Reaction Shot (Caught Dead in Wyoming, Book 9)

by Patricia McLinn

  “And if you can get anything on Furman York formerly bringing cattle with the Lukasik Ranch’s brand, but on his most recent trip he didn’t, that would be a nice, big, fat, red arrow pointing to Norman Clay Lukasik.”

  “Ah. Because it would mean Lukasik caught him,” Diana said.

  “Exactly. That ramps up Lukasik’s motive. It still could work that York rustled Lukasik’s cattle and Lukasik found out after Furman York’s most recent sale of stolen cattle. Or that Lukasik knew York was rustling, but didn’t confront him, possibly waiting to plan a permanent solution. But if York had been regularly selling Lukasik’s cattle, then stopped, that would be—”

  “Big, fat, red arrow. Got it.” Mike turned to Tom. “I can drive. Whenever you’re ready to leave as long as I can throw some things together.”

  “I’ve got chores to take care of before we go,” Tom said. “It’s not a quick trip and Tamantha—”

  I raised my hand. “If you don’t leave her with me, my mother will hunt us both down.”

  He quirked a grin. “Tamantha might join her in the hunt. But your guest room’s occupied.”

  “There’s a sofa bed in the sitting area of the master suite.”

  “It’s real comfortable,” Jennifer attested.

  “There. All settled. How long a trip is it?” I asked.

  “Ten hours or so,” Mike said.

  “Ten hours? One way? It’ll take twenty hours just to get there and back? And then checking all the livestock markets? You guys won’t be back for days.”

  “There aren’t a whole lot of likely markets. I’ll make some calls, narrow it down.” Tom asked Mike, “Leaving in four hours work for you?”

  “Sure.” He then turned to me. “That’s enough time to go see that bartender, catch him before happy hour. I bet the Pickled Cow has a great one.”

  “I’m still absorbing that it’s a ten-hour drive. If you leave in four hours, you’ll have to stay overnight somewhere and—”

  “Nah. We’ll swap off and drive all night. Get there in time to start in the morning.”

  “You’ve just made me happy to not be going. Let’s go see the bartender.”

  Tom said, “You still have those clothes in the back of your SUV from horseback riding?”

  On our recent picnic date, after riding, I’d changed out of old jeans, shirt, jacket, and new roper boots into fresh jeans, shirt, jacket, and shoes. I hadn’t yet acquired a fancy for eau d’ horse after dismounting. The horsey clothes were all in a tightly zippered tote.

  “Yeah.” He was monitoring my laundry schedule?

  “Put those on before you go in the Pickled Cow.”

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Tom left first. Mike went to settle the bill while Diana, Jennifer, and I finished our drinks.

  And while Diana eyed me.

  “What’s wrong, Diana?”

  No, I didn’t ask that. Jennifer did.

  But Diana addressed me. “You gave up awfully quick — for you — about going with them.”

  “That’s because I thought of something else.” No sense fibbing when she had me dead to rights. “This is just for us three for now. The guys go investigating livestock auctions in South Dakota, so we keep this to ourselves.”

  “This what?” Jennifer asked impatiently.

  “This question that occurred to me while we were talking about the possibility that York was stealing from Lukasik. How many defendants end up being part of their lawyer’s life for decades? Until the end of York’s life, in fact.

  “He was not a good foreman, not a good cowhand. He was lazy. Yet he not only stayed on at Lukasik Ranch, he was promoted. Mrs. Lukasik didn’t like him. Gable Lukasik didn’t like him. The other ranch hands didn’t like him. Yet Norman Clay Lukasik kept him on. Why?”

  Diana frowned. “And recently York’s gone from passively being a bad employee to stealing by rustling. How could Lukasik not have suspected that? Especially with Tom going to him about issues with grazing association members.”

  “Exactly. Lukasik said his herd’s been staying even, so he’s not a completely hands-off owner. He had to know something was wrong. Yet—”

  “He didn’t do anything about it,” Jennifer completed. “Okay. I’ve got that. But that’s what the guys are checking, right? If York was stealing, including from Lukasik.”

  “That’s not what we’re looking into. We’re digging into why Lukasik kept York on and — possibly — let York steal from him.”

  Diana nodded. She had it.

  Jennifer worried her lip. Then her head came up. “York was blackmailing him?”

  “That’s sure one possibility, isn’t it?”

  “Okay, but how do we look into it when York’s dead and Lukasik’s not going to tell us?”

  “First, by having you and your brilliant minions see what you can find out about Lukasik’s financials.

  “Second, by putting the rest of your collective wizardry into closing that gap between York being found not guilty and his coming to work at the ranch Lukasik had just bought. We’re looking for evidence that York and Lukasik were in contact. Ideally, evidence that Lukasik was paying York.”

  “Got it. And we’re not telling the guys until we find it.”

  * * * *

  On the way to the Pickled Cow, Mike and I stopped at his house for him to pack a bag for the trip to South Dakota, while I changed into Tom’s specified wardrobe.

  Driving east, I asked, oh, so casually. “When you came back here, did you try to buy back your family ranch?”

  “Thought about it. Looked at buying the old home place, then leasing the land back to the grazing association, similar to what I do with my place now. Talked to Tom. He was willing, but Lukasik was talking around the county about soaking the football player getting sentimental over a stretch of dirt.” One side of his mouth lifted. “Put my back up. Plus, it was just one part of the ranch. Getting all the pieces back, getting it up and running, that’s a heck of a challenge.

  “Went out there one day. Had a vague idea of taking some of Grandma and Grandpa’s things. But when it came down to it, they seemed to belong there, like the roses. Tom came by — still don’t know if that was a coincidence or if he knew I was there. Anyway, we talked more. Not about buying the place. About other … stuff.”

  Fathers and sons stuff and family ranches, I suspected. Tom didn’t have the closest relationship with his father, either. And that, too, seemed to center around the family ranch.

  “When it first happened, losing the ranch, I swore I’d save every dollar to buy it back. I learned about handling money, I saved, I invested — being careful, limiting risks.

  “It wasn’t until I stood at what used to be the entry to our home ranch, knowing I could do it, that I wondered if I should.” He cleared his throat. “There it is, the Pickled Cow.”

  * * * *

  To my relief, the Pickled Cow Bar offered plenty of pickles, but no pickled cattle parts.

  However, I wouldn’t recommend the pickles, encased in dirt encrusted jars. In fact, I wouldn’t recommend the Pickled Cow Bar at all.

  Outside, it sat amid bare dirt, with the same color plastered to its walls and roof.

  Inside, it smelled. Sweat, old beer, clothes worn too long, things tracked in on boots, topped off by old sweated out beer soaked into clothes worn too long.

  It was dark, even on a day when the arc of Wyoming sky seemed to pulse brightness. I was grateful it was dark. I couldn’t see the things making it smell.

  I felt some making my boots stick an extra beat so it seemed like walking across the sticky side of duct tape.

  “You folks in the wrong place?” a sneering voice asked from the darkness behind the bar.

  “No,” Mike said in a voice I seldom heard him use. I immediately flashed to watching football with my dad and mics picking up players talking trash to each other. “Two beers. Can.”

  With my eyes adjusting, I could make out the man behind the bar. He had pitte
d skin, producing an irregular pattern of stubble. His greasy hair was pulled straight back into a stringy rat tail.

  One other person was in the place. A man — or a heap of men’s clothes — slumped on a stool at the far end. Bar stools don’t encourage good posture, but this slump did not appear attributable to the stool.

  Without a word, the bartender took two cans from a refrigerator. I hoped age had turned it that dingy gray color. He opened them and placed them on the bar.

  Mike gestured to the red plastic bar stool next to the one he took. I hesitated, then sat. We were not getting off these stools without more duct-tape sensation.

  I noticed he did not take his hat off — no place safe to put it in this place — though he pushed back the brim as he took a brave drink from the can.

  “Hey, you’re Mike Paycik, aren’t you?” the bartender asked in an entirely different tone. “Watched you score four touchdowns in one game your senior year at UW.”

  I have never been more surprised or more grateful for Paycik’s football hero status.

  “He is,” I said immediately. He handles it well, often with self-deprecating humor. Not this time. This time he was cashing in. “And the sports anchor for KWMT-TV in Sherman.”

  “I know. I watch him every night. Can’t wait to see more of that interview with John Smith. Seems like a good guy. And he must be rolling in dough.”

  “Not yet. But he sure should be with his next contract,” Mike said.

  I settled back — metaphorically only — as they did the mutual sports fans’ mating dance. It was an almost immediate match.

  The bartender — Nash — turned out to be articulate and quite pleasant. Even to unimportant me.

  Mike did a good job steering gradually away from sports. “How’d you come to be working here?”

  “Wouldn’t be if I had a choice. Place belongs to my step-father. I got into debt with some guys — never gambling again — and the step-father said he’d only bail me out if I worked here two years and lived with them. Two years. Got four months left and then they can strike a match to this place and let it burn. Never coming back in that door. Never dealing with these thugs again.”

  “Thugs?” Mike quirked an eye toward the other customer.

  “Oh, him. He’s harmless. Some of the others aren’t.” Nash leaned closer. “You heard about the guy who got shot? Foreman of the Lukasik Ranch? He was in here a lot.”

  “You knew him, huh?” Mike portrayed someone deeply interested, but too cool to show it. “Did he ever talk about when he was tried for murder?”

  Nash rolled his eyes. “Did he ever shut up about it would be the question. And the answer would be no. He’d go on and on about how some TV show nearly got him sent to the gallows — like there is such a thing these days—”

  I suspected I knew where he’d gotten the term, though.

  “—and it wasn’t even like the TV show talked about him at all. It was all about that ancient mess Rock Springs had. So why he kept jawing about it, I never understood. Not that I hung around him trying to make sense of it. Serve the drinks and get away. That’s my motto. What I don’t hear can’t make me want to poison these lowlifes. At least any more than I already want to.”

  I wasn’t entirely unsympathetic with his assessment of his clientele. At first blush, though, it would seem to produce an atmosphere not conducive to repeat business.

  On the other hand, there wasn’t much competition around.

  And Furman York and his buddies might have recognized an upside to a bartender who wanted nothing to do with them — relative privacy.

  “Gotcha. Still, interesting to have one of your regulars murdered.”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “Deputies in asking you questions about him and stuff.”

  “Yeah, they’ve been in, but not much I could tell them. Don’t know names. Knew the Lukasik truck, but the others are just, you know, old pickups. One guy looks like he takes steroids or something.”

  “Interesting. Like ’roid rage maybe.”

  Nash’s mouth turned down. “He never lost it or anything, not here anyway. Doesn’t say much. The guy who got shot talked the most. The other one who drank with them regular talks about how he’s scored lately, getting close to getting a big new truck. You know—” Abruptly, he became more intense. “—another guy who drank with them now and again was busted for selling drugs last fall. Maybe a drug deal gone wrong.”

  Mike nodded wisely. “Definitely a possibility. Maybe the truck guy’s involved with him.”

  Nash snorted. “If he had drug money he wouldn’t still be griping about driving short hauls around here. He’d have the big fancy one he goes on and on about.”

  Chapter Forty-Four

  When we came out, taking grateful deep breaths, we both had messages from Tom.

  Mike returned the call, since I was driving.

  The miracle of speakerphone let us both marvel at how different Nash turned out to be from our initial impression — though the bar was still foul.

  Tom mentioned picking up a lot of road noise. I said, “You’ll have to live with it. We’ve got to keep the windows open to keep that stench from embedding itself in my SUV.”

  Mike raised his voice to report what Nash said about York, then asked, “Tom, have association members been moving their cattle with their own trucks?”

  I cut Mike a quick look.

  Tom answered slowly. “No. We’ve used the same truck to move cattle on and off grazing association lands the past few months. York got a real low price, but only if we all used the same guy.”

  Mike repeated Nash’s comments about York’s trucker friend. He concluded, “The trucker’s got to be recon and transport for the rustling operation.”

  “Sure worth looking into, but not necessarily for us. Elizabeth?”

  “I agree. Unless there was a falling out among thieves, this doesn’t touch on the murder. If one of his accomplices killed York…”

  “Sheriff’s department’s in a better position to catch them.” Tom had no trouble saying what stuck in my throat. “Mike, you want to call Wayne or me?”

  “You. He’ll give what you say more weight.”

  “Only because he associates you more with Elizabeth,” Tom said with a grin in his voice.

  “And he doesn’t like us beating him to the punch,” I retorted.

  “Of course.” From that deadpan, his next words came more naturally. “Reason I called, got with Jack Delahunt and he narrowed the list of places to check, three prime and a couple others. Said that should cover ninety-eight percent of the likely places, with the other two percent scattered so wide, it wouldn’t be worth our while.

  “Second piece of good news is he’s got a friend who’s going to fly us to Sioux Falls and back. Fly there tonight. We can rent a vehicle for hitting those top few, starting first thing tomorrow. Should be back late tomorrow.”

  “That’s great.” Anything that compacted the timeline had my vote.

  Mike asked, “How small a plane?”

  “Not a tin can. Jack said the guy flies big shots with places in Montana. They like their comforts. Good news for you, too, Elizabeth. They’re letting you in to talk to Hiram again tonight. Same time. Asked if Diana could take my place and James said sure. He was too stunned by Shelton’s cooperation to object to any changes.”

  * * * *

  I drove Mike directly to Cottonwood County’s airport.

  More calls occupied the trip, letting my delighted parents know about Tamantha staying overnight, establishing that she’d accompany them to O’Hara Hill for dinner with Mrs. P and Aunt Gee, setting up with Diana for the trip to the jail, and arranging with her and Jennifer to meet at my place after.

  To Mike’s clear relief when he came out of the airport office restroom after changing for the trip, the plane was more impressive than the airport.

  Tom had come with Tamantha, transferring her overnight bag to the back of my SUV. We watched the plane tak
e off together, with her waving her hat as it disappeared into all that blue.

  Then she wrinkled her nose at me. “You smell.” She sniffed. “Horses, some, but what’s the rest of it?”

  Neither Mike nor Tom had tried to hug or kiss me good-bye. I’d thought it was either tact in front of each other or male coolness, since they’d be gone a short time.

  This provided an alternate reason.

  My agenda expanded to include a shower, change of clothes, and tossing this outfit into the washer. First thing.

  * * * *

  I’d eased Hiram to the topic of the trial by circling around it first with questions about his Dateline-acquired knowledge, experience with jury duty, and knowledge of the case before being on the jury.

  “We’ve heard Lukasik was very skilled in raising inferences.”

  “More like infernal,” he grumbled.

  “Such as that there might have been something… improper going on between other men and Leah Pedroke.”

  His mouth dropped open.

  I thought, at first it was shock, perhaps that we knew about that.

  I was wrong.

  After a moment he closed his mouth, shook his head, and said, “Forgot all about that.” He’d been hard at work, searching for memories. “Fool Earl tripped over his tongue like he does. Gee Decker pretty much took care of the idea there’d been any of that nonsense. When we were going through the points in the jury room, that was laughed out of the building right off.”

  Ah, my opening.

  I took it softly. “What happened in that jury room, Hiram?”

  “Long time ago. How’m I supposed to remember?”

  “You remember.” He’d just proved he did.

  He grunted and swung away.

  I thought that was it. That he wouldn’t answer. And with a man like Hiram I’d be unlikely to get a second opportunity.

  “Hiram, don’t you want to get out of the jail? Don’t you have important things to do out of here?”

  His neck and the one ear I could see tinged red.

  “But even more important, don’t you want the truth to come out finally. Keeping quiet isn’t protecting anybody, because everybody who was on that jury’s suspected.”