Body Brace (Caught Dead in Wyoming, Book 10)

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Body Brace (Caught Dead in Wyoming, Book 10) Page 25

by Patricia McLinn


  His pattern…

  “There’s that face,” Diana said, as if from a distance.

  “What face?” Mike demanded.

  “The one that says something just clicked in Elizabeth’s brain.”

  “Darn this broken video. I love that face.”

  And then I gave a little shiver and I was back in my living room and the voices were regular volume.

  “What were you thinking about?” Jennifer asked.

  “Palmer’s patterns and scratch marks on Palmer’s truck. Willa said Palmer always parked in front of the middle of the steps to his porch, because it was convenient for him and he didn’t care it wasn’t convenient for others.”

  “That fits what we’ve heard about him,” Diana said.

  “It does — it fits his pattern. But the truck wasn’t parked there the day after he was found. It was parked thoughtfully off to the side.”

  After half a beat, Mike said, “Sheriff’s department moved it so they could get in and out.”

  “They say they didn’t. Then there were the scratches I told you about on the truck.”

  “I knew it — the dog did it.”

  I interrupted Diana. “Devil’s not a suspect, but might be a witness.”

  She asked, “How do you figure that?”

  “Devil’s pattern. He doesn’t just chase moving vehicles, he reacts when someone is in a vehicle, even if it’s still. Remember when we went there and he was going nuts on the porch after we’d parked? But as soon as we got out of the SUV, he stopped. I saw the same thing with Willa. Devil was fine, then she got in her SUV and he barked and carried on immediately.

  “When Otto let Devil out Thursday night or early Friday morning, he said the dog went to Rennant’s house and made such a fuss he was sure Rennant would call and complain.”

  “Right. We figured that was because Rennant died before he could complain,” Mike said.

  “Yes, but why did Devil raise such a fuss?”

  Diana got it first. “Because someone was in a vehicle at Rennant’s house.”

  “Exactly. Someone curled up into a fetal position against the side of the passenger door, where Devil scratched. A position that explains the marks Aleek saw on the shoulder — under the attempts to paint his back and shoulders — and fits with the position set by rigor.”

  “Then why did the dog scratch at the front door? Rennant was in there first?”

  “Or another person. Someone Devil wanted to follow, as he tried to at Otto’s house. And that’s the person Otto heard driving away fast. He’d thought it was before Devil raised his fuss, but when we went back over it, he realized it had to be after.”

  “Someone who?” Jennifer asked. “Willa?”

  “That’s the question, isn’t it? But we know more than we did.

  “That’s if Otto didn’t lie,” Mike reminded us.

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Jennifer messaged that she’d check with Fort Phil Kearny tomorrow and sent the link for accessing first-hand accounts by the Miners’ Camp Fight survivors. They weren’t long, but they were photos of handwritten pieces.

  My eyes and my head ached. And no mention anywhere of a Rennant. Unless the handwriting was even worse than I thought.

  By ten-thirty, I was tired of my own thoughts and no old movie was satisfying my itch.

  Diana had gone home to her kids.

  Jennifer was spending the evening with her family — so unreasonable of them to monopolize her.

  Mike had done two sportscasts, then gone out with co-workers.

  I called Diana.

  “I know it’s late, but I hoped you’d help me untangle my thoughts.”

  “I can’t. And I have to get off the phone.”

  “Diana—?”

  “Jess is an hour late and she’s not answering her phone or messages. I have no idea where she is. She was upset about— She was upset, but she seemed better and I thought going out with her friends would help— But they’re home now and she’s not.”

  “I’m getting off the line. Message me if there’s news or I can do anything—”

  But I already had an idea of what I might be able to do.

  As soon as we disconnected, I hit speed dial.

  “Mom? It’s Elizabeth. I know it’s late and I hope I didn’t wake you—”

  “You didn’t. I’m putting you on speaker. Jimmy, it’s Elizabeth.”

  “Maggie Liz, great to hear from you. How’s Sherman and Cottonwood County?”

  “Hi Dad. It’s fine.”

  “Except for another murder — or two,” my mother said. I hadn’t adjusted to my parents getting a personal stream of KWMT-TV, thanks to Jennifer. “But you’re not calling about that.”

  “No. I was, uh, wondering how Bill, Anna, and the kids are since their return?”

  A beat of silence came from Illinois. “I told you, Jimmy.”

  “So you did.”

  “Told him what?”

  She didn’t answer directly. “It’s about J.R. and Jessica, isn’t it?”

  “Jessica?” Dad asked.

  Mom clicked her tongue. “I told you that, too, Jimmy. The lovely girl in Wyoming. Diana’s daughter.”

  That wiped out my wondering if Jessica had dumped J.R. Mom wouldn’t have called her lovely if she’d dared to break a Danniher heart. If J.R. broke Jessica’s heart, Mom would be sympathetic, but not as warm.

  “What makes you think that, Mom?”

  “Well, first, because you’re calling.” Score one for Mom. “Second, because J.R. was trying to take his brother’s head off earlier this evening.”

  “Which brother?” I asked out of curiosity.

  “Justin.”

  “What did Just do?”

  “He took J.R.’s phone. They didn’t know that at the start. They only knew J.R. was turning the house upside down because he couldn’t find his phone. Justin disabled the find feature, which they didn’t know until Bill thought to go to the neighbors where Justin was on a sleepover. He is truly gifted with electronics,” said the proud grandmother. “Even with the phone back, J.R. was beside himself. Justin did something else to it that’s causing a problem — temporary, I’m sure. Bill and Anna sat J.R. down and tried to talk sense to him.”

  Lots of luck talking sense to a teenager who thought he was in love. Especially for the first time.

  Mom scoffed. “Sense. With a teenager.”

  Good heavens, my mother was becoming me.

  “What kind of sense?”

  “To look up from his phone once in a while,” Dad said. “He’s been physically present and not with us ever since we got back from Wyoming — great visit, by the way. You should have seen those kids at Yellowstone. And you made it possible by getting us out there to Wyoming.”

  “You thanked me multiple times already, Dad.”

  Mom got us back on track. “J.R. was frantic that Jessica would think he was ignoring her. He tried to use his mother’s phone, but didn’t know Jessica’s contact information. It’s all programmed into his phone. That made him more upset.”

  “Ah.”

  “Elizabeth? Is something wrong? Is it Jessica?” Had to be Mom radar.

  “I don’t know exactly. But you’ve helped. I’ll call—”

  “You’ll tell us what you can tell us when you can tell us,” Dad said.

  Mom didn’t commit to that restraint.

  * * * *

  I held my phone looking at it.

  I could call — but my call would jolt the fear adrenaline in Diana’s system.

  A message? Not the best medium to convey nuance.

  Oh, hell.

  I drove to Diana’s ranch, with Shadow as shotgun.

  Well, not shotgun. Fine for humans, too dangerous for my dog.

  * * * *

  I knocked on the door to Diana’s ranch house, opened it, and called, “It’s me, Elizabeth,” all at once.

  Diana spun around from the sink. I also spotted Gary in the darkness of the hall
way that led to the bedrooms.

  “Elizabeth, what are you doing here? Have you heard something—?”

  “No. I came to wait with you.”

  Shadow passed me and went to Gary, who dropped down next to him.

  With him taken care of, I went to Diana. A look from her held me off from hugging, but she squeezed my arm briefly before letting go abruptly.

  “She’s always been home by her curfew. She’s an hour past. And she’s alone. She dropped off the two girls she was with and they said they had no idea where she went. She didn’t say anything to them.”

  Anxiety had set her mouth going. Better to let it run or pull her up short? I had no idea. I experienced an unexpected longing to call Mom.

  “I don’t know if that’s girlfriend solidarity against the parent or it’s true, because she can keep things to herself, but—”

  “Diana, is Jessica upset about J.R.? I have it from an excellent source that he’s been upset most of the day because Justin hid his phone, disabled the find function, then messed up something else. They only found out a short while ago and Justin was read the riot act … at the same time they’re talking to J.R. about being less obsessive.”

  “He hasn’t broken up with her?”

  “Good heavens, no. He’s beside himself about being out of contact. In fact, it’s a little crazy—”

  “It’s a lot crazy. But I must be weak, because I can only be grateful he didn’t break up. She wouldn’t tell me what happened. She was trying to be so cool and unfazed. I thought letting her go with the girls might make that pose become real.” She scraped her hair back from her forehead with one hand. “I should have known—”

  She broke off and jabbed at her ringing phone with far more strength than it needed.

  “Hello? Yes. … Yes. … Yes. … Okay.”

  She ended the call, sucked in a breath, then filled a glass with water and drank it down. She filled one for me, then refilled hers.

  This one she drank more slowly.

  Then, her head tipped slightly.

  Her gaze came to me, but she pitched her voice to the hallway. “She’s okay. Russ — Sheriff Conrad — has her. They’re on their way. Should be here soon.”

  “That’s great.” I spoke loudly, as if that would cover the ragged breath from the back hall we all heard and pretended not to.

  “You should be in bed, Gary.” Diana’s voice had regained its mother certainty.

  “I don’t get to hear you yell at her?”

  “Now.”

  Gary peered at me from the hallway. “Can Shadow stay with me?”

  I wasn’t nearly as good as Diana at laying down the law. “Until I leave.”

  “Overnight and he can sleep in my bed.”

  Shadow looked at me, too. He never got to sleep in the bed at home.

  “Until I leave, but I won’t pay attention to where he is until it’s time to leave.”

  “Deal. C’mon, Shadow.”

  The guys left, six feet patting away into the deeper dark.

  “Thanks,” Diana said dryly. “Dog hair. Just the thing to top off an adolescent boy’s sheets.”

  I shrugged. “He wore me down.”

  “Yeah. You put up a valiant fight.”

  “I thought so.”

  “Speaking of a valiant fight, are Bill and Anna doing any better with keeping J.R. in touch with reality than I am with Jessica?”

  “Doesn’t sound like it. Maybe you guys should talk? If the parents at both end of the messaging orgy are united…”

  “You think they’d be open to that.”

  “I do, but I’ll check.”

  “This blew up so fast and so strong… I don’t even know what’s normal for teenagers messaging each other when they’re across the country.”

  We talked about that. And her worries about parenting a teenager in the throes of first love. I said that as far as I could tell there were no right answers, though there were some awful ones and avoiding those was the primary goal. In the midst of telling her she was the best person I knew for avoiding awful answers, I broke off.

  We’d both heard a vehicle outside.

  Jessica came in first, nearly levitating with rage. I suppose that was better than misery.

  Sheriff Russ Conrad followed with stolid neutrality.

  “You can thank him for your truck not being here.” Not looking at her mother, Jessica rattled out words like bullets. “He wouldn’t let me drive back. He made me just leave the truck out there. It’ll probably be stolen. I just needed to think. And it’s all too stupid.”

  “You are not allowed to drive after 11 p.m.” Conrad’s voice still had the cop calm, but he’d had a good look at Diana by now and stolid was gone, along with neutrality. A muscle jumped in his jaw.

  I heard Gary’s — and Shadow’s — stealthy return to the listening post in the dark hallway.

  “That’s just stupid—”

  “The top two time periods for teen driver fatal crashes are six to nine p.m. and nine to midnight. You’re also not supposed to drive with more than one non-family member under eighteen. But you had two girlfriends with you earlier.”

  “One’s eighteen,” Diana said quietly. “She was sick as a girl and missed more than a year of school. I wouldn’t let Jessica break the rules.”

  Conrad heard her, but I doubted Jess did. She was focused on the sheriff.

  Gary crept forward, his face now visible. Shadow’s head rested on his thigh while my dog’s worried brown eyes went from face to face.

  “You wouldn’t understand, because you’re not human—”

  “Jessica.”

  “—but I needed my friends. Besides, I dropped them both off.” Jessica’s tone flounced with disdain.

  “You didn’t need them more than you need to stay alive. Teens are ten times more likely to be in a fatal car crash than adults.”

  “You’re not my father.”

  As an outside observer, I wanted to take points off that accusation for lack of originality. On the other hand, it was a classic because it drove the point of the knife in deep.

  “No. I’m the sheriff. And I’ve been out on too many calls when a kid like you thinks the laws of physics and reason don’t apply to them and they end up as blood and guts and bones on the highway,”

  Color ebbed from Jessica’s face, but not as much as from Diana’s face.

  “Too many times I’ve had to go and tell the parents that’s all that’s left of their son or daughter and the kid isn’t coming home ever again. The last thing on this great earth I want to do is bring that kind of news to your mother because she loves you and I love her.”

  My focus popped around like a pinball.

  Jessica’s color rushing back so fast I thought she might keel over. Gary’s face twisting into a silent Ewww at the display of adult emotions. Diana’s eyes widening with shock, while her hand went to her throat. Conrad’s intensity receding against the realization of what he’d said, when he’d said it, and to whom he’d said it.

  But grim determination quickly shored up Conrad’s intensity. Grim determination would take the glow off a declaration of love for most women, but Diana’s mile-wide stripe of practicality took it in stride.

  I wondered what my expression showed as I realized that not only was this the first time Jessica and Gary were hearing that Sheriff Russ Conrad loved their mother, but it was the first time Diana had heard it. Possibly the first time he’d realized it.

  Gary finally emitted the “Ewww” he’d been working up to.

  It unfroze the tableau.

  Jessica spun around and ran past him toward her room.

  Diana gave Conrad a look that both bestowed and asked for patience, then followed her.

  Gary followed up — in case we hadn’t understood his earlier sentiment — with, “Gross.” Then he, too, headed for the hallway to his bedroom and Jessica’s, with Shadow behind him so as not to miss out on any in-the-bed time.

  “Don’t say it
,” Conrad ordered without looking at me.

  “Don’t say what? Great timing? Deft touch?” He growled after each question. “Or that if you hurt her — or them — I’ll hunt you down and destroy you with a clear conscience and, even if Shelton makes the arrest, I won’t have a single regret. On the other hand, if you make her happy, I’ll continue to tolerate you.”

  “Might be the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.” The driest of smiles accompanied that.

  “More than you deserve. But I go the extra mile for Diana.”

  “Better watch it. At this rate, we’ll become friends. Friendly,” he amended immediately.

  “I’d never rule out miracles. Especially if you get your head on straight and get smart about Jessica and Gary.”

  He shifted his gaze toward me without moving his head. “What would be smart?”

  “How about instead of spouting statistics at them, have them dig up the statistics themselves. Have them teach each other, essentially.”

  Now he faced me. “Sort of like you do when you report those stories that keep you out of my hair, when consumers warn other consumers about scams, not just the officials issuing the same old warnings.”

  His interest and enthusiasm scared the bejabbers out of me. Cautiously, I said, “Yes, sort of like that.”

  “Hmmm.”

  Only partly because his reaction kicked in my atavistic instinct for self-preservation, I gathered up my things.

  “Tell Diana I’m leaving Shadow tonight for his healing properties, we can arrange a handoff tomorrow, and none of them should overindulge him with treats. Got that?”

  “Maybe I better go, too.”

  “No way, Conrad. First, you relay my instructions. Second, you said it and now you wait for Diana to straighten as much as she can with her daughter tonight before you say it again, like it should be said.”

  DAY SEVEN

  WEDNESDAY

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  After yesterday’s way too early rising, last night’s drama at Diana’s, and a restless effort to sleep that I was not prepared to admit might have been from not having Shadow around, I rolled over and went back to sleep after my eyes opened the first time with the bird-chirping penetrating my consciousness in a way it rarely did.

 

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