Page 37 of Head Room (Caught Dead in Wyoming #15)

There was a shortcut from the Jardos cabin site to the Chaney house that Diana would have used, flying over ruts and around turns.

I didn’t trust the state of the roads or the accuracy of the navigation, which didn’t recognize all of Wyoming’s shortcuts as roads.

I went back to the main highway and took the long way around.

That might have even produced a worthwhile stop along the way if the Red Sail Rock fire substation hadn’t been closed up with no vehicles parked outside.

The area around the Chaneys’ house was orderly and practical, which struck me as a reflection of Hannah’s husband, Paul.

I pulled in next to the white truck she drove the other day, with a garden patch in front of us. As I was about to tap my horn for the region’s usual greeting to humans and canines in the vicinity, the back door opened and Hannah came out.

She waved at me with something in her hand and went to a picnic table nearby. I joined her there.

The something in her hand was a baby monitor.

“Vidalia’s napping,” she said. “Don’t want to wake her.”

“Of course not.”

“Did you know I’m working at your reception come Saturday?”

“No, I didn’t.” Nor did I know what to say after that.

“Uh-huh. Going to help with the setup and the cake. Maybe cleanup, too. I can’t work much with the baby, but things like this work out good for Paul and me.”

She smiled at me. I smiled back.

Most people would ask — straight out or subtly — why I showed up at their house, what I wanted. She didn’t. She accepted.

This conversation wasn’t going to be started by Hannah asking a question. I was on my own. The flip side of that was I didn’t need to be delicate.

“Have you thought of anything else, Hannah, that you forgot to mention to me the other day at the Jardos cabin?”

Her eyes went big and solemn as she shook her head.

“Did Frank Jardos have any enemies?”

“Oh, no.”

I was tired of getting that answer to that question.

Though this one was on me.

Hannah had shown no indication of having the kind of astuteness about people Connie ascribed to Irene, the kind of astuteness that might recognize enmity, especially the deep, often unexpressed enmity that could turn someone into a murderer and someone else into a murder victim.

“He could be direct, but most people around here don’t mind that,” she added.

Hannah Chaney was not stupid. She might fall on a spectrum of some kind, one that reflected her linear logic combined with loyalty. That combination was why people could take advantage of her, as I’d seen in action during our earliest encounters.

Her husband, though, seemed to appreciate her strengths and be protective of her vulnerabilities.

You could say that’s what all good marriages provide each partner.

“Did Irene Jardos have any enemies?”

“Oh, no,” she said with more emphasis.

Connie talking about Frank Jardos walking right by her days before the fire popped into my mind.

“Did Frank ever talk to you about being worried about something?”

She shook her head.

“Or did he seem distracted or . . .?”

I let that trail off because she appeared distracted in that moment and she was the kind of person who needed time to develop their words.

“I don’t know about distracted. But . . . different from usual.”

She appeared satisfied with those statements as completing the topic. Me? Not so much.

“In what way different? Did he say something specific?”

“Specific? I don’t remember—”

I backed off strict requirements. “Or in general? The gist, not word for word.”

“Um. The day he came here, he was talking about the things people keep to remember times in their lives. Like, he was talking about how people used to bronze babies’ shoes.”

“Did he come here a lot?”

She shook her head. “That one day, like I said.”

“When was that?”

Her gaze went up toward the blue sky. “A few days before the fire? Pretty sure. Because Vidalia was wearing the striped romper my cousin gave me the weekend before, after her youngest grew out of it.”

In other words, around the same time he walked past Connie without noticing her.

“He talked about things people keep to remember,” I repeated.

“Uh-huh.”

“Like bronzed baby shoes.”

“Uh-huh.”

Oblique nudging wasn’t working. “Did he say anything else?”

“Uh-huh. He said he and Irene never had bronzed baby shoes, but he had a flag he’d received— Oh.

Did I tell you about that? It was in the metal box with the medals and Irene’s manuscript and the photos.

Anyway, he said those things meant a lot to him, but nothing meant more to him than the quilts Irene made.

And he liked knowing there were lots out in the world, like mirrors of her.

But there were also ones she’d made that hadn’t found homes yet. ”

Was Frank Jardos setting out breadcrumbs for somebody to follow, in case something happened . . . like what did happen?

Talking about things that meant a lot to him, suggesting me for getting the manuscript, planting a seed in Hannah’s mind that prompted her to go back to the fire scene the next day, reminding her about the metal box, the manuscript.

Choosing Hannah, because similar statements to Connie would have her immediately wondering what was wrong. Even if she couldn’t pry it out of him in the moment, afterward she’d remember and connect those dots.

Dots that led to suspicion that he knew the fire was coming . . .

But what about the quilts? The metal box saved other things precious to him, but quilts are big, bulky.

“Hannah, did the sergeant give you quilts his wife had made before the fire?”

“You mean the ones for Vidalia?”

“Irene gave you those quilts, right?”

“Right.”

“So, no, I mean other quilts besides those. After Irene died.”

She shook her head. “All the quilts that hadn’t found homes yet like he said burned up.”

“Are you sure?”

She shook her head, but said, “Yes.”

I interpreted it as the yes for her sureness and the head-shake for the quilts’ survival.

I thought about what I’d asked her.

“Hannah, did the sergeant give you anything shortly before the fire?”

She frowned slightly. “For safekeeping, you mean?”

My heart skittered. “Yes.”

“There’s a box—”

The skittering stopped. “The metal box with the manuscript and his medals?”

She shook her head. “No. I told you, we found that after the fire. This was before.”

Skittering restarted. Cautiously.

“What kind of box?”

“A big one. He put it in the attic himself, though I helped get it up the ladder. But he didn’t give it to me. He asked if he could leave it with me.”

“What was in it?”

“I don’t know. It was closed so I didn’t see and he didn’t say what was in it.”

A box in an attic.

It could be nothing.

It could be like my cookie stash among the napkin boxes.

“Hannah, we want to look in that box. We — I — know it’s the sergeant’s,” I added hurriedly, because I saw that objection forming. “But it might help us figure out what happened at his cabin.”

Her eyes widened. “I’ve heard you think he might still be alive. That it was somebody else in the cabin when it burned.”

Hannah’s linear logic could be circumvented. But her honesty and loyalty couldn’t be. That deserved respect.

“Might?” I repeated. “Yes. But I truly have no clear idea, Hannah.”

She chewed on her lip. “Is he in trouble? If he’s alive or . . . I don’t want him to be in trouble even if he’s not alive.”

I would have chewed my lip as I considered my answer if I had that habit.

“There are two parts to that question. If he is alive, he might be in danger. That’s what we’re trying to figure out and looking in the box might help us with that. Also, if we get him out of danger, there’s a chance that, yes, he could get into trouble.”

Something about my words tickled the back of my mind, but I couldn’t focus on unraveling that now.

She looked directly at me. Long enough to be uncomfortable. I kept looking back at her.

“You want to see it now?”

“Yes.”

“Okay.”