Page 21 of Midnight Ride

Sitting at a table near the back of the diner, Wyatt Thompson had his head down making notes on a yellow legal pad when Travis and Virgil got to the diner.

“Sorry we’re late, Wyatt. We had another body turn up down near Lake Francis. Can’t give you more than that until Mollylocates the next of kin and has a police department in Idaho take care of the notification.”

“Another victim from Idaho? What’s going on out there in the woods?”

“Wish I knew.”

Maryanne came running over to the table to take their order. She was a little out of breath. The diner was always packed at noon, and she was the only waitress.

As soon as she walked away from the table to place the order with the kitchen, Wyatt leaned closer. “What can you tell me that I can print in this week’s edition?”

“First tell me what Mrs. Oliver wanted with you, and then we’ll go from there,” said Travis.

“Okay. She’s asking for front page space to appeal to the citizens of Harrison County. She wants to ask all the residents to call the sheriff’s office if they see or have seen her twin sons. And of course, she provided me with pictures of them to run with the story.”

“That’s not a bad idea,” said Travis. “You go ahead and do that, Wyatt, and I’ll work on what else you can print for a follow up or a sidebar. I’ll have more by tomorrow. Molly is working on the backgrounds of all members of that particular hunting party, and when the notification is done for the latest victim, you’ll be able to print his name and whatever details from Idaho belong to him. You can call the murders bizarre or whatever big words you writers use. You can also say both deaths are under investigation.”

Wyatt grinned. “This is so complicated, Travis. I can’t wait until you get to the bottom of it.”

“Yeah, me neither. Wish it would happen sooner rather than later.”

“I’m thinking in a couple of days, you might give me enough for a whole series of articles.”

“You might be right, Wyatt. There is something going on and it ain’t your regular shit. I got no marker and that’s the thing that’s slowing me down the most. I don’t know how to solveweird,and I don’t know what to do next.”

Wyatt raised an eyebrow.

“Don’t print that and make me look stupider than I fuckin feel.”

Wyatt laughed. “You’re not stupid, Travis. Not by a long shot.”

Maryanne hurried over with a tray and unloaded our lunch.

“Thought I might pass out before my fries got here,” said Virgil.

“I think you could hang on for a couple more days, son.” Travis winked at him.

Wyatt chuckled as he took a bite out of his BLT.

Dry Run Roadhouse.

At the end of the day, we were all tired and especially Tammy, so we stopped into the roadhouse for a bite of supper before going home.

We lingered after dinner and drank a pitcher and were going to leave for the ranch when the band started setting up on the stage.

“Good the band is here tonight,” said Tammy. “Maybe those Arkansas boys will come and ask me to dance.”

“We should go home,” said Travis. “The chores ain’t done and the dogs ain’t fed.”

“Virge and I will go home and do the chores and come back. Tammy wants to stay and have a couple of dances. Let her have some fun, Dad.”

“Yeah, okay,” said Travis. “One more pitcher.”

Harlan and Virge left for home, and it wasn’t long after that—maybe twenty minutes. Me, Travis, and Billy were draining ourpitcher when those four boys from Arkansas came walking in the front door of the Run.

The cute one I talked to the most—his name was one of them cute southern double names like you hear in the movies—Bobby Ray.

He put the brakes on beside our table and said, “Hey there, little Deputy girl. You dancing tonight?”

---