The man in the white hat? Meaning the good guy? The guy who always charged to the rescue? Jason wasn’t so sure about that. He thought Sam had enough pressure already without the added weight of having to rescue people perfectly able of rescuing themselves.
“Plus, if he can buy me things he thinks I need, he doesn’t have to feel so guilty about not spending time with me.”
Now Jason really didn’t know what to say. Ruby gave another of those chortles and patted his knee. “You’re a nice boy. Don’t you worry. Sam and I understand each other.”
Probably not. Almost certainly not. But if it made her happy to think so, he wasn’t about to argue.
* * * * *
It was kind of flattering—also kind of alarming—how very relieved to see him Agent Dreyfus was.
The Cheyenne Resident Agency looked like every other satellite office Jason had been in. Beige walls, blue carpet, cubicles and cubicle-sized offices, plenty of official seals and ceremonious photographs. Or rather, it looked like every other satellite office after-hours, because the building felt like a ghost town. Empty, abandoned. With the exception of Abigail Dreyfus and some support staff, nobody was home.
“I didn’t think I’d hear from you so soon,” Dreyfus said, showing him into her closet-sized office. A small, homesick cactus drooped atop her bookshelf. There were three framed photos on her desk: a beaming, bespectacled middle-aged couple, a handsome, eager-beaver young guy who looked like every aspiring US Attorney Jason had ever met—he had not noticed until then that Dreyfus wore an engagement ring—and an admittedly cute Pomeranian puppy in a pink party hat. “Agent Kennedy sounded like, well…”
Jason took the chair in front of Dreyfus’ spic-and-span desk. “You spoke to Kennedy this morning?”
“I phoned him right after my conference call. He was at the airport. His flight was boarding, so we didn’t talk long.”
That was clearly a relief. Jason suppressed a smile. “You’ve had the coroner’s report?”
“Yes.” She swallowed at some unhappy memory. “Michael Khan died from asphyxiation due to ligature strangulation. The same wire used to tie him to the tree was used to garrote him. Death was approximately at six o’clock on Sunday evening. He did not appear to have had an evening meal.”
Unless you were a trained assassin, killing someone using a garrote was a moderately challenging enterprise. Once the blood supply to the brain was cut off, unconsciousness could take anywhere from ten to thirty seconds—worst-case scenario, a full minute—and the victim would presumably be struggling for his life all that time. Even thirty seconds was a long time in a fight. A strong and knowledgeable woman could successfully garrote a man, but it would not be a speedy process and she would probably sustain a few bruises.
“Was there anything unique about the wire used to garrote Khan?”
“No. Just ordinary heavy-duty wire for hanging pictures. They found similar wire at Khan’s house.”
“And four-to-six weeks before you get the toxicology report?” Jason asked.
“At the soonest.”
By which time Jason would be long gone, back to real life and his own job.
“Have the crime-scene technicians come up with anything relating to the tire tracks down below or the footprints at the site where the body was found?”
“They were unable to separate the perp’s tire tracks from the tire tracks of the hikers who discovered the body—and the tire tracks of park rangers and law-enforcement vehicles.”
Jason muttered. “Great.”
“I know. As for the boot prints, they think they were able to isolate one pair, size nine at the very base of the tree. Nothing unique about the gait or tread. It could be an athletic woman with large feet or a small but very strong man.”
“Just one set of footprints?”
Dreyfus shook her head. “Impossible to know for sure because once again, the hikers and then the forest rangers trampled the surrounding scene before CRT arrived.”
Into his silence, Dreyfus said, “Anyway, Routt SO is taking over the homicide investigation. Cheyenne PD is going to continue handling the theft of Khan’s art collection.”
Jason glanced up. “There’s sufficient reason to believe the two crimes are separate?”
“I wouldn’t bet money on it. But that’s the way Routt wants to handle it.”
“It’s probably just as well. You’ve got a shortage of manpower at the moment.”
“I’ll say,” she said bitterly. “There’s a reason Wyoming has the lowest rate of bank robberies in the West. They take bank robbery personally here. Every SO in the state is out looking for these yahoos.”
“Where are you from originally?” Jason asked.