Thirteen

Arn drove the twelve miles to the Frosty March ranch. He’d gone to school with Frosty’s son, Mather, who’d gone to Alaska after high school to work offshore oil rigs. He’d done well, too, until an accident took his life early. The last time Arn had seen Frosty was at Mather’s funeral. Was that how the rest of his life was going to be: hanging around his home town, going to funerals of people he barely remembered?

He spotted Frosty bent over, holding the leg of a Chestnut gelding, hoof nipper hammer in one hand and horseshoe in the other, a mouthful of hoof nails dangling from his lips. He glanced up at Arn’s car and went back to shoeing his horse. When he finished fitting the shoe to the hoof, he spit the nails into a bucket and walked across the yard to Arn. “I recollect Mather saying you never had much common sense.” He rapped on the top of Arn’s Olds. “Who the hell drives something like this on these gawd-awful roads?”

“Someone who can’t afford to buy a truck right now,” Arn answered.

Frosty smiled and offered his hand. “Been a while. ’Bout the only time I see you is on the television. Getting too famous to come around?”

“Been busy remodeling mom’s old house.”

“Ah,” Frosty said knowingly. “What brings you out here?”

“I wanted to talk with Karen Glass.”

Frosty squinted. “TV says you’re looking into Jillie Reilly’s murder. Anything to do with Karen?”

“Just establishing times is all.”

Frosty pointed to a road that veered off toward the back of the main ranch house. “Couple hundred yards back thataway is where Karen and Eddie live. Karen ought to be there.” He checked his watch. “But Eddie’s on his way back from town about now. Talk to her quick and skedaddle. Eddie is the jealous type, and I’d not like to see one of Mather’s friends get tuned up on my own property.”

“I’ll be brief,” Arn said as he started the Oldsmobile.

“And buy a truck,” Frosty called after him.

Arn drove a hundred yards along the road and around a horseshoe bend to a small house nestled among some cottonwoods. Clothes flapped on a clothesline. A woman in men’s bib overalls and a tattered work shirt bent over a wicker basket. A covered stroller was parked at the end of the line, and Arn saw movement under the baby blanket. The woman looked up as Arn parked beside the house and got out.

“You Karen Glass?”

She straightened. For all Eddie’s catting around, Arn expected to see a frumpy, unattractive woman more at home on the ranch than in the bedroom. But Karen was anything but. She stood nearly as tall as Arn, with a lithe figure and short brown hair. She wore no makeup, but then she needed none—her olive skin smooth, taut. She was, Arn concluded, a striking figure of a woman.

She hung her canvas bag containing the clothespins on the line and met him beside his car. “I’m Karen. And you are?”

Arn handed her a business card, and she held it to the light before slipping it into the pocket of her apron. “What does Arn Anderson investigate?”

“Right now I’m working for the Wool Growers Association trying to catch their rustler. And I’m looking into the murder of Jillie Reilly for the television station.”

Karen’s face and neck turned red, and the veins stood out in her forehead as she fought to control herself. “I heard about that … vamp’s murder. Hate to speak ill of the dead, but she had her sights on Eddie until I put the run on her last summer.”

“Did it come to blows?”

“If it had, it wouldn’t have lasted long. One thing I can’t abide is a woman hustling another’s man.” She stepped closer. “Now what’s Jillie’s death got to do with me?”

Arn grabbed his notepad from atop the dash and flipped pages. “You went to the Boot Hill last Saturday looking for Eddie.”

“So?”

“That was an hour before Jillie ran out the bar.”

“And you think I had something to do with it?”

“Ms. Glass—”

“Karen. I might be a West Coast gal, but I’m no damned citified woman.”

“Okay then, Karen—did you hang around the Boot Hill waiting for Eddie?”

“And did I wait until Jillie came out? Not hardly. I’m not even sure she was in there when I was. I went to the bar looking for him, not her.”

“If you didn’t find him at the Boot Hill, did you run into him at some other bar?”

Karen paused. “Maybe I did. Why?”

“Because Eddie ran out the bar only moments after Jillie did,” Arn said. “And no one saw her alive after that.”

Karen wiped the clothesline with her apron and grabbed a pair of damp dungarees from the basket. Arn watched from the end of the line. His mother had used a clothesline. Made things smell fresh, she often said.

“I found Eddie later that night.”

“Where?”

“The Outlaw,” Karen answered.

“What time?”

“How the hell should I know,” she said as she clipped clothespins on the jeans. “Maybe an hour or so after I left the Boot Hill,” she said at last, and faced Arn. “If you’re trying to pin Jillie’s murder on Eddie, he’s got an airtight alibi—I was dragging him out of the Outlaw by his ear. Now if there’s nothing else—”

“Just one thing,” Arn said. “That would have been about ten o’clock at night?”

“About.”

Arn nodded to the baby carriage. “You seem a responsible mother—”

“Where is this going?”

“Who was taking care of your baby while you were checking bars? ’Cause I doubt you left the baby to fend for herself.”

Karen turned back to the clothesline and hung a pair of trousers. “I got work to do. Good day, Mr. Anderson.”

As Arn walked back to his car a truck approached on the road, coming on fast, sliding sideways, kicking up dirt and gravel. Eddie skidded to a stop in front of Arn’s Oldsmobile. He jammed his truck into park and jumped out of the cab before it stopped rolling.

“What the hell you doing here?” Eddie threw his sunglasses onto the hood of the truck and stomped toward Arn.

Arn took off his hat and laid it on the top of the car while he bladed himself. He prepared for a direct assault and wondered if Eddie was as tough as folks said. “I’m here checking times.”

Eddie halted within punching range of Arn. “You didn’t believe me when I said I came home after I left the Boot Hill?” His fists clenched and spittle flew from his mouth.

Karen ran toward Eddie and stepped between him and Arn. “This is not the time and place,” she said to her husband.

“Better listen to her,” Arn said, “before you’re arrested for assaulting somebody who just stopped at your place.”

“He’s right.” Karen took hold of Eddie’s arm, but he jerked away.

“What did he ask you?” Eddie said.

“He wanted to know where I found you Saturday night.”

“She’s right,” Arn said. “That’s all I was here to find out. And while we’re at it, just where did she find you?”

Eddie looked to Karen.

“Don’t look at her. Tell me where she found you?”

“I told you,” Karen said, “the Outlaw.”

“That’s right,” Eddie said. “The Outlaw.”

Arn was pretty sure they were lying. But whether or not there was a sinister reason—like Eddie and Jillie taking a fateful drive that night—he didn’t know. But he vowed to find out.