Read Online Left Hanging by Patricia McLinn - Free Book Online Page B

didn’t call the coroner. Do you think there’s something weird going on?”
    “What do you mean?”
    “I’d like to know who else is out of town.”
    We looked at each other a long moment, then he pulled out his phone. He started by asking Aunt Gee about the whereabouts of Sherman’s mayor. The Cottonwood County Commission chairman. A number of names I didn’t recognize. After thanking her and hanging up, he looked at me. “They’re all out of town. That can not be a coincidence.”
    “No coincidence,” I agreed.
    “They’re all out of cell reach, too. Definitely weird. It’s like they’ve gone into a bunker or something.”
    “I suspect it’s or something . Because when it comes to weird, remember who else is out of town and not reachable.”
    “Oh, my God. Les Haeburn.”

Chapter Seven
    ON IMPULSE, I stopped at the Sherman Supermarket on the way home. It was open every other Thursday until midnight, and this was one of its late Thursdays. I’d like to say the impulse was to pursue background material on a now-suspicious death. But I didn’t think of that until after I was in the cookie aisle.
    Better late than never.
    The shopper checking out ahead of me was sent on her way with a “Bye now,” and checker Penny Czylinski started on the line of cans I’d picked up to mask two bags of cookies. “Well, hi there—”
    I said as fast as I could, “I was at the rodeo.”
    No pause, no hesitation, no delay—it was as if Penny had been waiting for me to say exactly that. “Real proud to have Grayson Zane. Used to be he’d come most years, then not, what with what happened five years back. It’s all good to be saying what a top cowboy he is and how proud we are and all—” As she just had. I did not point that out. “—But it wasn’t right what he did. You can’t give the heart orders, but you can do right. Still, that was a few years back and—”
    “Did Grayson Zane do something?”
    It was hopeless. Penny’s flow was a river at flood stage. Something might bob to the surface, you might grab for it, but if it sank, it was gone forever.
    “This year our rodeo queen is Heather Upton, like her mama was years back. Some say it helped her get the title. It’s not for me to agree or disagree, what with my cousin’s girl being a finalist, and as good a rider as you’ll find, not to mention smart and pretty and kind-natured. But fair’s fair, and I tell the ones talking against her that Heather can rope like nobody’s business. Anything she sets her rope to, she pulls in for sure.”
    “So, the rodeo—” I tried.
    “Now if you want to know about the rodeo, the one you should talk to is Linda Caswell. Knows that rodeo inside out, right back to the start. That’s a sad story. Sad, sad story.”
    “The rodeo?”
    She frowned, and I saw a flash of my bleak future if she banned me from the supermarket. Starved of food and information.
    “The Caswells. There wouldn’t a been a rodeo without them. They’ve always been important in this county, but had no luck in love. Walter, Linda’s daddy, was the worst. Girl he was crazy for ran off and married somebody else. Walter took it as hard as a man can. Was thirty years before he realized that if he didn’t do something, the Caswell name would end with him.
    “Married a young thing from next county over. Sweet, but anybody looking at her—Well, that milk’s long spilt. She had a daughter right quick, Inez, that was.” Cas’ mother if I had the genealogy straight. “Two years later, Linda. The girls must’ve been high school age when their mama was pregnant again.”
    A head shake, though it didn’t slow her hands. I’d have to donate the cans to a food pantry or build an annex on the tiny, dismal house I rented. “Worn down, she was. She had a baby boy, but he died at four days. She followed not 24 hours later.
    “When Walter got over his grieving, it was like he saw those two girls for the first time. He could have remarried, tried