Killing Custer by Margaret Coel Read Free Book Online Page B

dinner, fancy restaurant in a hotel. They would be seated on the patio, waiters hurrying about, wine stewards bowing to Skip Burrows, bringing the best wine. He was important. She felt important when she was with him. They had driven back to Lander in silence, music playing softly on the radio. Then the interruption, the news. A murder on Main Street.
    Now the radio voice droned on with more details as she backed down the graveled driveway that led from the rental house—a one-room shack, really—past the old two-story where busybody Betty Black lived. Probably a hundred years old, with nothing to do but watch Angela’s coming and going and who she came and went with. Skip always parked a block away and walked down the back alley. She let him in the side door. It wasn’t good business for the town to know he was having an affair with his secretary. Half his age, Arapaho. People would talk, and one thing about Skip she had learned over the last months was that he liked to control the gossip about himself. Last night he had walked her down the alley. Stayed for an hour before he had swung out of bed, saying he had to get to the office early this morning.
    It bothered her, a prick of discomfort in the happiness. He had broken off with his old girlfriend. Why did they have to sneak around, walk down alleys, spend weekends in Jackson where Skip said no one cared if they were having an affair? Why couldn’t they live like a normal couple, love each other in the open? Friday afternoon, she had left the office before he did—they never left at the same time. She had waited at her apartment. At every muffled sound from outside—the squeal of a tire, the sound of an engine cutting off or a dog barking—she had thought, He’s here. Except she knew he would walk to her place. Finally he was there, filling up the living room, taking up all the space, breathing all the air. And something different about him, she had thought. Something on his mind as they had driven to Jackson making small talk.
    She had dreamed about the house he was building on the beach in Cabo. They could live like other people there. Morning swims, afternoon siestas, cozy dinners with the last of the sunlight splayed on the water, and the nights alone, just the two of them. She wondered when they would move to Mexico.
Trust me
, he always said. He had made some big investments that would pay off soon. Money never seemed a problem for Skip. Big house in Lander, the silver BMW. She had seen the stacks of cash in the briefcase he had brought to Jackson this weekend.
    Angela turned into the street, shifted into drive and took a side street to Main. The radio voice was like background noise. “It is believed the murder occurred when about thirty Arapahos broke ranks and started galloping around the cavalry. Hundreds of onlookers were on the curbs, and police have asked anyone who may have seen the shooting or noticed anything unusual to contact them.”
    She hit the off button, dragged her bag onto her lap, and burrowed inside, steering with her knees to avoid the cars parked at the curb. She pulled out the cell and punched in Skip’s number. Everybody would be stopping by today. Edward Garrett—
Call me General—
murdered in the street! She could picture the man striding into the office in his fringed buckskins, like those worn by the Rendezvous guys who dressed up like traders and camped on the Wind River outside Riverton like it was the 1800s and the Indians were about to show up and trade buffalo hides for sugar and coffee. Living in the past, like the general. She wished she could do that, turn back the clock.
    The familiar voice, low in her ear. “This is Skip Burrows. Sorry you’ve missed me. Leave your number.
Chou!”
She hit the end key, realizing she should have called the office. Skip always came in early. Brewed coffee. Answered e-mails, dictated letters, and read documents, the mundane work of a