Bite the Moon: A Texas Hill Country Mystery

by Fanning, Diane

  A shiver raised goose bumps on my arms. Is he watching me now? My prayer that no neighbors were watching changed into the devout desire that all of them were—that their nosy curiosity would shield me from harm. I scanned the windows of the nearest houses. No twitching blinds. No shadowy forms behind the windows. I was alone. I was vulnerable.

  A car door slammed at least a block away. I jumped as if the sound was right beside my ear. As quick as my quivering hands could manage, I packed up my supplies, folded up the table and tucked it under my arm. I moved as fast as I could to the front door. I dropped everything in the hall and headed straight for my bedroom. I fastened on my holster. And slid my gun in place. I wouldn’t go anywhere without it anymore.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The urge to go to the firing range was strong, but without my police I.D., I wouldn’t get past the front door. I really needed to shoot at something to regain my confidence in my ability to protect myself.

  That’s when I thought about Eddie Beacham. I’ve known Eddie since middle school and even knew at that early age that he was a threat to my self-control.

  Eddie didn’t need to work. He’d inherited enough money to support himself and a busload of buddies in style for the rest of his life. But Eddie did work—sort of. He was an attorney who kept banking hours. No burning the midnight oil for Eddie.

  In the courtroom, he didn’t really convince the jury of reasonable doubt or persuade them of his client’s innocence. He just charmed the female jurors into believing every word that fell from his lips.

  It was more than charisma. Eddie was one fine male specimen. He projected the image that women fantasize about: strong but vulnerable, aggressive but gentle, chivalrous but not condescending. And Eddie had the looks to go with it: dark hair, blue eyes, broad shoulders and a smile fit to melt any woman, virgin to harlot, coed to dowager. He almost got to me once, but I had the sense to pull back before he moved in for the kill. I’d seen Eddie around town a lot over the years. I always made sure it was never just the two of us alone in any room.

  As dangerous as he was in social circles, he was even more deadly in the courtroom. In one case where he represented a teacher accused of killing a drug dealer who sold illegal substances to his students, there were four trials. Each time, the District Attorney tried to get all of the women off of the jury, but never quite made it.

  The state came close the last time. The only woman on the panel was a seventy-eight-year-old great-grandmother. I imagine the prosecutor thought he was safe with her. I guess he didn’t know that Eddie was at his masterful best with women in their dotage. That sweet little old lady fell for Eddie the first time he smiled in her direction. There were four hung juries before the state finally gave up.

  Eddie was careful never to defend any really nasty killers. No capital cases for this guy; it was just too much work. And he never took on more than one case at a time. As a result, Eddie’s defeats were rare, his victories occasional, but his list of mistrials went on forever.

  But believe it or not, Eddie’s ability to make sensible women, in and out of the courtroom, transform into mindless worshippers was not the skill in which he took the most pride. It was his talent, as he put it, to shoot a fly off the rump of a skittish colt while it chewed its oats without causing the critter to even blink an eye.

  I’d received invitations to use Eddie’s private shooting range out at his place near Canyon Lake a few times, but I always demurred. I had an alternative then. Now I was desperate.

  I called his under-worked secretary Sara and asked if he was available. Of course, he was. He was always available. But Sara took my name as if she didn’t know me and put me on hold while she checked.

  “Hello, Officer Mullet,” Eddie oozed into the phone, somehow making that official title sound sexy.

  “Hey, Eddie. How are you? I was calling to see if that invite to your firing range was still open.”

  “Of course. I’m always willing to cooperate with an officer of the law.”

  “Well, you see, I’m not one anymore.”

  “You’re not on the force?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?

  “It’s complicated, Eddie.”

  “Okay. Let me guess. You were fired for not sharing your charms with your commanding officer. And now instead of relying on an attorney to file a sexual harassment suit on your behalf, you are taking matters into your own hands and planning to gun down your supervisor but you want to hone your skills a bit before going in for the kill. Now, Molly, as an officer of the court, I cannot condone this behavior or enable you in any way. But I’ll be glad to defend you when you’re charged.”

  Maybe calling Eddie wasn’t such a good idea. I felt the heat of red flaming my face. “C’mon, Eddie. Give me a break. Let me use your range and I’ll tell you the whole story.”

  “You promise you’re not going to set me up as an accessory before the fact.”

  “Eddie, I have no intention of committing any crime.”

  “Oh, maybe not, Molly. But I know you’ve got it in you. There is a fiery passion smoldering beneath your all-together surface that I think is capable of almost anything.”

  “Cut the crap, Eddie. Can I come out and shoot at your place or not?”

  He laughed. He knew he’d won this round of our perpetual head game. “Sure, sure, Molly. Today?”

  “That would be great.”

  “See you at two?”

  “Two? Won’t that disrupt your busy attorney-at-law schedule?”

  “Tsk, tsk, Miss Molly. Sarcasm is no way to show your appreciation. We’ll find some better ways this afternoon.”

  Before I could spit out a snappy comeback, he was gone.

  Chapter Nineteen

  I turned down River Road and followed the course of the Guadalupe River. The water shifted from one side to the other at each crossing—slim two-lane concrete slabs without guardrails where the road dipped down and forded the river. Along the way, the many campsites were populated with a few intrepid visitors. In a few weeks, this peaceful road would be bumper to bumper with the warm weather deluge of river rafters, RVers and tent campers.

  At Sattler, the road diverged from the Guadalupe, and I pushed on to the lake and its huge wall of dam built by the Army Corps of Engineers. I drove past the pull-off and spotted four people walking across the top of the dam, a perilous precipice at their backs, a glorious view of the lake sprawled at their feet.

  A short distance later, I turned onto a private road and wended my way up the hill. At the top was Eddie’s aerie of glass and stone perched with a God’s-eye view of the glistening body of water below.

  I stepped out of the car and Eddie hurried to my side. He looked ready to embrace me so I took a step back. He stuck out his hand instead. When I took it, he wrapped his other hand around too. His eyes stared deep into mine as if I were the only woman in the world—ever. My stomach flipped. My knees quivered. I had not received a look like that since the day I shook hands with Bill Clinton at one of his stops on his Texas bus trip the first time he ran for President. I held Clinton’s gaze then. Now, I averted my eyes and pulled out my gun.

  Eddie raised both hands in the air. “I’ll lie face down in the dirt if you promise to frisk me.”

  “Cut me some slack, Eddie. I am not pointing the gun at you. Put your hands down. I’m here to shoot bullets, not to play mouse to your cat. Let’s get to it.”

  He executed a mock salute and pivoted on his heel. “This way, sir.”

  He proceeded ahead of me in a comic march and skip he probably stole from a grainy black and white movie from the thirties. I did not want to be amused but I was.

  We went to a large commercial steel building tucked out of sight in the folds of the hills. He pulled open the door and placed his hand on the small of my back as if escorting me to a table in a restaurant.

  Charlie danced through my mind as the warmth of Eddie’s hand seeped into my back. I felt a swelling in my lips an
d a tingling in my fingers. I faked a coughing fit to prevent Eddie from seeing the naked longing in my eyes.

  I imagine somewhere some law enforcement agency had a range as sophisticated as Eddie’s facility. I’d never encountered one except in the movies. Electronically controlled pulleys moved targets forward and back. LCD read-outs displayed the distance for the target in each lane. Quite impressive.

  I popped on my ear protectors, loaded my gun and fired. Not at all impressive. I reloaded. On the fifth time, I felt in control of my emotions and of my weapon. On the sixth load, the gun and I were one. Eddie hit the button and rolled the target forward. Six shots. One hole. All straight through the heart.

  “You’re good, girl.”

  “What?” I said as I pulled the protectors off of my ears.

  “You are good,” he said in a whisper as his face closed in on mine and his lips pressed into my lips.

  I closed my eyes and saw Charlie. I yielded to the memory and to the moment. Then, Eddie’s hand slid up under the back of my shirt. His skin touched mine and the spell was broken. It was not Charlie’s touch. It was not Charlie’s kiss.

  I pulled my arms up between us, placed my palms on his chest and pushed. “No.”

  “No?” he said as his fingers caressed my right cheek.

  I batted his hand away. “No.”

  “I thought you might still be embracing Charlie’s memory, girl. But memories are cold in bed. It’s time to move on.” His voice was heavy with pity.

  Damn him. Damn his lips. Damn his hands. He was right. I was not over Charlie yet. Maybe I never would be. But I sure wasn’t going to admit it to him. “Oh, please, Eddie, give me a break.” I pulled up my ear guards and loaded my gun. “Just because a woman does not crumble at your feet does not mean she’s weighted down with emotional trauma. You’re not that good, Eddie.”

  I stepped over to another target and unloaded my gun. My performance made a lie of my words. Eddie didn’t press the button to reel it in. Even from a distance, we could see that not one shot touched the outline of the man. I packed up.

  Eddie did not speak and did not move until I pulled open the door. “Hey!” he shouted.

  I looked back over my shoulder. “What?”

  “I thought you were going to tell me about why you’re not a cop anymore.”

  “Later, Eddie,” I said, pulling the door shut behind me. I drove off, telling myself I was angry with him. But I knew I was really mad at me.

  Chapter Twenty

  Happy Parker was the only band member who engaged in even the most cursory conversation with me. The others didn’t return my calls, making them suspicious, rude or out of town. But Happy hung up on me. Odds were that meant Happy knew something or feared someone. It seemed like a good place to start.

  Happy lived out near Wimberley, a community filled with artisans, artists and oddballs. As a rule, I took highway 35 to San Marcos then cut across the town of San Marcos as I headed west to Wimberley. In early spring, it was not your typical monotonous interstate trek; a riot of color erupted each year. Thanks to God’s handiwork and Lady Bird Johnson’s hard work, the sides of the roadways and the median strips were alive with wildflowers. The main feature in the beginning of the blooming season was wave after wave of the pride and joy of the Hill Country, the beautiful Texas bluebonnet. Its vibrant blue is accented by the striking red of Indian paintbrush, the pale, delicate pink of mallow and the sunny yellow of coreopsis. It was a bit early in the year for the fullness of this flamboyant display, so I took the back way via Purgatory Road and the Devil’s Backbone. A few wildflowers were open, cast like jewels among the cactus. The cactus itself was still a couple of months away from its annual moment of glory when the buds swelled and burst into gaudy and captivating yellow and red blooms.

  There was no shortage of another harbinger of spring: armadillo road kill. Although I saw copious corpses basking in the sun in the middle of the road around here, it took a trip to Aransas Wildlife Refuge for me to see a living, breathing armadillo. It raised its funny armored body up on its hind legs and twitched its nose as it checked me out. Apparently, I was of little or no interest, because he settled back down to all fours in less than a minute and waddled back into the brush.

  I rolled past ranches with intriguing names like Eagle’s Peak and Eden’s Rest, some filled with cattle, some with goats and even one with emus. The emu ranch advertised the benefits of its herd with a sign proudly proclaiming the virtues of emu oil for treating arthritis.

  Up high on hilltops were a smattering of majestic stone homes looking out over picturesque rolling hills and weaving roads and looking down on the tarpaper shacks, ramshackle trailer homes and the junked cars and pick-up trucks that sprang up sporadically like litter on the roadsides.

  Before I hit the town square of quaint shops and studios, where sturdy pastel painted buildings stood side by side with teetering gray weathered wood structures, I spotted the small farm-to-market road that led to Happy’s place. This barely two-lane byway curved back and forth for no discernable reason. I spotted Happy’s mailbox. It wasn’t labeled with a name or address but it had to be his. A weathered bongo drum perched on its side atop a metal pole. The flag was a drumstick painted red, and hinges and a latch transformed the drumming surface into a small door. I wondered what it looked like on the inside but decided to pass. The federal offense of tampering with the mail might extend to mailboxes, and it was a little too early in my career to ask my employer to bail me out of jail.

  The farm gate stood wide open and judging by the weeds growing around it, no one had closed it for quite some time. I eased my car across the bumps of the old cattle guard and headed up the dirt drive. I traveled a few hundred yards before I turned the corner and a pristine new log cabin came into view.

  I parked my Beetle next to a mud-splattered jeep, rolled down my window and listened. The only sound I heard was the gentle tinkling of the wood chimes hanging from the eaves of the broad front porch.

  I opened the car door and a cacophony of barks shattered the peace. Bounding toward me were two large white Great Pyrenees, 120 pounds apiece, at least, and a small tan Corgi. The big dogs didn’t worry me. Big dogs are big babies by nature, but the little one made me nervous.

  I slid out of my car, shut the door and turned to greet the canine hospitality committee. Leaning forward, I slapped my hands on my knees. The two big dogs responded by hanging their heads, wagging their tails and sidling towards me. I rewarded both of them with a scratch behind the ears.

  The little Corgi was not as easily mollified. He still seemed intent on extracting his pound of flesh. Every step I took forward, he made another lunge at my ankles. We were both distracted from our dance steps by the screeching of a screen door. A shrill voice whined, “Pete, Labia, Crapper, come here.”

  The two Pyrenees obeyed her command without hesitation and lumbered up on the porch. She was dressed like an old hippie with a long denim skirt that swept the floor, bare feet and a retro T-shirt proclaiming “Free Love.” Her short, styled haircut and make-up contradicted her dress. The scowl on her face said she was not glad to see me.

  The Corgi ignored her, stood his ground between the house and me and snarled. “Crapper. Cut it out and get up here. Now.”

  With one last growl, the Corgi swung around, gave me an evil backward glance and leaped onto the porch, where he faced me and bared his teeth. I walked up to the steps, taking care not to get too close to Crapper, the ankle-nipper. “Hi, I’m Molly Mullet. I’m looking into Rodney Faver’s murder and would like to talk to Happy.”

  “Come on up on the porch. Don’t worry about Crapper. He won’t bite. I’ll go see if Happy is here.”

  Crapper won’t bite? Right. And bears don’t crap in the woods. And “I’ll go see if Happy is here”? Sure. I know this was a good-sized cabin, but it’s not that big. He’s here all right. But is he here for me? That was the question.

  I stood on the porch waiting while the two Pyrenees bu
mped into me, begging for attention, and little Crapper circled around my ankles making menacing noises. After five minutes, the woman returned, held the door open and invited me in.

  The two Pyrenees plopped down on the porch but the Corgi, unfortunately, followed me in—his eyes pinned on my ankles. The living room was rustic and sophisticated. High cathedral ceilings with rugged hand-hewn beams, a bold rock fireplace on the far wall and lots of windows for an exquisite view of the rugged countryside formed the backdrop for a United Nations of drums. Everywhere I looked, I saw drums from around the world: a djembe from the Ivory Coast, a pandero from Puerto Rico, a dondo drum from Nigeria, bodhrans from Ireland and ashikos from New Zealand.

  “Happy’s not here now, but I’ll be glad to answer your questions,” the woman said and stuck out her hand. “I’m Heather. Have a seat.”

  I settled into a dark brown, distressed leather sofa and asked, “Were you at Solms Halle that night?”

  “What night?” Heather said as she twirled a ring in circles on her right ring finger.

  Was she really that dumb? “The night that . . .” I began.

  “Oh, oh, yes, of course. The night that Rodney died. Oh, yes.”

  “Yes? You were there?”

  “Oh, no. No. I wasn’t there. I . . .”

  A small thud echoed in the back of the house. Heather’s eyes darted side to side as she gasped and jumped to her feet. “You know,” she said in a louder voice, “I don’t really like country music all that much. I’m really more of a blues person. You know, why don’t we listen to some blues while we talk?” She walked toward the CD player.

  A muffled crash made her jump. “One of my favorites of all time is a duet with John Lee Hooker and Bonnie Raitt. It’s called In the Mood. Have you heard it? I just love it. Here it goes. Listen to this.”