“Oh, God, he’s here to moan again about something or other.” Lukasik didn’t modulate his courtroom voice.
Tom heard, didn’t react.
His arrival surprised me, but didn’t displease me. Antagonism can be a great truth-finder and, under Lukasik’s mocking, antagonism poked its pointed head.
“Kesler,” Tom said.
“Tom.”
“Lukasik.”
“Burrell.”
Four flat names, yet the first two held respect and the last two none.
“What’s the matter now, Burrell?”
Tom looked at Lukasik silently.
“Come, come, surely you have complaints to lay at my feet. What sin against the sacred communal order of cow patties have I committed now?”
“You’ve committed most of them, even though you’re hardly ever here.”
“My vital responsibilities take me far beyond the aroma of cow patties. I have no time for such—”
“You want to leave the grazing association? We’ll be happy to oblige. Won’t even charge you the fees you put into the agreement years back. But, as it stands now, you’re a member of the grazing association and membership carries responsibilities. Especially when there are issues—”
“Not my issues. You said yourself I’m hardly ever here.”
“Furman York is your employee—
“Was.”
“—and was when the problems arose. You have responsibility for—”
“Bull. A gas station owner can’t be held legally liable if his clerk goes out and robs another gas station.”
That sounded darned close to an admission of knowledge of rustling. Yet it wasn’t.
Tom’s eyes narrowed. “He’s got ethical responsibility if the other gas station owner gives him strong proof and he chooses to keep putting that clerk in a position to commit more robberies. And the law will frown on it if this first gas station owner spreads his arms and lets the thieving clerk hide behind him.”
Norman Clay Lukasik came upright in a snap. He winced, nearly squelched it. Couldn’t be sure if whatever caused the wince or his failure to stop it sharpened his tone as he closed the gap to Tom.
“Look here, son—” He slathered the word with sneer. “—you better watch what you’re saying. You understand?”
“I understand that I haven’t said anything I’m about to take back.”
They stood, not nose to nose, but nearly cowboy hat brim to cowboy hat brim. Tension tightened the tops of my shoulders.
Lukasik made a chuffing sound that might have been laughter, smiled — not pleasantly — and stepped back. “As long as we understand each other.”
“I understand you.”
“Listen—”
“This is gettin’ to be a regular party,” Kesler said.
“What the f—” Lukasik swallowed the word we all heard anyway. “—are you talking about, old man?”
In what was rapidly becoming a familiar gesture, Kesler jerked his head toward the road, this time past Tom’s truck. I turned. Here came another vehicle heading toward us and eventually the home ranch.
No. Several vehicles. All from the Cottonwood County Sheriff’s Department.
Another change of atmosphere behind me.
As I adjusted to turn my body for a better look without corkscrewing my neck, I spotted Gable Lukasik opening a gate from astride on the far side of the pasture and riding out. Continuing the turn, I encountered wooden expressions from Kesler, Lukasik, and Tom.
Nothing to read there, so back to the sheriff’s department parade.
The lead vehicle swung around Tom’s truck and my SUV, while the rest stopped behind. That lead vehicle continued to us, effectively blocking Lukasik’s truck unless it backed up.
Sergeant Wayne Shelton got out.
I was becoming a connoisseur of men making exits involving modes of transportation. Lukasik had gotten out of his truck with a swing, Gable departed on horseback with stealthy smoothness, Tom left his truck with studied deliberation, and now Shelton hopped out of his four-wheel-drive. His short stature required that from the tall vehicle, his innate dignity bleached any hint of comedy from the move.
Innate dignity didn’t improve his temperament, however.
“What are you doing here?” he demanded of me.
“My job.” Before he could introduce petty facts about whether my nominal boss at KWMT-TV also saw it as my job, I continued, “Interviews. A very interesting conversation with Mr. Lukasik.”
“Please, call me Norman.”
His words aimed at me, the gleam in his eyes focused on Tom.
No reaction from Tom.
Shelton had a reaction, which centered on me. Aren’t I lucky?
“Interviewing folks is my job in this investigation and I want to follow up some things with Mr. Lukasik. Kesler, too. So, you get along, both of you.”
“Both of them? Shouldn’t you hold onto Tom Burrell? Question him? After all, as you know, he’s the one who exchanged a certain kind of pleasantries with Furman most recently,” Lukasik said.
“Furman York told you about that, did he?” I asked Lukasik. “So you knew the subject of those pleasantries. When did York talk to you? What did he say? Was anyone else there? Were you, Kesler?”
“Not me.”
Lukasik spoke almost on top of the ranch hand’s words. “Furman relayed the tenor of the interaction, not its substance. He knew I have no interest in the running of the ranch. He was, however, concerned enough by threats of personal violence made by Tom Burrell the day before his death to tell me of those.”
“Did you see him yesterday morning?” I slid in.
“No. Not until I was called to the scene where his dead and bloodied body—”
“What were you doing in the morning?”
“You — better yet the authorities — should be asking Burrell for his whereabouts for—”
“The authorities know my whereabouts.”
“Odd you don’t want to tell us what you were doing yesterday morning,” I said neutrally.
Lukasik’s eyes sharpened, but his voice came easy.
“I was in my office, working on a case. From the time I finished breakfast until being informed my foreman had been shot.
“Naturally, when the sergeant here asked if I knew of any enemies Furman York might have, I immediately relayed the information to him about Burrell’s threats against York and he went directly to question Burrell over the … issues between them.”
That speech played like verbal tap dancing. Shuffle-ball-change away from Lukasik possibly knowing about rustling. Sideways riff to Tom’s confrontation with York. Stamp to seal Tom as a suspect.
The muscles along Tom’s jaw ticked. The bones of his face showed strongly, as if the bedrock inside surged toward the surface. “I don’t settle issues by killing.”
Without moving, he seemed to loom over Lukasik physically, despite Lukasik being slightly taller.
I blinked, trying to reset my impressions.
Shelton stepped in. “Nobody official’s saying you do settle that way, Tom. We’re checking everything and everyone. Not taking any one person’s say-so. But there’s others’ve said you and Furman York had words. Yeah—” Shelton’s palm-out raised hand would have stopped any protest if Tom had tried to make one. He didn’t. “—you’re not the only one that tangled with him. Long line, stretching way back to the beginning.”
“Really, Sergeant, harking back to ancient history in a blatant avoidance of the obvious is—”
Shelton cut off Lukasik with a look and repeating emphatically, “Stretching way back.”
He redirected to Tom.
“No getting around it that, for all those words Furman York had with people stretching way back, he didn’t die right after any of those other words. He did after yours.”
Before Lukasik had time to score follow-up points, Shelton returned to him.
“We’re here to search—”
“Your people already searched Furman’s rooms yesterday.”
“Wider search. Pursuant to our investigation.”
“Sergeant—”
“Don’t get yourself in a twist. We have a warrant.”
“A warrant? My goodness.” Lukasik smirked.
“Yes. All nice and legal.”
I bet it was. I bet Shelton had made absolutely sure it was for Lukasik’s viewing pleasure.
“Go on, you two,” Shelton said to Tom and me, “get out of here. We have professional investigating to do.”
“Professional?” I repeated. “So far all your investigation has done is put Hiram Poppinger in jail. Which reminds me, Sergeant Shelton, I want to talk to Hiram.”
“You can’t. Prisoner. Now, git.”
We did. Partly because Tom had hold of my arm and I am far too dignified to descend into a physical tussle. Especially one I won’t win.
Mostly because, as Shelton turned away with his parting shot, I’d caught a speculative gleam in his eyes.