Free Left Hanging by Patricia McLinn Page B

forensic pathologist in Montana named Grenley?”
    Most people would have responded to that opener with the conversational equivalent of an eye-roll: either “Good morning to you, too, Danny” or “I don’t know every forensic pathologist in the country, you know.” But I know my audience.
    Dex said, “No. What agency?”
    It was only part of why I loved him like a brother—better than a brother, since none of my brothers worked in the FBI crime lab. Best of all, although Dex worked at the FBI crime lab, he hadn’t given himself over to the FBI crime lab’s culture, which is why he’d talk to me. Most FBI crime lab types would rather drink every chemical in their arsenal than talk to a member of the media.
    Dex never treated me like media. Early on, he’d called me Danny to mask my identity from his coworkers—a nickname that caught on with family and friends—but now I’m not one-hundred percent sure he remembers I’m with the media. By completely protecting him as my source, I give him no cause to remember.
    “None. He’s a civilian as far as I know. But some Wyoming counties and other places use him.”
    “Ah.”
    “Ah what?”
    He ignored that. “Where?”
    “Billings.”
    “I’ll get back to you.”
    He hung up. There must have been a particularly hungry-looking squirrel. Good morning to you, too, Dex .

Chapter Nine
    MY MORNING drive to KWMT was its usual uneventful self.
    After commuting for years in New York City, and before that in Washington, D.C., that was a fact worth noting.
    The uneventfulness allowed information about Keith Landry’s strange death to roll around in the back of my head, while the front chewed on another issue. I needed a “Helping Out” segment.
    I had a few in the can for my twice-a-week consumer affairs spot, but you never knew when you might need a few more. News Director Les Haeburn might start listening to me and add more slots each week. Or he might get the bright idea to use me for the kind of stories I’d done for nearly two decades before being exiled to KWMT after daring to a.) accumulate birthdays, b.) compound raises, and c.) call it quits with a news network-exec husband who knew the nasty pitfalls in my contract, because he’d written it and recommended I sign it.
    Okay, miracles were unlikely. I still needed a “Helping Out” segment to keep my hand in at what I liked to think remained my profession. Especially since I’d turned down the lucrative change-of-life talk show offer my lawyer/agent/relative Mel had secured.
    That reminded me of the Gift Card Burglars—don’t blame me, I didn’t name them.
    Reports came through the Better Business Bureau about thieves with a simple yet effective ploy. They called a home where someone lived alone and said the person had won a gift card at a local store. But the card had to be claimed that day at the store. When the unsuspecting resident drove off to claim the prize, the thieves drove in, assured the house was empty.
    The group had been working their way vaguely north, reaching northern Wyoming in these last days of June. This group concentrated on rural homes. The distance residents had to drive to get to town gave the thieves time to load a van with every valuable and semi-valuable item. No kitchen sinks reported stolen, but they’d taken TVs, computers, furniture, wine collections and refrigerators, complete with food.
    I had taken three steps into the KWMT-TV newsroom, when I encountered the first hint that something was going on .
    “Thurston’s here,” Audrey Adams, an assignment editor, said out of the side of her mouth as we passed in the hallway.
    It seemed an odd response to “Good morning,” but okay.
    Jenks sidled up when I was heating water for tea in the mini-break room. “A certain somebody doesn’t have an inkling of what’s happening.” He kept his side to me, to fool anyone who might suspect we were doing anything as nefarious as talking.
    Add in a meaningful nod and wink from