The Last Chance Olive Ranch

by Susan Wittig Albert

  And even though you may think you’re buying Italian olive oil, chances are good that the oil in the bottle comes from Spain, Tunisia, or somewhere else, shipped to Italy and rebottled there. What’s more, it may not be the kind of oil promised on the label. A recent California study found that 69 percent of the imported “extra virgin” olive oil sold in supermarkets was not actually extra virgin.

  In other words, you’re not getting what you think you’re paying for. You’re being scammed.

  China Bayles “Virgin Territory” Pecan Springs Enterprise

  Our cabin was located about a half mile from the ranch house, at the end of a narrow, wooded lane, past three other cabins, each about fifty yards apart. As we drove along, I noticed to my surprise that they all looked like real log cabins.

  And they were. They had been moved, Ruby told me, from the nearby village of Sisterdale, which had been settled as a German Utopian community in the 1840s. “They were being torn down,” she said. “Eliza thought they should be preserved, so she bought all four and had them taken apart and rebuilt here. She restored the exteriors and renovated the interiors of three of them for guests. Sofia lives in the other one.” She smiled slightly. “It was another of Eliza’s big projects. That woman never said no to an idea, no matter how ambitious.”

  “Is Maddie renting them to guests?” I asked. “Like a B&B, I mean?”

  I was thinking of what Chet had told me about the probate judge’s award to Boyd of half of the business—Eliza’s half, I assumed. It was a Solomon-like ruling that recognized Maddie’s legal claim to her half. But while the award might be reasonable in principle, it made absolutely no practical sense. How could Maddie be expected to work with a man who was determined to snatch her inheritance?

  “Maddie rented them for a while,” Ruby said, “but she stopped when things got so uncertain. I don’t think she wants to build the business just to hand it over to Boyd. Anyway, we’re the only guests this weekend. Sofia lives in that one. Picual.” She gestured toward the third cabin, the one we were passing. “Eliza named the cabins after olive trees—Spanish olives. Ours is Manzanilla.” She jerked a thumb over her shoulder at the two cabins we had passed. “Those back there are Arbequina and Arbosana.”

  “Interesting names,” I remarked. “And the cabins are very attractive.” They were built of weathered gray logs, with limestone fireplace chimneys, porches across the front, and corrugated metal roofs. They were landscaped with native shrubs—salvia, Mexican oregano, esperanza, and hummingbird bush—and built on land that sloped down to the Guadalupe River, a hundred yards away. To the north, behind them, the hill rose up sharply, covered in impenetrable thickets of cedar, yaupon holly, and elbow bush.

  “Just wait until you see the inside of ours,” Ruby said as we pulled up in front of the last cabin and parked beside a small desert willow tree, covered with frilly pink and lavender orchidlike blossoms. “You’ll love it.”

  I did. It was compact and attractive, with a living-dining area; a corner kitchenette with a refrigerator, a stovetop, and a microwave; a pleasant, airy bedroom with two quilt-covered beds; and a bathroom—obviously added to the original cabin—with a whirlpool tub. The floors were polished planks, the pine ceilings were beamed with massive cypress logs, the furniture was simple and rustic, and an open stair led up to an airy sleeping loft under the low roof. The fireplace, which had a gas log, was faced with limestone all the way to the ceiling. Framed drawings and photographs of olive trees hung on the walls. It was a wonderful weekend retreat.

  “Perfect,” I said, dropping my duffel bag on the floor. “And so quiet.” I cocked my head. “Listen. Not a whisper of traffic. Isn’t it glorious?”

  We stood listening—and heard absolutely nothing except for a few birds in the nearby trees. Then a vehicle pulled up outside and a door slammed. A moment later, we heard footsteps on the porch, and Maddie was opening the door. “Hi,” she said. “I’ve brought you some extra linens. Let me put them away, and we’ll take our tour of the ranch.”

  Ruby stretched lazily. “Changed my mind,” she said. “That bed looks so inviting, Maddie. I think I’ll skip the grand tour and curl up for a nap.”

  “You’re sure?” Maddie asked. “I’ve put Bronco in the back, so there’s room for all three of us up front.”

  “I’m sure,” Ruby said. “You and China go and have fun.” She gave me a significant look. “I’m sure you won’t run out of things to talk about.”

  • • •

  A half hour later, Maddie and I were bouncing along a rutted ranch road near the river, with the pickup windows open to the breeze and Bronco in the back of her beat-up green Dodge. We had made nearly a full circle of the ranch, looking at the small groves of olive trees that Eliza had planted in different locations.

  “Eliza loved to experiment with her plantings,” Maddie said, stopping the truck to show me a small grove of a couple hundred trees at the foot of a long, south-facing slope. “Those are Chemlali. It’s a Tunisian olive that begins to bear early, after just a couple of years. The fruit is small but really delicious, and the oil is mild and fruity. Eliza liked the trees because they do well in a dry spell. And they’re cold hardy.” She waved toward the slope. “She planted them at the bottom of the hill because in the winter, the cooler air settles here. She thought the Chemlalis would do better in this spot than, say, the Manzanillas. She put them higher up on the slope, where it’s a few degrees warmer in winter.” She turned and gestured toward several other rows of trees, with longer, sweeping branches. “And those are Pendolino. They’re pollinators for the Manzanilla—universal pollinators, actually. The Chemlalis are self-fertile.”

  “And I thought an olive was just an olive,” I said, shaking my head. “There’s so much to learn.” I heard a sharp yip as Bronco scrambled out of the truck in hot pursuit of a jackrabbit. “Will he catch it?” I asked, as he and the rabbit disappeared into the neatly planted orchard.

  Maddie laughed. “In his dreams. Our local jackrabbits are speedsters. But Bronco has high hopes. He always gives it his best, so we need to wait for him.” She switched off the ignition and leaned back in the corner of the seat, facing me. “Do you know Chet from somewhere? I saw you two talking together at lunch. You seemed like friends.”

  Her tone was carefully casual, but I remembered the look on Chet’s face when he talked about her. I remembered, too, what Ruby had said: that Maddie and Chet had had a thing going. Past tense. Was that true? If so, what had pulled them apart?

  Matching her tone, I said, “We did a summer internship together a couple of lifetimes ago. It was good to see him and catch up on what he’s doing.” I chased a fly out through the open window. “Nice that he’s into wines again. That was always one of his passions.”

  She regarded me curiously, as if she was thinking of asking whether I had once been one of Chet’s passions. But she only said, “He gets discouraged about the vineyard sometimes. There’s a lot of work, and the weather and irrigation are always big uncertainties. It’ll be easier once the vines are established. But a vineyard is like an olive orchard. There’s never any end to the work—and to the worry.” She paused and added tentatively, “Did he mention that he and his friends Jason and Andrea bought the land from Boyd? And that Boyd is—was—Eliza’s nephew?”

  “Yes.” I paused, then added, “He told me about the probate problem, too.”

  Maddie turned to look out the window, so I couldn’t read her expression. But I could hear the worry in her voice. “Oh, dear God. The probate problem.” She sighed.

  “Sounds like a raw deal,” I said sympathetically. “I hope the appeal is successful.”

  She turned to face me. “It feels like I’ve been in limbo for such a long time. I don’t know if Ruby told you, but in Eliza’s last days, her care was pretty demanding and I had to let everything but the orchards slide. After she died, I dug in and started building up
the other parts of the business—the nursery, the guest cottages, the ranch tours. I was going to work on the café next, but . . .” Another sigh. “When Boyd contested the will, I didn’t have the heart to continue building. I kept thinking that if the appeal was denied or the ruling went against me, all the land and half of the business would go to Boyd.” She looked out the window again. “Unless we could . . . maybe, work out our differences.”

  Work out their differences? They were considering a settlement? I wanted to know more about that. But first I wanted to hear her take on Boyd. “Chet told me a little,” I prompted tentatively, watching her face.

  “Oh, Chet.” Maddie pulled down her mouth. “Don’t believe what he says, China. I’m afraid he’s hardly neutral on the topic. It’s because of . . . well, what happened between us.”

  “I got that feeling,” I said. I had guessed right. There had been something going on between Maddie and Chet. “But still . . . I understand that Boyd suggested there’d been negligence in Eliza’s death. Something about leaving a door unlocked?”

  She nodded ruefully. “That was it. Eliza had been suffering from dementia for some time, but we were managing. Sofia spent as much time as she could with her during the day and evenings, and I slept in the room next to hers at night. Both Sophia and I hated the thought of putting her in a nursing home. We loved her very much.” Her voice was trembling. “We wanted to keep her with us as long as we could.”

  “I expect she felt more comfortable here at the ranch,” I said. “Surrounded by everything she loved.”

  “That’s what I thought, too.” She cleared her throat. “But Boyd . . . well, he saw it differently, which I can sort of understand, I guess. He was worried about her safety. He thought she’d be better off where there were more people—nurses and so on—to monitor her.” She dropped her glance. “Anyway, he kept bringing doctors to see her. They would examine her and write these terribly gloomy reports, saying that she ought to be institutionalized.”

  “That kind of pressure must have been hard to cope with,” I said. “And then she . . . drowned?”

  Maddie shook her head sadly. “I’ve never understood how that happened, you know. Sofia and I—we were so careful about keeping the doors locked. And toward the end, Eliza was afraid of going outside after dark. I didn’t think she would ever go out, unless somebody actually led her. I even thought—” She tapped her fingers on the steering wheel. “I feel terrible about that now, China. Really terrible.”

  “You even thought what?” I prompted.

  “Well . . .” She drew out the word. “The evening Eliza died, Boyd came to the house to have supper with us. At the time, I wondered whether he might have unlocked the side door before he left, so he could come in later that night and . . .” She pressed her lips together.

  I finished her unspoken thought. “And take her to the river?”

  She nodded reluctantly. “I know I shouldn’t have been imagining something like that when I didn’t have a shred of evidence. Anyway, I couldn’t think why he might want to do it. And now . . .” Her voice trailed off and she looked away.

  She couldn’t think why he might want to do it? It seemed to me that Boyd had a pretty powerful motive for wanting his aunt out of the way. I thought about that for a moment, remembering what Ruby had said about Maddie’s being inexperienced when it came to men, maybe even naïve. Was she seeing things clearly? Had she been charmed by Boyd?

  “Ruby tells me that there’s some sort of issue with Boyd’s olive oil,” I said, feeling my way into that part of the story. “Something about fraud?”

  “Well, that’s what people have said.” She shifted uncomfortably. “There’s no law against marketing a blend,” she added a little defensively. “Of course, if it’s a blend, you’re supposed to label it. Which Boyd intended to do, except . . .” She took a breath. “Well, he explained the whole thing to me. It was Mateo’s fault, really. Mateo—he works for Boyd—mixed up the labels when the oil was bottled. Boyd didn’t discover it until after it happened the second time. It was an honest mistake.”

  An honest mistake? Apparently Eliza hadn’t thought so. “Ruby says that Eliza knew about the blend and threatened to do something about it.”

  “Yes. She heard about it from Sofia’s niece Sarita, who also works for Boyd. Eliza planned to have the oil tested, but. . . . Well, that was about the time she began to go seriously downhill. It didn’t seem important then. Like a lot of other things, the idea got dropped.”

  “But Boyd knew that Eliza was aware of what he was doing—the adulterated olive oil, I mean.”

  “Yes, of course. She told him straight out that she intended to get the oil tested.”

  I gave her a direct look. “You said you couldn’t think of a reason why Boyd might want his aunt dead. Wouldn’t that be a reason?”

  She frowned. “Oh, gosh, I don’t think so, China. Not over . . . not over something like that. Especially when it was just a mistake. The mislabeling, I mean. And that was Mateo’s fault, not Boyd’s.”

  If it was just a mistake. Maybe it wasn’t, and Eliza knew it. I had known killers who pulled the trigger with less provocation.

  But I had something else in mind. I said, “Well, maybe not. Maybe you’re right, Maddie. But Ruby told me that Boyd was expecting to inherit his aunt’s ranch. And with good reason. He had a copy of an earlier will in which Eliza left everything to him.”

  “That’s true,” she said slowly. “He was shocked when he found out that she had rewritten her will and left everything to me.” She made a face. “Shocked isn’t the right word. I was there when he got the news. He was stunned. He looked like somebody had punched him in the gut. The next day, his lawyer challenged the will.”

  “And you don’t think the expectation of an inheritance might have given him a reason to do away with his aunt?” I raised my hand against her quick protest. “You don’t have to answer that. I’m not making any accusations. I’m just pointing out that Boyd had more than one reason to be relieved and even thankful when his aunt died.”

  Not that there was anything that could be done about it, of course. Eliza had been dead for almost two years. And Chet had said that the local sheriff had looked into the drowning and didn’t find anything suspicious. If there had been any evidence of anyone’s complicity in her death, it was long since gone.

  “I hear what you’re saying, China.” Maddie sighed. “Chet says I’m way too easy on Boyd, after all the grief he’s caused me.” She ran her finger along the scar that crossed her cheek, her voice softening. “But I’m beginning to think there might be light at the end of the tunnel.”

  “Ah,” I said, remembering her remark about working things out. “Your lawyer thinks there might be a settlement?” If there’s room for real compromise, a settlement can be the quickest and best way to end a long and expensive stalemate.

  Half smiling, Maddie ducked her head. “Yes, I guess you might call it a settlement. But not in the way you’re thinking. It’s Boyd and me. The two of us, not the lawyers.” She didn’t look up. “Boyd says we ought to get married, and I’m considering it. That would fix everything.”

  I stared at her. You know that old saying about being knocked over with a feather? Well, that’s just how I felt. “Boyd says you ought to get married?” I repeated, blinking stupidly. I wasn’t sure I’d heard her right.

  She nodded. “Don’t you think it makes sense? The Last Chance Ranch was divided into two separate pieces a long time ago, when Eliza’s father died. Half of it went to Eliza, and half to Boyd’s father. Getting married would bring the two halves back together again. The business would be under one management—ours.” She paused, and her voice became harder, more fierce. “And I wouldn’t have to give up Eliza’s olive groves. They would be protected, forever. Boyd has promised me that.”

  “Well, yes,” I said slowly. “When you put it that way, I sup
pose it might make a certain kind of sense. But . . .”

  But it didn’t make sense to me—at least, not the kind of sense a marriage proposal should make. She had left out the answer to a very important question.

  “Do you love him, Maddie?” I asked. “I mean, Boyd has been giving you a lot of grief over the past couple of years and—”

  “Oh, but that wasn’t Boyd,” Maddie put in quickly, in an I-can-explain-everything tone. “He had nothing to do with it, really. Challenging the will was his lawyer’s idea. Boyd didn’t even know about it, to start with. And then he . . . well, he just sort of went along with what his lawyer told him to do.”

  “Wait a minute.” I frowned. “It was his lawyer’s idea?” An attorney isn’t supposed to initiate a legal proceeding without a client’s knowledge and approval. I mean never. An attorney who does something like that ought to be fired. On the spot. If he hasn’t been fired, he has a fool for a client. Or . . . or somebody’s not telling the truth.

  “Right. Boyd explained the whole thing to me,” Maddie said earnestly. “To understand it, you probably have to know something about the family history. You see, Jimmy Bob Elliott—that’s Boyd’s lawyer—is an old friend of the Butler family. Mr. Elliott knew Boyd’s grandfather and Boyd’s father, and he helped Eliza draw up her original will—the one that left all the land and everything to Boyd. Mr. Elliott was so upset when the new will was probated and he saw that Eliza had named me as her beneficiary that he went straight to the judge and filed a challenge. Boyd didn’t even know what was happening until it was too late.”

  “But it wasn’t too late,” I said. “All he had to do was withdraw the challenge and let the probate proceed.”

  “I suppose that’s true.” She spread out her hands, still not looking at me. “But Mr. Elliott can be pretty persuasive. Boyd let himself get talked into going along with it, just to see what would happen. He realizes now that he made a big mistake. He should have told Mr. Elliott to drop it. He’s really sorry about the whole thing. He wants to make it up to me. He wants us to get married. Right away, before this legal thing is settled.”