Free Death on Heels by Ellen Byerrum Page A

resisted the siren call of the BlackBerry and iPhone. Computers owned too much of her life already.
    “Word travels fast. Apparently she’s friends with Owens.”
    “How close a friend?”
The closer the better. Let her throw a lasso on anyone but Vic.
    “I’d say pretty close. He wouldn’t talk about it.”
    “Owens won’t talk about the time of day without a subpoena.”
    Vic chuckled. “You do remember him. I told him I was keeping company with you. He was a little surprised.”
    “He remembers me?”
    “Hearing your name brought it all back. He recalled that you’d been Cole Tucker’s girl.”
    “I can’t believe Owens is still there. Same job too. Yampa County deputy DA. Doesn’t he have any ambition at all?”
    “Hey, he’s a nice guy. He always helped out when I was in the PD.”
    “He didn’t help out the reporters. And Bradley always looked like his mother dressed him. Even when he wasn’t at work. Crew cut and ironed jeans. I think he’s the only guy in town with starched underwear. That’s just an educated guess, by the way, Vic.”
    “Well, darlin’, this case has taken some of the starch out.”
    Lacey remembered Brad Owens as fresh faced and eternally boyish. He tried to disappear whenever she showed up: It was her job to hunt him down. It said so on her journalism diploma. Lacey figured Owens’s antipathyto reporters most likely began with his dislike of the publisher of
The
Sagebrush Daily Press,
Lacey’s former boss, Dodd Muldoon.
What did Owens know about Muldoon? Did he suspect Muldoon too?
she wondered.
    “Brad did allow that you were an attractive nuisance,” Vic interrupted her thoughts.
    “He’s on my list.” She paused. “Think he’ll give me an interview?”
    “Doubt it.”
    “Good thing he’ll be in court. Then every word is on the record.”
    “That’s my girl.”
    They sighed into their phones and signed off. Vic loved her and she was happy.
    But as soon as she put her head on the pillow, jumbled thoughts assailed her. They veered from Montana to Tucker to the local officials—who no doubt would refuse to comment—to the few known former suspects in the killing: Dodd Muldoon, Zeke Yancey, and a mysteriously vanished miner. Worries bounced back and forth, in a game of insomniac ping-pong. She finally fell into an uneasy sleep, but her dreams were just a nightmare replay of her thoughts.

Lacey Smithsonian’s
FASHION BITES

    Be a Rhinestone Cowgirl—
Or Just Look Like One
    Did you know that high-strutting, tooled leather, stacked-heel boots are not just for cowboys anymore? Sure, the cowboy boots of yore, with their worn leather, scuffed charm, and scars from hard work are still around, but there’s a New Kid Leather in town.
    Frontier footwear has always had an air of the dandy. And dandies love variety. How else to explain the dizzying variety of Western boots? Most common is the Western riding boot, which is the midcalf version with an angled heel, the boot we see most often in the movies. The Buckaroo boot, often two-toned, is a taller boot that can reach the knees. The Roper boot has a short, rounded heel and square or rounded toes. Traditional cowhide and horsehide sometimes yield to materials as exotic as ostrich, alligator, lizard, and snakeskin.
    But the New Kid was never intended to ride the range and rope bulls. These beauties are made for strutting. Show off these boots with your favorite short jean skirt, and they can look devastatingly feminine paired with a dress. You can dance a Texas Two-Step or rock a Boot Scootin’ Boogie in them.
    Available in a rainbow of colors and styles, today’s cowboy boots have it all. Bad kitties embossed on the shaft? Screaming skulls with pink bows in tooled leather? Attitude in alligator?
    They’re yours. You can fantasize, customize, andpersonalize your boots just the way you want, by working with a boot designer.
    Be warned: Today’s Western-inspired designer boots aren’t for the fainthearted. They can