Page 19 of Head Room (Caught Dead in Wyoming #15)
I turned onto the road to Red Sail Ranch, also familiarly known as the Walterston place.
Connie Walterston worked for Tom. Not on his ranching operation, but on the highway construction business his father started. In fact, she just about ran it.
Tom wasn’t all that interested in the operation, truth be told. His heart was in ranching. Between that and some other circumstances, the business wasn’t as robust as when his father retired. On the other hand, the ranch was doing far better.
Yeah, Tom and his father did not see eye-to-eye.
Except, possibly, on Connie Walterston.
She ran the highway construction company partly out of a trailer near the Circle B, when she needed to be on hand where the equipment was kept, and the rest of the time from here in her home.
This was a busy-ish time. Not as busy as when they were starting the season and not as busy as when they were racing Wyoming weather to finish projects, but busy enough.
She and her three sons also split duties running their ranch, while the sons alternated pursuing college degrees.
I saw one of them in the distance, working with irrigation equipment. Too far away to tell if it was Jaden, Kade, or Austin.
It was certainly a way to build up a hunger for cookies.
The ranch house and the area around it were modest and well-tended, rather like Connie herself.
She opened the door before I could knock, gesturing me in as she continued to listen to someone through the wireless headset she wore.
“Okay, okay. You had me at broken leg. Send me the bill when you get it and I’ll look it over for you . . . Sure. And if you need an advance . . . Good. Okay. Give her a hug for me — a gentle hug.”
She smiled at me as she took off the headset.
“Pour yourself a coffee while I set this to taking messages,” she instructed as she went to her desk and hit buttons.
“One of our equipment drivers’ daughters broke her leg last night trying trick riding.
She’s only nine. Good news is it’s a clean break.
But he was up all night with her, still at the hospital now.
We’d already worked around him, but he wanted to apologize again. ”
“And you wanted him to know you’d check over the medical bills.” I lifted the coffee pot I still held and she slid the mug she’d brought to the kitchen counter under the spout for a refill.
“Got to know my way around those abominations and if I can help out . . .” She generously shared knowledge she’d picked up from the years her late husband had been ill. “But that’s not why you wanted to come out to see me.”
“No. Want to hear what you can tell me—” And what she would tell me, because she’d share a lot but not if it conflicted with higher loyalties. “—about Sergeant Frank Jardos.”
“Oh.” That came out as a stream of sorrow. “I can’t believe it. It’s just awful. Awful. I couldn’t believe it when I heard the place was on fire and then when they found . . .”
“Could you see it from here?” I asked to redirect her slightly.
“Not from the house. Some smoke from outside, especially when we knew to look for it. Not sure I would have noticed otherwise.”
“Penny said—” I stopped because that was too direct. Connie grinned in acknowledgement of my quandary. “I think she indicated you were close to Irene Jardos.”
Her grin disappeared amid another syllable of sorrow. “Yes. They hadn’t lived here that long, but some people you click with, you know?”
By not that long, she meant decades, possibly generations. The Jardoses and I were the merest newcomers.
“They helped with the search, you know.” Many people helped search for Connie’s husband more than a year ago. It hadn’t turned out well.
“I didn’t know. There were so many.”
“Yes.” That held memories, thankful and sorrowful.
She gestured me to a couch across from the desk. A coffee table offered a place to rest our coffee mugs, but we both held onto them.
“Tell me about Irene,” I said.
“She was one of the most astute women about other people I’ve ever met. Saw right through people to their backbones, as my granny used to say. In that way, she was very much like you.”
“I wouldn’t say I have such a great track record there.” The specter of my ex came to mind. “Especially with a few murderers who fooled me until the evidence stacked up. Maybe I’ve learned to be skeptical until people prove themselves.”
“But you’re open to the evidence,” she said earnestly.
“You do realize a lot of people aren’t, don’t you?
They get an initial impression based on what a person looks like or sounds like or how they dress or what group they’re in or what they promise — that’s how snake oil salesmen of one kind or another can still make such a good living off other folks.
Anyway, once some people get one impression, you can’t blast them off their opinion without using dynamite. And even then some won’t budge.
“But that’s not you. At first I thought you were standoffish, you know being from back East—”
I bit my tongue not to correct her by saying Illinois. To Wyomingites, Illinois was back East. Heck, Nebraska was back East.
And in fairness, I had come here from New York, with Washington my previous stop, and those did count as back East. Even to an Illinoisan.
“—but as I got to know you, I saw your approach came from looking around, getting the lay of the land. If that makes sense for dealing with people.”
I nodded that it did, indeed, make sense.
And maybe I did recognize some of that in me.
She chuckled unexpectedly.
“What?” I asked.
“Well, I was thinking that there are a good number of times when you’ve had good reason to be cautious about getting the lay of the land, since you and the others are looking for a murderer.
Oh.” She turned her head slightly, as if to get a better view of me.
“Is that what you’re doing? Are you thinking .
. . Frank Jardos . . .? Or . . . no, not Irene, because if somebody killed her, Frank would—”
“We have not learned anything that makes Irene Jardos’ death look anything but natural.”
Her reaction was a little hard to read. Strong emotion for sure. Most seemed to be horror at the idea that someone might have killed Irene.
Then she said, “But Frank . . .?”
That sounded almost . . . hopeful?
“We don’t know anything, truly, Connie. We’re asking questions to help a friend of theirs ease his mind over what’s happened.”
“Colonel Crawford,” she said with certainty.
“You know him?”
“Met him a time or two when he was making what Irene called one of his flying visits. She used to laugh about him zooming in, then out, and that it was like a snap inspection to make sure they were still okay.”
“She liked him?”
“Oh, yes. Trusted him. Respected him. Now, the colonel’s wife, she did the same, but also loved her.” Connie smiled slightly, remembering her friend. “And their kids.
“Frank saw the colonel most recently last fall after Irene passed. The colonel’s wife came to the funeral, but he couldn’t because he was—” She stopped. “They called it something special. Don’t remember, but it made me think of tidy.”
“TDY — temporary duty,” I supplied.
“That’s it. Got the feeling it was a little hush-hush. Anyway, he came later and spent time with Frank. I’d stopped by to bring a casserole, but that went right in the freezer, because the colonel had brought these huge steaks.”
Her chuckle faded to softness.
“It was good for Frank. Real good for him. He turned a corner toward living again with that visit.”
“So, you were surprised to hear about his cabin and—”
“Stunned about the cabin and not believing for a second about them saying suicide. Oh, I know there’s not an official finding yet, but that’s the word on everyone’s lips and it started from the firefighters, so how long would it take for that to become official?”
“We’ll have to see,” I answered neutrally.
Telling her about the pattern Diana spotted through her camera wouldn’t advance the finding of the truth — because it wouldn’t stay with Connie — or advance our conversation.
It also might give her unfounded hope.
And, yes, Shelton would kill me.
I’m more than willing to risk that when necessary, but no reason to when it wasn’t necessary.
Unless, of course, it gave me an advantage. That rarely qualified as necessary, but it could be fun.