Page 20 of Head Room (Caught Dead in Wyoming #15)

I turned the conversation with another question. “Who were the people closest to Frank and Irene Jardos? Who should I talk to?”

“Honestly, around here, probably me for Irene. Though you have to know that the two of them were such a tight unit that they didn’t need others. Then, I guess for Frank it’s—” She cut me a look. “—Hiram Poppinger”

I whined internally that she’d confirmed Diana’s vaguer connection. Darn it.

Connie might have heard my internal whine, because she said, “I know, but he’s your best shot.”

Not the best choice of words, since Poppinger tried to shoot anyone in range, which included me, my friends, and Shelton, in our first encounter.

I suppose I could look at the bright side that he wasn’t as cranky as he used to be since he’d become an item with Yvette.

The not so bright side was that Yvette maintained she was responsible for Elvis . . . well, it got complicated, but she maintained he’d faked his death and disappeared from sight because she loved him too much.

Apparently, Hiram Poppinger wasn’t as delicate.

“Frank does — did — also connect with some veterans that are . . . I guess you’d say they’re off the grid. High side.”

That terrain worked hard to match up with the mountains that starkly rose in National Forest and Yellowstone Park lands farther to the west. These mountains formed part of the wider Rocky Mountains, parceled into messy strands of the Absaroka and Beartooth ranges, with the Gallatin range farther west.

Connie continued, “They don’t come into town much. Frank would pick up things they needed in town, run errands, handle things for them when he could, give them a ride and stick around to take them back if they had to do it themselves. Basically, run interference for them.”

“Did he know them from his days in the army?”

“No.” That sounded certain. Then she immediately qualified it. “I don’t think so. I had the impression he heard about them and went to connect with them.” She frowned. “I’m positive Irene would have mentioned it if they were friends from earlier.”

“How about if they were enemies?”

She chuckled, then stopped. “You mean that. I can’t imagine—” She shook her head. “Okay, okay. I know, better than most, that pretending bad things don’t happen is just being blind. But, truly, Elizabeth, I can’t imagine either of them having enemies.”

I didn’t let myself sigh.

It was wrong to be disappointed people didn’t have enemies.

“How did Frank seem the last time you saw him?”

“Busy. Preoccupied. But the same could be said of me. It was the day before the fire. We were both at the supermarket. Said hello and that was it. But it was the time before when I thought something was bothering him.”

“When was that? Why? What was bothering him?”

She held up a hand. “I have no idea what was bothering him. He certainly didn’t say. And, yes, I did ask if something was wrong and if I could help.”

“You are a good friend, Connie.”

“Not good enough that he confided in me.”

“You can’t—”

“I know, I know.” She met my gaze. “Truly, I know, Elizabeth. Why I thought something was bothering him was his expression when he walked right by me. Must have been Monday. That was the day I was at the courthouse to file papers for Burrell Roads. I’d just about reached my truck in the parking lot.

He’d come from the side street, and had actually passed me, when I said his name.

“I asked what was wrong. He stared at me a second, then said, Nothing. I said if there was anything I could do, to let me know. But he put his hand on my shoulder, squeezed it, and said not to fret. Called me Mama Connie. He did that sometimes.” Her smile flitted away. “And that was it.”

I blocked a sigh.

It’s not helpful to let someone you’re interviewing know they’ve disappointed you through no fault of theirs.

It’s not nice to do to a friend, either.

“What do you know about Irene’s manuscript, Connie?”

“You know about that? I think that’s what makes me the saddest — that she never got to finish it, that she never got to share it with readers.”

Before I could decide whether to share that it had one reader, anyway, she continued. “And now it’s gone in the fire.”

Apparently, I had decided at some level, because what came out was, “Not entirely.”

I explained about Hannah getting the metal box from the fire scene, that the manuscript mostly survived, and Jennifer’s plan to preserve the pages.

Yes, I skipped the part about Dale laboriously copying page by page and my beginning to read what he’d copied. Not for any reason other than because Connie was busy exclaiming with genuine pleasure about how happy she was that the manuscript still existed.

“That’s amazing that it survived and that Hannah thought to look for anything that survived. Not that Hannah’s not a sweet person . . .”

As her words trailed off, our gazes met in agreement that Hannah Chaney was not someone so finely attuned to others’ emotions that you’d expect her to execute that thoughtful gesture.

I would have been okay with saying that aloud. Connie reverted to the topic of the manuscript.

“You know Irene didn’t start it until she was diagnosed? Not the writing, I mean. She’d been researching nearly as long as I knew her. In fact, she told me she’d started trying to write several stories before that one, but never finished, sure she wasn’t good enough.

“When she was diagnosed, she said it didn’t matter anymore if she wasn’t good enough.

She was the only one who could tell the story in her head, so she had to be good enough.

She was so happy telling that story. I read a little bit and I liked it a lot.

Sure, I’m not an expert, but I was drawn to those characters.

Really drawn in by them. Have you read it? ”

“A little.”

Connie rolled on. “That was the thing with Irene. Like I said, she could see through a person all the way to their backbone. And unless you knew to look for it and looked hard, you’d never know that’s what she was doing. You’d never know she had somebody dead to rights. They sure wouldn’t know.”

That could be handy.

I stood, only then remembering the bag with half of my stash of backup cookies I’d left by the door.

“I brought cookies for you all.”

She laughed, sounding less burdened than I’d ever heard her. “Smart move. And know that you will be very popular in the two and a half minutes it takes my sons to consume them all.”

I handed over the bag with barely a twinge.

“Hannah makes cookies for your boys?”

“Hannah? No.” She looked surprised and amused.

“I don’t know that she’s ever— Oh, you were at the supermarket, listening to Penny, weren’t you?

If she was talking about someone making cookies for the boys, it was Irene.

She did that regularly for us, for the vets, most of all for the firefighters— You know Frank was a volunteer? ”

“I heard he was mostly support.”

A frown flickered. “Maybe lately, but he’s done a lot with them.” With a faint chuckle, she circled back to my original bad assumption. “When it came to baked goods, it was definitely Irene, not Hannah.”

“Of course.” I sighed. “Caught again by Penny’s pronouns.”

Glad I gave her a chuckle in return for all the time she’d given me.

* * * *

Driving down the ranch road toward the highway, I looked over at Red Sail Rock glowing in the morning sun.

Did Connie’s take on the Jardoses’ relationship with the colonel strengthen my inclination to give credence to his certainty that Frank Jardos had not committed suicide?

Yeah, probably.

Time to call the team.