Dyer Consequences

by Maggie Sefton

  “Let’s see... ranch management. There it is. Professor Baxter Brown is teaching this semester’s course. May I ask why you want to know? It sounds like you’re fishing for something.”

  Kelly scribbled the name on the edge of a client file. “Thanks, Megan. I’m going to give Bobby a call and ask him how he likes his professor, this Baxter Brown. I’ll say I met him or something.”

  “Why, Kelly?”

  “Because I want to catch him in another lie. He told me he was taking a course in ranch management at the university this semester, and we’ve discovered he’s not enrolled. We know that’s a lie. I want to see what happens when I ask him how he likes the course. I’m betting he’ll lie again. He’s lied to me from the start.”

  “So, what does that prove?”

  Kelly exhaled an exasperated sigh. “I don’t know. Proof of another lie, I guess. That’s something. We can’t catch him doing anything else. That’s what frustrates the living daylights out of me, Megan. It’s not right.”

  “Kelly, that guy is trouble. I don’t think you should be calling him. Why don’t you—oops, that’s my client calling. Talk to you later, Kelly.” Megan clicked off.

  Kelly stared at her phone, debating for a minute, before she searched the directory for Bobby’s number. She punched it in and took a deep breath to calm down. Bobby answered on the third ring.

  “Hey, Kelly, it’s good to hear from you. Jayleen told me what happened. I sure am sorry you had that accident. Is your foot gettin’ any better?” He sounded as friendly as ever.

  My foot’s fine, you bastard.

  Kelly bit her tongue. “Yeah, my foot’s actually doing great. Almost healed,” she exaggerated. “It wasn’t broken, just a real bad sprain.” Now, that was a lie. Talk about Bobby. . . .

  “Well, that’s good to hear, it sure is. What can I do for ya? The animals are comin’ along great, especially now that the snow’s startin’ to melt.”

  “That’s good. I hope to come up there as soon as I can. No special reason for the call, just wanted to check in. I haven’t talked to you since my car accident.”

  “Lord, Kelly, that was somethin’ awful. You were downright lucky.”

  Kelly held her tongue, while Navy curses bounced around her brain. “Yes, I was. But I’m better now. By the way, I think I met your professor last night at a dinner party. Professor Brown. Baxter Brown? He said he taught ranch management at the university. That’s the course you’re taking, right?”

  Bobby didn’t miss a beat. “That’s right. So, you met him, huh? He’s a nice guy, isn’t he? Talks over my head a lot.” He chuckled in a good-natured way.

  Kelly had to hand it to him. Bobby was one skilled liar. Smooth, affable, and unflappable. Positively scary.

  “Yeah, he was real entertaining with his ranch stories,” she lied. If you can’t lick ’em, join ’em.

  “Oh, yeah, he’s got a million of those.” Bobby’s chuckle sounded again, low and friendly.

  That’s it. She had to get off the phone with this lying son of a sailor before she slipped and said something. “Hey, Bobby, talk to you later. I’ve got another call coming in.”

  “ ’Bye, Kelly, take care of yourself, now.”

  Muttering under her breath, Kelly clicked off and tossed the phone into her briefcase. Pulling herself out of her chair, she half-walked, half-hobbled to the kitchen—without her crutch. She was carefully putting more and more weight on her casted foot. Right now, she needed to pace or clump or walk off her frustration after that conversation.

  Searching for more coffee, she found nothing but an empty pot and settled on a cold soda from the fridge instead. As she hobbled back to the dining room, Kelly glimpsed Tracy’s jacket on the sofa. Damn! She forgot to tell Burt about the jacket. She’d better call him now.

  Kelly grabbed the jacket and hobbled back to her desk, where she dug her cell phone out of the briefcase again. She was about to dial when she noticed one side of the jacket was heavier than the other. There was probably something in the pocket, she figured, and set her phone aside while she searched. She withdrew a cell phone from the jacket’s left pocket. Tracy Putnam’s cell phone. Kelly caught her breath.

  Tracy’s jacket had been buried beneath trash on Pete’s side of the basement. That’s why the police didn’t find her cell phone. Now they could trace her boyfriend, Jimmy. They could discover who he really was. There would be a record of his last call to Tracy the night she died. Or better yet, a message with his voice.

  She had to see that number for herself. Then she’d call Jennifer and check if the number matched J. D. Franklin’s. She couldn’t wait for police to confirm it. She wanted to know now. Kelly switched on the phone. Several arrows appeared on the screen, pointing to various functions. Each brand of phone was a little different from the others. Why can’t cell phones be uniform? she wondered as she worked through several screens.

  Finding the message inbox at last, she saw that it was empty. Rats. No messages from boyfriend Jimmy. Searching the menu again, Kelly found the directory and started scanning the names there. Not that many, actually. But at least these would provide another checklist for the police to interview. She continued scrolling through the alphabet until her eye caught the name she was looking for.

  There it was. Jimmy. Her pulse speeded up. All right! Now, we’re in business, she exulted. She’d call Jennifer right away and . . .

  Kelly read the phone number listed for the mysterious Jimmy. It looked familiar. It should. It was the very same number she’d dialed only a few minutes ago. Bobby’s number. Bobby was Jimmy.

  Kelly’s heart skipped a beat. Oh-my God! Bobby was the mysterious boyfriend. The mysterious Jimmy. Robert J. Lester. Was that Robert James Lester? It must be. That means . . . Bobby was the last one to talk to Tracy. He came to the shop that night and entered through the door Tracy left unlocked for him. Bobby killed Tracy. And he trashed the shop to make it look like vandals.

  Images bounced around Kelly’s brain now, her heart racing double-time as her imagination went into overdrive. Bobby was a liar, many times over. He’d lied to everyone. To her, to Jayleen, to everyone who hired him, and finally, to Tracy. But was he a killer?

  He nearly killed you. In the canyon when he cut your brakes. You could have died in that crash.

  But why would he kill Tracy? Did she discover his lies? Is that why he killed her? Was he dating her solely to get information about the ranch? Find out who the buyers were and where they lived? That had to be it. Smooth-talking Bobby probably picked out quiet, shy Tracy on purpose, then poured on the charm while he pumped her for information, using her. What a lying, devious, heartless son-of-a-bitch. Maybe Tracy discovered what he was doing and confronted him. Bobby must have killed her to protect himself.

  Kelly tossed the jacket to a nearby chair, while she searched through Tracy’s phone for “Received Calls.” Sure enough, the last one was dated the night Tracy was killed. And the caller was “Jimmy.”

  “Gotcha, you bastard!” Kelly swore in triumph as she clicked out of the message menu.

  Or, so she thought. Unfortunately, pressing “OK” did not close out the screen on this phone. Instead, it dialed the number listed. Bobby’s number.

  Watching the dancing symbols flash across the screen, Kelly realized what she’d done and quickly pressed the off button. She drew in a deep breath and sent a quick prayer heavenward that the call hadn’t gone through. Placing Tracy’s phone carefully on her desk, Kelly picked up her own and punched in another familiar number. She needed to talk to Burt now. Listening to the rings, Kelly took a deep breath and tried to calm down.

  Burt picked up Tracy’s cell phone from Kelly’s dining room table. “This is great, Kelly. Now our investigators have a reason to question Bobby. He’ll have to answer for his whereabouts on the night of Tracy’s death. I’ve gotta hand it to you, Kelly. Broken ankle, foot in a cast, nothing stops you, does it?” He gave her a grin.

  Kelly didn’t return it.
That cold feeling in her gut was still there. “I wish I was as optimistic as you, Burt, but questioning Bobby will get you nowhere. He’s a master liar, like his relative sitting over there in the mental health facility. I’m sure he’s got an alibi all planned out. Hell, he probably got some drunk to claim he was drinking with him at a bar that night.”

  “Hey, don’t be so skeptical. Those detectives know their jobs. They’re professionals.”

  “Yeah, and Bobby’s a professional liar,” she shot back. “He lies right to your face and comes across as completely honest and sincere. He oozes cowboy charm and trustworthiness. And he’s devious as hell. He’s got an alibi, I’ll bet. Wait and see. Those detectives will never trip him up, and they’ll come away with nothing substantial.” She frowned at the phone. “Like you’ve said before—without anything that connects him to Tracy’s murder, you’ve got no grounds to charge him. I’ll bet you can’t even get his fingerprints, can you?”

  Burt shook his head.

  Kelly’s arm jerked out in frustration. “You’d think since he was the last one talking to her, he’d become a ‘person of interest,’ or whatever you call them.”

  Burt gave a rueful smile. “Well, you’re right about that. Since we’ve found absolutely no link between those north side guys doing the break-ins and the shop vandalism, the boyfriend-killer theory appears more likely. Now that we know Bobby was the last one to call Tracy that night, it’s highly probable he also came over to the shop. But—”

  “But you can’t prove it, right?” Kelly finished in frustration.

  “No, they can’t, unfortunately. He could tell us they were simply talking on the phone or making a date for the next night or whatever.”

  “See?”

  “We can’t prove anything yet, Kelly. Give the detectives a chance. Bobby’s bound to have left other loose ends somewhere. They’ll find them. Wait and see.”

  Kelly gave a disgusted snort in reply. She’d never been good at waiting. She was too impatient. “Wait and watch him get away with murder, you mean.”

  Burt shook his head again, giving her a fatherly smile. “They’ll get him eventually.”

  She exhaled a loud exasperated sigh. “It’s the eventually part that gets me, Burt. Meanwhile, I have to sit and do nothing. You know that drives me crazy.”

  Burt laughed as he rose from his chair. “I know, Kelly. Listen, I’ll take this to the department first thing in the morning. The guys will get right on it, I promise. Meanwhile, you’d better keep this new information to yourself, okay? Don’t share it with the others until the detectives have checked it out. Believe me, I’ll keep you posted.”

  “You got it,” Kelly said as she pulled herself out of the chair and hobbled—without her crutch—to the door with Burt. “Oh, don’t forget to let Deputy Don in on all this, okay? Without him, we’d still be clueless about Bobby’s identity.”

  “Don’t worry. Don will be right there with the Fort Connor team when they go into the canyon to interview Bobby. The county cops are definitely interested in this guy, too. I’ll talk to you tomorrow, Kelly,” he said as he left.

  Kelly hobbled back to the dining room, her insides still churning with frustration. There was no way she could sit still tonight. She needed a distraction. Something to take her mind off all of this.

  Staring through the patio door at Carl sniffing his empty doggie dish, Kelly realized what she needed. She grabbed her cell phone and punched in Steve’s number. The Jazz Bistro would keep her mind occupied and ease her frustration. There was nothing like great food, an icy martini, and hot jazz to keep aggravation at bay.

  Twenty

  "Good morning, Rosa, how’s your little girl, Naomi?” Kelly asked as she hobbled through the yarn room, coffee mug in hand.

  Rosa looked up from filling yarn bins with bright green froth. “She’s doing fine, Kelly. Thanks for asking. The doctor said it was a bad cut on her head, not a concussion. She stayed at home yesterday, and I let her watch her favorite cartoon channel all day.” Rosa laughed softly.

  “Wow, Saint Patrick’s Day must be coming.” Kelly pointed to the stacked baskets spilling over with varying shades of green. Forest emerald, vibrant shamrock green, lime green, pale early-spring green, melon green, olive green, even chartreuse.

  “Oh, yes. Spring is coming, and we’re ready for it,” Rosa declared as she left the room, empty basket in hand.

  Kelly slowly headed toward the knitting table, still maneuvering without her crutch. She found the crutch helped outside and on uneven surfaces, but inside the cottage and here in the shop, she was now clumping along fine without it.

  She set her mug on the table and plopped into a chair. It was midmorning and the shop only had a few customers wandering about. A perfect time for quiet knitting. Kelly needed some quiet this morning. Knitting peacefully always helped settle her thoughts. Maybe knitting would help settle this gnawing unease in her gut.

  Pulling out the circular needles, she carefully examined the vivid scarlet yarn. Her hat was coming along nicely. She’d completed nearly five inches of neat, even stitches which—thanks to the magic of knitting in the round— had transformed into a smooth stockinette pattern. Without purling. Only four more inches to go, and she could switch to the feared double-point needles to finish the top of the hat. She’d probably need a lot of help for that.

  Kelly slipped the needle beneath a stitch, wrapped the scarlet yarn, then slid the stitch from the left needle to the right. Slip, wrap, slide. The familiar cadence always helped her settle into a rhythm. Slip, wrap, slide. Slip, wrap, slide.

  She was starting to feel the rhythm when her cell phone rang. Anxious that it might be Burt, Kelly dropped her knitting quickly.

  Bobby’s voice came on the line, as friendly and down-home as usual. “Hey, Kelly, this is Bobby.”

  “Uhhh, hey, Bobby, what’s up?” she managed, feeling her gut clench. She was talking to a murderer.

  “I was hopin’ you could do me a favor. My mom’s just called from down in the Springs, and she needs my help real bad. My brother’s off overseas in the army somewhere in the Middle East, so we’re kind of looking out for his wife and kids while he’s gone. I’m gonna hav’ta get some money and head down there this morning because the garage mechanic won’t fix my sister-in-law’s car without cash up front.”

  Kelly had to hand it to him. Bobby oozed sincerity. Looking out for a poor relative in Colorado Springs while her husband was fighting overseas. Pulling on the heart-strings. Patriotism and pity all combined in one pitch.

  Maybe Carolyn Becker was Bobby’s mother, and he was going to the Springs to celebrate with the rest of his scheming family. Their plan had worked. They’d “scared” Kelly into putting the ranch up for sale. Now they figured they’d get it for a bargain price. Or so they thought.

  Kelly swallowed down the cynical response that rose to her lips and forced a reply. “That’s too bad.”

  “I was wonderin’ if you could come up and feed the animals this afternoon. I figure I’ll be back by tonight, so I can close and lock ’em up in the barn. But it might be kinda late. I tried callin’ Jayleen but couldn’t get her.”

  Kelly hesitated. If Bobby was gone today, the cops couldn’t question him until tomorrow. Damn.

  “You said your foot was better, so I was hopin’ you could come out, but if ya can’t, I guess the herd can wait till tonight. I’ll drive back as fast as I can.”

  Kelly paused, about to refuse. Why would she help him? Then suddenly a crazy idea surfaced, dancing in front of her eyes, and she found herself answering, “Uh, yeah, sure, Bobby. I’ll drive up. I’ll have to borrow someone’s car, but I’ll take care of it.”

  “If it’s too much trouble for you...”

  Another refusal started forming, but the crazy idea danced again, teasing her. Once more, Kelly jumped in— without thinking. “No, it’s okay. It’s fine. You take all the time you need with your mother. I’ll close the barn doors, too. We don’t want any pr
edators coming in.”

  “Thanks, Kelly. I sure do appreciate it. I’ll call you when I’m headin’ back.”

  “You do that, Bobby. Drive safely.” Kelly waited for him to click off before she closed her phone, her mind racing as fast as her pulse.

  Bobby would be gone all day. Which meant she would have time to look around the ranch house. She could search for something, anything that could link Bobby to Tracy’s death. Otherwise, Bobby would get away with murder. She had to find something. She owed it to Tracy.

  Kelly grabbed her mug, ready to down more coffee, then realized the last thing she needed was more caffeine. Her heart was pounding already with the crazy ideas that were dancing through her head. She needed to calm down and think this through. She reached for her knitting again and took a deep breath, forcing her breathing to slow as she returned to her stitches.

  Slip, wrap, slide. Slip, wrap, slide. Over and over, Kelly knitted, finishing one row, then another, while a war raged inside her head.

  Are you crazy? the sensible side of her argued. You’ve still got a cast on your foot. You have no business clomping through a barn in the mountains. And what about your other ankle? That’s a thirty-minute drive up into the canyon. Your right ankle’s not strong enough.

  That comment didn’t faze Kelly’s Crazy Idea side at all. She’d been getting around just fine this week, thank you very much. She would have the crutch with her. No problem.

  Slip, wrap, slide. Slip, wrap, slide. What about a car? Yours is totaled, or had you forgotten that?

  Crazy didn’t miss a beat. Just like Bobby. She could ask to borrow Rosa’s car. If she left now, she’d be back before shop closing time. No problem.

  Slip, wrap, slide. Slip, wrap, slide. What the hell do you expect to find in the ranch house? Do you think Bobby has left something incriminating sitting there? Like a coat with Aztec Blue dye on it, or something? You’re nuts if you think so. Bobby’s far too clever for that.

  That thought caused a momentary pause while Kelly’s racing ideas sorted themselves. She was good at finding clues. She’d find something. She knew she would. Papers showing his connection to the Colorado Springs people, phony IDs, something . . .