by Carolina Mac
“Where does he live?” asked Blaine.
“San Antonio.”
“Okay, I’ll drive down there with Farrell and talk to the wife, and I’ll take a copy of his picture from the morgue for ID purposes. If you come up with names of who the strongest opponents are to the pending legislation, send the boys to interview them as soon as you know.”
“Okay, boss, I’ve got a busy morning. First, I’ll call and set you up with Mrs. Cornish.”
San Antonio.
FARRELL sat silently in the shotgun seat most of the way to San Antonio. Still brooding over the confrontation with Mary and Avery and the unexpected outcome.
“You haven’t talked to Avery?” asked Blaine.
“I think she turned off her phone. Can’t get her.”
“Wait a while. She might change her mind.”
“Yeah, and I might change mine,” said Farrell. “Mary was so goddam understanding and nice and she was the one getting shafted. I’ll probably love her forever.”
“You still loved her when you broke up. That wasn’t the reason for the split. Give yourself a break.”
“Yeah, I will. Women are making me nuts.”
As they neared San Antonio, Farrell programmed the street address of McLean Cornish into the GPS and the map lady directed them to an impressive residence in Dominion.
“This is a fancy neighborhood,” said Farrell.
“I guess Mr. Cornish makes a buck being a lobbyist.”
Farrell pressed the bell and they waited impatiently on the step in the heat. Now that the rain had passed, the day was working into a sweltering hot bitch.
A pretty brown-haired lady in her early forties opened the door, gazed at their credentials and showed them into a family room that opened up into an airy all-white kitchen. “I made coffee. Have a seat and I’ll get it.”
“Thank you,” said Blaine. He rarely turned down coffee.
“I presume this is about McLean,” she said. “Sometimes he represents groups that aren’t popular, and some people get arrested from time to time.”
“Would you happen to have a picture of your husband?” asked Blaine. “That would be helpful before we get into our discussion.”
She stood up, walked over to the mantle and showed Blaine a framed picture of the two of them together at the Alamo.
Blaine nodded his head and said, “I’m afraid I have some bad news, Mrs. Cornish.”
ON THE WAY back to Austin, Farrell said, “She didn’t seem too shocked, that he was dead.”
“I noticed that,” said Blaine. “Weird, wasn’t it?”
“She said he was away on business and he was away a lot. Sometimes in DC for weeks at a time, but wouldn’t she talk to him every day on the phone?” asked Farrell. “I think that’s what married people are supposed to do.”
“It was freaky how unconcerned she was about his absence, but maybe that’s what their marriage was always like. The norm for them.”
“Maybe having him working against the pro-gun people put him at risk and the wife knew it.”
Blaine shrugged. “Get Cat on the phone and see if she recognizes his name.”
Farrell made contact and handed the cell to his brother. “You talk to her majesty.”
“Hey, Cat, we made an ID on the guy who died on your front lawn. His name was McLean Cornish. Ring any bells?”
“Oh, I do recognize the name. Penny gave me dozens of messages from him last week, but I didn’t have any openings to see him. Maybe that’s why he tried to come to Colorado Street.”
“Could be. Somebody didn’t want him talking to you.”
“Pro-gun people, I’d have to guess.”
“Send me a list of the main players in the pro-people. We need to talk to those fuckers.”
“Yep, I’m going into a meeting, but I’ll have Penny do it right now.”
“Thanks, Cat. Later.”
Quantrall Ranch. Giddings.
JESSE spent the morning at headquarters, catching up on the paperwork from the Millburn murder that Blacky hadn’t had time to do.
All the time he’d spent at the trailer he’d sorted things out in his head and come up with a loose plan. He’d made up his mind to stay on the straight and narrow, stay sober, keep away from Annie and focus on Quantrall and Charity. That way he wouldn’t have so many people pissed at him all the time.
He drove in the Quantrall lane and parked beside a black Honda Civic he’d never seen before.
Might be a customer at the barn.
He headed into the house to spend some time with Charity before chores. The time he’d spent away from her trying to sort himself out almost killed him.
The house was quiet but as he headed up the wide staircase to the second floor he heard laughing in Charity’s room. The laughter grew louder as he got closer and he wondered who was playing with his daughter.
Jesse stood in the doorway of the nursery and stared at a gorgeous young woman he’d never seen before.
She turned her head and smiled at him. “Is this your Daddy?” She picked Charity up and twirled her around to peals of laughter.
“Uh huh, I’m her Daddy. Who are you?”
“I’m Sky, your daughter’s new nanny.”
“She doesn’t need a nanny, she has me and Ty and Molly.”
Sky shrugged. “I applied for the job and your brother gave it to me. I’m sorry that you don’t want me, but I’ll do my job until I hear differently from your brother. You can work it out with him, Mr. Quantrall.”
“I’ll do that.” Jesse turned and headed for the stairs. His heart hammered so loud in his chest it scared him and he tried his best to calm down. He gripped the railing and lowered himself step by step to the bottom.
He wanted to go straight to the barn and have it out with Tyler, but he physically wasn’t able. He headed straight to the bar fridge in the corner of the great room and pulled out a cold Lone Star. He collapsed into one of the big Spanish style chairs he loved so well and drank down his beer.
So much for total abstinence.
When he finished, he slowed his pace and walked with purpose to the barn. Ty saw him coming down the wide aisle between the stalls and pointed to the office.
“Sit down, Jesse. I know what you look like when you’re about to crash. It’s happened to me enough times.”
“I have to say this one’s on you, Ty.”
“Yeah, it probably is, but it’s best for Charity and that’s the only thing that matters to me.”
“Me too. You realize that?”
“Of course, I do. I’m your brother and we’ve raised her together.”
“Tell me why you hired a nanny behind my back?”
“Charity is up and running. She’s an active toddler who wants to run and play, and go for walks and face it, we don’t have enough time to give her. Let her be happy. We can afford it.”
“The cost has nothing to do with it.”
“I know that,” said Tyler. “I could pay for ten nannies without asking you for a dime.”
Jesse smiled. “She’s a pretty nanny. I’ll give you that.”
“Give her a few weeks and see if Charity is happy. If not, do whatever you want.”
Jesse blew out a big breath. “Okay, we’ll give it a try. I’m trying to work a little more with Blacky and it might be a good thing to have Charity totally covered.”
Tyler winked at his brother. “Attaboy.”
How far do I have to walk to get to this place? It’s way off the bus route. I’m going to sit in this park until it’s time. This is the last one I’m doing, then it’s bye bye, Aunt Laura. Once I run away she’ll have to find somebody else to clean up her overdue list for her.
CHAPTER FIVE
Friday, May 29th.
Quantrall Ranch. Giddings.
JESSE slept in his own bed in the big house that he owned with Tyler and Paul. Unable to do morning chores anymore because of his heart, he was spared the ordeal of getting out of bed at five. Instead,
he rose at seven and showered. If his health kept improving, he’d soon be able to do more work on the ranch and with his horses. He’d changed doctors after the fiasco with Jan Wagner and liked his new doctor’s naturalistic methods even better.
While he was shaving, Jesse heard the nanny outside his room in the hallway heading for the nursery. He always enjoyed getting Charity up in the morning, but he held back and let the girl do her job.
When he was dressed for work, he went downstairs to the dining room, poured himself a coffee and sat down at the table. He checked his messages while he waited for Tyler to come in from the barn and it wasn’t long before Skylar entered the room carrying Charity. She sat his daughter in her high chair and strapped her in.
“Good morning, Mr. Quantrall, did you sleep well?”
Jesse nodded and focused on his daughter. He wasn’t as convinced as Tyler that Charity needed a nanny and he intended to be non-committal until he made up his mind.
“Da,” she said and smiled at him.
“Hey, sweetheart, I was missing you.” Jesse leaned over and kissed her. “Where’s your elephant?”
“No toys at the table,” said Skylar. “Takes the focus away from eating. The main reason the child is at the table.”
“Uh huh,” said Jesse. “Got it.”
You pissing me off on purpose, girl?
The Blackmore Agency. Austin.
BLAINE drained his third mug of coffee of the morning and made ready to dispatch the boys. They needed to bring in a couple of pro-gun activists they hadn’t questioned yet.
He checked his yellow pad and pointed. “Travis, you’re in San Antonio doing a second round with McLean Cornish’s wife.”
“Okay, any new info I should have before I go?”
“Couldn’t find that there was any trouble between them, but she didn’t seem too broken up when Farrell and I were there. In fact, I thought she acted a little weird and I wasn’t buying into her grief.”
Lily tapped her yellow pad. “The two guys with the most to say to the media about the gun restrictions were Paul Leggatt and Doyle Marshall. These are their addresses.” She pushed notes across the table. “Leggatt is west of the city and Marshall in in Dallas.”
“Farrell and I will take Paul Leggatt, Carlos and Fletcher go talk to Doyle Marshall. If they don’t answer our questions reasonably at their place of residence, we’ll bring them in for formal questioning and hand them over to Jesse.”
Old West Austin.
LAURA MAY dressed in a tailored gray suit and tied a bright Hermes scarf around her neck. Scarves were her one and only weakness. She checked her makeup in the mirror in the front foyer and smiled at her reflection, then turned to her nephew and said, “I’ll drop you off at school, dear, on my way to the library.”
“Thanks, Aunt Laura, I’m running a little late.”
“Don’t forget what you have to do after class, Todd.”
How could I forget?
Coulter-Ross Ranch. La Grange.
ANNIE sat at the harvest table after breakfast and wondered how she had ended up so alone and lonely. Luke made his way to the kitchen, his arm still in a sling, and sat down beside her.
“Want another coffee, sugar?”
“I’ll get it, Annie. You’ve been down in the dumps the last couple of days,” said Luke. “I notice things.”
Annie reached out and touched his hand. “You do. You’re one of the sensitive ones.”
Luke poured himself a mug of coffee and was digging in the fridge for the cream when Bobby Quantrall came into the kitchen. He was the manager of the safe-house and had worked for Annie since the inception of the Coulter-Ross-Powell Foundation several years before.
“Hey, Bobby, come in and join us for a coffee.”
“Thanks, Annie. I’ll have a coffee with you, but I came for a specific reason. I wanted to tell you something before you found out some other way.”
“Sounds like bad news,” said Annie.
“Not bad news, but news you won’t like is more like it.”
“Go ahead and tell me. I don’t know if I could feel any worse right at this moment.”
Bobby spit it out, straight and to the point. “After Jesse’s little mishap with Charity in the Range Rover, Tyler jumped the rails and hired a nanny for the baby. She started this morning.”
“Uh huh. Ty is protective. I can see that happening.” Annie felt tears burning behind her eyes and she didn’t want to cry in front of Bobby. “I hope she works out.”
“We’ll see,” said Bob. “Jesse was steaming mad when he found out but agreed to give Skylar a chance.”
Annie raised an eyebrow. “That’s her name? Skylar?”
Bobby nodded. “She seems nice if that’s any consolation.”
“There was no consolation prize, Bobby. I lost the whole round.”
“I know you did, Annie, and I’m sorry.”
The minute Bobby left the kitchen and drove down the back lane to the safe-house, Annie started packing. She set her suitcase in the hall and headed into the nursery to pack a bag for Jackson.
“Are you going somewhere, Annie?” asked Luke.
“I’m taking Jacks to his grandmother’s in Santa Fe and doing some work in my store up there. Santa Fe has a busy tourist season and Jean, my manager, needs some help with the displays and the summer decorating. Do you want to come with?”
Luke shrugged. “Would I be in the way?”
“Nope, and you haven’t got much going on here. You’re off work until your arm heals.”
“I’ll toss a few things in a duffel bag and be ready in ten.”
Annie called for tickets and got seats for the three of them on the one o’clock flight.
West of Austin.
BLAINE and Farrell headed west of the city limits and beyond to the ten thousand acre ranch owned by Paul Leggatt. He had given them an appointment time of ten thirty and they were a little early as they rolled through the iron gates to the prestigious Lazy L Ranch.
They found Mr. Leggatt, a gentleman in his late fifties sitting on a swing on his wide front porch cleaning one of a half dozen rifles he had leaning up against the wall of his house.
About a quarter mile back from the county road his land fronted on, Leggatt had built a huge fieldstone structure reminiscent of a hunting lodge.
“I ain’t going inside,” said Farrell. “Gonna be animal heads plastered on all the walls and I ain’t looking in their sad eyes.”
“Okay,” said Blaine. “We’ll question him outside or take him to headquarters.”
They walked across the compound to the wide porch, the roof supported by massive square-cut timbers, and Blaine introduced them. “I’m Ranger Blackmore, sir, and this is Ranger Donovan.” Blaine held up credentials in case there was any doubt about his authority and said, “We’d like to ask you a few questions if you don’t mind.”
“I might mind, Ranger, when I know what this is about. I like to protect my privacy.”
“Did you know a man named McLean Cornish?”
“Not personally, but I know who he is. He’s that pansy-ass who’s lobbying for more gun controls. The gun control fanatics are paying him big bucks to take their case to the Governor, and on to Washington.”
“Uh huh. Mr. Cornish was approaching the Governor’s Mansion on Colorado Street when someone gunned him down. Would you know anything about that?”
Leggatt glanced up from his gun cleaning. “Why would I?”
“In your position as a strong opponent of gun controls, I thought you might have heard something. A rumor perhaps, or a whisper.”
“Nope. Nothing, and I assure you, Ranger, we are more civilized that than. We do not gun down our opponents. This isn’t the wild west anymore.”
Blaine left a card on the porch table and he and Farrell departed.
Farrell climbed in the shotgun seat and lit up a smoke. “What did you think of that guy? Think he’s as squeaky clean as he lets on?”
“I hav
e to do more digging. Haven’t had the time, but I’ll do it tonight.”
San Antonio.
TRAVIS arrived at the Cornish residence as the forensic team was finishing. Mrs. Cornish had stayed with a friend down the street while her house was being searched for any clue to the identity of her husband’s murderer.
Travis spoke to the team leader and discovered they had a few possibilities, but it would be a day or so before the report was emailed to the Blackmore Agency.
“I hope the lab people didn’t mess up your home too much, Mrs. Cornish,” said Travis.
“I have domestic help, Deputy Bristol. I’m sure it can be straightened up in a few hours or less.”
She motioned for Travis to take a seat in the sumptuous living area. “Ranger Blackmore was already here.”
“I know that, ma’am. He sent me to do a follow up interview in case you remembered anything after he left. Quite often when a spouse is bereaved, details are lost until later.”
“I see.” Mrs. Cornish paced the room for a couple of minutes then edged closer to the bar and picked up a decanter. “Could I pour you a drink, Deputy Bristol?”
“No thank you, ma’am. I have to drive back to Austin.”
“Could you tell me when I’ll be able to make arrangements for McLean?” She took a big sip of her drink and swished the ice cubes around in the glass.
“The autopsy is tomorrow and after that the body will be released. You can send someone for it. The funeral home of your choice will take care of transportation details for you.” Travis pulled out a card with the various numbers listed.
Mrs. Cornish stared into her drink and said nothing.
“Did your husband always work for the gun control advocates or did he work for other groups?”
“He lobbied for whoever wanted to hire him,” said the wife. “That’s the way it works. McLean knew all the legislators here and in DC and whoever wanted their cause presented, McLean would take up their campaign and go for it.”