Chapter Thirty-One

"Now what areyou looking at? You've practically got your nose pressed to the screen."

Diana's voice came from over my shoulder, so she could see what I was looking at.

I backed up, but only because I'd completed my closeup inspection and now wanted an overall perspective.

"Diana, do you think these two photographs are of the same man?"

She looked at me before looking closely at the screen. "Why?"

"Some people claim this was Sundance in his later life. The nose is different—"

"It is, though the photo quality is so bad... No. Not the same man. Look at the ears. Ears can get bigger as someone ages, but the shape of the earlobe and the way it's connected to the head — No. Not the same."

"Good eye, Diana." I flicked to another pairing. "What about these two? I say the older man's eyes weren't as deep-set as the younger man's and—"

"Aka Butch as the younger man," she murmured, leaning in to look at the photos. "You're right about that and it generally goes the other direction — eyes getting more deep-set, not less. Plus, the ears again. No. Why are you studying these? Do they have something to do with Keefe's death?"

She would have to ask that.

"I could say yes, because theories about men who lived into the 1930s being Butch and Sundance could tangentially add credibility to the possibility of Pearl Virtanen having a baby who turned out to be Keefe's ancestor."

"Tangentially," she repeated.

"Yeah, that's a weak spot."

"And wouldn't those theories about these men being Butch and Sundance have to be credible to add credibility to anything else?"

"And that's an even weaker spot."

"You know, when you used to play Freecell it was easier to see when your brain downshifted. Sorry to have interrupted your meditation."

I grimaced, not expressing my fear that meditation was all we could do until the DNA results came in.

And that was assuming we got to see the results.

Even if we did, where would that get us?

If Keefe was descended from Oscar and Pearl and there was another descendent who was rival for a possibly mythical treasure who learned about Keefe's quest and decided to stop him...

It was straw-grasping time.

Silently, I waved good-bye as Diana left the newsroom on assignment.

I turned back to the screen.

My noodling around led me to looking up a world's fair in San Francisco — not that I doubted Leona, but going for a second source is engrained too deeply to ignore. It celebrated the completions of the Golden Gate and Bay bridges earlier in the 1930s. And, sure enough, Sally Rand's Nude Ranch was a popular feature on the midway.

Why did I not see that happening in Sherman?

An image of a promotional postcard showed a lineup of women in cowboy boots, decorative belts, kerchiefs, and cowboy hats, with the suggestion that they wore nothing else. Suggestion because they were lined up behind a fence, with the horizontal boards covering strategic elements of their anatomy.

Boy, the idea of a splinter from that board...

But the more interesting question was how and why Leona knew so much about Sally Rand.

I asked her that as she came in just before lunch to start another double dose of anchor tours.

She didn't blink or hesitate. "My grandmother was one of the girls in Sally Rand's Nude Ranch. Look hard enough and you can find postcards of her bare behind. She always pointed out that she was not one of those whose breasts showed.

"Suppose that's where some of my rebelliousness came from. Hippie types and free love didn't seem all that different with Sally Rand's Nude Ranch in the family genes."

"You were a free love hippie? I didn't know that."

A look of more than her usual cunning came into her face. "And you won't know more as long as I have to work as anchor. Get me out of this job for good and I'll tell all."

****

I had lunchwith Connie Walterston at the Huber House Hotel dining room, probably the best food in town. Although I heard from good sources that the Wild Horses BB had great breakfasts. Not a competition I'd ever judge, what with it happening in the morning.

Some people call skipping breakfast intermittent fasting. Some call it sleeping as late as possible.

I'd set up this lunch after the video call with Tom's parents.

Connie works for Tom. She now essentially runs Burrell Roads, the highway construction business his father started. Pieces I'd picked up indicated Tom's father devoted more of his time and attention to that business than ranching. Tom flipped the priorities when his parents retired and left the state.

But no one — related or otherwise — could say he'd abandoned Burrell Roads, by putting it in Connie's capable hands.

Lunch was mostly to catch up about her three sons, and how they were successfully rotating schooling and running their family ranch, along with her questions about wedding plans.

All to set the groundwork.

Because this was not the place to ask my other questions. Far too easy to be overheard. But it provided a nice background for what I planned next with Connie.

The text I received brought our pleasant lunch to a close.

Dale, the news aide, reported that the Cottonwood County Sheriff's Department had removed the crime scene tape from Keefer Dobey's cabin and Diana was waiting for me at the station to go to Elk Rock Ranch.