“Do not be crude,” she said. “I did not kill him.”
Her answer didn’t send me any truth vibes nor did she sound like she was lying, either. “Cade said Toby wanted to talk to you last night. Did he?”
She looked at me for a long second, then said, “Yes.”
“What did he say? Come on, Tanya. Tell me what happened.”
“We are Russians. If you were in Russia, wouldn’t you want to talk to a fellow American? And what would you talk about? Just ordinary things.”
I still didn’t get a truth vibe, one way or the other, so I dropped my questions and reminded myself one more time, none of this was any of my business or my responsibility. I drove to the Square C and parked Bob beside Buddy Thomason’s truck. Soupy came out of the barn to greet me and it was sure good to see him. He looked lonely. I asked Tanya to give Soupy some attention and went looking for Buddy, finding him in the pen, feeding the horses. His hand, a cowboy named Delbert, came out of the barn. “They’re out at that dinosaur dig,” Buddy said when I asked about Jeanette and Ray. He nodded toward Delbert. “Delbert’s looking after the place for your missus. We were just talking about where he should stay. How about your trailer?”
I told Buddy that would be fine. Delbert was generally a nice fellow and I didn’t think he had any bed bugs. I went over a few things with them on the care and feeding of the Square C cows and horses, then went inside the house. I was surprised, to put it mildly, to discover the old couch was gone as were the tattered easy chairs, replaced by new ones in the Southwestern style with a nice Navajo print. I shook my head. If somebody killing Toby was strange, Jeanette Coulter buying new furniture was downright weird. Did I have another mystery to solve?
I looked on the mantel, perusing the framed photos of Ray as a baby and a playful child, and Bill Coulter in his paratrooper uniform, and Jeanette and Bill on their wedding day. She was wearing a pretty bridal dress with lots of lace and beads while he was in a severe, dark suit. She was smiling tentatively. His mouth was a grim line. Both were posed, looking like they couldn’t wait to get it over. Well, at least they’d got along well enough to produce Ray.
I looked around the kitchen. Nothing new there, just the same old scratched table and dented chairs. I climbed the stairs and looked into Jeanette’s bedroom. I’d never been in there before. I found a big, old fashioned bed with a faded quilt pulled over it, a couple of pink pillows and that was it. Her furniture was basic, a chest of drawers, a table beside the bed, an old ceramic lamp with a shade that was ragged around the edges. I went over and picked up one of her pillows and smelled it. There was no perfume but there was a scent, one that I recognized as Jeanette, sort of like wild sage.
I realized my heart was beating fast and I sat on the edge of her bed to get control of myself. I loved this woman so much and I had no idea why. What was there about her that was lovable? I’m sure I didn’t know. I guess there wasn’t anything except everything. That’s the way it is. Thank you, Walter Cronkite wherever you are.
I came back downstairs and went to the gun cabinet where I got four handguns, a hunting rifle, and all the ammunition for them I could find. The handguns I chose were a .38 Smith & Wesson Police Special for Amelia, a .357 Magnum for Jeanette, his grandfather’s .44 for Ray, and a .22 short-barreled pistol for either Laura or Tanya, I hadn’t decided. The rifle was a standard .30-06. I packed a box of ammo for each of the pistols and three boxes for the rifle. I put the ammo in a plastic bag, then wrapped up the little arsenal in a gunny sack from the barn and strapped it all onto the front of the four-wheeler. I still had my Glock, of course, which was in my backpack. Tanya, at my invitation, climbed on the four-wheeler behind me. “You have one duty,” I told her.
“What is that?”
“Open and close the gates.”
She laughed. “To get back to the dig, anything.”
Anything it was. We waved good-bye to Soupy, she held onto my waist, pressed her breasts against my back, which felt nice, I gave the four-wheeler some gas and away we went. As far as I was concerned, my investigation of Toby’s murder was over. I silently wished Trooper Philpot my best.
24
At Blackie Butte, the work to flatten the hill was proceeding at full speed with jackhammers rattling, shovels shoveling, picks picking, and slabs of sandstone crashing down the back side. I sought out Jeanette, finding her with Pick studying some bones in the cook tent. When I walked in, she didn’t seem particularly ecstatic to see me but Pick lit up. “Mike, come here and see what I’ve found.”