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“LET ME TAKE THE LEAD on this one,” Frank said as they approached the table.
“Okay, but after I set the stage,” Kiera said, grabbing his hand and tugging him along.
The vendor, looking like the images Frank had seen on his searches, but ten years older and thirty pounds heavier, glanced up from a paperback. “Morning.”
“Look at these, Frank.” Kiera pointed to a barbed wire model of a cattle dog. “Can’t you see something like this in your uncle’s den?”
Frank stepped alongside Kiera, studied another of the sculptures, a longhorn cow. “Interesting. Do you age the wire for these?”
“Nope,” the man at the table said. “Using old wire gives my pieces their special look.”
Frank moved on to another one, a bucking bronc. “Common twist. Must be hard to work with. I’d think single twist would be easier. Even your standard double twist.”
The man chuffed. “I’m keeping the Band-Aid company in business, along with leather gloves. It sets my work apart from the rest.” He extended a hand. “Bart Braverman. You seem to know your wire.”
Frank accepted the handshake. “Summers spent working in a hardware store in Montana. Frank.” He turned to Kiera. “You’re right about my uncle liking one of these, but I think he’d go for something bigger. For his front yard, maybe. Near the antique buckboard and bronze elk.”
“You’re right. I can see something like this—” she pointed to the bronc— “only bigger.”
“Do you do custom work?” Frank asked. “Would you be able to tackle a sculpture let’s say, half scale? I think that’s what my uncle’s yard pieces are, but I’d want to confirm first.”
Braverman appeared to be mulling it over. “Would take a while. As you can see, all my wire is used. Can’t go out and buy it by the roll from the hardware store.”
“Where do you find it?” Kiera asked.
Frank studied the man for any tells that he thought he was being questioned about more than a consignment sculpture, but he seemed to be taking the discussion at face value.
“I have my sources,” he said. “Ranches have to replace fencing, or they sell parcels of land for non-ranching use. Housing developments, things like that. Get some from city dumps, too.”
Kiera pointed to a small piece, a wire wreath on a wooden plaque. “Why is this one so much more expensive than the rest?”
“That’s antique wire. Crandall, circa eighteen seventy-nine. A rare find.”
“Did you get it from a rancher?” Kiera asked.
Braverman chuffed again, sounding like a steam engine leaving the station. “eBay.”
Frank smiled. “I imagine you can find anything there. I have your number. I’ll check with my uncle, get back to you. He’s a traveler in his retirement. Might be a few days.”
“Not a problem. Look forward to hearing from you.”
At a leisurely pace, they wandered toward the next table.
“He doesn’t look like a cattle rustler,” Kiera said.
“Appearances can be deceiving. Doesn’t mean he doesn’t work with them. He had perfectly logical explanations for where he gets his wire, but he’d have his story in place, especially after being arrested.”
“Do you think we’re wasting our time here? It’s not like anyone’s going to admit to being cattle thieves, and, like you said, there might be other connections.”
Frank had to admit Kiera had a valid point, although he considered a few hours in her company far from a waste of time. He wondered again if Derek had suggested this venture as a way to get him out of his lonesome cowboy rut. Not that he was lonesome. Nothing wrong with a little solitude.
“Wait,” Kiera said. “Don’t turn around, but he’s making a phone call. Do you think he’s alerting his accomplices? That’s what they do on television. The bad guy plays along with the good guy, has all the right answers, and as soon as the good guy leaves, he goes straight to the phone.”
He chuckled. “I thought you said you didn’t watch a lot of television.”
“You don’t have to watch a lot to pick up on repeated plots.”
“For all we know, he’s calling his wife.”
“Or his barbed wire contacts. Looking to line up enough to make a sculpture for your uncle.” She cocked her head. “Are you going to tell him you don’t want the sculpture after all? Doesn’t seem right to leave him hanging, even if it turns out he’s involved in stampeding your cattle.”
“I’ll call him later, tell him my uncle said having a sculpture made of barbed wire could be considered an attractive nuisance on his property, and he doesn’t want to risk it.”
“You considered that, didn’t you?”
He guided her along the path. “I did. Although even if he was involved in stampeding Derek’s cattle, he might take it upon himself to gather more wire. That imaginary sculpture I proposed would earn him a tidy profit.”
“Seems if he needs the wire, he’s not going to call attention to himself by creating stampedes.”
“I agree. The local ranchers are all on alert, so he or his cohorts won’t have an easy time of it. Now, shall we finish looking at the rest of the vendors, or do you want to abandon what was most likely a fruitless task to begin with and have lunch?”
“Fruitless or not, I think we should finish what we started. We don’t have to linger, but I’d like to see the rest of the vendors.”
Frank didn’t mind strolling alongside Kiera, so he agreed without hesitation, and they moseyed along. Four of the vendors from his list had tables. Kiera approached each of them with enthusiastic interest, praising their work and guiding the conversation.
“This is my first time here,” she said to each vendor. “Do you come every week? Or do you go to a lot of different places?”
Frank mentally eliminated the two who said they came to only this market for the season. Another, an elderly woman in a wheelchair, selling stuff made with yarn, seemed unlikely as well. The last, a woman—late twenties he guessed—was busy decorating a wall hanging made from pieces of weathered wood. The man behind her had a plastic tub filled with scraps. He had a small workbench set up where he was assembling more hangings to be decorated. Frank thought he was going to a lot of trouble, dragging all his tools and supplies to the marketplace, but then, people probably liked seeing the creation process from start to finish.
It was the leather work gloves the man wore that caught Frank’s attention. The one with a hole in the index finger.
~~
KIERA SENSED A SHIFT in Frank’s demeanor. Had he picked up on something? She stepped forward, lifted one of the wall hangings from the table. A picture of a cupcake, with the words Life is Uncertain. Eat Dessert First surrounding it. “I totally agree,” she said to the woman.
The woman was painting a base coat of white on another plaque. Frank had moved to the end of the table where he was watching a man put together more plaques to be decorated. She figured her role was to engage the woman so Frank could check out the man.
“These are good,” Kiera said. “I can barely draw a stick figure. Did you go to art school?”
The woman smiled. “Night classes at community college. I’m more of a craft person than an art person, though.”
“Is that your husband?” Kiera chinned toward the man making plaques. “Must be nice to have a family business operation.”
The woman stood, reached for another blank plaque, revealing an obvious pregnancy. “Until this munchkin gets here. The craft market season is short. After Labor Day, it’ll be Etsy and eBay. My husband will be back to his teaching job.”
Frank returned to her side. “Ready for lunch?”
“As soon as I pay for this wall hanging.” She held it up for Frank to see. “I think this will be my new mantra.”
The transaction completed, the Dessert First plaque bagged, Kiera and Frank strolled through the park. “Did you want to eat here or go somewhere quiet where you can tell me what you thought about that man?” Kiera asked.
“You like Mexican?” Frank asked.
“Sure. Are you talking about the food truck?”
“Nope. There’s a place that does excellent Mexican. It’s a dive in a strip mall, but it’s more than your typical tacos and enchiladas.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
Five minutes later, they were seated in the restaurant. Kiera had her doubts when they’d pulled into the mall. Frank had said the place was a dive, and he wasn’t kidding. Tiny storefront, crudely lettered signs announcing the specials. However, one step inside, and the mismatched furnishings and tacky décor didn’t matter. The aromas had her mouth watering. Frank had been right about the expanded menu choices.
“What’s good?” she asked.
“Haven’t had a bad meal here. If you can handle the spice, I’d recommend the camarones diabla. If you prefer milder, you can go for the pollo asado.” He grinned. “Or, they do great vegetarian dishes, too.”
“As long as Mr. Wainwright doesn’t show up, I’ll go with the camarones. If he does, I can always say I’m a seafood-eating vegetarian.”
“Little chance of running into any vendors here. They’re all going to be at the market until one.”
Their server brought chips and two kinds of salsa. They placed their orders—Frank went with carne asada—and once the server had left, Kiera asked Frank what he’d discovered when he’d talked to the man at the plaque table. “Do you think he could be your rustler? His wife said he’s a schoolteacher and he’ll be back to work in the fall. You did notice she’s pregnant, right? Seems like they’re trying to earn a little extra money. Teachers don’t make much.”
Frank gave the soft chuckle that warmed her more than the salsa their server had left.
“What’s so funny?” she asked.
“You ask a question, but don’t give me a chance to answer.”
Heat rushed to her cheeks. “Bad habit. Go ahead. I’ll be quiet.”
Frank explained about finding what he thought was a torn piece of a leather glove in the cow pasture. “I saw the hole in the guy’s glove, but it was a totally different kind. We talked for a bit, and you’re right. He’s helping his wife with her business.”
“We didn’t learn much today, did we?”
“Eliminating suspects still counts as learning something.”
“You think we can write everyone we met off? Didn’t you say the barbed wire guy was arrested?”
“For trespassing, not stealing. He was never charged with theft. Or questioned as a suspect in missing cattle.”
She dunked a chip into the salsa. “Doesn’t mean he didn’t do it, only that he didn’t get caught.”
“True, but what’s his motive? My background checks, cursory as they were using public search engines, showed him to be an artist, nothing more. From what I found, he seems to be doing well.”
Their food arrived, and Frank changed the subject. “You never told me about your work.”
She chewed on her meal for a moment, trying to decide how much she should tell him. As little as possible, she decided.
“I worked for a financial advisory firm. Got sick of it, and my boss was a jerk. I decided I’d had enough.”
“What are you going to do next? You said you wanted to make a living at your hobby. Which is?”
“Photography. I made reservations at a Breckenridge resort to get some good Colorado mountain images. Work on photo essays. Build a portfolio. There are magazines that pay. Not a lot, at least not at first, but I don’t have to hit it big right away. Breckenridge fell through, but there’s plenty to photograph around here.”
“I guess your former line of work means you’re good at money management.”
“I did all right.” She thought of Stu, and her stomach knotted around her shrimp. “I should get back. There’s always a chance my replacement car will come early.” And she needed to talk to Derek about her proposal.