When we came out, taking grateful deep breaths, we both had messages from Tom.
Mike returned the call, since I was driving.
The miracle of speakerphone let us both marvel at how different Nash turned out to be from our initial impression — though the bar was still foul.
Tom mentioned picking up a lot of road noise. I said, “You’ll have to live with it. We’ve got to keep the windows open to keep that stench from embedding itself in my SUV.”
Mike raised his voice to report what Nash said about York, then asked, “Tom, have association members been moving their cattle with their own trucks?”
I cut Mike a quick look.
Tom answered slowly. “No. We’ve used the same truck to move cattle on and off grazing association lands the past few months. York got a real low price, but only if we all used the same guy.”
Mike repeated Nash’s comments about York’s trucker friend. He concluded, “The trucker’s got to be recon and transport for the rustling operation.”
“Sure worth looking into, but not necessarily for us. Elizabeth?”
“I agree. Unless there was a falling out among thieves, this doesn’t touch on the murder. If one of his accomplices killed York…”
“Sheriff’s department’s in a better position to catch them.” Tom had no trouble saying what stuck in my throat. “Mike, you want to call Wayne or me?”
“You. He’ll give what you say more weight.”
“Only because he associates you more with Elizabeth,” Tom said with a grin in his voice.
“And he doesn’t like us beating him to the punch,” I retorted.
“Of course.” From that deadpan, his next words came more naturally. “Reason I called, got with Jack Delahunt and he narrowed the list of places to check, three prime and a couple others. Said that should cover ninety-eight percent of the likely places, with the other two percent scattered so wide, it wouldn’t be worth our while.
“Second piece of good news is he’s got a friend who’s going to fly us to Sioux Falls and back. Fly there tonight. We can rent a vehicle for hitting those top few, starting first thing tomorrow. Should be back late tomorrow.”
“That’s great.” Anything that compacted the timeline had my vote.
Mike asked, “How small a plane?”
“Not a tin can. Jack said the guy flies big shots with places in Montana. They like their comforts. Good news for you, too, Elizabeth. They’re letting you in to talk to Hiram again tonight. Same time. Asked if Diana could take my place and James said sure. He was too stunned by Shelton’s cooperation to object to any changes.”
* * * *
I drove Mike directly to Cottonwood County’s airport.
More calls occupied the trip, letting my delighted parents know about Tamantha staying overnight, establishing that she’d accompany them to O’Hara Hill for dinner with Mrs. P and Aunt Gee, setting up with Diana for the trip to the jail, and arranging with her and Jennifer to meet at my place after.
To Mike’s clear relief when he came out of the airport office restroom after changing for the trip, the plane was more impressive than the airport.
Tom had come with Tamantha, transferring her overnight bag to the back of my SUV. We watched the plane take off together, with her waving her hat as it disappeared into all that blue.
Then she wrinkled her nose at me. “You smell.” She sniffed. “Horses, some, but what’s the rest of it?”
Neither Mike nor Tom had tried to hug or kiss me good-bye. I’d thought it was either tact in front of each other or male coolness, since they’d be gone a short time.
This provided an alternate reason.
My agenda expanded to include a shower, change of clothes, and tossing this outfit into the washer. First thing.
* * * *
I’d eased Hiram to the topic of the trial by circling around it first with questions about his Dateline-acquired knowledge, experience with jury duty, and knowledge of the case before being on the jury.
“We’ve heard Lukasik was very skilled in raising inferences.”
“More like infernal,” he grumbled.
“Such as that there might have been something… improper going on between other men and Leah Pedroke.”
His mouth dropped open.
I thought, at first it was shock, perhaps that we knew about that.
I was wrong.
After a moment he closed his mouth, shook his head, and said, “Forgot all about that.” He’d been hard at work, searching for memories. “Fool Earl tripped over his tongue like he does. Gee Decker pretty much took care of the idea there’d been any of that nonsense. When we were going through the points in the jury room, that was laughed out of the building right off.”
Ah, my opening.
I took it softly. “What happened in that jury room, Hiram?”
“Long time ago. How’m I supposed to remember?”
“You remember.” He’d just proved he did.
He grunted and swung away.
I thought that was it. That he wouldn’t answer. And with a man like Hiram I’d be unlikely to get a second opportunity.
“Hiram, don’t you want to get out of the jail? Don’t you have important things to do out of here?”
His neck and the one ear I could see tinged red.
“But even more important, don’t you want the truth to come out finally. Keeping quiet isn’t protecting anybody, because everybody who was on that jury’s suspected.”
“Don’t care what anybody says about me. I know.”
“Do you care that someone else might care what others say about you? Someone who cares about you and can be hurt by what’s said about you.” Being vague wasn’t as easy as Penny made it sound. But just in case Shelton wasn’t being honest about not listening in, I played it safe.
His red spread wider.
James gave me a questioning look. I shook my head slightly. Not yet. More patience. As much patience as I could manage.
The silence extended past patience into discomfort.
I picked up a pen.
Diana put her hand on my wrist before I started tapping it.
“It wasn’t only him.”
Hiram’s voice made us all start.
The instinct in a situation like this is to blurt out some variant of What the hell are you talking about? But that’s the wrong approach.
Talking to a source in a situation like this is the equivalent of dealing with a wild animal.
No sudden moves. Especially not toward them.
Keep your tone calm and neutral.
“Different people say different things,” I ventured.
“They say damned wrong if they put it all on him. Anybody says anything that puts it all on him, and I’ll tell them to their face they’re damned wrong and if they don’t back down, I’ll do more than that. It wasn’t like that. Nothin’ like that.”
I waited, stretching the moment — no sudden moves, even in asking the next question. “What was it like?”
“He had no choice. No choice at all when you looked at it from where he stood. Not that I did at the start. It was only after—” He broke off, explosively cleared his throat.
Again, I thought the thread was broken, but he picked up, almost as if talking to himself.
“No choice. Not with his girl so sick. And here that snake came danglin’ the chance for the doctors he thought could pull a miracle out of their hat. How could he say no? How could any man say no? Even with his friend yappin’ at him. Even with his wife sayin’ he had to face the truth that there was nothing to be done. He had — he had. He’d accepted it and he was takin’ each day with his girl and lovin’ her, and not thinkin’ about what was comin’. And then to have the hope dangled out there in front of him again… It was more than he could bear. More than any man could bear.”
He turned his profile to us.
Quietly, I asked, “You knew about it as it was happening?”
“Put it together. Pieces. Saw him talking to somebody I didn’t know and we knew everybody the same. Saw the fever in his eyes. The fever of hope. Same time he was sweating like he always did when he’d done something wrong. Got us caught more times than I could count.”
His lips twitched, as if they remembered what it was like to grin, but couldn’t quite get there.
“He told you?”
“No.”
A full stop. A permanent one?
“But…?” I tried softly.
“I asked him what was goin’ on. Told me to mind my own business. So I did. Until, in the jury room, when we got the case and started discussin’. Never crossed my mind until I heard him sayin’ he had too much reasonable doubt to vote to convict. I didn’t want to believe… But there he was, saying those words like he’d memorized them from a poem by the devil. Not believin’, but sayin’ them just the same. It was like a clap of thunder, then the lightning runnin’ right through me, knockin’ me off my feet.
“There were a couple other ones. Sayin’ about the same words like they’d learned it off by heart, too. But I hardly even heard that. All I could see was Earl. Knowin’ what he’d done and why. First chance, I got him off by himself, even though he tried to avoid me. Wouldn’t look at me. Wouldn’t talk to me. Wouldn’t answer me. Told him what I thought. Told him right out it wouldn’t save his girl, but it would damn him to hell.
“We never talked again. Not even at his girl’s funeral a couple months after.”
Into the sorrowful silence, Diana spoke softly. “But, Hiram, that could make your friend and the others vote for acquittal, but what about the rest of you? If you voted to convict, York couldn’t have got off.”
Color spread up under his beard, across his cheeks, and even into his forehead. Not the rosy, rather endearing blush when I’d referred to Yvette. But something dark and dire.
“They wore us down. Simple as that. Suppose I stopped carin’ after Earl turned the way he did… Doesn’t matter. I didn’t do my duty. Turned tail and gave up. Remember that every day. More when I saw Furman York ’round here. That would jam it right down my craw. Even now, with him dead, I’ll carry that shame to my grave. Right beside my grievin’ for Earl.
“He was my friend. Best friend I ever had. And that man ruined him. After the trial, after his girl died, Earl took to drink. Not in a healthy way, mind you.”
Presumably that was the way Hiram drank.
“Drank serious. Wouldn’t even drink with friends anymore. Not me — we’d crossed each other out, like I said. Didn’t mean I didn’t know what he was doin’ and how he was doin’ it. Saw him places. Until he started goin’ cross the county line to the Pickled Cow where it’s not sociable. Not sociable at all. He’d drink fast and steady, like if he drank enough bottles it would fill his soul back up.”
I blinked at Hiram going poetical. Also to hold in sudden tears.
“One night, it was snowin’ and blowin’, but not a blizzard or nothin’. He left that place. Never got back to Cottonwood County. Found his truck right off. Didn’t find him for a couple days.”
Diana dropped her hands below the edge of the table, folding them tight enough to whiten the knuckles.
“Deputies said the truck was fine. Nothin’ mechanical wrong. Had plenty of gas. … Said they didn’t know what happened. Fools. Everybody else sure as hell knew what happened. Knew damn right well. He’d reached the end. Couldn’t go on another minute. He pulled over and he walked out. Kept walkin’ until he couldn’t go on with that anymore, either. Then he sat down and died out there. Because it was the only thing he could see to do.”
The man’s pain was palpable.
He shook his head in sharp anger — at his friend’s death, at his own emotions, at us for witnessing them? At all of it, most likely.
“What’re you all sittin’ there gapin’ at me for? Aren’t you supposed to be the big high muckety mucks who know everything? Well, now you know Furman York and Norman Clay Lukasik had more to answer for than the murder of that poor girl. They killed Earl, too.”