The Loner (29 page)

Summer hadn’t intended to get so carried away, but it was high time Billy realized he was a lot better than most of the men she’d met out in the world, who’d had every advantage and possessed wealth and good looks and never become as worthy of respect as Bad Billy Coburn.

When Billy’s lips curved into a smile, Summer let out the breath she’d been holding.

“Remind me to hire you to walk two feet ahead of me and let people know before I arrive what a wonderful person I am.”

“I’d be proud to do it, Billy. Because you
are
a wonderful person.”

“I appreciate the vote of confidence. But I haven’t forgotten that you liked me when I really was Bad Billy Coburn.”

Summer made a face. She could see she wasn’t going to change Billy’s mind. “I suppose only time will tell,” she said. “But you haven’t been paying attention if you think people in Bitter Creek haven’t noticed the difference in you.”

“If you say so,” he grudgingly conceded.

“Well?” she said, arching a brow. “What do you want to be when you grow up, Billy?”

He glanced at her, then said, “Working for other men all my life has made me realize there is something I want.”

Summer waited with bated breath.

“I want to be my own boss. I want my own place, with enough of a nest egg to be able to support my family and still have time to play catch with my sons and go riding with my daughters and make love to my wife. Maybe that doesn’t sound ambitious enough to you, but—”

“That sounds wonderful,” Summer said. “Wonderful.”

Billy eyed her sideways. “Well, you asked. So that’s what I want.”

They’d been headed north on U.S. 77 nearly two hours and were approaching the turnoff to the DeWitt ranch, located southwest of Victoria, before Billy spoke again.

“Your aunt’s expecting us,” he said. “When we get there, let me ask the questions.”

“What if I think of something you’ve forgotten?”

“That won’t happen.” Before she could protest, Billy added, “But if it does, feel free to speak up.”

The DeWitts’ ancestral home had been built in the early 1840s, when Texas was still a Republic and the DeWitts had raised cotton. The white frame structure emulated the magnificent Southern mansions built before the Civil War in Georgia and Alabama and Mississippi. Its towering Doric columns held up a second-story gallery porch, and the pitched roof revealed windows on the third floor, where house slaves had once slept.

“I thought Bitter Creek was impressive,” Billy said. “This place puts it to shame.”

“They might have a bigger house,” Summer said pertly. “But we own more land.”

Billy grinned. “I should have known.”

When Billy knocked on the kitchen screen door, he expected to be greeted by a servant, who would lead him through a maze of rooms to some elegant parlor, where he’d be greeted coldly by a carbon copy of Eve Blackthorne. After all, blood was blood.

He was taken aback when he and Summer were greeted by Ellen DeWitt herself, who was in the kitchen baking, wearing an apron that covered a simple cotton print dress, her feet stuck in furry pink house slippers. Her hand, when she reached out to greet Billy, was dusted with flour.

“Oh, so sorry,” she said with a laugh, as she wiped it off on the food-spattered apron.

When she extended it again, Billy realized she was looking at him over reading glasses that were perched on the end of her nose.

This woman did not remotely fit his image of a coldblooded murderer. But as TV detectives were quick to point out, evil sometimes came in benign packages.

“Hello, Aunt Ellen,” Summer said as she followed Billy inside. She gave her aunt a hearty hug and said, “The kitchen smells wonderful. What’s in the oven?”

Ellen DeWitt pulled off her glasses and threw them onto a cookbook that lay on the cobalt-blue ceramic-tiled counter. “Sourdough bread, which I love, and bake for company just so I can brag I made it myself. Then I got the insane idea to whip up this Christmas
Bohemian Braid recipe, and yes, I know it’s the middle of July.”

Billy looked at the pile of dough on the central island, which Summer’s aunt Ellen had divided into three long rolls.

“How can you forget something like how to braid?” the older woman lamented. “I mean, that’s impossible, right?”

Summer was already at the sink washing her hands and laughing at her aunt. “I think you made that up because you know how much I like to play with dough.”

Her aunt smiled… benignly. “I’m glad to see you, Summer. And your husband.” She focused her attention on Billy, who stood still for her scrutiny. “We didn’t have much chance to talk at the funeral. I’m glad you came to visit.”

“We aren’t here for a social call,” Billy felt compelled to point out. He was liking the woman too damned much. He needed to keep his objectivity.

“Oh?” she said, as she crossed and put her hands on Summer’s shoulders, watching as Summer efficiently braided the dough. “Why have you come?”

“To ask if your sister Eve gave you any indication that she feared for her life, or that she intended to take her own life.”

Ellen DeWitt’s brow furrowed. She turned away from him to retrieve a baking sheet for the bread and instructed Summer how to get the braided bread from the counter to the aluminum sheet, and then into a second preheated oven.

Billy waited patiently. He’d learned that if he didn’t
ask questions, witnesses often filled in the uncomfortable silences.

At last, Ellen turned back to him and said, “I had a phone call from Eve a week before her death which, in retrospect, is somewhat distressing.”

“Uh-huh,” Billy said.

“She asked me about Max’s heart condition. She wanted to know what medication he was using. She asked rather… intimate questions about what effects it had on Max.”

“Max?” Billy said.

“Uncle Max was Aunt Ellen’s husband. He died two years ago of a heart attack,” Summer volunteered.

Billy frowned Summer into silence, then turned back to Ellen and said, “I don’t want to make you uncomfortable, but can you tell me exactly what Eve asked?”

Ellen lowered her eyes and rubbed her hands on her apron. “She wanted to know if Max’s heart medication made him… unable to perform in bed,” she said in a rush. “She seemed to think Jackson might be having trouble… Anyway, she wanted to know if I’d had any problem like that with Max, since Jackson was taking the same medication Max took.”

Ellen looked up at Billy and said, “We discussed how important it is to get the dosage right, because too little medication might result in a heart attack—but too high a dosage could actually cause an arrhythmia and lead to death.”

Billy marveled at Eve Blackthorne’s devious mind. She’d acquired the information she’d wanted about the correct lethal dosage of heart medication from
Ellen without Ellen ever being the wiser. Until it was too late.

Or maybe Ellen was making up the story to make it look like Eve had killed herself. Although, if that were the case, why make up any story at all?

“I took her questions at face value,” Ellen continued. “But now I have to wonder whether she might have been asking for some other reason.”

“What reason is that?” Billy asked.

Ellen met his gaze and said, “My sister was not a happy woman.”

Billy thought that was perhaps the understatement of the year. He said nothing.

“When I heard about the heart medication in her system, I thought she might have taken it on purpose,” Ellen said. “But…”

“But?” Billy prodded.

“Eve told me in the same phone conversation that she and Blackjack hadn’t been getting along well. And the circumstances of her death aren’t remotely typical of a suicide. It looks a great deal more like she was murdered. And the most logical suspect seems to be—I’m sorry, Summer—her husband.”

Summer gasped at this indictment of her father.

“I suppose that means your sister didn’t ask you about helicopter hydraulic lines or explosives during that conversation,” Billy said.

Ellen managed a smile. “No. Just heart medication. Can the two of you stay for dinner?”

“Sorry, ma’am. We—”

“Please, call me Aunt Ellen,” she said. “After all, we’re family.”

Billy saw the imploring look Summer shot him and said, “Thanks for your help, Aunt Ellen. But we’ve got more traveling to do today. I have just one more question.”

This time Ellen waited for him to speak.

“You’re the sole beneficiary of your sister, is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“What’s your financial situation like?”

Aunt Ellen made a face. “I had no reason to want Eve dead,” she said. “The DeWitt family is disgustingly rich. I don’t need Eve’s share of the corporate profits, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

This had turned out to be a dead end.

“I guess we’ll be taking off,” Billy said.

“Heading up to Huntsville?” Ellen asked.

Billy snorted softly. So much for clandestine investigation. “Yes, ma’am, we are.”

“Russell Handy won’t tell you anything that would hurt Eve,” Ellen warned. “If you want him to help you, make sure he thinks you’re on her side.”

“Thank you, Aunt Ellen,” Billy said. “I appreciate the advice.”

Summer crossed to kiss her aunt on the cheek, and Billy found himself doing the same thing when Ellen crossed to say good-bye to him.

“Don’t be strangers,” she said as she let the screen door slide closed behind them.

Billy headed the pickup toward Victoria, where they’d pick up U.S. 59 to Houston. “I like your aunt,” Billy said. “How did she end up so different from your mother?”

“Momma was older than Ellen, and I think it hit her a lot harder when Grandpa DeWitt divorced their mother.”

“Divorces can do a lot of damage,” Billy agreed. “Almost as much damage as two people staying together who ought to get the hell away from one another.”

Billy felt Summer’s hand on his arm, an offer of comfort. He felt like shrugging it off, but that would be admitting the pain that he so seldom let anyone see. So he let it be.

Billy got on the Sam Houston tollway, which kept him out of Houston, and shortly after lunchtime he took the exit heading north on I-45. “You hungry?”

Summer rubbed her stomach. “Starved.”

“There’s a barbecue joint just off the interstate in Spring. How does that sound?”

“Do we have time to stop and eat? When do we have to be at the prison?”

“There are some advantages to having a Texas Ranger for a brother-in-law,” Billy said. “Owen made arrangements for us to see Handy whenever we get there this afternoon.”

“When did you call Owen?” Summer asked.

“When I realized that the sooner I got Blackjack cleared and out of jail the sooner you’d be free to come back home to me.”

Summer stared at him. “And you thought that’s all it would take to get me to leave Bitter Creek? My father back at the helm?”

“A fellow can always hope.” Billy was glad they’d arrived at the barbecue joint, because the conversation was stepping toward dangerous ground.

The barbecue consisted of stripped pork and links of pork sausage served right onto sheets of waxed butcher paper placed in front of them—one sheet up, one sheet down—to prevent the grease from seeping through to the red and white checked plastic tablecloth. The only eating utensil offered was a tinny-looking soup spoon that came with the cup of pink-tinged pork fat and pinto beans.

Ketchup dispensers had been filled with barbecue sauces that ranged from sweet to red-hot. Billy grabbed for the sweet and noticed Summer reached for the red-hot.

“I like it spicy,” she said when she saw him staring.

He grinned. “I can see that.”

The meal was a primitive delight, from the use of fingers, to the necessity of gnawing on bones for the last morsel of tasty gristle.

“How did you find this place?” Summer asked.

“I had engine trouble the last time I traveled to Huntsville and ended up spending the afternoon here. You might have noticed there aren’t a lot of dining choices.”

Summer’s head came up, and she dropped her bone on the butcher paper. “When was this? Why were you traveling to Huntsville?”

“Two years ago, before I headed to Amarillo. I wanted to see your biological father.”

“What for?” Summer asked.

“I wondered how a man could know he had a child and not acknowledge it.”

“What did you find out?”

“That your mother wasn’t any more honest with him than she was with Blackjack.”

“What do you mean?”

“Russell Handy didn’t know he was your father until I told him two years ago.”

T
HE
H
UNTSVILLE
P
RISON
U
NIT, FORMERLY
called “The Walls” for its infamous redbrick walls, was among the oldest Texas prisons. In 1848, it had been built on farmland so inmates could work the fields. It could now be found smack in the middle of downtown Huntsville, its redbrick walls more daunting for the modern razor wire that topped them. No inmates were likely to escape, if the numerous and meticulous procedures involved in getting inside were any measure of prison security.