Page 76 of Longest Ride

Thursday, October 3rd.

Gold Mine Hotel and Casino. Lafayette.

When they were eating breakfast in the hotel restaurant, Virge asked, “Did Dad call you, Mom?”

“More than once. He feels he made a mistake sending y’all down here, but he couldn’t come himself with the triple murder hanging over him.”

“What are we gonna do about Tammy?” I asked. “I don’t want to say that we gave up. I can’t tell Dad that, Mom.”

“We’re not giving up,” said Annie. “I know people we can hire to go into the swamp to find her. That’s their specialty and I’m going to suggest it to Travis.”

“Okay. You said we would find her some other way, and that might work. I don’t think me and Virge could do it. We don’t know much about boats and swamps and gators.”

“And snakes,” said Virge. “Don’t forget the fuckin snakes.”

“If we hire a hunter to keep looking for her,” I said, “then Dad will still have hope.”

“Exactly,” said Annie. “I’ll find the right guy.”

Wild Stallion Ranch. Montana.

Over coffee, Billy and Travis tried to figure out how Paula Fleming’s murder fit in with the others. “Ted heard Wyatt say,‘Did you have any trouble? Did anybody see you?’What if Wyatt sent somebody to kill Paula because she figured out that he killed the first three?”

“Why would Wyatt Thompson kill the first three?” asked Billy. “He didn’t even know them.”

“That we know of,” said Travis. “What if he did know Harry or one of the others? Let’s say one of them was—for want of a better motive—blackmailing Wyatt for something they knew about him.”

“Okay,” said Billy. “I guess it’s possible—now that we know he’s a weasel—but we have no evidence of any of that.”

“Then today we’ll find a motive and once we have that, we’ll find the fucking evidence. That’s what we’re going to do today.”

“Explain to me how we’re going to do it.”

“We’ll start this way,” said Travis. “All we need is one of them to say something by accident and we’ll take it from there.”

Billy listened to Travis lay down his plan and he thought about it for a minute. “It might work. I’ll think about it some more while I feed the horses.”

“I’ll make us some eggs,” said Travis. “We’re going to have a busy day.”

Sheriff’s Office. Coyote Creek. Montana.

Molly found Paula Fleming’s next of kin and had the city cops in Helena notify her father. “Mister Palmer was devastated,” said Molly. “He can’t believe his daughter was murdered. He also had some unpleasant things to say about his son-in-law, Harry Fleming.”

“A little too late to come down hard on Harry now,” said Travis.

“Paula’s father would like to be kept abreast of the investigation,” said Molly. “I promised to let him know whatever we’re at liberty to tell him.”

“Sure. We can read him in when the investigation is over.” Travis went to the break room, poured himself a coffee and called Annie to ask if there was anything new.

“Nothing new since yesterday, but I have a suggestion for you, sugar. We hire a guy who hunts down felons in the bayou and ask him to continue the search for Tammy.”

“That would result in her going directly to jail,” said Travis, “but I guess that’s better than her being dead. Do you know someone like that?”

“Not yet, but I’ll have Chet find someone with a high retrieval percentage.”

“Okay. Let’s go that route, Annie-girl. I need the boys home. I’m coping badly with four murders now and I’m short on manpower.”

Annie had the phone on speaker and the boys could hear Travis. “Four? Who’s dead, Dad?” asked Virge. “Who’s number four?”

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