Left Hanging (20 page)

“Who?”

“
Him
. The one who died.”

“Landry? Coming at you? Threatening?”

“Yeah.” She’d gone pale, her lips even paler, like she might be sick to her stomach. “The things he was saying, and that smirk. It was bad enough at lunch when he’d pawed at me, but then
 . . .
”

Again, she seemed about to get stuck. I nudged, “So, you’re by the chute, and Landry is coming at you
 . . .
But how did it start? He didn’t just start—what?—leering at you and coming at you.”

“Yes, he did! When he saw me, he did. That’s exactly what he did.”

“Back up, where were you when he first saw you?”

“I told you. Stuck by that chute. I’d tried to slip away when I heard him, and that’s when my shirt—”

“You heard him. Doing what?”

“Yelling at somebody. On the phone.”

“About what? Do you remember anything he said?”

“Something about damn well get your ass here, and do it now, and do what you were supposed to do or there’d be hell to pay,” she said with some of her customary snap.

“Did you get any sense of who he was talking to?”

“No.”

I eyed her. I wouldn’t have bet a nickel either way. “Then what?”

“He must have spotted me, because he hung up fast and started in that awful, slimy voice about wasn’t I the eager one, and no need to be shy, and this was even better than he expected and
 . . .
and the other stuff.”

“Other stuff?”

“What he’d
 . . .
” She swallowed audibly. “Do.”

“What happened then?”

“I told him he was crazy and disgusting, and I’d never—I kept yelling at him, but he wasn’t listening. It was like
 . . .
He wouldn’t stop. And the flounce from my shirt was caught in the wood of those old posts. I tried pulling away, heard the material start to tear, and knew Mom would skin me alive. But I had to stop him. I had to, because
 . . .
” She sucked in a breath. “I’d done a trick over a bar to rope a cow. I knew I could make the toss. Got him first time.”

Mike twitched. I empathized. Was this girl such a rock-hard killer that she took pride in putting the rope around a man’s neck on her first try? But if she wasn’t such a rock-hard killer
 . . .
?

Don’t get ahead of yourself, Danniher. One question at a time
. “What happened next?”

“I tied off the rope—”

A damned casual way of saying it if she meant she’d yanked the rope tight until a man died from hanging.

“—so I had both hands to get the shirt out without tearing it worse.” Yet left a fragment of pink fabric. “I got out of there. With him yelling at me the whole time, saying he’d see to it I was dumped as queen, and I’d have to give back the scholarship, and there’d be a scandal and everything.”

“Yelling?” I repeated.

“Yeah. He started off sort of laughing, you know, when I swung the loop and it settled over him, like I was being
 . . .
cute
or something. When I snugged it up, he started yelling.”

“He could yell?”

She frowned. “Sure.”

“Heather, where was the rope?”

“I told you, tied off on the chute.”

“The part of it around Keith Landry—where was that?”

“Around him, like I told you.”

She sounded impatient, and I felt the same way, but I didn’t want to put words in her mouth—or take them out.

She resolved the issue with a hunched shoulder gesture that might have been part of a shrug, except she drew both elbows in tight to her waist and clamped her hands to her sides. “Like that,” she said.

“Because the rope was
 . . .
?”

“Around his waist, holding his arms in tight. I saw him trying to work his arms to loosen it up, but he would’ve still had a ways to go.” Her chin wobbled. “I suppose that’s why he didn’t get away from the bulls, though why—”

“None of that’s clear yet,” I said firmly. I couldn’t tell her the truth. If she wasn’t innocent, it might help a murderer go free. If she was innocent, it could compromise the investigation. And either way, if it ever got back to Quantico that I’d shared details with a suspect, I would not only never get another piece of information from Dex, he’d probably feed me to the squirrels. “Let’s get this straight. Landry walked through the bull pen, and—”

“Through? No way. He’d’ve been an idiot to do that. He came down the aisle next to it, toward the chute. That’s what I don’t understand, how he got in the pen. It doesn’t make sense. When I left he was in the aisle. Why would he go in there?”

I shook my head to say I had no answer.

“What were you doing there that late?” Mike asked.

Her face changed slightly, her mouth went mulish.

“If you were meeting Landry, it’s not—” he added.

“No! I wasn’t meeting him. I didn’t want anything to do with him, not ever. I—I’d left gear behind. I didn’t sleep for remembering it and went to get it.”

“What time?”

“I don’t know.”

“Heather—”

“I
don’t
know.”

“Were the security lights on?”

“Those, and ones around the office, where
 . . .
he
had come from.”

“Was there a light on in the rodeo office?”

“I don’t know. I wasn’t paying attention to that.”

I gave Mike a chance to ask more, then picked it up. “Last question: Why not rope him regular, instead of over the bar?”

A flicker of You-Stupid-Easterner expression appeared. “Roping’s for pulling something toward you, or dragging it behind. That’s what a regular throw would’ve done. But I wanted to stop him coming toward me, and I sure didn’t want him dragging behind. I wanted to slow him down enough to get out of there. And that’s what I did.”

MY PHONE RANG as we drove to my house to talk this through—no way could we discuss it a KWMT, not with Fine prowling.

“It’s the person who put together your computer,” came a hushed voice.

“Jen—Jennifer?”

“Shh, don’t say. For the usual reasons.”

“Jennifer, if Fine’s near you, he already knows who you are.”

After a pause, she said, “Right. I won’t say—you know—the other part.”

“Good. Don’t name me or anything to give away what we’re talking about.”

“Yeah
 . . .
Yeah, okay. So,” she said in her normal voice, practically blasting my ear because I’d been listening closely. “That
birthday
party we were, you know,
planning
? That’ll be on April 20. To celebrate
his
eighteenth birthday
next
year.”

“Heather Upton’s birthday is April 20.”

“Right.”

“She’ll be eighteen next year. Was Landry involved with the Fourth of July Rodeo the year before she was born? That would be nineteen years ago this month.”

“Exactly! Right the
second
time.”

“That was the second year he was stock contractor here?”

“Perfect. That’ll be a perfect present.” I heard a male voice in the background. “Gotta go.”

“One last thing. Can you come by my house tonight? Remember where it is? After you get off? When is that?”

“Nine. Yeah, I can. And, yeah, I remember.”

She hung up, and I turned to Mike.

“Got it,” he said. “A good chance Heather is Landry’s daughter. He couldn’t have known, not going after her the way she said. God, he couldn’t have known.”

“No idea. The other two questions we don’t have answers to are if she knew he was her father, and if she was telling us anything like the truth.”

“KEITH LANDRY was outside the bulls’ pen with the rope holding his arms tight around his waist. Then what?” I demanded of Mike, as we sat in my rental’s living room.

“Sounds like Colonel Mustard in the library with the wrench. Okay, quit groaning. It wasn’t
that
not-funny. Of course, that’s assuming Heather told us the truth.”

“True. But would she have told us anything if she’d hanged him? I’d have expected her to throw us out. Deny, deny, deny.”

“Could be an act, to make us think the way you’re thinking.”

“True again. Though if she’s that good, forget rodeo queen, she should be on Broadway. Also, her story explains things we hadn’t understood.”

“Like why Landry let himself get roped at all.”

I nodded. “Sounds like he thought it was some sort of foreplay at first. On the other hand, her story leaves new questions. Like how did the rope go from his waist to his neck, which it had to do for him to be hanged? What happened to the rope? How did he get in the pen with the bulls?”

“Still assuming she’s telling the truth, whoever got the rope from his waist to his neck probably took it. In other words, the murderer.”

“Maybe, but not necessarily. And how would he or she get it while the bulls were—you know. Plus, another new question, who was he meeting there?”

“Again, probably the murderer.”

I repeated, too. “Maybe, but not necessarily. Let’s start with the first question, how the rope got from his waist to his neck. I have an idea.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

THE KNOCK AT the door came at the worst possible moment.

“Stay there,” I ordered Mike. “Don’t move.”

“Forget it. I’m sitting
 . . .
if I can.”

Impatient, I opened the door. Tom Burrell’s tall form filled the frame.

“Elizabeth,” he said. I saw him focus over my shoulder, then back to me. “Looks like I came at an inopportune moment. I have something I think you’ll want to hear, but I can come back later.”

“You can come in and rescue me,” Mike called from the other side of the living room, where he sat on the edge of a wooden chair.

“I don’t want to interrupt if you two are uh, otherwise tied up,” Burrell said, his tone what my grandmother called half-kidding, whole-earnest. His eyes became serious when he met my look, and he said very low, “It’s not as black and white as you—”

Mike called, “Oh, for heaven’s sake. Let him in, Elizabeth.”

With reluctance, I let the door swing wide. Burrell entered with a glance at me that acknowledged this was not done.

“No more tied-up jokes, Tom,” Mike added.

“Well, you can understand my wanting to be a bit delicate with
 . . .
what is that you’re tied up with?”

“Extension cord,” I said. “We’re recreating what might have happened with Keith Landry.”

“I didn’t think an extension cord figured into it,” Burrell said.

“I tried to tell her
 . . .
”

“We had to improvise,” I said firmly, heading off a resurgence of that dispute.

“You’ve gotta hear what we found out, Tom,” Mike said.

I shot him a look, but he wasn’t looking at me, and I could hardly complain, since I’d told Burrell it was murder.

Mike recapped what Heather had told us, and how that led us to the question of how the rope went from around Landry’s waist to around his neck. Which led us to this demonstration.

At the end, Tom gazed at the extension cord tied around Mike’s waist, pinning his arms to his sides, for a long moment before saying, “Elizabeth, you know a lot more about the world outside Wyoming. But I know a sight more about things here.”

I gestured to acknowledge that and to indicate he should get on with whatever he was driving at.

“A rope’s a whole different animal from an extension cord. Not to mention you’re about to cut off circulation in Mike’s hands.”

“Thank you,” breathed Mike.

It was that male allies thing, and it drove me nuts. Even though I was far from ready for any zinging, and might never be, there was the promise of a definite zing with each of these men. So shouldn’t they be at each other’s throats, instead of going all buddies and teaming up against me?

“I wanted to simulate the restriction of movement. All you had to do was say it hurt.” I started undoing the knotted extension cord. Maybe I had been overzealous.

“I did. You said that would have been more motivation for Landry to try to get free. I couldn’t offer rope without going out to my place,” Mike said to Tom, “and she didn’t want to wait.”

“I wasn’t the only one, Mr. Gung Ho Investigator. You—”

“I have rope in my truck.”

Tom was dispatched to get it, while I finished freeing Paycik.

“I am sorry,” I said.

He rubbed his arms briskly. “I know you’d have let me loose if I’d really hollered, Elizabeth. I just didn’t want to really holler.”

His grin twisted, and I responded with a mock severe,
“Men
.
”

A brief knock announced Tom’s return. “This is old ranch rope. It’d be better if we knew what kind Heather throws. Did your expert say, Elizabeth?”

“Just a rope.”

They both looked at me as if I’d blasphemed.

“First off, like I told you, there’s poly or nylon—they’ve pretty much replaced the old hemp or rawhide,” Mike said. “They’re less changeable in cold or wet, so you know what you’re throwing no matter the weather.”

“Then come the real choices,” picked up Tom. “Right twist, left twist, treated, untreated, what scant you like, what kind of lay. ’Course that depends a lot on what you’re roping. Softer for calves. Stiffer if you’re heeling.”

Back to Mike. “And the length. Too long, and you got that extra weight. Too short, and you’re compensating. And there’s the
feel
. Got to work it, see how it fits your hands, how it throws a loop. ’Course, there’s also braided—”

“Mostly bull riders,” Tom said.

“Heather Upton was
not
riding bulls,” I said. “Can we—”

“True,” Mike said—to Tom, not me. “The kind of hondo, too.”

“Hondo?” I repeated. “What on earth?”

“The eye of the rope, to make the loop,” Mike tossed over his shoulder to me before returning to Tom. “A breakaway hondo would have popped open under the pressure when he was hauled up.”

“Good point, Mike. She must have been using a regular hondo. That would narrow which of her ropes—”

“All right, all right,” I said. “If they ever find the rope, you two have convinced me they’ll be able to positively ID it as Heather’s and probably determine when, where, and how that specific chunk of rope was made. But in the meantime, can we do something with
this
rope, or do we have to wait for a twin of the rope she used—grown from the very same plant or—”

“Like I said,” Mike started, “poly and nylon have—”

“—mostly replaced plant ropes. I swear, I’ll study ropes—but
after
this murderer is found.”

“Sounds like a trip to King’s is in order,” Tom said.

“Good idea,” Mike agreed.

“What’s King’s?”

“King’s Saddlery and Ropes in Sheridan. It’s a great place for an education on ropes.”

“Fine. I’ll go, I’ll take a class or—” They chuckled. This male bonding had passed the annoying threshold a while back. “—or whatever. If we can get on with this, forget the delightful nuances of all things rope, and return to trying to find a murderer.”

“Your rope’s a lot closer to whatever she used than that extension cord,” Mike said to Tom.

He nodded back. “And without that wad of knots.”

I had a strong urge to blow them both raspberries, which I do well, having had a great deal of practice in my youth in commenting on my siblings’ doings.

“There’s no room in here to throw a loop. And I doubt this is a demonstration you’d want in your yard for neighbors to see?” Tom made it a question with one raised brow to me.

“No thanks. Don’t want Neighborhood Watch after me.”

“So, we’ll place it like it would have ended up on Landry. You’ve done your turn, Mike. Why don’t you do the tying, and I’ll take the role of Landry.”

Mike shook his head. “Your rope, you do the roping. Besides, I’ve got experience now.”

I noticed neither offered to let me do the tying. The wad of knots on the extension cord hadn’t been
that
big, though Tom was significantly more efficient handling the rope than I had been with the extension cord.

The rope had a small loop tied at one end—a hondo, I realized. The rest of the rope had already been passed through it, so all Tom had to do once he’d passed that bigger loop over Mike’s shoulders and down to his waist was tug the loose end to tighten it.

“He couldn’t get out of this?” I asked. “Spread his arms and open the circle wide enough that it drops, and step out of it.”

Mike shook his head, demonstrating by trying to stretch his arms. “If she uses a leather burner, that would add friction and make it harder for the ropee to release it,” he said.

“The angle, too.” Tom looked around. “Mike, if you kneel by the door to the kitchen, we might be able to mimic some of that.”

Mike prepared to kneel without a murmur of protest—despite having bad knees that ended his NFL career.

“Wait a minute.” I grabbed a cushion from the ratty couch and put it directly under where his knees would hit. “Kneel on this.”

“I’m okay.”

“Use it, you bull-headed—”

“Sorry, Mike, I forgot. We’ll switch and I’ll—”

Before Tom or I finished our protests, Mike was down, but at least he was on the cushion. “This doesn’t bother them much.”

“All those knee surgeries and this doesn’t—”

“Elizabeth, if you’d move out of the way.” Burrell’s interruption was a barely veiled order to shut up and quit lecturing Mike.

I moved. I shut up.

Tom passed the rope coil over the open kitchen door, then disappeared behind it. I followed. He was tying off the rope around a chunky leg of the kitchen table. We returned to the living room.

“Can you move?” Tom asked Mike.

“Not much. Going over the door and being this low made it harder. Would have been even more so going over that beam.” As he spoke, he worked his shoulders forward and back, tried to pull out one arm, then the other.

“Is that loosening the rope?” I asked.

“Some.” He frowned in concentration. “Very little.”

“Enough to get out?”

“Not any time soon.”

“Landry did it somehow, because the rope went from his middle to his neck.”

“Mike can’t reach the hondo. If Keith Landry could, that would have helped,” Tom said.

“That’s an
if
and a
could.
Not the strongest material to work with,” I said.

Mike stopped trying to pull his arms up, instead trying to slide his right elbow to the middle of his back. His motion had his shoulder rotating in a way shoulders should not rotate. “Mike, you’ll pull something out of its socket if you don’t—”

“Almost
 . . .
there
 . . .
almost
 . . .
Got it!”

I’d been watching his elbow and shoulder. I hadn’t noticed the tips of his fingers slide inside his front jeans pocket, scissoring his phone out. Now he manipulated it into his palm and pressed a number.

“Brilliant, Mike—his phone. Of—” I was interrupted by my phone ringing.

Mike grinned. “No need to answer. Just demonstrating.”

“Some guys keep their phone clipped to their belt,” Tom said. “If Keith Landry did, that would have made it easier.”

“Much easier,” Mike said. “Unless he had a lot of time to work free, the phone might answer the issue of how the rope got loose. Because it had to be loosened to get from his waist to his neck.”

“A friend?” Tom said. He put a hand between Mike’s back and the rope and tugged. It loosened the loop. Mike started to maneuver it toward his shoulders. “Not yet, Mike. Leave it where it was.”

As soon as Mike complied, Tom went around the door, and the rope went taut again.

Tom came back to our side of the door. “Didn’t take much.”

“The cell phone records,” I said. “We have to get a look at those records—the complete records.”

Tom said, “You’re thinking early calls could have been made by Landry. At least one, the call Heather heard when he arranged to meet someone before he spotted her—”

“If she’s telling the truth,” Mike inserted.

“—or, if he got to his phone the way Mike did, then a call to someone asking for help after Heather left.”

“Exactly,” I said. “Whoever he calls arrives, loosens the rope, and Landry starts to pull it up to get free.”

“But his
friend
has left the rope over the beam and at the right moment, yanks it tight,” Tom picked up. “The friend stands in front of Landry, holding the end of the rope. He’d see exactly when to do it. As soon as it was tight, Landry didn’t have a chance.”

We were silent, all envisioning the scene, I suspected.

“You think a woman could have done it?” Mike asked Tom.

“Hard to know for sure based on this experiment, but a strong woman, used to ranching
 . . .
I’d think so.”

“Especially one fueled by anger, adrenaline, or both,” I said. “There’s one problem—at least one. We don’t know how Landry ended up in the bull pen.”

“I’ve got an idea about that,” Mike said. “Tom, go back in the kitchen, give me a count of three, and give the rope a good, hard pull.”

“Why? What—”

“Just watch, Elizabeth,” Mike ordered.

Tom counted. On
Three
the rope went taut, hauling Mike up several inches.

He tucked his legs like for a cannonball into a pool. For three seconds he swung, held only by the rope around his middle. The rope eased, and he came back to the floor.

“Did you see that, Elizabeth? Did you see it?”

“Yes.”

Tom came around the door. “See what?”

“He swung. Mostly sideways.”

“The angle across the beam,” Mike said. He stood, and Tom loosened the rope. “Not only was Landry yanked off his feet, but he was yanked sideways. Over the bull pen.”