We entered the sheriff’s department to see James Longbaugh talking with Wayne Shelton at the end of the hallway, back where they dispensed something only sadists would call coffee.
“Hi, Wayne,” I said with a big smile, all for the edification of the desk deputy named Ferrante, whose life ambition centered on denying me access to Shelton.
Shelton scowled, but Ferrante couldn’t see that. He could only see my cheerful wave as I led Tom down the hallway.
After greeting James, I said to Shelton, “This is going to take a while. You know Hiram, and you can’t expect us to get in and out fast. It’s going to take time to open him up.”
He jerked one hand and tipped his head in an impatient and dismissive gesture.
Better than I’d hoped for.
“Get in there and sit.”
James led us to the larger of two interview rooms. He gestured for me to sit in the middle on one side of the table in the room.
“Don’t expect much,” he said.
“He’s not talking?” I asked.
“Oh, he’s talking all right. All about how he’s not going to talk because the sheriff’s department is determined to ruin his life. But he’s not answering questions.”
Tom frowned. “Not telling you what happened?”
“Not what happened, not why he was there, not why he appears to have been inside that house at the grazing association, even though he didn’t take anything. He suspects I’m part of the conspiracy. Good thing you called me, Tom, because he used his one phone call for something else, won’t say what. The good thing is he hasn’t refused to see me.” He considered a moment. “Maybe a good thing. Maybe not.”
I patted the lawyer’s arm. “Hang in there, James. You’ve had difficult clients before.”
Tom pretended not to notice us looking at him.
The door of the small room we sat in opened and Lloyd Sampson escorted Hiram in. He wore a jail jumpsuit and handcuffs. But no leg shackles and his cuffs were in front. That qualified as downright casual treatment if they considered him a murder suspect.
While Lloyd took Hiram to the chair on the opposite side of the table, Shelton followed them as far as the doorway.
“We’ll be watching you.” He jerked his head to a mirror on the wall behind Tom, James, and me. On the other side of the wall, it became a window in an even smaller room used largely for storage.
“No sound,” James warned.
“No sound,” Shelton confirmed.
When the door closed behind the deputies, I smiled warmly at the prisoner. “Hi, Hiram.”
He grunted.
Off to a great start.
“Hiram, you know we want to talk to you about things that only you can give us information on.”
The lines in his face shifted, reminding me of a stubborn newborn.
“We’re researching and we’ve heard from many other people. You, though, have a unique perspective, because you were on the jury of the trial for the murder of Leah Pedroke.”
Stubborn gave way to shock.
He listened as I outlined what I knew of the trial and the case — without using York’s or Lukasik’s names, which required a few verbal loop-da-loops. Worthwhile to avoid his defenses cutting off communication.
“…and then the not guilty came in,” I finished neutrally, watching him.
Four breaths, then a fifth. Nothing.
When he spoke, I had to tamp down a jolt.
“I ain’t never taken a bribe. I did my civic duty and they put me on that jury and I sat there and listened to everything they said — the prosecutor guy and Lukasik and every one of those witnesses, even when it was boring as hell. So boring I’d like to fall asleep. Didn’t let myself. Stayed awake the whole time. And then we get into that jury room and the talking and talking and talking. You wouldn’t believe it. Little room. All those people yapping away. Hour after hour.”
“You know some people believe the defense bribed a juror?”
“I ain’t talking about that. Haven’t and won’t.”
“Okay, Hiram, we’ll leave that.” His fisted hands eased. “When you found Furman York, what did you do?”
“Whaddya think I did? Pull out my gun and shoot him? The sheriff’s department’s checking that up one side and down the other. Still got my gun. Had it long enough now I should start charging them for rentin’ it. Because they ain’t ever going to find any evidence I used it to kill that bastard York, because I didn’t.”
If my theory based on Lloyd Samson’s reaction and Alvaro’s suppression of it was right, though, Hiram could have used York’s gun to commit the murder.
“Let me rephrase,” I said smoothly. “What did you do when you found Furman York’s body?”
“Whaddya think I did?” he repeated. “I called the sheriff’s department to report a dead body at the grazing association.”
“Did you check him for a pulse?”
“Pulse? Clear as certain he was dead. Didn’t have to play patty-fingers with him to know that with the big hole in him.”
“Did you touch him at all or—”
“You think I’m an ignoramus? Think I never seen Dateline or those others? Everybody knows you don’t move the body. Don’t move it. Don’t mess with it. Don’t touch it. Nothin’. And that’s what I did — nothing. ’Cept call the sheriff’s department and sure as hell wish now I hadn’t done that.”
Playing to his Dateline-fueled confidence, I asked, “Knowing about crime scenes, did you notice any footprints or—?”
I stopped because he’d cocked his head like a grumpy, alert, overfed bird again. This time a Baltimore Oriole, considering his jail jumpsuit’s hue.
“First smart thing you asked me, girl. Smarter than the crowd here ever asked. No footprints. But there were marks like something swished one way, then the other, over and over.”
“Like what?”
“Don’t know. Except way too wide to be reins. Wider than a halter, even a saddle strap? Saddle blanket maybe?”
Reins, halter, saddle strap, saddle blanket… “Do you have reason to think someone was there on horseback?” Tom had shot that down, but—
“No.” Grumpiness overtook alert. “Didn’t say that, did I? Just said the marks were made by something wider than reins or a halter and such.”
“Right up to York’s body? Or was there an area close to him that—”
“Right up to his dead carcass. And all around him.”
“How far out?”
“Five, six feet.”
“What else did you see?”
“Nothin’. Not a darned thing. Just Furman York with a hole in his chest and blood around him on that swished ground.”
“The weapon?”
“That woulda been something to see, wouldn’t it? And I said nothing. Nothing is nothing. No gun. No footprints. No killer. Nothin’.”
No weapon.
Taken away? Or still there, under the body?
Wiping out footprints could match either possibility.
Wiping all around indicated the killer’s footprints in several places, as they would be in a fight.
“Why did you go to the grazing association yesterday, Hiram?”
“Picking up a wrench I’d left there,” he said promptly.
“A wrench.” I kept every iota of disbelief out of my voice, despite the flood of it in my brain.
“My favorite wrench.”
James sighed. The sigh of someone who’d heard this story before and told the teller it didn’t pass a believability test.
“Left it in the old Paycik house by accident last time I was there. Went to get it back. As I returned to my truck, I saw that gleam up on that little knoll the drive goes around. Went up to see. That’s when I spotted Furman York. Dead. Dead when I saw him. Dead before I got there. Don’t know why anybody thinks otherwise. I didn’t kill that piece of grime that was worth less than the cow dung left on my boots from last winter.”
Gee, I wonder why the sheriff’s department suspected him. Especially combined with his finding the body.
“Where’s the wrench now, Hiram?” I asked.
“On the front seat of my truck, unless one of them deputies stole it.”
Toss up of whether the detail of the wrench’s location added credence to his story, resulted from happenstance that he had a wrench on the seat of his truck when he was first asked why he’d been at the grazing association, or offered evidence of premeditation by a mind that thought retrieving a favorite wrench sounded like a good alibi.
After a short silence, Tom said quietly, “Clyde said he expected you were out there on his behalf. Something about a favor.”
Hiram half huffed, half clicked his tongue. “Well, if he told you that, why’d you ask me all these darned-fool questions?”
Tom didn’t point out he hadn’t asked the other questions, I had. I didn’t either, even to say I hadn’t been privy to Clyde’s comment about a favor.
Tom’s reason might have been gallantry. Mine was recognition of James’ heightened interest, which told me we’d ventured away from Hiram’s script.
“What was the favor?” the lawyer asked. I appreciated his alchemy that turned a possibility into a fact. Good questioning technique.
Hiram’s eyes slued sideways, apparently looking at the blank wall. “Told him I’d help him. Taken some losses lately, he has.” He cagily avoided the R-word. “Told him not to do anything just yet. I’d have a word with York. Never got the chance, considerin’ he was dead.”
My opinion of Clyde’s common sense nosedived. Nose dove? What is the past tense of nosedive? Let’s say plummeted.
This might explain how York and the Bernie Madoff of the West had so nearly taken him.
“And he listened to you?” James asked.
“Course he did. Why wouldn’t he?” Hiram demanded.
No one replied.
He clearly misinterpreted the silence, saying with satisfaction, “Even you types know I got my ways.”
We did. That’s why we were speechless.
“And I do him a favor, he does me a favor.”
I recovered enough to ask, “What favor did you want him to do for you?”
“Somethin’ as none of your business.”
I glanced at Tom and James to see if they saw what I saw — Hiram Poppinger blushing.
A phrase from Penny teased at my memory. If he thinks he can come in here singing Love Me Tender.
Could she have meant Hiram? But how would Clyde figure in?
Besides… Hiram—?
Absurd.
“His favor to you—?” James started.
Hiram lurched up, his blush turned purple. “Done here. Done. And don’t you go reporting this—”
“Reporting what?”
“—or jabbering about it. I got things to do. Go. Go away.”
It was almost funny, him shooing us out of the interview room, like he owned the place.
Except the interview ending wasn’t funny.
He pounded on the door, quickly opened by Lloyd. Very quickly.
I studied Lloyd. His face had no words streaming across it proclaiming, I listened in on your conversation.
He closed the door as soon as Hiram cleared it, leaving Tom, James, and me to look at each other.
“No clue what set him off.” The lawyer expressed the sentiment in the small room with no indication he’d intended an investigatory pun. “But you sure got him to say more than he had to this point.”