I felt ashamed.
Snagged by a formidable little girl, irked by a competitive colleague, tempted by Paycik's flattery, and yes, craving a distraction from my limbo, I had meandered into this investigation, taking individual steps seriously enough but acting as if the end result was vaguely frivolous.
Perhaps worst of all, I'd used it like a training program to get my investigating skills back in shape. A challenge to shake off the mothballs of the past months of brain fog and the past years of forty-second sound-bite reporting of political maneuvering. I'd had twinges, talking to Tom Burrell and the Johnsons, but it had taken Mona's death to slap me across the face. I was ashamed I hadn't treated it as deadly serious all along.
As a number of religions know, guilt can be a great motivator.
It can also outshout self-centered whispers about an unknown they, their mysterious orders, and other anomalies of E.M. Danniher's career at KWMT. That mystery would have to wait.
We'd spent three hours at the sheriff's office answering questions. There are only so many ways you can say you touched nothing except the door handle and you didn't tell Tom Burrell any specifics. That didn't mollify them much. They were peeved we had left the scene and even more peeved we'd gotten to Burrell first. But, after a lot of blustering, repetition and bad coffee, Widcuff cut us loose.
Mike and I set up headquarters in my small living room, trying to work through the implications of Mona's death, aided by legal pads, coffee, cola, chips and salsa-mild for me, make-your-ears-sweat hot for him.
He left close to two and was back by eight the next morning. It wasn't enough sleep to rid me of my headache or stiff neck, but it was plenty of time for the bruise on my temple to blossom into gaudy color.
"Do you know you have a dog in your back yard?" he asked as he came in.
Great. I fed and watered him, and the dog showed himself only to visitors. "No I don't," I'd grumbled. And Mike hadn't argued. The guy definitely had some smarts.
Punctuated by phone calls, we'd been at it for nearly five hours, and we were beginning to go in circles.
Mike walked back in from the kitchen. He'd made a pit stop, with a detour to the kitchen for a couple phone calls, one to let his Aunt Gee know where we were in case she discovered anything, the second one to Diana.
Getting her week's vacation lined up had been the small chore Diana had done before heading to Burrell's ranch. With two kids to feed, she'd figured it was a necessary backup.
"How is she?" I asked.
"Great. She's planning to paint a couple rooms and put up a new storm door this week. That woman's amazing."
"Because she knows how to use a paint brush and a screw driver?"
"No, because she sounds as if she's looking forward to it."
We grinned at each other. "Any news from the station?"
"Yeah, Diana said Billy, her technician friend, made two copies. He's got one squirreled away and gave her the other. Apparently he made them in the nick of time, because Thurston commandeered the camera and managed to ruin most of the original-purposely or through ineptitude, nobody seems to know."
With the copies safe I didn't spare more than a grunt for Fine.
"Okay, where were we?" Mike settled into his corner of the couch.
"Mona's murder."
Mike paled-he wouldn't forget what he'd seen in that trailer any time soon-but he nodded. "Doesn't this narrow our list of suspects?"
"Who would you knock off?" I winced. "No pun intended."
He waved that off. "I'd say this eliminates Gina, Widcuff and the Johnsons. I can see their motives for killing Redus-scorned and discarded wife, boss trying to hold off an ambitious subordinate, revenge-bent family-but how would they apply to Mona?"
"Same way Burrell's motives do-he killed Foster to protect his daughter, then killed Mona because she was a threat to his being caught. She could be just as much a threat to anyone else if they killed Redus."
I swept crumbs off a legal pad and consulted a list made the night before. "We still have the Johnsons for revenge, Gina for revenge, Widcuff to get rid of a rival and Judge Claustel to either keep his son's homosexuality quiet or possibly to get rid of a blackmailer."
"Okay, if motive's open, and means is open since every pickup in this county has a shotgun-"
"Are you sure about the gun?"
"She was shot with a shotgun," he confirmed grimly.
I wasn't going to argue. "You know there was one pickup that should have had a shotgun but didn't."
"Redus'," Paycik agreed. "So the murderer took Redus' gun last November and held onto it all this time . . ." He tapped his pen against his chin. "Actually, it wouldn't have been that risky, because there are enough shotguns around that it wouldn't stand out."
"So even people who don't own shotguns can't be eliminated because anyone who killed Redus could have used his shotgun to kill Mona."
"And that brings us to opportunity." Paycik took the legal pad off my knees and flipped over several pages.
"Gina," he read. "Says she was returning to O'Hara Hill from shopping in Sherman. She'd go right past the trailer.
"Roger Johnson. Says he was talking to a rancher near Cody about his overdue fuel oil account. The rancher confirms Johnson was there, but is vague about the time, and Johnson could have easily gone by the trailer.
"Myrna Johnson. Says she was cleaning house. No witnesses. She could have taken back roads and not been seen.
"Sheriff Widcuff." Paycik was pleased with himself for calling Widcuff and asking where he'd been when he heard the news about Mona. Widcuff had answered before a voice in the background, identifiable as Thurston Fine's, demanded to know what was going on. He'd been in Widcuff's office doing an "exclusive" and sounded as if he was about to burst a blood vessel when he realized who had interrupted. "Says he was driving back to Sherman from O'Hara Hill, where he'd been attending a public meeting on expanding the substation, and heard the news over his radio. His attendance at the meeting, which also included Judge Claustel, County Attorney Hunt, two county supervisors, three ministers, our esteemed news director and anchor, along with fifty some citizens, was captured on video by KWMT's own Diana Stendahl."
He took a bite out of a donut from the box he'd brought this morning.
"Not only did she have the presence of mind to get Haeburn to sign before coming to Burrell's, but she actually had the form in her van. I'll tell you, that woman is frightening." Haeburn and Fine had stuck around after the meeting officially ended to have Diana shoot promo stuff with them looking involved in the community. "Anyway, Widcuff's departure from O'Hara Hill, confirmed by Aunt Gee as well as Diana, would have given him time to reach the trailer, shoot Mona and get out of there before we arrived."
"It would have been awfully close." We'd gone over these calculations.
"Only if he stuck to the speed limit," Paycik said. "And he doesn't."
I spread my hands, palms up, in acquiescence, and he went on. "Judge Claustel. Same as Sheriff Widcuff."
"Except both would have run the risk of being seen by the other or anyone else coming from O'Hara Hill."
"The road curves around the base of Jelicho Mountain just before the turnoff to the trailer, so unless someone's right behind you, they wouldn't see you turn. They could have parked in back."
Something about that didn't set right, but I couldn't pinpoint it.
"Brent Hanley," Mike continued. "Says he was fishing. Alone. On Jelicho River, about five miles from the trailer."
That was new. "When did you talk to him?"
"This morning. He was as charming as ever. And kids on the track team say Hanley's beat up two kids who made comments about Rog possibly being gay. Hanley has a mean temper."
"Don't I know it." I could still hear the sound of that shot put passing through my air space.
"Plus, he admits to being in the vicinity of the trailer."
"Everyone was. My God, there should have been a traffic jam. With all those pickups, it should have looked like an old TV commercial with Bob Seger singing 'like a rock.' And none of them has an alibi worth even trying to crack, and that includes Burrell."
Irritation had driven me upright, but now I flopped back.
Paycik waited a couple seconds, as if to make sure I'd finished. "Okay, let's listen to the tape again."
I groaned. I'd heard Mona's voice in my dreams. I almost wished Paycik hadn't thought to copy it before handing over the original to the police.
He played it again. And again.
"Mike? Mike Paycik?"
"Yes. Who's this?"
"Mona Burrell. I want to talk to you. You're still doing this reporting stuff on Foster being murdered, aren't you?"
"Elizabeth Danniher and I are looking into the story, yes."
"Yeah, you and her. Well, I might have something to tell you before I go. There's something-well, I didn't get it right off. Not 'til they found Foster, but then it made sense. I thought I could . . . . But Foster thought that, too. Maybe this is better. I can still get something. It doesn't mean I can't. But this'll be my cushion. Like some insurance, you know?"
"What are you talking about, Mona? If there's something you want to tell me-"
"I'll tell you . . . I'll tell you, but not on the phone. Not now. Meet me at Tom's office. I gotta get something. It's the trailer, you know? Out Yellowstone Street. You know where it is?"
"Sure. I know it."
"Okay. Meet me there. One hour."
"Okay. But, Mona, tell me what-"
Click.
"She knew something," Mike said. "That part about not getting it until Foster's body was found, but then it making sense. She had to know something."
"Or think she did. But even if she knew something for sure, we have no idea what. So we're right back where we were before Mona's death. Except . . ." I slid down until the small of my back rested on the seat cushion, despite my mother's voice echoing in my head with predictions of permanent spine injuries. "Mona was talking around town that she was getting out of here and taking Tamantha with her, and that gives Burrell another motive."
"As if the guy didn't have enough pointing to him." Paycik leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "And it doesn't even seem like he's fighting for himself. Before all this, I would have said Tom Burrell was the hardest fighter I ever knew. I would have thought he wouldn't ever give up, if only for Tamantha's sake, because he wouldn't want her to have a killer for a father."
I sat up so abruptly I knocked the legal pad off the couch on one side and a depleted bag of chips on the other. "For Tamantha's sake. Of course . . . . C'mon, Paycik." I piled the pad and chips on the coffee table and tossed an extra pen into my purse. "We have places to go, people to see."
"Where are we going, Elizabeth?" he asked as I herded him out.
"To jail. Directly to jail. Do not pass Go, do not collect two hundred dollars."
But maybe we'd collect some answers.