Second Chances

by George Lee Miller

  “What happened to Maya?”

  “I don’t know. That’s what I wanted to tell you. When that guy stepped in, I took off. I ran back to my car. Maya and I went together. I picked her up in town. I waited by the car for like an hour. When Maya didn’t come, I just left. My mom was waiting for me. That was the last time I saw her.” She looked down at her hands, then out the pickup window. “I didn’t know what to do. Owen said she was all right.”

  “Right now, we need to focus on finding Maya,” I told her. Everything about what she said was wrong, but I didn’t want Lori to go off the deep end. “I saw you with Owen yesterday. What did you argue about, behind the restaurant?”

  “He didn’t want me to say anything.”

  “Is that why he hit you?” Kelly asked.

  She chewed her swollen lip and nodded.

  “Does he know what happened to Maya?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “He said she left with the Dragon.”

  “The Dragon?” I asked.

  “That’s what Owen called the guy with the tattoo,” Lori said. “I’m scared.” She put her hands on the back of the seat. Looked me in the eyes for the first time. “Will you find her?”

  “I’ll find her.” I wished I was as confident as I sounded. I fished a business card out of my glovebox. Kelly took it and wrote her name and cell phone number on the back before handing it to Lori.

  “That has both our numbers on it,” I said. “Call us if you think of anything else. We’re staying at the Best Western for the weekend. Room two thirty-six.”

  “Don’t let Owen touch you again,” Kelly said. “If he does, I will personally kick his ass.”

  Lori smiled at that. She knew Kelly wasn’t kidding.

  Chapter Fourteen

  We dropped Lori off on Main Street near the old Nimitz Hotel and the bronze statue of Admiral Nimitz, one of the town’s most famous sons. It was two o’clock in the afternoon, and I drove back out of town on Highway 290 to find the Bauer winery. Mike Bauer was Owen’s father, and I wanted to ask him about the workers living in the trailer on his property. I was never a wine enthusiast or connoisseur, so I never paid much attention to the local industry, but sometime during the last twenty years the business had tripled in size from a dozen wineries to more than forty. I grew up seeing wild grape vines growing along the creek banks, but now, farmers like Bauer were putting in wine grapes and cashing in on thirsty tourists.

  “Ever been to Napa Valley?” Kelly asked as we drove past a brewery that had recently opened for business. It looked like a good place for men to spend a few hours while their wives did the wine tour.

  “No, but I imagine it’s a little more crowded.”

  “Not by much. I drove up while I was stationed at Pendleton.”

  “I’d rather go to the brewery.”

  “You’re a beer snob. Don’t Germans make wine?”

  “Sure, but just to make money off the French.”

  “Funny guy.”

  Fertile farmland stretched out on both sides of the highway in the wide Pedernales River valley. To the north, the rough outline of limestone hills was a constant reminder that we were in the Texas Hill Country. We passed the turn to Luckenbach, the town made famous by a song Waylon Jennings put out in the seventies. They served cold beer under giant oak trees and usually had a live band on weekends that drew a big crowd.

  “Did you grow up with Bauer?”

  “I’ve known him and his family all my life. Mike went to school with my dad. His family’s been here forever. He donated his great-great-granddad’s log cabin to the pioneer museum. Had it dismantled and reassembled on Main Street. If Grandpa were around, he could tell us the full history. I know Mike’s involved with the city council and is big in the Catholic Church. Their family were town folks. When the first German settlers came to the area, those who were part of the church settled in town. The intellectuals set up ranches and communities further south.”

  “So, the Fischers were intellectuals?”

  “That’s right. We fought for governmental reforms in the old country. When that didn’t work out, we came to Texas.”

  “Isn’t that an oxymoron?”

  “What?”

  “German intellectuals?”

  “Now who’s being funny? Ever hear of Luther, Nietzsche, or Kant?”

  She smiled. “Hitler, Kaiser Wilhelm...”

  “Fine, I get it.”

  “I think there’s a connection there.”

  “You’re gonna mock my heritage?”

  She laughed again. “Not mocking… just noticed that all those Germans are very serious folks.”

  “And?”

  “And so are you,” she said.

  “Guilty,” I said. She had a point.

  I pulled into the Bauer winery parking lot. The tasting room was built like an oversized nineteenth-century wooden barn complete with an exterior of distressed wood and a roof made of rusted metal. The newly paved parking lot and the tasteful landscaping reminded me of the faux western buildings at Knott’s Berry Farms.

  “Feels like I’ve been here before,” Kelly said.

  “I think that’s the general idea.” All the new tasting rooms built in the last ten years seemed to be either going for the old-world Italian look or the retro farm style. Bauer went with the latter.

  Inside, there were shelves full of wine for sale, along with caps and T-shirts and other wine-oriented merchandise featuring the family label. The room had high ceilings complete with exposed wooden rafter beams. In the center of the room was an open bar where three gray-haired couples stood listening to a young hipster guy with a beard and round glasses deliver the vintner’s speech. Something about temperature and the acidity, and which part of the tongue tingled when you drank it—all over my head.

  A lady in a new Fredericksburg T-shirt and short-cropped salt-and-pepper hair dutifully swirled a half inch of red wine in her glass and then took a big whiff. Her husband looked at her skeptically. A younger couple at one of the tables had skipped the tasting and gone straight for a full glass of wine.

  I didn’t see Bauer and was about to explore a hallway that led to a back office, when a woman in her early twenties wearing jeans and a western shirt cut us off.

  “Here for a tasting?” she asked, flashing a big country-girl smile. “I’m Brenda. Y’all from out of town?”

  “Actually, I’m looking for Mike Bauer. I’m an old friend of the family. Is he in today?”

  She frowned. Her eyes lingered on the scars across my forehead, trying to judge the likelihood of me buying a case of wine. She probably got paid in tips and commissions.

  “But while we’re here, we might as well try your wine,” I said and winked.

  This brought her smile back with a slight blush.

  Kelly shot me a curious look.

  “I’ll go see if he’s in,” she said, and hurried down the hallway.

  “Were you flirting with her?” Kelly asked.

  “Working on my people skills.”

  “Ahh… Well, just a little warning. I’m the jealous type,” she said with a straight face.

  Mike Bauer followed Brenda out of the back office. He was a big bear of a man in his fifties with a dark beard streaked with gray and a full head of frizzy hair that reached to his shoulders. He wore khaki pants over orange Crocs and a tie-dyed winery shirt.

  “Nick Fischer,” he said, striding down the hallway. He had a loud, booming voice and held out a large paw for me to shake.

  “Mike, it’s been a long time.”

  “Sorry about your grandpa. I wish I could have made the funeral, but I was out of town. Wine business. This place keeps me busy.”

  “This is Kelly Hoffman, my girlfriend from Lubbock.”

  Kelly held out her hand, and Mike took it between his thumb and index finger and held her fingers to his lips.

  “Pleasure to meet you. Lubbock, eh? We buy a lot of gra
pes from Lubbock. Not as susceptible to fungus.” His eyes lingered on Kelly’s formfitting jeans and white Oxford shirt that she left untucked to cover the butt of her SIG Sauer pistol.

  I tried to distract him. “I know you’re busy, Mike—”

  “Not at all.” He cut me off and held up both hands, gesturing around the mostly empty room. His eyes were still focused on Kelly’s jeans. “In fact, I’ve been meaning to call you. Do you have a card or something?”

  I produced one of my private investigator cards and handed it to him.

  He looked it over and smiled. “Semper Fi. Nice. I read about your last case in the paper. Come into my office, will ya?” He turned without waiting for my answer and gestured to Brenda. “Bring us a bottle of reserva, Brenda,” he called to her. He put his arm around Kelly’s shoulders.

  If he slid his hand any lower, Kelly would put him on the floor.

  “You’re gonna love this wine,” he said to Kelly. “Gold medal at the livestock show in Fort Worth.”

  I followed them down the hall and into his office, which looked just like the showroom, only smaller and with a lower ceiling. It had an oak desk cluttered with papers and a wall dedicated to wine awards and pictures of him receiving them. The opposite wall was dedicated to his son, Owen. He seemed to match his father trophy for trophy, only his were for baseball, basketball, and football. The kid was a hometown hero judging by the framed headlines from the local paper.

  Brenda brought the wine and three glasses. I knew I wasn’t going to like it, but I decided to go with the flow. Brenda filled the glasses and left the bottle on the table. Mike handed one to Kelly and me, then held up his own.

  While his eyes lingered on Kelly, he said, “To Oktoberfest.”

  We clicked our glasses and drank. “Prost!”

  “What’d you think?” he asked, anxious for a compliment.

  “Wonderful,” Kelly said.

  “Yeah, best I’ve had in a long time,” I said. I wasn’t kidding. It was the only wine I’d had since my last communion in high school.

  Mike refilled our glasses. He made a point of touching Kelly’s hand while handing her a full glass.

  “I knew you’d like it. I can’t keep it on the shelf. Wait till this afternoon. All those folks headed to the Marktplatz will stop by when they see the weekend promotion—free tasting. They buy it by the case. You know, we should have Oktoberfest once a month.”

  “Then it wouldn’t be Oktoberfest,” I said.

  “Hey, we have Christmas in July.” He talked like a used car salesman with a new lot full of lemons to unload. “People don’t care. Give it a German name, and they’ll come. Why do you think they invented Oktoberfest?”

  He looked at us, waiting for an answer. I let him fill in his own punch line.

  “To sell more beer,” he said, and laughed at his own joke. It was a big bearish laugh that exposed the perfect teeth the wine shop had paid for. I knew there was a sales pitch coming next, so I waited for him to finish before moving on to ask about his trailer tenants.

  “Listen, if I’m being too forward in asking, just tell me. Sometimes I get so caught up in a deal I can’t help myself.” He paused to take a breath and finish his glass of wine. “I wanted to ask you about your grandpa’s ranch. I know you’re a private detective and all. Hell, who doesn’t? You even made the local paper. Hell of a thing, you shooting that politician. What was his name?”

  “Marcus Lopez,” I said. I hoped he wasn’t going to ask me for any details. I was tired of talking about it and had told the story so many times it was starting to sound like an episode from Gunsmoke.

  “That’s right. Man, he could have been our governor. Hell of a thing. Goes to show, you never know about people. I didn’t like him anyway. Everybody knew he was gonna push for a state income tax. I liked his highspeed rail idea, though. That might have brought in more customers.” He paused and held up the reserva bottle. “You want more wine?”

  I looked at Kelly. She shrugged.

  “No thanks, Mike,” we said together.

  “Anyway, I know you’re getting your grandpa’s affairs in order…” He poured the rest of the bottle into his glass, twirled the red liquid in the sunlight, and said: “I’d like to buy your place.”

  There it was. A bottle of wine and twenty minutes later, he finally got to the point.

  “I know you’re thinkin’ it’s not worth much since it’s pretty far away from town, but I’m prepared to offer you a fair market price.”

  He was lying through his teeth, and Grandpa had turned down several generous offers.

  “It’s not for sale, Mike.” I hadn’t really made up my mind about what to do with the family land, but I wasn’t ready to negotiate a price while Grandpa was still warm in his grave.

  “Your mother said you were getting all the paperwork in order. I thought that meant you were getting ready to put it on the market.”

  “You talked to Helen?” The thought of her talking to Mike Bauer about the family ranch turned my stomach.

  “I drove out yesterday to talk to you, but you weren’t home. I thought that’s why you were here. She said she thought you would sell out as soon as you recovered from your injuries. I told her y’all could stay in the old house as long as you wanted.”

  “Helen Jarvis doesn’t have anything to do with my family ranch,” I said a little louder than I should have. Kelly reached out and put her hand on my arm.

  “Hey, I figured since she was living there…”

  “She’s not living there. She came for the funeral and is leaving soon. The ranch is not for sale.” I checked my own emotions. His interest in the ranch had caught me off guard.

  “Well, I was sure you’d be anxious to get back to San Antonio. You know, get back to work.”

  I set the remainder of my glass of Bauer Reserva wine on Mike’s oak desk. Everybody I talked to seemed to think I was anxious to get back to San Antonio. Maybe I was. First, I had to find Maya Chavez.

  “I am workin’, Mike. Matter of fact, Helmut Geisler asked me to find his granddaughter, Maya.” If there was any recognition in his eyes, I didn’t notice it. “You know Helmut?”

  “Yes, of course. Everybody knows Helmut. You say his granddaughter is missing?”

  “The last time anybody saw her was at a party on the river. You know the place.” This time he did know what I was talking about.

  His smile vanished for the first time. “Damn kids. I own that property. I’ve been trying to keep them out of there so I can clean it up.”

  “You own it?” I asked.

  “New business venture. Can’t talk about it now. It’s gonna be huge. The original owners moved to Houston in the sixties. Never came back. Hell, that’s why everybody in high school partied out there. My class partied out there. I know yours did too.”

  “Your son was at the party along with one of your employees. I already talked to Owen. I’d like to talk to the employee. Big guy. Lots of tattoos.”

  “That’d be Russell Stevens. He’s part of my security team.”

  “Security? In Fredericksburg?”

  “Lot’s changed since you lived here, Nick. I hired him to keep the kids off that Pedernales River property. Hate to have anyone get hurt down there. If he was on the river property, that’s what he was doing.”

  “He lives in a trailer house near Palo Alto Creek?”

  “Well, he doesn’t exactly live there. I gave him permission to use it.”

  “I want your permission to talk to him at the trailer house.”

  He hesitated slightly. “Sure, but what for?”

  “He may have seen Maya at the party.”

  He held my gaze without expression. His smile had vanished. “I’ll give him a call,” he said, and pulled a cell phone from his shirt pocket.

  “That won’t be necessary. If you don’t mind, Kelly and I will just swing by.”

  “Be my guest,” he said.


  I extended my hand, and Mike shook it a little too vigorously. I tried not to show the pain I was still feeling from the bullet wound in my chest. He pulled Kelly close with his big right arm and gave her a side hug. He held her for an extra awkward moment.

  “I can see that the climate in Lubbock is not only good for grapes,” he said.

  I thought Kelly might slap him. Instead she executed a quick step away from his bear grasp and slipped her hand into mine.

  “Thank you,” she said. “I’ve never been compared to a wine grape before.”

  Mike unleashed a forced laugh and slapped his own thigh. Mercifully, before he could think of a comeback, his cell phone rang. Mike looked at the caller ID and seemed to sober up.

  “Gotta take this. Good seein’ y’all. Let me know if you change your mind about the ranch. I know how much trouble and expensive a piece of land can be.”

  We left without buying a bottle of Bauer Reserva wine.

  Chapter Fifteen

  I should have worn boots for that meeting,” Kelly said when we were back in my pickup.

  “Whole Bauer family’s full of BS,” I said, waiting for the cars to clear so I could make a left turn back onto the highway. It was day two of the three-day festival, and the traffic was heavy.

  “Mike and Zeller both pointed out that you are no longer a part of the good-ol’-boys club.”

  “And I thought I was the prodigal son.” A dually pickup pulling a fifth-wheel travel trailer passed us in a hurry, probably trying to get to Lady Bird Johnson RV park before all the slots were taken. “He liked you, though.”

  “He’s a perv. I’m pretty sure he’s boinking the staff.”

  “Really? She’s maybe twenty.”

  “Trust me. He thinks he’s god’s gift to women.”

  “He’s full of shit about the ranch. Grandpa was offered a lot of money last summer.”

  “You can’t sell the ranch.” She said it as a statement of fact, as if she understood it better than I did.

  “I’d never sell to Mike, but what am I gonna do with it? I could never make a living as a rancher. I mean, I know the basic operation and how to feed cows and horses, but I couldn’t survive like that and keep the property.”