Chapter Sixteen

On the otherend of the video call, Mike and Jennifer were eating pizza at his Evanston apartment, just north of Chicago.

Diana and I, in the KWMT office officially designated as the news director's, and unofficially Mike's temporarily, were not eating pizza. Being around Tamantha and Tom I'd been conscious of trying to eat healthier meals. Right now, I wished I were in Evanston with the other two, at least for the pizza.

I had started with condensed versions of my trips yesterday to the library, museum, and Mrs. P, as well as today's to the McCracken place.

Diana had put out feelers, but didn't have anything back yet from her sources. Aunt Gee hadn't yet responded to Mike, either.

Jennifer reported on Randall Kenyon's business holdings and financial position.

Mike whistled. "Why's he bothering with a dude ranch in Cottonwood County? He's up there with the Barlows."

"General view was he was a money-making machine until his wife died two years ago," Jennifer said. "Then it's divided about whether he's been distracted because of her death, because of his daughter becoming a problem or both. It's not like he's in trouble — or his businesses — but people talk about if his golden touch is gone."

I caught the group up on my futile pursuit of the DNA test results.

"But would Keefe be that excited if the results hadn't arrived?" Diana asked.

"Pre-excited, maybe?" Jennifer suggested. "Sounds like he tended that way on the topic of Oscar Virtanen."

"What it comes down to is, he could have already received the results or he hadn't — Don't say it, Paycik." He closed his mouth on the obvious rejoinder I'd opened myself up to. "The point is, we follow up on the DNA test."

"If he didn't get the test already, it's pretty much up to law enforcement to pry the results out of the company, right?" Jennifer asked.

"Pretty much. Although we could consider asking Robin and/or her father to see if they have any standing as the purchasers of the test to get the result."

"Could consider," Diana said thoughtfully. "That's not exactly gung-ho, Elizabeth."

"If one of them is involved — or both of them — with his murder that could muddy the waters," Mike said. "I'd think especially if how they got the information became a legally contested issue."

"Exactly," I answered the first part and ignored the ending. "Then, in the other possibility for those test results — that Keefe did receive them — it gets really interesting. Because that means someone took them and—"

"Or he burned them because they weren't what he wanted," Jennifer jumped in to add. "Although it doesn't have to have been burned. He could have thrown them out long enough before he was killed that they've already been recycled or whatever."

"Possible," I conceded. "Though Brenda said—"

"Brenda said?" Jennifer repeated with an undercurrent.

"—he was excited the day before his death, so he wouldn't have had time to dispose of them."

"Having them taken by someone else is a lot better clue to follow than the dump," Mike said.

I couldn't deny the truth of that. "Yeah, we'll leave Shelton and company to pursue that aspect if that's what it comes to. So the question becomes what about those tests would have been worth killing Keefe for?"

"The connection to Oscar Virtanen," Mike said immediately.

"But why? We come back to being proven a descendant of Mr. and Mrs. Virtanen wouldn't—"

"You're not calling them Pearl and Oscar, like Bonnie and Clyde?" Diana asked.

I'd been showing off — at least to myself — my first grasp on their last names. "They were more formal in the nineteenth century, but if you insist... being proven a descendant of Oscar and Pearl wouldn't give him an immediate open sesame to the so-called treasure."

"Some of these people don't care about the money. They're just interested in the history, in the mystique," Mike said.

"The mystique of some old bank robber?" Jennifer asked. "I get wanting the treasure — if there is one — but so what if his great-whatever grandfather was a bank robber?"

"Better than a ditch-digger."

"No it isn't," she said. "Ditch-diggers could be honorable, good, and interesting people."

"Yes, they could." Diana's agreement calmed her down. "But put yourself in Keefe's position. Unlike you, he didn't have any family left. No connections to his father's family we know of and his mother was gone. It would be interesting to be descended from someone who was famous, even if that was mostly infamy."

"Besides, a lot of sources say some of those guys were considered good guys in the day," Mike said. "Like it was said Butch Cassidy said none of his guys were to rob individuals. They robbed companies — the railroads, the banks — not the normal people."

I told them what I'd learned from Mrs. P — the little that connected to this case — and had the distinct feeling it was all old news to them.

We moved on to discussing yesterday's video of Brenda and Wendy. Diana had already sent them today's footage from Elk Rock Ranch and we'd recapped the conversations with the EMT from Robin's accident, then Randall and Robin at the BB.

"Would you say Brenda didn't like Wendy's comment about her taking care of Keefe?" I asked Diana.

"I would. The interesting question was if she didn't like it simply because it was telling a couple strangers—"

"And our viewership, whatever that might be."

"Yeah, I thought that stung you. But the viewership sees it only if we put it out there and Brenda's reaction was immediate. She never even looked at the camera, so I still wonder if it was having the audience of a couple strangers or if the sting came from something else."

"You think she had other feelings about Keefe?" I asked.

"Possibly. On the other side of that, she was — overall — fairly calm about this death. A few tears, but no wailing or gnashing of teeth."

"The response of a murderer who knows she should be upset, but doesn't really feel any loss?" Mike asked.

"I'll repeat what I just said — possibly. Wendy certainly didn't seem to have anything of that in her reaction."

"No. Wendy's was more practical."

Diana nodded. "And practical could be a problem for her. Keefe did an awful lot around there, knew everything about the place, and kept it ticking over. Even if she finds someone satisfied with living year-round there like he did and likely not being paid a lot, I'd think it would take a long time to train them."

"No motive for her," Mike said. "Either of them, maybe, if his death means a lot more work comes down on Brenda."

I held up a wait-a-second finger. "We don't rely on what either of them says without support. But before we get too tied into being sure this had to have something to do with his life at the dude ranch, I was trying to think of motives for his murder centered around what Keefe did."

Jennifer looked up, frowning. "But that's working on a dude ranch."

"Wider than that. Something he saw or heard that he wasn't supposed to."

"I thought he spent most of his time outdoors," she said.

"I like that," Mike said. "A contract killer took a vacation at a dude ranch and Keefe heard him taking on his next assignment. No, wait, too big a time gap from when the last guests left until Keefe was killed. So, he heard the assignment to kill somebody famous, the hired killer turned it down, but then he reconsidered and he plans to do it sometime in the future now, so he had to come back and kill Keefe before the contract kill, so Keefe didn't react when he heard about the death. Or maybe he got someone else to kill Keefe, because it's a conspiracy that's going to take down the country, take down the whole free world and—"

"You've been binging old Mission: Impossible re-runs again, haven't you, Mike?" Diana asked.

"Maybe."

"Don't worry, there'll be another conspiracy threatening the country, the free world, the planet, the universe next week."

"Yeah, I know," he said a bit sheepishly. "But, seriously, what could Keefe have seen or heard during the winter, living on that ranch?"

"I don't know, but we don't rule out the possibility." I argued.

"You said Ivy said he spent a lot of time at the library," Diana said.

"Yeah, that hotbed of crime," Mike muttered before another bite of pizza.

"Something to keep in mind." I recounted my conversation with Serena McCracken.

"Not much there," Mike said.

"Yet," Diana tagged on.

I agreed with both of them. "At the same time, if Keefe wasn't killed for what he did — including seeing, hearing — it seems the alternative is he was killed for who he was. But that seems far-fetched, too."

"Maybe even more far-fetched than Mike's scenario," Diana said. "Mild-mannered. No conflict with anyone. Heck, didn't mix with that many people except the guests during the season, which ended six months ago."

"Something personal," Jennifer proposed. "Like you were talking about — Brenda, maybe from unrequited love."

"But why now and not any time in what sounds to be like the past three decades?"

"Three," I repeated musingly. "He was shot three times. That was interesting. Why three times?"

"They wanted to be sure they sent him to a better place?" Diana said with a glint of mischief.

"Oh, like Brenda said," Jennifer said.

I growled.

I might have been around Shelton too much.

"You should have seen Elizabeth's face when Brenda said that," Diana told the other two. "Mount Vesuvius... except it didn't blow. Must give her credit for that."

With great dignity I said, "Getting back to his being shot three times, I was thinking that pointed toward a small caliber gun."

"Yup. A big caliber gun and there wouldn't be much left after three shots." Mike folded a pizza slice and consumed a good third of it in one bite.

"Uh-huh. Thanks for pointing that out," Diana said.

"There might be another aspect to the three shots and wanting to make sure he was dead — an element of not wanting him to suffer." I paused, then added dryly, "Other than killing him, of course. But I mean those small caliber shots can rattle around in the brain and cause a lot of damage that might eventually kill somebody, but they can also hang on a long time, first. Keefe left shot on his living room floor to take who knows how long to die? That could make the shooter add extra shots to end it quickly, as well as definitively."

"Which points to someone he knew," Diana said.

"Unless it was a compassionate hired killer," Mike said.

Jennifer scoffed. "A group known for their compassion."

"Making sure he was dead would also be self-preservation. If he were shot once, then found before he died he might have said who shot him. Killer didn't want to leave a witness," Diana said.

I stuck with the broader question. "Do you see someone hiring a killer to come into Cottonwood County to do away with Keefe?"

"Not all hired killers are the high-priced slick type from movies or even the historical figures like Tom Horn."

Led by Mike, the others turned to me.

"Yes, I've heard of Tom Horn." My indignation was meant to hide that while I had heard the name, I tended to confuse it with Roy Bean. Or was it Roy Horn and Tom Bean?

My answer didn't stop Mike from explaining.

"He was officially a range detective, but it's pretty much agreed he was hired by cattle barons to kill rustlers." He knew as much Wyoming history as Mrs. P — as long it was about bad guys and wild stories.

"I know, I know. As bad as Judge Roy Bean. Hard to tell which side of the law they were on, right? But a hired killer—"

Mike was not to be dragged away from his topic. "Horn bragged about killing men, then he was caught and hanged for the killing of a boy, though a lot of people think he didn't do that one."

"That's fascinating, but—"

"Horn was played by Steve McQueen," Diana said. "Paul Newman played Roy Bean."

Ah. Now that was helpful information.

"Who?" Jennifer barely looked up from typing on her phone.

The rest of us glared at her. Didn't matter if she meant one or both. They were well before my prime movie-watching years started, too, but you owed that history the respect of at least a modicum of knowledge.

However, her film education would await another opportunity.

"The point is, Cottonwood County does not seem like a hotbed for hired killers operating a lucrative business," Diana said.

"Well, a while back, there was a story about a guy not far from here who tried to hire somebody to kill his ex-wife to make other charges go away where she was the witness," I said. "He offered the supposed contract killer $1,000 from his Covid stimulus check."

"No." Diana's protest sputtered into a laugh.

"Yes. Doing his part to stimulate the economy. And apparently his accomplice was his step-sister... who'd just had his baby."

"Eww." Was the consensus reaction to that detail.

I recovered first. "So a contract — of some sort or another — isn't impossible. But it seems far more likely that the killer was acting on his or her own behalf, is local, and had a connection with Keefe."

"That made the killer both ready to kill Keefe and — possibly — not wanting him to suffer more than necessary to die," Diana said dryly.

"That's the theory," I agreed. "For now."

"Under that theory, Brenda being sad doesn't clear her," Jennifer said. "In fact it would make her more likely. Someone who truly liked him and didn't want him to suffer, so shot him three times to be sure it was over."

"And someone with plenty of time and excuse for having messed around with the scene."

"Maybe somebody who cared about the dog, too," Mike said. "I know, it could have been selfish putting the dog out — not wanting a witness, so to speak. Not wanting to risk the dog reacting in a way that pointed a finger — or paw. But it also could be not wanting to traumatize the dog."

"Traumatize her more," I muttered. "Plus, her being outside exposed her to the cold and predators."

"Yeah, I get that." He started to reach for another pizza piece, then stopped. "You know, Brenda being the killer solves the issue of the dog being put outside in a way. She puts Suzie Q out, kills Keefe, then finds Suzie Q outside, which meant finding Keefe, which meant lots of authorities. So Suzie Q wasn't out long, wasn't exposed to the cold or predators."

He got a trio of hmms in acknowledgment of his points.

"What are you thinking, Diana?" I asked her.

"Brenda's comment about the center cabin blocking her view of Keefe's cabin..."

"Uh-huh," I agreed.

"Uh-huh, what?" Jennifer demanded.

"We both think that indicated Brenda likely kept a closer eye on Keefe's cabin and his activities than she'd acknowledged," Diana explained.

"I wondered why you were accepting everything Brenda said. You suspect her," Jennifer said.

"We didn't say—"

Jennifer talked over Diana's protest. "You talked about Brenda seeing the dog outside like you didn't believe it. And if you don't believe that..."

I glanced toward Diana. She rolled a shoulder, saying this was mine to answer. "It's not that I believe or don't believe it, necessarily. It was... Brenda presented a view of what happened — that somebody other than Keefe put Suzie Q out of the cabin, most likely the killer — and she wanted us to buy it, too. And the more she tried to direct us that way, the more I wondered why."

Jennifer frowned fiercely enough to make me want to warn her of wrinkles-to-come with a reminder of Brenda. "Like she hadn't seen the dog out at all, but went over there and shot him, then raised the alarm and the dog's a red herring?"

My turn to frown fiercely and I was in far more danger of resembling Brenda than she was. "That's an interesting question. Because if she did that — shot Keefe with Suzie Q in the cabin — I wonder how she would have reacted."

"She, the dog. Not she, Brenda," Mike said.

"Exactly. The dog. So maybe that lends credence to Brenda's scenario. Pretty clear, she was angling to the theory that the killer put Suzie Q out of the cabin, or had Keefe do it, so the dog wouldn't interfere. And Brenda thought that happened hours earlier—"

"If we buy that the dog's coat was cold," Diana inserted.

"Barring Brenda being the killer, I think we do accept that Suzie Q's coat was cold."

"Which would make the killing hours earlier."

"As cold as it's been lately, it could be minutes," I said and got grimaces in return.

"If Brenda's the killer, all bets are off about Suzie Q being out, much less the temp of her coat," Mike said.

He earned murmurs of agreement.

"It would be good to know the time of death," Jennifer mused. "I might be able to—"

"No hacking," Diana and I said together.

Jennifer huffed and said to Diana, "Well, if you'd just ask the sheriff..."

"Not happening."

We might have all turned toward Mike, because he said, "Fine. I'll ask Aunt Gee — if, when I get her. But no guarantees she'll answer."

"So, if we take what Brenda said as true, we're thinking Suzie Q knows who the killer is. We could set up one of those Perry Mason moments when the dog growls and lunges at the guilty party."

"I'd guess that's what the killer was trying to avoid by having the dog outside."

"If Brenda's telling the truth and isn't the killer herself," Mike slid in.

"Even if she's the killer, she might be telling the truth about the dog," I said. "There's also what she'd said about the Kenyons' pickup and that it couldn't have come across the bridge without her knowing. Which is interesting."

"Why interesting? She could have known that for decades, just from living there," Jennifer said.

"Or she thought it through since Keefe's murder," Mike suggested.

"Also true. Or it could be something she'd considered before that night, making sure there was a way for someone else to be on the property without it being unbelievable that neither she nor Wendy heard anything."

"Wendy already has an excuse because — at least according to Brenda — she's an extremely sound sleeper. Partially confirmed by Robin," Diana said.

Jennifer asked with an edge of disbelief, "You think Brenda would lie to cover for Wendy?"

"No," came from the rest of us.

We all shifted positions, shaking off the certainty of that response. We wanted lots and lots of open possibilities at this stage, not to be closing off avenues of thought or investigation.

"Things to keep in mind," Diana said.

"Another one to consider is Randall Kenyon." I turned to Diana. "Remember Wendy saying he was a hard-charging CEO type? I wonder if that stemmed from her unconscious recognition of conflict there — between Kenyon's world and the world of the dude ranch?"

"Or," Diana countered, "because she has tendencies in that direction, too, and has been irritated by Keefe. Remember the sloooow-leeeee?" Before anyone could respond, she said, "But would irritation, even festering for decades, lead to murder?"

None of us had an answer to that.

Jennifer brought us back to Randall Kenyon. "But why would he kill Keefe, when Keefe helped his daughter. Not just staying with her when she got hurt, but what he said about how she changed. Sounds to me like he was grateful."

I considered that. "You can be grateful for what happened — his daughter changing — but not happy that someone else brought about the change. Especially certain types of people."

Jennifer said. "Jealous. He was jealous his daughter connected that way with Keefe."

I tipped my head, then nodded slowly. "Maybe a particular kind of jealous."

"You might have something there, Jennifer," Mike said. "From your accounts, Elizabeth, he was more crediting the place than the man. And the place is something he could buy — try to buy."

"That's good. Both of you. You're right. If he credited the place, he could try to buy it, control it, reshape it. Then it would be like he was the one who helped his daughter, who would help her even more going forward than she'd been helped initially, because he improved everything. He doesn't get that he'd have to break each of those kids' bones and leave them for a few hours in the rough country—"

"With a backwoods counselor who's now dead." Mike pointed out.

"—to have a hope of replicating his daughter's transformation."

"Sounds like he thinks he can buy anything. But he couldn't buy Keefe," Diana said.

I turned to her.

"You're staring, Elizabeth," she said.

"I wonder if he tried."

Maybe Keefe's excitement wasn't about the DNA test. Maybe that was a blind and he was going to get a chunk of Randall's money." It didn't make Mike happy to express that possibility.

"No. He thought he'd get rich because he thought he'd be a celebrity as the descendant of Oscar Virtanen," Jennifer argued.

"How would he make money off that? Being confirmed as a descendant of Butch or Sundance, maybe. But Oscar Virtanen? How many people not from around here even know about him."

They all looked at me.

"Not many." I spoke for all of non-Cottonwood County. I probably could have gone out on a limb and said None.

"Or how'd he know that he'd find the treasure," Jennifer said. "One he'd have to divide with Sam McCracken."

"If there is a treasure," I said.

"Keefe believed there was one and that's what counts." Diana had a point. And she added to it. "What would Randall Kenyon buying Keefe even consist of?"

"For him to go away so Randall could be the complete hero."

"To expect him to leave his lifelong home and—"

Mike interrupted Jennifer. "Oh, Keefe wasn't from here originally."

"Where was he from?" she asked.

"Somewhere back east, I think," Mike said. "Or maybe the West Coast."

In other words, the huge swath of the country that was not Wyoming.

As he went on, I realized I hadn't covered that part of what Brenda told us, "He came here as a kid. Came with his mother when she was brought in as the ranch's cook. Surprised me, too, because it seemed like he was such a part of the place that he'd been there forever. But he told me once that in order for them to stay year-round, he started learning maintenance really young. All the things the place needed during the season and off-season. Wendy and before her, her uncle, would leave for the winter, but Keefe and his mother stayed year-round. Keefe did most of the maintenance and built some of the new cabins. She kept working until the day she died.

"I have a memory of going to services for her as a kid. Dropping my jaw when I saw this big, strong man crying over his mama. Made an impression. Didn't seem to be any question that he'd stay on there, working at Elk Rock, living in that cabin. Wasn't until more recent that Wendy started to stay more of the year. Used to be gone all winter in Florida or Arizona, someplace like that. Now it's just a couple months from what I hear."

"More to do around the ranch? Harder to find more help?" Jennifer offered.

"Could be. Though everything I heard said they had no trouble hiring. Even with other places begging for workers, the dude ranches seem to do okay. Of course that's the college kids during the season. Might be different off-season."

I jumped back to something that had snagged my interest. "You said yesterday that her uncle left her the Elk Rock Ranch?"

"Yeah. He'd owned it for years. I don't know more about it than that. Leona would."

Oh, yes, she would.