“No kidding.” He made a face. “Well, I’m not surprised. Maybe taking care of that enormous place drove her crazy.” His grin was lopsided. “It has a certain authentic spookiness, I’d say. It would make a great set for a vampire movie. You can picture them flying out of those turret windows.”
“Or a haunted house for Halloween,” I said, “featuring Miss Jane as the chief haunter—although I’ll bet you couldn’t persuade the neighborhood kids to go inside. They’d be scared to death of the old lady.”
But McQuaid, not being a scared kid, had gone inside. He had banged the heavy, old-fashioned door knocker, and eventually the door was opened by a grim-faced woman in her fifties, her hair done up in a ragged knot—the housekeeper and sometime-chauffeur, he surmised. He gave his name, she nodded, beckoned him in, and closed and locked the door behind him.
Without a word—“Eerie,” McQuaid described it—she showed him to the book-lined library, which had French doors that opened onto a brick patio, littered with leaves and surrounded by a tangle of unkempt bushes. The room’s windows were tall and elegant, but the green velvet drapes were faded and dusty. The Edwardian furniture—a velvet settee, carved tables, beaded lampshades—would have been at home on the set of Upstairs, Downstairs, but most of it was shabby, and the Oriental rug on the floor was worn to the bare threads. The focal point of the room was a fireplace, over which hung a gilt-framed oil portrait of Doctor Obermann.
“Imposing man,” McQuaid said. “Teutonic to the mustache and gold-rimmed glasses.” He grinned. “I wondered what that testy old German would think of his daughters’ inviting a private detective into his library. He’d probably view me as a little lower than dirt.”
There was one more thing in the room that caught McQuaid’s attention, quite naturally: a glass curio case with curved legs that might have held crystal and china, but instead held three pistols, each on its own glass shelf. Because McQuaid collects guns, he sauntered over to take a look. They were vintage guns: a broom-handle Mauser, a Luger, and an M1911 Colt .45 automatic, all antiques, but still quite lethal-looking. He was examining them through the glass when the door opened and the Obermann sisters made their entrance.
“Amazing,” McQuaid said with a chuckle. “Jane was wearing something queenly. She is remarkably aristocratic.”
“An understatement,” I said.
“All statements are understatements, when it comes to that lady,” McQuaid said. “The other one, Florence, looked pretty frail. She didn’t seem well—or perhaps she just didn’t want to talk to me. Jane did all the talking.”
“Apparently, she always does,” I said.
The first order of business was the family history. Of course, it wasn’t relevant to the present situation, Jane told him, but she thought it might be helpful for him to know something about the Obermann background. McQuaid, who had the feeling that family history was a source of pride for her, had let her talk.
I knew the story, or part of it, anyway, from A Man for All Reasons, and from the tales I’d heard about the family since I had come to Pecan Springs. Merrill Obermann—Merrill Gustav Obermann—had been born in 1896 and was twenty-three when, a decorated war hero, he returned from combat in France to marry his sweetheart, Cynthia. From his mother’s side of the family, he inherited a couple of thousand acres of East Texas oil land, where his first gusher spouted in 1925. From his father’s side, he had inherited the intelligence and determination to finish his medical degree and the financial shrewdness required to steer the family fortune, battered but mostly intact, through the angry seas of the Depression.
Jane then pointed out the photographs of Merrill and Cynthia’s four children, arranged on one of the tables. Carl had been the oldest, followed by Jane, then Florence, and finally, Harley. The young family had fit comfortably into the Victorian mansion on Pecan Street that Merrill Obermann (Doctor Obermann by now) had built. The doctor, obviously a man of talent and energy, divided his time between his oil-related East Texas business activities, his medical practice, and his growing philanthropic interests. Cynthia Obermann, if a trifle flighty and eccentric, was a devoted mother and widely admired Pecan Springs socialite who entertained lavishly and with enthusiasm.
But while the senior Obermanns managed to have four children, the junior Obermanns failed to match their parents’ conjugal fecundity. The four of them, taken altogether, produced only one offspring, and that one was destined for a tragic end.
The girls didn’t have an opportunity to bear children. Jane and Florence had never married, although Florence was once engaged—her suitor, I had heard it said, was cruelly and unconscionably banished by her sister. After their mother’s death, the two women continued to live with their father, managing the servants—a diminishing number, as time went on—and assuming their mother’s role as hostesses for Doctor Obermann’s social engagements. Their father had died of a heart attack, quite suddenly and unexpectedly, in 1955.
The boys fared only somewhat better than the girls when it came to producing progeny. Carl came back from the Second World War, married, and moved to San Antonio, but he and his wife were killed in an auto accident the year after Doctor Obermann died. They had no children. Harley was more fortunate. He married, took up residence in Houston, and produced a son. The boy, however, enlisted in the Marines and went to Vietnam. He was badly wounded and spent a year or more in military hospitals. After his release, he roamed around for a while, visited briefly in Pecan Springs, and then took off for California. Nothing had been heard from him since, and no one ever knew what had become of him. He was ruled legally dead in 1983.
“So Jane, Florence, and Harley are all that’s left,” I said.
“Nope,” McQuaid replied. “It’s just the two women. Harley died in 1969, and when his son was declared dead, the sisters were next in line. Jane and Florence must be worth millions. They could afford to fix up that house out of petty cash.”
Jane had not told him all of this, of course, but McQuaid, who likes to have as much information as he can about his clients, had made his own independent inquiry. Apparently, Doctor Obermann had been of the old school in more ways than one. He did not believe in giving women control over the family money—either that, or he feared that his daughters might have inherited their mother’s eccentricities. The old man had given some of his wealth to the Pecan Springs hospital and the public library, but divided the bulk between his sons, with a sizable annual allowance for each of his daughters. Carl got what was left of the property in East Texas, while Harley got the house in Pecan Springs, with instructions to allow his sisters to live there as long as the house remained in the family. But with both sons dead, the old man’s intentions had been thwarted. The girls got the money, after all.
“And with no direct descendents,” I said, “Jane and Florence are going to have to decide who gets those millions. Let’s hope they continue their philanthropic interests. The theater is certainly a step in the right direction.” I paused, regarding him curiously. “So what’s this threat that’s got these ladies’ tails in a tizzy? Is somebody from the theater association making nasty noises at them? Lance, maybe, or Marian, or Duane?” I chuckled, not really taking this seriously.
McQuaid shook his head. “This has to do with a former employee, somebody who worked for the family for twenty or thirty years. The old man lived in an apartment in the stable.”
Somewhere, a woodpecker began tapping at a tree. I was staring at McQuaid, a startled interruption on the tip of my tongue. I swallowed it and let him go on.
“Then he got to the point where he was sick and couldn’t work any longer. The sisters had already come up with the idea of giving the property to the Community Theater Association, so they asked him to move. They offered him a room in their house, but he turned them down. They even offered to find him an apartment of his own, but he decided to move in with his son. He was pretty sick—lung cancer, Miss Jane said. They paid all his doctor bills, but—”
He stop
ped. I was open-mouthed. “Why are you looking at me like that, China?”
“Because,” I said. “Didn’t Jane tell you that this man is dead? He died a couple of months ago.”
“I got that idea, yes. You know who I’m talking about?”
“Uh-huh. Didn’t they tell you?”
He shook his head. “We didn’t actually get that far. The frail one, Florence, became distraught and had to leave the room. She has heart trouble, Jane said after her sister went upstairs, and apparently this whole affair has been traumatic for her. So we cut the interview short. Jane asked me to come back Saturday. She said she’d finish the story and give me a check for the retainer then.” He paused. “She did tell me, though, that it’s the old man’s son who has threatened them. She’s afraid he’ll try to kill them.”
“Yeah, right,” I said dryly. “She’s talking about Hank Dixon, you know.”
“Hank?” It was McQuaid’s turn to stare. “The guy who screened in this porch?”
I waved my hand. “And repaired the roof over your workshop, and fixed the drain in the kitchen.” All good jobs, done competently and with a minimum of fuss, with only a couple of days out for boozing and sobering up.
McQuaid frowned. “How do you know this, China?”
“Somebody—Marian, I think—told me that old man Dixon had worked for the Obermanns. Hank was finishing the deck at the shop this morning, and I asked him about it. He told me the same story you’ve just related, although some of the facts don’t quite match.” I grinned wryly. “He put a very different spin on it, of course.”
“What kind of spin?”
I told McQuaid what I’d heard from Hank. That his father Gabe had worked for the Obermann family for a long time, and that he’d been paid under the table, so he’d had no Social Security. That Gabe’s apartment was in bad shape and the Obermanns refused to make repairs. That they had essentially evicted the old man, although they had given him a couple of thousand dollars toward his medical expenses.
“Jane said they paid all his medical bills,” McQuaid said thoughtfully.
“She also said they offered him a room in their house or an apartment of his own, which Hank didn’t mention.”
“Hard to say who’s telling the truth. Hard to check, too. It’s one of those she-said he-said things.”
I agreed. “I guess I’m not surprised to hear that Hank has threatened the Obermanns. He certainly resents the way they treated his father. And if his story is anywhere close to the truth, I’d have to say I don’t blame him.”
“Oh, yeah?” McQuaid inquired dryly. “You mean, these aren’t the compassionate, public-spirited women people think they are?”
I laughed shortly. “Nobody ever gave Jane Obermann points for being compassionate.” I paused. “Hank’s got a bad temper. He might fling a rock through a window, especially if he got drunk. But I don’t think he’d actually attempt anything . . . well, really serious.” I looked at McQuaid. “Do you?”
And then I thought of something Hank had said, something to the effect that the Obermann sisters wouldn’t be where they were today if it hadn’t been for his father. And, he had added, “I aim to see that they take care of that, and right quick, too.” Or words to that effect. It didn’t sound like a death threat, exactly. More like blackmail.
McQuaid was shaking his head. “If it’s Hank the women are worried about, I don’t see that they’ve got a serious problem. I agree—the guy is hot-tempered, but he’s not stupid.”
“These threats the women received,” I said. “Were they oral or written?”
“A phone call, I think. As I said, though, we didn’t get into the details.” He frowned a little. “Somehow, I had the feeling that the situation wasn’t terribly urgent. Florence certainly seemed distraught enough, although that might have been her illness. But Jane was pretty cool about the whole thing. Detached, actually. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a woman who is quite so . . .” He threw up his hands, unable to find a way to describe her.
I nodded. “It doesn’t sound to me as if they’re actually afraid. If they thought they were in real danger, they’d have called the police, instead of hiring a PI.” They hadn’t actually hired McQuaid, either, when you got right down to it. That had been put off until the weekend. So whatever Jane thought Hank might be planning, she didn’t believe it was imminent.
“They might not want the cops involved because they don’t want to get Hank in trouble,” McQuaid said in a reasonable tone. “Maybe they feel sorry for him, for his father’s sake. After all, the old guy worked for the family for a lot of years.”
I frowned. “I can imagine Florence feeling that way. But Jane?”
McQuaid drained the last of his wine. “Or maybe they’re nervous about dealing with the police. Who knows? They’re just two little old ladies who find themselves in a situation they don’t know how to handle. Maybe all they want is for somebody to weigh in on their side, but without the brass knuckles.”
I chuckled. I hadn’t thought of Miss Jane as a little old lady, exactly. But if she wanted a two-ton gorilla with a soft touch, McQuaid was her man.
We sat for some time as dusk gathered gently around us, bringing the sights and songs of an October evening. A whip-poor-will shrilled his monotonous two-note tune from the open field, poor-will, poor-will, poor-will. A great horned owl hooted breathily in the woods, like somebody blowing across the neck of a bottle. A nighthawk executed precision loops and turns on its evening patrol, snatching bugs and dragonflies out of the still, honeysuckle-scented air. Snout to the earth, an armadillo wandered along the stone fence and disappeared through a veil of goldenrod.
“So what’s the plan?” I asked finally. “What are you going to do?”
McQuaid put his arm across my shoulders and pulled me comfortably against him. “Nothing, until I see Jane and Florence on Saturday, and they officially hire me. Now that I know it’s Hank, I’m not concerned that they’re in any real danger. When I have all the details, I’ll have a straight talk with him. Let him know that whatever he’s been up to, he has to stop before he digs himself a hole he can’t climb out of. I’m sure he’ll listen.”
“I’m sure, too,” I said. McQuaid wouldn’t use the brass knuckles, of course, but as a gorilla, he can be pretty convincing.
What neither of us knew, though, was that it was already too late for talking and listening. The events that created this tragedy had been set in motion long ago. By Saturday, we wouldn’t be dealing with threats.
By Saturday, somebody would be dead.
Chapter Nine
Chrysanthemums (Chrysanthemum sp.) were first cultivated in China, where the roots were used to relieve headaches, young sprouts and flower petals were sprinkled over salads, and the leaves were brewed as a drink for festive occasions. Other members of the chrysanthemum family have proved themselves useful, even into modern times. Feverfew (C. parthenium) has been scientifically demonstrated to be a remedy for migraine headaches and rheumatoid arthritis. Pyrethrum (C. cinerariifolium) contains a chemical that paralyses and poisons insects; it is used as the basis for many botanical insecticides.
On Thursday morning, I called Sheila Dawson’s office and left a message. When she hadn’t called me back by lunchtime, I decided to stop by. I like Sheila very much, and I wanted to clear the air. As a peace offering, I chose a pot of bronze chrysanthemums from the display in front of my shop, wrapped the pot in green foil, and took it along.
If you ever need to visit the Pecan Springs Police Department, you’ll find it on the northeast corner of the square, in the basement of an old brick building that also houses the Tourist and Information Center (on the first floor), the Parks and Utilities Department (on the second), and (in the attic) a summer colony of Mexican free-tailed bats that swarm out at sunset like voracious baby vampires, making some tourists nervous. For years, the first-floor Tourist people encouraged the second-floor Parks people to exterminate the bats in the attic, until somebody pointed out
that they eat their weight in mosquitoes and then some every night. In fact, the largest bat colony in the world—a million and a half bats, so many that you can actually see their flight on Doppler radar—hangs out for the summer underneath the Congress Avenue Bridge in Austin and nightly slurps up some thirty thousand pounds of mosquitoes and other insects. Hearing this, Tourist and Parks surrendered, although the staff sometimes wear clothes-pins on their noses in protest. Guano stinks, especially at the end of a long, hot summer. (If you’re a gardener, of course, you don’t mind the smell—bat guano makes great fertilizer.)
Dorrie Hull, the police department’s receptionist and day-shift dispatcher, was drenched in so much perfume that she couldn’t have smelled the guano if somebody had shoved her face in it. When Sheila was hired as chief of police a couple of years ago, she made Dorrie start wearing a uniform and stop smoking at her desk. She gave in to Dorrie’s plaintive pleas, though, and allowed her to keep on wearing perfume and a nonregulation hairstyle.
“Mornin’, Miz Bayles,” Dorrie said cheerfully. She patted her pagoda of platinum-blonde, Dolly Parton-big hair, courtesy of Bobby Rae’s House of Beauty. Piled so high I’d have to stand on a chair to see the top of it, the hair was an interesting contrast to her regulation gray uniform shirt and blue tie. “Ya here t’ see the boss lady?”
“Is she available?” Dorrie’s perfume was as overpowering as her hair. I was filtering the air through my teeth.
“Lemme check.” Dorrie picked up the phone and punched an extension with an inch-long blue fingernail, the same shade as her blue tie, with a silver stripe down the middle. Dorrie had been allowed to keep her nails, along with her hair and perfume. “Hey, ya there, Chief?” she asked perkily. “It’s Miz Bayles, wantin’ to see ya.”
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