“I made it when I was nine years old,” Rance replied quietly, his voice more subdued than Maggie had ever heard it.
Three pairs of eyes stared. Three mouths gaped. Three people didn’t say a word.
“If you’ll turn it over, you’ll see some letters scratched on the underside. RMH,” he told them.
. Rance’s suggestion nudged Maggie out of her shocked state and into action. She turned the object flat side up and looked at it carefully. Barely visible beneath a crusty layer of mud and dried algae were the letters. Maggie drew in a sharp breath. “I see them.”
Tess and Buddy crowded around her, jostling Maggie’s arm in their efforts to see.
“What is it?” Buddy finally asked.
“It’s an ashtray. I made it in school when I was in the third grade. I put my initials on it. RMH stands for Rance Montoya Hightower.” Rance took the ashtray from Maggie and looked at it again.
“I gave it to my mother for Mother’s Day. She took it with her when she left,” he added softly. Rance handed the ashtray back to Buddy. “Here, take it.”
Buddy shoved the crude ashtray back at its maker. “Gee, Mr. Montoya. I can’t take it. It looks too important to you,” he said, with more perception than normally belonged to a thirteen-year-old. Maggie’s heart swelled with pride at her son’s gesture.
Rance closed his big hand over the ashtray and clutched it to his chest.
“But how did it get here? You were in Texas when you were nine, weren’t you?” Leave it to Tess to ask the right question at the wrong time.
Rance’s handsome face grew almost as pale as it had that day when Maggie rushed him to the hospital. Wrinkles furrowed his brow, and a frown stretched his full lips into a flat, straight line.
“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to,” Maggie told him, sensing that the subject was more painful than Rance might be ready to admit. She touched his arm in a gesture of support. Or comfort.
He was silent for a long, slow minute. “I don’t honestly know how it got here,” he answered, his voice husky with pain and emotion. “The last time I saw it was the day I gave it to Mama. Thirty-some years ago. The last time I ever saw her.”
Rance turned away. For a moment, his shoulders shook, but then they stilled. He straightened, pulled his shoulders back, and turned around again. “I think we’d better call it a day,” he told everyone quietly.
“Okay.” Maggie swatted Buddy on the rear. “Go pick up the tools we left around by the house. We’ll come back another time and finish up.”
Tess started to say something, but Maggie shot her a warning look and jerked her head toward the side of the house. Tess and Maggie followed Buddy, subdued after what they’d heard. They gathered up the abandoned equipment, and when they came back around to the front of the house, Rance had gone inside.
It would have been easy to convince himself that the car in the creek was a coincidence. There were hundreds of cars of that make and model, made that same year. But Rance couldn’t shrug off the ashtray as happenstance. He looked down at the misshapen lump of clay and smiled sadly. It was one of a kind.
This was no coincidence. He had to admit it. He sat in the dim living room and turned the piece over and over in his hands. He pressed it against his ear, as if it might be able to give him an answer to any of his many questions. There was only one explanation for that unique piece of handmade pottery having fallen from that particular car.
It had to mean that Rose Montoya Hightower had been here some time after she left San Antonio. And considering the sudden appearance of flowers on Luther Hightower’s grave about that same time, there was no other conclusion he could make.
This must have been where she was headed that day so long ago. But what had happened to her? Where was she now? Rose Hightower had been no stranger in Mattison, Alabama. She’d lived there for years, given birth to her son and buried her husband. How could her presence have gone unnoticed?
Maybe nobody had known she was here. Rance tried to convince himself. But how could she possibly have bought flowers, probably in Pittsville, gone to the cemetery and then come here, and have not one solitary person see her?
But somebody had to have known. At least one person did. The person who had driven the car through the woods and hidden it in the creek. The person who’d had the presence of mind to remove the identifying personalized car tag. It was no accident that the car had ended up in that pool in the stream, hidden away from the light of day for three long decades. That one person had to have known. And every time he thought about it, his conclusions always came down to Drake.
Rance wasn’t certain what good it would do now that so much time had passed, but he had to report his suspicions. At least, with the ashtray as evidence, he had some corroboration of his theory, for what it was.
Rance reached for his newly installed phone. Without hesitating, he dialed the sheriff.
A week passed before Maggie and Tess were able to finish the job they’d started at Hightower’s Haven. They’d stayed away to give Rance time to deal with the startling find. He hadn’t said anything about the ashtray when they arrived, and neither Maggie nor Tess had pressed.
Several times during the past week, Maggie had wanted to call Rance to ask him how he was. But every time she picked up the receiver, she’d put it hastily down. It wasn’t something to discuss over the phone. And she hadn’t been sure he was ready for her to intrude. When he called on Friday to see whether she and Tess still wanted to work on the shrubs, she’d said yes, but chickened out when it came to asking about his feelings. Was she ever going to get over the streak of cowardice?
Now the three of them stood, tired and dusty, in front of the pruned and weeded row of azalea bushes. They had done all that they could for now, and Maggie was well satisfied with her day’s work.
“Well, boss man, what do you think?” Tess gathered up her long blond hair, twisted it up and held it away from her neck as Rance looked over her handiwork.
A slight feeling of irritation wound its way through Maggie as she watched Tess’s provocative pose. Tess was a happily married woman. Why was she flirting with Maggie’s man?
Maggie flushed as she realized what she had just admitted to herself. Her man? Was Maggie staking her own claim to Rance? The thought was ridiculous. She’d avoided him like the plague for the past two weeks. And he’d barely spoken to her today. Was it because he was embarrassed about what had happened that night in his bedroom? Or was he still bothered that she’d told everyone who he really was? Her man, indeed!
Maggie and Tess had weeded, cultivated and pruned the leggy, overgrown azalea bushes into submission. At the moment, the shrubs looked like nothing more than scrawny sticks. But Maggie and Tess had fertilized and watered them well. When they were done, they had blanketed the ground around the base of each plant with a layer of pine straw, to protect the roots from the heat of the sun and to hold the water in. The shrubs didn’t look like much now, but they would be something next year.
Rance shrugged. “I guess they look fine.”
Maggie took one look at Rance’s disappointed face and had to laugh. What had he expected, miracles? “You don’t have to be so diplomatic. They do look pretty bedraggled right now. Come next spring, these sorry specimens will surprise you. We may have sacrificed some of the blooms by cutting them back so severely at this time of year, but it was best in the long run.”
Rance’s relief was obvious. “Okay, I defer to your superior judgment on this. Now what about the lawn?”
“It already looks better since you’ve been watering it, but we’re not done yet,” Tess informed Rance. “I’m leaving you some weed-control fertilizer to use, but my part of the job is pretty much done till fall. Maggie will show you how to spread it, then you’ll just have to keep it watered.”
Tess pushed her sunglasses to the top of her head and let her hair fall to her shoulders. She rubbed her eyes. “I’ve got to get home, Rance. You and Maggie can hand
le the fertilizer detail by yourselves.”
“Thanks for leaving us the best job, sis.” Maggie grinned and saluted. Tess returned the salute with a wave of her hand and headed toward her car, dusting off her jeans as she went.
Maggie glanced at Rance. He seemed to be scrutinizing the shrubs, but Maggie knew better. She would have bet money he was still hung up about the cellar wall, and why they had been drawn to it.
“There’s probably a very logical reason for one of the previous owners to have walled up the cellar,” Maggie told him. “Maybe they were going to make a rec room and wanted it to be a specific size. They didn’t need the rest of the room, so they walled it off.”
Rance narrowed his eyes, squinting as if he were trying to see through the wall into the space behind. He rubbed his lean jaw absently. “Yeah. Could be,” he said slowly.
“I don’t think there’s anything sinister about it. It’s just puzzling.” Even as she said it, Maggie remembered the eerie feeling she had gotten when she was down in the cellar. The place certainly did not feel benign. A shiver cooled her hot, sticky skin as she remembered.
“You know, I called Sheriff Potts about finding that ashtray.”
Another stronger tingle replaced the one that had just faded away. “Oh?” Maggie said carefully. “What did he say?”
“What could he say? He might be able to use the information indirectly as justification to check on the ownership of the car. It gave them a direction to look, but it’s damn little to go on. Even if they did believe my theory that the car had belonged to my mother, could they prove it after such a long time? How long do they maintain records on old cars?”
Maggie wished she knew, and she wished Rance would drop the subject. She hadn’t made the connection that the car might have been Rose Montoya’s. Now the creepy, cold feeling wouldn’t go away.
It was ridiculous to feel this cold the last week of July. Maggie crossed her arms and hugged herself to try to ward off the chill. “I have no idea. You’ll have to ask Sheriff Potts.”
Rance tossed his head as if to shake the questions from his mind and turned away from the side of the house, the row of shrubs and the window. “Let’s go tackle the lawn.”
“Let’s.” Maggie hurried away, hoping to distract her self from the unsettling thoughts as fast as she could.
The yard didn’t look much different now from the way it had before, Rance thought as he crossed to Maggie’s van to help reload the supplies they hadn’t used that day. Maggie had assured Rance that he would see results soon. Already he realized Tess had been right when she told him about watering the weedy lawn. He was sure she was right about the weed-control fertilizer, too. It just seemed pretty silly to him to throw good fertilizer on a bunch of weedy junk grass that he was going to plow under in a few months.
It was true that the yard resembled a real lawn now, instead of the brushy field of knee-high weeds he’d mowed down weeks before. And the water and fertilizer would take it from brown to green.
“Do I sense some doubt in you?” Maggie asked, coming up behind him.
Rance turned and tried to formulate a response. It wasn’t easy to do, with those lovely, luminous eyes staring up at him. He tried to focus on the mop of curly red hair showing beneath the straw hat instead. A tinkling chuckle interrupted his thought processes.
“I felt the same way a year ago when Tess and I were trying to whip that old cornfield into shape. Two years ago that lawn my mobile home sits on used to be full of corn. Look how nice it looks now.”
It was hard to believe that Maggie’s well-tended yard had been a field only a year before, but then, it had been under some form of cultivation before it became a lawn. His yard had been neglected for decades. Rance started to voice his doubts, but changed his mind.
And he changed the subject. “Remember that Tex-Mex meal I promised you a few weeks ago?” Rance asked suddenly.
“Sure. I salivated all that day, just thinking about it. My stomach still hasn’t recovered from the disappointment.” Maggie patted her belly and grinned.
“Well, tell it to hold on. What say I do up a real Texas-style barbecue and invite everybody who’s been so helpful to me?” Already the idea sounded good to him. He figured he owed at least half the population of Mattison. His ribs were feeling pretty good now, and cooking would hardly be a strain on him. Yes, sir, the idea sounded pretty damn good.
“What, no Mexican food? I had my heart set on it.” There was no mistaking the disappointed expression on Maggie’s face.
“There’s more to Mexican cuisine than tacos and refried beans. I promise, you won’t be disappointed.”
“You’re on. When?”
“How about next Saturday? That’ll give me the better part of a week to invite people and get ready,” Rance said, making a mental list of what he needed and whom he owed.
“So long?” Maggie looked crestfallen, but then she brightened. “That’ll give me time to diet ahead of time. That way I can afford the extra calories.” Maggie waved and headed toward her minivan.
Rance watched her go, noting her well-rounded bottom as she climbed into the vehicle. Why did she want to look like that walking-stick sister of hers? She was perfect just the way she was.
But he didn’t dwell on her cute derriere for long. He was still stuck on the hidden car, the voice and the handmade ashtray. He rubbed his chin as Maggie drove away. When would it all come together?
It seemed to Maggie that she had just experienced a week that could be a candidate for The Guinness Book of World Records. She felt as though she’d never endured a longer seven days. Even during the dark days after Chet died, time had not passed so slowly. But then there had been plenty of necessary things to do. This week, all she’d done was wait. Today at the library had been no exception.
Maggie eyed the milky white sky with apprehension as she hustled her kids into the minivan. The day had dawned hot and clear, but as it progressed, the heat had built and the blue sky had quickly been clouded with heat haze. By the time Maggie was ready to go to Rance’s party, the sky had filled with the murky white clouds that often presaged a storm. Thunder grumbled ominously in the distance.
An irrational thought struck her. “This is not exactly the best time to be visiting a haunted house,” she muttered. “With a storm brewing and all.” A cold chill cooled her hot and clammy flesh. She squelched the thought with a nervous giggle and tugged the van door open.
The temperature had soared to around a hundred, and the humidity pressed against her like an unwelcome blanket. It had been weeks since it last rained, and they could use it. But did it have to happen now? The last thing they needed was to be stuck over at Hightower’s Haven during a power failure.
The desultory westerly breeze distracted her from fretting as it brought the spicy aroma of herbs, garlic and mesquite.
“Umm. Do you smell that? Rance must already be cooking. Let’s hurry, before it’s all gone,” Maggie told the kids as she climbed into the van.
“What if I don’t like it?” Jennifer asked, a worried frown creasing her elfin face. “You said he wasn’t making tacos.”
“You’ll like it, Jenny.” Maggie reached into the back seat and patted her daughter on the knee. “I’m sure Rance will have plenty of stuff that you’ll like.”
“Yeah, and if he doesn’t, you can always run home and fix a peanut butter and jelly sandwich later,” Buddy said.
Maggie wasn’t sure whether Buddy was trying to be reassuring or mean with his remark, so she let it ride. Her son had been making an effort to get along with his younger sister lately, and she was grateful. Maggie buckled her seat belt, switched on the ignition and backed into the lane.
Her parents’ Sunday-best pickup truck pulled up behind her and tooted a greeting as Maggie steered the minivan onto the paved road. If it wasn’t so hot, they could have walked the half mile to Rance’s. They could walk off the meal later, but the thickening clouds that threatened rain urged her onto the side o
f caution now.
It took just a short minute to drive down the macadam and turn into the shady lane lined with fading crepe myrtles. Bobby Carterette and his family were already there when Maggie drove up to Rance’s big old house. Bobby and Old Bob were supervising Rance as he worked over a smoking barbecue grill that had been stationed under one of the stately pecan trees. Rusty lay quietly by the porch steps, proudly watching her pups frolic. Lucy had taken a position on the long veranda that shaded the west side of the house. She guarded three tables laden with heaped and covered platters of food.
Maggie chuckled as she pulled in behind the Carterette family car. “Look there, Jen. I think you’ll be able to find something to eat in all that.”
The kids dashed off, joining Rusty and her brood of puppies tumbling about on the lawn. Maggie closed up the car and waited for her dad to park the truck and her parents to join her. The three of them strolled slowly up, trying unsuccessfully to stay cool and dry in the oppressive afternoon heat.
“¡Buenos dias, señoras y señor!” Rance called from his position at the grill. He poked at a couple pieces of chicken and lowered the lid.
Maggie studied Rance appreciatively. He was dressed more like a cowboy than anything, but his garb fit the occasion. He wore an off-white western shirt trimmed with turquoise piping. A string tie fastened with an intricately designed silver-and-turquoise slide matched an equally ornate silver belt buckle. Tight, faded jeans hugged his muscular thighs and skimmed all the way down to the tops of his cowboy boots. A tightly woven western-style straw hat with a turquoise band topped the outfit. His only concession to the heat was that he’d rolled up his shirtsleeves to expose his tanned forearms.
Rance was one hell of a man, and he made something deep inside Maggie stir. Her heart fluttered, and she smiled brightly as Rance tipped his hat and came toward her.
Actually, he was aiming for the three of them, Maggie reminded herself as she watched Rance’s approach. She had to keep reminding herself that her parents stood on either side of her.
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