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“Better than a ditch-digger.”
“No it isn’t,” she said. “Ditch-diggers could be honorable, good, and interesting people.”
“Yes, they could.” Diana’s agreement calmed her down. “But put yourself in Keefe’s position. Unlike you, he didn’t have any family left. No connections to his father’s family we know of and his mother was gone. It would be interesting to be descended from someone who was famous, even if that was mostly infamy.”
“Besides, a lot of sources say some of those guys were considered good guys in the day,” Mike said. “Like it was said Butch Cassidy said none of his guys were to rob individuals. They robbed companies — the railroads, the banks — not the normal people.”
I told them what I’d learned from Mrs. P — the little that connected to this case — and had the distinct feeling it was all old news to them.
We moved on to discussing yesterday’s video of Brenda and Wendy. Diana had already sent them today’s footage from Elk Rock Ranch and we’d recapped the conversations with the EMT from Robin’s accident, then Randall and Robin at the B&B.
“Would you say Brenda didn’t like Wendy’s comment about her taking care of Keefe?” I asked Diana.
“I would. The interesting question was if she didn’t like it simply because it was telling a couple strangers—”
“And our viewership, whatever that might be.”
“Yeah, I thought that stung you. But the viewership sees it only if we put it out there and Brenda’s reaction was immediate. She never even looked at the camera, so I still wonder if it was having the audience of a couple strangers or if the sting came from something else.”
“You think she had other feelings about Keefe?” I asked.
“Possibly. On the other side of that, she was — overall — fairly calm about this death. A few tears, but no wailing or gnashing of teeth.”
“The response of a murderer who knows she should be upset, but doesn’t really feel any loss?” Mike asked.
“I’ll repeat what I just said — possibly. Wendy certainly didn’t seem to have anything of that in her reaction.”
“No. Wendy’s was more practical.”
Diana nodded. “And practical could be a problem for her. Keefe did an awful lot around there, knew everything about the place, and kept it ticking over. Even if she finds someone satisfied with living year-round there like he did and likely not being paid a lot, I’d think it would take a long time to train them.”
“No motive for her,” Mike said. “Either of them, maybe, if his death means a lot more work comes down on Brenda.”
I held up a wait-a-second finger. “We don’t rely on what either of them says without support. But before we get too tied into being sure this had to have something to do with his life at the dude ranch, I was trying to think of motives for his murder centered around what Keefe did.”
Jennifer looked up, frowning. “But that’s working on a dude ranch.”
“Wider than that. Something he saw or heard that he wasn’t supposed to.”
“I thought he spent most of his time outdoors,” she said.
“I like that,” Mike said. “A contract killer took a vacation at a dude ranch and Keefe heard him taking on his next assignment. No, wait, too big a time gap from when the last guests left until Keefe was killed. So, he heard the assignment to kill somebody famous, the hired killer turned it down, but then he reconsidered and he plans to do it sometime in the future now, so he had to come back and kill Keefe before the contract kill, so Keefe didn’t react when he heard about the death. Or maybe he got someone else to kill Keefe, because it’s a conspiracy that’s going to take down the country, take down the whole free world and—”
“You’ve been binging old Mission: Impossible re-runs again, haven’t you, Mike?” Diana asked.
“Maybe.”
“Don’t worry, there’ll be another conspiracy threatening the country, the free world, the planet, the universe next week.”
“Yeah, I know,” he said a bit sheepishly. “But, seriously, what could Keefe have seen or heard during the winter, living on that ranch?”
“I don’t know, but we don’t rule out the possibility.” I argued.
“You said Ivy said he spent a lot of time at the library,” Diana said.
“Yeah, that hotbed of crime,” Mike muttered before another bite of pizza.
“Something to keep in mind.” I recounted my conversation with Serena McCracken.
