The Last Chance Olive Ranch

by Susan Wittig Albert

  Ah. Chalk up one in good old Clarence’s column. Well, the existence of a mortgage, if there was one, would be a simple matter to confirm. All it took was a trip to the county clerk’s office and a look at the property records.

  But that wasn’t the point, was it? The point was that, on all counts, and whatever the truth of these accusations against Boyd, Maddie seemed to prefer to believe him.

  “She must want to keep those trees very badly,” I murmured, half to myself.

  “Yes, she does.” Sofia’s glance was a sharp-pointed dart. “But marriage between these two is impossible. That is what I have told Boyd. It is what I am telling you.”

  “Well, I certainly agree that it’s a terrible idea to marry someone just to save a few olive trees,” I said firmly. “I suggest that she ask her lawyer to draw up a very careful prenuptial agreement, spelling out exactly what belongs to both her and Boyd before the marriage.”

  Texas is a community property state. In the absence of a firm agreement, Maddie would have trouble protecting whatever income her separate property brought her after the marriage—and if it was true that Boyd was a gambler, she was likely to need protection. I thought of my friend Justine Wyzinski, the Whiz, who practices family law in San Antonio.

  “If Clarence doesn’t have experience in this area of the law,” I added, “I can put Maddie in touch with a very good lawyer who—”

  “You don’t understand, my dear.” Sofia lifted her chin, speaking with an almost ringing authority. “It must not be done. It is impossible.”

  I frowned at her. “Impossible? I don’t quite understand. They’re both of legal age, aren’t they? If she wants to marry him and he wants to marry her—”

  Sofia interrupted me. “This is why I asked to speak with you this afternoon: to learn whether you are the person I want to advise me on this matter.” She smiled slightly. “I believe that you are, and I will show you the papers that prove that what I say is true. You will tell me what you think about these papers—whether they are sufficient—and what you think I should do.”

  “You’re asking me for a legal opinion?” I asked, frowning. “But I’m not—”

  I was about to say that I wasn’t a practicing attorney, but she broke in again. “Yes, a legal opinion. Yes, exactly. I have money. I will be glad to pay whatever is reasonable.” She picked up the carved wooden box on the table beside her and put it on her lap. “I trust you will understand that what we are about to speak of is a very difficult, delicate family matter, to be discussed only between the two of us and no one else.” She paused, running her fingers over the polished surface of the box. “Eliza brought this box with her from Spain,” she added reminiscently. “It is very old, made of olive wood from the Spanish orchards. She kept her most precious papers in it.”

  So there it was. Sofia wanted to engage me to give her a legal opinion about the papers in the heirloom box she held on her lap. Eliza’s important documents. Maybe they had to do with the trees, or with the production of olive oil—some sort of secret recipe or formula, or instructions for managing the orchards. Maybe she wanted my opinion on their potential value, in case they might be of use to Maddie. Or maybe she wanted to keep the documents—whatever they were—from Boyd, and hoped I could tell her how to do that.

  But I had just met this woman. For all I knew, she was a little wacky, even a whole lot wacky. This whole thing might be a figment of Sofia’s imagination, or something else: a way to make herself seem important, a way to get attention from an outsider. At the same time, though, I was intrigued. There was no shortage of lawyers hanging around the fringes of this affair. I could understand that Sofia might not trust Jimmy Bob What’s-his-name, Boyd’s attorney, to keep his mouth shut about anything important. But she could certainly ask good old Clarence for an opinion. She didn’t need to bring in a complete stranger. Unless, of course, there was some sort of very special reason she didn’t want a local lawyer dipping into Eliza’s secret recipe for olive oil—or whatever was in that box.

  I was about to open my mouth and ask that question, point blank, when there was a knock at the door. Sofia frowned and raised her voice. “Yes, who is it?”

  “It’s me,” Chet said loudly. “May I come in, Sofia? I’ve brought you a present. And I’m looking for China.”

  Sofia closed the carved box and put it back on the table beside her. She smiled at me. “It is our friend, yours and mine. Go and open the door. There will be time to talk about this matter later. But please remember that it must be kept between us.”

  I opened the door to see Chet, standing on the front porch with a bottle in his hand. “Hey,” he said. “Ruby told me you were here. It’s threatening to storm, so I thought we might get an early start on our tour. I’d like to show you around the vineyards before it starts to rain.”

  I glanced over his shoulder. The clouds that had been building to the southeast now covered almost half the sky. The sun had disappeared and a fitful wind stirred the leaves of the live oak tree in front of the cabin.

  Before I could say anything, Sofia called out, “Come in, please, Chet. Especially if you have brought me some wine.”

  I stepped back and held the door open. “I have,” Chet said with a laugh, coming into the room. He raised a bottle. “I’ve brought you a red from our Dolcetto and Sangiovese vines. Would you like a small glass now? And Jason and Andrea have asked me to invite you to supper. China is coming—right, China?”

  “Right,” I said. “I’m also looking forward to seeing your vineyard. Unless we have to postpone because of rain.”

  “Not a chance,” Chet said confidently. He grinned at Sofia. “When I left Jason’s place, Andrea was baking your favorite lemon olive oil cake. If you come, the occasion will be even more grand.”

  “I would love a small glass of your wine.” Sofia gestured toward a cupboard. “But I won’t go to supper with you and your friends. I am very tired.” She smiled primly. “And I’m an old, old lady. You young people can do very well without me.”

  “That’s not true,” Chet protested. “We love your stories about the old Last Chance.”

  She shook her head and we had to accept her refusal. Later, when I thought about her words, I would deeply regret that Chet and I didn’t keep on insisting. If we had taken Sofia with us, things might have turned out very differently, and a great deal of loss and pain might have been spared.

  But we didn’t. Chet handed us each a glass of wine and—quite earnestly—said some of the things that used to make me smile, back in the days when we sampled wines together.

  “Can you taste the blueberry tones, and perhaps a bit of tart cherry?” he asked hopefully. “Maybe a hint of coffee? It’s a nice, complex red, don’t you think?”

  I smiled. I do enjoy drinking wine, but the language used by connoisseurs has always seemed a little . . . well, unclear. Lawyers prefer definitions that they can nail down, and that everyone can agree to.

  Sofia sniffed. “I don’t know about coffee and cherry, but your wine is very good, Chet.” She smiled at him and I got the idea that he was a favorite of hers. Perhaps she thought he was a better marriage bet for Maddie than Boyd. “The next time you come,” she added, “please bring another bottle. I’ll drink it down to the bottom and tell you if I can find any blueberries in it.”

  Chet and I laughed at that and finished our wine. I bent over her chair and whispered my promise to come back in the morning and look over her papers. “And I’ll bring you a piece of Andrea’s olive oil cake,” I said.

  She patted my hand and said, with a smile, “Thank you, China Bayles. I’ll be waiting.”

  We said our good-byes and left. Outside, on our way to the dusty yellow Jeep parked out in front, Chet looped his arm in mine. “A sweet old lady, isn’t she?”

  “A very shrewd old lady,” I said. “Quite canny.” I thought about her questions of me, her penetrati
ng glance, her thin hands on the box of documents, which might or might not contain something valuable. “She plays her cards close to the vest.”

  “Cards?” Chet cocked an eyebrow. “That little old lady is holding cards? I didn’t have her figured for a player.”

  I realized that I shouldn’t have spoken. “Oh, you know me, Chet,” I said lightly. “I’m the one who sees a plot under every rock.” The rumble of thunder helped me change the subject. “Hey. If we’re going to beat that rain, we need to pick up Ruby and be on our way.”

  “Ruby said to tell you that she’s not coming with us,” Chet replied. He stopped beside the Jeep. “How about giving me a hand with the soft top? We’d better put it up now. It’s no fun to try to get it in place when the wind is blowing and we’re getting wet.”

  I went around to the other side of the Jeep. “Ruby’s not coming with us? That’s too bad. What’s she doing?” Together, we raised the top and began to fasten it to the front windshield.

  “She and Pete are going for a ride,” Chet said. “Then dinner and country dancing.” Chet checked the fastenings to make sure they were secure. “I saw them just now, getting into Pete’s pickup. They seemed quite simpatico.” He stepped to the back. “We need to zip in the back window. You start over there on that side.”

  I followed directions. “Simpatico?”

  Chet grinned. “Yeah. They were holding hands. I was glad to see it. Nice for Pete to have a little fun for a change. Lately, he’s had more trouble than he needs.”

  “Well, Pete’s a cowboy,” I said flippantly. “So I guess I’m not surprised.” When I saw the puzzled expression on Chet’s face, I thought I’d better explain. “Ruby falls in love with a cowboy every so often. She’s about due.”

  Chet’s glance was serious. “I hope it’s not a game with her, China. Pete’s just beginning to get himself together after a bad situation. He was engaged to a girl in San Antonio, but she threw him over for somebody else. He’s a super-nice guy. I’d hate for him to get hurt again.”

  I sobered guiltily. “I didn’t mean to make Ruby sound like a heartbreaker.” We finished zipping. “She never intends to hurt anybody.” I paused, thinking that it wasn’t always Ruby who called it quits. Sometimes it was the cowboy who ended it—like Shane, riding away with never a backward glance. Maybe Pete was what Ruby needed. Maybe he was a different kind of cowboy.

  Chet was frowning. “With Pete, I’m not sure it can ever be easy come, easy go. He’s not that kind of guy.” He went to the driver’s-side door and got in, and I followed suit—after I moved a length of rope, a pair of work gloves, a wire cutter, and a box of ammunition into the backseat, where it joined several bottles of olive oil, the labels crossed out with a dark marker.

  “Rancid,” Chet replied when I asked him. “I got them from Boyd, who had some bottles go bad. Andrea intends to use it in her next batch of soap.”

  “Smart,” I said. “That’s a good use for bad oil.”

  “Bad oil works pretty well as a rust preventative on outdoor equipment and tools, too. And I used it to polish up a couple of my wood carvings.” He went back to the previous subject. “Say, could you maybe . . . like, talk to Ruby, make sure she understands Pete’s situation? He might be looking for something, well, something sort of permanent.”

  “I suppose I could,” I said reluctantly. I love Ruby like a sister, but I don’t like to get involved in her romances. Colin Fowler, the love of her life, was killed three years ago, and while I keep telling her it’s time she got over it, she still hasn’t recovered from the tragedy. She was madly in love with him, and when Ruby is truly in love, she flings herself into it with all her heart and absolutely no common sense, like a woman jumping out of a plane at ten thousand feet without a parachute, in complete ecstatic free fall. Since Colin’s death—his murder, to be accurate—she’s been involved with several guys for a month or two at a time, but the flames never quite took hold. Still, considering what Chet had said, I thought it would be a good idea to have a little talk with her. I liked Pete. If he was in a vulnerable place, still getting over being jilted, Ruby might not be good for him.

  Love is a tricky, tricky thing, you know? It can be right for us, it can be wrong. What’s right at one time in our lives—witness my relationship with Chet that summer when we were clerking together—can be wrong at another. And even when it’s right, it can go badly.

  When it’s wrong, it can be a nightmare.

  Chapter Ten

  MCQUAID

  Late Friday Afternoon

  Still thinking about his son and the girl with the tennis racquet, McQuaid took East Oltorf under the freeway to the Sonic Drive-In and ordered a burger, fries, and a chocolate milkshake. While he ate, he reminded himself that one kiss does not a long love affair make, and that they were only sharing a house. They weren’t married. And there was no point in dwelling on the situation. Brian would tell him what was going on when the boy was good and ready. Anyway, he had to think about tonight—assuming Royce came through with the contact information—and about his plan for luring Mantel out into the open where he could be captured. He clenched his jaw. Or shot. Five dead. This time, if the man stood in front of him, asking for it, he was likely to get it. Right between the eyes.

  Finished eating, he doubled back under the freeway, made a left on the access road, and took the on-ramp, heading south on I-35. The gray clouds were grimly ominous, the wind was picking up, and an occasional brief shower splattered the windshield. He turned on the wipers, but they left muddy arcs across the glass. As he flicked the windshield washer on, he remembered that the Lions barbecue had been rained out the year before, and they’d had to reschedule. His Plan A would be scuttled if they were rained out again, and he had no Plan B. Irritated, he wished he’d paid more attention to the weather forecast.

  He was still thinking of this when Harry Royce called.

  “I dug out Mantel’s local connections. Two addresses in New Braunfels and San Antonio. If you still want them, I’ll email them.” Royce’s voice darkened. “Nobody says you have to do this, McQuaid. It’s your own private undertaking.”

  “Understood,” McQuaid replied. Royce was right. Tracking down Max Mantel, putting him back where he belonged or—

  Or whatever. It was his own private crusade. He checked his mirror, then swung out to pass a big yellow school bus that was trucking along at the speed limit, nearly seventy. It was empty, but it was still moving fast for a school bus. “Who are they? The local connections, I mean.”

  “One of them is Mantel’s stepbrother,” Royce said. “A guy named Lester McGown, age thirty-seven, three priors. Two misdemeanor possession, one felony armed robbery. Lives on Chisholm Road, outside New Braunfels. I pulled the Huntsville prison visitation records. McGown is on the list. He saw Mantel about two weeks ago, and a couple of weeks before that.”

  The inside of the windshield was fogging and McQuaid turned on the defroster. “So McGown might have been in on the escape,” he said. “And the shootings.”

  “Maybe, maybe not.” Royce was matter-of-fact. “I had a trooper do a drive-by on the Chisholm Road address. It’s a single-wide, looked to be occupied but nobody was home. If I had the manpower, I’d put somebody on the place.”

  “I’ll get on it this evening,” McQuaid said. “Maybe I’ll have better luck.” The defroster wasn’t clearing the windshield fast enough, and he swiped at the glass with a paper napkin, leaving a streak of mustard. “The San Antonio address—what’s the connection?”

  “Turns out to be a wrecking yard owned by a cousin,” Royce said. “Joe Romeo. No priors, no record of prison visits. Probably not worth checking out.” McQuaid heard papers rustling. “I’ve got the full list of friends and associates, but everybody else is in the Houston area. The two I gave you are the only ones in your neck of the woods. Long shots both of them, if you ask me.”

  McQuaid
grunted. “In this business, everything is a long shot.” Including tomorrow’s barbecue setup. Yeah, Hark’s story on the wire had helped him put the bait out there. But the odds of Mantel’s snatching it up couldn’t be better than sixty-forty. Forty the man would show, sixty he wouldn’t. Hell, they might even be worse than that. Seventy-thirty, eighty-twenty. There was no way to tell. And now, rain—which was coming down so hard at the moment that the glowing taillights of the car thirty yards ahead were a foggy blur.

  “Any news from Houston?” he asked. “No more homicides, I hope.”

  “If there are, nobody’s bothered to tell me.”

  “Wouldn’t they? Aren’t you in charge?”

  “Am I?” Royce’s chuckle was ironic. “Abbott sure as hell thinks he’s in charge. He’s still hot as a two-dollar pistol over your TV sucker play this afternoon. He’s phoned over here twice, pumping me for the details. I was glad to be able to plead ignorance. Told him I had no damn idea what kind of dirty tricks you might have up your sleeve.” His voice grew clipped, stern. “Don’t you contradict me on that, my friend. I do not want to see your name connected with this office in any public way, shape, or form. Whatever you do tonight, tomorrow, next week, you are out there on that skinny limb all by your lonesome.” He paused for emphasis. “You got that, McQuaid?”

  “Got it.” McQuaid wasn’t perturbed. Royce had to protect himself. He couldn’t admit to letting a civilian trespass on cop turf, even if the guy was an ex-cop and a licensed PI who was doing something useful. “You know, Harry,” he added, “I feel for Abbott, I really do. Today must’ve been a helluva day in the DA’s office—losing the boss the way they did. But if Abbott thought he could keep a tight lid on the political pot for more than an hour or two, he’s dumber than a box of rocks.”

  “I’m with you on that, fella.” Royce must have looked at the clock, because his voice had become suddenly cheerful. “Hey, looka that. It’s an hour past quitting time. I’m outta here, quick as I send you this email.”