Body Brace (Caught Dead in Wyoming, Book 10)

by Patricia McLinn

  “But it wasn’t freezing. Would chilly be enough to slow it?”

  “It sure didn’t speed up the process. Didn’t get warmer until late morning Saturday. And even then, the body was under the overhang so the sun didn’t reach it.

  “Say death happened late Thursday night or the early hours of Friday. The body could have been moved shortly after death, but otherwise it had to be in that near-fetal position while rigor set in — and I don’t think it could have been a short period with Wyoming having a patch of November in August.”

  “Okay,” Mike said slowly, “but what does that tell us?”

  “It tells us approximately when Rennant was killed. That’s first. The next thing it tells us is that he almost surely died while in that fetal position. Because the alternative is that someone posed him in that position shortly after he died. Which is possible, but why?”

  “Ritual? Special meaning? There are murderers who pose their victims?”

  “Religious or funereal poses, sexual poses, exposed poses — all those, yeah. But I have never heard of anyone posing their victim on their side in a fetal position. On the other hand, dying in the fetal position? Absolutely. Trying to protect themselves, or drawn up by pain, or the muscles pulling them into that position as they died… Okay, Jennifer, I promise, no more. You all get the point, right?”

  “If we take that as read, where does it get us?” Diana asked.

  “I’m afraid that where it gets us is to a couple big, fat questions. Where was the body that it was in a fetal position long enough as rigor set in to maintain that position, yet it wasn’t found?”

  “His house,” Jennifer said immediately. “Nobody went there as far as we can tell and you said his ex-wife said that wasn’t unusual.”

  “Nobody except Otto Chaney’s dog,” Mike muttered. “Maybe the dog did it. Motive, revenge.”

  “Then how did the dog move the body to the butte? And the really big question — why? Because, putting aside the dog as a suspect, someone went to some trouble to get the body up there. Almost certainly in the dark.”

  “Why in the dark?” Diana asked.

  “First, because of the time needed for rigor to fully set, which it had to be for the body to be in that position Saturday. Second, because there were people there until sunset Friday, then back in the morning Saturday. Third, they couldn’t have dumped the body Saturday morning because it had stopped raining and tracks would have shown. So—”

  “Wait, wait,” Jennifer ordered, starting to type into her device. “Let me figure this out. Killed at, say, twelve-thirty a.m. Friday with lots of question marks after that. Left somewhere — more question marks for that — where he was in the fetal position and nobody found him. Then, sometime Friday night or early Saturday morning, the body’s moved to the butte.”

  “Good recap. We might be able to narrow the move time down a bit more, by finding out what time the rain ended, closing the opportunity to get him up there without leaving tracks,” I said.

  “The rain ended about five Saturday morning. But I’m not sure it helps. Won’t most say they were home in bed at that hour? Even if someone else vouches for them, it would be a significant other, who might lie for them.”

  I grimaced at Diana’s image on the screen. “Thanks for that bit of sunshine.”

  “Okay, I understand all that,” Mike said. “But it makes your question about why even bigger, right? They have the body somewhere that it’s not found all day Friday, so why move it? And especially why move it to where it was found.”

  “I can think of three reasons. Because it wasn’t safe where they’d left it Friday, but they didn’t have a choice, so as soon as they had an opportunity, they — the killer — moved the body.”

  “That’s one.” Jennifer had her head down, typing.

  “Because they wanted the body in that particular place to point to the body in the cave.”

  “That’s two.”

  “Because they wanted the body found and knew there’d be activity there.”

  “Three.”

  “I don’t know about three,” Mike said. “If you want a body found, why not drop it in front of the Courthouse — okay, not the Courthouse, because you could be spotted. But there are a lot of other places where it would be pretty dead — no pun intended — and you could drop off the body without being seen but it would be found in the morning. And that wouldn’t involve a trip up to the butte.”

  “All good points. So, if three is the reason, yet the murderer picked the butte, that comes back to the significance we talked about yesterday. As we keep inquiring, we should be on the lookout for pointers to those reasons.”

  Diana said, “Two is the one that bothers me. It was such a longshot that you found the body.”

  “Maybe that I found it, but not such a longshot that it was found. You think Shelton would have left that scene without the cave being thoroughly searched, not just that first scan?” Unanimous head shakes. “Once they turned the lights on in there, it was a sure thing to find the cave body. But even without that, somebody who was on the scene stumbles into the cave pretending to be distraught, leans a hand on a rock, and… voilà. Amazing discovery.”

  “That’s so sneaky. I love it,” Jennifer said.

  My brief grin faded. “Number one is the one I don’t like. Because when I think of all the places where that body could have been all day Friday without being found, my head wants to explode.”

  “How could we start tracking them down?”

  I grimaced at Mike’s face on the screen. “Safe for you to ask, since you’re in Chicago. Honestly, I don’t think we do. Not unless we’re absolutely desperate. For now, we keep it in mind — really, all three possibilities and any others we come up with about why move the body — and wait for something to snag our attention.”

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  “Okay, Jennifer, no more drawing out the suspense. Spill,” Mike ordered. “Did you get the postmortem? Is that why you’re about to burst.”

  She maintained her dignity in the face of that characterization.

  “No success on the postmortem yet. However, there are three things — well four. The first part is boring. Nothing on his background check raises a single red flag. Solid financially, no legal issues, never in trouble with anybody that I can find. He did have allergies, but nothing major physically.

  “The second thing is sort of related, because it says why his finances are so good.”

  “We know that. From the companies he started and sold, like Elizabeth told us,” Mike said.

  “That’s some of it, but the important thing is he’s part of this FIRE thing. Have you heard of it?”

  “Yeah, I have heard of fire. Cooks my meat.” Mike’s crack spared Diana and me admitting Aunt Gee told us about Rennant’s involvement and ruining Jennifer’s moment.

  She exhaled an impatient Old Folks breath. “Not fire like flames. FIRE like the letters that stand for Financial Independence, Retire Early. It’s a … movement, I guess you’d call it. People save their money like crazy and invest it, saving instead of vacations or buying stuff or getting new cars and all that. When they get enough — they call it their number — to support them for the rest of their lives, they retire.”

  “Hard to believe people really do that.” Diana sighed. “Real people. With kids and a regular job.”

  “Yeah, that’s what they say. I suppose they could be lying, but… nah, at least some of them have to be telling the truth. But some start off making a lot of money, so that’s easier and a lot of them live really, really cheap, before and after they quit working. They call it frugal, but some of them… Really, they’re cheap.”

  “I can do that,” Diana said.

  “Can your kids? Would your kids? Besides, you can’t retire. Not as long as I’m at KWMT,” I said. “Can’t lose our best shooter.”

  “That’s the other big thing,” Jennifer said. “A fair number of them don’t actually retire.”

&nb
sp; “They have enough money to support them the rest of their lives and don’t retire?” Diana’s disbelief rose with each word.

  “Yeah. A bunch post that it removes the stress from their jobs and they like it again. Or they’ll work part-time or do something else that doesn’t pay as well but they like better.”

  “I don’t care what you say, Elizabeth, I am checking this out.”

  “I’ll send you the links I found, Diana. They support each other.” Jennifer paused. “Sometimes they nag each other.”

  “Maybe they’ll nag my kids, too. I can hope, right? Okay, back to Palmer Rennant. He was doing this FIRE stuff?”

  “Yes and no. I found his online handle and tracked back a bunch of his posts on five of these communities — two primarily. He had done the FI part by selling that company for a bunch. Then he started another company, his play project, he called it. And then he sold that company. That’s when the Rennants moved here. And then he started really posting, giving advice, talking about theories, and stuff.”

  “Anybody angry about his advice? Investments gone bad, anything like that?” I asked.

  “Not that I saw. The groups he was in don’t go for hot stock tips or stuff like that. It’s really pretty boring. Make a plan, keep doing it, keep expenses down including for investing, little amounts add up, don’t panic, don’t stray.”

  “I’m liking this more and more.” Diana held up a hand to me. “I know, I know, back to Palmer Rennant. So, he didn’t make any enemies with this FI or FIRE stuff?”

  “Wouldn’t say that. Sounds like his wife didn’t like some of it. He’d get on there and complain about her complaining.”

  “Not the path to marital harmony.”

  “Nope. And a fair number of them agreed with her. Said there was being frugal and then there was re-re-reusing used tissues. Which they used as an example, but I had a teacher who really did that and she’d stick it in the cuff of her sweater. Yuck. I tried to avoid letting her touch me, especially with that hand, but I couldn’t always get away. She was fast.”

  “And it didn’t kill you,” Diana said. “I think I’ll tell my kids that when they use a roll of paper towels to wipe up a drop.”

  “At least they’re wiping up,” I said.

  “You have a point. I’ll see what else I can find out from the rumor mill about Palmer and Willa, what was going on before the divorce, and since. That was what you were about to ask, wasn’t it, Elizabeth?”

  “Absolutely. I’ll wait to tackle Willa again until you report back. Might give me more entry points to get details. Jennifer, anything else from these online communities?”

  “Not really. Unless you want me to go way, way back. I read what he’d written right up until this week.”

  “Let’s save the backtracking for if we can’t find anything in the more recent past.”

  She did not acknowledge that largesse. “The recent past’s what else I was going to tell you about.”

  “Items three and four,” Diana murmured.

  “I found posts on a couple of those online financial groups where he was bragging about kicking the reenactors and camp off his property. Really proud of himself.”

  “He named the groups? Gave details?”

  “No,” she admitted, “but from knowing what happened and the dates, it was clear that’s what he was talking about. In one of his early posts about it, he said it was about insurance — not wanting the liability of the groups on his property. But later on, he loosened up and said stuff about history and academics telling a pack of lies, changing history for their own purposes to make a name for themselves and write papers and get tenure and stuff like that. And that reenactors were way, way worse. He said the only real history was tangible stuff. And that was being saved by a handful of people who were after the real history, not interpretive junk. He went on and on. Really didn’t like reenactors. That started a couple disputes — wouldn’t call them flaming — these people are awfully polite compared to the tech guys, who do not hold back. Anyway, when that was going, he let out some stuff that made it clear his wife — newly ex-wife — agreed with his critics. And didn’t they jump on that? Including telling him that showed he was wrong because it led to his worst financial mistake — getting divorced. And how he’d paid a lot for doing that.”

  She sounded amused.

  That faded, but her eyes brightened.

  She had something more. Something good.

  Diana, likely spotting the same sign, said, “The fourth thing?”

  “Russell Teague.”

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Not what I expected.

  Which was interesting… What had I expected? More about the ex-wife? Something about another woman?

  “What does Russell Teague have to do with Palmer Rennant?”

  “A lot. Rennant said stuff in his posts about a rich guy, though he never named him. But he did mention hot air balloons and this guy collecting real history. He also said he’d sold his second company to this guy’s family business and that the guy influenced Rennant’s move to Wyoming.”

  Diana and I simultaneously made a huh sound. There are coincidences and then there are not coincidences.

  “So, I got one of my guys who likes business stuff and knows about company sales, so he can spot who did well in the deal, and how it was structured, though why they call it that I don’t know. He found it right away and it turns out, Palmer Rennant sold his second company to a subsidiary of Teague’s maternal grandfather’s company — remember that’s where all the money came from, while he got the ranch after his father died. Plus, he found juicy stuff about Palmer Rennant hitting it off with Russell Teague and one article said that was because they were weird in the same ways and it was a good thing they each had good lawyers to work through the necessary legal and financial issues.”

  She sat back, looking satisfied. “What do you think of that?”

  “I think you hit the jackpot — though it was because of hard work, not luck. I also think it’s really interesting. Don’t know what it means in the scheme of things with Teague being sick…”

  “About to die,” Mike said. “I have a source — somebody who knows the inside baseball on what’s going on with Teague. And I might have gotten the source into a suite at Wrigley Field for each game of the series starting tomorrow.”

  Working that source became his assignment. Each of the rest of us would continue digging where we’d already started.

  “I’ll tackle Willa again, see if I can get more. I can wait until later in the day, Diana, if you can pump the rumor mill about Palmer and Willa, what was going on before the divorce, and since. Might give me more entry points.”

  “Sure. I’ll see what else I can find out.”

  “Great. I’ll also go out and talk to Otto Chaney about a dog.”

  “He’s mostly harmless, but you are not going there alone, Elizabeth,” Diana said. “I’ll meet you. But we’ll have to work around my assignments.”

  “We don’t want two vehicles sweeping in like it’s an FBI raid. That tends to put people off, cuts their inclination to talk right down to nothing.”

  “We’ll rendezvous by the entrance to Red Sail Ranch. Connie won’t mind. We’ll take your SUV to his place, so it doesn’t look like official KWMT business, either. I’ll call when I see an opening.”

  * * * *

  After we wished Jennifer success and fun with her interview — “It’s just a talk” — at Northwestern the next day, she and Mike signed off. But, seeing Diana didn’t leave my screen immediately, neither did I.

  “Why are you frowning?” she asked.

  “I’m having a hard time reading Jennifer’s feelings about visiting Northwestern and what might come out of that.”

  “That’s because she’s afraid of how much she wants it and how disappointed she’ll be when — that’s how she’s thinking — she doesn’t get it. So, she’s protecting herself by not saying much.”

  “Magical thinking.”
I answered her raised eyebrows, “Believing that how she thinks about it will affect the outcome.”

  “Oh, yeah. My daughter practices that, too.”

  I waited.

  She said nothing.

  There was only so much waiting I could do.

  “Is something going on with Jess? Is that what’s worrying you?”

  “God, is it that obvious?”

  “No. I’m that good.”

  She laughed. Her real, full-out laugh. But when it ended, she didn’t look like she had much to laugh about.

  “I didn’t want to talk to you about it.”

  I felt an unexpected stab of hurt, but said, “Then don’t. Talk to somebody else, but you need to talk.”

  “If not you, nobody.”

  Miracle cure for this kind of stab wound. And then — because who couldn’t use a little extra salve on a stab wound — I asked, “Not even Russ Conrad?”

  “Maybe especially not Russ.” She exhaled sharply. “I think that’s part of the underlying issue, along with being a teenage girl. But what’s visible above the waterline is… Well, have you talked to your brother and sister-in-law since they left?”

  That was the question she asked, but it wasn’t the question she meant.

  “J.R.?” My nephew and Jessica hit it off in the first two days my brother’s family were here, along with my parents. Mom and Dad then took Bill’s whole family to Yellowstone — repeating a trip they’d taken only six weeks earlier — before they all came back to Sherman. In those final four days, the connection between the teenagers was apparent to all. Including J.R.’s younger brother, Justin, who talked about googly-eyes and fake-gagged until his father made dire threats about cleaning the garage when they got home.

  “Yes. He’s a great kid,” she added hurriedly. “It’s nothing against him, but—”

  “They’re twelve-hundred miles apart.”