Chapter Twenty-Three

Gisella's stalwart formcommanded her immaculate kitchen with ease.

It was hard to believe how clean it was, considering the array of food waiting to be wrapped up and divided into boxes. She had to clean each speck as it appeared.

Amazing.

She put Mrs. P and me to work immediately. I was in charge of the plastic wrap.

I have never plastic wrapped better in my life. I don't know if it was because I and the plastic wrap container were cowed into submission, but there was only one slight hint of twisting wrap and none of the blobbing tangles I too often encountered. Without them, it was actually rather relaxing.

As was talking with Gee. No drawing impressions and opinions out of her with a pair of pliers.

Get her started and let 'er rip.

"With the three of them up there at Elk Rock Ranch for long, long stretches... Some would say they're surprised there hasn't been a death before now. And this time of year most likely to bring it on. You've got all the build-up from going through the worst of winter — though nobody could say Keefe got cabin fever, because he was out in any kind of weather. Still it wears on most people and maybe even him a little, and there's still a good long stretch to go, especially before the guests come and add a sort of cushion between them, if you know what I mean."

"Are you saying... There was a romantic triangle?"

She stared at me a beat then burst out laughing. "No. No way."

It wasn't that far-fetched. "Wendy made a comment that Brenda resented her."

With a grin lingering on her mouth, her eyes went thoughtful. "I suppose she did. But not over Keefe."

No credit to me for asking the next question. "Over what then?"

"I suppose you could call it sibling rivalry for Chester's attention and affection. Like Keefe, Brenda was basically brought up at Elk Rock. Had the run of the place. And a lot of Chester's attention."

"Keefe didn't have his attention?"

"No. Oh, I'm sure Chester was fond enough of him, but Keefe wasn't ever a talker. He'd sit and stare off and you felt like you weren't in the same hemisphere as far as he was concerned. He'd watch the birds, watch the horses, watch the cattle, watch the critters. Sit there so still and silent, even wildlife would get back to acting normal, walking past him, paying him no mind. That row next, Elizabeth, so Emmaline can finish those boxes."

I swear she didn't even breathe before continuing, "Saw it myself when he was real young and I went up in the mountains with him for a report for school. I was a senior in high school and he was little — third grade, maybe even younger. But he said he'd guide me and he did." Her focus softened into memories. "Amazing."

Hearing her own word seemed to pull her out of her reverie.

"And that was with me there. Probably fidgeting. Surely not smelling like a mountain creature, which he did more often than not if someone wasn't on him about it. Later on, one of the guests got him to wear one of those cameras they use to film stunts and such. Only this one showed him barely doing anything — walking and sitting. But then, if you watched long enough, things started to happen around him. Like he'd been a stone dropped into a pond, setting off ripples, but after a while the pond settles back into normal, like the stone wasn't ever there.

"The guy — the guest — put it up online, along with footage of Keefe he took. Might still be there somewhere. Pretty boring to start and for stretches even after the ripples smooth out." She blinked, not focusing on me. "Don't suppose Keefe would ever have said it was boring. Not to him. He was one-of-a-kind."

"You knew him through his mother?"

Gee looked at Mrs. P immediately, simple recognition of my source, with no shred of blame or censure.

"Yes. That's how I ended up going out with him in the woods that time — I was talking about the project while I helped Ulla in the kitchen and he piped right up that he'd take me out."

"How often were you in the Elk Rock kitchen?"

"As often as I could be. Even when I wasn't working there."

"You worked there?"

"Sure. They'd hire from away for wranglers and servers and such. Those college kids flow through like water. Ulla said that was fine for cleanup. But she didn't want to retrain a new crew every summer. She liked to hire local help for prep, cooking. When she found someone good, she took them under her wing."

Mrs. P spoke up smoothly, "She took only you and Scott Hoole under her wing in all her years of cooking at the Elk Rock Ranch, Gisella, because you are and always have been extremely talented in the kitchen."

"Amen," I agreed with a wave of the plastic wrap box to the bounty before us.

Gee turned rosy with pleasure. "Ulla was the true talent. Gave me some of her recipes, too. You've had some of them, Elizabeth. Though I had to cut the ingredients way down from what she wrote down for me."

Maybe she'd cut them some, but nobody who'd eaten at Gee's house would say the portions had been cut way down.

"What was Ulla like?"

"Oh, she kept them all in line. Chester, Wendy, Brenda. Wasn't until after she was gone and with Chester not as strong as he'd been that Wendy and Brenda's sparring graduated to a power struggle — not one Brenda can ever win, considering Wendy owns Elk Rock. Doesn't stop her from trying."

"What started it?"

"Wendy coming here. You did know she wasn't from here to start?"

I nodded.

"Well, when her family back east decided she was the black sheep of that lot of them, they sent her out here to be with her black sheep uncle."

I nodded again.

"Two of them were a pair all right, those Black Sheep Barlows. A lot alike and it drove them both crazy. But, for all Chester talked about his family being as worthless as people as they were worth a lot in money, his blood tie to her held him tight from the minute she arrived.

"Thing was, before Wendy came, Brenda was his favorite. And in a way she stayed that. If Wendy hadn't been a relation... but she was. So that set them sparking against each other from the start. Add in that Wendy came in here from the east, ignorant of ranch ways, which gave Brenda a leg up, but glamorous, and that gave Wendy a leg up.

"One summer, in particular, there was a staffer who came in and they both set their caps for him. You'd never get either of them to admit she wasn't the first to like him and the other went after him just to spite her, but from what I heard, it was a dead heat. And the thing was, he wasn't interested in either one of them."

"A third girl?"

"Nope. Keefe. That's who'd caught his eye. Though nothing came of that. Don't think Keefe was even aware of it, but I heard his mother telling other people — forgetting I was there visiting, because I didn't work there anymore — that she worried at first when she saw which way the wind was blowing with Simon. The girls, though — Wendy and Brenda — were so locked in their battle, they never even noticed. Some of the other summer guys were miffed at the two best-looking girls both going for Simon and, because he wasn't interested, it never cut either one of them loose that summer. Feel kinda sorry for Simon in retrospect. He never came back, even though Chester said he was a top-notch wrangler. My, we were all so young then."

"Where was Keefe in all this?"

"Oblivious," Gee said. "Not interested."

"I concur with the latter, but not the former." Further proof Mrs. P had known Keefer Dobey earlier in his life. "As for that sibling rivalry between Wendy and Brenda, it did attract a good deal of attention from Ulla and Chester, particularly with Ulla enforcing the peace. But do not misread that into believing Keefer was excluded. He not only had his relationship with nature, indeed, his relationships with each element of nature, he also had human relationships. He was Ulla and Chester's much-loved boy."

Gee cast a sharp look at her neighbor. For only half agreeing with her on Keefe's reaction? For putting in her opinion at all?...

"Okay, get those last three wrapped, Elizabeth, and we can finish this up," Gee said.

...Or for holding up her production line.

I wrapped and we finished, and then I began to load the boxes into Gee's vehicle while they cleaned up what only could have been microscopic crumbs.

After my last trip, they came out. Gee pointed a finger at me. "You know who you should talk to is Scott Hoole."

"Scott Hoole?" Why did that name sound familiar?

"Yeah. They've been friends since Keefe first moved here."

Friends here? In Cottonwood County? That didn't seem right. Because the familiarity of the name didn't strike me as associated with here or wider Wyoming. Something from longer ago. From—. "Wait. Scott Hoole, the chef?"

"Uh-huh."

"Scott Hoole, the celebrity chef?"

"I guess." Gee was not impressed by celebrity.

"He lives here?"

"No. Over in Cooke City, now that he's retired. I've got his number here somewhere. I'll send it to you. Anyway, he'll remember a lot more about all that ancient history, because he was working there at the ranch at the time."

"Thank you." I looked at Mrs. P. She did not meet my gaze as she got in the passenger side. "I do still have other questions—"

"Another time, maybe," Gee said. "Time to make our rounds."

I left. But not with my usual sense after encountering these two that all was right and orderly in the universe. I felt oddly jangly and unsettled and I didn't know why.

****

I called Jenniferas I headed south out of O'Hara Hill, described the video of Keefe that Gee mentioned and asked Jennifer if she could track it down.

"Sure. Easy."

"Without—"

"For Pete's sake, Elizabeth, I know — without hacking." She sounded sharper and more tired than usual.

"Yes, and without interfering with your work for the program. That comes first."

"As if I don't know—. Fine. Yes. Without interfering with the program. I'm not an idiot, you know."

"I do know that."

"Then please tell Mike. It's like he suddenly decided he's a hundred years old and I'm a baby. He's not my father. He's not anything to tell me who I should or shouldn't see. It's none of his business. I'll see whoever I want to and I don't care what Mike or anyone else says."

"Understandable." I said that after swallowing a whole bunch of words about heeding those older and more experienced.

I knew Jennifer's parents hadn't yet been to Evanston to visit her, so they hadn't met this guy Mike didn't like. So, who was anyone else ...?

Ah.

"Have any of the guys been to see you in Evanston?" I asked, as if changing the subject with the reference to her long-time online pals.

"Just for a couple days."

"That was nice of them."

"No, it wasn't. They were here for some job, consulting for a company downtown. They just came up to campus to pick my brain and take credit for it."

Whoa. That didn't sound like Jennifer at all.

Where did this come from?

Yup, I jumped immediately to this guy she was seeing being the origin. And that it was part of an effort to isolate her from her long-time friends, even family. Classic moves from the controlling boyfriend's handbook.

Another one was to drop hint after hint that her friends and family didn't trust her judgment. I wasn't getting anywhere near something that would trigger that defense.

"You'd have seen right through that if they ever tried before. Did they?" I asked, as if it had just struck me.

"No," she acknowledged, which told me she wasn't totally under this guy's influence — if that's what was happening.

"Huh." I bit my tongue to keep from saying more. Suggesting the boyfriend was defensive or jealous or anything else would put her back up.

She needed to consider those things herself.

And, really, as I said to Diana after recounting the conversation when I called her as soon as Jennifer and I ended our call, it might not be anything other than me being overly sensitive to what she said because Mike didn't approve.

"Huh," Diana said.

"What does that mean?"

"Nothing in particular," she lied.

I recognized a Diana stonewall when it was erected in front of me.

"Okay, you're not going to tell me what you're really thinking, I know that. But promise me one thing."

"Depends on what it is." Sometimes she's a little too wise for my good.

"Don't tell Russ whatever it is you're thinking about this topic that you're not telling me now until after you've told me."

She thought a moment. "Deal."