Page 62 of Head Room (Caught Dead in Wyoming #15)

With all of us in his SUV, Mike stopped at the exit from the KWMT parking lot.

“Haus? Or Kam?”

“Haus is the one who’d know the registered agent system,” Diana said.

Jennifer offered the alternative. “It was Kam’s address.”

They looked at me.

“Let’s start with Kam Droemi. Diana’s right that Haus has the background. But we might pick up information from Kam to help pry him open. Plus, there’s the personal angle.”

“What personal angle?”

As Mike drove, I reminded Jennifer of the vet who said Nance wanted to date Kam. Plus her apparent interest in firefighter Miles Stevens.

“A classic romantic triangle,” Diana said as I tried to call Kam. No answer.

Her apartment was in a building at the end of a cul-de-sac with single-family homes around it. It stood out — not in a good way — because the front yard was paved and lined for parking.

Inside a central door, Mike pointed to a list of residents, then upstairs. I called again and we heard her phone ringing in the unit on the left at the top of the stairs.

Mike knocked loudly.

I called out, “Kam, it’s E.M. Danniher. We met at the fire station.” When friendly didn’t work, I added, “I know you’re in there and I’m not going away.”

I didn’t mention that if Kam Droemi held out long enough, my mother might come and drag me away.

We heard footsteps approaching — the soundproofing was abysmal. The others split off to the sides so she wouldn’t see them through the peephole.

As soon as she started opening the door, Mike pushed it wide and we all half-stumbled in.

“Wh—? Hey. You can’t come in here—”

“Kam, we don’t have time. Tell us what you know about the shooting of Nance — Ron Sam Preet.”

“I . . . I don’t know—”

“Yes, you do. And he knew your address was being used to falsify his fellow veterans as registered agents for bad actor companies on a wholesale basis.”

“It’s not— I don’t—”

Despite the effort at denials, she was visibly crumbling.

“I let him use my address. That’s all. Trying to be nice to someone new in town and then he took advantage of me.”

“Nance wanted to date you. He found out about the scam. He probably hoped you weren’t involved. Or maybe he wanted to warn you. He came here—”

A good guess because confronting her at the fire station offered too many opportunities to be overheard by volunteers coming and going, possibly by a deputy from next door. Right now, pressing her with details, even if I didn’t have them all right would accelerate her crumble.

“—and demanded to know the truth. You must have been scared.”

She latched onto that. “He was crazy. Ranting. I told him and told him I didn’t know anything about it. All I did was get mail and hand it over—”

For a price, no doubt.

“—I didn’t know anything about vets or bad companies or any of it. But he kept yelling about breaking trust with the people who fought for us. And then he said he was going to go see Jay Haus and have it out with him.”

“Jay Haus?” I repeated.

A memory — two memories — popped into my head. Jay Haus coming around the corner from the direction of the sheriff’s department, looking angry, agitated.

Except that was also the direction of the fire department.

I’d assumed he’d been at the sheriff’s department.

Shame on me.

“The lawyer,” she said. “And that was the last time I saw Nance.”

* * * *

Jennifer found the address.

We’d left Kam swearing she knew nothing else and sobbing. We certainly would revisit her, but didn’t voice that threat/promise, to avoid pushing her over an edge.

Mike drove us to a row of small buildings behind the Do Sleep motel. They were worse than the motel, which is an impressive achievement in a depressing way.

“It’s that one,” Diana said.

The structures looked like rejects from the Old West Town the museum inherited. Clara Atwood wouldn’t give them a second look. Also, none of them would survive being transported to the site.

The one connected to Jay Haus didn’t look like it would survive another day.

When going to the office of a lawyer with a less than stellar reputation and ties to slimeball companies to ask questions to potentially confirm he shot someone in the head, it’s wise to have a plan.

Mike knocked on the door, firm, but unremarkable.

So much for planning.

The door squeaked open several inches, then stopped.

“Haus? Jay Haus,” Mike called out.

No answer.

He looked over his shoulder at us. I nodded. But we all stepped farther to the side as he pushed the door wider.

No one stood on the other side of it.

The front room held a desk, a chair, the connections for a computer and other electronics, and a mess of papers, folders, and junk food wrappers that would send my mother into apoplexy.

Through an open doorway at the back of this room, we could see a bedroom and bathroom. Both in similar disarray, though their detritus matched their purposes — clothing in heaps, bedding pulled askew in the bedroom, toiletries and towels in the bathroom.

“He’s gone,” Mike said.

We did not go in. We did not disturb anything. We said a few curse words. We called Shelton.

* * * *

Sergeant Wayne Shelton came.

He listened.

He was not happy.

He seemed even less impressed than usual. Possibly because he already had dealing with our friend Kyle on his plate.

On the other hand, he said, “We’re on it. We’ll find him.”

They would question Kam and, when they found him, Haus.

They would follow up on the connections Jennifer found.

They would investigate if he’d killed Nance.

“Shelton, did Jay Haus go the sheriff’s department in the past week—” A darned weak question about a lawyer. I realized that in time to tack on, “—in connection with anything with this investigation?”

I’d swear I could hear him saying No, although his only response was a look.

To put credence in that No, I had to believe I was intuiting Shelton’s thoughts.

Scary.

The look, however, was clear. This investigation was now out of our hands.

Not until we were in Mike’s SUV did anyone comment.

“He didn’t even yell at us,” Jennifer said.

“There’s only one explanation,” Diana said, “the old wedding softie.”

* * * *

I was distracted. I admit it.

All through the boisterous, casual dinner in a private room at Hamburger Heaven with my siblings and their families, along with Mike, Jennifer, Diana, and her two kids.

Though I did pay attention to this being the first in-person reunion between Diana’s daughter, Jessica, and my nephew, J.R., since last summer. A gap covered by lots of communication.

Diana nudged my leg under the table for gawping at them. But I got her back later for the same sin.

They appeared to be getting along well, despite clear awareness of being watched.

I caught Tom’s half-grin, which told me he’d caught both their interplay and Diana’s and mine.

Mike got a message, then coincidentally, Diana, Jennifer, and I received messages simultaneously after the right interval for him to forward it to us.

Nola Choi found out Kam Droemi had fled her apartment before deputies arrived.

I suspected Shelton would not have been as friendly at Jay Haus’ office if he’d known both birds had flown.

He might even have blamed us for not holding onto Kam.

Okay, I blamed us a little, too.

But surely law enforcement would find both of them soon. Soonish.

Mom broke up the evening early, insisting I needed to get a good night’s sleep, like a child on Christmas Eve.

I felt a little like that, too.

Because, along with the questions pestering me, a countdown ran in my head.

Not like when I’d married Wes, I realized. Then, my thoughts had been about the day — our wedding day. At least I hadn’t been self-centered enough to think of it only as my wedding day.

Still, my focus had been on the day.

Now, I thought of how long until Tom and I officially started our marriage.

Though without urgency.

Because we’d started our union well before.

I think I fell asleep smiling.

And I didn’t wake up to questions of murder and guilt.