Jennifer didn’t concede. “If Hiram’s the killer, the sheriff’s department already has him, and there’s nothing left for us to do.”
“That’s a big if,” Mike said.
“A very big if.” Three looks came my way.
“Why’d you say it that way?” Jennifer asked.
“I noticed something. It could mean a few things, including nothing. I want to think about the best possibility more.”
“That’s it?” Mike asked. “You want to think about it more? Not tell us what it is?”
“Yep. I need to think it through.”
“That’s mean,” Jennifer declared.
“It’s payback for saying she needs to talk to Mrs. P,” Mike said.
I could, of course, have easily refuted his accusation with logic. However, something else had caught my attention.
“Diana, you’re awfully quiet.” Also, she’d taken off from the grazing association at sub-supersonic speeds.
“Deflection,” Mike muttered.
I ignored that. “Diana?”
“Leaving the grazing association, I thought I recognized a vehicle from the station parking lot.” She looked in her rearview mirror. “Can’t see it anymore.”
No surprise she couldn’t. Her truck and the others kicked up cones of dust behind us like the parachutes that brake land-speed-record-setting cars.
I wasn’t about to keep her talking about the topic. Not while she was driving. Especially with striking out toward the western part of the county where the roads’ degree of difficulty jumped up because, along with being narrow, rough, and frequently unpaved, they started the precipitous climb toward the Rockies.
I would, however, keep talking to distract me while she was driving.
“We know how, where, and when — approximately, anyway — on this shooting. Before we get to why or who did it, let’s start with the other who — who is this guy? The victim. Furman York. Beyond being a ranch foreman at the Lukasik Ranch. And connected, through Lukasik Ranch, to the grazing association that Tom’s chairman of. Needham started to tell me when Lukasik intruded. There must be some stuff you can tell me before we get to Mrs. P’s.”
At the unexpected silence, I slued around in my seat to see Jennifer, who shrugged, and Mike, who looked out the side window.
“Okay, you guys, spill it.”
Looks zinged around the inside of the truck, all of them avoiding me.
“I don’t know about him,” Jennifer said. “I thought that’s why you’re all insisting on going to Mrs. P’s.”
“It is a long story. There’s a lot of history to it.” Mike’s evasiveness said he wasn’t going to be easy to draw. He confirmed that with his next sentence. “Besides, we need to think it through.”
Payback.
With a fairly open and even stretch of road ahead — I tried, “Diana—?”
“I didn’t remember a thing about him initially. A few things at the grazing association stirred memories of hearing stories as a kid. Mrs. P is the one to give you the background. The rest of us were too young to know details.”
“Especially me,” Jennifer said. “I don’t know any details at all.”
Zeroing in, I held her gaze. “Let’s start with what you do know.”
“What everybody else knows. He—”
“Wait for Mrs. P,” Diana interrupted.
“If you tell me what you know, we’ll spend less time at Mrs. Parens’ house and that will trim the chances of your aunt spotting us there,” I said to Mike.
His Aunt Gee — Gisella Decker — and Emmaline Parens were long-time next-door neighbors and had a relationship intricately balancing rivalry, cooperation, and mutual respect. A trip to one house required either a trip to the other or silent reproach to compensate. It was brutal.
“Ha,” he said with a carefree laugh. “She won’t spot us at all. She’s at a convention for a couple more days.”
“What kind of convention?” Jennifer asked.
“Dispatchers. The actual convention’s done. She and her cronies stay over a day or two. They say it’s to compare notes and such from the classes, but I suspect it’s to drink margaritas. Either way, she’s not around to see us at Mrs. P’s today, so she can’t get on me — us — for not seeing her.”
Rats.
“C’mon,” I pleaded. “What’ll it hurt if I know a little beforehand.”
“No,” Mike said solemnly, as if this were his real reason when he’d already revealed it was payback. “I agree with Diana. Get the whole story at once. We might give you bad information that would start you down the wrong path.”
“You think I’m not capable of sorting through what I’m told?” I asked sweetly.
“Not saying that, but why not get the full and accurate story to start by waiting a little longer? When we get to O’Hara Hill, we’ll drop you off at Mrs. P’s. You have a good talk with her, and we’ll wait at Ernie’s—”
Before I could protest his plan to avoid having his feet held to the fire by his former teacher and instead go nosh at one of the few restaurants in that part of the county — though still very good — Diana did it for me.
“We all need a refresher on that history.” She kept talking over Mike’s groan. “If we’re trying to figure out what happened today, we all need to know as much as possible.”