Murder Once Removed

by S. C. Perkins

  I responded in Spanish—the one language I spoke semi-fluently—that yes, I was sure, and my hangover was mild if anything.

  “Lo prometo,” I said. I promise.

  Flaco eyed me like a slightly scary-looking, overprotective father, which was how he viewed himself when it came to me. It’d been that way for the last eight years, ever since the day his daughter, Stella, whom I’d met in graduate school at UT, had brought me to her father’s taqueria and I’d fallen in love with his cooking.

  Housed in a stand-alone building that twenty years prior had been a hamburger joint, and before that a gas station, Big Flaco’s Tacos had ten seats at the counter overlooking the busy kitchen, six booths hugging the main dining area’s walls, and five round high-top tables in the middle. Serena and I sat at one of the taqueria’s four outdoor tables, with a not-so-scenic view of the asphalt parking lot.

  Flaco had been nearly broke when he bought the place, so the entire decor had come from the former owners, who’d favored the classic 1950s diner look: black-and-white checkerboard floor, chrome dinette sets with red-vinyl chairs, and a long, stainless-steel counter with round chrome barstools topped with more red vinyl. The only thing that kept it from looking like a smiling, clean-cut soda jerk was about to emerge from the back somewhere and pull you a nice glass of Coca-Cola was courtesy of the vandals who’d broken in one night after the burger shop closed for good. They’d taken hammers and baseball bats to every available flat surface, leaving the floors, metal tabletops, and long counter pockmarked like they’d been left outside in the worst hailstorm of the century. To Flaco, however, the beaten-up look was perfect—and perfectly him. He had kept the decor much as he’d bought it, too, adding only a bunch of photos of his mother, aunts, and grandmothers cooking in their kitchens back home in Mexico and a black-velvet Elvis painting the size of a small car on the back wall. It was the King à la Blue Hawaii: coiffed pompadour, red Hawaiian shirt, white lei, and all. Only instead of holding a ukulele as he did in the original movie still, he was holding a cast-iron pan and sporting a burgeoning handlebar mustache.

  Anyway, my love for Flaco’s cooking had quickly developed into an addiction and I’d passed my habit along to so many other friends and family that I came to jokingly refer to myself as the Flaco’s-Tacos “enabler.” Flaco, however, called me his “ángel que me trajo a los clientes”—his angel who brought him customers. He claimed it was due to me that his taqueria really found its footing in Austin and, thus, he protected me as if I were his own child. Or his fourth child, rather, since he already had Stella, who now lived in Boston; her younger sister, Reyna, who was in culinary school in New York; and a son a year older than Stella named Cristiano, who I’d only met once a couple of years back when he was on leave from serving with the U.S. Marines in Afghanistan.

  Now, with a twitch of his mustache, Flaco finally believed his fourth child didn’t need an intravenous injection of menudo because he nodded and said he’d be back later with more coffee.

  Serena forked up another bite of her breakfast migas, a tasty scramble of eggs, onions, tomatoes, bell peppers, cheese, and strips of fried corn tortillas, and then fixed me with a stare.

  “Luce, was all this about Nick? You don’t want to get back together with him or something, do you?”

  I nearly choked on my taco. “What are you talking about?”

  “The drinking. After taking a prescription medication, for crying out loud, which made you have a freaking memory blackout while you were essentially in a client meeting. You never do stuff like that. You’re too controlled. So what was up with the sudden episode of Lucy Lancaster Goes Wild?”

  “Oh, come on,” I replied, wiping my hands with a paper napkin. “Serena, you know me better than to believe I’d ever take one sip of that martini if I knew it would mix so badly with the decongestant-antihistamine combo—or if I knew I’d be going on camera later, which Gus confirmed I didn’t when I called last night to apologize and explain myself.” I made a face. “At least I didn’t know until I was already one martini in.”

  I groaned with the memory, putting my hands over my face.

  “Uh-oh,” Serena said. “Did he lay into you?”

  “Pretty much the opposite,” I said. “He felt terrible and apologized to me, which makes me feel worse. He admitted the press conference was a last-minute thing that started out with good intentions of just announcing my daguerreotype find, but then he kept seeing the latest negative Applewhite campaign ad attacking Pearce Halloran’s credibility. It seems with all the cameras in front of him, and the information about C.A. on the journal scans I’d sent him, he just let loose some of his anger and decided Caleb Applewhite was the culprit.”

  “Little bit of an understatement, but okay,” Serena said. “Why did he wait until after your first drink to tell you his plans?”

  “He got so caught up looking over the finished family record that he forgot until we were at the restaurant, which I believe because I witnessed his and his relatives’ giddiness over how good it looked and all the cool stuff in it.” I smiled with pride as I remembered Gus and his family gushing over my hard work to make their family record look worthy of being displayed on even the most discerning person’s coffee table. “From the moment I walked into his office until after our first cocktail at the restaurant, we all talked of nothing else but Halloran genealogy.” My smile then turned into an embarrassed grimace. “Though apparently when I was on my second martini he explained about the press conference and I told him to ‘Bring it.’”

  “Yeah, I can see you saying that,” Serena said, then laughed when I muttered, “Jeez.”

  Straightening up, I gestured at her with my coffee cup and gave her a narrow look of my own. “Though to change the subject back to what you said about Nick—yeah, sure, it occasionally still hurts that he broke up with me, but I didn’t even get hammered three months ago when it happened, so why the heck would I do it now?”

  Serena made a comic face as she spooned some extra salsa fresca over her migas, which told me she was unrepentant at accusing me of pining for my ex, but knew I was speaking the truth. After Nick dumped me, she and Josephine had brought me here to Big Flaco’s Tacos and actually tried to get me drunk, but I’d preferred to drown my pain in Flaco’s queso and guacamole instead. Josephine had even been playfully disappointed in me as she’d poured the last half of my second beer into the glass containing the dregs of her third. “For someone whose ancestry is mostly British, you’re not exactly keeping up the side, love,” she’d said. I’d reminded her that I was also one-quarter Spanish, then added a large dollop of queso to the tortilla chip already laden with guacamole and shoveled the whole thing into my mouth.

  “Besides,” I told Serena, still feeling the need to soothe my humiliation by explaining my actions. “I was in a safe environment yesterday with the Halloran family and we were all celebrating, after our meeting had officially concluded, might I remind you again. Gus had just given me a very generous bonus check, and we were at a restaurant within walking distance from the office. Combine all of those and I simply overindulged.”

  “Which made you completely forget you participated in a press conference where one of the richest, most influential businessmen in Texas implicated the ancestor of one of Texas’s equally wealthy and respected politicians of murdering the former’s great-granddaddy, that is,” Serena said, emphasizing her Texas drawl like Gus had.

  “Thanks for the recap,” I said drily. “Though it’s his great-great-granddaddy.”

  Serena rolled her eyes. “Great-grandfather, great-great-grandfather. Who can keep track? While I think it’s fascinating, you know genealogy gets confusing to me after the grandparents. Oh, and don’t even get me started on the second cousin versus the first cousin, once removed, thing. My brain about fries every time I try to figure it out.”

  “It’s easy. No lie.”

  “Yeah, sure,” she said. “You’ve tried to explain this to me twenty times before.”


  “Always over loud bar music and after at least two drinks, as I recall.”

  “Granted, but still.”

  “Then how about I give it one last shot?” I said with a challenging grin.

  “All right, go for it,” Serena said.

  From my handbag, I pulled out a piece of paper I’d taken to keeping on hand. On it was a number of boxes laid out in a grid. Each box had words in it, with the upper leftmost box reading “Common Ancestor.” I turned it toward her.

  “This is a genealogy relationship chart. You’ll see the top row and the leftmost column are the same, with the first box on each being ‘Father or Mother,’ the second box being ‘Grandfather or Grandmother,’ and so on, all the way to ‘seventh great-grandfather or seventh great-grandmother.’” I tapped the top left box. “Think of ‘Common Ancestor’ as your family common denominator. All you do is find the common ancestor from whom you and the other person both descend—using the top row for your relationship to that ancestor and the left column for the other person’s relationship to the same ancestor—and then find where those boxes meet within the grid to see your genealogic relationship.”

  “Okay,” Serena said, studying the chart. She tapped her chin. “Let’s see. I’ve always wondered what my cousin Heather is to me. As you know, we’re close and I call her my ‘cousin,’ but I know she’s not my first cousin. Her grandma Rosie and my grandma Orli are sisters. So what does that make us?”

  I said, “If your grandmothers are sisters, then you and Heather’s common ancestors are Rosie and Orli’s parents, or your great-grandparents. All of you descend from that one couple.”

  I put my index finger on the words “Great-Grandfather or Great-Grandmother” on the leftmost column and Serena put her finger on the same words at the top row. She dragged her finger down as I dragged across. Our fingers met on the words “Second Cousin.”

  “Wow,” she said. “Heather and I are second cousins.”

  “It’s easier when you see it on paper, right?”

  “You’re not kidding. But what about the first cousin, once removed, thing?”

  “The ‘removed’ factor comes in when you’re talking about a generational difference in your relationship to one of your cousins,” I explained. “For instance, my mother’s first cousin Cathey is my first cousin, once removed.”

  Serena blinked. “That’s all ‘removed’ really means? That a cousin is a generation or more younger?”

  “Or older, but yes.”

  She pointed to the chart. “Show me here, too. You know how I like my visuals.”

  “Again, it’s about the common ancestor,” I said. “For my mom and her cousin Cathey, that’s their grandparents.” I put one finger on the leftmost box labeled “Grandfather or Grandmother.” “However, I’m one generation younger than Cathey, so her grandparents are my great-grandparents.” I put another finger on the top-row box labeled “Great-Grandfather or Great-Grandmother.” I dragged my fingers together.

  “Well, I’ll be damned,” Serena said. “First cousins, once removed. Just like you said.”

  Not taking my eyes off my friend, I reopened my iPad and turned on my voice-recording app with one hand while wiggling my fingers at her with the other. “I’m sorry, could you repeat that, please?”

  In an exaggerated monotone, Serena said, “Clearly you’re a genealogy rock star and I should have never doubted your prowess.”

  Sniggering into my coffee, I sent myself the file.

  Serena stuck her tongue out at me. “Now, back to you, my friend. Have you heard anything from your parents about the press conference? Or from your sister?”

  “No. Thank goodness my parents are on that Caribbean cruise for another week, and Maeve is still in newlywed bliss in D.C. I talked to her two days ago and she didn’t even know what day it was because she and Kyle had been so busy setting up their new house and trying to get out their thank-you notes. Knowing Maeve, though, if she sees the press conference, I’ll hear her opinions tout de suite.”

  Serena tilted her head in agreement, but wisely kept her mouth shut regarding Maeve. While I loved my sister dearly, she tended to be a bit on the bossy, outspoken side, which didn’t go down well with Serena, who unabashedly fancied herself the queen of bossy and outspoken. Over the last fifteen-plus years, this had made for some whopping squabbles between the two women I adored the most—with yours truly getting to play referee—so let’s just say it was sad, but not the worst thing when my new brother-in-law got transferred to our nation’s capital right after the honeymoon.

  “What about Senator Applewhite? Did he or his family respond to any of this?” she asked.

  “Yes, the family put out a press release this morning,” I said. “They’re less than happy at being branded descendants of a murderer, as I’m sure you can imagine, but they won’t comment otherwise because the accusation was ‘preposterous and not worthy of further discussion.’” I shook my head in irritation. “I still can’t believe Gus ignored the fact that there was a second candidate for C.A. I could have strangled him for that. He didn’t have any proof that Seth knew either man. He did nothing more than guess.”

  “Speaking of Hallorans, where was Pearce Halloran during your and Gus’s announcement of the century? Or would that be the announcement of nearly the last two centuries?”

  “Oh, har,” I replied, crossing my eyes at her. “Luckily, Pearce was in Dallas, pressing the flesh at a fund-raiser.”

  “Did he ever issue any kind of response to his father’s PR ploy?”

  “Only a canned-sounding one from his camp saying that, while he and the entire Halloran family are happy to finally learn the true fate of their ancestor, his only plans now are to focus on his campaign for next year’s senatorial election and he’ll have no further comment on the findings.”

  “That’s what I would have had him say,” Serena replied.

  I reopened my iPad to look for news updates.

  There were now three articles, all from national news sources. The first one was a recap of yesterday’s press conference. It included some background about how the Hallorans and Applewhites had long had a competitive relationship in the business world as two of Texas’s most powerful families, yet the current senatorial race had officially turned things ugly. It was speculated tensions between the two families would now be even higher due to Gus’s claims. No surprise there.

  The next one was a longer response from Senator Daniel Applewhite saying that Gus had no solid proof of his ancestor’s involvement and the press conference was a weak and delusional attempt to gain some positive press for Pearce Halloran, who was behind in the polls.

  The last story’s headline said it all: THE HALLORANS AND APPLEWHITES: THE NEW HATFIELDS AND MCCOYS?

  “Wonderful,” I muttered. I then scanned each article for my name. Surprisingly, I was only briefly mentioned as the professional genealogist who’d made the daguerreotype discovery, but Betty-Anne had a nice quote or two about her father’s photographic legacy to San Antonio. One even had a lovely photo of her surrounded by her great-grandpa Jeb’s daguerreotypes.

  Serena held up her phone. “Oh, look. It’s trending now.”

  I saw “#HalloransApplewhites” was indeed a talking trend on Twitter. Serena pointed out that most of the comments from Texans and others around the nation and world were latching on to the possibility of another dirty family feud.

  “That’s good,” Serena said. When I gave her another raised eyebrow, she explained. “They’re picking up on the ridiculous aspect of it, Lucy. It’s the drama they’re interested in, not the facts. It’ll blow over fast—worldwide, at least. Here in Texas, it may last a little longer. But not much, I expect.”

  “Unless Gus keeps fanning the flames that an Applewhite was responsible for a Halloran murder,” I said with a slurp of my coffee.

  “You have a point,” she said. “Do you think Gus’s guess could be right?”

  “It’s possible,” I said, star
ing over her shoulder in thought. “But it’s also possible that C.A. could be Cantwell Ayers. They both fit the bill and nothing I’ve found proves one man over the other. So far, at least.”

  I looked back at my friend; a smile was spreading across her face.

  “I see that look, missy,” she said, making circles with her fork at me. “Your whole face practically glows when you start thinking about tracking down some long-dead person and their connections to others. You’re going to research it some more, aren’t you? See if Caleb Applewhite was the bad guy, or if it was the other dude who was guilty of Gus’s great-grandpappy’s murder.”

  “That’s great-great-grandpappy,” I reminded her with a grin of my own. “And why not? It certainly wouldn’t hurt to look, right? Plus, it might be fun to solve a murder mystery nearly two centuries in the making.”

  “Go for it, baby,” she replied and we clinked our coffee mugs together to seal it. “Well, now that we know you didn’t irrevocably damage your professional reputation,” she said, “how about we grab some more of Flaco’s coffee to go, head out for a power walk at Shoal Creek Park, and then do some shopping?”

  “You’re on,” I said, and stuffed the last bite of taco in my mouth.

  FIVE

  I sat bolt upright in bed when ringing nearly blasted out my eardrum.

  I really had to stop falling asleep while liking my friends’ photos on Instagram.

  Fumbling around under the sheets for my cell, I glanced at the time on my alarm clock—2:09 A.M., technically Monday morning. I answered, knowing who was calling without even looking at the screen.

  “Nick,” I said. “You were the one who broke up with me, remember? To be with Sasha, the supposed most wonderful woman in the world. You have got to stop calling me in the middle of the night every time you two have a fight.”

  Instead of hearing my ex-boyfriend’s raised-in-a-small-town drawl, though, a frail voice spoke on the other end.

  “Lucy?”

  “Betty-Anne?” I asked. “Is that you?”