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I wondered — worried — if he was pouring more of his money into running KWMT. I hoped not. He needed to take care of his own future. But if he was, he really needed that job in Chicago.
“I don’t want to be shut out of the investigations.” He made it both plaintive and stubborn.
“You won’t be. Diana and I called you yesterday right away, remember. When — if — there’s really something we’ll update you.”
“Not shutting out Jennifer, either. Because if I didn’t make sure of that, she’d have my hide.”
“Jennifer, either,” I promised.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
With Mike’s endorsement, not to mention I needed something to share soon to stem his and Jennifer’s paranoia, and on top of my lack of success with securing Keefer Dobey’s DNA test results, I decided it was time to get out of the office.
I hadn’t fibbed to Ivy Short yesterday. To run a story stating Sam McCracken was a treasure hunter, I’d need two independent sources for that information.
Some might debate if Clara was first or second source, since Ivy gave me only a first name.
But I did not need a first or a second source to go ask the man some questions.
****
I recognized the white truck parked in front of the impressive timber house with the even more impressive view of buttes and mountains behind it as belonging to Serena McCracken, Sam’s wife.
I’d been here before, when Diana, Mike, Jennifer, and I considered Sam McCracken a suspect in an earlier murder. Property belonging to the McCrackens and the murder victim belonged to the same ditch association. As the source of irrigation water, ditches are the lifeblood of Low Side ranches.
Not so much for the McCrackens, who rented out most of their land, as the others.
They were from Colorado, moving up here with their two kids after Sam McCracken reached that level of wealth that no longer required working.
In response to my knock, a woman about my age opened the large front door as a medium-sized white fluff of a dog came skidding to a stop at her side.
“Snowball,” I said.
My knowing his name caught the dog in the instant of sucking in air to bark at me. He gave a half-hearted yap — had to use that air and adrenaline somehow — and started waving his tail.
I put down my hand, with the back facing him. He sniffed, then licked.
We were buds.
I scratched behind his left ear.
We were bonded.
I shifted to the woman.
Her slight smile said she’d indulge the dog, but not me.
She had dark hair pulled back in a sleek ponytail from the nape of her neck, which I knew would accommodate a cowboy hat. She wore a t-shirt, jeans, and boots. That could describe the attire of two-thirds of the population of Cottonwood County. She did not shop the same places most of them did.
I calibrated my smile to a few degrees warmer than hers, subtle encouragement to her to match me with the hope that smiling warmly would make her inclined toward me. It was a fine line, though. Too much warmer and I’d come across creepy.
“I remember the name Snowball because it suits him so well. I’m E.M. Danniher from—”
“I remember.”
She’d said it neutrally, a big step up from what I sometimes get.
I’d seen Serena McCracken around town, mostly at the supermarket. Which proved we both ate, but didn’t give us much common ground beyond that.
