Chapter Thirty-Seven

“What was that about people talking about Tom?” Mike demanded of Jennifer as soon as we were outside.

“Just what I said. They didn’t say any more. Don’t worry. Dad told off that guy.”

Mike and I exchanged a look that carried agreement. Neither of us considered it likely that Jennifer’s dad encountered the only person in Cottonwood County thinking that way.

He and Jennifer started toward his SUV. I made a detour.

“What are you doing?” Jennifer asked.

“Knocking. I have a question for Mrs. P.”

“Aunt Gee’s going to be out any second.” Mike looked from one front door to the other.

“They’re not going to— Hi, Mrs. Parens. I don’t want to keep you, but wanted to ask what your school connections think of the new elementary school teacher, Asheleigh Vincennes.”

One eyebrow twitched — practically an expression of shock from her. “She is adjusting satisfactorily for a newly minted teacher beginning in the middle of the academic year.”

“Anything about her background or her mother?”

“No.” And there wouldn’t be from that response.

“If you hear of anything…” I started off her front step, then turned back. “Did you know Gee’s back? She’s going into work now.”

Mrs. P looked toward the neighboring house, then to me. “Thank you, Elizabeth.”

Back in the SUV and a block away, Jennifer asked cheerfully, “What next?”

“Gable Lukasik, if we can talk to him away from his father.”

“Kind of tough, isn’t it, since he works at the family ranch and his father’s there. You know, that’s interesting, isn’t it? Lukasik senior sticking around. Doesn’t usually stay here long, does he?”

“That is interesting. Something else to talk to Gable about,” I said. “Any ideas how to find him away from the ranch?”

“No,” Mike said.

A lot of help they were.

Returning to Sherman, I considered that the hunt for Gable Lukasik exposed a gap in my sources.

He had not gone to school in Cottonwood County, didn’t participate in civic events or society dos, only marginally participated in the ranching community. He was too old for Jennifer’s social connections.

A definite gap.

It left one possibility I could think of.

Gable Lukasik might not cook much, but the guy bought beer and tortilla chips, didn’t he?

*   *   *   *

Mike and Jennifer had to go into the station for work.

First, he was swinging by my house to drop me off.

“What are you going to do?” Jennifer asked. “You have a lot of time before the Pickled Cow opens.”

“I want to check some things, before I go out to the Lukasik Ranch again to see if I can catch Gable alone or— Stop. Pull over. Pull over, Mike.”

“Why? What—”

“Now. Right here. Pull over.”

On second thought, did I need more sources in a town this size? Standing on a street corner might work.

I’d just recognized Gable Lukasik and Asheleigh Vincennes turning off Yellowstone Street into a side street.

“I can’t wait long—”

“Don’t wait. I don’t want them to see you.”

“Who?”

I had the SUV door open. Gable and Asheleigh wouldn’t hear me if I explained now, but someone on the sidewalk might. “Tell you later.”

“But how will—”

“I’ll walk home. It’s not far.”

“—we find out what you’re doing?”

Ah. That’s what he was worried about. I held up my hand in a phone-you gesture, then waved them on.

As soon as he pulled away, I jogged down the block and turned the corner as the young couple had. A few yards behind my quarry, I eased up, so when I reached them I was at close to natural walking speed.

“Hi, Gable. Nice to see you again. Oh, hello, and you’re Asheleigh, right? Asheleigh Vincennes.” I had started talking when I was even with them. Turning to see who spoke slowed them, and that let me get ahead and stop. To walk past me now would require circling me in a blatant move. I extended my hand to the young woman. She met it automatically. “I’m Elizabeth Margaret Danniher. We didn’t have a chance to get introduced when I ran into your mother yesterday.”

“You’re a friend of Odessa’s?” Gable asked.

“Yes,” I said too fast for Asheleigh to disagree, then, holding his gaze, I moved slightly to the side, drawing him around enough that he didn’t have a direct line of sight to Asheleigh’s face. “I’m interviewing her for the ‘Helping Out!’ segment. Do you know about the great program her group is doing?”

“I’ve heard about it.”

Not a topic to stick with. I wanted to know about Norman Clay Lukasik, though I’d take some on his son or even Odessa. But what I wanted wouldn’t get them talking.

For that, the topic needed to be what interested them. At least to start.

“But what I want to know is about you two. I know Gable volunteered to help coach summer baseball, including my friend’s son — Gary Stendahl?”

“Oh, sure. Gary’s a good kid. He—”

No. We weren’t going down the path of Gary’s baseball ability. If it had been Gable alone, maybe, but not with Asheleigh here and suspicious of little ol’ me because of her mother’s reaction outside the dentist’s office. A topic that would disarm both of them was what I needed.

“And the kids were talking about you two and what a great couple you are. Now, how long is it you’ve been dating?”

“Since April,” Asheleigh said.

“Could have started two whole months earlier if we’d been smart, because she moved here to teach at the first of February,” Gable said.

“You came in the winter, Asheleigh? You’re a brave soul,” I said.

“Oh, it’s lovely here in winter.”

She was delusional. But at least she could enjoy her delusion for a big chunk of each year. Though not, thank heavens, today.

She continued, “I was incredibly lucky that a teaching position came open after I’d graduated from Penn State mid-year.”

“Are you from Pennsylvania?”

“I’ve always wanted to be a teacher.”

Yes, I noticed she didn’t answer my question.

“And she’s a terrific one,” Gable said, clearly untroubled by her failure to answer questions. Youth so seldom saw the warning signs. Next thing they knew, they were tied up to someone who made a lousy source. Tragic.

Asheleigh slipped her hand under his arm and leaned against him, leaving me to carry the conversational ball.

“Penn State’s a great school.”

She nodded and smiled. “Yes, it is. I learned so much.”

“Long way from Wyoming.”

“I’ve always wanted to come to Wyoming.”

“What about it drew you?”

“And I’m so glad you did.” Gable’s words and goofy grin ignored another of my questions completely.

So did she. “Me, too.” She looked up at him. “The best thing that ever happened to me.”

I interrupted love’s young idyll. “How did you meet?”

She giggled. “Believe it or not, my mother set us up. She met Gable first.”

Finally, an answer to a question.

“How’d you meet her mother?” I asked Gable.

But Asheleigh answered. “Before she took the job she has now, the one you’re doing the piece on, Mom went to all sorts of meetings for charities, volunteer openings, and interest groups.”

“She was looking for something to do after moving here with you?”

Again, she zoomed past my question. Eager to get back to Gable as a topic? Or away from her mother?

“She came back from volunteering one day and said she’d met someone I had to meet. I did not want to meet him. I wasn’t even settled into my job and— My mother, setting me up. It was weird.” She laughed. A real laugh. Not a giggle. “I resisted and delayed and avoided.”

“Hey, I wasn’t clamoring to go out with you, either.”

She swiped at Gable’s arm with her free hand. He caught that hand and they smiled into each other’s eyes.

Fearing that could go on a long time if I didn’t break it up, I asked, “With neither one of you wanting to meet the other, how did it ever happen?”

“Odessa is one persistent woman,” Gable said. “We were teamed up together for Shred Day at the library — you know, they do it every year right after tax season. The entrepreneur meet-up group I’m in volunteers to bring machines each year, then we’re teamed up with helpers. Odessa was my helper. And she worked like crazy, because I’d volunteered to bring two shredders — we have spares at the ranch. My father’s nuts about records for the ranch. He shreds then burns.”

I was liking Gable better all the time. He’d not only answered the how did it happen question, he’d tossed in bringing multiple shredders and explained his father’s shredding and burning practices when all I’d done was arch a brow. He could give his girlfriend pointers.

“So Odessa and I were working away together all day and, after, she insisted I come to dinner at their apartment that night, said I deserved a good, home-cooked dinner for all that work. Sounded real good. I was hungry and I was beat. Heck, she’d worked all day, too, but she was all revved up to cook dinner for me. How could I refuse? And then we get to the apartment and the door opens … and there’s Asheleigh.”

Coup de foudre.

The French expression for a lightning strike, also used for love at first sight, whispered in my head. I could practically smell the singe from that moment.

“We talked and ate and talked and ate. All of us, I mean. Then, Asheleigh and I went out for dessert, just the two of us, because Odessa didn’t have any in their apartment and—”

Asheleigh laughed. “She did. She had ice cream and cookies. It was all a ploy to let us get off by ourselves.”

“Worked for me.” He grinned. “We spent hours talking that night.”

“And have been together ever since.”

Also finishing each other’s sentences.

“Odessa sure knew best,” he said.

“I generally do,” came Odessa Vincennes’ voice from behind me, as if she’d come up the sidewalk to join them.