Stripped Bare Read online

  “How’s it going?” I hadn’t meant to start with meaningless small talk, but the darkness of his eyes unnerved me.

  He wasn’t going to play the inane game with me. “What do you need?”

  Social skills weren’t Rope’s strong suit, so I took the direct route. “Do you know where Danny is?”

  He growled in the back of his throat, not a full-on rabid dog sound, but maybe that of an annoyed cat. “I guessed he’s at school. If he’s not, I can’t say.”

  And people accused me of detached parenting. “How about Nat? Would she know?”

  He stared straight ahead, and his fingers squeezed the steering wheel so hard that his knuckles whitened. “Can’t say.”

  I tried again. “I didn’t get a chance to talk to Carly about Eldon, and I think she’s with Danny. I really need to see her.”

  His lips barely moved. “I don’t see as that’s my business.”

  Eldon’s murder would naturally be hard on Rope, but my sympathy only ran so deep. “Danny was out at Frog Creek this morning, and he looked pretty broken up. I thought maybe they’d need some help processing Eldon’s passing.”

  His head pivoted slowly toward me. “I gotta get back to the ranch.”

  “I understand. I’ll give Nat a call.”

  His jaw flinched and the growl came out as rough words. “Just give ’em a bit and they’ll be fine.” He shoved the gearshift into Drive.

  I reached in through the window and laid a hand on his arm. “I really need to get in touch with Carly. Milo Ferguson wants to ask her about Eldon.”

  He closed his eyes. “He thinks she shot Eldon?”

  “No! Of course not. He just wants to talk to her.” I nosed into the topic. “Can you think of anyone with a grudge against Eldon?”

  He reopened his eyes and locked them with mine. “I can.” He planted his boot on the accelerator and jerked backward.

  “Wait!” My protest was lost in the squeal of tires. I could call Milo and try to get him to talk to Rope, but my guess was that it’d do little good. Maybe I couldn’t get more out of Rope, but I might get Nat to talk to me.

  Rope gunned the engine and turned onto the highway. I followed, walking down the sidewalk to the Long Branch. I pulled out my phone and checked the time. I needed to get to Broken Butte and see Ted. Priorities warred inside me. I could help Ted more by finding Eldon’s killer than by staring at his sleeping face.

  Rope’s comment about others wanting Eldon dead piqued my curiosity. Aunt Twyla might have something interesting to add.

  I pushed through the glass door, into the vestibule of the Long Branch. About the size of two old-time phone booths, the vestibule separated the restaurant from the bar area, though that didn’t make much difference. Anyone, including minors, could eat and drink on either side. I barreled into the restaurant.

  The place smelled like deep-fry grease and stale beer, enough to make me pause and swallow down nausea. Not much put me off my feed but, apparently, having a husband shot and accused of murder introduced me to new territory. Maybe the nausea would subside when I found Eldon’s real killer. Thank you, Psych 101.

  The building was divided roughly in half. The bar side of the Long Branch occupied twice the space of the restaurant because the kitchen and restaurant shared the other side. A dozen red molded-plastic booths flanked the long, narrow dining room, along the windows that looked out onto the highway. The opening into the kitchen, the silverware station, the drinks dispenser, and the rest of the serving equipment took up the opposite wall, allowing for a walkway, about six feet wide, from the door to the end of the room.

  Most of the booths were empty, because it was nearing two o’clock and dinner in the Sandhills arrived at noon. Always. Supper could run anywhere from five to seven in the evening. Breakfast ended by the super-late hour of seven. That left afternoons and mornings reserved for the coffee klatch. Today, two groups of gray hairs occupied separate booths.

  Aunt Twyla stood in the kitchen. She looked up through the servers’ window and waved. She yelled, her voice gravelly, “How’re you doing, honey?”

  I leaned toward the window so I wouldn’t be shouting in the restaurant. “Do you have a minute?”

  She came around a shelf to talk in a normal level. “I wish I did. The danged dishwasher busted and I’ve got Bud repairing it. If I don’t stand by for him to cuss at, he might start growling at the new waitress and she’ll quit and I’ll be stuck waiting tables until we hire some other fool.”

  Some things never changed.

  “Kate,” a voice surpassing Twyla’s on the cigarette-scratch scale called out. May Keller, a hardened little woman who looked like wet rope left to dry in the sun sat at one of the booths facing me. “What have you heard about Eldon?”

  I wandered to her table. May Keller’s ranch neighbored the Bar J. She was old enough to have swapped nursery school stories with Methuselah. “How’re you doing, May?”

  May cackled, following it up with a gurgling kind of cigarette cough. “I been better, hon. At my age, you’d think I’d get used to friends dying. But I gotta tell you, Eldon’s passing has hit me hard. Couldn’t stand to be out on the ranch by myself, so I come to town for groceries and one of Twyla’s finest.” She pushed a plate with sticky frosting and cinnamon stuck to it.

  Her bony hand closed around my wrist and she yanked me down to sit next to her. “I heard about Ted and that tramp.”

  If NASA could replicate the speed of gossip in Grand County, they’d be able to reach the moon in three hours. Problem was, the message could get distorted. Like now. I didn’t understand the tramp reference but assumed it had something to do with Roxy. Since Ted was at the Bar J and that’s where Roxy lives and Ted and Roxy had been high school sweethearts, the tongue-waggers would conclude they were having an affair. Or that’s how May’s oxygen-deprived brain summed it up.

  May pounded a fist on the table. “Men can be such asses. My husband tried that with me once and I fixed his wagon. Ain’t bothered to hook up permanent since.” She winked at me. “Don’t mean I don’t have me some fun now and again.”

  “They” said May’s husband disappeared mysteriously and never showed his face around Grand County again. Maybe May did him in, as rumor had it, and she’d done Eldon the same when he didn’t return her affection. I didn’t buy it.

  May harrumphed in disgust. “There seems to be a lot of it going around. You heard about Aileen Carson?”

  This was my chance to slow the speed of gossip. “Aunt Twyla makes the best rolls.”

  May patted my hand. “Don’t let that fool get you down. I always thought you were too good for him, anyway.”

  Was I supposed to say thank you?

  She seemed to have covered that topic and jumped to another. “At least with Eldon being gone it might get Glenn Baxter out of my hair.” May was a lifelong smoker with diminished lung capacity. I thought all that tobacco had not only shriveled her up but also sucked out some of her smarts.

  “He’s been bothering you?”

  She coughed again. That deep gurgle didn’t bode well for her own mortality. “He’s been jawing at all of us out north. At first he was all sugar and sweetness, offering us gobs of cash for his crazy buffalo scheme. Then he threatened us.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She played with her fork, probably craving a cigarette. “First he said Eldon agreed to sell and, if I didn’t join them, I’d be surrounded by buffalo who’d tear down my fences.” She stabbed at the table. “But I know good and well Eldon wouldn’t sell. So then Baxter said—in that barely-a-whisper kind of criminal voice—about my health not being so good and he hoped my affairs were in order.”

  I wanted to take the fork away before she accidently stabbed me. “Why would he say that?”

  She cackled/coughed/gurgled again. “Oh, hon, he was trying to scare me. Make me think he’d kill me to get my land.”

  How many CSI episodes had May watched out there alone on her ranch?
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  She tapped the tines of the fork on the table. “Listen, I want to know how’s Carly doing?”

  One of the best things about Grand County is the way people care for each other. “She’s upset, of course.”

  May nodded. “Anyone could see that filly loved her granddad. But here’s the thing: young ’uns, they don’t always understand the whole picture. They get an idea into their heads and can’t see anything else.”

  Milo had an interest in Carly. Rope had commented about her involvement. And now May. It made me want to offer her a smoke. “Right.”

  She jiggled her foot now, making the bench vibrate. Her eyebrows wagged up and down, as if telling me more than her words. “You know? Carly. And Eldon.”

  She was starting to ruffle my feathers. “I’m sorry?”

  She leaned close, and her breath smelled like coffee, cigarettes, and cinnamon roll. “I won’t say anything. I know how passion can lead you to do things you wouldn’t otherwise do. Bad things.”

  I couldn’t help moving back a little. “You lost me, May.”

  She glanced around to make sure no one was listening. “At that meeting. You know, the one where Baxter sent his fancy lawyer. Carly went to speechifying—mighty good at that—about how no one should sell their ranches. I think she got it into her head Eldon was fixing to sell. Which he wasn’t.”

  May stopped to cough, and I waited.

  When she got her breath, she continued. “I won’t tell Milo or anyone else about that.”

  Knowing she suspected Carly capable of murder made me rethink my position on May offing her philandering husband.

  From the way she inched toward me, I assumed May needed to get outside to light up. I unfolded from the booth. “It’s been good talking to you. I’m sorry about Eldon.”

  She scooted out after me. “We all have to go sometime.” She nearly ran me down, getting out of the Long Branch.

  I didn’t know who killed Eldon, but May Keller, Glenn Baxter, or even Rope Hayward seemed more plausible suspects than Carly or Ted. But would anyone else, especially Milo, think that?

  Ted would know who had shot him and Eldon. Maybe he was awake now and I could stop all this useless searching.

  * * *

  I started off on another trek to Broken Butte. I had to drive over most of Grand County and into Butte County, sliding just a mile or two through Choker County, which ran along Grand’s eastern edge and north to Nebraska’s border with South Dakota. We’re a bunch of square states, and Grand County copies that pattern. Sprawling over six thousand square miles, it’s bigger than Connecticut, Delaware, or Rhode Island, with about as many people living inside its borders as there are square miles. Foxes are related to most of them. In a county where cattle outnumber humans by more than sixty to one, Ted had captured one of the steadiest and best-paying gigs around. Not a bad job.

  Unless you got yourself shot.

  One of the largest towns in Grand County, Hodgekiss mainly existed to support the BNSF railroad and to give the far-flung ranches a central gathering spot. It sported a few businesses, but those carried only essentials. It was a town version of a highway convenience store; a little of this and that.

  Normally, therefore, a trip to Broken Butte was an occasion. Broken Butte had a Kmart, a Maurice’s dress shop, Hardee’s, and Pizza Hut. A few other mom-and-pop businesses specialized in everything from new cars to farm equipment to carpeting, and most necessities. At a whopping population of fifteen thousand, Broken Butte was, for us, the City. Mom always made us clean up and wear good clothes when we made the trip.

  Today, the sixty miles from Hodgekiss dragged. I shouldn’t have stayed so long in town. Ted might be awake right now, and I wanted to be there before Milo showed up. Ted would need me. I drove too fast. If I arrived by Ted’s bedside just five minutes sooner I could spare him that much more misery. The hills stayed the same dull yellow and brown, with only a promise of the spring green. Here and there, cows and their young calves stood in pastures next to the highway. I normally loved to watch the babies. Their white faces looked pristine, their black bodies all shiny. But my eyes stayed on the road and my mind looped and spun twelve ways to sundown.

  I finally hit the last ten miles of flat road, and soon Broken Butte’s water tower loomed in my windshield. I had to cruise through ten blocks and tap my palms on the steering wheel while waiting for a geriatric woman with a scarf tied on her head to cross the street. I punched the gas and turned north onto Main Street, then drove to the edge of town, to the “new” hospital—meaning it was built just after World War II. I spun Elvis into a parking spot and was halfway across the parking lot while he still ticked and sighed and settled in.

  Aunt Tutti plodded across the lobby, deep bags hanging under her eyes. This afternoon she wore gray-blue scrubs that nearly matched her permed head. I probably looked as frantic as I felt. She paused when she spotted me, and waited until I caught up to her. “They just got Ted moved to his room. Two thirteen. Down that way.”

  Thank the stars they hadn’t put Ted in the same wing where Glenda had died. I reached out a hand and squeezed Aunt Tutti’s plump shoulder, trying to be polite, even if I’d rather sprint to Ted’s room. “Don’t you ever go home?”

  She graced me with an exhausted smile. “I pulled a double. Lots of staff out with the flu. Happens at calving season every year. Don’t ask why.”

  I didn’t. I barely held myself back from running, and when I closed in on Ted’s room, I actually did trot. I swung into the room, surprised not to see Dahlia and Sid.

  Ted lay on his back, head turned toward the window. I probably made some kind of squeaky noise, or maybe the sound of my running in boots made him turn his head. I didn’t register anything except that my husband was alive and awake and moving. I flew across the room and made a tent over his face with my arms. Maybe I shouldn’t touch him, but I had to kiss him.

  He mumbled something against my lips. Maybe I’d surprised him, or he was trying to greet me. There would be time for words after I did this one thing.

  His lips felt cold against mine. Poor Ted. Shot, alone in the hospital. Probably frightened and upset. I drew away and gently placed my hand on his hair, smoothing it with the slightest touch. “How are you?” It wasn’t the greatest thing to say. What about I love you, I’m sorry you’re shot, I want to make it better? But words were too shallow for the sea of feelings.

  Ted’s voice sounded like it had been run over with a tractor. “I’m full of painkillers, but I’m not feeling anything yet. That’s not a good thing.”

  Beneath the dusting of dark whiskers, Ted’s skin took on the color of chicken fat. Fatigue and worry rimmed his eyes. He smelled sort of like a forgotten load of laundry left to dry in the washer, with a spritz of bleach and old oatmeal.

  “Have you talked to Doc Kennedy?”

  “He stopped in this morning while I was sleeping. He told Dahlia…”

  He broke off and I waited. An unwanted image of his overinvolved, fluffed, and pressed mother flashed in front of me. It bothered me that he always called her Dahlia, like she was his friend, not his mother.

  He swallowed and his Adam’s apple bounced. “They won’t know anything until the swelling goes down.”

  Okay. We needed to stay calm and upbeat. “That makes sense. So we’ll wait and see.”

  I acted nonchalant by gazing around. Ted’s private room contained his bed and two hard chairs with orange vinyl cushions. Nothing in the room dragged it from sterile, typical hospital, not even the cheap seascape print on the wall. Why would anyone slap an ocean on the wall in landlocked Nebraska?

  His lips shook. “What if I never walk again? What will we do?”

  I flicked my attention from the tube of a catheter peeking from his blanket. “No sense in getting all upset if we don’t have to.”

  If I’d been Dahlia, or even that flibbertigibbet Roxy, I’d succumb to panic and start bawling. Instead, I whispered, “It’ll be okay.” In the silence that
followed, I looked out the large window at a wheat field stretching north of the hospital, the emerald grain standing about a foot high and waving in the breeze.

  He reached for my hand—a good sign, since it meant he wasn’t totally paralyzed, even if he missed it on the first try. “Thank you for always being so strong.”

  I let that sit for half a beat, then said, “Has Milo Ferguson been in to see you?”

  He looked confused. “I just woke up. I haven’t seen anyone but Dahlia and…” He paused. “And the nurses.”

  “Did Dahlia and Sid go home?” I asked.

  He gave his head a slight shake and swallowed. “I think Dad left last night sometime. The nurse came in and she chased them to the cafeteria for coffee. Dahlia threw a fit, but she finally left.”

  Them? Anyway, it was good we were alone. I could get this all taken care of without having to deal with Dahlia. “Who shot you?”

  He looked startled. “I. Uh.”

  Maybe I’d been too abrupt. “Do you remember who called you and why you went to the Bar J?”

  His hand dropped to the bed and he blinked several times. “No. I don’t remember anything.”

  “Nothing?” This wasn’t going to help his cause. “You need to concentrate, because it’s really important.”

  Without hesitating to give himself time to consider, he answered quickly. “No. I don’t remember anything.”

  He wasn’t taking this seriously. I’d have to tell him more. “You have to remember, because here’s the crazy thing: Milo Ferguson thinks you shot Eldon.”

  His eyes flicked from side to side as if they were trying to read his brain. A thin stream of panic seeped in. “What?” He squinted at me and said again, “What?”

  Maybe I could back him into it. “Okay. Think. Did you or Eldon get shot first?”

  “Eldon was shot? Where were we?” His voice creaked. “We were together? I swear, I don’t remember.”

  “You were in Eldon’s office.”

  “At the Bar J?”

  I counted to three. “Yes. Why don’t you talk it through with me. Step by step.”