“Sorry. I’ve got something I’ve got to do. I’ll call you in the morning. ’Night, Elizabeth, Jennifer.” And he was gone.
I did wonder . . . but he was entitled to a personal life. Though this was not the most convenient time. And it was his damned rodeo.
Jennifer rode with me. She said her father drove her to work, and she would have gotten a ride home from Dale, who I realized was the tall, skinny aide who walked with his head tucked, as if afraid it might hit the ceiling.
She came out back with me while I put out fresh water for Shadow, though there was no sign of him.
Back inside, Jennifer settled in on the couch, opened her laptop, and poised her hands over the keyboard like a pianist. “Want me to keep working on the DBA woman or something else?”
“Something else right now. Use the list of where Landry’s been as stock contractor and find the names of women who have been rodeo queen in those places the years he’s been there.”
This had been the upshot of my earlier triangle doodling with the women’s names and Landry’s pattern. I’d been about to ask her to track this when Mike’s call about Heather took precedence.
Her eyes widened. “Oh. You think he’s been going after rodeo queens from way, way, way back when it was Heather’s mom right up to Sonja. And not just here?”
I wasn’t sure Vicky would appreciate that many “ways.” I didn’t correct Jennifer in thinking Sonja had been his last Sherman rodeo queen target. Apparently, Jennifer didn’t subscribe to the Penny News Flash, or she’d have known about his chasing Heather.
“I’m wondering.” My phone rang. “And I’d like to know,” I added, before answering.
It was Matt. I took the call in the kitchen.
He confirmed most of what I’d suspected. Roy Craniston was a bit player at best among hard-core animal rights protestors, viewed as an opportunist, rather than a true-believer. As a bonus, Matt said his sources acknowledged they’d never protested the Sherman rodeos—nightly or the Fourth of July—because they weren’t as bad as the worst. “Pretty high praise from these folks,” he inserted.
Craniston’s usual female companion was Eleanor Redlaw, who came from El Paso, Texas. Matt’s sources said she was the brains, and Roy was the ego of the outfit.
I rewarded Matt by asking him to find out about a girl in her late teens/early twenties with a wide streak of blue in her hair who protested at the Sherman rodeo and other, unnamed, rodeos.
“Gee, why not make it really challenging,” he grumbled.
“C’mon, a swath of blue in her hair. Used to be all pink. Said to be from Oklahoma. That’s hardly a challenge to the mighty Matt Lester.”
“Yeah, I love you, too. Call you if I get something.”
“When you get something,” I said, catching a corner of a chuckle before the line clicked dead.
AFTER JENNIFER had a few names, I searched for phone numbers on my laptop, then started calling. The first two acknowledged only a vague recollection of Landry as the stock contractor the year they were rodeo queen. The next wasn’t available.
Then I hit a familiar story.
An attractive rodeo cowboy pursued the rodeo queen. After the queen’s favor had been won, attractive cowboy dumped her abruptly and with no warning. Landry swooped in on the heartbroken as the understanding and comforting older man. He’d enjoyed the spoils, then performed a similar dump. Like a vulture swooping in to snap up what was left over by the wolf.
That wasn’t my image. It was Mandy Abernathy’s. Call Number Seven, Confirmation Number Two.
After Mandy, we switched to possibilities in the Pacific Time Zone because it was getting late to call in the Mountain Time Zone.
We found three. The first Pacific Time Zone woman was another in the pattern. The next hung up when I said Landry’s name. The third vaguely recalled the name.
The math in my head felt like it might be about to give me an answer, then came another incoming call.
“Elizabeth.” It was Mike.
“Hey. We’ve made progr—”
“I’ve got to talk to you. Wanted to be sure you were home so I didn’t waste time.” He sounded both shaken and resolved. “Can you be ready to go when I get there?”
“Go wh—? Yes.” The question was reflex. The yes was in response to his tone.
“Good.”
I’d given Jennifer the run of the house, grabbed my bag, and opened the door before his vehicle pulled in to the driveway. I was in the passenger seat, and he was backing out with no wasted time.
He also wasted no time in explaining. “I was at the sheriff’s department, trying to get more out of Lloyd. They were keyed up about something, but wouldn’t tell me what. There was a report on the counter—where that hallway leads back to the offices.”
I nodded, but wasn’t sure he saw.
“It was upside down. I wouldn’t have thought of it if it hadn’t been for what you and Needham said, but I read enough of it. It was about the fibers found on Landry, what kind of rope those fibers would’ve come from. There was a list of names—people who’d bought that kind of rope. One name was circled.”
We’d expected Alvaro to arrive at this point. We’d just expected the piece of material snagged on the post to be the breadcrumb he followed. And we’d hoped for more time. “Heather’s.”
“No,” Mike said. “That’s just it. It was Cas Newton’s.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
VICKY UPTON’S small truck was in the drive, and she answered the door.
“Absolutely not,” she said to my request to see Heather. “She’s in bed, and I will not disturb her.”
I considered her determined face. Persuasion wouldn’t cut it. I stepped past her into the house. “Heather!” I shouted, giving Mike a look.
“Be quiet! What are you—?”
“Heather! Heather Upton,” Mike thundered, pulling the front door closed behind him. “We have to talk to you. It’s about Cas.”
A door down the short hallway opened. I suddenly realized why the house seemed familiar. It was the mirror image of the house I rented—mirror image, well-maintained, and painted more than every four decades.
“I’ll call the police right now if you don’t leave immediately,” Vicky said.
“It will be better for your daughter if we talk to her before the police do, Vicky,” I said. “If we don’t talk to her, we’re going straight to Deputy Alvaro, who’s investigating the murder of Keith Landry.”
“Murder—? That’s—”
“What about Cas?” Heather demanded from the doorway.
With no makeup and her hair pulled back in a scrunchy, she looked better than I’d ever seen her before. Except for the fear and worry in her eyes.
“You go back to bed, right now,” Vicky said. “I’ll take care of this.”
Heather ignored her mother and repeated to me, “What about Cas?”
“The sheriff’s department knows about the rope. They have Cas at the sheriff’s department right now.”
“How could they—?”
“What are you talking about?” Vicky demanded.
I answered Heather. “They identified fibers and connected it to Cas’ rope.”
“But they can’t know.”
“They know Cas’ kind of rope was used to lasso Landry,” Mike said. “They can tell the fibers and the twist. They know.”
“Was what you told us all a lie to protect him?” I demanded.
“No! It was the truth. It was all the truth.”
“Except you didn’t mention using Cas’ rope.”
“I never meant—I’d grabbed it when . . . I didn’t even think about it.”
“Heather, you are not to say another word.”
“You had to know it wasn’t your rope
,” Mike said, overriding Vicky.
“Of course I did, but I never thought—are you sure they know it’s Cas’?”
“Yes. What they don’t know is that you threw that loop.”
“No!” Vicky shouted. “She didn’t! She couldn’t have. I tell you, she was here, right here all night. You’re lying. I’ll tell the police you’re lying.”
“I can’t let Cas take the blame, Mom,” Heather said, apparently contemplating her bare feet.
Vicky sucked in a breath, and it seemed to restore her usual calm. “You’re not going to do this. Cas will be okay. His family’s powerful. They have money. They’ll take care of him. There’s no need for you to do this. To risk . . . There are things—” Her gaze cut to Mike and me. “Private things.”
“We know,” I said.
“You can’t.” Vicky’s voice lost its usual certainty on the next words. “Nobody can. Nobody can know. Ever.”
Her daughter raised her head. She looked both older and much younger than Rodeo Queen Heather Upton. “I know.”
“I told you only because . . . only—”
“Because you were afraid I’d have sex with my father.”
“Heather. Don’t.”
“Like I’d have sex with that gross old man.” She turned to us. “It was like I told you. He tried pawing at me, and I had to dodge him all over the place, and that night he was just there. And he was coming after me, only now I knew he was my father, and it was . . . sick.”
My stomach lurched with contagious nausea. “Why didn’t you tell him?”
“I did.” She sucked in a breath. “He said there was no use lying, and all he wanted to do was make me feel better since Cas had dumped me.” A frown tucked between her brows. “I didn’t understand that. Cas and I’d had a fight, but we didn’t break up, much less him dumping me.”
“What was the fight about?”
“How many buttons I had open on my shirt for the program pictures. He said I was showing too much.” She pivoted, tossing over her shoulder, “I’ll be right back.”
ALONG WITH HER clothes, Heather must have donned some of her Rodeo Queen armor.
Her head was high (though hat- and tiara-less) and her posture perfect when Richard escorted her and her mother into Interview Room Two. Vicky’s surface was ruffled, but I had the sense her inner resolve wasn’t dented.
It had taken persuading to get Lloyd Sampson to interrupt Alvaro and tell him we had important information.
Alvaro had come out of Interview Room One, looking as if he’d like to bite off our heads and swallow them whole. That didn’t change much when I said Heather had something vital to tell him, though after a glance at the girl, he gestured for her to go ahead of him. Over his shoulder, he glowered at Mike and me. “Don’t go anywhere. I’ll talk to you two later.”
We’d been sitting on an uncomfortable bench across from the counter that divided the deputy on duty from the public for 14 minutes when the door to Interview Room One snapped open.
“—and you can’t stop me, Deputy. I demand to see Alvaro. I agreed my son could talk to you without a lawyer to clear up this crap, but not if we’re treated—”
Stan Newton’s voice preceded him. Once outside the door, he looked down the hallway, spotted us, turned red, and jumped back into the room, slamming the door behind him.
The next hour’s tedium was relieved only by Alvaro emerging from Interview Room Two and entering Interview Room One without glancing our way. Nineteen minutes later, he reversed the process.
Early on, Mike started to say something, but I cut my eyes toward Deputy Sampson, and that was the end of confidences in the sheriff’s department waiting area.
Mike had driven the Uptons in their car, to make sure there weren’t any detours on the way to the sheriff’s department, and I spent my time speculating on what might have been said during that trip. I also fell asleep.
Whispers woke me. I doubt if I’d have stirred for a full-voiced conversation, but whispers do it every time. That’s what comes of having older brothers who planned deviltry in whispers.
I elbowed Mike awake. Alvaro was finishing his whisper with Lloyd by the door of Interview Room Two. He gave Mike and me a brief, threatening death-stare as he went to the door of Interview Room One, then gestured to Lloyd.
Sampson opened the door of Interview Room Two. Heather came out.
Alvaro swung open the door to Interview Room One, said, “You can go,” and stood back.
The timing was perfect.
Cas stopped dead in the doorway of Room One as Heather sailed past.
Beyond the teenagers, the parents gave each other wary looks, unsure if secondary alliances conflicted with the primary allegiance each held to a child.
Before anyone else reacted, Cas ran the two steps after the girl and grabbed her by the arm to spin her around. “Heather? You? You used my rope? I thought maybe—” He bit it off, but it was too late.
“You thought it was that skank you’ve been buying flowers for.”
“Once. I got her flowers. Once. For her nineteenth birthday.”
“That bitch. You yell at me about a couple buttons open on my shirt, and you’re with her. That fucking Pauline.” Heather made the name sound like more of a curse than the f-word.
Cas paled. “You know her name? How do you know about . . . and the flowers? How do you know?”
“Do you think I’m stupid, Caswell Newton? Do you think I’ve known you all your life without figuring out when you’re hiding something?”
She turned her back on him and walked out without looking left or right, with her mother hurrying to catch up.
“—AND WITHHOLDING evidence—”
“We did not withhold evidence,” I said. “We withheld conclusions. You had the pink fabric. You had the marks on the beam.”
That stopped Deputy Alvaro. Or else he’d stopped for breath after a comprehensive lecture about interfering in an investigation. Even giving him the list Jennifer had developed of where Landry’s rodeo had been didn’t soften Richard.
“And as for interference, we’ve actually provided assistance,” I said. “As soon as we knew evidence had led you to Cas—”
“How did you know that?”
I ignored him. “—we went right to Heather to demand she talk to you and straighten it all out. Without us, you’d have followed the wrong path for days. Although I did wonder what motive you thought Cas—”
“Landry wasn’t exactly making a secret of going after Heather.” Alvaro glowered at me. “As you already knew.”
“How would I know?” I dropped the innocent act at his look. “Penny?”
“Deputies buy groceries, too, you know.” It was the closest he’d come to looking human since we’d walked in. “What else do you know?”
He looked at Mike, who shook his head, then at me. I raised helpless hands. He rubbed the back of his neck, and I realized some of his glare was from being dead tired.
“Listen, Richard,” Mike said, “we all want to solve this. And it’s clear we’re not putting stuff on air that would interfere with your case.”
“Thurston Fine won’t let you get on the air.”
“We could if we felt it was necessary,” Mike said.
Even if we had to lock Fine in a storeroom . . . which had a lot of appeal. “But we’re not,” I added, both to Alvaro and to end my storeroom daydream. “What we are doing, is gathering information to try to figure out an answer to this as fast as possible. You’re short-handed and pressed for time and—let’s be honest—not experienced with investigations like this.”
“But Elizabeth is,” Mike slid in.
“We could help,” I said, “if we had more information.”
Alvaro was silent a long time before, “Like what?”
>
I was ready. “Where was Landry’s phone found?”
He gave me a quizzical look. “In the pen. Where’d you think?”
“Still in a pocket?” I felt Mike tense, but didn’t look at him.
“No. It wasn’t still in a pocket. Why?”
“How close to the body?”
“It was in pieces. Trampled.”
“The pieces were where? Do you know? Did you keep track?”
“Yeah, we kept track,” he snapped. “They were most a fair distance from the rest—from the remains.”
“How far?”
“I don’t remember precisely, not without looking at the report again. Four, six feet away.”
I sat back. “Ah.”
“Ah, what?”
“Ah that removes a potential stumbling block to a growing theory.”
“Which is?”
“I’m not prepared to say right now.”
“You can’t withhold evidence.”
“Not evidence. Theory.”
“Elizabeth. If you know—”
“We don’t know anything. We’re feeling our way.”
“Ms. Danniher, as an officer of the law—”
I raised one hand. “I swear, Deputy Alvaro, if we know something for sure, we’ll come to you and tell you the whole thing.”
“And not go after the murderer yourself? Ignorance can be damned dangerous in a murder case,” lectured the cop who was the age of some of my nieces and nephews.
“We’ll keep that in mind. In the meantime, it would be helpful if you’d let us have a look at the detailed phone records.”
“The phone’s card is in Cheyenne. It’ll be a while before their forensic tools finish with it.”
Well, well. Young Richard had become subtle. What he’d said was no doubt true. What he left out was that they already had preliminary phone records from his brotherly connections. “When you get the information, you’ll share it with us?”
“I’ll think about it.”
“SO THAT’S WHY Heather was at the rodeo grounds so late—trying to catch Cas with the other girl. What did the Uptons say during the drive here?” I asked Mike as soon as we were in his night-cool vehicle.
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