Page 28 of Head Room (Caught Dead in Wyoming #15)

Emmaline Parens greeted me at the front door of her tidy frame house with her characteristic equanimity and led me into the front room I thought of as the classroom.

I, on the other hand, counted my lucky stars that Aunt Gee’s vehicle wasn’t in the drive next door. At her job as chief dispatcher for the sheriff’s department’s substation? Errands?

I hoped the former, because it would keep her away longer.

Possibly as part of the aforementioned blade and stone interaction, these two had a convoluted score-keeping contest that I’m guessing started with their first encounter.

No one else knew the rules. But non-players could experience the prickly discomfort of being sucked in under certain circumstances.

Like visiting one house more often than the other.

I tended to go to Mrs. P for history and Aunt Gee for food.

But since I had an already-fitted and finalized wedding dress to get into soon, a stop at Aunt Gee’s was out of the question today.

Mrs. P gestured me to one of a pair of straight-backed chairs. Between the chairs sat a table with the makings of tea already set out, plus a small plate of cookies without a hint of chocolate.

I couldn’t help but glance at the walls packed with materials cataloguing the history of Cottonwood County and beyond. Although for this visit, my focus started with current affairs.

More surprising, so did hers.

“You do not need to share such matters with me, naturally, however, I would be interested to know what steps you and your compatriots have taken to this point in your inquiries about the recent fire at the cabin of Irene and Frank Jardos?”

This was different enough to throw me off.

Mrs. P seldom asked about our inquiries.

I’d always suspected she knew what we did practically as we did it, so she had no need to ask.

I briefly recapped my conversations with Hannah, Miles Stevens, Ned Irvin, Connie, and Poppinger.

Then I tossed in, “There was a suggestion that burning the cabin down might have been for the value of the nails.”

She pursed her mouth.

Before I could backtrack from the danger zone of that pursing, she was answering.

“I fear, Elizabeth, that you have been led astray in that matter.

The burning of structures to access the nails is believed to have applied to the period of earliest European settlement in this country, when nails were manufactured in Europe and imported.

With blacksmiths established on this continent, they were hand-wrought individually.

“However, by the end of the 1700s, the use of cut nails was established and a century later, when such construction began in this region, wire nails were in common use, though wood pegs were also used at times. Currently nails are quite economical. There has rarely, if ever, been cause to burn structures in our region to collect nails.”

Led astray, all right.

Paycik would pay for that.

“Beyond your unproductive, though educational, foray into the history of nails, what conclusions do you draw from the collection of information you have acquired?”

“Conclusions? None. I know, I know. Don’t say it. That’s how it is with each of these investigations. I’ve heard that from Tom. And, yes, we need to keep moving ahead, accumulating pieces and eventually it will all make sense. I’ve heard that, too.

“But this time, I have a boatload of relatives arriving in days, starting with my parents — by which I mean my wedding-crazed mother and my generally laid-back father — and, shortly after that, a wedding, no, two weddings, a cookout, and a reception. With the threat that all of that will be held during a blizzard.”

“Elizabeth, you are a reasonable person and recognize that such an approach is unproductive.”

I could justifiably argue back that productivity was completely out of sight.

I wouldn’t win the argument.

“Do you know Colonel Crawford, Mrs. Parens?”

“I do not know him directly, however, I do know of him through his and his wife’s established connection to Frank and Irene Jardos and their high regard for the Crawfords, as well as a reciprocal regard from the Crawfords.”

“He says Jardos didn’t kill himself. Absolutely. Not possible. He’s also not convinced that the body found at the cabin is the sergeant. Sure, you can say we’ll know after the medical examiner is done, but how long will that take?”

I didn’t give her an opportunity to answer. Which wasn’t rude, because she showed no sign of wanting to speak.

“Too long is the short answer, especially in my mother’s point of view.

Or would be, if she knew about this, but I’m sure not telling her we’re looking into a death this close to the wedding.

In the meantime, we’re trying to keep our minds and our inquiries open to both possibilities — the dead man is Frank Jardos or isn’t Frank Jardos.

“If it is Frank Jardos, we’ve found no immediate reason for him to have shot himself in the head and burned his cabin.

The timing itself — the shooting, the burning.

That’s tricky. As to why, yes, he’s grieving for his wife, but he hasn’t struck anyone as suicidal, cut himself off from people, dropped recent activities, or expressed suicidal thoughts that anyone’s shared.

“If it’s not Frank Jardos—” I raised my hands, stopping short of anything that could be described as tossing them up in disgust. “—who the heck is it? There are a whole lot of men in the world who match that general size and shape and the only ones we can eliminate for sure are the ones we’ve seen alive since the cabin fire.

Plus, if it’s not Jardos, where is he? And why would he disappear?

And why would some other man be at the cabin wearing Jardos’ boots or their twins?

Who shot him? Who set fire to the cabin?

“What makes the most sense is that Jardos shot the man and set the fire. Unless he’s the one who’s dead and someone else set the fire . . . And — bam — we’re back to where we started.”

Mrs. P sipped tea in response to my river of words.

Rather disappointing.

All that deserved at least a gasp from an ordinary listener. Not that I’d expect one from Mrs. P.

“Sit down, Elizabeth, and may I recommend that you drink your tea.”

Not a recommendation.

I sat. I drank tea.

“Is that the entirety?” she asked with uncharacteristic brevity and directness.

“Yes— No, not quite, though it doesn’t help. I’ve been reading Irene’s manuscript — a historical romance set during the Civil War — as if that’s going to give me the answer.”

She regarded me levelly.

“You could do far worse than read the writings of Irene Jardos, who had an unerring instinct for people. She did not always articulate her instincts, nor did she trace her impressions to their sources, however that did not diminish their accuracy.”

Mrs. P vouching for Irene’s abilities on top of what Connie said made this ironclad.

But, unless something from before she died started a chain reaction . . .?

“The problem being that her book starts during the Civil War,” I pointed out.

“Then the characters come to Wyoming as Galvanized Yankees — Confederate prisoners of war who took an oath to the U.S. and joined the army to fight here in the West against the Indians, because the army couldn’t spare troops from the Civil War fighting. Is that historically accurate?”

“Indeed, the outline you sketched reflects the facts of history, although I cannot, understandably, vouch for the historical accuracy of the details as portrayed in Irene’s manuscript, which I have not read.”

“You knew she was writing—?”

I bit off my question, since the answer was obvious.

“Irene Jardos confided in me her intentions, as well as inquiring of me resources I would recommend for research of that era, particularly in Wyoming.”

A frown squeezed my forehead. “But they were down at Fort Laramie and other places in the southern part of the state, around the Platte River. Even the North Platte River is way south of here. So, it doesn’t connect to here or Frank Jardos or his cabin burning.”

I wished it did.

Especially since I had a feeling Mrs. P wasn’t letting this topic go, which meant we’d follow it through until she chose otherwise.

She said, “The North Platte River, also called the Upper Platte, reaches the northernmost point of a hump-like formation at what is now the city called Casper. In the period of history to which you refer, the settlement there was called Platte Bridge Station, for self-apparent reasons. It was an important crossing for the Oregon and Mormon trails, as well as for the Pony Express route.”

My statement that none of the history connected to Frank Jardos being or not being the dead man in his cabin clearly had no effect on Mrs. P.

“In the period you referred to—” Sure, blame this digression on me.

“—a fight with Indians near Platte Bridge Station in 1865 resulted in the death of Lieutenant Caspar — with two a’s — Collins.

His father had been the commander there until a few months previous to Caspar’s death.

In addition, the father — William Collins — gave his name to what is now Fort Collins, Colorado. ”

I tried to pull the conversation back from more than a century and a half ago. “But Irene’s story—”

“From questions she asked me about Caspar Collins and Platte Bridge Station, I believe she intended to include that event in her story in some fashion, though I cannot say if she had done so before her sad death.

It is certainly credible that a member of what has been termed Galvanized Yankees could have seen involvement with activities at that location at that time.

“There is rich material in that period to explore, for a historian or even a novelist, despite attention being disproportionately devoted to the town of Casper deriving its name, which was meant to honor the young man who died at only twenty years old after volunteering for dangerous duties, from a misspelling of that name in what was, indeed, a careless clerical error.”

It didn’t seem right that young Caspar didn’t get the town named after him to have the right spelling — and long before the terrors of autocorrect — but I refused to remain in the detour she’d drawn me into.

“It’s interesting — I’m glad to hear all that and I am interested in Irene’s characters. But it has no bearing on current events or real people.”

“That is not entirely accurate—” Mrs. P. said. “—as it does have a bearing on current events and real people, specifically that Thomas is descended from a Galvanized Yankee.”