Dang Near Dead (An Aggie Mundeen Mystery Book 2) (14 page)

Thirty-One

We drove in silence. I still pictured Max and Billy Sue sitting in that yellow Jeep under the broiling Texas sun, expecting another extended drought while they stared at their dried-up well.

“How hopeless and miserable the Vernons must have felt when they saw that well,” I said.

“Yes. Droughts are part of life in Texas, one of the worst parts. I read a lot about the weather before I moved back here from Chicago.”

“I didn’t know you were originally from Texas.”

“My dad was a farmer in Marlin, south of Austin.”

“Could droughts be due to climate change?”

“If they are, the climate has been changing for a long, long time. Droughts have been recorded in Texas since Spaniards explored the area in the 1500s.”

“How long does an area have to go without rain before they call it a drought?”

“Weather scientists divided Texas into ten geographical areas. If any area receives less than seventy-five percent of its average rainfall in a year, drought occurs. Back in 1756, a Central Texas drought dried up the San Gabriel River, forcing missionaries and Indians to abandon their settlement. Each decade since has been marked by at least one period of severe drought: for a hundred years ending in 1992, every area had ten to seventeen drought years. The Edwards Plateau area, which covers the Hill Country, had the most—seventeen years. During the same period, nearly the entire western half of the US suffered severe to extreme drought ten to fifteen percent of the time.”

“Didn’t Marshall Darren say drought occurred in the 1950s, when the Vernons first drilled their well?” I said.

“Yes, 1949 to 1957 were some of the worst years on record. By 1951, drought covered nearly all the state. By the next year, the water shortage was critical. There were a few spring rains in north Texas in 1953, but the drought grew worse from 1954 to 1956. Of 254 counties in Texas, 244 were declared federal drought disaster areas.”

I looked outside at the sky. The sun shone bright and hot as though the thunderstorm had never happened.

“Soaking spring rains in 1956 finally began to end the catastrophic drought,” he said, “It was 1957 before the state was considered normal. Now, we have improved methods for using and conserving water. But with more and more people needing water, the struggle is far from over.”

“How do you remember all those statistics?” I asked.

“I was born in 1951. Like Herb Vernon, I watched my dad pray for rain so he could make a living. I started studying the history of rainfall in Texas, and I didn’t want to depend on the amount of rainfall for my survival. What I’d experienced personally and what I learned prompted me to go to college and law school.”

“Wasn’t a play called
The Rainmaker
based on the drought?” I said. Since Sam had been an English major, I thought he’d know.

“The play opened on Broadway in 1954. Richard Nash wrote it after he traveled through drought-stricken Texas in the early ‘50s.”

I nodded. We reached the town of Boerne and turned left onto Highway 46. In a few more miles, we’d be traveling through Bandera again and back at the ranch with greater appreciation for what the Vernons had withstood to save the BVSBar. We still had a lot of unanswered questions.

I looked over at Sam. “Darren thought Herb and Bertha didn’t know the Vernons had changed their wills,” I said. “Do you think he’s right?”

“He based his opinion on their reactions when he read the will aloud.”

“That sounds like a lawyerly answer. Suppose Herb had called the ranch a couple of days earlier and learned the Vernons were going to San Antonio on business. What if he arrived the night they returned home? Maybe he’d hit hard times, needed money, and the blonde bimbo he married prodded him to find out what was going on.”

Sam expanded the idea. “In their excitement,” he said, “Max and Billy Sue could have been giggling about the old well. Maybe Herb overheard them. He probably thought they were discussing the oil well.”

“Yes,” I said, “and if he could bump off the Vernons and manage to implicate Bertha, he’d own the ranch and all the minerals. He’d be rich.” I contemplated whether Herb was capable of killing his parents and how he might have done it.

He was apparently thinking the same thing. “Herb probably knew both his parents took diuretics.”

“I saw several bottles of diuretics in Bertha’s medicine cabinet. It would have been easy enough for Herb to slip into her room, grab a few pills and dissolve them in his parents’ thermoses the next morning before he left. Maria was used to Herb popping in at odd times. He might have put diuretics in their thermoses right under Maria’s nose.”

“Okay,” he said. “Then he’d have to figure out how to implicate Bertha. He knew Bertha would probably be the one to find them. And he was right. He’d be far away when Bertha found their bodies. But when the investigation showed no foul play, Bertha was no longer a suspect.” He hesitated and glanced over at me. “Bertha could have been the one to slip diuretics into their thermoses.”

We grew quiet.

His comment reminded me of something else that had been bothering me.

“Vicki said the Vernons’ wills specified Bertha couldn’t sell the ranch to a developer. Vicki said Bertha wouldn’t do that anyway, but I wish I’d asked Darren if that stipulation was true. He didn’t mention any such provision in the Vernons’ wills.”

“I’ll call Darren tomorrow and ask him about it.”

I loved the way Sam and I worked together. Cooperation was more satisfying than being sneaky.

Thirty-Two

I had just spotted the main gate when Sam pulled the car over to the side of the road. He turned toward me and gently held my shoulders with both hands. “Don’t forget what you promised.”

My heart started pounding. I tried to recall what I’d promised.

He looked at me intently. “We’re pretty sure Vicki’s fall wasn’t accidental. We know people who don’t like her. She rejected two men who chased her, and we’re not sure about her relationship with the others. While the clues you found on the trail don’t prove anything yet, they provide good circumstantial evidence that somebody contrived to make Vicki’s horse throw her.”

He stopped talking. I considered what he said.

He resumed speaking, his tone more intense. “Those items didn’t just happen to land where Vicki fell. Herb Vernon might think Bertha confided information to Vicki to implicate him in his parents’ deaths. I believe there’s a killer at this ranch. Don’t cross any of these people. Don’t follow them or pry in their business.”

Sam came close to reading my mind. I’d been contemplating ways to flush out Vicki’s attacker.

“A person who could kill a young girl like that is pure evil.” He enveloped me in a hug. “You’re precious to me, Aggie. I don’t want to lose you.”

My brain fuzzed.

Was I precious as part of his happy memories from Chicago? Was he beginning to care just for me? Did I care which it was? It was delicious being in his arms.

He cradled my face in his hands and looked into my eyes. I hoped they were less squinty than Wo Fat’s. My eyes changed from green to blue depending on what I wore, the same way Sam’s daughter Lee’s eyes used to change color. It seemed as though Sam stared at my eyes for eons. What did he see?

I slipped my face from his hands and turned to look out the front window. “I need time to think before we go back to the ranch.”

“All right.” He heaved an exasperated sigh. Then he settled back in the seat and closed his eyes.

I remembered the time when we lived in the same apartment building in Chicago, Sam and Katy Vanderhoven and me. We were young, struggling, working our way up. Sam and Katy had met in Chicago, and she had put him through law school. When he decided he’d rather catch criminals than yap about them, he joined the FBI. Then he joined Chicago PD. That’s when I met him and Katy, and we became fast friends.

When Lester came into the bank, and I started dating him, we made a foursome. I wasn’t sure how well Katy and Sam liked Lester, but they included him. By the time Lester and I fell in love and decided to marry, Sam had reached detective grade. He and Katy were talking about adopting a baby.

Lester said they were foolish to want children; he’d never want to be tied down. The trouble was, I was pregnant. I didn’t tell Lester at first. I told Katy and made her promise not to tell Sam.

When I finally told Lester, he absconded.

I was barely nineteen, with no family, no money, and a new, tenuous job as a bank teller. How could I care for a child? I’d have to rear my son or daughter on welfare. Back then, companies didn’t offer childcare at work.

I knew the Vanderhovens were the best parents my baby could ever have.

Katy and I talked and talked. I wanted her and Sam to rear my child. But there was one condition: I made Katy promise that Sam would never know I was the baby’s mother.

Katy’s doctor and lawyer agreed to help Katy and me arrange the birth and adoption details to keep them secret. I managed to get myself transferred to a branch bank in the suburbs early in my pregnancy and work there until after my daughter was born.

The day I had my baby, Katy’s doctor called her and Sam. He told them he’d just delivered a beautiful baby girl who needed a good home. Were they interested? Fortunately, the baby didn’t look like me.

Katy and Sam were ecstatic. They welcomed the baby into their home and named her Lee.

Six months after Lee’s birth, I transferred back to the main bank in Chicago and watched Sam and Katy raise their beautiful daughter. Without interference from me, her “Aunt Aggie.”

I glanced over at Sam. Once before I’d thought he suspected that, because of our distinctive eyes, Lee could be my daughter. But Lee’s other features were different from mine.

I looked over again. He had drifted against the window and started snoring. I was glad to have time to think.

Years later, when Katy and Lee died in the auto accident, Sam’s life was shattered. I was devastated. But Sam and I had to grieve separately. If he ever found out I’d deceived him…

I sat still a few more minutes and listened to him snore. Then I touched his arm to wake him. He looked over with sleepy eyes and studied my face. He pulled me over, raised my chin and kissed me, even though I looked like Wo Fat. His kiss wasn’t urgent; it was a you-are-dear-to-me kiss.

When he kissed me after we solved the other murder case, I wasn’t sure if his kisses had come from affection or from relief that I hadn’t gotten us both killed.

He put his arm around me. I snuggled into his side and put my head on his shoulder. We were content to sit quietly and recover from a long day.

Before I kissed Sam, I’d only kissed Lester. That was twenty years ago. But I did know the difference in kisses. Lester was selfish and clumsy—a young fool bent on chalking up belt notches. Eighteen years old and happily naïve, I didn’t realize what a clod he was until after he left. Then I was so emotionally distraught at being used and jilted that the thought of spending time with another man was downright painful. My post-Lester sex life had been…stunted.

After Sam and Katy adopted Lee, I stayed busy working long days, climbing my way up to bank vice-president and studying at night. Years passed before I realized I was keeping other men at arm’s length because I loved Sam. He and Katy were busy rearing their daughter. Until…

Sam drew me closer and wrapped me in a hug.

With his heart still vulnerable, I knew he needed me as a friend. I needed him for my life. But it was way too early to stake that claim.

Smoothing his cheek with my hand, I raised my lips to his. It occurred to me I might be missing an opportunity. I pressed myself against him. We kissed with more urgency. I could try to seduce him. I’d get things moving, and he’d take it from there.

As we clung to each other, an unwelcome thought flicked across my mind. Seducing him might not be the best way to initiate a sustainable relationship. Sam had integrity. And I probably had poison ivy sap on my lips.

After twenty celibate years, I shouldn’t leap on Sam like a crazed banshee. He already questioned most of my actions.

If I succeeded in seducing him, I’d be getting only part of the man I knew was there. That approach wouldn’t be fair. To either of us. Not as the beginning of a long-term commitment.

Our relationship wasn’t cemented enough for me to reveal that I was Lee’s birth mother. I lacked courage. Plus, the backs of my thighs itched. Plus, we were awfully close to the main gate.

I pulled back, peered into his eyes and touched his cheek. I might as well face it: even if we could be totally truthful about the past, neither of us was the type to enjoy casual sex. We had both endured too much reality to think sex cured everything. I was generally known for plunging into action, not for self-control. Using self-discipline felt different. Controlling my emotions felt good. I was proud of myself.

He scowled at me, his expression a mix of anger and confusion.

“I know you’re worried about our safety, Sam. Meredith and I will be careful, I promise. I know if Vicki dies, you can solve her murder. But you need to be careful, too. What would Meredith and I do without you?”

That jarred him back to our immediate problem. He was back in charge. Once a detective, always a detective. He nodded somberly and squeezed my hand. He checked for traffic, pulled back onto the road and aimed for the ranch entrance.

I inhaled and let out a sigh. We had time. Plenty of time. Meanwhile, we had crimes to solve.