Page 46 of Head Room

“Not from the house.Some smoke from outside, especially when we knew to look for it.Not sure I would have noticed otherwise.”

“Penny said—” I stopped because that was too direct.Connie grinned in acknowledgement of my quandary.“Ithinkshe indicated you were close to Irene Jardos.”

Her grin disappeared amid another syllable of sorrow.“Yes.They hadn’t lived here that long, but some people you click with, you know?”

Bynot that long, she meant decades, possibly generations.The Jardoses and I were the merest newcomers.

“They helped with the search, you know.”Many people helped search for Connie’s husband more than a year ago.It hadn’t turned out well.

“I didn’t know.There were so many.”

“Yes.”That held memories, thankful and sorrowful.

She gestured me to a couch across from the desk.A coffee table offered a place to rest our coffee mugs, but we both held onto them.

“Tell me about Irene,” I said.

“She was one of the most astute women about other people I’ve ever met.Saw right through people to their backbones, as my granny used to say.In that way, she was very much like you.”

“I wouldn’t say I have such a great track record there.”The specter of my ex came to mind.“Especially with a few murderers who fooled me until the evidence stacked up.Maybe I’ve learned to be skeptical until people prove themselves.”

“But you’re open to the evidence,” she said earnestly.“You do realize a lot of people aren’t, don’t you?They get an initial impression based on what a person looks like or sounds like or how they dress or what group they’re in or what they promise — that’s how snake oil salesmen of one kind or another can still make such a good living off other folks.Anyway, once some people get one impression, you can’t blast them off their opinion without using dynamite.And even then some won’t budge.

“But that’s not you.At first I thought you were standoffish, you know being from back East—”

I bit my tongue not to correct her by sayingIllinois.To Wyomingites, Illinoiswasback East.Heck, Nebraska was back East.

And in fairness, I had come here from New York, with Washington my previous stop, and those did count as back East.Even to an Illinoisan.

“—but as I got to know you, I saw your approach came from looking around, getting the lay of the land.If that makes sense for dealing with people.”

I nodded that it did, indeed, make sense.

And maybe I did recognize some of that in me.

She chuckled unexpectedly.

“What?”I asked.

“Well, I was thinking that there are a good number of times when you’ve had good reason to be cautious about getting the lay of the land, since you and the others are looking for a murderer.Oh.”She turned her head slightly, as if to get a better view of me.“Is that what you’re doing?Are you thinking...Frank Jardos...?Or...no, not Irene, because if somebody killed her, Frank would—”

“We have not learned anything that makes Irene Jardos’ death look anything but natural.”

Her reaction was a little hard to read.Strong emotion for sure.Most seemed to be horror at the idea that someone might have killed Irene.

Then she said, “But Frank...?”

That sounded almost...hopeful?

“We don’t know anything, truly, Connie.We’re asking questions to help a friend of theirs ease his mind over what’s happened.”

“Colonel Crawford,” she said with certainty.

“You know him?”

“Met him a time or two when he was making what Irene called one of his flying visits.She used to laugh about him zooming in, then out, and that it was like a snap inspection to make sure they were still okay.”

“She liked him?”