The Lone Star Express (The Bill Travis Mysteries Book 13) Read online

  “What was that?” I asked.

  “Oh, nothing. It’s just, we’re gonna do it. Midland, here we come!”

  *****

  He was right about the acts of two congresses, if not literally, then at least theoretically. I finally got someone from the Missouri Pacific on the line, a junior vice president named Clarence Freel, who began to walk me through the whole process. In a few words, he pointed up what Mr. Ferguson had told me.

  First of all, there exists no direct stretch of track between Austin and Midland. We would have to take the Missouri Pacific (his railroad) from Austin north to Temple, Texas, where we would have to switch over to “the old Santa Fe—now named the Burlington Northern & Santa Fe Railroad”—thence northwest to the only terminus point possible, which was Abilene. From there the train would have to switch over to what he referred to as “the old Texas & Pacific—what we now call the Union & Pacific, or just Union Pacific, for short.” I sketched it out on paper as quickly as I could while trying to keep up with him, crossing off the names I had just written in favor of the “what they’re now calleds.” I was getting a headache. It was clear to me that railroad executives rarely have the opportunity to expound to someone who will listen, and therefore I was getting it with both barrels, including a complete history of Texas railroads stretching all the way back to the first failed attempts to establish a line in Texas in 1836, the same year the Alamo fell and Sam Houston routed several thousand Mexicans on a little prairie near a bend in the San Jacinto River down on the Texas coast. My head swam.

  “I wish I had time to meet with you personally, Mr. Freel, but I’ve got to get this train in motion, and I don’t have long to do it.”

  “When’s the body coming up from Houston?” he asked.

  “As we speak,” I replied.

  “Tell you what, I’ll come where you are and see if I can help you part some red tape.”

  “I’ll be forever grateful,” I said.

  I gave him my office address and hung up.

  Penny gave a shout. “New Texas Lieutenant Governor on Line 2!” I suppose until she hired us a new one, she was still the Girl Friday.

  I got shouted at about the whole crossing-the-Texas-State-Cemetery-off-the-list thing. Midway through the call, Line 3 started flashing.

  “Hold on, Governor,” I said, and didn’t wait for his assent, but instead jabbed the button.

  “Hello!”

  “Daddy, can I go with you on the train ride?” It was Jennifer.

  “No honey,” I said, my voice instantly kind and soothing.

  “Why not?”

  “Because, it’s not a thing for...young ladies.”

  “I went with you to the weird town with the mansions and the sheriffs.”

  “Yes, you did. That was different. It was your piano teacher.”

  “But you wouldn’t let me fly with you to Mexico, either.”

  I watched the Lieutenant Governor’s line continually flash, and calmed myself. “You’re right about that. Tell you what, you let me go on this one by myself, then next one I’ll take you and one animal of your choice.”

  “Okay, deal,” she said.

  “As part of the deal, you have to keep Michelle and Megan entertained while Mom takes care of the baby.”

  “Dad, I’m not Jessica.”

  “Jessica is about to be married and move out. So, you’re in charge of little kid morale.”

  “When Claudia gets bigger, will I be in charge of her too?”

  “Yep.”

  “Dad, that’s three little kids! That’s a lot of weight on these narrow shoulders.”

  “How do you know how to talk like that?”

  “Because,” she said. “I’m smart. Remember?”

  “Yes. You are. Go help your mom. The Lieutenant Governor isn’t through yelling at me.”

  “Bye, daddy.”

  “Bye.”

  I hit the button and switched lines, just in time to hear the number two man in Texas ring off.

  “Well,” I said to the empty phone line, “maybe he is through.”

  *****

  I got my first clue as to how the ensuing days might run as I was about to step out the office door.

  “Penny,” I said, and she looked up from her old desk; she was busily cleaning it out and moving into Nat’s office. “You’re my partner now. I want you to hire a temp or something, until you can get somebody in the position permanently. Then I want you to cut your hours in half and quadruple your pay. Then, when I get back from Sawyer’s funeral, we’ll sit down and go over Nat’s client roster. See what we can do with it.”

  “Ha!” she said. “When you get back, Bill, I’ll have a report ready for you about my clients.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  When I closed the door behind me, the sound of my own name from Penny’s lips still rattling in my ear, I came almost nose-to-nose with Perry Reilly.

  “Jiminy, Perry! Don’t sneak up on me like that. I almost punched your lights out.”

  He looked around nervously. “I didn’t expect to see you. I was going to leave a note in your door. Can you come over to my office?”

  He whipped his head first one way and then the other.

  “Perry, you’re acting about as nervous as a worm in a chicken pen.”

  “Tell you what, I’ll say goodbye now and you come around to the back of my office and I’ll let you in.”

  With that he darted away across the lawn, leaving holes in the grass and sod where the recent week of rain had turned it into one big, over-soaked sponge. If whoever he was nervous about didn’t actually see him talking to me, then they would surely know from the footprints.

  I shrugged. “Perry.”

  I went around back, dropped my leather file bag into my Mercedes, then walked over and knocked on the rear door of Perry’s insurance office.

  An eye appeared at the window, then the door opened.

  “Sorry,” he said. “Had to make sure it was you.”

  “Who the hell else could it have been?”

  “The fast guy.”

  “What?”

  “Don’t just stand there. Get in here.” He grabbed my arm and pulled.

  I came inside.

  “Perry, are you off your meds?” I asked. It was a bad joke. I didn’t know whether or not he was taking anything, but I hadn’t seen him this excited in some time.

  “No meds,” he said.

  “You want the latest?” I asked. “Nat is retiring and made Penny my partner.”

  He was unfazed. “That’s great, Bill. Now, this guy, this fast guy, he wants to know everything about the plans for Sawyer.”

  “What are you talking about? And what do you mean by ‘fast’?”

  “Like a slick talker. Like a salesman-type. He wants to know—”

  “Wait a minute. Slow down, Gilligan. Try to speak in complete thoughts. Did you talk to this fellow in person, or on the phone?”

  “The phone, of course. That was after. Then, after that, I came straight over to leave a note.”

  “You’d better let me see the note,” I said.

  As if struck by the sheer genius of the notion, Perry dug his hand into his pants pocket and came up with a piece of paper that had been folded over half a dozen times until it was roughly the size of a quarter and the thickness of a pack of cigarettes. It’s awfully hard to fold paper that many times.

  “Shoot. You’re right. Here.”

  I took the paper and began the unfolding process. “And you were just going to put this through my mail slot and run.”

  “Yeah! Of course.”

  I looked down at the block capital letters and read aloud:

  BILL, FIRST THING THIS MORNING SOMEONE WAS IN FRONT OF MY HOUSE WATCHING ME AND THIS MORNING AT THE OFFICE SOME FAST-TALKING GUY CALLED AND WANTS TO KNOW IF I KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT SAWYER’S ARRANGEMENTS. I TOLD HIM TO BUY A NEWSPAPER. WATCH YOUR BACK!

  —PERRY

  “Okay,” I said, as if I were talki
ng to the least rational person I had ever met. “So, would you tell me, please, why you’re afraid?”

  “Because, he didn’t sound right. When I said, ‘Yeah, it’s a shame about Dick Sawyer,’ he said, ‘Everybody’s got to die some time.’ I kid you not, that is what he said.”

  “I believe you. And?”

  “And what? That’s it.”

  “That’s all? No threats? No wild, maniacal laughter?”

  Perry frowned. “You’re not taking any of this seriously. Believe me, Bill, I know these kind of people. People like that crazy woman who had me fooled.”

  “This is nothing like that time, Perry. That one was...special.”

  “How can you be so sure? Do you know, Bill? I mean, do you know for sure?”

  “I know for sure that there’s nothing to worry about. Go get yourself some dinner, or maybe a dinner and a drink. Then go home and watch TV. Then go to bed. It’ll all be blown over by tomorrow.”

  “Well, I gave you the message, so I’m out of it. You can be sure about that!”

  I stuck the piece of paper in my pocket. “Thanks, Perry. I’ll take your warning to heart, and I will watch my back.”

  “Good. Then my conscience is clear.”

  I opened the door, made a show of sticking my head outside and looking both ways, then stepped out, turned back and put my fingers to my lips in the eternal “shhh” semaphore, and walked away.

  By the time I pulled out into Austin going-home traffic, I was laughing.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Maybe I shouldn’t have laughed. This was brought home to me the next morning—the sun a painfully bright orb just above the treetops—when I noticed the car parked at the house across the street. Maybe it was the local donkey enforcement officer, plainclothes division.

  I picked up the paper out on the lawn, trying all the while not to look conspicuously curious, and went back inside.

  After a trip to the study to grab my binoculars, I studied the vehicle from my living room window.

  “What are you looking at?” Julie asked me.

  “Yeah, daddy, what are you looking at?” Michelle asked. She was six years old, sharp as a whip, and going through a mimicking stage. Anything anyone said was likely to be repeated, so even Jennifer knew to watch her words.

  “There’s a car parked across the street,” I said. “Got a warning to be watching for someone from Perry.”

  “You think he’s dangerous?” Julie asked.

  “You think he’s dangerous?” Michelle repeated.

  “I don’t think so. And stop mimicking your mother.”

  “I’ll stop mimicking mother.”

  “That’s a very clever way of not-mimicking me.”

  “It is a very clever way of not-mimicking you.”

  “Go play,” Julie said.

  “I’ll go play.” And she was off.

  I focused in on the driver. He appeared to be in his late thirties to early forties, black hair in a mop across his forehead, a few pock marks from bad acne in his youth. He was, however, wearing a pressed white shirt and tie. I would’ve taken him for a cop, except for the fact that I got an unpleasant vibe from him. He was looking down at a piece of paper or something, then suddenly looked up. There was no way he could have seen me at that angle and through the thin sliver between the window facing and the curtain, but still I jerked backward out of reflex.

  “You’re jumpy,” Julie said.

  “I’m cautious.”

  “Is he dangerous?” she asked me again.

  “Probably not, but I’m not taking any chances.”

  I stepped back from the window and handed her the binoculars.

  “What are you going to do?” she asked.

  “I’m gonna go talk to him.”

  “We could call the cops. Let them talk to him. In fact, I think that’s what I’m going to do.”

  “It won’t take me a minute,” I said, heading for the door.

  “Bill!”

  “I think I smell toast burning,” I said.

  I didn’t dare glance in her direction. I opened the door and was out it.

  Across the lawn, my shoes gathering dew and making depressions in the saturated lawn. I had apparently brought all the storms with me up from Mexico a few days before, ending the drought. Maybe I’m a thunder god. That must have been it.

  He was looking at the paper as I walked toward his car. I quickly angled to where his periphery was partially blocked by the corner windshield support. He didn’t notice me until I stepped onto the street, and then he jumped in his seat. His window was down and I trotted over to him before he could get the thing started.

  “Hold up there, Cowboy,” I said. “What’s your hurry?”

  “What do you want?”

  “What do you want?” I asked, then realized I was doing an impromptu imitation of Michelle.

  I braced myself against his car and peered closely at him.

  “Are you looking for someone?” I asked him. “Because if you have, you’ve found him.”

  “I don’t know what—”

  I looked down at his lap. Over it was a copy of the newspaper, still wet with dew. He had taken if from the yard of one of my neighbors.

  “You do know what. Yesterday it was Perry Reilly, and today it’s me. How fast do you normally talk?”

  “Look, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I gotta go.” He started the car and put it in reverse. I was still braced against it, so he shot a quick look at where my hands contacted his car, then directly at me, meeting my eyes for the first time. I took the hint.

  “Okay,” I said, and stepped back. At that instant the garbage truck trundled past me not three feet away and tooted his horn.

  I recovered quickly and said, “It’s a dangerous street.”

  He jerked his car backwards, whipped his steering wheel over and shot past me on the tail of the garbage truck. I caught his license plate and the model of his car and started memorizing it, using an old mnemonic trick I’ve had the habit of for most of my life.

  I walked back to the house, taking to the sidewalk instead of the grass, went inside—and locking the door behind me—and to the kitchen.

  The paper was open for me on the table to the masthead article about Richard Sawyer. The color photo was of the Ross Volunteer honor guard surrounding his casket in the Capitol Rotunda. The photo had to have been taken sometime during the night, all pre-arranged between the Statesman and the Governor’s Office. The public viewing was to begin an hour hence, with the official ceremony to commence at the United Methodist Church the following evening, after which the Governor was to begin the long train ride to Midland for interment.

  Julie set a plate in front of me. The toast was a little darker than usual, but I’d been trying to get her to make it darker like that for years. Two eggs, a cut-up apple, and two crisp bacon slices, and that was it. She was trying to keep me slim.

  “You just can’t help yourself, can you?” she said quietly.

  I set the newspaper down.

  “Uh oh. What?”

  Jennifer, at my right elbow, very nonchalantly raised a glass of orange juice and sipped at it. Her eyes looked away, as if quite suddenly the wall with the ceramic rooster plate mounted on it had become particularly fascinating. Across from me, Michelle and Megan quietly made faces at each other, oblivious.

  “You know very well what,” my lovely wife said from ten feet away. She made a noise with the plates.

  “It’s personal when someone comes to the house. I couldn’t not go out there.”

  “Men,” she said.

  And that was the entirety of the discussion.

  *****

  I had a few surprises waiting for me at the office. A young man sat at Penny’s desk. I suppose it was no longer her desk after all.

  “You have a few messages, Mr. Travis,” the young man said, and handed me a small stack of torn-off phone notes.

  “Who are you?”

  “Timothy O
gg. Some call me...Tim.”

  The moment was disconcerting because there was yet another man sitting in one of the waiting room chairs.

  “And this is?” I asked, and gestured toward our guest.

  “This is Mr. Clarence Freel, from Missouri Pacific.”

  Freel got up and met me halfway. We shook hands and I offered him coffee, which he accepted. I could smell it from down the hallway.

  I turned to Tim. “Did Penny...uh...Ms. Taylor show you how to make the coffee? There’s a certain way we do it here.”

  “She showed me,” Tim said.

  At that moment Penny walked out of her new office, and I introduced her to Mr. Freel.

  She was dressed like an executive woman, with bright red lipstick, a stunning, form-fitting burgundy dress that accentuated a body I had never really known she had, and a new and somewhat sassy hairstyle that must’ve set her back a hundred bucks or more. Penny had come a long way from reading trashy novels—and writing a few of her own—while on the company dime. While working for Nat and me she had gone to school and earned both her CPA and SEC license, enabling her to do a client’s taxes, invest their portfolio, and plan for their retirement. She looked like a million bucks, and I could feel my stock ticking upwards. I wondered, absently, how Julie would react to seeing Penny dressed that way. The ice there might prove dangerously thin.

  “Bill,” she said, once the introductions were out of the way, “we have an appointment to meet Nat at the Governor’s Mansion in twenty minutes. The way the traffic is going to be at the Capitol today, I suggest we walk.”

  “I’m bringing Mr. Freel along,” I said and turned to him. “That is, if you’d like to go. You’ll get to meet important people, and it won’t be a long affair. The walk is short.” It was, in fact less than five blocks to the Governor’s Mansion, and the Capitol was right across the street and even closer.

  “Be happy to,” Freel said.

  “First, coffee.”

  “Already got mine,” Penny said, and disappeared back inside her office.