The son had adjusted his hold on his horse’s reins in gloves that matched Kesler’s for stain and spatter, as if preparing to mount. “Better get back to work.”
“Stay,” the father ordered.
The older ranch hand grunted. Gable glanced at him.
Lukasik didn’t. He didn’t look toward his son, either, clearly assuming he would be obeyed. He focused on me, watching me watch them.
The second my gaze came to him, Lukasik said, “Digging up dirt?”
“Background,” I said equably. Nothing bothered a goader more than not being goaded.
“Nothing here for you to add to your background.”
“Don’t be so modest.” My dryness matched the day’s non-existent humidity level. “Everyone knows you represented Furman York when he was found not guilty of murder.”
Taking my suggestion at face value, he said, “I did keep him from the gallows, metaphorically speaking. Not another lawyer could have pulled it off.”
“He must have been grateful to you.”
I had a momentary impression of tightening around his eyes, suppressed in record time. They talk about micro expressions. This — if it existed — was a nano expression.
“Ah, yes. He was. Most grateful.” He paused to build anticipation. “But not so grateful as to refuse a paycheck.”
His dry smile started his own chuckle. No one joined him.
Kesler continued his getting-nothing-out-of-me pose. The look the younger Lukasik sent the elder lacked all familial affection and admiration.
One thing for sure, Lukasik senior expected to be the center of attention. Seeing what came of going along with that expectation, I asked, “Did he do good work for that pay?”
“Of course. Otherwise, wouldn’t have kept him for years, made him foreman.”
“Yet you said that under him as foreman your herd only stayed even, didn’t grow. Doesn’t that concern you?”
“Not at all. Long as this place pays for itself— No, doesn’t even need to do that. Long as it doesn’t cost so much I can’t afford it, that’s good enough. It’s a place to visit now and then that offers a change from the office and courtroom. Gable’s the one devoted to this place.”
He tossed that in as an aside, almost as if it indicated a weakness in his son.
As a human being, the apparent discord in a father-son relationship struck me as sad.
As a journalist and digger into murders, I knew a lead to follow up on when I saw it. Especially since Gable’s reaction to his father’s arrival plastered a big neon arrow in the sky over his head.
I also knew not to do it now, with them together. The time to tackle Gable would be off on his own, when he wasn’t strung tight by his father’s presence.
For now, I continued asking Lukasik senior about York.
“How did York feel, after the passage of years, about having been on trial for murder?”
“Shouldn’t you have a camera rolling and a microphone in my face when you ask questions?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Furman blamed TV for his predicament.”
Despite myself, some of my reaction must have shown.
Lukasik chuckled. “Not the little local station here.” His ersatz reassurance didn’t cover his pleasure at dismissing KWMT-TV. “No, he blamed 60 Minutes.”
Had he missed the real cause of my reaction? Or had he purposely detoured toward television egos because he’d picked up my disgust at his categorizing a young woman’s murder as a predicament for the man charged with her murder?
“60 Minutes didn’t do anything on him,” I said with confidence.
I would have heard about that. Probably from half the county. Definitely from Mike, Diana, Mrs. P, Aunt Gee, and probably from last night’s research before sleep knocked me out.
And yet, after those assured words and thoughts, a crackle of Could I have missed it? doubt hit my nerve-endings.
Followed immediately by a recognition of Norman Clay Lukasik’s power.
I needed to think more about that. Later.
Lukasik watched me, his eyes dark and avid, his mouth smiling faintly.
I said evenly, “Furman York felt the piece 60 Minutes did on Rock Springs influenced Cottonwood County’s view of him.”
“Very good, Elizabeth Margaret Danniher. He did. Yes, he did.”
“He felt that way at the time of his trial? Or in the years since?”
“Both. If anything, more strongly as years went by.”
“Then he didn’t know the people of Cottonwood County.” And hadn’t learned about them in the decades he’d lived here.
“Oh? You present yourself as an expert on the people of Cottonwood County? Yet you’re a newcomer, aren’t you?”
“I am, having been here a little over a year. It took only a fraction of that to recognize Cottonwood County does not look to TV — local or national — to form its opinions. Furman York spent how many decades here, yet you say he didn’t recognize that?”
“But then you’re a smart, sophisticated, educated, and worldly young woman. Not at all like Furman York.”
I verbally stepped around that pile of … compliments. “What was Furman York like? You must have known him well, all the years of his working for you, not to mention representing him in a murder trial.”
“Not to mention getting him acquitted,” he edited in a murmur that still would carry to the corners of a courtroom. “But as I said before, I can’t say I knew him well. Not sure anyone truly did.”
Classic distancing from an unsympathetic character. Though Lukasik clearly hadn’t done that when York was alive. Was it cynical to think that was because York had been useful to him in life, but wasn’t in death?
Not too cynical to explore.
“You knew him well enough — and trusted him well enough — to have him run your ranch.”
“Business. Purely business. A very different connection from the kind that would lead to a crime like this. He was my client and then he was my employee.” More distancing. “I’m too busy a man to cultivate buddies.”
“Who are his buddies?”
“I have no idea.” His eyes widened as he spoke, as if it had never occurred to him that York might have buddies. “Kesler, you have any idea? Gable?”
Both shook their heads, Kesler looking straight at Lukasik and Gable with his head down.
“There you have it. A man either without buddies—” Lukasik twisted the word. “—or without his buddies being known by us.”
More wriggling away from his connection to York. “Yet you spoke so eloquently of him yesterday.”
“On his behalf as a human being, who did not deserve to be shot down, perhaps over a dispute with someone who appears to view himself as a demigod in this county.”
He meant to rile me with the not-so-oblique accusation of Tom.
I was unriled.
However, two interesting things. First, that he wanted to rile me, which could be a significant reaction because I’d gotten too close to something or could be an automatic reflex. Second, that he’d used a description that fit himself far better than Tom.
“I don’t believe the sheriff’s department knows what might have led to this murder yet. What about you? What do you think led to York being shot?”
“Me?” His opened hand pressed to his heart. “I am merely a bit player in this event.”
As much as I didn’t believe that, he believed it less.
“Another one,” Kesler said.
When we all looked at him as a result of the non sequitur, he jerked his head toward the ranch road again, this time in the opposite direction.
He was right. Again.
No vehicle in sight yet, but another dust plume tracked its progress from the entrance and toward us.
Whether it was aversion to dealing with whoever might be coming or taking advantage of his father’s distraction, Gable mounted easily, turned, and left a view of his back and his horse’s rump.
The arriving truck came at a reasonable speed and stopped a safe distance behind mine.
The two men might not have recognized the truck, but I knew from a slight change of atmosphere that they recognized the man who got out of it.
Tom Burrell.