Page 33 of Head Room (Caught Dead in Wyoming #15)

As Tom drove, I told him about Tamantha’s concern over bride or groom frazzle and our peripatetic wedding plans.

He approved of my handling of the issue.

I didn’t mention my thoughts about frazzle in the context of meeting his parents.

Instead, I asked, “What were you doing before I got here?”

“Cleaning up.”

“You don’t mean vacuuming, dusting, washing the floor, do you.”

He chuckled. I do love that sound. “Nope. Cleaning up brush that’d grown closer to the barn than I like. Not a big job, and figured I’d hear you if you came before I finished. But got it clear-cut and cleaned up before you got here.”

Cleaning up, as Frank Jardos told Hiram he was doing.

“A firefighter talked about the Jardos cabin’s recent clear-cut. He seemed to think it was unusual, because of the season and because it’s been wet lately.”

“Can’t say he’s wrong. But ranchers fit jobs in when we can.” He squinted at me. “Disappointed?”

“Me? No,” I fibbed. “Another point that could mean something or nothing.”

“Isn’t that what usually happens when you’re looking into things?”

“Doesn’t mean I like it.”

Another chuckle distracted me, leaving a lag before I asked, “Where, exactly, are we going?”

“No exactly, but we’re going to an area near where the west edge of our place and the west edge of the museum’s holdings meet each other and national forest lands. It’s one of the few places in that area I can drive into with the truck.”

“No hiking — that’s good.”

“Can’t promise that. No hiking if they got my message and decided to cooperate. Otherwise . . .”

His one-shoulder shrug was not encouraging.

But when he stopped the truck at the end of two tracks we’d been jouncing over for what felt like forever, he seemed more optimistic.

The tracks had basically been parallel strips of shorter grass than the surrounding vegetation and the right distance apart for a truck. We were not talking the Champs-élysées.

“You and Shadow go on into the clearing. If they’re coming, it won’t be long. Better if I wait here,” Tom said.

Not because he wasn’t friendly with them. So, why? Because they’d be less macho without another guy around? Because he wanted it to be clear that I was autonomous? Because it would declare to them that he trusted them?

Maybe pieces of all those.

I was good with it. I was here in my professional capacity — even if I was bringing my dog — not as Tom’s wife-to-be.

From beside me, Shadow gave me a questioning look when I stopped walking past the clearing’s mid-point. Going more than halfway, I hoped, would be seen as a friendly overture, but I didn’t want to press.

We waited.

Shadow sat. I spared a moment’s gratitude that we were in the shorter grass so he wouldn’t bring half of it home with us on his coat.

We waited more.

Shadow stood, ears at alert.

Two dogs came into view at the tree line, about five feet apart from each other. Both looked to be German shepherds mixed with something. Possibly lots of somethings.

That could describe Shadow, too. But the mix side of these dogs’ heritage favored sleeker-coated hounds, while Shadow had more fluff, possibly from collie or golden retriever genes.

They started toward us to — well, I wasn’t sure what their intentions were. To guard, to warn, to greet?

From three yards away, Shadow and the two dogs looked at each other, tails wagging fast and hard. The tail-wag version of a teeth-baring grimace instead of a smile.

Then the older of the two dogs sniffed the air audibly and the wags softened.

Two men came forward then, almost a human mirror of the dogs’ demeanor, with the older one slightly ahead of the one about my age. Wariness of an attack blended with the certainty that they would repel any such attack.

I wouldn’t want to meet either of them in a dark alley or — far more likely in Wyoming — a shadowy forest.

Each wore mix-and-match clothing. The pieces not actually camouflage were subdued natural colors that blended into the wooded background. Each wore a slouch hat and had a beard, short and relatively neat. The older man’s had streaks of gray in it.

The younger guy looked past me toward where Tom had been standing, might still be standing. The older one focused on my hand on Shadow’s head.

I swallowed to avoid audibly clearing my throat.

“My name’s Elizabeth Margaret Danniher. I work for the Sherman TV station—” No way did they get KWMT’s signal here.

“—and we’ve been working to find out why Sergeant Frank Jardos’ cabin burned down last week.

I’d like to ask you questions to see if you can help us find out what happened. ”

Neither answered.

I know about letting a pause mature. Some might accuse me of letting them mature long enough to develop mold.

On the bright side, mold leads to penicillin, blue cheese, and now research into its ability to fight cancer.

In this case, it led to words.

Pending a cure for cancer, I was happy with that.

“That Shadow?” the older man asked.

I swallowed my surprise that he knew the name.

“Yes.”

“Heard about him. Wary of you at first. Later went after somebody trying to hurt you and they hurt him. You held him, getting to the vet.”

This time I swallowed something other than surprise. Clearly Tom had told him, which eliminated surprise. It was the memory that made me swallow. “Yes.”

The man saw my reaction and relaxed fractionally.

“Good he’s okay. That other family didn’t deserve him.”

“Can’t blame the girl, she loved him—”

My words stopped. Overtaken by the realization that this man knew details of Shadow’s background few others did. “Tom?” I asked him.

“Nah. Hear things.”

I stopped myself from asking, Out here?

Seriously, I knew the Cottonwood County grapevine beat kudzu, bindweed, and the philodendron my grandmother trained twice around her living room, but this still impressed me.

“Imagine you’ve heard all about the sergeant’s cabin burning down.”

A grunt confirmed my not very imaginative imagining.

“And that a body was found in the cabin.”

Grunt two.

“Male. With a bullet hole in the skull.” I deliberately made it direct.

“Dead before the fire,” he said.

I tilted my head forward slowly. He didn’t want to meet my gaze and because he didn’t, he did. His eyes saying, Give it your best shot, girlie.

So I did.

“Don’t you want him to be buried with the recognition of his name, of who he was? Given the military burial he earned?”

“Don’t know it’s the sergeant,” the older man said. The younger one got in on the grunting.

“Not yet. On the other hand, pending the medical examiner’s report, it’s reasonable for authorities to believe it’s him, since no one’s seen him since the fire. Unless you have—”

“No.”

That sounded like the truth, yet it was abrupt. The abruptness could be explained as a mask to emotions he didn’t want to reveal. Or it could be something else.

“When was the last time you saw him?”

“Came here the day before his cabin burned.” That matched what Poppinger said.

“Part of his regular schedule?”

“Didn’t have a strict schedule.”

That was a hedge, in addition to not matching what Yvette reminded Poppinger he’d said.

“How does that work, then?”

“Comes around, finds out what’s needed, gets it, brings it back. Sometimes the same day.”

His sometimes left open that most times it didn’t happen the same day.

“Is that what happened the day before the cabin fire? He came back the same day?”

“Uh-huh.”

Okay, so Frank Jardos came up here on a different day than usual and made deliveries the same day. What did that add up to?

I stashed that internal question in favor of one for these guys. I had the feeling this wasn’t destined to be a protracted interview. “Does he check in with each of you about what’s needed in town?”

“No.”

“Then how does he find out what to get or do?”

“Mostly I tell him. A couple will talk to him direct for something complicated or they want to keep to themselves. But mostly they tell me and I keep a running list I give him.”

“Did he say anything to you about why he came that particular day?”

“No.”

“Do you know why he came that particular day?”

He nodded. “That’s right. Not the same thing, is it? But the answer’s still no.”

“Did you get any sense that he was worried about anything?”

“No.”

But the younger guy became even stiller.

“Distracted or concerned or have anything on his mind?”

“No.”

I wouldn’t call that an outright lie, but it wasn’t all true, either. Not even for the older guy.

“If he wanted to . . . disappear for a while, would he come here?”

“Can’t say. Can say he didn’t.”

“How can you know for sure? Pretty big area.”

“If he came here, it would be to see one or all of us. No sense coming here otherwise. Plenty of other places to go to disappear. And we haven’t seen him.” He had logic on his side.

“Did he say anything to you about being unhappy, maybe missing his wife, or . . .” I left it open.

“Anything that’d point to him burning down his cabin with him in it — that’s another no.”

“Could he have said anything to anyone else here?”

“Only talked to me that day.”

“Does he know everyone who’s up here?”

“No.”

That not only shut the door on that topic, but declared I would never get across the threshold to find out the identities of all the men — people? — in their loose group.

I don’t like closed doors. Occupational hazard or personality trait, they irritate me. But anyone letting their irritations drive the engine invites crashes.

Besides, who Sergeant Jardos didn’t know wasn’t likely to be key to what happened at his cabin.