Winning Texas

by Nancy Stancill

  CHAPTER 32

  Annie and Jake rushed to where Sam was stretched out on the patio. His eyes were closed and his body appeared motionless. But a barely discernible groan reassured them that for the moment, he was breathing. In one quick motion, Jake jerked a white tablecloth off a nearby table set for dinner, sending glasses and tableware crashing. He pressed the wad of starched linen tightly against the wound, which resembled a red ink blot spreading across Sam’s chest.

  “Hang on, Sam,” Jake said in a steady, crooning voice. “Keep breathing, man.”

  Partygoers stampeded across the patio, heading through the restaurant where patrons inside were already clogging the front entrance. It hadn’t taken long for panic to set in. Some people on the patio had dived under a group of tables, bracing themselves against further violence. But Annie heard no more gunshots, just the jumbled noise of humans reacting to fear. A large woman in a sparkly white evening gown tried to run, but slammed into a tray of champagne glasses, scattering them across the floor. She teetered against the wobbling tray, trying to regain her balance. An elderly man grabbed her hand before she fell and they hurried through the restaurant with others in the departing crowd.

  Annie watched as a small knot of helpers gathered around Jake and Sam. She was relieved to see an older man with wire-rimmed glasses open what looked like a doctor’s bag. A gray-haired woman, possibly his wife, was on the phone in what sounded like a 911 call. It had all happened so fast that Annie had trouble thinking straight. She’d been in crisis situations twice before, a knife attack and a horrendous shootout on a freeway, and they’d left their psychological mark – nightmares, flashbacks and a stupefied slowness to act. She realized that she was frozen and wondered if she was having a post-traumatic stress reaction. She mentally shook herself, trying to summon the will to press forward. She grabbed her mobile and located the number of the Times’ night desk. She looked around for Travis and spotted him crawling out from under a table, notebook in hand. She was relieved to see that he was all right.

  Hugh Heller, the paper’s best rewrite man, answered her call to the newsroom. Luckily for her, he was on Saturday night duty, covering the police shift. In his usual unflappable, low-key way, he asked questions and she could hear him tapping out notes on his office computer. She described to him, as succinctly as she could, the shooting of Wurzbach and the events leading up to it.

  “It felt like a sniper shooting from the woods behind the restaurant, but I haven’t gotten that confirmed,” she said.

  “Is he dead?” Hugh asked.

  “No, but it looks like a serious chest wound.”

  He asked her some background questions about Wurzbach and the German-Texas movement, which she was able to respond to quickly. She was so glad he had the presence of mind she lacked. But she knew she was recovering – her voice sounded stronger and her instincts were beginning to kick in.

  “Travis and I are both here for at least a while, so we’ll be calling you back with details as we get them,” she said.

  “You know our formal deadline’s passed, but I can get a bulletin in and file online right now,” Hugh said. “Let me go, but call back in fifteen minutes.”

  She hung up, hearing the sound of an ambulance siren coming closer, rounding a bend in the road beside the restaurant. The vehicle screamed to a stop in the parking lot and doors slammed. Four emergency technicians hurried through the restaurant carrying equipment and brushed aside the knot of helpers around Wurzbach. They gently lifted him onto a stretcher as Jake conferred with them in a low voice. A sobbing woman had joined Jake from inside the restaurant and his arm wrapped around her shoulder. Annie hadn’t met her during the earlier part of the evening, but assumed that the dark-haired, fortyish woman was Wurzbach’s wife. She almost tripped on the hem of her evening dress, but Jake helped to steady her. It looked like she was preparing to accompany her husband’s stretcher in the emergency vehicle.

  “Marie, I’ll meet you at the San Antonio medical center,” he assured her as she left the restaurant. He glanced in Annie’s direction and stopped to hug her.

  “I’ll be back as soon as I can,” he said. “You and Travis need to stick around and talk to Mark Ingram. He’s on his way and he’ll need your help.”

  “Of course,” she said. “I’m glad he’s the Ranger taking the call.”

  In her opinion, shared by many local law enforcement officials, Texas Ranger Mark Ingram was the state’s top criminal investigator. She knew him well, having worked with him while both were investigating the secessionists four years ago. They’d been together in an East Houston apartment when Alicia Perez had stabbed him and tried to kill her. Surviving that violent encounter had cemented their relationship.

  The Texas Rangers, now a part of the Texas Department of Public Safety, had formed the famous squad in frontier days before Texas became a state. Among their accomplishments, they’d captured and killed the outlaws Bonnie and Clyde, stopping the couple’s murderous rampage across Texas. The modern-day Rangers generally handled the state’s most serious criminal cases.

  Annie stationed herself with Travis inside the restaurant with staff and party stragglers, waiting for Ingram’s arrival. Local and state police were swarming the scene and had roped off the patio to safeguard evidence. She could hear them out there, talking to each other on walkie-talkies and searching for clues.

  Travis took charge of calling in news updates to Hugh, for which Annie was grateful. She still felt a bit numb. But she was doing her share, talking to people about what they’d seen and heard, and giving her notes to Travis, who organized the story.

  Finally Mark Ingram arrived, dressed in Saturday night casual clothes, his short red hair neatly brushed. He was a stocky man with tortoise-shell glasses and his freckles stood out in his suntanned face. He smiled when he spotted her.

  “Annie, I’m surprised to see you, but I shouldn’t be. You have a habit of showing up whenever things are happening,” he said. He shook hands with Travis, who also knew him.

  “I’m just glad you were on duty tonight,” she said. “Travis and I were doing interviews in Austin and got invited to Sam’s party.”

  She filled him in on what they’d seen before he broke away to interview other partygoers trying to leave.

  “I’ll talk to you two later after I corral some of these people. Just hang on for a while.”

  Annie drank coffee and she and Travis continued their reporting. Ingram brought one person at a time to interview at a table in a corner of the restaurant. Police had also talked with people separately, trying to collect as many impressions as they could while witnesses were still at the scene.

  The front door opened again. Jake had come back. Annie could tell from his somber face that the news was bad. He still had blood spatters on his white shirt and his eyes were bloodshot.

  “Sam’s gone,” he told them quietly. “Died a few minutes after we got to the hospital. Marie was holding his hand, but I’m not sure he was aware of it. He’d lost a lot of blood.”

  “Oh, Jake,” Annie said. “I’m so sorry. I know he was a great friend. Wish I’d gotten a chance to know him better. He seemed like a good person.”

  “He was the best. I just feel sorry for Marie and their three kids.”

  “What’ll happen to his bakeries?” Annie said.

  “He’s got a brother and an uncle in the business,” he said. “I feel sure that they’ll step up to keep it going.”

  Ingram joined them, shaking hands and commiserating with Jake. He’d apparently finished his first round of interviews, so the four of them sat down at one of the quieter tables.

  “Questions? Comments?” Mark looked each of them.

  “What do you and your guys know at
this early stage?” Annie asked.

  “We think Wurzbach was killed by one good shot from a high-powered rifle. We’ve found a place on the hill in back of the restaurant where the killer must have waited, taking time to get the right vantage point.”

  “Any clues at the scene?” Annie asked.

  “A tube of lip balm was found, apparently a brand made in Mexico. It must have fallen out of the killer’s pocket,” he said. “Obviously, it could have belonged to either a man or a woman. A couple of damaged shells were also picked up and sent to the lab.”

  Annie looked at Ingram to see if he had the same thought that immediately occurred to her.

  “Alicia Perez?” she said.

  “I’m not ruling her out,” he said. “It’s certainly possible that she and Riggins were so concerned about Wurzbach’s German Texas campaign that she might have slipped across the border to try to kill him.”

  “Have you heard anything lately about her and Riggins?”

  “Yeah, I can’t go into specifics, but we have reason to believe they’re being protected in their movements around Mexico by a drug cartel,” Ingram said. “They’ve traveled around there and have crossed into West Texas periodically.”

  “Our sources have told us that Riggins has been seen near the border and he still directs the Nation of Texas group’s activities,” Annie said. “We haven’t been able to confirm that, though.”

  Ingram nodded and continued with his analysis.

  “The secessionist movement is still pretty active online, though the groups don’t surface in public the way they used to before Riggins and Perez fled,” he said. “The Nation of Texas hasn’t put up any billboards or solicited members in a while.”

  “I meant to tell you earlier. We ran into Rob Ryland yesterday at a restaurant outside Austin,” Annie said. “It seems like a thousand years ago.”

  “Yeah, we’ve asked Ryland to come to headquarters in the morning and give a statement,” Ingram said. “But we’ve kept an eye on your former colleague and it looks like he’s behaving himself.”

  “He said he’s working at the Austin Comet,” Annie said. “He denied having anything to do with the Nation of Texas, but I wondered. He still seems awfully emotional about the subject.”

  “He’s definitely working as a journalist at the Comet,” Ingram said. “Got stories all over that liberal rag. As long as he’s not causing trouble, we don’t have any justification to follow him around. Don’t have the manpower either.”

  “What happens next?” Annie asked.

  “We do the normal kind of death investigation, looking at Wurzbach’s life, his friends and enemies. We also try harder to extradite Riggins and Alicia Perez.”

  Ingram stood up and said goodbye, telling Annie he’d be in touch. She was glad he wanted to continue sharing information, which had helped them both in the previous case. She looked at her watch, surprised that it was nearly 5 a.m.

  “Annie, let me take you to breakfast,” Jake said, putting a hand on her arm and pointedly leaving out Travis.

  “I’m not hungry, I’m exhausted. I’d like to get a few hours of sleep before Travis and I have to head back to Houston,” she said.

  “I’ll take you back to your motel,” Jake said. “That okay with you, Travis?”

  “Sure,” Travis said with a notable lack of enthusiasm. “What time should we leave, Annie?”

  “How about 11 a.m.? I’ll set my clock. We’ll get a few hours of sleep and still get away before the traffic gets bad,” Annie said. “Since Brandon’s taking the lead on the Wurzbach story for tomorrow, we can get back later.”

  Jake opened the door to his passenger seat and drove quickly to the budget motel, neither of them talking. He took her hand and walked her to the door of her room. He pulled her into his arms, kissed her hungrily and reached for her keys to open the door.

  “Could I join you for a while?” He moved to come inside, but she paused.

  “Think I’d like to just curl up by myself,” she said, trying to let him down gently. “It’s been a horrible night. I need to be alone and you probably do, too.”

  He looked hurt.

  “Okay, Annie. It sure would be nice to cuddle up for a little while.”

  “We both know what would happen,” Annie said. “I’m not sure I want to go there yet.”

  “I can tell you still love me,” Jake said. “Saw it in your eyes on the dance floor. I’m finally a free man. Don’t you want to see me?”

  “You’re right, Jake. I care about you,” she said, measuring her words. “But we’ve got a lot to figure out before we jump into bed. When things quiet down, we need to talk.”

  He shrugged. “Have it your way, babe. Why don’t you call me tomorrow?”

  “I’ll call you soon,” she said. “We should get back to our lives first and think about what we want from each other.”

  “I still love you, Annie. I want to give things another shot.” He looked at her for a long moment, kissed her cheek, and retreated to his car.

  She shut the door and collapsed on the bed. She knew that if she’d let him stay, by now he’d be stripping off her skirt and panties and pushing her up against the wall. He’d make love to her quickly, the way he’d always done when they’d been apart. Then they’d probably make love again, more slowly in the creaky double bed. She’d be swept up in a frenzy of lust. But did she really want to go there again?

  She thought about Rhett Butler in Gone with the Wind, one of her favorite old movies. Her girlfriends joked that she used the movie as a guide for life. She thought about the fictional Rhett, carrying the torch for the stubborn Scarlett O’Hara, hoping that she’d finally get over her crush on Ashley Wilkes. In the movie’s climactic scene, Scarlett finally realizes that she loves Rhett. But he tells her that it’s too late, that even the most passionate love can wither and die. Today she felt kind of like Rhett. In the three years since she and Jake had split up, she’d pined over him, refusing to look at the relationship in a realistic light. But being with Jake for the tumultuous day and night had revived her doubts. She saw a handsome, basically decent man, but one who’d gotten spoiled by the limelight and constant attention from women. Would she have to compete with other women and get her heart broken again? She wasn’t ready to admit she was done with him. She only knew she was relieved to be by herself in the quiet room, stretched out alone in the bed while life whirled by outside on the freeway. She pulled up the thin white sheets and closed her eyes for a few delicious hours of sleep.

  CHAPTER 33

  STATE SENATOR FROM FREDERICKSBURG KILLED;

  CHAMPION OF THE GERMAN TEXAS MOVEMENT

  By Brandon McGill and Travis Dunbar

  Houston Times Reporters

  AUSTIN – Samuel Barker Wurzbach, owner of a prominent Hill Country bakery and a state senator from Fredericksburg who championed the nascent German-Texas movement, died early Wednesday after a sniper attack outside the Grey Moss Inn near San Antonio.

  Wurzbach, 41, a Democrat, twice elected to the Texas Legislature, had served for four years and was vice-chairman of the key appropriations committee. He was fatally shot while hosting a party to raise money for a controversial campaign to get a ten-county Hill Country area designated as German Texas.

  Authorities, still combing the scene of the shooting, said on Sunday they have no suspects. They vowed an intensive statewide investigation.

  “Sam Wurzbach put his energy into making Texas a better place and honoring the contributions of tens of thousands of Texans who came here from Germany,” State Senator Jake Satterfield, a Democrat from Kerrville and a close legislative ally, said today. “He will be missed terribly.
”

  “There was no better citizen of Texas than Sam,” Fredericksburg Mayor Joe Schuler said. “He was the author and chief advocate of a far-sighted plan that would greatly increase jobs and visitors to Fredericksburg and the entire Hill Country.”

  Wurzbach had located his German Bakery stores throughout the Hill Country and had expanded the chain considerably in recent years. The business currently employs about 900 across the state. He started the enterprise in Fredericksburg ten years ago using his German-born ancestors’ recipes for strudel and other traditional desserts.

  “With his considerable energy and drive, he created a strong new business in an area that needed it badly,” Schuler said. “With family members continuing at the helm of the business, his legacy will survive.”

  Wurzbach’s proposal for German Texas would earmark millions of dollars for a cultural and tourist center to recognize the contributions of hundreds of thousands of Texans who emigrated from Germany in the 1800s. He envisioned German language teaching in the schools, German signage on streets and highways, and a program to attract German industries to job-starved areas of the Hill Country.

  Texas Ranger Mark Ingram said Wurzbach’s attacker apparently hid in the hills behind the restaurant and waited to strike in the darkness as the state senator was preparing to speak to the gathering. Ingram said authorities believe that whoever hit Wurzbach once in the chest with a high-powered rifle was a skilled marksman.

  “There will be a significant reward offered through the German-Texas community for details leading to an arrest,” Ingram noted.

  More than 700 partygoers had filled the Grey Moss Inn to raise money for the German-Texas cause. Much of the activity, including a band and dancing, took place on the patio area behind the legendary restaurant. Police said Wurzbach’s assailant must have gotten details of the event in advance because he or she was able to escape undetected.