Coup de foudre.
The French expression for a lightning strike, also used for love at first sight, whispered in my head. I could practically smell the singe from that moment.
“We talked and ate and talked and ate. All of us, I mean. Then, Asheleigh and I went out for dessert, just the two of us, because Odessa didn’t have any in their apartment and—”
Asheleigh laughed. “She did. She had ice cream and cookies. It was all a ploy to let us get off by ourselves.”
“Worked for me.” He grinned. “We spent hours talking that night.”
“And have been together ever since.”
Also finishing each other’s sentences.
“Odessa sure knew best,” he said.
“I generally do,” came Odessa Vincennes’ voice from behind me, as if she’d come up the sidewalk to join them.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
“Mom.”
“Hi, Odessa.”
I couldn’t interpret Asheleigh’s greeting — warning? concern? apology? neutrality? — but Gable’s was pure cheerful welcome.
She looked a quick order to her daughter, then focused on Gable. It was an odd look. I couldn’t immediately categorize it. Rather than try in the moment and risk cementing a mistaken impression, I concentrated on memorizing it.
I didn’t have much time to devote to memorizing, because she quickly turned to me.
But I got in the first word. “How great to see you again, Odessa. About continuing our interview—”
“I can’t possibly do that before next week and I can’t commit to it then.”
“That’s a shame.” And a change from when I’d first contacted her about the interview. She’d jumped on the first slot I’d offered. “It will postpone getting public support. Especially with this murder — you’re aware of that, right?” I asked the two women, getting looks so scrubbed clean of emotion that they must have had the mental equivalent of housemaid hands. “Of course you must be, since the murder victim was Gable’s father’s ranch foreman. Well, I suspect it will take up a lot of the station’s air time, so I don’t know when we’ll be able to get that segment of ‘Helping Out!’ on-air if we don’t get it going immediately.”
That made no sense from a news standpoint. The time devoted to a story generally shrinks after the initial blast. I doubted they knew that, which was good from my standpoint. Not so good, that they apparently didn’t care.
Odessa shook her head, the only sign of not being completely at ease the subtle rubbing of her thumb along the side of her forefinger.
My chances of getting her in front of a camera to grill her about her reaction to the news of Furman York being shot hadn’t improved one bit.
On the other hand, I had Gable in front of me and he appeared the most cooperative of the three. I didn’t hesitate to make a sharp turn in the conversation.
“It was nice to see your ranch yesterday, Gable. I’d heard so much about it.”
Ah. I’d pressed the right button. His eyes brightened, the niceness of his face multiplied.
“Your father didn’t seem as devoted to ranching as I’d have expected…”
He snatched that worm, along with the hook. “Devoted? No, he’s not devoted. It’s not high profile. Don’t get publicity for ranching. Though he did manage to get on TV yesterday, thanks to your colleague.”
My micro-expression response to the concept of Thurston Fine as a colleague apparently placated Gable, because he abruptly relaxed.
Before he had a chance to change his mind, I said, “Kesler and Tom said you’re heading toward being a good rancher.”
“That’s what I want. I’ve always loved it here. As a kid, this started as my place away from, uh, Denver and life there. But it wasn’t long before I loved being here for itself. Mom, too. Mom and I spent as much time here as we could. Summers, the holidays, school breaks. Sometimes she’d even take me out of school to spend longer here. She needed it as much as I did. There’s something about this place. We could breathe here. Even if my father tried to discourage us.”
His grim smile stretched the angles of his face, making it far less cute, though more compelling. It made me aware of strength beneath the softness, like rock under lush grass. I suppose he needed to have underlying strength just to keep upright against the bulldozer who was his father.
“I decided to go to UW — that’s the University of Wyoming—” As if I hadn’t learned that my first few weeks here or risk being completely lost in half the newsroom conversations. “—to be closer. To come here for breaks. Especially…” He breathed a moment, head tipped forward. “Mom died November 5 in my freshman year. Car accident. Stinking car accident. A couple blocks from the Denver house. A cat was running loose. Mom tried to avoid it. The other car did, too. Didn’t even set off the airbags. But she hit her head. Just the wrong spot. They said she’d had a weakness there all her life. Could have lived with it for years if it hadn’t been for this accident.”
“I’m so sorry, Gable.”
As softly as I’d said the words, they still disrupted his remembering.
“Yeah. Thanks. It’s been a long time now.” Asheleigh’s hand tightened around his and he reciprocated.
Odessa never took her eyes off Gable’s face, her expression blank.
I said, “I’ve heard such good things about your mom from everybody.”
“Yeah.” He cleared his throat. “She was special.”
“It must have been very hard for your father,” Odessa said unexpectedly.
He swallowed.
“He worked. I was at school.”
If that was meant to convey Gable didn’t know his father’s reaction because they were separated, it failed.
Awkward silence followed.
As if driven to fill the silence, I said, “I didn’t have a chance yesterday to ask if you can help fill in gaps we have on Furman York. Who are his friends among the hands on the ranch? No? He doesn’t have any?”
He was shaking his head. “He was foreman.”
Somehow, I didn’t think Furman York’s supervisory role explained his apparent lack of friends.
“Friends off the ranch?”
“No idea.”
“He must have had some associates, social life?”
More head-shaking.
“He must have talked about those things.”
“If he did, I didn’t hear it.”
This was getting old.
“Did he ever leave the ranch? Have time off?”
“Sure.”
“Where did he go, what did he do?”
“We weren’t buddies. I don’t know.”
“Was he a monk?”
His eyes cut toward Odessa, likely in discomfort at letting the mother of his girlfriend know he was aware of any lifestyle outside of a monastery.
“No.”
“If you know that, then you must have some idea of what he did and where he went when he left the ranch.”
Another look toward Odessa.
But she was looking at her daughter. Issuing some sort of order, if I knew mother-daughter eye conversations. Asheleigh radiated reluctance.
“Other hands talked about him going down to Denver, up to Billings when he had a few days.”
That answered where. He wasn’t going to explain what as long as Odessa was on hand unless York had turned into Mother Teresa on those trips.
“Speaking of the ranch…” Asheleigh’s light voice claimed Gable’s attention immediately. He smiled at her, apparently missing the clouds in her eyes. “You mentioned having us to dinner at the ranch, Mom and me. Or have you forgotten?”
“That was before—”
“I’d love to meet your father,” Asheleigh lied.
It was Odessa who wanted that meeting.
I remembered some of Penny’s words.
And the boy. Turned around, though. Happy now. Hope it lasts for him. Not likely, considering the complications. Sins of the father shouldn’t, but do, a
nd wider than fathers.
Had she meant Gable? The sins of the father fit. So did the complications. Especially if the wider encompassed a pushing mother.
During our abbreviated interview, I’d thought better of Odessa than being someone who pushed her daughter toward the son of a famous — and presumably rich — father. But the mother-daughter interchange, Asheleigh’s reluctant maneuvering of Gable, and now Odessa’s satisfaction, said otherwise.
“I, uh… We’ll do that. Soon. Just now it isn’t a good time.” Gable had picked up more than I thought, based on his directing his apology to Odessa. “But right now, sorry — I’ve got to go. I promised Kesler I’d have that tool back to him.”
“But lunch,” Asheleigh protested with a vague wave toward the sign for a restaurant a few doors away, apparently their intended destination. “You haven’t eaten.”
“I’ll get takeout, eat on the way back. I’ll call you. Bye.” He squeezed her hand, then released it and turned to go back the way he’d come.
“I better get going, too, if I’m going to have any lunch.” I smiled. And blatantly turned to go with Gable.
A few strides up the sidewalk, I said, “Speaking of your father—”
“Please don’t.”
I let his snapped words ride, curious how he’d react.
Still striding, he glanced at me, then away. “Sorry. It’s been a tough time.”
“I’m sure it has. Has it made it better or worse having your father around for — how long?”
“Almost two weeks now. And it’s made it worse.” He muttered something more that sounded like, “It always does.”
I led that slide past. “It’s unusual, isn’t it for him to spend this long at the ranch.”
He hesitated just an instant as we turned onto Yellowstone Street, as if to absorb a new revelation to him. “It is. He’s usually only here a couple days at a time.”
“Well, maybe this will give you time to arrange that dinner, introduce Asheleigh and her mom to your dad.”
“Yeah.” He looked and sounded like a very downhearted preppy at the moment.
I hoped the romance survived Momma trying to advance it by pushing to meet Norman Clay Lukasik. I couldn’t imagine he’d be much of a cupid for the young couple.
“I suppose he needs to stay now — indefinitely? — to run the ranch with the foreman dead.”
“Him?” Did Gable’s scoff apply to his father or York or both? “Kesler’s running the place. I’m helping as much as I can. Bye, Elizabeth.”
He took me by surprise with a dive toward a parked pickup. He and Asheleigh must have just gotten out of it when I spotted them.
I waved goodbye and continued along Yellowstone Street until he was out of sight and I could turn around to head home.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
As promised, I called Mike as I walked toward my house.
“Hold on a minute,” he said immediately. “Better yet, we’ll call you back. Couple minutes, okay?”
I reached the side street that formed one edge of Courthouse Square and led to the sheriff’s department, tucked behind the imposing courthouse occupying the center of the oversized block.
Looking down the street toward the building housing the sheriff’s office, jail, and fire department headquarters, the strangeness of Shelton letting us talk to Hiram Poppinger struck me again.
I hesitated, debating a detour to the sheriff’s department.
My phone rang.
I dropped the detour impulse and answered, continuing past the courthouse.
“Okay. We’re all in the bigger editing booth and you’re on speaker,” Mike said.
“We’ve got to stop meeting like this,” Diana said. “Though there’s more oxygen without you and Jerry.”
“I’m out for a walk on a nice, sunny day. I have plenty of oxygen.”
“I wish.” Jennifer sighed, deflating my gloating.
“Explain why you bailed on us,” Mike said.
I did, along with what happened after I caught up with Gable and Asheleigh, as well as Odessa’s arrival.
“She really doesn’t want to finish that interview with you, does she?” Diana commented.
“Apparently not.”
“She could be afraid her daughter’s boyfriend killed Furman York. That would really upset her.”
“That’s a long shot,” Mike said.
“It makes sense of how she looked in the interview tape when you said Furman York was murdered and her staying away from Elizabeth and that look on her face Elizabeth just described,” Jennifer insisted.
If Odessa had her sights set on her daughter marrying Gable for his family money, ranch, and fame, having him accused of murder would be a real blow to her ambitions.
“We shouldn’t get too tied to her expressions,” I said. “I once interviewed a law enforcement expert on non-verbal cues. He thought he had an interviewee pegged as having all sorts of guilt about something. Turned out the suspect was coming down with the flu and had to run to the bathroom.”
Jennifer argued, “Could’ve been faking it. Or it was guilt making him sick.”
“Then his guilt was contagious, because half the office then came down with the flu.”
“Oh.”
“So you don’t set any store by Odessa Vincennes’ expression as she looked at Gable?” Diana asked.
Darn the woman for pointing out the flaw in my dismissing this. “I wouldn’t say that.”
“So, you do set store by it.”
“Yes. Fine. I do. But not in any one potential interpretation of it. That expression was there. It was strange. Those two things I’ll stick to, but an interpretation? No. So, it does us no good because we don’t know what it meant. And that means it doesn’t advance us any. If, in fact, there’s anything there. I mean, look at it, the person killed is the foreman of a ranch. This is the owner of the ranch’s son’s girlfriend’s mother. That’s almost enough degrees of separation to get to Kevin Bacon. Are we going to look into him, too?”
“Protesting too much,” Diana murmured.
Jennifer provided the opportunity to ignore that murmur. “I’ve sent you the trial transcript and articles about the trial, plus the timeline we’ve got so far on Furman York — those three years are still blank, but we’re working on it.”
“Great. I’m almost home. I’ll start going through what you’ve sent while I have lunch and decide what to do next.”
Mike said, “What about Gable?”
“He was more forthcoming now than when daddy was nearby. But showing up at the ranch after just talking to him? More likely to make him defensive than open up.”
“Besides, why would Lukasik kill his foreman?” Jennifer asked.
“And his former client,” Diana added.
“Not much of a foreman. Guess he was a good client, since that case gave Lukasik his big career break.”
Mike shifted gears. “You think Gable will talk to you more openly—”
Pounding sounded in the background and, even more distant, the plea, “Hey, I need the editing bay.”
“—if Asheleigh’s not around, too?”
“The way those two look at each other, I might never have a chance to find out.”
* * * *
I opened the front door in answer to a knock and froze.
“But… But you’re in Cody.”
My mother and father smiled at me from my front doorstep — which is not in Cody.
“That’s a fascinating place and we’d like to go back someday, especially with you, Elizabeth. Maybe when Rob and Anna come with the kids later this summer. But—”
Had that trip gone from a suggestion to a certainty only in Mom’s mind or had she already bent my brother and sister-in-law to her will? For their pleasure, of course.
That question got kicked down the expressway in my brain, making room for the vital issue.
But, what?
“—we read the papers in Cody this morning and felt we shou
ld be here with you. Hello, baby.”
The last was for Shadow, who wagged his tail appreciatively at the crooning and escorted Mom into the house, while I still stood, holding the door wide open.
Dad walked by with suitcases, pausing with a wink that conveyed a sliver of commiseration with me while aligning completely with Mom. How did he do that?
With them both in the house, there was nothing to do but close the door and join them.
Those moments before the knock on the door seemed distant. Way back when I’d been mentally grumbling about the drawback of trial transcripts.
They caught the words, but not the inflection, the cadence, the expression, the nuance, all vital for a performer like Norman Clay Lukasik. I could catch an echo of what it might have been like, but not its full-throated power.
Then came the knock.
My parents were here. In my house.
Being a sucker for lost causes, I said, “There’s no reason to cut your time short in Cody. Everything’s fine here. Go on back and—”
Mom turned. “I wouldn’t call everything fine with a murder happening nearby.”
“Oh. That. I’m not even covering it—”
“And Tom mentioned as president of the place where it happened.”
“Chairman. Grazing association,” Dad filled in.
“That’s true. He’s talked to the sheriff’s department, but the victim wasn’t a friend of his—” Or anybody else’s, I thought but did not say. “—so as horrible as it is for anyone…”
I’d lost them.
They were looking at my laptop screen, frozen on Odessa’s face at that Lady of Shalott moment.
“My. What’s happened to her, poor— Well, I was going to say poor soul, but I’m not so sure,” Mom said.
I forget sometimes how astute she is about people.
“Does she have something to do with the murder—” If Dad had stopped there, what followed would have been very different. But he added two more words. “—you’re investigating?”
Chapter Forty
Reaction Shot (Caught Dead in Wyoming, Book 9) Page 23