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So this was Elk Rock Ranch’s owner.
Also Cottonwood County’s representative to the billionaire class.
You wouldn’t guess the latter from her appearance.
She was short. Not that billionaires have to be tall, but she was really short.
And scrawny.
Not thin, as in you can never be too rich or too thin — in that quintessential twentieth century remark attributed all over the place, including being claimed by Truman Capote. But like a chicken’s neck without flesh under its skin.
Yet her face was soft and rounded.
It was like the two women had mismatched heads. Put Wendy’s head on Brenda and you had a youthful-looking and youthful-moving senior. Put Brenda’s head on Wendy and you had a walking mummy.
Wendy wore jeans, work boots, a jacket with plenty of bulging pockets without masking that scrawniness, and a serviceable cowboy hat.
On second thought, maybe she was the perfect template for Cottonwood County’s billionaire.
“Hello. Ms. Barlow?” I stripped off a glove and held out that hand. “I’m Elizabeth Margaret Danniher and this is Diana Stendahl. We’re—”
I started to answer. Brenda talked over me.
Not the easiest thing to do to a broadcast journalist, but she accomplished it with ease.
“They’re doing a story on Keefe. A remembrance. He deserves that and more.”
“A remembrance?” Wendy Barlow scoffed without looking at us, much less meeting my offered hand. I gladly put it back in the glove. “Out-of-town vultures wanting to peck away at his death.”
“No, ma’am.”
Diana’s eyelids flickered at my pulling out the ma’am, but no one else would have noticed. The other two women reacted more to my emphaticness... emphaticism?... to my being emphatic.
“We’re from KWMT-TV from right here in Cottonwood County and we’d heard so many good things about Keefer Dobey, we came out to do the story as Brenda said. I’m E.M. Danniher and this is Diana Stendahl,” I repeated.
“Danniher. I’ve heard of you. You do those exposés about murders.”
I don’t think she meant exposés as a compliment. I twisted it to one for our benefit. “We have done coverage on how murderers have been exposed and brought to justice in our county. I also do the Helping Out! feature and—”
“Oh, yeah,” Brenda interrupted enthusiastically. “My cousin followed all your tips about holding a garage sale last summer. Because of what you said, she called the deputies about a guy skulking around and they found out he was wanted in Montana.”
“That’s great. You’ll have to give me your cousin’s name to see about a follow-up story on that.” It would have been nice to have it last summer, but we could dig up a news peg to run it now. Maybe the start of this year’s garage sale season.
“I sure will.” She scribbled with a stub of a pencil on the back of a paper she pulled from her pocket. “She’d about jump out of her skin to be on TV. Be sure to tell her I was behind this.”
“I absolutely will.” The paper was the back of a gas station receipt from two years ago, but her handwriting was surprisingly legible.
Wendy was having none of it. “You shouldn’t have come out here without calling first. Wasted a trip. We’re sure not going to be on TV dressed for work like we are. It’s bad for the ranch’s image.
“Why shouldn’t we be dressed for work,” Brenda argued. “This is our work season. No guests to impress—”
“Never will be any more guests if we gross them out—”
“—so we dress for the tasks.”
“—by letting them see us like this.”
I’d seen Tom come in from some days when gross could apply. This was not it. Granted, neither woman was going to a fashion show, but their appearance would not raise a single eyebrow among our viewers.
