Dang Near Dead (An Aggie Mundeen Mystery Book 2)

Praise for the Aggie Mundeen Mystery Series

DANG NEAR DEAD (#2)

“Well-paced and written, there are bursts of humour in this novel which had me roaring with laughter. The plot is intricate, with a satisfying ending…A great read and highly recommended.”

– Diana Hockley,

Australian Mystery Novelist and International Reviewer for NetGalley and
Kings River Life Magazine

“A satisfying mystery with complex characters and a plot that builds to a satisfying crescendo.”

–
Midwest Book Review

FIT TO BE DEAD (#1)

“
Fit to Be Dead
has it all: intriguing characters that point to romance, an engrossing plot, a compelling puzzle and well-disguised clues—a fun read.”

– L. C. Hayden,

Award-Winning Author of the Harry Bronson Mystery Series

“West’s main characters’ histories suggest they could fill a series. I hope so. I love this book!”

– Rollo K. Newsom PhD,

Professor Emeritus, Texas State University,  and an editor of
Lone Star Sleuths

“Aggie Mundeen’s wry observations on life, death, and the struggle to whip mind and body into shape make
Fit to Be Dead
delightful. Joining a health club has never been so dangerous...or so amusing.”

– Karen McCullough,

Author of
Shadow of a Doubt
and
A Question of Fire

Books in the Aggie Mundeen Mystery Series

by Nancy G. West

FIT TO BE DEAD (#1)

DANG NEAR DEAD (#2)

SMART BUT DEAD (#3)

(March 2015)

Copyright

DANG NEAR DEAD

An Aggie Mundeen Mystery

Part of the Henery Press Mystery Collection

Second Edition

Kindle edition | September 2014

Henery Press

www.henerypress.com

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever, including Internet usage, without written permission from Henery Press, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Copyright © 2013 by Nancy G. West

Cover art by Stephanie Chontos

This is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

ISBN-13: 978-1-940976-42-6

Printed in the United States of America

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

My thanks to these people who graciously shared information that contributed to the accuracy of this book:

San Antonio Police Department Sergeant Devon Lambert who explained death investigations and recommended books on the subject.

Forrest Mims III, for his article in the
San Antonio Express-News
(July 18, 2011) on droughts in Texas (www.forrestmims.org).

Attorneys William Scanlan, Jr. and Daren Digby for information about wills and estates.

Attorney George W. Cowden, III, who shared his knowledge of land ownership and mineral rights in Texas.

Dr. D.P. Lyle, who generously shares his knowledge of forensics with other writers.

Christi Vachon, Bexar County Medical Examiner’s Office and Crime Lab

Pam Scharmen, Bandera, Texas Police Department

Carey Reed, Bandera Sheriff’s Office

Cindy Martin, Bandera EMS

Elizabeth Berrien, mystery author and wire expert

James Kellogg, United States Army, Retired

Steve Sampson, United States National Guard, retired helicopter pilot

Numerous people who share their knowledge on websites about Texas Hill Country plants, animals (including reptiles), insects, dude ranches, weather, water shortages and drilling for oil.

…and especially Donald West, who supports my compulsion to write even when it interferes with life, and for taking me to Texarita’s Mesquite Grill and Cantina in Bandera before it closed and subsequently burned down. Texarita’s Mesquite Grill and Steak House in Kerrville, Texas has good food, updated décor, and, yes, Frozen Painkiller Margaritas.

Any errors that exist in the novel are mine. I do not, however, accept responsibility for whatever Aggie Mundeen might do. 

One

“The trouble with you, Aggie, is you have an aversion to leading a normal life.”

Sam Vanderhoven’s remark jerked me from my backseat reverie. I’d been contentedly gazing out the windows of his Caprice as it hugged the highway and wound through the gently rising slopes of the Texas Hill Country. Miffed by his remark, I bored eye beams into the back of his head and reminded myself to keep my voice neutral.

“We need a change of scenery… fresh air,” I said. “A few days outdoors should do it.”

Our friend Meredith Laughlin, sitting in the front seat with Sam, nodded agreement. She’d talked the BVSBar dude ranch into giving us discounts in exchange for writing articles about the place. She’d probably told the ranch manager I anonymously wrote a column for the San Antonio
Flash-News
and hinted we would collaborate on the travel articles.

The timing for our getaway was perfect: Meredith and I were out of grad school for summer. She’d been out of college for two years, and I’d been out for fifteen. Hey. Some people are late bloomers. I was finally studying liberal arts instead of business administration and loved being back in school.

From his crabby remark, I figured Sam must be ruminating about the San Antonio health club murder.

Granted, I’d made his job as SAPD detective slightly more difficult by confronting suspects. When he had to veer from his standard (unimaginative) investigation to try to save my derriere, he developed a dislike for my approach. If we had future occasion to work together, I’d try not to provoke him. He might grow to hate me, and I couldn’t stand that.

Meredith and I had asked him to join us at the dude ranch near Bandera, Texas, with the stipulation he’d come incognito. Nobody at the ranch needed to know he was a San Antonio homicide detective. Having an obvious cop along would cramp our fun. He said it was unusual for police officers to travel incognito, but not unheard of, so he agreed. I anticipated a normal, crime-free holiday.

We climbed steadily on IH 10 northwest from San Antonio.

Meredith pointed up at the hills. “Look at those trees—hackberries, mesquites, red oaks, live oaks.” She’d been researching the area to authenticate her articles. “The Hill Country spans twenty-five counties across an area the size of Virginia. It’s filled with lakes and caves and has some of the cleanest air in the country.”

When she first mentioned the dude ranch, I’d done my own research.

Most articles gave glowing reports of vacationing at the BVSBar, but a couple of articles hinted previous ranch owners had died under suspicious circumstances. Maybe it was over-zealous reporting by a neophyte journalist or sour grapes generated by a competing dude ranch.

Meredith pointed. “Those bushy trees are ashe junipers. They thrive in rocky limestone with thin soil and minimal water and actually try to take over the landscape.”

Her description reminded me how overwhelmed I’d felt back in Chicago before I moved to Texas: no family, few friends, and smothered with problems—like a defenseless shrub surrounded by ashe junipers.

“Ranchers spend a lot of time trying to eliminate junipers. Texans call the shrub ‘mountain cedar’ because people get cedar fever from their pollen.”

“Nothing like allergies to go along with the heat,” Sam grumbled.

He definitely needed time off. This was his first week away from the SAPD since he’d joined the force—his first vacation since he’d lost his family in the auto accident three years before. He and his wife Katy had been my best friends back in Chicago. I’d been “Aunt Aggie” to their daughter, Lee.

Police work kept him busy, and his grief appeared to have eased over time. He probably couldn’t imagine lolling around on a vast expanse of land with no investigations to occupy his mind. I hoped our inviting him wasn’t a mistake.

Meredith piped up. “Male juniper bushes produce the pollen, Sam, in winter.”

I ignored both of them and gazed out the window. Sheer rock cliffs flanked stretches of highway. Boulders bulged from rising hills. Cenizo, silver-gray bushes with tiny purple flowers, dotted the slopes. From the center of huge yucca plants, cones of white blossoms shot six feet high.

“Thirty million years ago,” Meredith said, “an earthquake convulsed this land into hills and valleys.” I felt as though we were traveling back in time with hills and boulders blocking us from the civilized world.

“There are a slew of big private ranches around here,” she said, “dude ranches like the one we’re going to: the Flying L, Rancho Cortez, Mayan, Running-R, Silver Spur, Twin Elm, plus equestrian lodges and hunting camps. Our ranch, the BVSBar, covers eighteen hundred acres.”

I couldn’t comprehend such space.

We’d almost reached Bandera when I read the sign perched on a bluff: “Cowboy Church.”

“Bandera says it’s the Cowboy Capital of the World,” she said. “There’s a monument on the courthouse lawn to the area’s world champion cowboys.”

We cruised into Bandera and were jarred back into contemporary Texas. We shared Main Street with motorcyclists wearing muscle shirts, jeans and leather. Women riding behind men had covered their hair with bandana scarves to protect it from wind and road dirt. Few riders wore helmets.

Midway down the main drag, the Old Texas Square Hotel stretched the length of the block. Texarita’s Mesquite Grill and Cantina occupied the center of the building. On Texarita’s roof, cowboys sat with their legs crossed and boots hanging over the side. A second look told me the realistic figures were stuffed.

“Perfect,” I said, pointing to Texarita’s. “Let’s eat lunch here.”

“The restaurant didn’t get great internet reviews,” Meredith said.

“This isn’t Paris,” Sam said. “I’m starved. Let’s give it a try.”

We parked at the side of the building and strolled into Texarita’s front room, a covered patio with a concrete floor and mismatched wood tables. When we sat, a waiter who didn’t believe in dental work handed us menus. Sam ordered a twelve-ounce Range Boss Rib Eye. Meredith and I went for Big Bubba Burgers and skipped the forty-ounce Grande Pain Killer frozen margaritas.

On our way to the ladies room, Meredith whispered, “Reviewers wrote service was slow and confused, and the meat was cooked well done, based on some imaginary Texas culinary law.”

“Too late now.”

“One said the margaritas tasted like they came from a garden hose.”

As we trekked back to the table, a group of bikers walked past and slowed to get a good look at Meredith. They smelled of leather soaked with sweat, tinged with tobacco and peppermint. Sam saw me wrinkle my nose.

“That’s Black Jack’s Beard Lube,” he said, “shaving cream that protects skin from the sun. Some cops use it.”

He settled back in his chair. I could sense him relax. After he jailed the health club killer, he’d even kissed me.

Those moments were delicious until I considered reality. Sam still grieved for his family. I was skittish about intimacy and burdened with a secret Sam must never learn. Relaxation might smooth our rocky friendship, but we had unresolved issues that could doom a relationship.

When our food arrived, Meredith and I evaluated our hamburgers, took miniscule bites and declared them edible. The meat appeared too old to have beneficial effect. Sam’s Range Boss Rib Eye looked like overcooked road kill. He attacked his steak, blissfully unaware.

Meredith looked around. “This motorcycle thing has really taken hold. Some hills around here rise to three thousand feet. They must feel like they’re cruising toward heaven.”

I felt new enthusiasm for our adventure. I was in good shape from exercising at the San Antonio health club and unexpectedly energized from my Bubba Burger.

“We should walk every morning at the ranch.” Exercise was critical to staying young, and I was as old as I planned to get. Almost two-fifths of a century. Gad.

Sam was forty-six. I could deal with an older man, but I knew better than to kid myself. If he learned the truth, he’d shun me like a virus.

I took a deep breath before we climbed into the car. “Unpolluted air. Sunshine. We’ll learn to canoe, kayak, ride horses, shoot guns…”

Sam grunted.

“I forgot. You know how to shoot guns.”

“Maybe we’ll see armadillos, black widow spiders, scorpions, snakes,” he said.

“Armadillos are protected by a shell casing of bone over their shoulders and rump,” Meredith said. “Flexible bone bands cover their mid-section.”

She thrived on precision. After the trauma of losing her husband when he’d disappeared nine months earlier, she didn’t like surprises. When she finally found him, their marriage had ended. Except for her compulsion to be precise, I thought she was recovering.

Sam was thinking about armadillos.

“There’ve been times I sure could’ve used that body armor. Texas has a variety of snakes, right?”

Was he determined to make us anxious?

“Yes, but only two species are venomous,” she said. “Coral snakes and pit vipers like rattlesnakes, copperheads and cottonmouths. The red-yellow-black on coral snakes looks similar to colors on harmless snakes. What you watch for is red touching yellow.”

I didn’t plan to get close enough to a snake to watch for anything. My enthusiasm dimmed.

She spread out a map and pointed ahead. “About two miles beyond that hill, we should be at the ranch.” She checked her watch. “We should arrive at 1:45 p.m., in plenty of time to get settled before evening activities.”

She navigated life via research, planning and timing. At only twenty-four, she had developed amazing organizational tendencies. After she lost her husband, an event she couldn’t control, she apparently became determined to program her environment, to make that terrible tragedy her only lifetime slip-up.

Still, she’s the sister I’d like to have, even if she is fifteen years younger than I am, smart, blond and beautiful.

I suppose I’m smart enough. In looks, I’m slightly above average.

As for slip-ups in my life, they’re common and continuous.

“I’ve made enough notes about the terrain,” she said. “I’m ready to see the ranch.”

We topped the hill and saw the entrance gate, bracketed on both sides by an eight-strand wire fence. A four-by-eight-foot wood plank sign hung between wide gateposts. BVSBar Ranch was scorched into the wood. When our front wheels bumped over the first iron pipe of the cattle guard, the gate swung open. A winding ranch road curved ahead. Sun sparkling on limestone crushed into dirt beckoned us toward whatever lurked around the next bend. Even Meredith was too captivated to worry.

“Wow,” she said. “Perfect.”

“Must be the Western White House,” Sam said. We drove on a road barely wider than our car. Live oaks, mesquite and black brush flanked our vehicle, hiding wildlife I knew must be there.

A cow lounging in the road ahead swiveled a sullen face toward us, her loose jaw chewing her cud. As we rolled closer, she lumbered to stand and focused on us with disgust. She took a firm stance in front of our vehicle.

“She’s chewing curly mesquite,” Meredith said. I thought she was mostly slobbering.

Having apparently concluded that we’d fatally interrupted her reverie, the cow swiveled around, flipped her tail at us and waddled into the brush.

Meredith giggled. “I hope the people are happier to see us.”

We rounded a bend and saw ranch headquarters. The lodge made of Hill Country limestone with a steep metal roof stretched wide across a clearing. The wood-plank porch, bordered with a stripped cedar handrail, wrapped around the building.

Sam eased his four-year-old navy blue Chevrolet, a 1993 Caprice he’d bought from SAPD, up to the porch rail. The vehicle looked so much like a cop car, he might as well put a sign on it. Maybe Bandera County residents wouldn’t notice. Sam parked next to a yellow Jeep CJ that looked like it had bumped over a lot of rocks.

He got out, hitched up his pants and slapped the Caprice’s hood. “Wonder if I oughta tie this here doggie up for the night?”

Meredith and I smirked. As we climbed onto the porch, I spotted Sam’s new Roper boots. He must not be totally opposed to country life. I missed a step, bumped into a cedar post and scratched my arm.

“Ouch.”

“Are you okay, Aggie?” Sam always appeared amused by my tendency to crash into inanimate objects. I ignored him and reached for the lodge door.

Angry voices coming from inside the building froze my hand on the knob.