Dang Near Dead (An Aggie Mundeen Mystery Book 2)

by Nancy G. West

  “From what you’ve told me, Bertha wants Herb to go away and leave her alone. She doesn’t want him poking around in her business. He apparently has no claim to the executive rights anyway.”

  “True. Since Bertha’s always been the one who cared about the ranch and worked the ranch, maybe she enjoys watching Herb ooze with greed when he contemplates getting money from a nonexistent oil well.”

  He nodded. “Before they died, the Vernons must have discovered that their natural source of water had returned. They might have told Bertha.”

  “Maybe the Vernons’ attorney knows about this well.”

  He looked at his watch. “It’s two o’clock. I have his name in the car. If he’ll see us, we have time to drive back to San Antonio.”

  Thirty

  After groveling under a barbed wire fence in ranch clothes, I felt too grubby to ascend twenty-five floors above downtown San Antonio in a wood-paneled elevator to enter a plush law office. That’s where Marshall Darren, Max and Billy Sue Vernon’s attorney, worked. We were delighted he could see us.

  We hoped he could shed light on what had happened with the water well and why the Vernons had died. He might even provide crucial information as to why somebody might have wanted to attack Vicki Landsdale.

  On our drive back to San Antonio, Sam had brought Marshall Darren up to date by phone. He told Darren he was an SAPD detective vacationing at the BVSBar dude ranch incognito when Vicki Landsdale had her “accident.” He related all we knew about the Vernons’ untimely deaths, about Herb and Bertha, and that we had discovered the water well.

  We washed our hands and faces in the building bathrooms before entering his office. Darren invited us in, and we shook hands. Marshall Darren, in his sixties, looked very prosperous in his silk suit. His maroon tie matched the carpet as well as the matting around photographs of his thoroughbred horses. His wavy gray hair complemented steel blue eyes that were undoubtedly perceptive.

  “Thanks for seeing us on short notice,” Sam said.

  “I’m glad I’m available,” Darren said. “Please, sit down. Max and Billy Sue were fine people.”

  “We understand the Vernons came to see you the day before they died,” Sam said.

  “Yes. Actually, they had called me the day prior to coming to my office. Driving over the ranch, they’d discovered that the well they’d drilled during the 1950s’ drought, that had been dry for years, was brimming with water again. They wanted me to file a permit immediately to re-drill the well. And they wanted me to change their wills. They’d originally left everything to each other, then to Herb.”

  We were naturally curious about their wills, but first I wanted to know more about the Vernons’ history.

  “Could you tell us more about the time when they originally drilled the well?” I asked.

  “Of course. Max and Billy Sue, high school sweethearts, married in 1953 at age twenty and moved to the ranch that Max’s father owned. Their son Herb was born that year. The Vernons had a few cows and sheep, but the 1950s drought was well underway. The Medina River ran on the north side of the ranch but it finally ran dry. As the drought continued, it was obvious their livestock wouldn’t survive. Without a reliable water supply, the Vernons couldn’t even buy seed and fertilizer to plant crops. Most Hill Country soil isn’t rich enough to farm anyway. Like so many others, the Vernons were desperate. Little Herb grew up in the midst of hardships caused by the drought. To this day, the ranch means hardship to Herb.”

  “We’ve heard he rarely returns to the ranch. I guess that explains it,” Sam said.

  “Yes. During the drought,” Darren continued, “center pivot irrigation systems were being developed, but the Vernons could never afford irrigation. Under the rule of capture, however, passed by the Texas legislature in 1904, a landowner owned rights to groundwater under his land.

  “Max’s father had saved up some money. By the time Herb was six, in 1959, the family had scraped up enough money to hire a company to drill a water well on the ranch. The Vernons plunged everything they had into paying for that well. The company used a big tall drilling rig and drilled a cable-tool well as deep as they could—close to 1000 feet.”

  I turned to Sam.

  “That tall drilling rig must have been the rig Herb saw,” I said. “He thought they were drilling for oil.”

  Sam nodded.

  “I imagine that’s exactly what he thought,” Darren said. “After the Vernons died, and I read their wills giving Bertha the ranch, Herb didn’t have much to say to me. Herb did call not too long ago, though. He said that since he owned half the minerals, he wanted me to find some oil company to drill on the ranch. I told him there wasn’t any oil under that ranch, but I don’t think he believed me.”

  “So until you read their wills, Herb didn’t know the Vernons had given the ranch to Bertha instead of to him?” I asked.

  “As executor, I wasn’t permitted to tell Herb or Bertha the couple had changed their wills. The Vernons thought that Bertha, having lived and worked on the ranch, would preserve it. They thought Herb would let it deteriorate and sell it. The Vernons said they would tell Bertha and Herb that they’d changed their wills at the appropriate time.”

  “Do you think the Vernons told them before they died?” I asked.

  “I can’t be positive, but from Herb and Bertha’s reactions when I read the will, I don’t believe either one previously knew about the changes.”

  “What happened to the water well?” Sam asked.

  “It ran fine for several years and produced enough water to get the Vernons out of their financial hole. They could grow their own food and feed livestock. They bought Angora goats, and with water to sustain grasses and shrubs, the herd increased. The Vernons made a good living from sheering the mohair fleece off their goats twice a year.

  “Hill County people started taking in visitors, so that’s what the Vernons did. With the Medina River running through part of the ranch, the Vernons’ eighteen hundred acres was the perfect setting for a dude ranch. Old man Vernon helped Max build the lodge and the cabins up until the time he died.

  “When Billy Sue’s brother and his wife died in a plane crash, Billy Sue and Max took in Billy Sue’s niece, Bertha Sampson. From then on, Bertha helped the Vernons run the dude ranch. The Vernons legally adopted her. They had quite a spread and enough water to support it. Herb never cared about the ranch. They sent him to school in San Antonio when he was twelve. Right after that, the well dried up again. That was 1965.”

  “What made the well dry up?” I asked.

  “The Vernons didn’t know it when they started, but the company had drilled into the Trinity Aquifer. They were close to the Edwards-Trinity Plateau, but the amount of available water was more variable in the Trinity Aquifer than in the Edwards. Drilling a well in the Trinity was a hit-or-miss proposition. When the drought led so many people to drill wells and develop irrigation systems, the underground aquifers fell. When the water table fell, water went farther underground, and the Vernons’ well went dry.”

  “By that time, the dude ranch had become profitable?” I asked.

  “Yes,” Darren said, “The Vernons held out as long as they could without well water. Then they obtained another permit to drill a hand well.”

  “Did Herb start to enjoy coming home?” I asked.

  “He’d come home on holidays during high school. He started college, but he bummed around, didn’t learn much and didn’t finish. He got odd jobs and continued playing around. He came to the ranch periodically, usually when he wanted money.”

  “So when the Vernons called you in 1992,” Sam said, “they had just driven over the ranch and discovered that their old well was producing water again?”

  “Yes. The years 1991 and ‘92 were terrible drought years for many Texans, but there were sporadic spring rains, and th
e aquifers recharged. The Vernons wanted me to file an application immediately with Springhills Water Management District, which managed groundwater resources in Bandera County, so they could re-drill their Trinity well.”

  Sam said, “Springshills later became the Bandera County River Authority and Groundwater District?”

  “That’s right. As developers built more houses, and water became scarcer, various water districts were formed. Each district had its own rules for landowners to access groundwater. Max and Billy Sue had heard scuttlebutt the Texas legislature was about to pass a bill limiting water that could be pumped from the Edwards Aquifer. So the Vernons were even more eager to obtain a permit to re-drill their Trinity well. Sure enough, in 1993, the legislature gave the Edwards Aquifer Authority power to allocate the amount of groundwater users could pump from the aquifer for irrigation, industrial use, livestock and by land owners.”

  “Did the Vernons get their application approved?” Sam asked.

  “Yes. When they came to my office the day after I spoke with them, we had already obtained the application forms to drill their well. They filled them out, signed them, faxed them back and mailed hard copies. When I inventoried their house in the weeks after they died, I found the permit in their mail allowing them to re-drill the well.”

  “Surely Bertha and Herb looked through their mail. I’m surprised they didn’t find the permit,” I said.

  “They might have seen the envelope from Springhills Water District, but they wouldn’t have thought it important,” Darren said. “I told Herb and Bertha I’d take care of mail that looked like bills to be paid. I didn’t think Herb would bother to pay them, and I didn’t want Bertha to get behind on some obligation and lose the ranch. I knew I needed to take possession of that drilling permit to protect Bertha.”

  “How sad the Vernons never got to enjoy their well again.” I thought I might as well ask Darren the question that had been uppermost on my mind. “Why do you think the Vernons died?”

  Before he answered, Marshall Darren took a deep breath and exhaled. “This is just conjecture, you understand. After we completed the application for their drilling permit and made changes they wanted to their wills, it was late when they left for the ranch. The next day, Bertha and Maria said the Vernons announced mid-morning they were going on a treasure hunt. They took sandwiches for lunch, and water. In their excitement, they probably didn’t take enough water. When they got to the site, the water table had dropped, and the well had gone dry again.”

  He sighed. “That well was a sign of life to them. They’d put hard work and money into the well, and it had saved them. Now, when they thought the water was there for them again, it was gone.” He exhaled again. “They were probably exhausted from the activity and excitement of the previous two days. We found out later their Jeep was out of gasoline.”

  Before Darren continued, he turned his chair around and looked out the window behind his desk. In his mind’s eye, I thought he could see the Vernons sitting in their Jeep by their well, in the middle of nowhere. “I wouldn’t be surprised,” he said, still looking out the window, “if they sat there in that open Jeep and shed tears over that dry well. The time grew later, and the sun grew hotter. My guess is that by the time they gathered themselves together, realized they were out of gas and started to walk home, they were already dehydrated and were stricken by heat stroke. This time, their well couldn’t save them.” He swiveled back around, sighed and leaned back in his chair.

  The three of us sat very still. I had to brush tears from my eyes. The fortunes of life and death were so ironic. So unpredictable.

  “Well,” Sam said, rising to his feet. “You’ve explained a lot. We really appreciate the time you’ve given us.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Darren,” I said. “The Vernons were lucky to have a friend like you.”

  “Thank you,” he said.

  Sam and I stood, shook his hand and turned to go.

  Sam whirled back around.

  “One more thing about the Vernons’ wills,” he said. “You were able to change them that same day?”

  “Yes. When I talked to them on the phone the day before,” Darren said, “I told them to make notes on changes they wanted. They would each be writing a new will in my office. Their requests were simple. Each one wanted the surviving spouse to receive everything they owned. If they died in a common disaster, the ranch, with executive rights and half the mineral interests, would go to their niece, Bertha Sampson. Their son Herb would receive an annual stipend of ten percent of the net profit from the ranch, if there was any, plus the other half of the mineral interests. If the ranch made more than $150,000 net profit in a given year, Herb would receive fifteen percent. When the Vernons came to my office the day after we spoke, my secretary and I witnessed each one writing a holographic codicil to their will. They wrote down the changes they wanted, affirmed the other terms of their existing wills and signed the codicils.”

  “Their new wills were legal and would withstand a challenge?” Sam asked.

  “Since my secretary and I both witnessed the couple making holographic codicils to their wills, and since the Vernons were of sound mind, their wills would be hard to challenge in court.”

  “I see. Thank you again,” Sam said.

  We left Darren’s office and found our car. Sam maneuvered from IH 35 through downtown San Antonio to IH 10. We headed northwest, back to the Hill Country.

  Thirty-One

  We drove in silence. I still pictured Max and Billy Sue sitting in that yellow Jeep under the broiling Texas sun, expecting another extended drought while they stared at their dried-up well.

  “How hopeless and miserable the Vernons must have felt when they saw that well,” I said.

  “Yes. Droughts are part of life in Texas, one of the worst parts. I read a lot about the weather before I moved back here from Chicago.”

  “I didn’t know you were originally from Texas.”

  “My dad was a farmer in Marlin, south of Austin.”

  “Could droughts be due to climate change?”

  “If they are, the climate has been changing for a long, long time. Droughts have been recorded in Texas since Spaniards explored the area in the 1500s.”

  “How long does an area have to go without rain before they call it a drought?”

  “Weather scientists divided Texas into ten geographical areas. If any area receives less than seventy-five percent of its average rainfall in a year, drought occurs. Back in 1756, a Central Texas drought dried up the San Gabriel River, forcing missionaries and Indians to abandon their settlement. Each decade since has been marked by at least one period of severe drought: for a hundred years ending in 1992, every area had ten to seventeen drought years. The Edwards Plateau area, which covers the Hill Country, had the most—seventeen years. During the same period, nearly the entire western half of the US suffered severe to extreme drought ten to fifteen percent of the time.”

  “Didn’t Marshall Darren say drought occurred in the 1950s, when the Vernons first drilled their well?” I said.

  “Yes, 1949 to 1957 were some of the worst years on record. By 1951, drought covered nearly all the state. By the next year, the water shortage was critical. There were a few spring rains in north Texas in 1953, but the drought grew worse from 1954 to 1956. Of 254 counties in Texas, 244 were declared federal drought disaster areas.”

  I looked outside at the sky. The sun shone bright and hot as though the thunderstorm had never happened.

  “Soaking spring rains in 1956 finally began to end the catastrophic drought,” he said, “It was 1957 before the state was considered normal. Now, we have improved methods for using and conserving water. But with more and more people needing water, the struggle is far from over.”

  “How do you remember all those statistics?” I asked.

  “I was born in
1951. Like Herb Vernon, I watched my dad pray for rain so he could make a living. I started studying the history of rainfall in Texas, and I didn’t want to depend on the amount of rainfall for my survival. What I’d experienced personally and what I learned prompted me to go to college and law school.”

  “Wasn’t a play called The Rainmaker based on the drought?” I said. Since Sam had been an English major, I thought he’d know.

  “The play opened on Broadway in 1954. Richard Nash wrote it after he traveled through drought-stricken Texas in the early ‘50s.”

  I nodded. We reached the town of Boerne and turned left onto Highway 46. In a few more miles, we’d be traveling through Bandera again and back at the ranch with greater appreciation for what the Vernons had withstood to save the BVSBar. We still had a lot of unanswered questions.

  I looked over at Sam. “Darren thought Herb and Bertha didn’t know the Vernons had changed their wills,” I said. “Do you think he’s right?”

  “He based his opinion on their reactions when he read the will aloud.”

  “That sounds like a lawyerly answer. Suppose Herb had called the ranch a couple of days earlier and learned the Vernons were going to San Antonio on business. What if he arrived the night they returned home? Maybe he’d hit hard times, needed money, and the blonde bimbo he married prodded him to find out what was going on.”

  Sam expanded the idea. “In their excitement,” he said, “Max and Billy Sue could have been giggling about the old well. Maybe Herb overheard them. He probably thought they were discussing the oil well.”

  “Yes,” I said, “and if he could bump off the Vernons and manage to implicate Bertha, he’d own the ranch and all the minerals. He’d be rich.” I contemplated whether Herb was capable of killing his parents and how he might have done it.