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The mutual — overlapping — interest of her husband and Keefer Dobey.
“How did it start?”
“I have no idea. He started volunteering to take the kids to the library more, but I didn’t think much of it when he brought books on local history home. Not at first. Then the online orders started to arrive. From all over. Day after day. Not just books, but also metal detectors — plural — other equipment, all the while consuming books like a starving man.”
“What were the books about?” I could make a good guess on what the equipment was for.
She raised one hand in half a shrug, then dropped it so abruptly it slapped her thigh.
“Geology, metal detector operation, history, biographies—”
“Of?”
She gave me a you-already-know look, but obliged anyway. The Hole-in-the-Wall Gang, the Robbers’ Roost Gang, the — No, wait. I have that wrong. The Hole in the Wall was a hideout here in Wyoming, and Robbers’ Roost was another hideout in Utah. Then there were multiple names for the gang, which—Oh, hell, I don’t know. Sam would be correcting me all over the place. And if I said it involved Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, he’d look superior and say I only remembered those names because of Hollywood and many others among the robbers were more prolific or more dangerous.”
Sounded like we should get Sam together with Mrs. P.
“But he sure read enough books about them. All of them.”
She gestured past me. To the office beyond the wall behind me? Or farther?
“All the outlaws?”
“All of them. And the lawmen. And the chroniclers. And anything else he could get his hands on.”
“Did he find books on Oscar Virtanen?”
“I don’t know.” She sounded weary. “If they’d ever been published anywhere he probably did. He also went down to Laramie and Cheyenne quite a bit. Research, he said. I wondered...”
She lifted one shoulder.
She’d wondered if he was having an affair.
Was it better or worse that he truly had gone to those places to bury himself in... what? I could guess at letters, deeds, newspapers, and official records from the era. Was there more I wasn’t thinking of?
“As if the expensive tools and equipment, especially those damned metal detectors and calibrating them more often than he talks to his family, weren’t bad enough.” She gusted out a sigh. “I suppose it could be worse. It could be spending all his time at casinos. He’s still gambling in a way — and losing — but at least he gets outside. Most of the rest of the time, he spends in his office. Sometimes all night, as he did Monday night. He gets so engrossed he loses all track of time.”
Uh-huh. Slipping in his alibi. On the other hand, if she hadn’t stayed up all night, she couldn’t vouch for his whereabouts.
“Did he connect with Keefer Dobey?”
She looked down at the dog as she petted him. “The man from the dude ranch who died?”
“Yes.”
“As I said, they knew each other.”
“Did they share information? Cooperate on research? Go out together on searches?”
“Not that I know. He certainly never came here.”
I’d count both statements as truthful. And carefully worded.
Time to gracefully withdraw. Until I had more facts to pry harder. And deeper. And preferably with Sam McCracken on hand.
****
Catching a look at the house in the SUV’s rear-view mirror shifted the perspective enough to make me not see solely this house, but another one, too.
