Murder Once Removed

by S. C. Perkins

  “He’s an even bigger pain in my culo than you are,” I grumbled.

  “Well, somebody apparently needs to be,” said a voice from behind me.

  Great. I gave Ben a wary look, wondering if he were going to start laying into me again about chasing a dangerous man through the capitol. He was giving off calmer vibes than he had on the capitol grounds, though, so I figured I was safe … at least until the next time I screwed up.

  Due to avoiding him and his (somewhat justified) anger earlier, I hadn’t noticed what he was wearing, but now I saw he’d added a carbon-gray sweater with suede shoulder patches over his white oxford shirt and navy chinos—surely an ensemble worthy of both his alter ego, Dr. Anders, and the fictional Dr. Jones.

  Seriously, not that he didn’t look really good or anything, but I had yet to see this man in anything less than business casual.

  Me? During my pit stop at home, I’d quickly changed into my comfiest faded jeans, tan booties, and an oversized turtleneck sweater in a hunter green. My hair was in a halfhearted braid and god only knew how it and my face looked since I hadn’t freshened my makeup since lunchtime and nothing but colorless lip balm had touched my lips for hours.

  Ben reached over to shake Flaco’s hand and introduced himself.

  “I’m not quite the regular Lucy here is, Señor Medrano, but I’ve been here many times. I won’t go anywhere else for menudo or tacos al pastor.”

  Flaco eyed him for a long moment, and then accepted the compliment by gesturing for Ben to sit next to me and saying he would bring him some iced tea.

  “Yeah, you would like menudo,” I said.

  “It’s great for a hangover,” Ben replied, looking at the menu.

  “I can’t see you ever getting drunk. You’re too tightly wound.”

  “Oh, I can have fun, I assure you.”

  “I’ll believe that when I see it.”

  “I’m not sure I’ll ever let you see it, Ms. Lancaster,” he replied.

  Deciding I’d channel Downton Abbey, I tried giving him the same imperious look Lady Mary gave to wither the wills of so many men. Ben and his will ignored me.

  Flaco’s mustache twitched as he put Ben’s iced tea down and took his order. I tried my Lady Mary look on Flaco, too, but not surprisingly, he only busted out with a hearty heh-heh-heh before heading back to the kitchen.

  Sighing, I turned in my seat to stare out the windows of the taqueria.

  Ben leaned toward me. “Okay, I give. What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” I replied, but when I turned back, his eyes were patient.

  “Talk to me,” he said. Surprisingly, it wasn’t a command. It was an offer, to add his mind to mine.

  He was sitting on my right, directly under one of the counter’s bright, fifties-style pendant lights. As he sipped his iced tea, I noted again how his hair seemed to change from brown to dark blond when it was lit from above. The artificial brightness also emphasized the frown lines on his forehead, the small mole on his right cheek, a couple of faint scars on his face that hinted at acne during his teens, and another thin scar about an inch long that followed the curve of his jawline, none of which I found unappealing.

  “I’m trying to get my thoughts to line up properly, that’s all,” I said.

  He watched me another long moment. “You must’ve found something today in your research and your instincts are telling you it means something.”

  How did he know that? I thought of seeing the name Jane Tanner and how I’d focused on it.

  “Maybe…? Yes…? Is ‘I don’t know’ a valid answer?”

  “When you’re trying to work something out, yes, it’s a valid answer,” he said. “The best thing to do is think about other things and let your subconscious do the heavy lifting. If the answer’s there, it will come to you.”

  I studied him. “You know, you’re a lot less irritating when you’re not bossing me around or yelling at me.”

  His face stayed impassive, but I saw the spark of humor in his eyes.

  “Don’t get used to it, Ms. Lancaster. Have you had any more thoughts as to where Dr. Dell may have hidden the letter Jeb Inscore wrote in 1849?”

  “No, dang it,” I said, frowning. “Did y’all check inside all the books in her office?”

  “We did, yes. The ones in her house, too. Everything that could be searched has been, so it must be somewhere out of the ordinary.”

  I stretched my mind trying to think of a place that hadn’t yet occurred to me. “I’m afraid my brain is just no good tonight,” I said, as Josephine walked through the taqueria’s glass doors, her phone to her ear. She gave Ben a bright smile and bent to give me an air kiss as she spoke to her client, sending a string of German down my ear canal. “Ja danke. Wir werden am Donnerstag sprechen.”

  I didn’t speak German, but I’d picked up a few words here and there, and the back of my mind translated that she was thanking her client and telling them she would speak with them on Thursday.

  “Actually,” Ben replied, “I’m here to tell you your brain has definitely done some good work.”

  “How do you mean?”

  He stole one of my tortilla chips, dipping it generously into my bowl of queso.

  “You asked the sketch artist to do a separate drawing of your attacker, but with a clean-shaven face and a dark wig.”

  “In a chin-length bob.”

  “Exactly.”

  Ana brought Jo a bottle of Topo Chico mineral water and put Ben’s basket of tacos al pastor down in front of him. He thanked her and picked up the lime wedge that had been included. “We took the second sketch and compared the likeness against the security tapes at the Hamilton Center from the night of Dr. Dell’s murder.”

  Excitement zinged up my spine. The thought to try another hairstyle had popped in my head after remembering how a tourist with loads of curly brown hair had unwittingly stood back-to-back with my attacker in the capitol rotunda. For that brief second, he’d looked like he’d instantly grown long hair, changing his look entirely. I was hoping I might have solved at least part of the puzzle, but Ben shook his head.

  “I’m sorry, but the woman Homer saw was turned away from the cameras every time. We couldn’t get a good ID.”

  I slumped on my bar stool while he doctored his first taco with some cilantro and a squirt of lime.

  “But then we passed the sketch by the director of the Hamilton Center, and he was positive it was the woman he saw speaking with Dr. Dell during the event. Or, a man dressed as the woman he saw, rather.”

  “That had to be why my attacker was so surprised when I asked if his female accomplice was related to him,” I said, twisting to face Ben and finding him smiling.

  A genuinely pleased smile. Holy cow, it was cute.

  “Really?” I said, a matching grin spreading across my face. “I actually did something that helped?”

  “Again, don’t get used to it.”

  My smile was already fading, though, and a shiver rocked my body. “That means my attacker is Winnie’s killer. That man bashed my friend’s head in. He killed her, Ben.”

  He nodded, his blue eyes with the green centers searching mine. “I know, Lucy. But thanks to you, we have even more evidence to convict this guy when we find him.”

  Josephine and Ben saw my expression change again, into one of anticipation and eagerness. I had to admit, now that I knew what it was like to help law enforcement instead of exasperate them, I wanted to do it again.

  Ben said, “Oh, no. You’re going to stay out of it from here on out. Understood?”

  “Sure thing,” I said, deciding not to tell him that my subconscious had done some serious heavy lifting in the past few minutes. I pushed my bowl of queso closer to him and slid off my barstool. “I’ll go back to being a good little genealogist, don’t you worry.”

  Josephine looked from me to Ben, her eyes twinkling with affectionate teasing. “Isn’t that what caused all this in the first place, Agent Turner?”

&nb
sp; Ben’s response was loud and emphatic. “Hell, yes.”

  I picked up my overnight bag and turned to Ben with a smile. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” I replied, batting my eyes at him. “And buenas noches to you, too.”

  Flaco stood outside, making sure Jo and I walked to our cars unmolested. As we gave him a wave goodbye, Jo said, “I know you, love, and with the way you talked to that yummy Agent Turner, you’re up to something. Care to share?”

  “Not quite yet,” I said. Thinking back to the moment Jo walked in the doors speaking with her client, I added, “Though I do have one question. What’s the German word for tanner?”

  Jo squinted at me. “As in someone who tans animal hides, yes?” When I nodded she said, “It’s Gerber, but I would have thought you’d already know that, with how many people ask you what their surnames mean.”

  Oh, I knew all right. Or, rather, my subconscious did.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Serena sat on the left side of my desk, closest to the windows, where sunshine was warming up an otherwise cold morning. Josephine was perched to my right. As usual, they were dressed to kill, while my only nod to style was some big gold-hoop earrings with my sweatshirt, jeans, and booties ensemble.

  Wisely giving my outfit a judgment pass, Serena asked, “Do you know who C.A. is now?”

  “Not yet,” I replied, though one candidate had now come to the forefront in my mind.

  “Do you know where Winnie hid the letter, at least?” Josephine said.

  “Nope, not that either.”

  “What about the name of your attacker?”

  I shook my head. “Can’t help y’all there, I’m afraid. I gave my word I would stay out of the present-day investigation, though, and I intend to keep that promise.” I flashed my friends a grin. “But my investigation into the past is still fair game.”

  Serena groaned. “Then what can you tell us, Luce?”

  “There must be something,” Jo said. “I heard you in my living room, typing and whispering to yourself all night. I heard a squeal or two as well. What did you find?”

  “I tried to be quiet, but your condo is even smaller than mine,” I said with a wink.

  She and Serena gave each other a dry look.

  “Do I need to remind you of how easily I can put my dress form into a sleeper hold?” Serena said, one eyebrow arched. “Just remember, sweetheart: you’re shorter than my dress form.”

  Josephine, her accent more clipped than ever, added, “Yes, and, poppet, you shouldn’t believe that when she’s got you in that hold, I won’t toss a decongestant down your throat and chase it down with the vodka on our bar cart. Savvy?”

  Oh, I savvied, all right. My friends were merciless.

  I held my hands up in surrender. “I give!”

  “Marvelous,” Jo said, rubbing her hands together.

  “Now dish, darlin’,” Serena said, “or we’re going straight to Agent Turner, and we’ll laugh while he slaps the handcuffs on you and reads you your Miranda rights.”

  Josephine grinned. “That’s because we know he’ll want to swap them for fuzzy pink handcuffs later.”

  “Oooh, she needs some of that,” Serena replied, pointing to me. “Maybe we should tell him anyway.”

  “Okay, okay, sheesh,” I said, then got down to it. “I’m thinking I may have made some connections. You two know I originally thought Seth Halloran was murdered for something involving sheep-ranching lands or his textiles business, right?”

  They nodded.

  “Well, after not finding anything significant yesterday at the Legislative Reference Library, I thought I was wrong. However, it turns out there’s still a chance I could be right.”

  “Still a chance?” Jo echoed. “How do you mean?”

  “Don’t be chintzy with the details, either,” added Serena.

  I said to Josephine, while jerking my thumb over my shoulder, “You’ve already heard some of this last night, but I’ll repeat it for the bossy blonde.”

  “I resemble that remark,” Serena drawled, fluffing up her hair.

  I said, “It started when I was looking through the Senate journals at the Legislative Reference Library. I found the name Jane Tanner, who had a petition for land presented on her behalf by Caleb Applewhite. It appears the petition was never granted, because, in the Third Legislature’s Senate journal, I saw her name again. That second time, Jane had an heir.”

  “Did you run a search?” Serena asked.

  “Only in a cursory way. I didn’t really think I’d found anything truly relevant, but I came up empty for Jane nevertheless.”

  “You only found a mention of a man named Tanner who lived in San Antonio, correct?” Jo said.

  “That’s right, and he turned out to be very interesting.”

  I pulled my chair back to my desk and brought up the link to the specific genealogy chat forum from two years ago, pointing to the post by rootsfindr3577.

  Looking 4 Albrecht/Albert Tanner lived bth NE bexar Co, San Antnio Tx arnd midl 19th cen

  “I didn’t think too much about it at first. I read between the bad abbreviations that this person called rootsfindr3577 was looking for a man going by Albrecht or Albert Tanner, who had possibly lived in northeastern Bexar County as well as San Antonio itself in the mid-eighteen hundreds. I figured that Albrecht Tanner had Americanized his first name to Albert, since that kind of thing happened all the time.”

  “Did you search for him, too?” Serena asked.

  “Yep. Another simple search, but again I came up with nothing useful.”

  I looked to Josephine. “It was when you walked into Flaco’s speaking German that it hit me … If this guy changed his German first name, what’s to say he didn’t change his German last name as well?”

  I opened my copy of the Halloran family record. I’d marked the page where there was a scan of a letter dated August 30, 1848. Because the letter was written in cramped, cursive script and was hard to read, I told them what it said.

  “This is a letter from Seth Halloran’s brother, Ephraim, who lived in Virginia. It’s a reply to Seth’s letter, actually. It talks of a fight Seth had in the summer of 1848 with a man who’d owned a textiles business in Massachusetts before moving down to Texas. This Yankee tried to horn in on Seth’s business relationships with his sheep ranchers, Seth didn’t take kindly to it, and punches were thrown.” I pointed to one spot on the letter. “This is where Ephraim calls the Yankee by his last name—it was Gerber.”

  Josephine explained to Serena, “The German name Gerber means ‘one who tans animal hides.’ A tanner, basically.”

  I said, “I guess then the idea of becoming something else stayed in my head because I kept thinking about the post from rootsfindr3577.” I pointed to the words. “Specifically, I kept thinking about the fact that the writer said Albert lived in both northeastern Bexar County and San Antonio, but there weren’t really any communities in the northeastern part of the county until later in the century, so that didn’t make much sense. Then I wondered if I were reading his post as badly as it was written. So I tried rewriting it a couple of different ways, cleaning it up and adding in better punctuation, to see if it could turn into something else.”

  To illustrate what I meant, I copied the original post into a new document and spent a few seconds editing it. When I was done, it read:

  Looking for Albrecht/Albert Tanner. Lived in both N.E. and Bexar County, San Antonio, around middle of nineteenth century.

  I said, “It finally became clear the writer didn’t mean ‘lived in northeastern Bexar County and San Antonio.’ Instead, I should have read it as—”

  “Lived in New England and San Antonio!” Jo exclaimed.

  “As in Massachusetts,” I said with a smile. “Just like the man named Gerber who exchanged blows with Seth Halloran.”

  “Well, hot damn,” Serena said, nodding in excitement when she saw what little it took to change the meaning of the entire post. “Luce, you proved that
Albrecht Gerber of Massachusetts reinvented himself as Albert Tanner of San Antonio, Texas. And that he knew Seth.”

  “I also found a lot more than that. The letter mentions the man named Gerber—who we now know as Albert Tanner—and his business partner tried to buy up sheep-ranching lands. I know Cantwell Ayers used to be in sheep ranching, so I wondered if it were possible he and Albert had gone into business with each other.”

  “And?” Serena asked.

  I’d never seen both my best friends so interested in my work. I felt like videoing it on my iPad and sending it to myself as proof, because I’d probably never see them this willing to listen to me go on and on about genealogy again.

  In answer to her question, I made a few swift taps, found another screenshot from a link, and showed them the screen.

  I’d almost missed the short paragraph nestled within a rather lengthy newspaper article in the July 8, 1848, edition of The Western Texan. The article detailed several new business ventures happening in San Antonio after the recently ended Mexican-American War. I’d been skimming it, hardly giving the words a second thought, until five of them jumped out at me.

  Mr. Albert Tanner, lately of Massachusetts …

  It was then Josephine had probably heard my first squeal. I’d gone back and read the sentence again, my breath catching with the words that completed the sentence.

  … has formed a wholesale textiles endeavor with the Honorable Cantwell Ayers and Senator Caleb Applewhite.

  “Well, I’ll be damned,” Serena said. “Albert Tanner was in business with both men. The three of them were intending to compete with Seth Halloran in the textiles business.”

  “Those downright crafty buggers,” Jo exhorted.

  I laughed. “The article had been written in July 1848, only a few short months before Seth’s November fight with Albert Tanner. Then less than four months later, in February of 1849, Seth Halloran was murdered.”

  Jo’s brow furrowed. “But Albert didn’t kill Seth, right?”

  “Technically, no,” I said. “By Jeb Inscore’s account, two hired thugs did the killing on the orders of C.A. Though I think Albert Tanner’s fight with Seth over lands was somehow connected, or maybe even the impetus to C.A. ordering the hit. I also think the humiliation over losing to Seth was why Albert moved away from Texas to North Carolina sometime in 1848 or 1849.”