Bittersweet (A China Bayles Mystery) - Hardcover

Albert, Susan Wittig

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1410478874 ISBN 13: 9781410478870

Publisher: Thorndike Press, 2015

Synopsis

Planning to spend the Thanksgiving holiday on her mother's ranch-turned-birdwatcher's retreat, China learns that her mother's divorcee helper has died in a suspicious accident that is tied to the murder of a local veterinarian.

About this title

About the Author:

Susan Wittig Albert grew up on a farm in Illinois and earned her Ph.D. at the University of California at Berkeley. A former professor of English and a university administrator and vice president, she is the author of the China Bayles Mysteries, the Darling Dahlias Mysteries, and the Cottage Tales of Beatrix Potter. Some of her recent titles include" Death Come Quickly, Widow's Tears," " Cat's Claw," """The Darling Dahlias and the Texas Star, The Darling Dahlias and the Confederate Rose," and "The Tale of Castle Cottage." She and her husband, Bill, coauthor a series of Victorian-Edwardian mysteries under the name Robin Paige, which includes such titles as "Death at Glamis Castle "and "Death at Whitechapel."

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

Prologue

The blue and white Cessna 172 dropped out of the gray November sky. The pilot banked sharply, slowing to eighty knots, then turned on the carburetor heat and powered back to 1500 rpm. When he made the field, he extended another ten degrees of flaps, dropped his airspeed to seventy, and corrected for the crosswind that blew off the cliff to the west. He powered back, leveled off, and touched down at the end of the grassy north-south strip. The landing was bumpy but no rougher than usual. He regularly mowed the private strip tucked into the Bee Creek valley at the foot of Sycamore Mountain and knew where to avoid the worst of the hummocks and dips. He powered down, braked lightly, and taxied the short distance to the Quonset hut that served as an airplane hangar. Glad to be back in Texas, he climbed out and was greeted by the man who had just come out of the barn.

“Where the hell you been?” the man demanded angrily. “I been expecting you for hours.” He shook his head. “Ever’ time you go up in that antique bolt-bucket, you could come home in a body bag.”

“Hey,” the pilot said. “She may be an antique, but she’s still in the air. And I don’t notice her condition keeping you from taking her up whenever you feel like it.” It was true. Both of them flew the plane, although its certification had lapsed long ago. The pilot paused to flick a light to his cigarette. “Stopped off outside of Lubbock to say hi to a little girl I know there. Took longer than I thought. Sorry,” he added. “Shoulda called.” He grinned, remembering. “Guess I had something else on my mind.”

The two men were brothers, but there was no family resemblance. In his late thirties, the pilot was sandy-haired, short, and barrel-chested, broad and heavy across the shoulders. His younger brother was thin and dark, with a disfiguring knife scar that ran across his narrow cheek and under his ear, earned in a barroom fight in Corpus Christi a few years before. Both wore cowboy hats and jackets—the pilot denim, his brother a green army field jacket—jeans, and scuffed cowboy boots.

“Lubbock,” his brother grunted. “I just might have to shoot you.” Both men laughed. They pushed the plane into the hangar and went swiftly through the usual postflight items. They were both good fliers, both good mechanics. Had to be, since they didn’t have the money to pay somebody else to keep the plane flying.

“You heard from the truck?” the pilot asked as they closed the big doors. “Jack loaded up and got off before dawn. I told him to phone you with updates.” Jack was their partner. He worked on another ranch, but he’d taken a few days off to do the job.

“Phoned twice. Last time he’d got as far as Lampasas, coming down 281. Should be pulling in—” He looked at his watch, “Give him another hour, maybe. That trailer work out okay?”

“It loads better than the old one and rides smoother, but six white-tails are still more than I like to handle. Those animals panic real easy.” The pilot paused, considering. “This was a real good batch, though. Big, solid bucks, hundred seventy pounds each, maybe fifty percent bigger than the wild bucks on the range around here.”

Size was the thing, of course. If you were trying to establish a game ranch, the native deer made pretty sorry breeding stock. Bucks averaged around eighty-five, ninety pounds on good range, and with the drought, most range was only fair to poor. So you either laid out big dollars to rent stud bucks from the breeders or bought their semen at seven, eight thousand dollars a pop.

But he and his brother didn’t have that kind of money. Their dad would rise up out of his grave and come gunning for them if he knew they had mortgaged the family land to high fence most of it. When they got enough money together, they could finish the job and apply for their deer breeder permit. Which was why they were bringing in the Oklahoma animals. And that was taking a big risk, since Texas had passed a law a few years ago making it a felony to haul deer in from other states. Scared of “wasting disease,” they claimed, although everybody knew it was just the big white-tail breeders protecting their business from out-of-state competition. The feds had gotten in on the act, too, and passed a law against illegally transporting deer.

But first they had to catch you. The pilot figured the chances of that were pretty slim, all things considered. He knew of a team up in North Texas that had been running a similar black market operation for the past five years, bringing in deer from up north, from Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin. They were still in business, making money hand over fist. All he and his brother needed were a couple of good trips to stock the ranch, and then they’d have their herd and could make it legal.

“Antlers?” his brother asked.

“Jack’s bringing them.” The antlers were always removed for transport, to keep the animals from injuring themselves or one another. “Impressive racks, obviously superior genetics.” That was the buzzword, what everybody was talking about these days. Superior genetics, meaning genes for monster racks that hunters would pay big money for.

“I figure we can keep the best buck,” the pilot added, “and find breeders who’ll pay six thousand apiece for the rest, easy. Seven or eight, maybe more, once they see those racks.” There were breeders out there who had more money than sense and were perfectly willing—eager, even—to buy black-market animals. And there was almost no risk. They knew they could simply launder those deer into the herds already on their hunting compounds, where they’d bring tens of thousands of dollars.

His brother nodded. “About time for a beer, wouldn’t you say? You can tell me all about that little girl in Lubbock.”

“I’ll drink to that,” the pilot replied, and the two headed up the hill toward the ranch house, their boots kicking up dry dust. It had rained in the valley over the weekend, but not up here on the mountain. That was the way in this drought. Hit-and-miss, mostly miss.

The tin-roofed clapboard house was weathered to a dull, nondescript gray. It had served as the family ranch house for four generations now, going back to the days when the only way to get to the Bar Bee was to ride your horse or drive your wagon from the main road up the limestone bed of the shallow Frio River to the spot where the ranch road headed off up Bee Creek. When the river was in flood, you stayed where you were until it was down again. Now, it was paved from the highway near Concan almost all the way up to the Bar Bee, and some of the old ranches were now gated communities with riverfront parks and underground electricity. The pilot hated the thought, but there was no denying it. Pretty quick, they were going to run out of country.

The two men went in through the back door. Inside, the house reflected its occupancy by a pair of bachelors, neither of whom bothered to make beds or wash dishes on a regular schedule. The kitchen table still held the remains of the previous day’s meals, and the sink was piled with dirty pots and pans. The main feature in the living room was a gigantic HDTV, with a pair of brown La-Z-Boys parked in front of it, a table between them topped with an overflowing ashtray and a couple of empty beer bottles.

They took Lone Star longnecks out of the fridge, then went to sit in the rocking chairs on the front porch, propping their boots on the rail. From this vantage point, they could look out over the nearly two thousand acres of the old ranch, hillsides densely wooded with mesquite, cedar, and oak, the creek bottom with sycamore, pecan, and cypress, and enough open grazing to support a couple of hundred cows. Their dad and granddad had been cattle ranchers, so the whole place was low fenced—high fenced now to confine the deer herd they were intent on building. This was the southern rim of the Edwards Plateau and good land, all of it, prime habitat for wild turkey, dove, feral hogs, and white-tailed deer. When they were boys, the brothers had hunted every inch of it. There was no other place on earth that either of them would ever want to be, and when their dad was dying, they’d promised him that they would keep the land.

But cattle ranching was a losing proposition these days. Beef was bringing a good price, but the years-long drought had reduced the amount of hay they could raise to feed their cows, so they’d had to sell off most of the calves. The pilot had even thought of selling the plane, but he knew they wouldn’t get what it was worth to them. He and his brother had talked the subject up one end and down the other and had come to the conclusion that they either had to sell the land to a developer or turn it into a trophy-hunting ranch, like the one Jack worked for. Which was what they were doing. Give them another two years and enough black-market deer to pay for the rest of the fencing, and they’d be in business.

“So what’s the stock count now, with this batch coming in?” the pilot asked.

“Eleven from out of state, plus those four fawns Jack brought over. We sold off five of the Oklahoma bucks already.”

The pilot frowned. Jack, who was experienced at working with white-tails, was buying into their project on shares, with breeder fawns and other stuff: supplies, tools, equipment.

“Those fawns,” he said, “they’re a problem. Once the Oklahoma white-tails are inside our fence, they could be native to the place and legal, far as anybody can tell. But I don’t care how big a rack their daddy carries, those fawns were a mistake.”

“Yeah. Those ear tattoos. Since it’s the genetics we’re after, we won’t need the animals themselves, once we’ve got their offspring. We can get rid of them. And when Jack brings the next batch come spring, they better be unmarked. No more tattooed ears.”

“I’ll go for that,” the pilot said, and tipped his bottle. “You told him, I reckon.”

“Yes, but he’s got another problem, too. His wife is pissed off about what he’s doing.” The brother’s voice had a jagged edge. “I told him he’d better keep her in line, or else.” His laugh was raspy. “Women. They got their uses, but they’re never happy, no matter what. It’s always something with them. Always something.”

Or else what, the pilot wondered uneasily, trying not to remember the details of that bad scene in Corpus that had ended with his brother spending five years in jail for manslaughter, plus probation. He eyed the Cooper’s hawk circling over the meadow that sloped down to the creek below and watched as it arched into a steep, stooping dive, pulling up sharply with a struggling shape in its brutal claws. Or else what?

With a shiver, he stopped remembering Corpus and thought instead about Jack’s wife, who was a tempting dish. “Always something,” he agreed mildly.

His brother pulled out a can of Red Man and poked a wad of tobacco into his cheek. “You got it. Well, there’s more. The day you and Jack left for Oklahoma, I had to get the vet out here. Not our regular, but the old guy. The one Dad used to go fishing with.”

“Oh yeah. Him and Dad was real close. Which cow?”

“The red heifer. She twinned.”

“It go okay?” The pilot thought it probably had, even though it was a first birth. They had grown up with cows and knew how to deal with most situations. Must have been a tough one for his brother to call in a vet.

“Nope. The bull calf died—the vet’s damn fault, although he wouldn’t own up to it.” He narrowed his eyes. “And there’s worse. While he was here, I think he got a look at those fawns.”

The pilot sat up straight, feeling a twist of uneasiness. “A good look?”

His brother shrugged. “That old man is shrewd, and he knows our place from way back.” There was that jagged edge again. “He likely knows we ain’t got a permit.”

The pilot didn’t say anything for a moment. Then, casual and soothing, he said, “Well, I don’t reckon he’ll say anything. Not his business.”

The brother picked up a rusty can and spit a stream of tobacco juice into it. “I been thinking of having a little talk with him.”

The pilot didn’t answer for a moment. Then, carefully, trying to be cool, he said, “I don’t think you should do that. Maybe he didn’t—”

“Leave it to me, bro. I’ll take care of it.”

“Okay,” the pilot said reluctantly. “Well, okay.”

The hawk was back in the air, circling for another kill. He thought again of Corpus Christi.

Chapter One

American bittersweet, Celastrus scandens, is a climbing vine that can grow to twenty feet. A native, it is reported to occur throughout most of the eastern two-thirds of North America, from Canada to Texas. Other common names include climbing bittersweet, false bittersweet, climbing orangeroot, fevertwig, fever-twitch, staff vine, and Jacob’s ladder. It prefers a sunny location and neutral soil. As a climber, it is a valuable ornamental landscape plant that can control erosion and harbor wildlife. Its orange berrylike fruits are produced in late summer and autumn, in hanging clusters that provide winter food for grouse, pheasant, quail, rabbit, squirrel, and deer. Fruit-bearing branches and twigs are prized for holiday wreaths and dried arrangements.

If you plan to add this vine to your landscape, be sure to choose the native American bittersweet, rather than the invasive pest Oriental bittersweet (Celastrus orbiculatus), which is sometimes sold in nurseries. Aggressive Oriental bittersweet vines can girdle and smother trees and shrubs and have overwhelmed entire plant communities. This imported plant bully not only outcompetes and displaces our indigenous American bittersweet, but can also hybridize with it. Widespread hybridization could genetically disrupt the native bittersweet population to the point of extinction. In some states, Oriental bittersweet has been listed as a prohibited noxious weed and targeted for eradication.

China Bayles
“Native Plants for Wildlife Gardens”
Pecan Springs Enterprise

Sometimes it’s hard to know just when and where a particular story begins. Once you know the ending, you can trace it back to a dozen different starting points, places where you can say, “It all started here,” or “This is where it began.” But that’s not the whole of it, either—because each of those starting points is the ending of another story, which has a beginning somewhere else, which is the ending of yet another story. It’s like a vine. Sometimes you can’t untangle it.

So when I tell you that this story begins on the Monday morning of Thanksgiving week, it’s because I have to start somewhere, and that day is as good as any other. I remember that particular day because my herb shop is closed on Mondays and I was taking the opportunity to do some restocking and decorating for the coming holiday season. Up until that moment, it had been a very ordinary day, full of the ordinary kinds of Monday things. I was standing on the stepladder, making room on the wall for the half-dozen wreaths that had just arrived, when the phone rang—the phone call that pulled me into a chain of events that wouldn’t end until three people were dead.

Over my shoulder, I called to Ruby Wilcox, who was unpacking a big box beside the counter. “Hey, Ruby, get that, would you?”

“Why?” Ruby asked, taking a box cutter to a larg...

About this edition

• Publisher: Thorndike Press
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 1410478874
• ISBN 13: 9781410478870
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 427