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  Anacacho

  Louise Gaylord

  An Allie Armington Mystery

  Beverly Hills, California

  Anacacho: An Allie Armington Mysteryby Louise Gaylord

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Smashwords Edition, License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Copyright © 2002 by Louise Gaylord. All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner, whatsoever, without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in articles or reviews. For information, address Cedar Vista Books, 269 South Beverly Drive, Suite #1065, Beverly Hills, CA 90212. 866-234-0626

  The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:

  Gaylord, Louise.

  Anacacho/Louise Gaylord. --1st ed.

  p. cm--(An Allie Armington mystery; 1)

  ISBN 978-0-9841441-0-5 (ebook)

  1. Armington, Allie (Fictitious character) --Fiction.

  2. Women lawyers—Texas—Fiction. 3, Texas—Fiction.

  1. Title

  Paperback ISBN 10: 0-9786049-0-3

  ISBN 13: 978-0-9786049-0-5

  Book Designer: Dotti Albertine

  Editor: Brookes Nohlgren

  Also by Louise Gaylord

  The Award-Winning

  Xs

  An Allie Armington Mystery

  Julia Fairchild

  A Novel

  This book

  is dedicated with love

  to my husband, Ted, and our children—Ted, Missy, and John.

  Chapter 1

  “HEY, ALLIE, GUESS WHO?” Reena Carpenter’s husky twang slithers through my telephone to rip open old wounds.

  Forget her? Never. Seven years before, Reena, supposedly my very best friend and loyal sorority sister, ripped the love of my life right out of my unsuspecting arms. Over time I managed to erase her from my mind and ease the ache of my double loss, but in my dreams those sad months following her betrayal still replay with haunting clarity.

  Reena doesn’t wait for my reply. “I’ve snagged a ride to Houston on the jet tomorrow. Will you see me?”

  I manage a constricted, “How did you know where to find me?”

  She gives her famous rusty-nail laugh. “Oh, c’mon, now. I have my ways. How about meeting me at Rudi’s for lunch?”

  A familiar cold nugget settles on the bottom of my stomach, one I hoped would never return. “Rudi’s is a little too stiff for my pocketbook,” I say, glancing at the suddenly welcome stack of case files on my desk. “Besides, I only have one week left with this grand jury panel and I’m backed up with presentments. I don’t see how I can possibly...”

  “Please, Allie.” Reena’s voice pinches with pain. “It’s graveyard.”

  Top secret. I haven’t heard that word since our days at Texas.

  I picture Reena Harper, silky blonde locks tumbling over her shoulders, as she pulls Susie Baxter and me onto her bed.

  I hear Susie chirp, “If it’s graveyard, I gotta shut the door. You never know who’s out in the hall. Right, Allie?”

  Allie. That’s what my father conjured out of my rather plain but alliterative Alice Armington. I was the giant of the trio, pushing five-foot-ten, all angles and bones. Heir to my father’s aquiline nose, along with a healthy dose of his love for the law.

  My resolve never to see the woman who savaged my past wavers. After all, Reena Harper gave my first three years at Texas an aura of excitement I have never experienced before, nor since.

  I check the court calendar and see my jury panel has Monday off for Martin Luther King Day—plenty of time to run through the cases. Curiosity wins. “All right... I guess. How about noon?”

  “Thanks, Allie. This means a lot. See you tomorrow.”

  A deep voice behind me says, “Did you say something about a stiff at Rudi’s?”

  I cradle the receiver and swivel my chair to look into the steady stare of Duncan Bruce, a recent transfer from Chicago.

  Duncan bears his ancestors’ tall, massive build. His hair and heavy eyebrows shimmer with the blue cast of Highland Clans.

  “Not that kind of stiff. I was talking about Rudi’s killer charge for a simple tuna salad.”

  Duncan smiles. “Come to think of it, I haven’t been back since I took my mother there the last time she camped out in my guest room.” He settles on one corner of my desk and pitches me a file. “Check this.”

  I scan it, suppressing a thundering roll of envy. I am an Assistant District Attorney in the Grand Jury Division. Duncan works in Major Fraud. This file covers a big-time white-collar theft of more than a million dollars and a glaring paper trail.

  “Lucky you.” I hand his plum back and turn to the stack of fifty-plus cases my panel of grand jurors will hear on Wednesday. Most deal with possession or delivery of a controlled substance or the never-ending auto thefts.

  Duncan can read me like a book. “Tired of your gig?”

  I sigh. “Somebody has to do it. Too bad the bastards are out on the streets before they ever serve a day. But this is just the small stuff—the end of the pipeline. I’d give a million bucks to get my hands on the really big boys.”

  “Better up that ante since the government has already spent billions.” Duncan takes a few steps toward the door, then turns. “How about dinner? I have some great homemade ravioli and salad fixings ready to go.”

  This is too good to pass up. Not only is Duncan a master chef and a great kisser, he lives three floors above me.

  “You’re on,” I say to his retreating back. “I’ll bring the wine.”

  The evening starts well enough. A glass of Chianti Classico, then a few very nice long kisses followed by a crisp romaine with crumbled blue cheese. Finally, the pièce de résistance, morel ravioli with a subtle cream sauce that melts the minute it passes my lips.

  In between cool spoons of spumoni, I bring up the disparities between my caseload status and his.

  Duncan is a reasonable man, but he can home in on a problem with the precision of a military strike. “If you don’t like your job, quit.”

  “Did I say that?”

  He takes the dish of spumoni from my hands, sets it on the coffee table beside his, and turns to face me. “No, you didn’t exactly come right out and say it, but every chance you get, you complain about how hard you work and never get a decent case.”

  I stiffen and pull away. “Gee, thanks.”

  He gives me his attorney’s once-over. “Tell me why the only woman in her class to serve on Law Review is hiding in the Grand Jury Division of the Harris County DA?”

  Damn, Duncan. He’s evidently picked up on my one horror: presenting a case. I love doing the research and prepping witnesses, but the thought of standing up in a courtroom before a judge and jury makes me weak in the knees.

  For some reason I can’t bring myself to tell him that, so, like most cornered women, I come out swinging. “I’ll tell you why, if you tell me why you left Chicago?”

  This is the one question that Duncan has left unans
wered.

  He gives me a pained smile. “I wondered how long it would take you to bring that up.”

  Something in his voice makes me immediately regret my boldness. I put my arms around his neck, drawing his face close to mine. “I’ll strike that question, counselor, if you can think of a decent bribe.”

  His relief is more than obvious. “How about this?” He plants a long, sweet kiss on my lips and ushers me out the door.

  I pout all the way to my apartment, longing for a cat to kick or a roommate to rag on, but by the time I crawl in bed, my focus is on tomorrow’s lunch with Reena. What on earth was I thinking? Facing my enemy after all these years will only bring back the pain.

  I groan into the darkness, wondering if I have some sort of built-in mechanism that sabotages every male-female relationship I’ve been in since Paul Carpenter walked out of my life.

  The morning dawns gray and humid. By the time I arrive at the fashionable uptown restaurant my hair has seized-up into “brand-new perm” mode. That and the fact that I’m ten minutes early and I know Reena will be her usual twenty minutes late puts me in a sour mood.

  The maître d’ gushes when I mention Carpenter. A regular for years, he says. So lovely.

  Damn. If Reena’s been a regular at Rudi’s for years, why did it take her so long to track me down?

  He leads me through the dimly lit room to a table in the far corner. Refusing the offer of a glass of champagne, I spend the next few minutes composing myself and dealing with that cold stone at the bottom of my stomach, which is fast becoming a boulder.

  Reena has arrived. A buzz rolls through the crowd. She unloads five Neiman Marcus shopping bags on the hapless maître d’, then threads her way through the gawkers toward me.

  She is still devastatingly beautiful, a startling clone of Farrah Fawcett, who paraded across the UT campus some twenty years before we did. No wonder the Tri Delts were thrilled to pledge Reena. All the Greeks were after her. It didn’t matter she hailed from a hole in the middle of the road, they knew she would be the talk of the campus and she was. Susie and I were simply drawn along in her wake.

  Not that there weren’t plenty of benefits. Reena played a role in every prank the guys thought up, so Susie and I not only visited every fraternity house on campus, but also went on more beer busts than I care to count.

  She gives me an air-kiss, settles in the offered chair, then leans across the table to cover my hand. She rasps, “I’ve missed you, Allie. Please say you’ve missed me. Just a little?”

  I only hesitate a nanosecond. “I haven’t had much time to miss anybody.”

  It’s almost the truth. My dogged pursuit of the law and my burgeoning career saved my sanity. After I lost Paul, I buried myself in a three-year grind at University of Houston Law, including summer internships and Law Review. Now, the job with the DA and my blooming relationship with Duncan have almost filled the gaping hole my first love left.

  I see Reena’s smile brighten to a full ten on the sparkle-meter. It’s her Farrah Fawcett number, aptly dubbed by my sister, Angela, who noticed the resemblance the first time she came to visit. Susie added validity when she caught Reena looking at one of the movie star’s pictures in a magazine then practicing in the mirror. I grin to myself remembering how Susie and I shortened “Farrah Fawcett” to “Double F” so Reena wouldn’t catch on.

  Suddenly anxious to put a quick end to this meaningless charade I say, “Maybe we should order.”

  When the waiter arrives, Reena orders vodka-on-the-rocks and, seemingly oblivious to his presence, bends forward as her face collapses. “Oh, Allie, seeing you is the best thing that’s happened to me in years.” She pauses to let a single crocodile tear roll slowly down her cheek, dabs it away with her napkin, then blurts, “Lately, my life has been one living disaster.”

  Above us the waiter clears his throat. “And what about you, ma’am?”

  I flash him a knowing grin. “My life is fine, thank you.” Reena glares at my small joke and I order a white wine. When he walks away, I say, “What do you mean disaster? You have a huge mansion with staff and a Citation jet to boot.”

  Those limpid pools dry to dark holes and she hisses, “Don’t believe everything Susie Baxter tells you.”

  I start to add that Darden is now Susie’s last name, but think better of it.

  We trade trivia until the drinks arrive.

  Reena downs her vodka, then orders another before the wine glass reaches my lips.

  Since I am an attorney and Reena’s opened the door, I’m surprised how casual “Okay then, how is Paul?” sounds when my heart is fluttering so.

  “Oh, dear.” Her voice drips with sympathy. “I thought you’d be over him by now.”

  That’s a gut-shot. I know I should pay attention to the growing lump in my stomach, but I don’t. Instead I flash my most nonchalant expression. “It was a summer romance. Nothing more.”

  She’s not quite buying, so I quickly change the subject. “What’s the graveyard?”

  Reena lowers her voice as her eyes soften and brim once again. “There’s another woman. It’s just a matter of time until Paul asks me for a divorce.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.” It’s a lie, but what the hell? I don’t owe Reena a thing. Besides, it’s pure pleasure to see her in pain. “But, if Paul’s wells are still pumping, you should come out of this marriage a very wealthy lady.”

  Reena crumples. “He made me sign a pre-nup before we eloped.” Between sobs she blubbers, “He canceled my Visa and Amex cards after the December bills. Now, I have to beg him for spending money. The only thing in my name is the title to my little red Mercedes.”

  I want to tell her she could probably break the agreement if she got a good lawyer. Instead, I find myself wallowing in the first real satisfaction I’ve felt in years.

  I take a small sip of wine. “So, why don’t you fill me in on your terrible existence.”

  Reena gives me a penetrating stare, then nods. “Okay, okay. So Paul didn’t quite turn out to be the husband I thought he’d be. The minute we got back from the honeymoon he was out of bed before dawn and away all day, busy with the cattle and the oil. On top of that, he hunted every damn weekend from September through February.”

  She sighs. “When Paul wasn’t away hunting with someone on their property, he invited the men and their wives to hunt on the Anacacho. At first, it was fun being the hostess with the mostest, but after seven years of those long evenings, and Paul’s latest...” She must think better of her next words because she shakes her head. “Let’s just say it’s turned into the marriage from hell.”

  Reena downs her second drink. “The weekends are bad enough, but for the last ten months, Paul has been spending most of the workweek in Laredo. Says it’s oil or an ‘urgent bank matter.’ But I know better.”

  Laredo? That’s a new twist. Paul always did business in San Antonio, boasting his was the third generation to do business with the venerable Frost Bank.

  I offer a sympathetic, “Maybe you’re imagining things.”

  She grabs my hand. “Come back to the ranch with me. See for yourself.” She squeezes hard. “I’ve never begged before in my life, Allie, but I’m begging now. Please?”

  Go with her? After what she did? Then I see her pain, and realize she must be desperate. Why else would she want to see me after all these years? Am I the only one left she can trust?

  Allie-the-attorney kicks in. Get real. For as long as you’ve known her, Reena has never played it straight. She wants something.

  But what?

  I silently damn my inborn curiosity, pick up the menu, and study it a moment before saying, “Let me think it over while we have a bite. After all, you said you were buying.”

  Reena nods and pastes the “Double F” smile on her face. She’s got me and she knows it.

  Chapter 2

  THERE’S A LIMO WAITING outside the restaurant and when we stop by my apartment on Bammel Lane to pick up some clothes, Ree
na insists on coming up.

  I don’t mind. The building is a very nice, secluded mid-rise near River Oaks. I live on the third floor. That puts me in the treetops. In spring and summer, I’m surrounded by an ever-darkening green cocoon. In late fall and winter, I’m treated to Houston’s Oz-like skyline in the distance.

  All in all, it’s not a bad flat. Combined living and dining with a nice-sized porch. Pullman kitchen. A large bedroom with attached bath and walk-in closet. Down the hall is a small study with a foldout couch across from a half bath.

  After running from room to room oohing and aahing, Reena joins me in the bedroom.

  “You always did have wonderful taste, Allie. Your print collection is—is fabulous.” She shakes her head. “I wish mine were that good.”

  Susie told me about Reena’s collection. Interspersed among several works by well-known Texas artists are two fine pieces: a small Georgia O’Keeffe preliminary sketch of a cow’s skull and a pen-and-ink cartoon attributed to Frederic Remington.

  Uh, oh. Reena’s being nice again. Bail out. Bail out.

  I ignore my better judgment and zip the fold-over.

  It’s then I remember my trusty Beretta Tomcat .32, retrieve it from my nightstand drawer, and stick it in my purse.

  I love this gun, a gift from Dad when I joined the DA’s office. Fits right in the palm of my hand and is so light I barely know it’s there.

  My father has always hunted, and believes that everyone should know how to use a gun. Because of this, Angela and I got BB guns for our sixth birthdays, .22s for our tenth, and finally Fox 410s at twelve.

  When my sister announced she was leaving to find her fortune as a high-fashion model in the Big Apple, Dad marched us out to the range and spent several weeks instructing us in the use of small firearms. Though I’ve never used the gun except for target practice, I feel comfortable with it and carry it with me wherever I go.

  We zip out the Gulf Freeway to Hobby Airport. When we arrive at the private aviation hangar, there’s no jet.