With that happy thought, I popped up from my chair and waylaid Jenny, the newsroom aide I knew best. “I’d like you to go to the news conference,” I said quietly.
“What? The one Thurst—”
“Yes. That one. Stay at the back, and he won’t notice you. Even if he does, he won’t raise a stink about you being there. After it ends, I want you to find out everything you can about calls to or from Keith Landry’s cell last night. If they don’t have details yet, find out when they expect them.”
“I don’t need to go to the news conference for that. I can get into the database and—”
I clasped both hands around her arm and dragged her into the ladies room.
“Wha—”
“Quiet.” I checked the two stalls. Empty. First glance had assured me the rest of the tiny room was empty. “Are you crazy? Haven’t you had any training? Have you not heard of journalistic ethics? Have you not heard of News of the Day? Rupert Murdoch? Hearings before Parliament?”
She gaped at me. “I don’t remember all those questions. You asked a lot really fast. But I think the answers were all no. Except . . . we don’t have a Parliament, do we?”
“Britain’s got Parliament. We have Congress.”
“Right. I thought I had that right.”
I blew out a breath. “You haven’t had any journalism training?”
“Nope. But I read blogs.”
Note to self: Weep later. “You work here. You must be intere—”
“My folks said they wouldn’t pay for any more computer parts unless I got a job. I saw an ad in the paper, and I figured a TV station would have cool equipment. Boy, was I wrong. But a bigger station should be better, right? Only, first, everybody needs to call me Jennifer. It’s more mature. That’ll help me move up.”
My head throbbed at career advancement based on fine-tuning a name, rather than having a background in journalism. But there wasn’t time now. “Listen, Jenny—”
“Jennifer.”
“Jennifer—you cannot hack into the phone company’s computers to—”
“Oh, I wouldn’t hack the phone company. I’d hack the sheriff’s department. That’s easier.”
“No hacking!”
She blinked. “But if you need the information . . .”
“We’ll talk about journalistic ethics, not to mention legalities later.”
“Cool.”
“But for now, I want your word that you will go to the news conference, ask if that information has come in—do it when no one else is around—and do not hack anyone or anything until we’ve had a long talk. Understand?”
“Okay.”
“Give me your word.”
Her eyes widened. “I gave you my word.”
I felt like I’d insulted a Disney character or a Muppet. Something highly skilled at inducing guilt. “Oh. Well, you better get started.”
She nodded with dignity. And then she left with dignity, sidestepping the incoming Diana with dignity.
“What was that about?” Diana asked when the ladies’ room door closed behind her. “What was wrong with Jenny?”
“Jennifer,” I corrected. “Apparently, I hurt her feelings.”
She propped her hands on her hips in disapproval. It took dexterity to accomplish without hitting one elbow on the sink or digging the other into me. “How? Jenny doesn’t hurt easily.”
“I asked her to do something. Well, not to do something. She said okay, and I asked her to give me her word, and she said she had given me her word.”
Diana dropped her arms. “She had.”
“Okay? Saying okay is giving your word?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t tell me this is some Code of the West thing, where a man’s word is his bond. Or in this case, a newsroom aide’s okay is her pledge.”
“Don’t have to tell you, since you figured it out yourself. Now, get out of here. I have one bathroom and two kids at home. This is the only bathroom where I have any privacy.”
“That’s pathetic.”
“I’ve seen the bathroom in that house you’re renting. Don’t go throwing rocks at pathetic houses.”
Chapter Ten
I DETOURED outside to make a private call from my cell phone.
The parking lot of KWMT-TV was dusty, hot, and my dermatologist wouldn’t approve of the sun beating down on me, but I would spot anyone approaching long before they could hear my conversation.
Not that I wanted to make this call. I would have preferred to ignore my parents’ morning phone call and its implications. But with my family and my professional lives now connected through the rotund figure of my mother’s cousin’s daughter’s husband, the implications had not remained in the mental lock-box of Family.
When I was shell-shocked from the revelation that my just-turned ex-husband was using his network clout to get me ousted from my job, Mel Welch had stepped in and taken over negotiations. Wes had wanted me out of TV news. Mel had arranged for me to come here, clinging to the edge of the business.
Mel was a lawyer in Chicago whose only media contacts I’d known about were Wes and me. Until a few weeks ago, when Jenny-now-Jennifer had mentioned a connection between Mel and KWMT’s owners, I hadn’t considered how it came about that I ended up at this particular station. I hadn’t gotten anything out of him about that. Yet. But, then, I hadn’t tried very hard.
Mel answered with flattering promptness after I identified myself to his assistant.
“Danny! How wonderful to hear from you.” He, like many of my longtime friends, had picked up the Danny nickname started by Dex. Do you have something good to tell me?”
“I have something to ask.”
“Oh?” Caution turned the syllable into a shifty figure diving for the shadows.
“You told my mother that the St. Louis job is still open. Since I turned it down, why would you keep tabs on it? Out with it, Mel.”
“Uh, I haven’t told them you said no.”
“What? What?”
“I wanted to give you time to reconsider. For your own good. That job might truly be the best choice for you.”
“Are you saying this, or my mother?”
“We both care for your welfare,” he said stuffily.
“Mel, you have got to quit meddling in this.”
“Meddling’s what you pay me to do. I’m your agent.”
“My agent? Or operating on someone else’s orders?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” His affronted dignity swelled with each word.
“We both know we’re talking about whom, not what. And we both know exactly which whom. I’m not unsympathetic, Mel. I know what a force she is. But—” His mutter might have been Like mother, like daughter. “—rationally, she’s barely even family.”
“She is family, just like you are.”
“Your wife’s mother’s cousin. And what could she do to you?”
That wasn’t entirely fair. Catherine Danniher’s cold shoulder was the worst, because she achieved it without ever leaving you alone. Her cold shoulder put her disapproval right there in front of your face until you begged for a good case of shunning.
His silence was glum. That was good, because it meant my displeasure was not entirely outweighed by his trepidation.
“You are my representative,” I said, “and I expect you to follow my wishes. If you don’t, I will be forced to share with certain members of the Chicago legal community that you are afraid of a small-town housewife. Wouldn’t take me long to find out whom you would least like to hear that tidbit, and who’s the biggest gossip.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“All you have to do is stop meddling, stop trying to arrange things for what you—or my mother—think is my g
ood. You’d think you didn’t believe I could handle this, for heaven’s sake. You know I did build quite a career once, and just because my ex’s vindictive nature blew a crater the size of the continent in that career, doesn’t mean I can’t do it again.”
Somewhere during that speech I recognized a quality to his silence that peeled part of my mind off to follow a separate track. A track paved with memories of time I’d spent with my family between finding out my ex had cut off oxygen to my career and starting my less than challenging duties at KWMT. Memories of truncated sentences, half-glimpsed looks, sympathetic tones, and words spoken too heartily.
“And will do it again. Even better this time,” Mel said. Too heartily.
Ding, ding, ding, ding. The bells and whistles in my head were loud enough to be heard in the New York network executive suites.
You’ve been strained for so long trying to keep up with that career Wes put you in.
That’s what they thought? My family, my agent? That Wes put me in this career, that Wes built it, and I’d been along for the ride? I’d realized Wes had thought he’d created me. But my family, too?
“Mel, I have to go.”
“Oh, but—”
“Don’t talk to anybody, anybody at all, until you hear back from me.” I disconnected without waiting for an answer.
I stared at a line of distant cottonwood trees, my mind a blank. Then I shook myself, pocketed my phone, and headed inside. I’d pull a Scarlett O’Hara and think about this another day.
WITH JENNY-Jennifer off to the news conference, I made more calls, tracking a rumor that a Cheyenne station had footage that would go with my Gift Card Burglars piece.
Stretching, I looked at my notebook page of jotted names, numbers, and notes. It was littered with triangles. Huh. I was doodling again, after at least a year of not.
Large triangles segmented by ever-decreasing triangles had been my doodle of choice ever since Advanced Algebra nearly proved my undoing in high school, although I hadn’t realized all the ramifications until years later. Perhaps at first triangles had assuaged a homesickness for more graspable geometry.
After leaving a message for a contact at the Cheyenne station, the phone’s message light blinked, indicating a call had come in while I was on the line. It was Mike, telling me to meet him.
This newsroom superspy stuff was getting out of hand. He didn’t say why. Where was “the roadside turnoff where you had a conversation alone with a murder suspect a few weeks back.” At least he didn’t say the message would self-destruct.
I ROUNDED THE last curve before the path reached a picnic table beside the Jelicho River west of town.
“Here she is,” I heard Mike say. “Finally.”
“And wondering why I got dragged out here by 007 Paycik,” I stopped—speaking and walking—when I saw his companion.
Thomas David Burrell.
“I thought you’d follow me when I gave you the high sign,” Mike said. “When you didn’t, I left the message.”
His words got me moving again. “You were entirely too subtle for me. What are you doing here?” The last, directed at Tom Burrell, wasn’t my best question ever, I admit.
“When I didn’t hear from you, I contacted Mike.” This is what he wanted to talk to me about? Not that he’d shown up at my door, kissed me in a convincing manner, then walked away without a word in the weeks since?
“You didn’t give me much time,” I grumbled.
“Time’s not on our side with this.” Had he emphasized this? I’d need a voice expert to say.
“I jumped on his offer,” Mike said. He sat at the end of one side of the table, Burrell in the middle on the opposite side. “To help us with background on the Keith Landry story.”
“That’s Thurston Fine’s story. Talk to him. Don’t look at me like that, Paycik. It is. He specifically ordered me not to attend the sheriff department’s news conference. He’s doing all the coverage.”
“Coverage of a news conference informing the media what you two knew twelve hours ago,” Tom said.
I glared at Paycik. The blabbermouth shrugged without remorse. “If we want background on the rodeo, we need Tom.”
“Oh?” I turned to the man in question. “What does Tom get out of it?”
“I hope the rodeo gets the truth.”
“You don’t have confidence in Deputy Alvaro?”
He gave back a look as steady, as solid, and as unemotional as a rock. He had a long, craggy face that reminded me of a new and improved-looking Abraham Lincoln. “Not as much confidence as I have reason to have in you.”
He was referring to the Redus case. I can’t swear I didn’t dig my toe into the dust in modest confusion, except I think I would have noticed dusty shoes later if I had.
“Richard Alvaro’s a good man,” Tom continued. “He’ll do his best. But he’s young and inexperienced. Even if he gets to the bottom of this mess, it will likely take longer than the rodeo has.”
“What do you mean?” I took a seat on the same bench as Paycik, but at the other end.
“This needs to be cleared up before the Fourth of July Rodeo—a couple days before.”
“Investigations into death don’t run on some rodeo schedule.”
“Any more uncertainty could push this over the edge. Look, this is for you two only . . .” Tom waited for a nod from each of us. “The rodeo’s in financial trouble. That other contractor walking out last minute meant the rodeo basically had to give Keith Landry whatever he wanted. And he wanted a lot. Three times the normal fee. If we don’t break attendance records, the rodeo will be bankrupt.”
“How do you know?” I asked.
“I was a longtime member of the rodeo committee until other events occupied my time.” Like murder knocking at his door. “Other committee members still consider me a member. And . . .” His dark Abraham Lincoln eyes went to the river flowing past us.
Maybe George Washington could not tell a lie, but Abraham Lincoln Burrell could certainly sidestep the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. I’d known that from our previous encounters, but in those circumstances he’d been direct about what he’d tell me—mostly nothing. Evasion was new.
“Who are you looking out for?” I asked.
“Like I said, the rodeo.”
I didn’t believe it. Oh, he was concerned about the rodeo, sure. But there was a thread of the personal, too.
He blandly gazed back. “Don’t you want to ask me questions about the investigation, Elizabeth?”
“What do you know?”
“Not much.”
I jerked my hands wide. “Oh, this is a great partnership. How about what the shouting was about at Landry’s meeting with the rodeo committee Wednesday morning?”
“Don’t know.”
“Can you find out?” That had a bite to it.
“I can try.”
“Also find out who he was shouting at on the phone during the afternoon, and why, and what he and Oren Street were shouting about after Street arrived in town.”
“I’ll try on that, too. One thing I do know,” Tom said in his unperturbed way, “is they’ve pulled the records off Landry’s phone.”
Mike shot me a told-you-so look. I avoided it, asking, “What did they find?”
“There were 28 calls to Newt—Stan Newton.”
“Oh, yeah?”
Tom shook his head, negating the significance. “There were nineteen to Oren Street, fifteen to a cowboy named Evan Watt, fourteen to your friend Thurston Fine, thirteen to a guy from the next rodeo they’re scheduled to work, and more than 10 to another half-dozen contacts.”
“Butt calls,” I said.
“In this case, bull calls,” Mike said with a grimace.
“Exactly,” Tom said. “The bulls’
hooves kept hitting speed dial buttons until they smashed the phone. It lasted longer than might have been expected because of the cushioning material in the pen. Including the deceased.”
My turn to grimace.
“Every call was to somebody you’d expect on Landry’s speed dial. Alvaro’s talked to them. Those who picked up said they heard only background noise. A few got the calls as messages. The sheriff’s department listened to undeleted ones, and that’s all we heard on those messages, too.”
“We?”
“I was there when they listened to messages to one recipient.”
“Who?”
“Not saying.”
I glared at him, proving I could glare and ask questions at the same time. “No other noises?”
“Like what?”
“Like Keith Landry shouting for help.”
“Not that I’ve heard mention of, and it does seem they’d have brought that up.”
“Didn’t people think it was odd they got so many calls from Landry?” Mike asked. Good question.
“Folks stopped answering after the first couple. Figured it was a malfunction and didn’t think anything else of it. Nobody knew about anybody else’s calls.”
That was annoyingly logical. “The sheriff’s department considers the calls a dead end?”
Burrell’s head and shoulders shifted slightly in a suggestion of a shrug that also served as a yes.
“But Tom’s going to help you on another angle,” Mike said.
“Me? Why not help you?”
“Got to cover a summer baseball league playoff. Even if it never makes the air, I have to make an appearance. He’s taking you to the Newton place,” Mike said. “Stan Newton owns the rodeo grounds, and his son—that’s Cas Newton—is real involved with rodeo locally. That should be good background.”
As if his emphasis on the name Newton hadn’t been enough, Mike gave me a look. One I had no trouble interpreting.
I had the impression Tom caught it, too. Though he gave no sign as he said, “We’ll get lunch then head out—”
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