Rueful Death

by Susan Wittig Albert

  "It's not your fault," Mother said.

  "Yes it is," I said unhappily. "Of all people, I should know better." Some of my clients had been falsely accused, and I'd had to work hard to get them acquitted. And here I'd gone and done it myself. "It was a terrible mistake."

  "Perhaps," Mother said. "But I do see the Lord's hand in it."

  Mother must have better eyes man I have. "Where?"

  She smiled. "Well, if Dwight hadn't gotten drunk and spent the night in jail-"

  "You think the Lord put him there?"

  "He works in mysterious ways, my child." She went to a faucet and refilled Delilah's water pan. "Of course, I'm glad to know that Dwight is innocent," she added. "Except for stealing Mother's journal, of course." She put the pan on the ground and Delilah, still chortling happily about her treasure trove of apple peels, trotted over for a drink. ' 'But now we're back where we started. If Dwight didn't set the

  fires, someone else did." She looked up at me, distressed. "I'm sorry to tell you, but the sisters are very upset over the fire on Sophia's porch last night, especially in view of the fact that you are here to stop such things."

  I wasn't surprised. Some probably thought that last night's fire might have been provoked by my presence, as perhaps it had.

  "I've been wondering about Father Steven," I said. "Sadie told me that his face was scarred in a fire. Is that true?"

  "So I've been told," Mother said. She bent over to stroke Delilah's happy pink ears. "It happened at St. Agatha's, some years ago. I don't know any of the details, but I'm sure Sister Olivia does." She straightened up, and Delilah, courting more attention, rubbed against her ankles like a cat.

  I already had quite a few questions for Sister Olivia. I added that one to the list.

  "I also heard that Father Steven is 'on probation,' " I said, "for something that happened in the past-at St. Agatha's, I assume. What does that mean?"

  Mother gave an exasperated sigh. "Don't the sisters have anything better to do than gossip? But it's true, I'm afraid. There were several incidents involving… well-"

  "Boys, I was told."

  She shook her head. "So sad, really. The poor children. But the bishop is to be commended. He's taken quite a firm stand on the matter. Father Steven has the strictest orders not to-" Her jaw tightened. "But that has nothing to do with your investigations, I'm sure. Unless you think he could somehow be involved with-"

  "With what? The fires?"

  She looked at me. "Oh, surely not."

  ' 'He was here when each of the fires occurred, even last night. Did you believe him when he said he'd come after a book?"

  "I took what he said at face value, I'm afraid." She

  shook her head helplessly. "What possible motive could he have?"

  "I don't know, Mother," I said. "But perhaps I'll have more answers after Sister Olivia tells me about the fire at St. Agatha's, and how Father Steven was injured."

  I was still thinking about my conversation with Mother Winifred when Tom and his father walked in.

  "How come you're not sitting under the longhorn?" Tom asked, jerking his thumb toward the table in the corner. "That's where Lyndon Johnson always used to sit when he stopped here."

  "I didn't wear a hat," I said.

  Tom Senior's blue eyes glinted. "Woman's got a right good sense of humor," he said to his son. "Makes up some for that outlandish name of hers." He spoke in an exaggerated Texas drawl that, to out-of-state ears, would probably sound like a parody. It wasn't. People in Texas- especially in rural Texas-really do talk that way.

  "Hello, Mr. Rowan," I said.

  He pulled out a chair and sat down. "What I wanta know," he said abruptly, "is how come you broke it up with my boy." His lopsided grin showed that he was only teasing. "Not good-lookin' enough for you?"

  Tom's father was a tall, slightly stooped man in his mid-seventies with a weather-beaten face and thick, silvery hair. Except for a look of weariness and a few more lines, he didn't look much different from the man I'd met in Houston eight or nine years before. He was wearing a tweed sport jacket with an array of pins on the lapel-Chamber of Commerce, Knights of Columbus, Lions Club-and a bolo tie.

  I grinned back. "How do you know Tom wasn't the one who broke it up with me? Maybe I wasn't pretty enough for him."

  He chuckled shortly. ' 'If I thought the boy was that stupid, Fda drowned him when he was a kid. How the hell are you, China?"

  "I'm fine," I said, and glanced at Tom, suddenly (and in spite of myself) feeling finer. He was relaxed and handsomely blond in a suede vest, open-collared blue shirt, and city-blue denims. He smiled, and I remembered yesterday's kiss. The electric tension was suddenly there again, crackling in the air, hghtning before a storm. I smiled back, tipping my head nonchalantly, but I'm not sure I brought it off.

  To my relief, my Dos Equis arrived, Tom and his father ordered longnecks, and we fell into a discussion of the menu, which featured several rather adventurous items for a rural Tex-Mex joint. Tom and his dad decided on a large plate of nachos and the house salsa, reputed to be hotter than hades, to occupy us until the rest of the food arrived. Figuring that my mostly veggie monastery meals gave me a little leeway, I went for the steak tampiqueno, which was billed as an eight-inch pancake of mesquite-grilled beef enfolding onions and hot peppers, topped with cheese and ranchero sauce, plus chicharrones-Mexican-style chitterlings. Tom Senior and Junior ordered the usual medley of enchiladas and chalupas and chiles rellenos and retried beans. (Ordinary beans are fat-free and good for you. Why does lard have to taste so great?)

  The ordering accomplished and the nachos and salsa duly delivered and given pride of place in the middle of the table, we moved to the munching stage of the meal, trading (as Texans invariably do) tall tales of the hottest salsas we have ever eaten. Finishing our repertory of salsa stories, we moved to recent history, and Tom asked me about the progress of my investigations. Figuring I might as well get it over with, I repeated my story of this morning's events- making it as amusing as possible-and admitted to having been wrong about Dwight on two counts. Then Tom asked the question I was getting tired of hearing.

  "If Dwight didn't set those fires, who the hell did?"

  "I'm working on it," I said. "Ask me tomorrow." After I talked to Sister Olivia, and found out the truth about the

  fire that had so profoundly scarred Father Steven.

  "So oV Royce has taken up target-shootin', huh?" Tom Senior asked with a grin. "Gotta keep your eye on them Townsends. Devious sons of bitches. Rena too. Among the four of 'em, they've got the county trussed up like a bull calf in a ropin' contest."

  I pressed him for information about the Townsends, but he wasn't forthcoming. My guess was that they were big customers at the bank and it didn't do for him to bad-mouth them any more than he had to. But I did manage to learn some Rowan family history that I'd either never known or had forgotten.

  Tom Senior had come back to Carr from the war in the Pacific with a Silver Star he'd earned on Iwo Jima for taking out a Japanese pillbox when his squad was pinned down by machine-gun fire. He married his high school sweetheart, Harriet, and had a son, Tom Junior. A few years later, he succeeded his father, Old Tom, as president of the Carr State Bank, which had managed to survive the Depression, but not by much.

  When Tom Senior took over, business began to look up. He moved the bank out of the small brick building it shared with the feed store and into the two-story modern facility I'd seen on the square. Over the next three-plus decades, he tripled its staff and quadrupled its assets. Then Harriet died and illness struck him, and a couple of years ago Tom Junior-newly divorced from the woman he'd told me about yesterday-came home to move into Tom Senior's spot at the bank. He had also moved into the family home.

  "Two guys bachin' it," Tom said wryly. "You can guess what that's like." He grinned at his father. "Although I've got to admit the old man can cook up a mean pot of spaghetti. His apple pie isn't half-bad, either."

  "Aft
er Harriet died, it was either learn to feed myself or starve," Tom Senior said. "Hell, there's a limit to the number of bologna sandwiches a man can eat and five to tell it. Although I won't be tellin' it long," he added, without

  a trace of resentment or self-pity. ' 'Doc Townsend says I can forget about makin' it to the half-century mark at the bank."

  "What do those doctors know?" Tom grunted. "You've fooled ' em before. You'll fool 'em again."

  Tom Senior went on as if his son hadn't spoken. "The boy here is carryin' on the fam'ly tradition." He glanced at Tom fondly. "Third-generation banker. Can't beat that with a stick. Course, it's in the blood. The Rowans are the best bankers in Texas, bar none."

  "Watch it, Dad," Tom cautioned. "You'll break your arm patting yourself on the back."

  The old man scowled. "Yeah, well, one thing I ain't so proud of, let me tell you." He picked up his beer. " 'Less you get off your can and start workin' on it, there ain't gonna be a fourth generation."

  Tom colored. "Come on, Dad," he muttered. "You agreed-''

  "He tell you about that woman he married on the bounce, after you and him split the sheets?" Tom Senior pointed his beer bottle at me, his pale eyes narrowing. "TV star, she was, name of Janie."

  On the bounce? Tom wasn't looking at me.

  "Real beauty. Family with money, too. Father's got a big spread down in Bexar County." The old man scowled at Tom, shaking his head. "Shoulda hung on to Janie when you had your rope on her, boy. Shoulda had a kid or two so there'd be somebody to take over the bank after you."

  "Maybe I'll sell the damn thing," Tom muttered.

  Tom Senior's mouth tightened. "You do that, and I'll come back to haunt you, sure as little green apples. I'll bring your mama with me, too."

  Tom snorted. "That a promise, you old buzzard?"

  His father saluted him with his beer bottle. "You can bet your best bull on it, boy."

  The banter was light and practiced, but Tom seemed uneasy and the old man's voice had a ragged edge. I won-

  dered what kind of conflict was hidden under the camaraderie. How often did the father worry that the son would let the family bank fall into the hands of the massive multinational financial corporations that have already grabbed up so many small-town banks? How often did the son threaten to sell out and move back to the city after the father was dead?

  The meal arrived, we dug into our food (mine was more than passable), and the subject of the conversation shifted.

  "Tom tells me you've got a place of your own over in Pecan Springs," Tom Senior said. "You like bein' in bid-ness for yourself?"

  "Most of the time." I thought of the recent Christmas rush and my feelings of being swamped under a tide of too much to do. "Sometimes it's a lot to handle." In a burst of ill-advised candor, I added, "Pecan Springs is getting too big and touristy. Sometimes I feel like finding a quieter place. Like Carr. You've got a pretty town here."

  "Glad to hear you say that." Tom Senior beamed. "Yep, real glad. You own your shop?"

  I nodded, and went on saying things I shouldn't have. "The building as well. Right now, I rent out half of it, but I've got to figure out what I'm going to do with-" I was about to say that I had to make a decision about the tearoom when Tom Senior interrupted.

  "Well, it's easy enough to relocate. Let your tenant take over the building. Or sell. Price of property in your part of Texas has gone up like a hot-air balloon in the last few years. You'll make out like a bandit, moneywise. Movin' won't cost you much, either."

  "It's a nice idea," I said, "but I really don't think-"

  "Why the hell not?" the old man demanded. "You said it yourself, Carr's a real purty town."

  "It certainly is, but I'm not-"

  "Sure you are, girl. We need women like you here. Anytime you're ready to make your move, I'll see you get what you're lookin' for."

  Tom leaned forward and put his hand on his father's arm. "Hold your fire, Dad," he said. "You promised you wouldn't-"

  "Caroline!" The old man raised a hand to the cowgirl waitress. "How about a cup of coffee?" He turned to me, disregarding his son. "Carr's a fine little town, China. Sure, it's underdeveloped compared to where you are now, but that's a plus. Anybody who can tell a widget from a whang-doodle can see the potential here. You sign on with our outfit, girl. The best is yet to come."

  Tom shook his head disgustedly. ' 'You sorry old son of a gun," he muttered. "Can't tell you a damn thing."

  The best is yet to come. Hadn't I heard that assertion just this morning? "Sounds like you and Carl Townsend are singing the same song," I said. "He told me this morning that when the monastery is turned into a resort, everybody in the county is going to get rich."

  "Carl told you that?" The muscles around the old man's eyes tightened perceptibly. "His mouth flaps at both corners. There ain't no deal yet."

  ' 'What do you think about the chances for change at St. T's?" I persisted. Tom Senior was the Laney Foundation Board's banker. He knew how much money there was, and what the Reverend Mother General intended to do with it. Of course, he didn't know about the deed restrictions. And he didn't know what was in that white envelope Sadie had shown me.

  Or did he? The old man seemed suddenly uncomfortable. He glanced over his shoulder, shoved his chair back, and stood up. "Listen, there's Lou over there in the corner. I need to see him about the Knights of Columbus barbecue comin' up next Saturday."

  Tom glanced toward the corner. "Tell Lou I'd like to work my shift early in the day, will you?"

  His father nodded. "Send Caroline over to the corner with my coffee." He clapped one hand on Tom's shoulder, the other on mine. "I got a real estate broker who'll help

  you find the right location for your shop, China. When you got it picked out, Tom here will see you get money to fix it up." He leaned down between us and whispered loudly. "And when you're settled in, you give Tom-boy a holler. All he needs is a good wife, and he'd be just about perfect." He squeezed my shoulder and was gone.

  I stared after him wordlessly, shaking my head.

  "Sorry about that, China," Tom said. He shoved his plate away. "The old man is… Well, he's got high hopes for this town."

  Not just for the town. I narrowed my eyes. "Come clean. Did you give him reason to hope that we might-"

  "You know better than that." He cleared his throat. "But the old man's no fool. He'd like to see me settle down, and he's always liked you-a lot more than Janie, to tell the truth. And he thinks his age gives him the right to say whatever jumps into his mind."

  "Obviously," I said dryly. "But I hardly think it gives him the right to go around propositioning potential daughters-in-law."

  "Look, China." Tom leaned forward and put his hand on my arm. His voice was taut, his eyes intent. ' 'You know I'm attracted to you. As much as before. No, more." His hand tightened. "Before, I was a young stud with a dozen deals in his pocket. I was easily distracted, and it was hard for me to know what I wanted. Now I know. I want you. I want us to go back where we were and start over again. Is that possible?''

  I could feel the warmth of his grip through the sleeve of my flannel shirt. My heart bounced and my stomach tightened involuntarily. I pulled in my breath.

  "Yes," he said quietly. "I see it is."

  I took my arm back. "I don't think so," I said.

  "What's holding you? Is it the guy you live with?"

  McQuaid's face rose in front of me, curious and lively. What would he say if he could overhear this conversation, could feel the chaos inside me? The pause lengthened.

  "Do you love him?"

  Even if I'd been absolutely clear about my feelings for McQuaid, I'd feel awkward sharing them with Tom. "I'm living with him," I replied evasively. "We've lived together since last May." Only eight months-was that all? It felt like eight years.

  "Well, hell, China," he said, exasperated. "People live together for all kinds of reasons. Because they enjoy sex, because two is cheaper than one, because they like the security. What ki
nd of thing do you two have going? What does it mean to you?"

  What does it mean to me? What does it mean? What are McQuaid and I to one another? Housemates who share a bed as well as board? Or something more? It's a question I've mostly managed to duck. McQuaid and I live together comfortably and companionably and with a minimum of fuss. We enjoy one another in the important ways. Maybe it isn't the stuff of romantic novels, but it works. It's been enough. Then again, confronted with the possibility of something more, was it still enough?

  I looked down at my plate. I was talking more to myself than to Tom. "It's a good relationship," I said.

  He made a scornful noise. "That's it? Just 'good'? You're kidding! 'Good' isn't good enough, and you know it, China." His voice softened. "We were a hell of a lot more than just 'good.' We were super, incredible, tremendous, fantastic…" He ran out of superlatives. "Remember how it was for us in the beginning?''

  I remembered, and even after all the years, the memory was warm enough to melt stone. I remembered lying in each other's arms at 3 a.m., bodies joined, hearts hammering, breath like sweet fire. I remembered champagne dinners at romantic restaurants, an hour or two stolen from the evening's work at the office, dawn breakfasts and lingering kisses, with roses on the table.

  That was the first six weeks. After that…

  After that, there wasn't as much time for dinners at ro-

  mantic restaurants, and the dawn breakfasts had been replaced by a 7 a.m. cup of coffee and a wave as we headed for our cars and the day's work. He accused me of being too busy, I accused him of being preoccupied.

  He lifted his hand and touched my face. "We can go back and do it again, China. Only this time, we won't let our careers kill the romance. It'll be like before, only better. Super, fantastic, out of this world. Never just plain 'good.' "

  And I knew it was possible. I felt the physical attraction tugging at me, the flame of remembered passion turning my insides soft. I heard the old laughter, tasted the old wine, and knew I could hear it, taste it again, and it would be even sweeter. Tom and I had been swept by desire once, and nearly swept away. It could happen again.