Susan Albert - Rueful Death

The corner of Tom's mouth turned down. "He's got a list as long as your arm of things that have to be finished in the next few months-some of which strike me as pretty damn ridiculous. The trouble is, I get roped into his agenda whether I want to or not."

"How long has he been ill?"

"The cancer was diagnosed a year ago." He snook his head. "You'd think he'd take a vacation, travel, do things he's been putting off. But it's only made him work harder. He always was strong as an ox, you know, and he's still in pretty good physical shape. Oh, before I forget, he sends his regards-and he wants you to have dinner with us. How about tomorrow night?"

"Okay," I said, shoving down a little gremlin of eagerness.

"There's not much to choose from in Carr, but the Tex-Mex at the Lone Star dance hall is more Mex than Tex. Not half-bad."

I nodded. "But as I recall, you were into up-scale food. A different cuisine every night." Back in Houston, we had a regular restaurant routine: Malaysian on Monday, Thai on Tuesday, Indian on Wednesday, and so on. We could eat out every night and not hit the same restaurant more than once a month. "Did you get tired of gourmet glitz?"

"More or less. But that's another story. Anyway, Dad was chompin' at the bit, wanting me to come back and take over for him." He laughed shortly. "But by the time I cleaned things up in Houston and got ready to leave, he'd decided he wasn't quite ready to cash in. So we've tailored one job to fit two people. It hasn't been easy."

The bank's situation couldn't be all that secure, either. "I read that the FDIC's taken control of nearly a thousand Texas banks in the last ten years," I said. The small banks were the most vulnerable, of course. If the oil crash hadn't

brought them down, the real estate nosedive had.

Tom picked a grass stem and stuck it between his teeth. "True enough. But Dad's always been conservative, and the bank is in good shape. Assets are up, loans, Fed funds sold, et cetera, et cetera." He slanted an amused glance at me. "If you want to see a balance sheet, China, I can get you one."

"I'm not here to look at your balance sheet," I said. I was suddenly, uneasily aware of the warm solidity of his hip next to mine on the narrow step. I wanted to move away but I couldn't, unless I stood up and broke contact altogether. And I found myself not quite wanting to do that. The familiar electric charge was still mere between us. It felt good.

He sat there for a minute, arms crossed on his bent knees. I had forgotten how hefty his wrists were, how strong and capable his hands. "Cowboy hands," I used to call them, hardly the hands of a banker. I pulled my eyes away from the curl of blond hair at his shirt cuff. I wanted to say something to break the silence, but I couldn't think of anything.

"So tell me about your life," he said. "What are you doing now that you're not practicing law?"

That was safe enough. I told him about moving to Pecan Springs, and about the shop.

"I guess I'm not surprised," he said. "You always liked plants. Is that why you're here? To check out the garlic?"

I shifted my position, pushing one leg out in front of me, putting an inch of daylight between us. "I'm on retreat. I came to get away for a while."

"Stu Walters doesn't tell it that way."

"Stu Walters sucks eggs," I remarked mildly.

He chuckled. "You'll get no argument from me on that-or from half the town, either. Thing is, though, Stu usually knows which eggs to suck and which to leave in the nest. That's how he and the sheriff keep their jobs. This county is muy political." He was looking away, across the

river, his mouth amused. "So how's the big investigation coming, Detective Bayles? Caught your little firebug yet? Which nun is it?"

I hate to be patronized, even by Tom Rowan. "Matter of fact, I have," I said deliberately. "I wouldn't call him a 'little' firebug, though. He's already done four years at Huntsville on two counts of arson."

Tom's head swiveled around.

"Unfortunately," I went on, "the evidence is circumstantial and the county attorney probably won't prosecute. But we may still nail his tail. He took a shot at me yesterday afternoon. Three shots, as a matter of fact."

Tom was staring, his gray eyes open wide, the grass stem hanging from his lower Up. "Somebody shot at you?"

I pointed to the top of the cliff. ' 'From up there. Town-send territory."

' 'He missed you?''

"Do I look dead? He wasn't trying to hit me. He was trying to scare me."

He tossed the grass stem away. "You've been saying 'he,' so I assume it wasn't one of the sisters. It wouldn't be Father Steven, either. Which leaves the maintenance man. Dwight somebody-or-other."

I eyed him. It was interesting that he hadn't mentioned the Townsends as a possibility. "If you ask me," I said idly, "the only mystery is why Stu Walters didn't finger Dwight in the first place."

"He told me he thought it was one of the sisters."

"That's what he told me, too. But he might at least have run a background check, or talked to Dwight's parole officer. She could have clued him in on the prior which is the clincher." I paused. "Only thing I can figure is that Walters assumed mat the real arsonist was on the Townsend payroll. Doing a little dirty work for the neighbors, so to speak. So he didn't look all that close."

Tom's eyes narrowed. "My, my, you are a suspicious

lady. Quick, too. Takes some folks months to ferret out the politics in this county."

"I've had a little experience with crooked cops and smooth politicians. In my former life, that is."

"Yeah." He grinned. "Makes you kind of dangerous, doesn't it?"

I met his eyes and read the intention in them as clearly as if he had spoken. It was like a jolt of electricity, stopping my breath, tightening my stomach muscles. Me, dangerous? Tom was the one who was dangerous. Between my shop and my relationship with McQuaid, I had more than enough to occupy me. I didn't need any complications-especially one with so many powerful memories hooked to it.

Tom looked away too, and the corners of his mouth quirked. "Dangerous from… well, Dwight's point of view. How'd you get onto him?"

"Superior detective work. A cartridge casing and an empty cigarette pack."

He shook his head. "You never cease to amaze me." He sat for a moment, then added, more seriously: "That was one of my problems when we were together, you know."

"What was a problem? That I amazed you?"

"That you were so blasted resourceful. You didn't need anybody but yourself." There was a bitterness in his tone that surprised me, but it was gone when he added, "So what's going to happen to Dwight?"

"The least that can happen is that he's out of a job; the most, that he goes back to Huntsville. It all depends on whether he left prints, and whether the county attorney and Pardons and Paroles decide to take any action." Where the county attorney is concerned, it depends on what kind of caseload he's carrying and whether he wants to put the effort into the case. Where Pardons and Paroles is concerned, you never can tell. It sometimes depends on who's lurking in the background.

Tom took off his hat and put it on the porch beside him.

"So what do you think? Was Dwight acting on his own hook, or was he in it with somebody else?"

The question sounded casual enough, but I'd have bet there was something beneath it. I wouldn't have been a bit surprised if the bank was muy political too. In a small town like Carr, the county commissioners did plenty of deals with the local lending institution. For instance, somebody- Tom's bank, no doubt-held a pretty healthy mortgage on that Southern plantation ranch house I'd seen yesterday.

Was Dwight working for somebody else? I spoke warily. "Anything's possible, I guess. The guy's checking account was pretty anemic, but he could have stashed the cash somewhere else-in another bank account, maybe, or in a tin can behind a loose board."