Spanish Dagger

by Susan Wittig Albert

  And what about Leatha? At first, I thought I wouldn’t tell her about Laura and Buddy. It would be unendurably painful to learn that her husband had deceived and betrayed her, from the day she became a bride to the night she became a widow. Even worse, he had fathered a son, the son she hadn’t been able to give him. My mother had been a fragile Southern belle who sought comfort and solace in bottles of bourbon. Would this send her looping out of control, destroy the happiness and stability she had worked so hard to achieve?

  But after a week’s reflection, I knew I had to tell her. The past had been shadowed by too many secrets, too much deception. It was time to let in the light, to put all the old lies behind us. Anyway, the Leatha I knew now was different from the Leatha I knew then. Her second husband, Sam, was supportive and loving, and she was building a new life, far away from Houston. She had confronted other tough challenges and remained steadfastly sober. I could trust her to handle it.

  It wasn’t easy, of course, and I wound up blurting it out, rather than breaking the news gently, as I’d intended. She said she had suspected for years that Dad and Laura Danforth were having an affair, but she hadn’t known that her husband had fathered Laura’s son. Knowing hurt. Knowing reopened all the old wounds and brought up the buried pain of the past. She wept and I wept, and we wept together—healthy, at least for me. I don’t cry easily, or about trivial things. The tears seemed to exorcise the last stubborn devils of my old anger toward Leatha for turning to alcohol instead of taking care of me.

  But she wasn’t ready to meet Miles. He had invited McQuaid and me—and Leatha—to have dinner with him at one of Austin’s best restaurants. McQuaid and I had accepted, and reciprocated by inviting him and his daughter Caitlin, a remote and silent child, to our house for barbecue. We’d invited Leatha, too, but she refused. On both occasions, Miles said nothing about Dad, and I hoped his silence on the subject meant he’d given up the idea of digging into the past. Whatever the truth of the matter, trying to get the investigation reopened was a waste of time. And when I told McQuaid about the letters and about Miles’ suspicions, he agreed with me. McQuaid knows the Houston police department inside out. There wasn’t a ghost of a chance that a sixteen-year-old traffic accident would be turned into a cold-case murder.

  That had seemed to be the end of it—until a couple of weeks ago, when Miles called again, saying he wanted to meet Leatha. I relayed the message, and she agreed, on the condition that we meet at our house for a casual, quiet evening. She wanted to get it over with, to put it all behind her, she said, and I could hear the resignation in her voice. I hadn’t told her about Miles’ hidden agenda. If I had, she probably wouldn’t have agreed to come. And I wanted to get it over with, too.

  NOW, McQuaid’s arm tightened around me, pulling me against him, and his lips brushed my cheek. “Y’know, I like Miles, even if he is a lawyer—and obsessed with this stuff about your dad. He’s a pretty good guy, as brothers-in-law go.” He looked down at me, his blue eyes light. “Half brothers-in-law, I mean. Nothing like Sally’s brother Rodney, thank God. That guy was something else.”

  McQuaid’s laugh rumbled deep in his chest. I chuckled, and suddenly my perspective shifted. Sally was his flaky first wife, Brian’s mother, and the mention of her and her tattooed, ponytailed, Harley-riding brother reminded me that families these days are nothing like the symmetrical packages we once held dear: two parents of the same race, religion, and ethnicity; two children, an older boy and a younger girl; and an equal number of grandparents lined up on either side, smiling. Now, families are like a big garden salad. Mom and dad—sometimes a single parent, sometimes a dad-mom pair or two moms or two dads—are tossed together in a large bowl with a bunch of kids of varying parentage. Flighty ex-spouses, itinerant former and current in-laws, and grandparents of varying ethnic and racial identities are sprinkled around like sunflower seeds or garbanzo beans. In that context, there was nothing very weird about my father’s illegitimate son having dinner with his half sister, his half brother-in-law, and his dad’s widow. I might as well lighten up and go with the flow.

  In the beginning, my fears about the evening seemed to be exaggerated. We had dinner on the screened back porch, looking across the lush green grass of the yard to the pale green leaves of the mesquite on the other side of the stone wall. The April evening was cool and lovely, the spring flowers generous, the woods lively with the calls of nesting birds. Leatha, coifed and manicured and carefully dressed in sage green silk patio pants, a matching silk shirt, and the pearls my father gave her the Christmas before he died, was her most elegant and composed Southern self. Gracious and interested, she told Miles to call her Leatha, asked about his mother’s last illness, cooed over photographs of his ten-year-old daughter, and—when she learned that his wife had been killed in a boating accident a few years before—sympathized with him about the challenges of being a single parent. You would never know that he was the son of the man who had caused her so much heartache.

  For his part, Miles—dark-haired, bearded, casually dressed in khakis and a sport shirt—was intelligent and interesting, his father’s charming savoir faire tempered by his mother’s genuineness. He kept us smiling with amusing stories about Zwinger, Brady, Brandon, and Danforth, the prestigious Austin law firm in which he was a partner. If Leatha saw any resemblance between him and Robert Bayles (as I certainly did), she kept it to herself.

  McQuaid, equally casual in jeans and a red polo shirt, livened the party with his usual bluff hospitality, responding to Miles’ stories about the law with his own tales of close encounters in the law enforcement business. Thanks to his expertise at the grill, the salmon and veggies were delicious, nicely complemented by the soup, salad, and hot herb bread. And even Howard Cosell, McQuaid’s crotchety old basset, was on his best behavior. Having enjoyed a surreptitious bit of salmon and potato, he settled himself just inside the screen door for an after-dinner doze, propping one wary eye open in case a squirrel came around. Howard is at war with the squirrels.

  The hard part came when we were finished with the strawberry shortcake and I had poured our second cups of coffee. The sun had set and twilight filled the shadowy yard, so I lit an oil lamp and put it on the table. As I sat down, Miles stirred his coffee, cleared his throat, and opened the subject I knew he had come to discuss.

  He was tense and apologetic. He didn’t want to cause any unnecessary pain, but he felt compelled to clear up several mysteries about Uncle Bob’s death. That was the name he had always used as a kid growing up, he explained to my mother with a disarming, disingenuous frankness—the name he felt most comfortable with. It irritated me—why not call a spade a spade?—but Leatha only nodded, and in a way, I was relieved. “Uncle Bob” distanced us, somehow, from the nearer and more disquieting kinship we shared.

  “Actually, I wouldn’t know any of this,” he went on, “if it hadn’t been for some letters my mother kept.” He glanced at me, and then at McQuaid, as if for support. “China and Mike have seen them, and they agree with me. For weeks before he died, Uncle Bob was convinced that somebody was trying to kill him.”

  There was a moment’s silence. Leatha stared at Miles over the flickering oil lamp. “Trying to kill him?” Incredulous, she turned to me. “That can’t be true. Can it, China?”

  “That’s what he thought, Mother.” I reached for her hand. “Of course, that doesn’t necessarily mean that he was in danger.” I squeezed her hand and let it go. “People imagine all sorts of things.”

  “I don’t think Uncle Bob was imagining anything,” Miles said with a thin smile, and began his story, as if it were a summation to a jury he was trying to persuade. I didn’t need to listen. I already knew what he was going to say.

  Among the papers Miles found after his mother’s death had been fourteen letters from my father. The first eight or ten were informal and chatty, written while Dad was out of town on various business trips. They were full of references to cases that had long since been settled, to peopl
e I didn’t know, to Buddy, who had been working for Stone and Bayles, but had—with Dad’s help—gone on to another firm. They weren’t love letters in the usual sense, but I could read love in every line: tenderness, affection, warmth. Each ended with “You have all my heart, Laura—Bob.” For me, that single short phrase had shone a new and different light on my father, explaining nothing but revealing a great deal. He had led two different lives: in one, he was an adulterer without compunction or conscience; in the other, he was a caring and devoted lover. It made me wonder how many other secret lives he had led.

  But it was the later letters that Miles was talking about, those written just a few weeks before Dad died. He was working on behalf of someone he called simply K, with no mention of the legal issues at stake or any explanation why the case was taking him to so many different places. In one letter, written from Denver, he gave Laura the file numbers of several documents, telling her to copy them and put them into a safety deposit box she was to rent under an assumed name. In another, from Miami, she was to make an appointment with someone named Gregory and arrange for a flight to Washington. She was to say nothing to anyone, not even Buddy.

  The last two letters were the most troubling. He wrote from Washington, where he had seen Gregory. He had also taken out a large life insurance policy in Laura’s name, keeping it separate from his estate. “You need to start looking for another job,” he wrote. “Don’t wait until this is over.”

  The last letter, written in Dallas the week before he died, was terse, brusque. Laura was to quit Stone and Bayles, move out of her apartment, and go to San Antonio for a month. The last few sentences were chilling: “If something happens to me—I should probably rather say ‘when’—you are not to make or encourage any sort of investigation.” If she did, her life would be in danger, and Buddy’s—and Leatha’s and mine, as well. “I want your promise on this, Laura,” he wrote. “It may be the most important thing you ever do for me.”

  Leatha listened to all of this, her eyes wide, her cheeks shadowed. “He was afraid,” she whispered wonderingly, “and I never knew.” She put her fingers to the pearls around her neck. “He didn’t breathe a word.”

  “He didn’t want you to know, Leatha,” McQuaid put in quietly. “He cared about you and China. He wanted to keep you completely out of it.”

  I gave him a grateful look. I could tell by the softening of my mother’s mouth that she believed him—or wanted to.

  Miles went on, his voice tense but dispassionate, almost flat. “Mother always insisted that Uncle Bob’s death was no accident, but she would never tell me what made her think so. After I read the letters, I understood. He doesn’t mention death threats, but he obviously knew he was a target.”

  “Death threats,” Leatha murmured. “Well, Bob always was a little paranoid, not without cause, I suppose. I never knew any of the details—he was always tight-lipped about what went on at the office. But I do know that the firm represented some…well, some pretty unsavory characters.”

  “Unsavory” was an understatement. What I didn’t know growing up, what I had learned once I became a lawyer myself and a member of the Houston legal community, was that Stone and Bayles had built their practice on scandal-ridden Texas politicos, on oil and energy deals, on questionable land transactions. They and their clients played for high stakes in high-risk, winner-take-all games. Maybe that was why my father didn’t invite me to join his firm when I got out of law school. Maybe he wasn’t proud of what he was doing and didn’t want me to see the kind of cards he was dealing. He had invited Miles, however, perhaps with the thought that Stone, Bayles, Peck, and Dixon might add one more name to the roster: Danforth. My brother—my half brother—probably knew a lot more about the firm’s unsavory dealings than I did.

  Miles leaned forward, his eyes dark and intent on Leatha’s face. “To tell the truth, I’m pretty lost just now. I was hoping you might remember something that could give me a clue as to the direction I ought to take. A name, a case, something Uncle Bob might have said to you—anything that might help me.”

  “Clue?” Leatha asked. “Direction?” Puzzled, she appealed to me. “What’s this about, China?”

  “Miles is investigating Dad’s death,” I said flatly.

  “Investigating!” she exclaimed, both brows shooting up. She straightened her shoulders. “Why, that’s ridiculous! It’s been sixteen years, for heaven’s sake! Anyway, it was an accident.” She turned back to Miles. “It was an accident,” she repeated firmly. “The police said so.”

  “Perhaps you can remember something that might help,” Miles persisted, as if she hadn’t spoken. “Please think back. Maybe he left some papers at home, or in a safety deposit box. Maybe there was a computer. Perhaps you still have it.”

  Leatha was shaking her head. “He always kept his papers in his briefcase. He’d bring them home to work on, but he took everything back to the office. The only safety deposit box was the one where we kept my jewelry. And that was before everybody had a computer at home. Why, Bob never even learned to type.” Her chuckle was barbed. “He always said that’s what he paid Laura for.”

  Miles didn’t seem to feel the sting. “Then maybe he mentioned a name. How about Miriam Spurgin? Did she ever come to your house to talk to Uncle Bob?”

  Leatha shook her head. “I don’t remember anybody by that name. At least, I’m certain she didn’t come to the house.” She smiled tightly. “We only entertained mutual friends.”

  “How about Max Vine? Did Uncle Bob ever mention him?”

  “No.” Leatha frowned. “Who are these people? And what do they have to do with Bob?”

  “They were reporters for the Houston Chronicle.” Miles’ voice was hard. “They’re both dead.”

  “Oh,” Leatha said, with a little shrug. “Well, that’s too bad. But I still don’t see why you’re asking me about them.” She sniffed. “Bob hated reporters. He always said they were too nosy. They’d do anything for a story. He would never have anything to do with reporters.”

  On the step, Howard Cosell grunted, snuffled, and closed both eyes, giving up on squirrels. Somewhere deep in the woods, an owl called, and the oil lamp flickered. I regarded Miles’ shadowed face.

  Two dead reporters. So this was the reason for tonight’s discussion. Not very compelling, on the face of it. But maybe there was more.

  “You said they were dead?” McQuaid asked, with professional interest. “How? When?”

  “Miriam Spurgin was struck by a vehicle in a parking garage three weeks before Uncle Bob died. Hit and run. Neither the driver nor the vehicle was ever found, of course.” There was a taut resonance in Miles’ voice, and I felt a sudden chill. “The next week, Max Vine’s car blew up.”

  McQuaid was frowning. “Blew up? I think I remember that case. I was on Homicide at the time. It was a professional job. Killed a kid, too. Right?”

  “Yes.” Miles’ mouth was a thin, flat line. “Vine, an investigative reporter, was taking his daughter to school. The bomb blew them both to kingdom come.” His voice took on a metallic edge, and I thought of his own daughter, Caitlin. “The girl was only twelve.”

  “That was Jim Hawk’s case,” McQuaid said thoughtfully. “It got to him—the girl, I guess. He put a lot of work into it, but I don’t remember that it was ever solved. Bombings are tough, because most of the evidence is blown to bits. The forensics are better now than they were sixteen years ago, though. If it had happened today, Jim might’ve cracked it.”

  Suddenly, Miles gave him a sharp look. “You’re telling me that you know the investigating officer, Mike?”

  McQuaid’s grin went lopsided. “Hell, yes. That was my department. I knew everybody. Of course, I haven’t been around the shop for a while,” he added. “Lots of new faces, I’m sure. Jim is retired now, but we’re still buddies.”

  Yeah. Once a cop, always a cop. McQuaid had gotten out of the business, but the business hadn’t gotten out of him, which was why he’d left full-time tea
ching for investigative work. The thrill of the chase was a lot more invigorating than grading undergraduate exams.

  Miles was looking at my husband with a new kind of awareness. I could guess where this was going, and I wasn’t sure I liked it. “This is irrelevant,” I protested, for the record. “Dad’s car—that wasn’t a bomb.”

  Miles looked back at me. “What was it, then?”

  “Yeah,” McQuaid said, intrigued. He glanced from me to Leatha. “What was it? I don’t think I’ve ever heard the details.”

  I poured myself another cup of coffee. I knew where this was going, and I definitely didn’t like it.

  “He hit the guard rail.” Leatha’s voice was carefully steady. “He’d been drinking—he wasn’t legally drunk, but he’d had a couple of martinis. The car went down a steep embankment and turned over.”

  I pressed my lips together. She was leaving out the graphic details. The Caddy had been doing seventy. It careened into the rail, went airborne, flipped, and pancaked, wheels up. My father never had a chance. He was crushed to death, dead before the car burst into flames. I identified the body, to spare my mother the horror.

  “That’s the official story,” Miles said.

  “I don’t see how it could be anything else,” Leatha replied reasonably. “The driver of the car behind him saw what happened. He said there wasn’t anybody else involved. Bob just suddenly lost control and veered off the road. In case you’re thinking he might have been forced off the road,” she added pointedly.

  Miles’ mouth tightened. “Do you know what happened to the car? Afterward, I mean.”

  Leatha frowned. “I never asked. I didn’t want to know.” She bit her lip. “Bob was very proud of that Cadillac. It was only a few months old. I don’t think he’d driven it a thousand miles.”

  “The car went to the police compound,” Miles said steadily. “The state accident investigator took a look, saw what he expected to see, and filed his report with the cops and the insurance company. The Cadillac was towed to the scrap yard.” He paused. “That’s where my mother found it. She bought it and had it hauled away before it could go to the crusher.”