Page 53 of Head Room (Caught Dead in Wyoming #15)

Frank Jardos streamed out a breath.

“Irene would’ve set me straight. Never seen a person better at picking up what was going on with other people, when they were right and when they weren’t.

She just knew, but with her gone . . . Oh, hell, maybe I wasn’t paying as close attention as I should’ve, what with missing her. The guys said a few things—”

“Recently?”

“No. Before Nance drifted off . . . Anyway, I’ve had time to remember every word, every look from Nance while I’ve been here. Didn’t follow up the way I should’ve.”

“Was that your job?” I asked evenly. “To follow up? To pay close attention?”

“It was, because I could. Some of the guys got their heads on mostly right. They don’t want to deal with a lot of people, or pretty much any if they can help it.

Doesn’t stop them from keeping things running within the group and a couple can figure the numbers on getting land and such, know the laws.

A couple others . . . Well, the ones who can, help the ones who can’t.

“Maybe that was part of my not paying enough attention — who was saying it. When Nance came back and was looking better, a couple guys who have more issues grumbled something was off. Me and some others dismissed it.”

As if realizing how much he’d been talking, he asked sharply, “This is what you wanted to ask me about?”

“Some of it. When did you find Nance dead in your cabin?”

“That day — Wednesday. Same day I’d been up here to his camp, looking for him.

He’d been . . . wound up the previous time I’d seen him, two days earlier.

Got real excited when I asked what was going on.

Said I was accusing him of lying, being a crook.

When I said no, he switched to saying I didn’t think he could handle the situation. ”

“What situation?”

“Hell if I know. That’s why I came here,” he said impatiently.

“Was the day he got excited the same day you did the clear-cut?”

“Need to keep up a fire break—” He’d defaulted to defensive.

“Why this time of year? Why with the wet weather?”

His longest pause followed. “I had a feeling. Wanted options.”

He stopped.

I let the silence lie.

“Nance said . . .” Some people when they make a decision to talk, rush forward like they’re leaping a chasm.

He advanced word by word, like testing a rope bridge over that chasm.

“. . . some things. Seemed to me, with him talking like that, about pulling something off, he’d gotten involved in something.

Something financial. Over his head, maybe. He wouldn’t share with me.”

“Anybody else he’d talk to?”

“No. I tried pushing. He got mad. I hoped he’d come around, waited for him to come to me. He didn’t. That’s when I came here. No sign of him.” He shot a look around at each of us. “No sign of anybody messing with the campsite, either. Whoever did this to him didn’t catch him here.”

For an instant, I thought he meant to emphasize he hadn’t messed with a crime scene.

Then I realized his focus was that Nance had been safe here and only caught by his killer or killers when he went to the sergeant’s cabin.

Frank Jardos felt responsible.

Or was pretending.

“Setting your home on fire can’t be easy. Risking everything in it.” I paused. “Though you’d primed Hannah to retrieve the metal box after you set it where it was most likely to survive.”

He didn’t respond this time.

“Frank, why did you tell Hannah to give your wife’s manuscript to me?”

“I didn’t—” He broke off as he met my look. “I read the whole thing through three, four times. Sure she’d have picked up something if there was anything to pick up. But never could see anything in her pages.

“Irene was the smartest person I ever knew. Any puzzle, any kind she figured out. If she’d been around, she’d have gotten it all out of Nance no matter whether he told her or not.

But me? Nothing. Not from him. Not from her story.

I mean, it’s a good story. Great story. But nothing that connects to what’s happened to Nance and whatever was bothering him. ”

“Why give it to Elizabeth?” Tom said quietly.

“She reminded me of Irene. Way she is on TV. She sees connections a lot of the rest of us don’t.”

Mike made a confirming sound, despite knowing I’d gotten absolutely nothing from the manuscript to date. Except as Frank Jardos said, a good story.

“Different approach with the quilts,” I said. “They could have stayed in Hannah’s attic a long time.”

He could also stay silent a long time.

I shifted.

“When you came up here that day you were looking for Nance, what were you going to do?”

“Get it out of him — what was going on. He’d let a little slip and I’d dug—”

“About registered agents.”

I made it a statement and was glad I did when his look edged closer to what resembled respect.

I followed up with, “What did he say about registered agents?”

“Nothing concrete. He talked a lot. It was like the words were there, then they were sinking under a sea of more words and I couldn’t keep up. He couldn’t keep up. But after, when I was trying to sift through, I remembered registered agent. Tried to find out about them.”

“James Longbaugh.”

“Yeah. He didn’t know much. Found basics at the library, but nothing fit in with Nance that I could see.”

I shared his frustration at that.

He continued. “So, I got things squared away, thinking he might come around. When he didn’t, I came here. Waited hours. Like I said, when he didn’t return, I went home. And found him.”

“Swapped boots to delay identification—”

He looked at me. I wouldn’t go as far as admiring.

“—arranged possessions to best survive a fire, splashed accelerant where you wanted the fire to focus, and then what?”

We all heard vehicles approaching.

“Started the fire, got in his truck, and came here by a roundabout route.”

Hard to imagine a more roundabout route than we’d taken.

“Then what?”

“Looked through his truck and this campsite. Darned near took them apart to the bolts and sticks. Found nothing. Tried to figure out what led somebody to kill him, what he could have gotten himself into. Nothing.”

That bitter last word was expected. If he had found something he’d have come out of hiding.

If he was telling the truth.

“Did you contact anyone?”

“No.”

Footsteps approached down the line of vehicles.

Running out of time.

I jumped to one of my stopgap questions. “Is there anything you haven’t told us that might help—?”

“No.”

Shelton was the first in line. Leadership, I’m sure. But it also had a practical benefit because the guy behind him could see over him.

I’d point that out to him . . . someday. Maybe.

“Everybody stay where you are. Put your hands up.”

Time only for a Hail Mary pass, while staying where I was and putting my hands up. We all did, though not very seriously.

“Have you spent time in South Carolina?” I asked Jardos, quietly enough that Shelton and the officers who fanned out to either side as they cleared the front of the first truck in line, which I now knew was Nance’s.

Mike shot me a look I caught from the corner of my eye.

Jardos showed no interest in the question. “Posted there a couple years.”

“Did you know any police officers?”

“Like get in trouble with the law? No.” That was indignant.

Considering law enforcement was closing in to take him in custody and what they suspected him of, that was an interesting reaction.

“Professional liaison? Friends?”

He stopped shaking his head. “We had a neighbor for a while who was local law enforcement. Randolphson. Terry Randolphson.”

So much for that long-shot connection.

Then I thought of another question — questions — I should have asked earlier.

“Frank, the day you saw Connie in the parking lot behind the courthouse, did you go to the sheriff’s department after talking to James Longbaugh? What did you tell them? What—?”

“Which day? No—”

“No more questions,” Shelton snapped. “Frank Jardos, you’re under arrest for suspected arson—”

Smart to go with that now, work up to other charges.

The next few minutes followed law enforcement protocols, with Tom, Mike, and me shunted to one side as unimportant but potentially interfering spectators.

Shelton didn’t ask Jardos any questions, except if he understood after being read his rights.

Too bad. I was desperate enough to hope Shelton had a brilliant question that would bring this all together in an instant.

When the officers started back toward the path beside the vehicles, Tom said, “Frank, I’ll call James Longbaugh, like I said.”

“Go ahead,” the prisoner said. “But he’ll say to keep my mouth closed. I can do that myself.”

As Richard led him away, respectfully, but handcuffed, Jardos looked back over his shoulder.

“Tell the colonel I’m fine.”