He didn’t turn. “Nothin’ for you to worry about, Gable.”
The rider came on anyway, and swung out of the saddle, taking his cowboy hat off as he did.
I employed a friendly, harmless smile while I studied him.
Gable Lukasik had his father’s height, with flesh on his frame.
Despite the cowboy attire, including working boots, gloves, and hat, he had a vaguely preppy look. It might have been the hair — shiny brown, it came away from a peak at the top of a thoughtful forehead and did a smooth side sweep. A bit longer on top than a lot of Wyoming men, but trimmed on the sides and back.
He had a round face. Not pudgy, soft. Like a layer of cushioning between him and the outside world. An attractive face, prevented from lapsing into cute by the gravitas of dark brows over deep brown eyes.
I widened my harmless smile. “Gable Lukasik? I’m Elizabeth Margaret Danniher, from KWMT-TV. Came out here to your ranch at Penny’s suggestion. You know Penny, right? So, you’ll understand I’m terrified that if I cross her, she’ll cut off my cookie supply. She’d never let me starve, but she might torture me by limiting my chocolate access.”
Kesler muttered, “Foolishness.”
Gable smiled. “For me, it’s tortilla chips. Cut off my chips and I’d fold at the knees.”
“Exactly.” We were compatriots. Fellow travelers in the wicked world of carbs.
“I’ve seen you on the news,” he said. “I pay attention when you’re on.”
“Thank you.” I meant it. A modest compliment, yet genuine. “You work here on the ranch, right?”
I could try to ease him into talking about the operation of the ranch, and from there, possibly, to an indication of whether he knew of York’s rustling activities. Though the latter probably would have to wait until we were away from Kesler’s clam-like influence.
“I do. Not sure how much help I am, though.”
“You’ll do.” That, I suspected, qualified as an extravagant compliment from Kesler.
Gable’s eyes warmed an instant, then went flat. “Suppose you’re out here about York?” he said to me.
“I am. In fact, I was just about to ask Kesler if he saw Furman York yesterday morning. I’ll ask you both now.”
“Nope,” Kesler said.
Gable frowned slightly. “He must have gotten up earlier than usual. The truck he uses wasn’t here when I left to check out some fence a little before nine.”
“Alone?”
“Yep.”
“How about you, Kesler? Where were you yesterday morning?”
“Doctoring cows.” He jerked his head north. “Next pasture up.”
“Alone?”
“’Cept cows and my horse.”
“We’re not much help.” Gable looked faintly apologetic. Kesler didn’t. “What other kind of information are you after?”
“Background. Get a feel for where he’d worked so long. Those who worked beside him and—”
“Heads up.”
My first inclination to be irked at Kesler — bad enough he’d been no help, but now to interrupt my foundation-laying with the alternate — faded as I followed the jerk of his head toward the road from the home ranch.
A green pickup with the same logo as the one I’d seen at the grazing association barreled toward us with a plume of dust boiling behind it.
With neither Kesler nor Gable scrambling out of the way, I felt honor-bound to hold my ground, too. But I was grateful the truck had good brakes when it nose-dipped to a stop a yard from us.
Norman Clay Lukasik sat behind the wheel.
Not for long.
He seemed to catch hold of the top of the door frame and swing out with it, as if he didn’t have time to exit the normal way.
It brought him among us startlingly fast, never even disturbing his cowboy hat.
“Don’t leave on my account, Gable.” His words mocked, rather than extended an invitation.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The son had adjusted his hold on his horse’s reins in gloves that matched Kesler’s for stain and spatter, as if preparing to mount. “Better get back to work.”
“Stay,” the father ordered.
The older ranch hand grunted. Gable glanced at him.
Lukasik didn’t. He didn’t look toward his son, either, clearly assuming he would be obeyed. He focused on me, watching me watch them.
The second my gaze came to him, Lukasik said, “Digging up dirt?”
“Background,” I said equably. Nothing bothered a goader more than not being goaded.
“Nothing here for you to add to your background.”
“Don’t be so modest.” My dryness matched the day’s non-existent humidity level. “Everyone knows you represented Furman York when he was found not guilty of murder.”
Taking my suggestion at face value, he said, “I did keep him from the gallows, metaphorically speaking. Not another lawyer could have pulled it off.”
“He must have been grateful to you.”
I had a momentary impression of tightening around his eyes, suppressed in record time. They talk about micro expressions. This — if it existed — was a nano expression.
“Ah, yes. He was. Most grateful.” He paused to build anticipation. “But not so grateful as to refuse a paycheck.”
His dry smile started his own chuckle. No one joined him.
Kesler continued his getting-nothing-out-of-me pose. The look the younger Lukasik sent the elder lacked all familial affection and admiration.
One thing for sure, Lukasik senior expected to be the center of attention. Seeing what came of going along with that expectation, I asked, “Did he do good work for that pay?”
“Of course. Otherwise, wouldn’t have kept him for years, made him foreman.”
“Yet you said that under him as foreman your herd only stayed even, didn’t grow. Doesn’t that concern you?”
“Not at all. Long as this place pays for itself— No, doesn’t even need to do that. Long as it doesn’t cost so much I can’t afford it, that’s good enough. It’s a place to visit now and then that offers a change from the office and courtroom. Gable’s the one devoted to this place.”
He tossed that in as an aside, almost as if it indicated a weakness in his son.
As a human being, the apparent discord in a father-son relationship struck me as sad.
As a journalist and digger into murders, I knew a lead to follow up on when I saw it. Especially since Gable’s reaction to his father’s arrival plastered a big neon arrow in the sky over his head.
I also knew not to do it now, with them together. The time to tackle Gable would be off on his own, when he wasn’t strung tight by his father’s presence.
For now, I continued asking Lukasik senior about York.
“How did York feel, after the passage of years, about having been on trial for murder?”
“Shouldn’t you have a camera rolling and a microphone in my face when you ask questions?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Furman blamed TV for his predicament.”
Despite myself, some of my reaction must have shown.
Lukasik chuckled. “Not the little local station here.” His ersatz reassurance didn’t cover his pleasure at dismissing KWMT-TV. “No, he blamed 60 Minutes.”
Had he missed the real cause of my reaction? Or had he purposely detoured toward television egos because he’d picked up my disgust at his categorizing a young woman’s murder as a predicament for the man charged with her murder?
“60 Minutes didn’t do anything on him,” I said with confidence.
I would have heard about that. Probably from half the county. Definitely from Mike, Diana, Mrs. P, Aunt Gee, and probably from last night’s research before sleep knocked me out.
And yet, after those assured words and thoughts, a crackle of Could I have missed it? doubt hit my nerve-endings.
Followed immediately by a recognition of Norman Clay Lukasik’s power.
I needed to think more abou
t that. Later.
Lukasik watched me, his eyes dark and avid, his mouth smiling faintly.
I said evenly, “Furman York felt the piece 60 Minutes did on Rock Springs influenced Cottonwood County’s view of him.”
“Very good, Elizabeth Margaret Danniher. He did. Yes, he did.”
“He felt that way at the time of his trial? Or in the years since?”
“Both. If anything, more strongly as years went by.”
“Then he didn’t know the people of Cottonwood County.” And hadn’t learned about them in the decades he’d lived here.
“Oh? You present yourself as an expert on the people of Cottonwood County? Yet you’re a newcomer, aren’t you?”
“I am, having been here a little over a year. It took only a fraction of that to recognize Cottonwood County does not look to TV — local or national — to form its opinions. Furman York spent how many decades here, yet you say he didn’t recognize that?”
“But then you’re a smart, sophisticated, educated, and worldly young woman. Not at all like Furman York.”
I verbally stepped around that pile of … compliments. “What was Furman York like? You must have known him well, all the years of his working for you, not to mention representing him in a murder trial.”
“Not to mention getting him acquitted,” he edited in a murmur that still would carry to the corners of a courtroom. “But as I said before, I can’t say I knew him well. Not sure anyone truly did.”
Classic distancing from an unsympathetic character. Though Lukasik clearly hadn’t done that when York was alive. Was it cynical to think that was because York had been useful to him in life, but wasn’t in death?
Not too cynical to explore.
“You knew him well enough — and trusted him well enough — to have him run your ranch.”
“Business. Purely business. A very different connection from the kind that would lead to a crime like this. He was my client and then he was my employee.” More distancing. “I’m too busy a man to cultivate buddies.”
“Who are his buddies?”
“I have no idea.” His eyes widened as he spoke, as if it had never occurred to him that York might have buddies. “Kesler, you have any idea? Gable?”
Both shook their heads, Kesler looking straight at Lukasik and Gable with his head down.
“There you have it. A man either without buddies—” Lukasik twisted the word. “—or without his buddies being known by us.”
More wriggling away from his connection to York. “Yet you spoke so eloquently of him yesterday.”
“On his behalf as a human being, who did not deserve to be shot down, perhaps over a dispute with someone who appears to view himself as a demigod in this county.”
He meant to rile me with the not-so-oblique accusation of Tom.
I was unriled.
However, two interesting things. First, that he wanted to rile me, which could be a significant reaction because I’d gotten too close to something or could be an automatic reflex. Second, that he’d used a description that fit himself far better than Tom.
“I don’t believe the sheriff’s department knows what might have led to this murder yet. What about you? What do you think led to York being shot?”
“Me?” His opened hand pressed to his heart. “I am merely a bit player in this event.”
As much as I didn’t believe that, he believed it less.
“Another one,” Kesler said.
When we all looked at him as a result of the non sequitur, he jerked his head toward the ranch road again, this time in the opposite direction.
He was right. Again.
No vehicle in sight yet, but another dust plume tracked its progress from the entrance and toward us.
Whether it was aversion to dealing with whoever might be coming or taking advantage of his father’s distraction, Gable mounted easily, turned, and left a view of his back and his horse’s rump.
The arriving truck came at a reasonable speed and stopped a safe distance behind mine.
The two men might not have recognized the truck, but I knew from a slight change of atmosphere that they recognized the man who got out of it.
Tom Burrell.
Chapter Twenty-Three
“Oh, God, he’s here to moan again about something or other.” Lukasik didn’t modulate his courtroom voice.
Tom heard, didn’t react.
His arrival surprised me, but didn’t displease me. Antagonism can be a great truth-finder and, under Lukasik’s mocking, antagonism poked its pointed head.
“Kesler,” Tom said.
“Tom.”
“Lukasik.”
“Burrell.”
Four flat names, yet the first two held respect and the last two none.
“What’s the matter now, Burrell?”
Tom looked at Lukasik silently.
“Come, come, surely you have complaints to lay at my feet. What sin against the sacred communal order of cow patties have I committed now?”
“You’ve committed most of them, even though you’re hardly ever here.”
“My vital responsibilities take me far beyond the aroma of cow patties. I have no time for such—”
“You want to leave the grazing association? We’ll be happy to oblige. Won’t even charge you the fees you put into the agreement years back. But, as it stands now, you’re a member of the grazing association and membership carries responsibilities. Especially when there are issues—”
“Not my issues. You said yourself I’m hardly ever here.”
“Furman York is your employee—
“Was.”
“—and was when the problems arose. You have responsibility for—”
“Bull. A gas station owner can’t be held legally liable if his clerk goes out and robs another gas station.”
That sounded darned close to an admission of knowledge of rustling. Yet it wasn’t.
Tom’s eyes narrowed. “He’s got ethical responsibility if the other gas station owner gives him strong proof and he chooses to keep putting that clerk in a position to commit more robberies. And the law will frown on it if this first gas station owner spreads his arms and lets the thieving clerk hide behind him.”
Norman Clay Lukasik came upright in a snap. He winced, nearly squelched it. Couldn’t be sure if whatever caused the wince or his failure to stop it sharpened his tone as he closed the gap to Tom.
“Look here, son—” He slathered the word with sneer. “—you better watch what you’re saying. You understand?”
“I understand that I haven’t said anything I’m about to take back.”
They stood, not nose to nose, but nearly cowboy hat brim to cowboy hat brim. Tension tightened the tops of my shoulders.
Lukasik made a chuffing sound that might have been laughter, smiled — not pleasantly — and stepped back. “As long as we understand each other.”
“I understand you.”
“Listen—”
“This is gettin’ to be a regular party,” Kesler said.
“What the f—” Lukasik swallowed the word we all heard anyway. “—are you talking about, old man?”
In what was rapidly becoming a familiar gesture, Kesler jerked his head toward the road, this time past Tom’s truck. I turned. Here came another vehicle heading toward us and eventually the home ranch.
No. Several vehicles. All from the Cottonwood County Sheriff’s Department.
Another change of atmosphere behind me.
As I adjusted to turn my body for a better look without corkscrewing my neck, I spotted Gable Lukasik opening a gate from astride on the far side of the pasture and riding out. Continuing the turn, I encountered wooden expressions from Kesler, Lukasik, and Tom.
Nothing to read there, so back to the sheriff’s department parade.
The lead vehicle swung around Tom’s truck and my SUV, while the rest stopped behind. That lead vehicle continued to us, effectively blocking Lukasik’s truck unless it backed up.
/>
Sergeant Wayne Shelton got out.
I was becoming a connoisseur of men making exits involving modes of transportation. Lukasik had gotten out of his truck with a swing, Gable departed on horseback with stealthy smoothness, Tom left his truck with studied deliberation, and now Shelton hopped out of his four-wheel-drive. His short stature required that from the tall vehicle, his innate dignity bleached any hint of comedy from the move.
Innate dignity didn’t improve his temperament, however.
“What are you doing here?” he demanded of me.
“My job.” Before he could introduce petty facts about whether my nominal boss at KWMT-TV also saw it as my job, I continued, “Interviews. A very interesting conversation with Mr. Lukasik.”
“Please, call me Norman.”
His words aimed at me, the gleam in his eyes focused on Tom.
No reaction from Tom.
Shelton had a reaction, which centered on me. Aren’t I lucky?
“Interviewing folks is my job in this investigation and I want to follow up some things with Mr. Lukasik. Kesler, too. So, you get along, both of you.”
“Both of them? Shouldn’t you hold onto Tom Burrell? Question him? After all, as you know, he’s the one who exchanged a certain kind of pleasantries with Furman most recently,” Lukasik said.
“Furman York told you about that, did he?” I asked Lukasik. “So you knew the subject of those pleasantries. When did York talk to you? What did he say? Was anyone else there? Were you, Kesler?”
“Not me.”
Lukasik spoke almost on top of the ranch hand’s words. “Furman relayed the tenor of the interaction, not its substance. He knew I have no interest in the running of the ranch. He was, however, concerned enough by threats of personal violence made by Tom Burrell the day before his death to tell me of those.”
“Did you see him yesterday morning?” I slid in.
“No. Not until I was called to the scene where his dead and bloodied body—”
“What were you doing in the morning?”
“You — better yet the authorities — should be asking Burrell for his whereabouts for—”
“The authorities know my whereabouts.”
Reaction Shot (Caught Dead in Wyoming, Book 9) Page 14