Sign Off (Caught Dead in Wyoming, Book 1)

by Patricia McLinn

  He demonstrated with the metal folder.

  “The faint writing had the same date as the official report, and it had Rog Johnson’s name, but it also mentioned another kid, Frank Claustel. So I looked to see if Claustel had a file. Nothing.”

  I caught a look between Richard and Mike. “What?” I demanded.

  “Claustel’s father is Judge Ambrose Claustel,” Mike said.

  “Interesting.”

  “Yeah.” Richard sounded weary. “It got more interesting. The time of arrest on that carbon report was an hour earlier than the official one. The next week, Redus got assigned to the court house.”

  Redus could have dropped the judge’s son at home, possibly tearing up the original report in front of the appreciative father, then arrived at the jail with one arrestee and corresponding paperwork. And voila, a cushy job.

  It smelled like a favor for a favor; proving it would be something else.

  “Do you have reason to think this might not have been an isolated case, Richard?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “Only rumor and . . . nothing first-hand.”

  I figured the part he wasn’t willing to spill was his feeling about Redus.

  “Are you going to Widcuff with this?” Mike asked.

  “You think I’d be talking to you people if I thought that would do any good?” He closed his mouth tight, as if he had no more to say, but his eyes said different. It took about twenty seconds. “I told him . . . I showed him the file. He brushed it off. Said the only thing to worry about was finding the evidence that would pin down Burrell as Redus’ murderer.

  “Two days later, when I went to look at the file, it was gone. All Redus’ files were gone. Another deputy said Widcuff had ordered them burned.”

  * * * *

  ERNIE’S WAS THE ORIGINAL that certain chain restaurants try to cookie-cutter emulate.

  Ernie’s photos, license plates, advertisements and cowboy gear had the real-thing patina of age and dust; the glasses didn’t match because there’d been a lot of specials at the Five-and-Dime over the years; and beef ruled the menu because that was the local product.

  The narrow, deep room had a bar along one side with every stool filled with a jeans-clad male rear end, and every head covered with a cowboy hat or baseball cap. The zigzag of tables on the opposite side of the room included couples and family groups.

  When Mike and I walked in, no one said a word, but we got plenty of stares as we took a table near the front.

  “We probably shouldn’t discuss the case here,” Paycik said in a low voice accompanied by a tilt of his head toward the other patrons.

  That suited me fine. Until his next sentence.

  “Do you know what job you’re going to go after when you’re done serving out the time on your contract? Five months, right?”

  Shit. What did I expect? Of course everyone knew my business. They probably knew the dollars and cents on the divorce settlement. Along with the fact that Wes was dragging his feet on sending me my share of the proceeds from the sale of our cottage and his buyout of our house in D.C.

  The house was worth a lot more than the cottage, even though only a real estate person could describe it with a straight face as being on the edge of Georgetown. But it was the thought of no longer having the cottage that dropped a weight below my collarbone.

  By the bare bones of an ad, it had the same features as the rental house here. But the difference in the flesh was the difference between a mange-riddled coyote and a burnished, beloved Golden Retriever. Had I expected this house to be like the cottage? Had I hoped Sherman would be like the Northern Neck?

  I didn’t know.

  “Look, Paycik, I want to get this straight. While I’m working at KWMT—and I don’t know how long that will be—we’re colleagues, strictly colleagues. I don’t know what you told anyone else—your aunt or Mrs. Parens or Alvaro or—”

  “I didn’t tell them anything, Elizabeth. I told you about the gossip. I won’t tell you I’m not attracted to you, but I know you’re coming off a rough time, the divorce and the rest of it. I won’t push you . . . at least not—”

  He broke off as a man with a grizzle of gray-flecked beard stubble and tobacco-stained fingers greeted Mike by name before taking a bar stool vacated for him by a younger man.

  “Jack’s foreman at a ranch I worked summers after my dad sold off,” Mike told me.

  Jack’s tone wasn’t as guarded; we heard him identify Mike to his cronies. Maybe I just imagined that they seemed more impressed that he was Gee’s nephew than that he’d played pro football. Either way, the stares boring into us dropped from a gusher to a drizzle. Most of the remaining attention came from a small, reddish-haired woman sitting with two other women and a man at a table in back, and she was most likely looking at Mike. I relaxed, and before he could return to the earlier topic, I started asking him about growing up on a Wyoming ranch.

  His expression said he knew what I was doing, but he was willing to go along. His love for the life came through despite his laconic delivery. It was obvious why he’d bought his own ranch.

  The abrupt scraping back of the empty chair beside me jolted me to alertness. Partly because the move was unexpected, partly because I’d had my foot propped on the bottom rung.

  The chair-jerker was a woman in her late twenties, on the fading end of an early bloom. Her long, bleached hair desperately needed conditioning and a trim. From a soft mouth, her chin retreated out of sight. And since she didn’t bother to sit in the chair, I suspected yanking it out from under my foot had been a deliberate move.

  “I hear you’re asking a lot of questions, and you’re some sort of big-deal reporter. You denying it?” she demanded.

  “Told you they’d come to us,” Mike muttered.

  I kept my attention on the woman. “Only you know what you heard.”

  “So, you admit it.” Smugly, she propped her hands on her hips. “Well, let me tell you, Ms. Big-Time TV Reporter, you’re asking the wrong questions unless you’re asking how to get that murdering sonuvabitch Burrell locked into the electric chair, good and tight. That’s what you should be asking. That’s what you should be doing.”

  “Listen, M—”

  She rolled over Mike’s intervention like a tank over a safety cone. “He murdered Foster.”

  “Why would Burrell do that?” I asked.

  “Maybe he wanted that leather case of Foster’s. Doesn’t matter. What matters is when Burrell couldn’t beat him in a fight like a real man, he must’ve shot him. There’s some—” A toss of her brittle hair took in her audience behind her. “—say Foster took off. But that’s pure, green jealousy. He wouldn’t have gone nowhere without me. He was going to take me outta here, to Vegas or Miami, where there’re lights and action, and a woman’s free to have a little fun.”

  I darted in when she drew breath. “Why would they be jealous?”

  “Because he was real smart. Smart enough to get what he wanted. Smart enough to keep a woman satisfied in bed and out.” Her eyes filled. “He told me all the things I’d have and the places we’d go, and he woulda done it, too, if that bastard Burrell hadn’t murdered him. So you just get that bastard.”

  She drove a demanding forefinger into my collarbone, the pointed, painted nail jabbing through my bulky cotton sweater and thin turtleneck. I leaned back, she closed the gap.

  Mike stood and started around the table.

  “You get him!”

  Before she could land another jab, Mike clasped her arm. “That’s enough. If you want to talk—”

  Grating laughter stopped his words. “I said what I got to say. I know about you, Paycik. You’re on that murdering bastard’s side. All you high-siders.” She shook off his hold and darted a glare at me, along with another, “You just get him,” before she walked with short, jerked strides to the door.

  The attention riveted on our table drifted away.

  The Wyoming air must make its females decisive; this one was about
as subtle as Tamantha, although her message was the opposite. Give Tamantha credit, I thought as I rubbed my collarbone, she didn’t resort to violence.

  Mike put a hand on my shoulder, let it trail down my arm as he sat. “Are you okay?” Concern darkened his blue eyes.

  “Yes. The bereaved widow?”

  “No.” He shifted his eyes to indicate the redhead I’d noticed earlier. “The woman in the back corner, that’s Gina Redus.”

  “Oh. So, our friend was . . .?”

  “Another of Redus’ conquests. Marty Beck. The one Mona fought with.”

  “Not too discreet, was she?”

  “Neither was Redus.”

  It couldn’t have been pleasant for Gina hearing all that, even if her husband’s infidelity had been well known. “So, what’s a high-sider?”

  “Folks from western Cottonwood County—closer to the mountains where the land’s more fertile and there’s more water. Marty’s family had a low-side ranch. It went under seven years ago.”

  As we settled the bill, I noticed Gina Redus leave her spot and head toward the back.

  Mike and I went out the front door, pulling in pure, chilled air with our first breath and letting it out in a puff of vapor. The sun’s warmth was long forgotten. Beyond the fan of brightness from Ernie’s spilling on the sidewalk, darkness rose up like a cloud. We hurried toward Paycik’s car, a block away.

  We’d reached the cross-street when a woman spoke Mike’s name.

  Out of the deeper dark of the side street, came a small figure. Mike squinted. “Gina?”

  “Yes. I want to talk to you.”

  As she came nearer, I could see she was looking at me.

  “You’re that new TV reporter in Sherman. I hear you’ve been asking questions.” Who needed network news when you had a grapevine like Cottonwood County’s? “Asking questions about Tom Burrell.”

  I opened my mouth to protest. It wasn’t my doing that most of my questions about Foster Redus got answers about Tom Burrell. But Gina Redus’ next words shut my mouth.

  “I’ll tell you. Tell you things nobody else will, things nobody else can.”

  Chapter Six

  GINA REDUS PLACED two mugs of coffee on the table in front of the sofa where Mike and I sat and retreated to the kitchen, again refusing our help.

  Raised trim around the table’s edges showed the mellow reddish glow the entire table must have had new, but in the center the finish had given way to bare wood, scarred to a dull brownish-gray. The gold corduroy couch was worn ribless on the cushions and arms.

  Gina returned balancing a tray with a plate of Vienna wafers, a jug of milk, a pot of sugar and the third mug. On the tray was a doily of real lace, its delicate, intricate swirls and whorls stark white.

  “You know we went to school together, don’t you?”

  Mike rose to help her. “You and Foster? But he was—”

  “Tom and me. We went to school together from the first grade, right up until he left for college. He had his choice of scholarships—academic or basketball. He took academic because even if he broke his leg he could keep studying.”

  She’d dosed her coffee from both the jug and the pot. She folded her legs under her on the only chair and stared into her mug between sips.

  “Mona didn’t notice him until he became the big basketball hero in high school. Then she noticed him all right.”

  “Uh, Mrs. Redus, about your husband . . .” I started. Not brilliant, but it should have done the trick. If she’d been listening.

  “Once Mona noticed, there was no stopping her. It took her a while, but she got her hooks in Tom good, and wouldn’t let go. And ruined his chance. And then she blamed him for not giving her what she wanted. The bitch.”

  “Mrs. Redus.” Nothing. “Gina!” She looked up.

  “Gina, I hoped you could tell us about your husband? I understand you’d separated before he disappeared?”

  “Yes, we’d separated. End of September. Started divorce proceedings.”

  “So you hadn’t seen him for a while before he disappeared?”

  She shook her head. “He came by that Monday afternoon. He was spittin’ mad about something Mona’d told him Tom had said.” She leaned forward. “But Tom didn’t kill him. If Tom had been the one who disappeared, I’d believe it of Foster, but not Tom. Not Tom.”

  I didn’t argue, and she relaxed back into the chair. “So you and Foster were still seeing each other even though you’d separated.”

  Life flickered in her eyes, lifted her mouth, and, for an instant, I could see a much younger version of the woman before me.

  “No, we weren’t seeing each other. He’d left most of his things here. He saw no sense in renting his own place when he spent most nights with Mona or Marty or someone else. He’d stop by to pick up clothes and such. It wasn’t that much different from before we separated. Only he didn’t bother to lie about his other women any more.”

  “And that afternoon?”

  “He picked up clean shirts and socks. He said he’d been at Mona’s. Said she’d said Tom was threatening to make trouble. When I said it was natural Tom didn’t want him screwing his kid’s mother in front of the kid, Foster crammed those shirts into a pocket of his precious leather case like he’d never complained about a wrinkle in his life, cussed me out, said he’d teach Tom Burrell to mind his own business and stormed out.”

  She flicked her eyes from me to Mike and back.

  “Only when he left, he didn’t drive south like he would for Tom’s place, or back to Mona’s. He went north. And . . .” She drew out the word. “Since his new pickup was parked in front of a certain house over on Parallel Street an hour later when I went to my girlfriend’s, I’d say he stopped off to screw Marty Beck. That’s why Mona didn’t start screaming about Foster being missing right off—she was sure he’d left her for another woman.”

  She sipped her coffee, but the mug didn’t hide her satisfied smile.

  “Gina, since you’re sure the official version—that Tom Burrell killed your husband—is wrong, what do you think happened?”

  “He could have just up and left,” she said without interest.

  “Would it be like Foster to disappear? Where would he go? And why?”

  Even less interested, she shrugged.

  I tried a new angle. “How did you and Foster meet?”

  “I was dealing in Reno. He worked security, but he wanted to be in law enforcement. We got married, came here a year later when the job opened up in the sheriff’s department. I didn’t want to come back, but he wanted that job.” She bit into a cookie. “And now he’s gone, one way or another. And I won’t be doing any crying over Foster Redus.”

  * * * *

  “WELL? WHAT DO YOU THINK?” Mike asked as he drove through the dark. We were taking a different return route, one that curved farther west and crept up the bottom slopes of the mountains. “About Gina and what she said about Tom and Mona and Foster.”

  Dark has a volume, a texture, in Wyoming that I don’t remember anywhere else. Maybe it’s because there’s so much of it, trying to fill that eternity of sky.

  I looked over at him, his eyes intent on the headlight’s narrow band of light. “Interesting that you said them in that order, isn’t it?”

  He frowned. “Because that was the order of her interest.”

  “Mmmm.” Noncommittal sounds are very useful.

  “You aren’t saying it, so I will. It’s clear Gina was—is—crazy about Tom Burrell. God, you live in an area practically all your life, you think you know everything there is to know, and then you find out all this stuff under the surface. It’s scary.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. It would be boring if everything was just out there for everybody to see. You’d know as much—or as little—about your mailman as you did about your husband.”

  Come to think of it, that had a certain appeal. But I suppose that depended on your husband. And the mailman.

  “Well, Gina sure didn’t
seem to care to know anything about her husband or his whereabouts. How could she be married to a man and just not care about his running around?”

  “I can believe she doesn’t care now. Whether she cared in November, who knows? Maybe she did care then—enough to kill him. Or maybe she stopped caring a long time ago.” Maybe Gina’s caring and loving wore out along with the furniture. Or maybe returning to Cottonwood County rekindled an obsession with Burrell. Or maybe that only flared to life in the vacuum created by Foster’s infidelity. “But she didn’t realize it, not until his actions showed her the man he’d become, so different from who she’d married . . .”

  Mike was cutting quick, curious looks at me. I started talking again to fill the silence of his interest.

  “Did you catch what she said about Mona and Tom Burrell?”

  “Yeah. That’s old gossip, that Mona went after Tom and got bitter when he didn’t make the big splash she’d expected. But that’s nearly twenty years ago.”

  “So Mona’s been disappointed by a man before. If Redus gave her hopes for the kind of cushy future we heard about from Marty Beck, would Mona let him get away? Or maybe not being the only woman in his life would have been enough for Mona to act.”

  I slued around on the seat. “You know, Paycik, all this talk about caring reminds me that you haven’t told me why you care what happens to Burrell.”

  He hitched his shoulders—either a shrug or settling back.

  “When I was maybe eight, my dad took me to a high school basketball game. Tom Burrell was the star. Everybody in the gym watched him. All the cheerleaders fluttering around him, all the other big kids fawning on him, even the adults listening to him.”

  “And you wanted to be just like him?”

  “Oh, yeah.” His half smile faded. “But it’s more. I wanted the things he had, sure. But I truly wanted to be just like him. He took it all in, yet none of it seemed to touch him. I sensed that as a kid, but it wasn’t until I was out of Cottonwood County, and seeing how some guys reacted to all the chances to screw up your life, that I realized what Tom Burrell was.”