“Apple’s been so busy with that new unicorn in the pasture, I…”
“What?” she said and interrupted me in mid-sentence. Katie was into unicorns in a big way.
“I think it was a unicorn… it was kind of hard to tell. You know how bad my eyes are.”
“Momma,” Katie screamed and the phone went silent.
She had probably dropped Sunny’s phone on the bed in her excitement and the sound was now muffled. I felt bad; well, at least little bad, for playing on my child’s fantasies. Katie would be on her mother to come home now more than ever. I didn’t feel bad about that. I closed the call and sat there for a moment.
James Lee and George Landau would be at the Pape Ranch in a couple of hours. George was just another complication in our lives, Sunny had told me, and she was getting tired of all the surprises I kept dropping in her lap. I didn’t see how having a new son in the Howard family would affect her one way or the other, any more than Ava’s new baby daughter would, but I let it go.
Before I started breakfast, I called Tomás to let him know that a crowd would be descending on the Pape Ranch at eleven. I still couldn’t raise him on his cell phone. He had been complaining about the reception on the ranch since I got it for him. I think he thought he deserved an iPhone as caretaker to the ranch instead of a Walmart TracFone. When he didn’t answer, I left him a voicemail message expressing my displeasure at not being able to get ahold of him and then called Shane Wagnor.
“Hey, Max. What’s up?”
“More than you know, my friend. Are you at the ranch yet?”
Shane cleared his throat away from the phone. “I’m running a little late this morning,” he said sheepishly. “The men know what to do.”
“I’ve decided I want to see what’s below that cistern.”
“I thought you wanted to wait on that.”
“I changed my mind. Contact Hannah and have her meet us out there at eleven o’clock sharp, if she can.”
I could hear a muffled sound and then silence for a few seconds.
“Hello?” I said.
“Sure. I’m heading out there right now,” Shane said.
I could tell he had me on the speaker now. Hannah was probably right there beside him.
“Have you seen Tomás lately?”
“Not in a while. The crew and I form up around that big oak tree in the front pasture. It’s a good ways from the ranch house. I don’t see him unless he needs to tell me something. Maybe last Monday, I saw him. Or, maybe it was Tuesday, I don’t remember, Max.”
“Okay, thanks. Let me talk to Hannah,” I said out of the blue just to mess with him.
“Sure…ow!”
She must have slugged him a good one on the arm for giving her presence away. I imagined him in the bed holding his arm and then I saw Hannah sitting right next to him and I put that image quickly out of my mind.
“Hey, Mr. Howard,” Hannah said.
“Good morning, Hannah. I’ve decided to drill a small hole in the cistern’s floor. I bought a drill bit and thought we could snake some kind of cable down the hole like they use to explore drainage pipes for clogs. We can plug the hole when we’re done.”
“You want an endoscope. I’ve used them before, but I don’t have one. Maybe we should wait until we can find a professional to do it.”
“It can’t wait.” That was all I was going to tell her at this point. I’d explain later, if I had to, but for now I was El Jefe and I wanted to know what was down there.
“I know someone who has an endoscope at Trinity University. I’ll swing by there on the way to the ranch. I might be a little later than Shane.”
“I knew I could count on you. Hustle up and get moving, you two. Call me at eleven and let me know where you are. My son James Lee, who, by the way, is our financial backer, is meeting us at the ranch at eleven.”
I called Tomás again, but he still didn’t answer. The man was starting to really irritate me. I sure hoped he hadn’t gone down to Mexico to get his family and then not been able to cross back into the United States. He could be gone for weeks trying to get them across with all the added security along the Border. That aside, I was angry at having to lose him. I’d have to fire him if he brought his family back after I told him not to.
I had made pancakes and bacon for breakfast. Pancakes, maple syrup, and bacon were one of my staples. I never could get my arms around the idea that someone didn’t eat bacon or a hearty breakfast every morning, which of course Sunny didn’t. She had indulged me, though, as well as her boys and Katie.
“What’s up?” Kevin wanted to know as he walked to the table in his morning zombie mode. It was going on nine thirty. I’d woken him from the dead twenty minutes ago.
“James Lee is flying down this morning. He may be bringing his new half-brother,” I said with heavy emphasis on half-brother. It went right over Kevin’s head and I knew he didn’t care one way or another about one more blood relationship. The boy had more aunts, uncles, and cousins than was possible to keep up with.
“Cool,” he said.
Kevin was now a freshman at UT in San Antonio and barely did more than eat, sleep, hang out with his girlfriend, and go to classes. If he studied any, I’d never seen him.
“Why don’t you stop by the Pape Ranch on your way home from school this afternoon? I’ll show you the cistern.”
“Awesome. I’ll call you,” he said and grabbed a piece of bacon off the platter. “Gotta run.”
“No, you won’t,” I said to no one but myself after he left the table.
. . .
I was at the Pape Ranch for ten forty-five. A passing shower had kept me huddled in the truck’s cab and I took the time to reflect a moment. My children from my second marriage had evidently taken it upon themselves to shield me from George Landau or vice versa over the last twenty or so years. Either way, it was water under the bridge, and I wasn’t going to let their sneakiness or that I had missed out on his life, keep me from welcoming him into our extended family, if he was my son. Even if he wasn’t, he was still welcome. Maybe I was over-compensating for the rejection by Elizabeth, I didn’t know. The older I got, the less I seemed to be concerned with the negative aspects of my life and I was drawn to those people and things that were positive and I could affect in a good way. Elizabeth, sadly, was one of those people who I would affect negatively and I didn’t like the bad vibes-to use a phrase from the sixties.
“She must have hurt you really bad to cut your son off like that,” I heard Barbara say to me. My sweet departed wife still liked to provoke me now and then in my imagination, especially when I didn’t want to deal with my feelings. It was a hand grenade designed to test my reaction and gauge any lingering emotional attachment to Laura Miller after so many years.
“Laura was pretty emphatic that the baby she was carrying wasn’t mine. I had no reason to doubt her. I wouldn’t have deliberately cut my child out of my life,” I said in my own defense.
“Says the man who hasn’t had anything to do with his first child in forty years,” said the spirit of my deceased wife. Man, I thought, she could be relentless still even in death. She’d always held me to a higher standard than I did myself.
“How’d you know that?”
“I know everything, Max.”
I couldn’t believe I was having this conversation with Barbara. Okay, I knew it wasn’t real and it was all in my head, but it served its purpose for a man of my disposition. I’d been raised that a man didn’t talk about personal things that bothered him with other people.
I continued, “That’s an entirely different circumstance. It wasn’t my choice, you know that. Besides, there’s no real proof that George is my son, unless we test for it. Just because James Lee and Barbin think he is, doesn’t make it so. Barbin wants to believe it because it fits her narrative of her life back then. James Lee hinted that he looks like me, which again is not definitive by any means. There are a lot of handsome men in this world. It doesn’t mean we’re all related
,” I said and winked at her like I used to do.
After the rain eased some, I started the truck and drove around the ranch house to a small house in back where Tomás was living. Rebecca Haas used to live there when Fran Pape owned the place. I called him again after I parked at the house and he still didn’t answer his phone. It was now eleven-twenty and I hadn’t heard from Shane or Hannah. I figured James Lee was probably still on the ground in Houston waiting for the weather system between Harris County and Solms County to pass through on its way to the Gulf of Mexico.
I didn’t see the truck where Tomás normally parked it. “I’m gonna just knock on his door,” I said and caught myself. I didn’t care so much that people might think I was talking to myself; it was more that I knew I was talking to Barbara and that wasn’t a sign of a healthy person. You didn’t talk to the spirits of the dead and retain a grip on reality. I needed to stop it right then and there. I didn’t want to be remembered as the old guy who talked to his deceased wife, even if I did.
I was parked maybe fifteen yards from the porch in the truck and I could smell the unmistakable odor of a decomposing body. The rain had cleared the air, but the sickening odor from within the house was still there, unmistakable and recognizable, and now leaking out into the fresh air after the rain. I looked around the immediate area for any signs of a body or a dead animal, but I was pretty sure it wasn’t an animal. They gave off a different smell.
I figured it would be half an hour before anyone showed up from the Sheriff’s Department if I called 911. The Pape Ranch was on the southwest edge of Solms County, so I figured I’d better verify that the smell was coming from a body and not some dead coyote under the house before an operator dispatched anyone. “I’ll just look inside the windows,” I said to myself.
The smell was pretty bad and definitely coming from inside the house as I approached the front steps. I looked through a front window and didn’t see anything. It was a small house, more a cabin, with only three rooms. The large living area was clear, but I couldn’t see behind the counter that separated the kitchen from the living area. I walked around to the side of the house and looked in the bedroom window. There were shear half curtains across the closed window so it was impossible to see very much except for what looked like a body’s shape on the bed.
“It’s probably Tomás, dammit.”
I headed to the back door of the cabin. I remembered it opened into the kitchen so there were two ways out in case of a fire.
My numerous interactions with the Solms County Sheriff’s Department, and in particular Detective Jane Gillespie, over the years had taught me not to touch anything and I had learned that lesson well. “Don’t touch anything,” I reminded myself out loud.
I didn’t have a good relationship with the current Sheriff of Solms County, Raul Molina. Our dislike of one another was like two tectonic plates rubbing against one another. I didn’t want to give him another excuse for keeping me on his shit-list. Currently, I was numero uno on his list according to one of his deputies. Deputy Leber could have been pulling my leg, but I kinda doubted it.
The back door was partially opened and I went in with the crook of my arm covering my nose. It didn’t work. My gag reflex overtook me before I could get back outside and I left some pancakes for the Sheriff halfway to the bedroom. The body was so bloated that I couldn’t be sure it was Rebecca Haas, but that was my guess. It was a woman and I could see a very familiar looking and large gold crucifix around her neck attached to a ribbon. She was on her side in a fetal position and the crucifix lay on the bed near her neck. I snapped a picture of the body with my phone before I sprinted out the backdoor and left the rest of my breakfast in the dirt.
I drove back to the area where the construction crew that was working on the ranch house renovations had parked their vehicles. I called 911 and reported finding a body.
When I finished the call, I walked inside the ranch house and told the crew to take the rest of the day off with pay. I mentioned the Sheriff was on the way and they had cleared the house in a minute leaving their tools where they fell. Then, I called Shane.
“Hey, Max.”
“Listen, I need you to call Hannah and tell her to go to Meeting Center, instead of the Pape Ranch, and wait for me. Are you with the crew?”
“Yeah, why?”
“The Sheriff is on his way. Tell the men to quit what they’re doing. I want them off the ranch in ten minutes. I’ll pay them for the day, but anyone that’s still here when the Sheriff gets here, is fired,” I said. “I need you to go to the Meeting Center and I’ll talk to you later.” I hung up before he could argue with me.
I didn’t want anybody talking to the Sheriff’s Department. Someone would say something about the cistern for sure and there was always the chance that one of them had lied about their legal status. I called James Lee and hoped he could hear me over the noise in the cockpit of his helicopter.
“Hey, Dad. We’re about forty-five minutes out.”
“Change of plans, son. Land at the Meeting Center Complex, instead of the Pape Ranch. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
“What’s going on?”
“I found a body on the Pape Ranch and the Sheriff is on the way out here. I don’t see the point of you getting swept up in the investigation at the scene. You could be here all day.”
“Right. Thanks. I need to head back to Houston by fourteen hundred at the latest, anyway.”
“If I get hung up, I’ll keep you posted on what we find in the cistern.”
“If you need me, call me,” he said.
I didn’t miss the humor in his voice even with all the noise from his helicopter. I was glad he thought it funny that he had to call in some pretty big guns to intimidate Sheriff Molina the last time I was arrested. “Is George Landau with you?”
“Yes, he is. He’s sitting right next to me with a barf bag.”
“Make sure you introduce him to Emily when you land. And show him the ranch.”
“I will,” James Lee said.
“If I’m detained here and I don’t see you before you have to go back, I want you to come out again, okay?”
“Of course. Call me later; I want the details. Do you know who it is?”
“I will. I think it’s the woman who used to live here. Bye, son,” I said and closed the call. I put the phone in the console cup holder and sighed. What a day! After a moment, I picked my phone up again and called Texas Ranger Sabine Henderson’s cell phone number.
“Henderson.”
“Sabine, Max Howard. I think I found the body of Rebecca Haas. I’ve notified the Solms County Sheriff.”
“I appreciate the heads-up, Max. I’ll check in with the SD later. I was just on the way out.”
“Later.”
“Thanks for the other day. I really needed that ride more than I knew. I’ve decided to get me a horse.”
“Good for you. Sit’n in a saddle has a way of soothing the soul. I’ll talk to you later,” I said.
I had one more call to make and was about to speed dial my attorney when I saw three trucks with Shane and his crew hauling butt across the pasture headed for the front gate. That was one less thing to worry about when the Sheriff got here.
“Law Offices of Bloomberg, Hogan, Hallinan, and associates. How may I help you?” the Receptionist said.
Damn! Sam Hallinan had made partner since the last time I had spoken to him. No doubt all the billable hours to me had pushed him over the top of the other candidates. Well, it was alright with me. I learned long ago that a good attorney, for a man of my disposition, was essential to staying out of jail. Now he had even more clout as a partner in the venerable and well known old law firm in Austin.
“Let me talk to Sam Hallinan. This is Max Howard.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Howard, Mr. Hallinan is at the State Capital today for a Legislative Committee Hearing. May I leave him a message for you?”
“Ask him to call me as soon as possible. It’s urgent. He h
as my cell number. Thanks,” I said.
I got out of the truck to stand in the sunshine while I waited on the Sheriff. After about ten minutes I heard them in the distance. Then I saw two Solms County Sheriff’s Department’s cruisers come roaring down the road from the front gate with lights and sirens on. I hoped Sheriff Molina wasn’t one of them.
The lead cruiser’s driver was a Deputy I knew. He worked for the Howard Family Trust’s Meeting Center as a security guard on his days off. He was one of the good guys in the Sheriff’s Department.
“Morning, Mr. Howard.”
“Morning, Buck. You got here quick.”
“Yes, sir. I was on patrol when I caught the call. I would have been here sooner but I had to wait on Deputy Prade.”
The second cruiser’s driver got out. He had a corporal’s chevron on his sleeve which was a bad sign. I didn’t recognize him, but the stripes said he was one of Molina’s cronies. He was one of those men from the department who would never make sergeant but when Molina took over he had given him and few others like him the rank of corporal to ensure their loyalty.
“You the one who called it in?” Prade asked as he walked up.
He was all business. “I did. I’m Max Howard.”
“I know who you are. Where’s the body?”
“In the cabin behind the ranch house.”
“What were you doing there?”
“You mean besides my owning this ranch and that I can go anywhere I want? I was looking for my caretaker.”
“Get his statement,” Prade said and headed toward the house.
“Let me get my laptop and I’ll get your statement, Mr. Howard. I’ll pull up under that tree. It’ll be cooler.”
We stood underneath an old oak tree that had been around a couple of centuries while the Deputy used the trunk of his cruiser as a desk for his laptop. When he was set, Deputy Tysdal asked, “What was the caretaker’s full name?”
“Tomás Martinez.”
“US citizen?”
“No. He had a Green Card, though. I don’t hire illegals.”
“Do you know where he was from?”
The Turbulence of Butterflies (Max Howard Series Book 6) Page 11