Page 67 of Rough Stock
“Yes.”
“And is it possible that Mr.Strader went up to confront the officials and he and Mr.Gresham got into a fight?” the officer said.
“No! That’s not possible. You don’t know Jensen. He got mad because of what Max did to me, but he wouldn’t hurt Dale.” Shyanna was growing more confused. “Look, I don’t know what you’ve got here against Jensen, but his truck and trailer are gone and his horse is still here. He loves that horse. He would neverleave Snowman behind?never. Wouldn’t matter how much trouble he thought he was in.”
“Miss, when a murder suspect’s running, he doesn’t always make good choices,” the officer said, scribbling on his pad. “Did Mr.Strader have a gun?”
“Yes, sir,” she said, not knowing if she should answer that question.
“What kind of gun was it?”
“A Smith & Wesson 1911.”
“And do you know where it is?”
Finally! Something she could answer! “Yes. It’s in my trailer. He put it in my safe. Come on. I’ll show you.” Standing, she waited until the officer stood and followed her out the door of the tiny supply room and down the stairs, then out through the alley at the back of the arena and into the parking lot.
But when she stepped up to her trailer and reached for the door handle, it swung open. “Oh, shit. I locked that before I left.”
The officer looked at it closely. “It’s been tampered with. Don’t touch it. Stay here.” He disappeared into the trailer and came back to the door. “No one’s here now. Can you show me where the gun is?”
“Sure.” Shyanna climbed into the trailer and went straight to the bedroom. Lifting the platform the mattress rested on, she opened the storage space. In the middle of it was a small safe, bolted to the floor.
To her horror, the door was warped and wide open, the front edges of the safe’s body were scraped and scratched, and the contents of the safe gone. “Oh my god,” Shyanna said, feeling the blood drain from her face. “Oh my god.”
“So Mr.Strader broke into your trailer, pried open the safe, and took his gun.”
Something in Shyanna’s chest boiled over. “Jensen wouldn’t bust open the door. He had keys! And he had a key to the safe too.”
“But what if he wanted it to look like a theft to cover for?”
“You said yourself, suspects in a murder just get going. They don’t always think clearly. It took a lot longer to open the door and the safe with a crowbar or something like it than to just use his key, don’t you think?” she asked, staring at him. Could no one hear what she was saying? “Would he really take that extra time?”
“If he wasn’t thinking?” The sound of his phone ringing cut through their conversation and while he answered it, Shyanna stared at the safe. Her money and her good watch were gone. Jensen wouldn’t have taken that, even if he needed money. Or would he? Checking under the dinette seat, she saw that her shotgun was still there, and she could see the edge of the holster for her Ruger .380 as well. Jensen knew where she kept them. If he’d been out to get things of value to sell, he would’ve taken those too.
What if he’d cut and run just like all the rest? The idea made Shyanna’s head swim. She’d believed everything he said, and he’d sounded sincere. A voice cut through her reverie. “MissOwens?”
She spun to look at the officer. “Yeah?”
“Can you describe Mr.Strader’s rig?”
“Yeah. The truck’s bright blue, and the trailer is white with a big blue stripe down the side. And it has bright green lettering that saysStrader Rodeo Company. Why?”
“They just found the trailer a few miles down the road, and they found the truck a few more miles away.”
“Which way?” she asked.
“West.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” Shyanna said, thinking out loud. “He doesn’t know anyone who lives that direction.”
“Maybe that’s the whole point. Don’t leave town, MissOwens. We’re probably going to need to talk to you again.” With that, the police officer stepped out and started away. “Oh,” he said, turning and walking backwards as he talked, “don’t touch anything. We’re going to need to dust everything for fingerprints and have forensics go through it.”
“But everything I own is in this trailer!” she yelled.
“Sorry.” With that, he hotfooted it back to the arena and left her standing there.
Shyanna was confused. What the hell was going on? Looking at her phone, she realized two hours had gone by since she’d seen the commotion in the upstairs concourse. It was late in SouthCarolina, but she had to do it. She searched through her phone for the contact and hit it, tapping her toe impatiently as she waited for it to be answered. “Hello?”
