Tom dropped his cowboy hat on the bench in the mini entryway. Without that brim’s shadow, his tiredness showed as sharpened grooves around his mouth without any of the lightening usually provided by lurking amusement.
This change wasn’t solely from today’s events.
They’d triggered memories of another time, other questionings by the sheriff’s department. The same ones that had frightened Tamantha enough to call me.
Yes, frightened that redoubtable personage.
Before he had to ask, I said, “Tamantha’s fine. Sound asleep in the guest room. I checked on her not long ago.”
“I’m going in to see her.”
“You might wake her…”
“I’m going in.”
I didn’t try to stand in his way. Instead, I ushered him to the door — as if he couldn’t have figured out where it was in my small house, even if he hadn’t known from helping me move in.
Shadow, still on lookout at the door, was already standing. One look that identified the newcomer and he stepped back, too.
I pushed the door open.
Shadow followed Tom in. I stayed where I was.
“Daddy,” Tamantha said immediately, sitting up in bed.
Had she heard his knock at the front door? His voice? Sensed him? Always been awake? Listening to us in the living room?
Two strides, bent over, and he had her in a hug. Tamantha wrapped her arms around his neck and buried her face in his shoulder.
I’d say that was a sign that Tamantha Burrell was truly still a little girl, except I’d had an impulse to do the same thing when he walked in the front door.
I pulled the door closed and returned to the living room, where the others sat in solemn silence, none of us inclined to pick up where we’d left off.
Instead, Diana replenished the doughnut platter from a secret source Iris entrusted to her, Mike filled the nut bowls without an unacceptable number going astray into his mouth, I refilled all our coffee mugs with decaf in acknowledgment of the hour and poured an added mug for Tom, Jennifer topped off the milk and sugar containers, then shifted her seat to cushions in front of the fireplace, leaving the corner of the couch for Tom.
We’d all settled back into our places when the guest room door opened and Tom and Shadow came out.
As Tom headed for the open spot on the couch, I noticed Shadow did not return to in front of the guest room door. Instead, he took up one of his favorite places — a patch of floor not far from the front door, facing that barrier to the outside world.
My father, on first seeing Shadow lie there, had identified it as a herding dog guarding the pass, with his flock safely behind him.
I wondered if Tom realized what a compliment it was to him that Shadow figured Tom could handle the job of guarding the inside approach to Tamantha, allowing Shadow to take up his more usual perimeter sentry spot.
I doubted it.
From Tom’s grunt as he sat, and the long, thirsty drink of coffee, he had other thoughts and needs on his mind.
“Do you want something more to eat? A meal?” Diana asked.
That promised a little high for my kitchen. “Sandwich,” I amended.
“No, thanks. They brought in supper at the sheriff’s department. This is good.” He picked up a doughnut, observed the oblong shape but did not comment on it. “They’re keeping Hiram in custody.”
His even delivery provided no rough edges to try to catch onto for potential meanings behind that bare fact.
If that had stopped me, I never would have asked half the questions I’ve asked in my journalism career.
“Why did they keep you so long?”
“Wait. First tell me what you all did after leaving the grazing association.”
Supposed the man deserved a break from answering questions.
We told him. Each of us contributing some.
When Mike repeated Jack Delahunt’s information about rustling, Tom said a single swear word. Softly enough that anyone listening from the guest room couldn’t possibly hear, yet vehement enough that those of us in the living room understood the depth of his reaction.
Palm up, he invited us to continue.
At the end, he gave a noncommittal, “Huh.”
Leaving it to me to ask, “What does that mean?”
“Wait. Thought I heard you asking a question before I knocked.”
An essential skill in interviewing, especially politicians, is to remember where you were when they tried to sidetrack you to what they wanted to talk about or spin you away from what they didn’t want to talk about.
“Yes.” Saying that gave me half a beat to remember. “I was asking about tire tracks at the scene and whether the sheriff’s department could have gotten a lead on who was there from tracks?”
Mike, Diana, and Tom shook their heads.
“Tough in a spot like that. Dry, windy, and open,” Mike said. “Even if the tires made impressions on the dust, a good amount would blow away before the scientists got there.”
Somehow that sounded like a quote. “Did you talk to your aunt? Call her between the station and here?”
As head dispatcher in O’Hara Hill and senior dispatcher for the county-wide system, Gisella Decker knew most of what the sheriff’s department was doing and all that it should be doing. Since the new sheriff had aligned those two much more closely than his predecessor, Aunt Gee had become more parsimonious about sharing information with us.
“Maybe.”
“But she’s at a convention,” Jennifer protested.
“Doesn’t mean she doesn’t know everything that’s going on in Cottonwood County.” I didn’t take my eyes off Mike. “What else—?”
“It’s more than the general conditions.” Tom cut across my words, for all the world as if he were protecting Mike from harassment. As if Paycik couldn’t stick up for himself.
See what I mean about an odd triangle?
Tom continued, “Hiram parked where an earlier vehicle would most likely have been. There’re two prime spots by the house — where York’s and Hiram’s trucks were. Any time two trucks are there, that’s where they’re going to park.”
“Was that why Hiram walked up that little knoll and found York? He parked beside York’s vehicle, didn’t see anybody, started wondering?” Diana asked.
“Wouldn’t be surprised,” Tom said.
“Why wouldn’t he say that, instead of that stuff about catching sight of something shiny?” I asked.
“Might have also seen something shiny,” Mike said.
Trying to bring this foray into Hiram Poppinger’s possible thought processes back on track, I asked, “How about other ways of getting there?”
Mike’s brows rose. “Helicopter? Hot air balloon? Motorcycle—Hiram might not be as likely to drive over those tracks, though the problems remain with the conditions. Not to mention no sightings of helicopters or hot air balloons.”
“What about horseback, smart aleck?”
Mike turned to Tom, inviting him to answer.
“Members haul their horses.” He went silent a beat, then shook his head. “Trailers mostly park on the approach road. If there was anything, the sheriff’s department would have seen them and secured that area, too. Besides—”
“Someone could park on another road on the property and ride across to where York was shot, right? Horse trailers are out on the roads all the time.”
“Horse trailers aren’t uncommon, but they’re notable,” Diana said. “Somebody’d be sure to see one coming or going, wondering what they were doing. Next person they saw they’d ask if so-and-so was thinking to sell his paint, because they’d seen him hauling it when the spotter knew so-and-so wasn’t working a herd at the time. And then it would be all over.”
Tom added, “Not to mention it starts to sound like premeditated. Somebody knowing or getting York to that spot. Setting up to have a horse trailer some distance away — which it would need to be so it’s out of sight — to ride over there to shoot him? I don’t think so.”
“Why not? A surprise attack—”
“Wouldn’t be a surprise, either,” Mike picked up. “You’d hear a horse coming. And if somebody got York there on purpose, wouldn’t he be on alert?”
Tom’s turn again. “He was on alert with a whole lot less call than that. No, Elizabeth, think you’re going to have to reconcile yourself that the killer was there in a vehicle and the tracks are gone.”
“More like the sheriff’s department has to reconcile itself to that. I was just exploring possibilities.” That isolated spot. Was that truly fortuitous for the impulsive killer? In the meantime, there was something else to follow up on. “Explain your Huh, now, Tom.”
He pulled in a breath. “Furman York’s distant past is a different direction from what Shelton and the sheriff appear to be pursuing.”
At the mention of Sheriff Russ Conrad my eyes shifted to Diana. Mike’s did, too.
She growled. “You’ve been with me every second since we found out about this murder and you know darned right well that, in addition to keeping my word to keep the two areas of my life separate, I haven’t had any more opportunity to pump Russ for the sheriff’s department’s thinking than I’ve had to blab what we’ve been doing to him.”
“Too bad,” Mike said. “About the pumping part, not the blabbing part.”
“What about you, talking to Gee?” she retorted.
“She didn’t know anything. Said she’d been too busy to find out details. Threw in the stuff about tire tracks like she was thinking out loud.”
Diana pointedly focused on Tom. “What direction do you think they’re taking?”
“The grazing association. With a side order of me.”
Aware of his daughter in the room not far away, I resisted the urge to shout my question like a White House press room scrummer.
“You? Why?”
He turned to me. “You know about grazing associations?”
I gritted my teeth.
In keeping with the theme of the White House press room under every administration and every press secretary I’ve ever known of, that was not responsive to the why I’d asked and he knew it.
I didn’t give a rat’s patootie if Russ Conrad, Wayne Shelton, and every other member of the Cottonwood County Sheriff’s Department devoted every second to looking into the grazing association.
Also something Thomas David Burrell knew.
But he was determined to tell it his way. And his resemblance to Abe Lincoln’s good-looking cousin wasn’t the only reason he reminded me of Mount Rushmore. He can be about as easy to move as that pile of granite.
With assumed ease, I said, “I know a grazing association isn’t exactly like a ditch.” Or a country club, so they didn’t have clubhouses. I skipped that part of what I now knew.
“Not exactly like a ditch.” He tipped his head in a single, deadpan nod. “Ditch company’s roughly based on geography. Even when it’s not, you don’t have a choice of who shares a ditch. A grazing association’s voluntary. A group of like-minded ranchers getting together for mutual benefit.” He considered. “Starts that way, leastwise. What can happen over time, though, is you get another generation coming in, not getting along with old-timers, or a couple of the same generation butting heads. It’s not so like-minded after a while.”
“Does that describe you and Norman Clay Lukasik? Different generations, butting heads? Or merely not like-minded?”
“It’s no secret Lukasik and I don’t see eye-to-eye. And that extended to Furman York.”
“If you don’t like him, why not get rid of him? Lukasik,” I added quickly. I must be tired to use the infelicitous get rid of where it could be mistaken for a reference to the murdered man. “You’re chairman of this grazing association, right? And you said it’s voluntary. There’s got to be a way for the group to oust a member.”
“Getting rid of him or anybody else gets complicated.” His mouth twisted into a grim smile. “You heard he’s a lawyer?”
“Oh, yeah, I’ve heard. His profession and style figured largely in the history from Mrs. P this afternoon.”
“With Mrs. Parens telling it, you have a good introduction to the man.” He looked around at the others. “I didn’t know much myself until becoming chairman of the grazing association. Turns out, right after he bought into the association, shareholders decided to accept his offer to revamp the bylaws for free. They thought they were getting a gift horse they didn’t want to pass up. More like the Trojan horse. He’s got twists and turns added to the agreement that make it real difficult to move him out.”
“You looked into it?”
“It’s been looked into a few times. Twice under my father.” Apparently in response to the raised eyebrows surrounding him, he added, “He was chairman when the Lukasik Ranch was allowed in. They recognized their mistake soon enough. By then the damage was done.”
“Your father isn’t a fan of one of Cottonwood County’s most famous citizens?”
“I think you’ll find the few who are fans are those who don’t have dealings with his ranching operation.”
“Mrs. P had a different take. She indicated some in the county don’t approve of his legal tactics or, I suppose, his choice of clients.”
“Some don’t. But since he’s been plying his trade outside of the county for the past several decades—”
“Became too big a fish for Cottonwood County. At least in his eyes,” Mike said.
“—worry about that aspect faded. Especially with him being famous.”
“In other words, he’s liked better when he’s not here?”
“Pretty much. Except, as I said, when it comes to those of us who have to deal with his ranching operation. Some even have thought that if he came back and took the reins from York the issues would go away. A few were hoping Gable—”
He asked the question with a pause. We all nodded we knew about Lukasik’s son.
“—might be an answer. Green, but seems like a good enough guy. Trouble is, York was clearly the boss, leaving the son no authority. No sign the father intended to change that.”
“And you’re not among those who believed the problems would go away if Norman Clay Lukasik took charge.”
He hitched one shoulder. “I had a few passing thoughts about us jumping from the frying pan into the fire, considering Lukasik’s ways. But there’s no way of knowing how it might have turned out. Couldn’t get over the first hurdle of getting Lukasik to take charge. Or even to check what York was doing. Lukasik’s been told issues in the past — started well before this rustling — and never made a move to fix them. Matter of fact, what with the way he angled the association agreement, pretty much nobody can call him to account for such problems short of law enforcement.”
“What problems?”
“Furman York. And rustling.”
My mind was working over the implications when Mike asked a question that drove all other thoughts underground.
“Tom, have you been hit by the rustling?”