody better say different in my hearing. Real shame about her dying. Especially for her boy.” He shifted, recognizing he’d given away more caring than he’d intended. “Didn’t know a lick about ranchin’, but a nice lady.”
“Kesler?” the rider said from half a dozen yards away.
Reaction Shot (Caught Dead in Wyoming, Book 9) Page 13