Smokescreen (Pros and Cons Mysteries #2)

Chapter 27

CHAPTER 27

“ I don’t know what you think you heard, but it’s not what it sounds like.” Dippy took a step back and furiously shook his head.

Olive remained cool and in control, knowing that would only spook Dippy more. “Then what did I just hear?”

He raised his hands as if to prove his innocence. “My friend was a huge fan of Reid’s reality show. He was thrilled to hear I was coming to work here. So I took some pictures for him. He was over the moon.”

“Is that right?” Olive stepped closer, not breaking eye contact. “Now tell me the rest of the story.”

“What do you mean?” More sweat spread across his brow, and his ears turned red.

“You’re not telling me everything.” She shot laser beams at him with her gaze. “Are you trying to ruin Reid?”

“Ruin him?” His voice rose, then cracked. “No! Why would I do that?”

“There are lots of reasons, really. Would you like me to go through each of them? Maybe, for example, you want to profit off his land yourself. Or you want to steal his money. Or?—”

“No! I would never do that.” He swiped a hand through his thinning hair. “Okay, look. It’s like this. My friend is actually a reporter.”

Olive tried not to show any surprise at his words. “Is he actually your friend?”

Dippy winced. “No, not really. He hired me to get a job here and find out the scoop on Reid. Mr. Harrison was a tabloid favorite for a while. With the right updates, he could be again.”

Surprise shot through her. “So you’re here as a spy?”

He winced again. “It sounds terrible when you say it that way.”

Was this guy dense? “That’s because it is terrible.”

“Justin is paying me under the table. It was the chance to earn a few extra dollars. I wasn’t doing anyone any harm, and I could use the money.”

“For what?”

“If you must know, I went to college for two years and then dropped out.” He frowned. “But I still have student loans to pay.”

Those student loans could be killers . . .

Her thoughts shifted back to this Justin guy. “How do you even know this reporter is really a reporter?”

“What? What else would he be?” The sweat on his forehead began to trickle down his cheeks.

The scenario came together in Olive’s mind. Justin pretends to be a reporter. He gets Dippy involved. But he really isn’t interested in the gossip. What he really wants is information about Thunder Ridge Ranch so he can enact his sabotage. And since the man is faceless . . . he has nothing to lose.

Olive stepped closer. “Dippy, someone is trying to destroy this ranch. This person has been using you to help them do it.”

He squinted. “Are you being serious?”

“Dead serious. You’re this person’s inside man. When everything goes down, and Reid takes the person sabotaging his ranch to court . . . you’re going to be named as an accomplice.”

“I didn’t know any of that!” His voice cracked. “I didn’t mean any harm.”

“Then you need to cooperate.” Olive stared him down, not wanting to let him off the hook.

“Cooperate with who?”

“With me and Reid.”

“You’re Reid’s girlfriend.” Dippy stared at her. “Why are you acting like a cop or something?”

His words were a reminder that Olive needed to chill. “He’s my boyfriend, and I’m not going to let someone ruin him. I fight for the people I care about. Besides, you’re not in a great position to be asking these kinds of questions.”

“Right.” Dippy lowered his gaze.

“What kind of information have you been sending this person?”

He shrugged quickly. “I don’t know, man. Pictures of the Homestead, the stable, the barn. He wanted some photos of the inside of the house. Of Reid’s truck. Nothing that seemed like a big deal.”

Yet all of those things could be a big deal.

“We need to figure out who the real person is you’ve been corresponding with.”

“Whatever you need,” Dippy rushed.

“Perfect—because I’m going to need quite a bit of information from you. But I’ll wait until the barbecue is over so people don’t start asking too many questions. You better still be around. Otherwise, I will find you.”

“I’ll be here,” Dippy promised, his voice trembling. “Just don’t do anything rash. I promise—I’ll help you in whatever way I can. I will.”

“I know you will.” Olive stared at him. “Otherwise, the consequences will be dire.”

Olive went back to the barbecue, her thoughts still racing through her conversation with Dippy. How could the man have been so ignorant? And who was this supposed reporter?

She was going to figure it out.

Just as one of the ranch hands pulled out a guitar and started singing some tunes from the makeshift wooden stage, she watched as an older red truck started up the gravel lane toward the house.

As if reading her mind, Reid appeared beside her. “That is Bob Turro.”

Bob Turro . . . the neighbor who’d wanted to buy some of Reid’s land. According to Reid, he’d become angry when Reid had refused.

“He’s late,” Olive murmured.

“He told me he would be.”

“Noted.” It sounded like the relationship between them was now cordial, at least.

As soon as the man stepped from his truck, it became apparent he was here on a mission. His gaze was set and hard, his steps quick and urgent, and his shoulders stiff.

The man was probably in his late forties with red hair and a matching red beard. But unlike Reid’s beard, this man’s beard was scraggly, long, and unkempt.

Olive braced herself for whatever happened next.

Bob stopped in front of Reid, his cheeks red and his jaw hard. “You’ll never believe what I heard.”

“What’s that?” Reid asked.

Other people stopped what they were doing so they could listen to whatever he had to say. The crowd edged closer. The music seemed to fade.

“I heard the government is talking about taking some of our land,” Bob said.

That was what Wayne had warned them about also. Olive hadn’t had time to research that yet. But Reid hadn’t been approached on the subject, and they had no proof.

“Who’d you hear that from?” Reid asked.

“Willy Barnes over at the Double B Ranch,” he stated. “Apparently, the government has already approached him.”

“At least the government approached him instead of demanding we comply,” one of the women spoke up.

“It usually starts as a request and ends with a demand,” someone else called.

“We can’t let them take our property,” someone else yelled from behind.

“Now, everyone.” Reid turned to the crowd. “Let’s just wait a minute and not jump to any conclusions. We need to find out what’s really going on here and what the government is planning. They can’t come in and take our land without a good reason.”

“I’ve personally always feared they’re going to try to put an oil pipeline through here,” Bob’s nostrils flared. “That was proposed once, and I know some lawmakers want to make it happen. With the recent change in legislature, maybe that’s closer to becoming a reality.”

“I think we would have heard about that by now,” Reid said. “I haven’t seen any uninvited surveyors out here.”

Olive listened carefully, curious where this conversation would go.

“I heard someone is trying to reduce the value of our property and is using different shell corporations to buy up the land,” another woman said. “I heard that’s what happened over at Dan Gilette’s ranch and Pete Warsaw’s.”

“How did they reduce the value of the property?” Olive asked. This was the first she’d heard of that.

“They decided to build a county dump beside Dan’s,” the woman said. “The state decided Pete had too many livestock on his property.”

“Too many livestock can degrade the soil, vegetation, and water resources,” Reid explained.

“Those families owned their properties for generations!” one of the neighbors said. “It’s not right.”

“You think shell corporations bought up this land,” Olive said. “But who owns those shell companies?”

“That’s an excellent question,” the woman said.

Silence stretched a moment as everyone seemed to let that sink in.

“Well, I heard the Bureau of Land Management knows none of us will want to give up our land,” Bob continued. “I also heard they have people sneaking on the property at night to look at it.”

That sounded like an overreach and slightly hard to believe. But would the government take things that far? Olive could ask Tom. Since he was with the FBI, maybe he had some connections who could offer them an answer.

Olive wasn’t sure.

But maybe they really should look further into it.

Besides, she’d seen those flashlights in the woods that night she was locked in the attic.

Could those lights have been from government agents checking out the land under the cover of darkness?

Maybe it was a possibility.