"I told you he was dead."
I'd guessed Mona didn't devote much of her day to keeping up on world events, so I thought we stood a fair chance of being the first to tell her Foster Redus' body had been found.
I was right.
She answered the door in a flowing caftan of polyester chiffon. It was like a pink arrow to the sallowness of her skin and puffiness of her eyes. I caught a whiff of stale beer, stale smoke and stale perfume when she led us into the living room, where she clashed mightily with her sofa. She had the flu, she told us.
Flu? More like the day-after-a-night-at-the-Kicking-Cowboy, but maybe I'm getting cynical.
"They were all laughing behind my back, thinking I'd been dumped. Well, now they know. I wasn't dumped. Foster was going to take me away. He adored me. Couldn't do enough for me. And that's why he's dead."
Better dead than gone was Mona's motto, judging by her triumphant tone.
"You still think your ex-husband killed Redus?"
"Of course," she snapped at me. "This proves it. Now maybe Widcuff will get his head out of his ass and do something. Arrest Tom, get him convicted. Nobody knows those mountains better than Tom. He was always going off to moon around somewhere up there when we were married."
"If he knows the mountains so well," I said, "he was damn unlucky to pick a spot that somebody found, wasn't he?"
"If the man'd been lucky he'd've made something of himself."
"This must be a shock, Mona. I mean," Mike said, taking a seat, "even though you were certain Foster was dead, the reality . . ."
I sat in the chair opposite Mike, out of Mona's line of sight as long as she focused on Mike, which she did.
"You have no idea, Mike. It's a tragedy. We had our whole lives to look forward to. We had so many plans, so many dreams. Now, they're all gone."
She sniffled. Reaching to a brocade-covered box on the end table, she pulled several tissues free and dabbed at her eyes. She leaned farther over the arm of the sofa, reaching to the lower shelf of the end table, and Mike's gaze drifted to the deepening V of her caftan before jerking away.
"I have pictures of Foster and me. Want to see them?"
Mona flipped past several pages in the album she'd retrieved before she held it out to Mike.
He looked at the photos with grave interest, while I itched with impatience. All I'd seen of Foster Redus so far had been a grainy official photo in the clips from the Independence.
"You look very happy," he said at last.
"We were. So happy." Mona sniffled again. When she brought the tissues to her eyes, Mike passed the album to me.
While Mona talked of happy times with Redus, I considered the images of the late deputy.
He was about Mona's height, with a compact build. When he smiled all out, as he did in several photos, his top lip curled, forming a rectangle, pushing his cheeks up and squeezing his eyes closed. It sounds repulsive, but it wasn't. I shouldn't have been surprised that he was appealing, since he had enthralled, at one time or another, Gina, Mona, Marty Beck and reportedly many others.
I flipped to the photos Mona had passed over. Three formed a sequence, with Foster and Mona on the front steps of this house. In the first two Redus' smile was in full force. In the third, he was looking partly over his shoulder, and the smile had become a sneer. Behind him, shadowed by the screen door stood Tamantha.
"But I can't dwell on all that," Mona said. "I can't live in the past. I'm too young to let this ruin my life. My future's ahead of me."
I'd be surprised to find it anywhere else.
No, I didn't say it. Antagonizing the person you're interviewing isn't necessarily a good tactic.
Then her phrase echoed in my head like it had been shouted in a distant cavern. My future's ahead of me.
Did I believe mine was ahead of me? Or was this limbo of mine a towel I'd tossed in, saying I figured my future was long-gone? Accepting what divorce and demotion had said about me-that I no longer offered any appeal, personally or professionally. I might not be in a position to assess that first part-I might never be as long as my image was reflected back to me daily amidst that sickly green bathroom-but the second part, that was something I needed to face.
Was my reluctance to do a final sign off on news and consider a talk show professional pride? Or refusing to face the facts? Because there were two levels of sign offs-the anchor signed off a newscast, sure, like Cronkite's iconic "And that's the way it is." I'd already done my version of that.
But stations also signed off. Ending broadcasting for the entire day-or forever-and going to static. Was some childish part of me dreaming that the network would come crawling back, begging me to return to my former position and saving me from my personal static?
Wasn't going to happen.
The acceptance that came with that certainty was almost a relief. Had I been holding myself in limbo by refusing to let go of that hope? Maybe I should-
"What's with you?"
Mona's demand snapped me out of my trance.
Apparently, she'd been keeping an eye on me and having me stare unblinking at nothing had disturbed her concentration on herself.
And she was right. This was not the time for me to sort out my past, present and future. There was a story to follow. I felt my mind click fully into reporting mode, and I could have sung hallelujahs.
"Never mind her." Mike recaptured her complete attention with three words. "What about your future, Mona? You're a young woman, attractive and unattached. What're you going to do?"
I savored those words. There could come a time when I could exact great pleasure from reminding Paycik of them.
Mona savored every word, too.
"I'll go on. I'll cry inside, but I have to go on. I'll try to find a little happiness in this life. And security." I noticed she didn't mention going on for her daughter. "I was just wondering, was anything said about Foster's leather case? I mean, was it found? He had a little bitty key to it, kept it on the chain with all his other keys."
"No," said Mike. "Why?"
"Oh . . . I'd sure like to have it. To remember him by. It had . . . uh, real personal things in it, you know, mementos from our being together." Had Redus gone in for risqué photos of his conquests? It would fit. "I'd like to have those."
"It's a credit to you that you are thinking about the good times and memories when you must have so many practical concerns weighing on you."
"Like what?"
Mike faltered at her blank reaction. "Well . . . the funeral."
"The funeral? I'm not doing that. Why should I?"
"You lived together, you and Foster."
"Gina's his widow. That's for her to do, not me." If she'd dusted off her hands, it couldn't have been clearer. No funeral duty for Mona. Maybe Tamantha's single-mindedness hadn't all come from her paternal gene pool.
"How about financial matters, Mona?" I asked. "How are you going to support yourself and Tamantha without Foster's help?"
She stifled a mild snort; apparently Foster hadn't been all that helpful in that regard. "Going to do it the same way I've been doing it. I've got alimony, don't I, and child support. Tom's doing good enough that he shouldn't leave his wife and kid to scrimp along."
"That could change if his business keeps suffering," I pointed out. "And what if he's convicted of murder? How will he pay alimony and child support then?"
"He's got things he can sell. The ranch. That business."
"Legal fees eat up a lot of money. Especially for a murder defense."
Her eyes narrowed as she chewed on her top lip. At first I thought it was irritation, possibly divided between me for bringing it up and Tom for considering using her money on such frivolity. But I changed my mind when she spoke.
"Maybe I'll have to be looking into other sources of income."
"Like what?"
She blinked her eyes wide and smoothed over her lip with her tongue. "Oh, I don't know. Something might occur to me."
* * * *
Rather than return to the station and watch another round of Fine, I went home. I had an early date the next morning with the telephone to catch people on the East Coast.
It felt good, thinking about who to call to find out what. Less than the standard six degrees of separation got me a "tell him I said to call" for someone who worked in the Wyoming state crime lab. Alas, my friend's neighbor's former college roommate was off yanking innocent fish out of an idyllic existence in some lake and unreachable.
I declined to leave a message with my next target. I might be out of the mainstream, perhaps for good, but I still didn't want anyone at the FBI lab to know Dex did E.M. Danniher a favor now and then. That was how the nickname Danny started, quickly picked by most of my old friends.
I had better luck calling the newsroom of the Philadelphia Inquirer.
"Hey, Danny, you scared any rattlesnakes out there in the Wild West?" Matt Lester greeted me.
We'd started fresh out of journalism school together, Matt and me. He never shied away from accusing me of going over to the dark side with the move to TV, but we remained friends. I'd stayed with Matt and his wife Bonnie for a few of the last, worst days of my marriage.
"After a snake like you, what's another rattler?"
He made a sound that I supposed he thought was a rattlesnake. Not that I knew if he was right or not. After an exchange of "how are you's" and quick but honest answers-"Dead tired. This kid will never sleep through the night" from him about their third and "I'm not sure yet" from me-he cut to my chase.
"Whaddya need, Danny?"
"There's a kid from this area named Frank Claustel." I spelled it. "He's a freshman at Temple. I want anything you can find out."
I told Matt about Frank and Rog Johnson and Foster Redus. I didn't tell him about Tamantha Burrell and her daddy. Or Mike Paycik and his ambitions.
After we hung up, I listened to the radio while I thought about old times and dead marriages, until the local news came on, dominated by the finding of Redus' body. The solitary bit of new information was that Burrell had been released after some eight hours of questioning.
The second time I called, Dex was back.
I described what I'd seen of the truck and where it went over. "So, tell me this, Dex, if you wanted to kill somebody, how sure could you be that they'd die when you pushed the truck off the side of a mountain?"
"It depends."
Everything depends to Dex. That's why prosecutors so seldom ask him to testify, even though he's tops in the lab.
"It sounds consistent with a truck being pushed over the edge. But I wouldn't go any stronger without a lot more facts."
"Wouldn't the truck have been likely to burn, maybe explode?" I asked as I looked out the window over the sink. A shadow detached itself from the garage and ventured toward the tree stump and the newly re-filled bowls. I found myself grinning.
"You've watched too many chase movies, Danny. Not many vehicles burn and fewer explode in crashes. Fireball scenes are special effects."
He explained why, with an amount of detail I found reassuring as a driver of our nation's highways, but not particularly helpful.
"So," I interrupted, "if someone pushed that truck off the mountain with Foster Redus in it, they were just lucky he died?"
"It all-"
"Depends," we finished together.
"Get me more, and maybe I can tell you more," he said in closing.
Some time later, Mike's knock on the back door startled me out of a directionless reverie and into the realization that I'd tumbled directly from bed into a pair of sweats without benefit of shower.
As I opened the door and looked past him-bowls were empty and no shadow in sight-he held up a paper bag exuding the distinctive aroma of donuts. I stepped back and let him in.
Chilly air streamed in with him. He wore a denim jacket partly zipped. Summer apparently had taken a detour.
"I come bearing news and gifts," he said. "But first, do you have coffee?"
I pulled a mug from the row at the back of the counter. "Help yourself. Now what news and gifts?"
He looked around as he poured from the half-full pot while I helped myself to a donut.
"You know, this is a really ugly house."
"I know."
"And it's like a wind tunnel. It's a good thing you weren't here during the winter." What did he call what Warren the weatherman had reported all through April? "I would have thought somebody from the network could afford-"
"I know, I know. Now tell me the news."
"They took Redus' body out last night. The state guys would have preferred to examine it where it was, but the truck's not stable. They're hauling the truck up about noon. After they get the right equipment."
"Want to go?"
"Yeah."
He nodded toward the telephone and a fan of notes on the table. "Progress?"
"Not really. Waiting for answers to some calls. For others I need more grist to feed the mill before any flour comes out."
"That's where I come in." Mike dug a hand into the donut bag and came up with a golden brown specimen. Smug, he definitely sounded smug. It's not fair that the man could look that attractive this early and with his mouth full of donut. If the networks knew about this, he'd be co-hosting a morning show in nothing flat. "I've got prime grist. What I don't have is a good mill. Not the kind you've got. So I propose a cooperative effort. Your mill, my grist. Share and share alike on the flour."
"I haven't been holding out on you, Paycik," I hedged.
"How about your trip to the Circle B and the construction trailer?"
Good grief, Burrell was right-everyone in Cottonwood County did know about everything. "Just trying to catch up with you, since you know Burrell."
"Share and share alike from now on?" he insisted.
You'd think he didn't trust me. "Deal."
"Good." He drew down his jacket zipper and pulled out a manila folder. He dropped it on the table. "Preliminary report on Sheriff's Deputy Redus."
"Where'd you get that?"
Mike shrugged and chewed. "There was a plain envelope with my name on it by my door this morning. I was taught not to question gifts. However, the envelope met a terrible accident and burned to a small pile of ashes."
In other words, he at least guessed his aunt was responsible, and he was covering her considerable derrière.
Firmly wiping my mind of any considerations of Paycik's family loyalty, his looks and his broadcast future, I opened the file and skimmed the contents. It listed the victim's clothing as a regulation deputy's uniform. His wallet (with three-hundred and sixty-two dollars) was in the usual pocket. His handgun was holstered and showed no sign of being fired since its last cleaning.
Then, hedged around by qualifiers, it described the state of the body. I needed a second reading to bring the legalese and medicalese into focus.
Redus had been bashed on the head with a blunt object. An image clicked into place of Tom Burrell's arms, muscles taut, tendons straining as he swung the head of an ax through a log.
"Are you cold, Elizabeth? Want me to heat up the coffee?"
"What?" Reminding myself an ax didn't qualify as blunt, I focused on Mike, who had a hand out for my coffee cup.
"You cold? I'll put your mug in the microwave."
I felt goose bumps on my arms. "No, it's fine, thanks." I took another swig to prove it. "Hold on a minute." I picked up the phone and hit redial. "I got more information, Dex."
"That was fast. Thought you were out where the living is easy."
"That's South Carolina from Porgy and Bess, not Wyoming. Now, listen." I read the information about the truck and injuries. He asked me to repeat one bit, but that was probably my pronunciation.
"Well," Dex said, "it's what I would have told you if you'd asked how I'd make sure someone in a truck I pushed off a mountain would die, instead of asking how likely it was that pushing him off would kill him."
I had a lot of sympathy for any lawyers who'd encountered Dex as a witness. "Okay, Dex. How would you make sure someone would die in a truck you pushed off a mountain?"
"Kill the guy first. In this case, your basic blow to the head. Left rear quadrant."
I tried to picture it. "So, for someone sitting in the driver's side of a truck . . ."
"The blow would come from the side and a little behind. Somebody standing outside the open truck door, swinging a baseball bat or-no, the wound was narrower."
"How much strength would it take?"
"Nothing out of the ordinary with the right weapon and a good swing. Any adult of sound body, male or female. Any teenager who wasn't a weakling."
As I thanked him, then repeated the information for Mike, I realized the only person Dex had eliminated was Tamantha.