A hopeless rodeo, p.7
A Hopeless Rodeo, page 7
I came up alongside Katie, and we both watched to see if he could land the full pitcher without spilling it. “Impressive,” I said. “Although, and I can’t remember for sure, is Dominic old enough to serve alcohol yet?”
“Technically, he’s not serving the alcohol. He’s just carrying it. There’s a big difference between the two.”
“You think law enforcement will see it that way?”
“Considering most of the law enforcement is in the hospital right now, I’m not sure it matters. By the way, how’re you holding up?”
I shrugged. “Okay, considering. And better now that we figured out Alex wasn’t the target.” I explained that since Alex was a last-minute replacement, Trevor Dawes was the real target.
“So, all in all, I’m pretty good. The bigger question is, how are you doing?” I asked.
“Remember that movie Armageddon, where Bruce Willis has to land on an asteroid screaming toward earth, then somehow drill into the middle of the asteroid, and then destroy it with a nuclear weapon? Well, raising three kids while running a bar is kind of like that except harder.”
We watched as Dominic went around the table of cowgirls and collected his tips. Then he came our way with a big wad of cash and his eyes as big as dinner plates.
“You want me to hold that for you, sweetie?” Katie asked her seven-year-old son as she reached out for the cash.
“Sorry, Mama,” Dominic said as he pulled the money away from Katie’s grabby hand. “I need this to pay back Sledge.”
“Who’s Sledge?” Katie asked.
“He’s the guy in the corner who beat me in Texas hold ’em.”
“You were playing Texas hold ’em?’” Katie asked.
“Yes, Mama, but only because Sledge wanted to be the dealer for blackjack and Granny told me never to trust someone dealing blackjack.”
Katie shook her head in exasperation. “Granny taught you how to play poker?”
“Yep, but only with suckers.”
We both looked over to where Sledge was sitting alone at a corner pub table.
“But you just lost to that guy. Doesn’t that make you the sucker?”
He smiled. “All part of Lucy’s plan. She said we were making him overconfident, whatever that means.”
“Lucy’s part of this?”
“Sure,” Dominic said like it was painfully obvious. He pointed to a table with his older sister and right on cue, Lucy shuffled a deck of cards like she had been doing it all her life. “Then she’ll come in and play the guy for twice what I owe. And then we’ll be rich and go to Disney World!”
Dominic walked past us as if that was all a very normal interaction for a little boy to have.
“I’m the single worst mom in the world, Hope. Like, I’m definitely going to hell, right?”
“Hogwash. Like you said, what you’re attempting here is darn near impossible. You’re basically an American hero.”
“Thank you, Hope. I appreciate that. I really do because all of this is exhausting on a whole other level. And can I tell you the worst part of all? Chris has been getting on me about my language around the kids, which he’s pointed out several times today, as if he’s the bad word police all of a sudden. Did you know he’s forbidden me from saying ‘douche bag’ anymore?”
“Um, no, I didn’t know that,” I said.
“Well, as you probably know, there are a lot of douche bags who come through a bar in the course of a day. And when one of them was particularly rude, I said something like, ‘Holy cow. What a douche bag.’ You should have seen Chris public shame me over that one. So, I adjusted and started calling people jackwagons, but he still voted that one off the island.”
“But a jackwagon’s just the last wagon in a wagon train. There’s nothing bad about it at all, which is why we used it back in high school.”
“That’s what I tried to tell Chris, but he said it didn’t matter what it meant. It just sounded really bad. To which I yelled, ‘Well, that’s the flipping point, Chris.’ So, I’ve been forced into a corner to test my creativity. Thankfully, the great ones always come through. About an hour ago, I started calling people McGooshbags.”
“McGooshbags?” I tried it on for size. “I love it. Sounds bad, but not that bad.”
“Exactly,” Katie said. “Which reminds me. Earlier, Chris was being a total and complete McGooshbag.”
CHAPTER 13
Celia came stumbling toward us, this little girl who had over the previous months transitioned from baby to toddler right before my very eyes. Katie reached down, grabbed her, and tossed the little girl up in the air. Then she caught her, nuzzled her face into Celia’s neck, and gave her a big zerbert, which caused Celia to squeal with outrageous laughter. Then I noticed Chris for the first time as he came in from the kitchen holding three plates with cheeseburgers and fries, a big smile on his face.
“Hey, Hope,” he said.
“How’s it going, Chris?” I asked.
“Living the dream. How about you? I mean, other than the whole . . .”
“Watching-my-boyfriend-get-shot thing?”
He nodded.
“Other than that? Pretty good.”
Chris whirled past us, gave Katie a little wink, and then whistled as he took the bar food to a nearby table.
“Holy crap, Katie. That’s the happiest I’ve seen Chris in my entire life.”
“I know,” she said. “Even happier than when he finally figured out how to undo the hooks on my bra, and that was seven years into our marriage. It’s a little kooky how happy he is about all of this.”
“And how does that make you feel?” I asked.
“A little terrified because I really want him to be this happy selling irrigation equipment. And do you know why?”
“Because selling irrigation equipment is more stable work than the craft beer brewing business?”
“Exactly. Plants will always need water, but I don’t know how long men will need weird beer. Listen, I know that Chris is miserable at work, and he’s so clearly happy in this world . . . argh. I just don’t know what to do.”
“You could let him pursue his dream. Like, for real.”
She sighed. “I know I could, but all I can think about are the one hundred and one ways that it could go terribly and spectacularly wrong. And that makes me feel like a total and complete McGooshbag.”
“Look on the bright side,” I said. “If you let Chris pursue his dream and he does fail in a spectacular way, you can always rely on Dominic and Lucy to bail you guys out.”
“What are you talking about?” Katie asked.
I pointed in the direction of Sledge’s pub table and the two small children walking away from it, smiles on their faces and money in their hands.
“I’m pretty sure they just hustled that man for a big wad of cash.”
Katie laughed and then sighed. “I assume you’re going to use some lame excuse for why you can’t help me here at the bar, right?”
“Something like, I have to go solve an attempted murder because my boyfriend’s in the hospital with a big hole in his chest?”
“Like I said, lame.”
“You’re a butthead,” I said while I gave her a big hug.
“But I’m your butthead,” she said as she squeezed me back.
“And I love you very, very much. Especially for cleaning all the blood off me last night.”
“Pishposh. Cleaning blood is easy. Vomit? That’s a whole other story. If you’d had vomit all over you, I wouldn’t have been within a county mile of that hospital last night.”
I squeezed her even harder this time. “Like I said, Katie. Very, very much.”
I had an important piece of business to attend to once I arrived at the rodeo, and it rhymed with Billy Frog. I figured after everything I’d been through, I deserved a Chicago-style chili dog with every last one of the fixings. And while I devoured said dog in a most unladylike manner, I wondered if Billy Frog might just be a completely genius name for a chili dog food truck, then decided I probably should leave entrepreneurship to people made for that sort of thing. I had my own particular set of skills. The kind that made me uniquely suited to, for instance, figuring out who tried to kill a star bulldogger in front of a couple thousand witnesses. After I popped the last delicious bite in my mouth and washed it down with a cold beer, I wiped off my face and got to my feet.
I started by meeting up with Alex’s young and inexperienced deputy, who’d been on the job now for only a few months. This was his first job in law enforcement, and it showed. Alex had told me privately several times that Jonathan wasn’t the best deputy around, but he was definitely the cheapest, and with the budget the city had given him, it was all Alex could afford.
“How’s the sheriff doing?” Deputy Kraft asked as he pulled out a small black notebook.
“You know Sheriff Kramer,” I said. “Tough and stubborn, but the docs think he’s going to be okay.”
“Thank the Lord,” Deputy Kraft said. “Thank the Lord.”
“Did Alex fill you in on the Trevor Dawes angle?” I asked.
“Yes, ma’am, he did. I had come to the same conclusion after talking with the folks from the rodeo committee. They made it clear that the sheriff was as last minute of a replacement as you could find, and nobody outside of the rodeo committee even knew about the switch until, well, it all went down. And if that’s the case . . .”
“Then Alex couldn’t have been the target,” I said.
He nodded. “The real target was this Trevor Dawes fella. You got any hunches on who it might have done it?”
“We’ll get to that, but first, tell me about what you know about the shooting itself.”
The rodeo was about an hour away from starting, and there was a young cowgirl running through the barrel racing course in the arena. As soon as she finished, Jonathan opened up a gate and led me to the spot where it all happened. He stopped and faced me.
“From looking at the tapes and talking to witnesses, Alex was right about here when he got shot. Based on the angle of entry in his upper back, I’m guessing the shooter was somewhere in that direction.” Jonathan motioned past the arena and back toward town.
“Can you be any more specific?” I asked as I looked that same way and shielded my eyes from the southwestern sun.
“Maybe a little,” he said. He pulled out a small military-style flashlight and hit a button, and a small red laser beam shot out and onto my black tank top. Then he pointed the laser in the direction he’d been gesturing and handed me a small pair of binoculars that he’d grabbed from his coat pocket.
I focused the binoculars as I listened to Jonathan. “Look toward the highway about one block south of the edge of town. See that old junked-out Ford pickup? Near as I can tell, the shooter was probably right around there.”
I looked carefully until I finally found the red laser dot bouncing up and down on the front hood of the old truck about two hundred and fifty yards away.
“You’ll notice that the front windshield is broken out,” he continued. “Our shooter could have sat in the front seat and easily concealed themselves from view. And the line of sight is just right. There’s no part of the grandstands, no trees, nothing that could obstruct the shooter’s view. It’s kind of a perfect spot for an ambush, but you’d have to be a good shot to pull it off.”
I handed the binoculars back to Jonathan. “Any chance you checked the truck for evidence?”
He smiled. “As a matter of fact, I did. Looked for shell casings, dusted for prints, looked around for fibers.”
“And?” I asked.
“I found a lot of dirt and dust, but no, nothing that looked very interesting.”
“Anybody see anything suspicious?”
He held up his small notepad and started flipping through the pages. “I’ve been talking with all sorts of folks who were either at the rodeo last night or competing. And no, I haven’t heard anything particularly enlightening.”
“So, other than the old beat-up pickup truck in the field, you’ve got a whole lot of nothing?”
“Afraid so.”
“Shoot. Okay, then. I’ll just have to do this like I usually do—work it from the ground up.”
“Where do we start?” he asked.
“With that list of suspects you asked me about. Trevor Dawes came by the hospital this morning to visit Alex, and he told us about four people who might have wanted him dead.”
Deputy Kraft flipped to a new page in his notebook.
“Lizzy Tepka, a barrel racer. Austin Dix, a rival bulldogger. Pierce Stevens, the head of Stevens Rodeo Company. And last but not least, JB Trautman.”
“The rodeo announcer?” Jonathan said with a bit of surprise as he looked up from his notebook.
“The one and the same.”
“And did Trevor mention why these folks might want to kill him?”
“As a matter of fact, he did. I went over the possible motives of each of the suspects. Unrequited love for Lizzy. Heated rivalry for Austin. Business and money for Pierce Stevens.”
“And JB? Why does he hate Trevor?”
“Trevor said he didn’t know.”
“You believe that?” Jonathan asked.
“I’m not sure.”
“So, where do we go from here? And for the record, Sheriff Kramer made it extremely clear that I’m to follow your lead on this.”
“He did?”
Jonathan nodded. “Extremely clear.” He smiled. “Does that make you the new sheriff?”
“No, nope, and no way, Jose. I don’t ever want that kind of stress. I’m just someone good at finding the truth about things. I’m going to start with our four main suspects. Here’s what I want you to do. Talk with as many of the competing cowboys and cowgirls as you possibly can and find out who else hated Trevor enough to want him dead.”
CHAPTER 14
Ifound Austin Dix’s trailer smack-dab in the middle of the dozens of trailers that had formed a makeshift campground for this multi-day tournament-style rodeo. It was, as the cowboy who directed me promised, impossible to miss. The trailer was ink black, which itself was unusual. But it was the writing on the side of the trailer that really set it apart—bold white lettering that spelled out the word B-A-D-A-S-S. Below it was, apparently, the badass himself. Austin Dix was relaxing in a lawn chair wearing a Stetson hat pulled over his eyes, blue Wranglers, cowboy boots, and no shirt.
“So . . .” I said loudly enough to get his attention. “I guess the real question is, are you?”
“Am I what?” he said without any attempt to move.
“Are you really a badass? The way I hear it, Trevor Dawes kicked your sorry can last week, and I hear you’ve got a shiner to prove it.”
Austin shot out of his chair and toward me like I was some runaway steer, but when he actually saw me, he stopped dead in his tracks, took a good long look, and whistled.
“Excuse me?”
“Oh,” Austin Dix said, “I think you heard me.” And then, in case I hadn’t, he whistled again. Much louder this time, like I had walked past a construction site in the middle of Manhattan and he just had to get my attention.
“Settle down there, cowboy. I have T-shirts older than you.” I pointed past him toward the trailer. “Speaking of age, are you old enough to drive that thing, or does your mom have to take you around to all the rodeos?”
Austin Dix looked at me like he wasn’t quite sure what to say, like his ego was colliding with his hormones. Unfortunately for me, his hormones won.
“My daddy warned me about girls like you,” he said.
I arched an eyebrow. “Girls like me?”
“Tomcats. That’s the word he used. He says, ‘Austin, you watch out for them tomcats. They’re nothing but trouble.’ But the thing is, I don’t listen to my daddy so much, and as you can see from my trailer, I don’t mind myself a little trouble. So, here’s what I’m thinking. How about you join me for a quick tour?”
“Oh, dear God, no.”
“Don’t worry. It won’t take long. I’ll even give you a money-back guarantee. Twice as fine in half the time. What do you say?”
“Other than I’m going to be sick?”
He nodded.
“That if you insist on harassing me, I’m going to make you look very foolish in front of all your cowboy friends.”
“Don’t be like that, darling,” he said as he reached for my shoulder, which was a colossal mistake. Granny had taught me to act quickly and decisively. Strike first and control the situation. If necessary, apologize later. So, that’s what I did. Before he knew what was happening, I grabbed his wrist with both hands, spun under his arm, and yanked hard. I drove him into the dirt and pressed my cowboy boot in the middle of his back. He groaned in obvious pain.
“When I was little, there was this bully who would do this to kids in the schoolyard. And he would make them call uncle before he let them up.”
“Get off me, you . . .” Unfortunately for Austin, the words that came out of his mouth next weren’t the way a gentleman should talk to a lady, if you get my drift. So, I drove my boot deeper into his back while I twisted his arm even more. He shrieked, and then the panic set in. “Okay, fine. Uncle! Uncle! Uncle!”
But I wasn’t done with this hormone-raging pig.
“I didn’t say I wanted you to say uncle. Nope, what I want is an apology. A sincere apology for how you just treated me. Because, and I’m sure this is news to you, Austin, but women do not and never will like to be whistled at. Call us pretty? Fine. Ask us out for a real date? Great. But whistle at us and then invite us into your trailer? Sorry, pal. That’s grade-A sleazebag activity. But if you apologize, all this will be over.”
Much to my chagrin, the apology was not forthcoming, so it was time to apply a little more medicine. When my boot dug in deeper and his arm twisted even more, Austin Dix gave up. “Okay. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry!”
