3 Loosey Goosey (22 page)

I spun to stare the two delinquents down.

Pauline sniffed, and Kiska closed his eye.

Obviously, my disapproval was tearing them both apart.

My attempt at guilt a total bust, I decided to pursue my thought that someone must have put whatever the police found into Ben’s trailer while he was stranded in Helena.

There hadn’t been a lot of campers at the campground early in the week, but there had been some, and I was sure the police towing Ben’s trailer had created some talk. Enough that anyone who knew anything would have shared it freely.

Maybe one of them would be willing to share with me.

I harnessed up Kiska and Pauline, since they seemed so attached now, and drove until the campground was a tenth of a mile or so away. Then, goose tucked under my arm and malamute in the lead, I went cross country until we reached the rails-to-trails path that led right through the middle of the campground.

We’d walked less than a hundred yards down the trail when we encountered our first camper. He was an older man, dressed in jeans and a yellow canvas coat.

“Quite a pair you have there,” he called.

Pauline shook her tail, putting me on alert, but Kiska’s dance of happy greeting seemed to cut short any thoughts of attack she might have had.

While the man bent to run his hands over Kiska’s neck, roughing up his fur in a playful way, I kept an eye on the goose.

“You camping?” he asked.

“No, just walking. I don’t live far from here.”

He complimented me on my choice of neighborhood, chatted about the weather, and shared his general joy of sleeping under the lodge pole pines.

“Do you have a trailer?” I asked, trying to work my way into asking about the Egg and anyone who might have been snooping around it.

“Tent. Trailers can’t go where a tent can.”

Similar arguments could be made about a mule and a Mercedes, but personally, I’d pick the Mercedes. Still, I smiled and kept my opinion to myself.

“Are things quiet now? I was here the other day, and there were a lot of police around.”

“One of those protesters got his trailer towed.”

I ran my fingers through Kiska’s fur. “Do you know why?”

“They say he killed someone.” The man squinted. “I saw you that day. You were chasing that goose, weren’t you?” He laughed, and, not wanting to blow my shot at more information, I laughed along.

When he was done laughing, he squinted at me again. “There was a guy with you. Is he the one they arrested? He looked like someone I’d seen coming out of that trailer.”

I hesitated, but quickly decided honesty was my best bet. “He’s my brother,” I confided. “I’m just trying to figure out what happened.”

He ran his hand over his chin. “Rough, having family locked up.”

I got the feeling from how he watched me that he’d experienced the family in jail thing more than once, or that he’d been the family in jail. I pulled Kiska closer.

He stroked his chin. “I don’t know that it will tell you much, but I saw the police arrive. They went through all the motions, knocking on the doors. Then, when there was no answer, they just went in.”

“It wasn’t locked?” Not that this told me much. Ben was terrible about such things.

“Not that I saw. Two went in, but they weren’t in there for long at all. Maybe two minutes, and the tall guy, not in uniform, came right back out. He went to his car and talked on his radio. Fifteen minutes later, there were three more cars here. The tall guy carried something out in a bag, and one of the cars drove off with it. Then there was more talking on radios, and not long after that you, your brother, and the goose showed up.” He looked at Kiska. “I don’t remember seeing this guy.”

My hand tightened on Kiska’s leash. “He stayed in my rig.”

My new friend laughed again. “Seeing the trouble the goose gave you, probably not a bad idea.” He glanced at Pauline who was rooting around in the dirt. “She seems calm today.”

Not interested in discussing Pauline’s mood swings, I turned the conversation back to the confiscation of the Egg. “Did you hear anything they said?”

He gave me a sideways glance. “Not myself, but my friend was in his tent right next to one of the squad cars.”

I had struck gold. I edged forward.

“He was describing something to someone... flowers.”

“Flowers?”

“Yeah. Sounded like some kind of flower from what my friend said. We couldn’t figure out why they’d have such an interest in a bunch of flowers. Then when we heard it was all tied to that chef who died, we figured somebody had sent her flowers, and they thought whoever did, killed her too. A love affair gone wrong.”

Tiffany might have had a love affair go wrong, but if she did, it wasn’t with my brother.

I asked a few more questions, like if he’d seen anyone besides Ben and the police near the Egg, but the man had only arrived the day of Ben’s arrest and didn’t think anyone else had been in the campground either.

“Most people leave their tents to hold a spot and don’t come back until the weekend,” he explained.

I nodded, thanked him, and made a bit more small talk before turning goose and dog back toward our ride.

Flowers did point to a romantic relationship. Not that I’d ever received any in any of my relationships, with the exception of a yellow carnation wrist corsage junior year that clashed horribly with my purple prom dress.

Had Ben lied to me about knowing Tiffany? I didn’t think so.

And maybe the flowers weren’t important at all.

Just because an officer radioed someone about them didn’t mean they were important to the case. They could have checked on any number of items, and the flowers were all the eavesdropper had heard discussed.

Which meant they had to have found something else too.

I glanced over my shoulder, back toward the campground, but it was getting late and my casual walk story was busted. If I wanted to learn more from people at the campground, I would have to be direct, and I didn’t have the energy for that now.

Back at my house, Kiska and Pauline plopped down on Kiska’s bed while I got the phone and called the jail. Ben, unfortunately, wasn’t taking any calls. Or, to put it more accurately, wasn’t allowed any calls.

I tried Gregor. He was out too, but his assistant, his third in our short relationship, took down my name and promised to have the attorney call me as soon as he could.

Which, knowing Gregor, wouldn’t be until he needed something from me, like another check.

I fell asleep on my couch, staring at the ceiling and wondering exactly how I was going to put the mass of seemingly unconnected bits of information into something that saved my brother from life in prison or worse.

Chapter 20

The next morning was the cattle drive. I got up bright and early and dressed in my best cowgirl couture: jeans, boots, and baseball cap.

A cowboy hat just felt too poser for me. Besides, I didn’t own one, and I was too cheap to buy one just for one little horse ride into town.

I pulled into the fairgrounds lot just in time to see the HA! contingency unloading from Rhonda’s Trooper. I arched a brow at my best friend as I sauntered over.

“They wanted to carpool,” she said, as if that would get her out of any aiding and abetting charges that I was sure were soon to be heading her way.

“And you were coming anyway?” I asked. She hadn’t said a thing to me about a burning desire to watching fifty smelly cattle be nudged down a road.

She flicked her hair over her shoulder. “I thought about what you said. Eric is cute.”

I should have known. I glanced around, looking for her latest target. “Where is he?”

“He had to get something.” She rose on her toes, glancing around too. “He said he’d be here soon.”

I chose to believe that Rhonda had shifted her sights away from Ben out of respect for our friendship and my wishes rather than his current jailbird status. Still though, the conversation reminded me of what I’d learned the day before.

“So, Ben is forgotten?”

Her eyes rounded. I could see immediately that she had misinterpreted my interest.

“Only because you said it made you uncomfortable. You know I’d never believe that your brother—”

I cut her off. “No, not that. Yesterday I went to the campground, and I found out that the police took flowers out of the Egg.”

Her reaction was a lot like mine had been. “Flowers?”

“Yeah, you know smell sweet, grow out of the ground? It was apparently a bunch, like a bouquet. And I just wondered if Ben might have gotten them for you.”

She shook her head. “I guess he could have, but to be honest...” She flushed. “I think the interest was more on my side than his.”

For a moment I was outraged that anyone wouldn’t reciprocate any tender feelings that my best friend put out. Then I remembered we were talking about Ben, and that I hadn’t wanted those feelings returned.

“Do you think he was seeing someone else?” Like Tiffany? But I didn’t say that.

“I didn’t get that impression.”

And Rhonda was good at sniffing out available from unavailable men. Her opinion reassured me more than Ben’s own word would have. Still, though, there had been flowers and, as hippie dippie as I might find my brother these days, he was still a Southern Missouri male. I just didn’t see him picking them for himself.

I was sure, however, that Rhonda had told me as much as she knew. At least about Ben’s dating life. I pulled my T shirt down over the top of my jeans and looked back at Rhonda’s Trooper where most of the HA! members were still gathered.

“And what exactly does HA! have planned for us today?” I asked. Not that I was sure I wanted to know.

“I’m not certain—”

Before Rhonda could finish, Hope walked up. “Not giving away our secrets are you?” She looped her arm through Rhonda’s and grinned in a way that made me want to take a step backward.

But I also wanted to hear her take on the flowers and see her reaction to hearing that the police had found them in Ben’s Egg.

I told her the same story I’d told Rhonda about my trip to the campground. “Can you think of a reason Ben would have a bunch of flowers in his trailer?” I asked.

“Or why the police cared. That’s the stranger question, if you ask me,” added Rhonda.

Hope dropped her hold on Rhonda. “Flowers? What kind of flowers?”

I thought back to what the camper had told me. “I don’t know, but I’d guess they weren’t anything usual or the officer wouldn’t have had to describe them. He would have just said carnations or whatever.”

“Maybe they were wildflowers,” Hope suggested.

“Maybe, but then do you think Ben would have picked them near the campground?” If it was a plant that was that common, I couldn’t see why it would be of interest to the police.

Hope didn’t answer. She had stepped away and was staring toward the highway with her hand shielding her eyes from the morning sun. When she looked back, she smiled. “I don’t know why not. Ben does love flowers.”

He did? I thought I knew most of my brother’s loves. I ticked through them: his goose, the St. Louis Cardinals, grilled cheese, and beer. But flowers? That wouldn’t have made my list.

But then we hadn’t been close lately. Maybe he had gone all Ferdinand the Bull on me.

My confused look must have registered with the HA! member. She shrugged. “I don’t know what to tell you, but I have to go. Eric should have been here by now, and I need to talk to him about something.”

She trotted off, her ponytail bobbing up and down behind her as she ran.

I was about to turn back to Rhonda to ask her how many men she knew who picked flowers for themselves when Shelia Blake’s truck and horse trailer pulled into the lot.

Jeremy was sitting in the front and, darn my luck, his mother, Peter’s ex-wife, was behind the wheel.

“I told you she’d be here.” Jeremy dropped out of the truck and onto the gravel.

He was properly outfitted in low-heeled cowboy boots, Wrangler jeans, a cowboy hat that a 90-mile-per-hour wind couldn’t dislodge from his head, and a belt buckle the size of a small plate.

“Nice buckle,” I commented, with complete sincerity.

He grabbed a hold of it with both hands and tilted it up as if he hadn’t seen it yet himself. “Thanks. I got it for mutton busting in Miles City.”

“That’s great.” This summer, Jeremy had opted out of the sheep riding competition at our local rodeo. I was glad to hear he’d gotten over any fears he’d had, but hoped even more that this win cured him of any future crazed mutton riding desires.

Shelia Blake got out of the truck and moved to the back of the trailer, where she started unloading horses. Luckily, at the same moment, Alphie, her and Jeremy’s Australian shepherd, bounded through the truck’s open window and into Jeremy’s open arms.

Jeremy, a grin bigger than the Mississippi, staggered backward under the dog’s weight. “I just taught him that. Do you like it?”

“Uh, yeah.” I grabbed Jeremy from behind, holding onto him to keep him from falling until the dog jumped out of his arms and trotted to the back of the trailer to check on what his other human was doing.

“Here you go.” Shelia walked around the trailer with two horses walking slowly behind her.

Neither horse was huge, I was happy to see, but neither was embarrassingly small either.

In fact, I wouldn’t have called either a pony.

Peter must have interceded and found me a nice, calm, normal-sized animal.

They both looked calm enough, bored actually, but I decided the sorrel looked the friendliest. I walked up to her.

“That’s Tweety. She’s mine now,” Jeremy said, his voice full of pride.

Tweety must have heard it too. She lifted her head and shook out her mane.

“Oh, then this must be...” I turned to the second horse. He was slightly bigger than the mare and buckskin colored. He also had a light in his eyes that made me frown.

“Jeremy, are you sure he’s... up to me riding him today?”

“Toby?” Jeremy’s eyes widened. “You don’t want to ride Toby.”

The horse lowered his head and dragged his front hoof over the gravel, digging a nice, deep trench in the gravel.