Kansas Troubles Read Free Page B

straight,” I said.
    He pointed to a skinny, bearded man with a protruding Adam’s apple and large plastic eyeglasses. “Lawrence Markley. He’s part owner of a country-western nightclub called Prairie City Nights in Wichita. Does pretty well from what I hear. His wife’s name is Janet. I think she works in some kind of craft store in Derby.”
    “Any kids?”
    “A daughter. Grown up by now. Hard to believe.”
    I pointed to the extraordinarily handsome man with dark blond hair punching Lawrence’s shoulder.
    “Rob Harlow. He works in Derby at one of his dad’s feed stores. Jake Harlow owns a chain of them all over Kansas. Harlow’s Feed and Grain. When we were in high school, his dad would leave Rob in charge of the store while he went down the street to the cafe, and Rob would talk one of us into taking care of the customers while he made out with girls behind the hay bales. They just couldn’t leave him alone.”
    “I can see why.” Rob’s grin was polished, his wavy hair stylishly cut—clipped short on the sides, longer in front. His face had lean, clean-cut features, a perfect cleft chin, eyes the unbelievable green of a 7-Up bottle. He was tanned a flawless Marlboro cowboy shade of brown.
    “Remind me not to leave you alone with him around any hay bales.”
    The flight attendant stopped next to my seat and picked up the remains of our meals. I clicked the tray back in place, leaned over, and kissed Gabe, nipping his bottom lip gently. “You don’t have to worry about me, Friday. I tend to go more for the dark and brooding, pistol-packing ethnic types. So, I forgot—does gorgeous Rob have a wife and kids?”
    “No kids. No wife either. At least, not anymore. He just divorced his third one. According to Becky, his latest love is a country-western singer. Or an aspiring one anyway. Sounds pretty odd. Grew up Amish.”
    “You mean she left the Amish to become a singer? That is odd. I wonder if he seduced her from the fold.”
    “If anyone could do it, Rob could.”
    I looked back down at the picture. “And last but not least, Dewey Champagne.” He wore a white straw cowboy hat pulled low over his oval face, obscuring his eyes. Unsmiling, he leaned back against the gnarled barn wall. He was a good six inches shorter than Gabe’s six feet. “You were in Vietnam together, right? And he’s a cop, too.”
    “Right. He worked for the Wichita Police Department for eight years, then came back home to become, as he likes to say, Derby’s chief of detectives. Actually he’s Derby’s only detective. He says the hardest part of his job is supervising himself.”
    “Married?”
    “Got divorced last year. And apparently he has a thing for singers, too. His latest love is named Cordie June Rodell, and she sings with Rob’s girlfriend. She’s also a good twenty years his junior.”
    “Kids?”
    “Had two. A boy and a girl. The boy should be about twenty-one now. He’s a bull rider.”
    “What’s his name?”
    “Chet Champagne.”
    I shrugged. “Doesn’t sound familiar, but I haven’t really been keeping up lately. What about Dewey’s daughter?”
    “There’s a real tragedy. Her name was DeeDee. She was only sixteen when she was thrown off a horse and killed, about a year and a half ago. Dewey and Belinda broke up shortly after that.”
    “How awful for them.”
    “Dewey hasn’t had it easy this last year or so. I hope this new lady friend of his doesn’t take him for a ride.” Gabe opened the book in his lap and frowned at the highlighted pages.
    “Such relaxing summer reading,” I teased.
    “I’m never going to get this done.” He was reading the diary of Søren Kierkegaard, determined to finish the masters thesis in philosophy he’d originally come to quiet, uneventful San Celina to complete. I, and an unexpected rash of murders in San Celina, had kept him from it.
    “I’ll leave you alone, then,” I said and looked out the window. The air was clear for what seemed a hundred