Left Hanging (5 page)

I homed in on the rock sticking out of that stream of words. “We?”

“Well, you. I’m afraid he won’t say much to me, not now. Like you’ve said, it takes a while to re-set with a subject you’ve rubbed the wrong way. Should have followed what you said about starting with questions people won’t mind, before asking tough ones.”

I’d said that? I had no memory of it. If he was going to quote me back, I hope I hadn’t said anything else. Ever. “Fine. I’ll go talk to him.”

He heaved a sigh. “Wish you’d been there earlier. I need pointers on working a subject.”

“Quit buttering me up. I already said I’d go.”

“Speaking of butter
 . . .
How about getting popcorn? You’ll go right past the concession stand. For both of us,” he added hurriedly, possibly in response to my dirty look.

“What
did
you get out of him?”

“The truck hauling the portable fence panels to make their pens was delayed, apparently because of coming here early for the Fourth of July Rodeo. They used the competition staging pens as a place to hold their livestock until the truck got here, which was not long after Landry was found.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

“What did you ask that made him clam up?”

“Do we have to go into—”

“Yes. I need to know what’s broken in order to make repairs.”

“I asked if it was true he’d been shouting at Landry yesterday about yanking around the schedule. And that Landry shouted back that he’d do what he wanted.”

“Where’d you hear that?”

“One of the regular contractor’s guys. He also said Landry smelled like a distillery.”

“And Oren Street said?”

“That people should mind their own business instead of talking about fussing that happened all the time, and was between partners besides.” Mike had caught an inflection and cadence that was not his own, giving a hint of the man he’d interviewed.

“Ask anything else?”

“I asked if it was true he got the business now and could run it as he wanted. Well, it’s true,” he said, defensively.

“Exactly how did he clam up on you?”

“Said he had too much to do to answer darned fool questions, what with reconfiguring the back pens.”

“Why’d they have to do that? That’s not near the scene.”

“The back pens
were
the scene. What you’re thinking of is the stock pens farther out. The back pens are the area where the bulls are kept until each is put into a chute to await its rider.” He pointed to where Street was now.

“I thought you called them competition staging pens?”

“Same thing.”

“You’re saying the back pens aren’t in back?”

“They’re in back of the arena,” he said. “They’re just not the farthest back.”

I snorted. “How’d they reconfigure them so fast?”

“They’re portable. Made up of panels that connect together.” He switched his attention to the arena. “Contractors travel with their own, set them up how they want. In this case, under orders from law enforcement, they’ve left the ones near where Landry’s body was found, but shifted the rest for use tonight. One chute isn’t being used, either. Can’t get a bull there without going through the area Alvaro designated off-limits. Your boy’s up next. Last to go. He’s got a good time to beat.”

I watched Cas Newton ride, rope, and tie his calf in the best time and with no penalties to win the event.

Then I started toward the dead man’s partner.

“Don’t forget the popcorn,” Paycik called.

I made no promises.

Oren Street completed another hay fling as I reached him.

“Mr. Street? Mr. Oren Street?” I stuck out my hand.

In programmed response, he rubbed his hand against the side of his jeans, which probably didn’t improve its cleanliness any considering their state, and stuck his out, too.

Only with my hand wrapped around his did I add, “I’m E.M. Danniher from KWMT-TV, here in Sherman.” His hand gave a slight jerk as if he meant to withdraw it, but I held on. “I’m sorry about the death of your partner.”

He mumbled thanks.

Still grasping his hand, I kept on. “I was hoping to ask you a few questions, strictly on background.” I stretched the fingers of my free hand wide to show its emptiness. “It would help in getting a handle on what this tragedy means.”

“What kind of questions?”

I took that as an invitation. “How long were you and Keith Landry partners?”

He eased, having expected a classic attack question. Say,
How much do you benefit from his death?
I released his hand.

“More than twenty years.”

“Sounds like a successful partnership.”

“It kept going along,” he said neutrally.

“To keep it going along for twenty years, you must have worked closely with him, know what he— No?”

He’d started shaking his head at
worked closely
.

“He handled his side and I handled my side, and we didn’t meet much in the middle.”

“Except at the bank?” I gave a small smile.

“Except there,” he acknowledged, not smiling.

“What was his side and what was yours? They never overlapped?”

“Hardly ever.” At last he seemed to relax. “He got the contracts, set our schedule. I get the right livestock to the right place at the right time. Once in a while he’d get us overbooked and we’d be stretched thin as a wire. He’d stamp and holler, I’d go figure a way to do the impossible, and he’d deposit a check fatter than I’d even consider asking for.

“He wasn’t an easy man, but his ways let me provide for my wife and baby girl better than I’d ever hoped when we started. When I got married after a stint of rodeoing, then we had our baby, I never thought—” He broke off with a jaw-cracking yawn, took a red bandanna from a back pocket, wiped it over his face, then gave his mouth a good rub, as if chastising that orifice for letting out the yawn. “Sorry, ma’am. I’ve been short on sleep, and getting shorter all the time.”

Working for a stronger bond of empathy, I recalled Jenks’ comment, and said, “At such an exhausting time, it’s good you’re able to sleep anywhere. I saw you on what must be the most uncomfortable bench this side of the rack. By the rodeo office.”

“Yeah. Caught a few winks there before that TV man interviewed me.”

I’m surprised he didn’t catch a few more winks during the interview, considering the interviewer. I nodded, encouraging him to go on. He did.

“Get my sleep when I can. Tending livestock on the move like we do’s a round-the-clock operation. Most people don’t realize these animals need the right conditions to do their best, just like the cowboys or
 . . .
or an Olympic athlete.”

He put more spirit into those words than anything else he’d said. And he wasn’t done. “First you got to find the right ones, whether it’s buying ’em or breeding ’em. Next you pick through the ones you
think
’ll make it to find ones that really will. And after you sort all that out and have your stock for rodeoing, then you got to feed them right, keep them toned up, make sure their days and nights go as smooth as possible so they’re rank in the arena. Travel will wear out your best stock if you’re not real careful.”

Perhaps my eyebrows rose a bit.

“They got their delicate ways,” he insisted. “Folks mostly expect it of horses, but it’s cattle, too. Between them being herd animals anyhow and being close together, why, when one gets out of sorts, the rest of ’em follow along like
 . . .
like
 . . .
”

“Sheep?”

I’d only been in Wyoming since April, but I already knew how many of the people I’d met would respond—even a century after the cattle-sheep wars—to the heresy of likening one species to the other, but Street said, “I was thinking like teenage girls.”

“That works,” I acknowledged. “With such delicate psyches, your animals—livestock—must be extremely upset after trampling Keith Landry.”

His animation evaporated. “They don’t know what they done. It’s not like they got human feelings,” he said with a dollop of disdain. Which didn’t say much for his opinion of teenage girls.

“You said they were unsettled,” I reminded him.

“Sure. Because their routine’s been disrupted.”

Poor babies. Though, their routine certainly had not been disrupted as completely as Landry’s. Or, for that matter, Street’s. Rather than raise that, I asked, “What will happen to the business?”

He shook his head in the manner of one at a loss to comment on the strangeness of the world.

He was still shaking it when I got tired of that variation on
no comment
, and added, “Do you get the whole business now?”

That didn’t stop the head-shaking, but he also spoke. “Yeah. Never figured it would be this way. Never figured he’d go first. Suppose most people say that in this sort of situation,” he said with unexpected acumen. “But in my case it surely is true. Keith was the businessman. All I know is livestock. Mind you, he wouldn’t have stayed in rodeo without me buying and breeding and tending my livestock. But I couldn’t do the business like he did. He loved the game of it and the winning, especially when he could
beat
the other side. Meeting people, making sales, writing contracts and all. He was a wonder at it, and that’s the truth. We’ll do fine this year. I suppose we’ll get by the next. After that? It’ll be like a snake that keeps moving after its head’s been cut off because it don’t know it’s dead.”

I saw no indication that he saw any significance in his likening Landry—and their business—to a snake as he concluded, somberly, “I surely don’t know what I’ll do without him.”

Chapter Five

I RETURNED TO our isolated spot in the bleacher seats with two boxes of popcorn and reported the conversation to Mike while watching the end of team-roping, which Cas Newton and another kid won. Now steer wrestling was starting.

“That’s all?” Mike asked when I’d finished.

“Wanted to keep the door open, keep him as a potential source of information. I have a question for you, too. What was Landry like?”

“Didn’t really know him. He’s been contractor here for years, but we didn’t cross paths. He bid this year, too, but got underbid by a new contractor. The committee signed the new one end of last year.”

“Last year? But Linda Caswell just took over as chair—”

“Yup, Fine got that wrong. Linda wasn’t chair when they signed the new, low-bid contractor. It was Fine’s ol’ buddy Judge Ambrose Claustel in charge then. When Claustel—” He bent a look of significance on me. “—stepped down, Linda Caswell was named.

“Then this new contractor notified them he’d gone bankrupt and wouldn’t fulfill the contract. That put Linda and the committee in a real bind. With only a few weeks until the rodeo, they either had to cancel after paying out a lot of money they’d never recoup, or they had to find somebody fast and hope to come out ahead. Landry was the somebody available.”

“What about the bankrupt contractor? I remember you reported on the company—”

“More like reported on not being able to find it. One letter saying he was bankrupt and poof! He was gone. Linda gave me her file, but what little contact information it had led nowhere. Claustel must have had the full file, and it went when he did. I tried contractor and rodeo associations, called long-time contractors, and no leads on this Sweet Meadows. Haeburn ordered me to stop spending time, on air or off, on it. I tried digging into bankruptcies on my own, but good lord, do you know how many bankruptcies there are? I didn’t even know the state.” He huffed out a breath. “I don’t know why I had such an itch to find out. It just felt
 . . .
” He looked away. “
 . . .
wrong.”

“Gut instinct can be the best reporter tool around. Maybe set Jenny on the bankruptcy search. She’s good with a computer.”

Good with the insides and the outsides. The newsroom aide/sometimes production assistant had gotten my home computer set up fast, as well as running down information for me on the Internet.

“I will.” He sounded significantly cheered.

By this time, steer wrestling had ended. Bull riding came last. It’s often the most dramatic, certainly potentially most dangerous. Mike had told me to watch every one of the eight seconds—and well past. After the ride can be the most dangerous for the competitor, not to mention the rodeo clowns, whose job it was to distract the bull from his intention of goring or trampling the competitor. I think I’d skip a want ad with job duties of
Draw attention of angry bull, keep it while everyone else flees to safety
.

Mike leaned forward, focusing on the action in the arena. But I wasn’t watching the bull riding.

I’d turned to reach for my jacket on the seat beside me. A flash of something caught my eye. Something visible in the open space beneath the empty bleacher seat behind me. Something blue.

Twisting around and down until I was almost lying crossways on the bleacher seat allowed me to see between the floor and seat of the row behind me. What I saw was the blue-haired girl from the animal rights protest.

Inside
the rodeo grounds. The heart of enemy territory. What could she be up to?

She shifted, and I realized she was not alone. Then I realized what she was up to. What many young people get up to under bleachers.

She and her companion were upright and not quite doing the deed, but even in the murky light I was pretty sure there were hands inside clothes, and a definite rhythm going.

I leaned more and made out a black cowboy hat in the faint light.

Great. That narrowed it to every male in the place and a few of the females.

A cramp scratched at my side. I shifted
 . . .
and realized that what little light reached the amorous pair sifted through the open sections between the bleacher seats and foot wells. Considering their position and mine, I figured my legs were shadowing them.

Adjusting my center of gravity, I lifted my legs, balancing on the seat, along with the support of both hands on the foot well behind my seat.

“Hey,” Mike protested. I could tell from his voice he was still looking toward the arena. “Put your feet down. I don’t want that shoe closer to my nose.”

I ignored him. The light was definitely better. I saw the crown of the black cowboy hat clearly. But the darned thing kept the wearer’s face shadowed.

“What are you doing?” Mike demanded, now speaking from over my shoulder.

Like the first domino tipping, that started a rapid sequence.

I reached back with one hand to wave sharply in the universal sign to “Shut up while I’m teetering on this bleacher seat!”

The scratch of the cramp in my side turned into a claw. And I was no longer teetering.

With only one hand to balance on and writhing with the cramp, my head dropped, my forehead whacked the foot well, accompanied by an involuntary sound of pain.

Ms. Blue Hair and her companion looked up. For a fraction of a second, the light shone on her companion’s face, his tilted-back head removing the protective shadow of the brim.

My feet dropped back to my footwell. By the time I scrambled around to look again—a process made speedier because I no longer cared about noise, but hampered by the full-blown cramp, a sore forehead, and Mike demanding to know if I was having a fit—Ms. Blue Hair and friend were gone.

MIKE DID NOT seem overly impressed with my tale of how Cas Newton and Ms. Blue Hair were consorting, as well as cavorting, with the enemy. He shrugged and mumbled something about teenage hormones as we applauded the bull riding winner and headed down the grandstand steps. He clearly hadn’t had much experience with PMS to so lightly dismiss hormones.

I thought back to my encounter with Heather Upton and her mother. Not a pair to take interference with their ambitions lightly, in my estimation. And those ambitions appeared to include Cas.

“What does this have to do with Keith Landry’s death?” Mike asked when I tried to explain all this.

“Fair question,” I admitted as we joined other spectators weaving around parked vehicles in search of their own. “But if Blue Hair has a mishap, I say we look right at Heather and her mama.”

He rolled his eyes, but had no time for more because his phone rang. One glance at Caller ID, and he answered quickly.

“Hi, Aunt Gee. Yes, I’m coming Sunday. I don’t know. That hasn’t been decided yet.” His eyes cut toward me. “Uh-huh
 . . .
uh-huh
 . . .
Oh
 . . .
uh-huh. Okay. Yes, ma’am. I will. Thank you.”

He ended the call as we reached his four-wheel drive. The vehicle’s outside blended unpretentiously with those around it. Inside, it offered the luxuries befitting his status as a former pro football player, without slipping into flashy. It was a lot like Paycik.

His Aunt Gee—Gisella—was the long-time dispatcher for and acknowledged queen of the county sheriff’s department’s unit in the town of O’Hara Hill. She’d provided invaluable help in the Foster Redus investigation. I’d worried she might be in danger of losing her job. But since the sheriff was being recalled by voters, going after Aunt Gee appeared unlikely.

While being more circumspect, she’d also provided a mild tidbit or two in the weeks since. So, I was strongly tempted to whack Mike upside the head and demand to know what his aunt had said. On the other hand, she might have been calling on a family matter that was none of my business.

“Mind a detour, instead of going right to the station?” he asked.

“To?”

“The sheriff’s department. I have this sudden hunch Deputy Alvaro might have something interesting to tell us.”