Amarillo Waltz Read online

  Contents

  AMARILLO WALTZ

  DEDICATION

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  EPILOGUE

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  AMARILLO WALTZ

  A Bill Travis Mystery

  GEORGE WIER

  Copyright © 2020 by George Wier

  Published by

  Flagstone Books

  Austin, Texas

  Amarillo Waltz—A Bill Travis Mystery

  First Paperback Edition

  September 2020

  Cover design by Elizabeth Mackey

  All Rights Reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior permission of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes written in connection with reviews written specifically for a magazine or newspaper.

  The Bill Travis Mysteries

  (in chronological order):

  The Last Call

  Capitol Offense

  Longnecks and Twisted Hearts

  The Devil to Pay

  Death On the Pedernales

  Slow Falling

  Caddo Cold

  Arrowmoon

  After the Fire

  Ghost of the Karankawa

  Desperate Crimes

  Mexico Fever

  The Lone Star Express

  Trinity Trio

  Buffalo Bayou Blues

  Reveille In Red

  Bexar County Line

  The Long Goodnight

  Amarillo Waltz

  Double-Aught Buck (forthcoming)

  The Young Bill Travis Mysteries

  The Incredible Sanskrit Karaoke Barbecue (forthcoming)

  DEDICATION

  For Sallie—inspiration, companionship, warmth, comfort, laughter, and communion.

  CHAPTER ONE

  “Are you kidding? I am not entering into any dance competition with you.” I knew instantly I shouldn’t have said it. Instead of a frown of disdain, or narrowed eyes, or even a retort, Julie came to me.

  I was more than half-dressed and having trouble with my bow tie. I detest bow-ties.

  She reached up, smiling that devil-may-care, I-am-utterly-unoffended smile of hers, and made quick work of my tie with an economy of motion. Then she slipped her arms around my waist, pulled me to her and looked up at me. I always melt when she does that. Dammit. “Honey, it’s not a dance competition. It’s just a gala for the Museum. You’re still young and in shape, and you glide along with the best of them. Just...say you’ll go. It’ll be fun.”

  “Oh the wiles of a wicked woman. Why do you still look so good? Huh? We’re supposed to be older now.”

  “Well, you never did install that porch swing, so I see no reason to have to spend any time swinging in it, and getting older as I do so.”

  “Touché. When is this dance thing?”

  “Gala, remember? It’s next Saturday. We can either fly up or drive up to Amarillo. If we fly up, we can leave Saturday morning.”

  “I can fly us, you know. I’ve got a pilot’s license and everything. We even have a plane.”

  “None of that. No way. We fly in a real plane, or we drive.”

  “Real plane? Huh. And who’s watching the kids during this utter abandonment of all responsibility?”

  “Who do you think?”

  “Hank is getting too old to watch the kids. He’s not even really aware of them.”

  “No, not Hank. He’s too busy cooking his macrobiotic rice and practicing his katas and trying to keep from getting older then dirt, which he is. Older than dirt, that is. Jess and Driesel. And maybe Jenny too. She’s responsible now. Pretty much.”

  I thought about a certain squirrel cage that was badly in need of a cleaning out, but bit my tongue on that. “Driving to North Texas, huh?”

  “Yeah. If we drive, we can leave Thursday, or maybe early Friday. Just you and me and the open road. It’ll be nice.”

  “Any time spent with you is nice.”

  Her smile broadened. Just a stretch of the lips and a little crinkle at the far corners of her eyes; a wicked, toothy smile. Her eyes flashed. “Ah ha! That, Sir Travis, is a ‘Yes.’ Don’t even try to back out of it.”

  “Damn.”

  She released me, stepped over and lifted my tuxedo off the hanger and held it for me. I slipped in one arm and then the other.

  “Like I said. Wicked, evil woman.”

  She nodded and turned to finish her makeup. Not that she needed any.

  “What time do we have to be at this shindig tonight, anyway?”

  “Not for another hour. At least, that’s when the Governor is supposed to talk, and then he’ll introduce the President.”

  “I hate political dinners. How did we get roped into this?”

  “You, Ranger Travis, are apparently a known and useful commodity. Besides, I think that they all think that you’re rich.”

  “Now wait a minute, there. I’m not—”

  She waggled a finger at me. “Tut-tut-tut. You are rich. And if they know about it, then that’s your fault, not mine.”

  I sighed.

  *****

  That night we listened to the Governor of Texas talk, sitting in our chairs in the front row at the main hall in the Convention Center, and I nearly went to sleep. Julie had to nudge me, twice. After that, when the President had his turn, I woke up for a bit. Then, suddenly it seemed like everyone was standing up, clapping, and I had to stand and clap as well. I wondered what was going on, and looked to Julie, but she simply shook her head and rolled her eyes. I decided that’s where all my kids got it.

  Afterwards, in the green room, the Governor introduced me to the President of the United States. I did all the correct protocol things, including taking his hand when he offered it. That was my first mistake.

  The President fixed me with his direct gaze as he held my hand firmly in his, and I knew I was trapped.

  “Mr. Travis, you going to sleep like that during my speech is going to cost you fifty thousand dollars.”

  “Um. Yes, Mr. President.”

  Somehow, Julie and I got out of there with our clothes still on our backs.

  *****

  The week flew by. They have a way of doing that when a fellow gets up into his mid-fifties.

  It was six on a Friday morning when Julie shook me awake. Hell, it was barely daylight outside.

  “It’s time.”

  “What? Time for what?”

  “To get ready. We’ve got to get on the road.”

  “Huh. What for?”

  “The Gala. At the Museum. It’s an eleven-hour drive, and that’s without much stopping.”

  I fought her to try to get back to sleep, but she removed my covers and my pillow. I tried to roll over, but she rolled me back. “On your feet, Private Travis. The bugle just sounded.”

  “One day I’m going to murder the bugler.”

  “One day they’re going to find him dead?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Come on, honey. You gotta get up. You gotta get up this morning.”

  So, I got up.

  *****

  We had a flat tire on the Suburban outside of Brownwood, Texas. There was a spare under the mat in the rear. I looked and found that I didn’t have a real jack, but instead a scissor jack. Fortunately, the spare wasn’t a donut but a real tire.

  Just as I began raising up the Suburban, the rain began.

  I had us back on the road in twenty minutes, but not before I was thoroughly drenched. It was going to be a lovely day.

  *****

  The Amber Alert or Silver Alert, or whatever the hell it was, startled me such that I almost endangered us with a quick jerk of the wheel. I managed, though, to keep us up on the blacktop.

  “Don’t lose it. I’ll look and see.” Julie pulled her phone out of her purse and snapped it on.

  The bad thing about alerts is that I wasn’t sure how to program my phone to disregard them, and every time one comes through with its loud, air-raid warning, I want to duck and cover. Call it muscle memory, maybe, but we used to have those hide-under-the-desk drills in grade school every few months or so, as if doing so was going to protect us from World War III.

  “Hmm. Missing kid. Guadalupe Rios. Hispanic female. Nine years old. Randall County. Then it gives the license plate.”

  “Randall County. I think that’s Canyon, just south of Amarillo.”

  She looked at me. “Are you telling me you know every Texas County?”

  “What? Don’t you?”

  “Why, no! I mean, there must be a hundred or more.”

  “There are two-hundred and fifty-four counties in Texas. And yes, I know them all. I know their county seats, too. For instance, you can play games with them.”

  “Games. Like how?”

  “Well, there’s Lockhart, Texas. It’s the county seat of Caldwell County. But the town of Caldwell, Texas is actually in Burleson County.”

  “Where’s Burleson, Texas, then?”
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  “Just south of Fort Worth, in Johnson County.”

  “Well crap. Well then where the hell is Johnson, Texas?”

  “Ahh. There’s where it gets spotty. Johnson City, Texas is the county seat of Blanco County.”

  “Then where’s Blanco, Texas.”

  “That’s where the chain ends. Blanco, Texas, is also in Blanco County.”

  “Too bad, so sad. You know, I really hope they find this kid.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Are you dry yet?”

  “Almost. Also, I’m hungry.”

  “Well, Mr. Smarty Pants, what county are we in, what’s the next city, and what’s a good restaurant in that city?”

  “We just passed Cross Plains, Texas, which is in Callahan County. Interestingly enough, Robert E. Howard of Conan fame is from there. We just passed their little museum. The next large city is Abilene, Texas, which is in Taylor County. We’ll be there in another thirty minutes. There’s an excellent steak place I know there.”

  “You knew all along we were going there, didn’t you?”

  I nodded.

  There was a long period of silence in which I came to recognize that she was studying me.

  “What?”

  “I just realized something.”

  “Uh oh. I hope you know, but it’s too late to get out of this whole marriage-slash-family thing.”

  “It’s not that. I just realized, you ARE Texas.”

  “Oh. Hmph. I didn’t know that. Well crap, it’s time to move.”

  “Where?”

  “I hear South Dakota is nice. Or maybe Alaska.”

  She laughed. I like it when I can make my wife laugh.

  CHAPTER TWO

  We made it to Abilene, had an elegant steak dinner—the New York strip was particularly nice—and got back onto the road in the early afternoon.

  After Abilene, and pretty much from Sweetwater to Post, the land is an undulating and somewhat rocky landscape with dry arroyos, red clay mesas, and myriad wind farms filled with hundreds of tall, three-bladed giants. After the small town of Post, the landscape rises up to the Llano Estacado, or what locals call “The Caprock,” a featureless and flat plain that was, less than a century before, no more than an ocean of grass. Some would find it odd that the Great Plains actually begin in West Texas, but they do, and they stretch all the way up to Canada.

  “Wow. This place is...”

  I looked at her. “What?”

  “Flat. I mean, it’s just...flat.”

  “Don’t use big words with me. What do you really mean?”

  “I mean, if you dropped a marble out here, it might roll forever.”

  “Yeah. But the farmers are pretty proud of those cotton farms out there. It’s the major export. Most of it’s dry-land farming.”

  “I’m not sure what that means, but okay. So something’s eating you. What is it?”

  She knows me so well. “Remember we were coming out of Brownwood, and our phones—”

  “The Amber Alert. I knew it. You hardly said two words during lunch. Why don’t you go ahead and make the call?”

  “What call?”

  “The call. To whoever it is you need to call for this kind of thing. That call.”

  “Oh. That call. You don’t mind?”

  “It wouldn’t matter if I did. You’re going to be insufferable until you find out something. Anything.”

  I nodded and fished my cell phone out of my pocket. I handed it to Julie. “Should be in my contact list.”

  “Who?”

  “Barracks. Central Texas.”

  “Ahh. Okay. Hold on.”

  I waited until she found it. Then she tapped the number without fanfare and it was routed through my car stereo system.

  “Barracks.” I recognized the young lady. Her name was Cecilia Lopez, and she was about Jess’s age.

  “Cecilia, this is Special Ranger Travis. Can you look into an Amber Alert for me?”

  “Oh. Hi, Bill. The one up in Canyon? That’s the only one I have at the moment.”

  “That’s the one.”

  “Sure. What do you want to know?”

  “Current status, first.”

  “All right. Hold on.”

  I waited. She came back in less than a minute. “It’s still open. This kid, Guadalupe Rios, is still missing.”

  “What can you tell me about the case?”

  “Hmm. From the detail sheet, it says that it’s not a domestic custody thing, which these Amber Alerts usually are. She was last seen yesterday evening getting into a late model red Dodge Charger. Whoever saw it, jotted down the license plate.”

  “Who belongs to the license plate, Cecilia?”

  “Gillian Marsh, age forty-seven, blond, blue eyes, one-twenty-six pounds. She’s got some priors, but not too many, and nothing like kidnaping: a shoplifting arrest in Waco in ‘87, but charges later dropped; a DWI in Denton in ‘92, but she served out her Deferred Adjudication Probation, and so that was dismissed...Ah! Here’s something interesting. She was picked up for questioning by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in 2007. It doesn’t look like any federal charges were ever brought against her.”

  “Does the file say anything as to why the Feds would want to talk to her?”

  “It doesn’t say a word. It has a contact number for the FBI agent who closed out the file on behalf of the ATF.”

  “Ahh. Okay. Can you text me that phone number?”

  “Sure.”

  “Thanks, Cecilia.”

  “Bill, are you investigating this one?”

  “I don’t know yet. Julie and I are midway between Abilene and Amarillo. In fact, we’re coming up on Lubbock in the next couple dozen miles.”

  “Did you want me to let Captain Sinclair know?”

  “You might mention it. I’ll call if I get a line on anything. And I may try to call that FBI agent, but it’s likely he or she won’t even remember. Probably the number has changed. I mean, it’s been like thirteen years ago.”

  “You may be right about that. All right. Say hi to Julie for me.”

  “Hi, Cecilia.”

  “Oh. Mrs. Travis. Bill had you on speaker phone. It’s good to talk to you.”

  “Same here, Cecilia. We’ll let you know if anything happens. I’m watching out for him. We’re supposed to be going to a museum benefit dance in Amarillo. One Amber Alert later, and this is what I have to contend with.”

  “I’m sorry. Yes, definitely watch him, Mrs. Travis.”

  I cleared my throat loudly. “Bye, Cecilia.” I thumbed the go-away button on the dash.

  “She’s nice.”

  I glanced at my wife. “She’s...all right.”

  “Yes, and beautiful, I’ll bet.”

  “You’ve met her before, but you probably don’t remember.”

  “I don’t. And single, right?”

  “I have no idea. I only get to see her a few times a year. If that.”

  “You recognized her voice right off.”

  I shrugged and tried to act utterly bored. I didn’t dare say another word and so over the next fifteen minutes, as we came into the outskirts of Lubbock, I permitted the subject to fade away. As if it was really going to.

  It’s been said that marriage is war. If that’s so, then I’m not just a veteran, I’m a campaigner.

  *****

  The phone number looked familiar for some reason, and I found out why when I called it. I had let Julie take over driving in Lubbock, and we were headed north on US Highway 87 in the general direction of Amarillo.

  “Bruce.”

  “Oh crap. I thought so. How are you doing, Felix?”

  “Wait a minute. Is this Bill Travis?”

  “It is. How can you tell?”

  “It’s that outrageous Texas drawl in your accent.”

  “Agent Bruce, I do not have an accent.”

  “Sure. Whatever you say. I haven’t seen you in, what, ten years? More?”

  “Something like that. The last time it was about that series of murders over in Trantor’s Crossing.”

  “You solved that one.”

  “I did.”

  “And just like that, they gave you a Texas Ranger badge. Only in Texas could something like that happen.”

  “If you say so. All I recall is being pressed into service again and again. I think they had to pin the badge on me to keep me under control.”

  Felix Bruce laughed. After a moment, that faded away. “This isn’t a social call, right?”

  “It’s not, but let’s keep it social for just a minute or two longer. How is Agent Cranford doing?”