In Big Trouble

Chapter 17

Marianna Barrett Conyers was in the garden behind her house when Tess returned to Alamo Heights early that afternoon. Given the trees and the high stone wall, the garden was as dark as the interior of the house. It seemed unlikely that the sun ever penetrated here. Yet Marianna wore a large hat and was carefully applying sunscreen to her face and hands. She sat at a wrought-iron table, an authentic version of the ones that had come back into style. A blue-rimmed pitcher of iced tea and matching glass completed the Martha Stewart perfection of the scene.

"It's one of the things I've done right, taking care of my skin," she volunteered, although Tess had asked for no explanation, had not yet even reintroduced herself. "I never sunbathed like the other girls."

Marianna held out her tube of Estée Lauder sunscreen to Tess, whose face was tanned and freckled from a summer's worth of rowing. Tess shook her head. Too little, too late. Although now that she was thirty, she probably should got serious about moisturizer. Not that Marianna's complexion was particularly impressive. Her pores were large, her color was uneven, and age spots had begun to creep along her jawline.

"You'll be sorry," she said. Marianna wasn't good at playfulness, and the warning sounded almost too ominous.

"Probably," Tess agreed. "Did Lollie Sterne sunbathe?"

If Marianna was startled by the question, nothing in her face betrayed this. She capped her Estée Lauder tube, then rubbed her hands together to absorb the extra lotion. When she was done, she patted the cushioned chair opposite her, inviting Tess to sit. Commanding her, really. Tess didn't like being directed by anyone, but she wanted Marianna to think she was in control of the situation, at least in the beginning. So she sat.

"You've been busy," Marianna said.

"Very," Tess agreed.

"How old are you? Twenty-seven? Twenty-eight?"

"I was thirty in August."

"Still young. Too young to know there are stories you will grow weary of telling. Especially when it's the only story anyone knows about you. Or cares about."

Tess smiled and nodded. She had no idea where Marianna was heading with this.

"I am a survivor. Not in the new sense of the word, which implies triumph over self-inflicted adversity, followed by public redemption in the chapel of some talk show host. I am a ‘survived by.'"

"Survived by whom?"

"No one, that's just it. I'm the one in the list at the end of the obituary. So-and-so is survived by. I'm the official mourner, and my past is as noisy as Marley's chains. I am Frank Conyers's widow, I am Lollie Sterne's best friend. That's the sum and total of who I am. People no longer remember that my father's people were related to William Barrett Travis, the commander at the Alamo. Distantly, but related nonetheless. They don't recall the things my father did for this city, how almost every building here has a foundation poured by his concrete company. There was a time when I would have given anything to he known as someone other than my father's daughter. Be careful what you wish for."

"By withdrawing from the world, you made it worse," Tess said. "You've frozen yourself in time. If you want to compare yourself to a Dickens character, try Miss Havisham."

Marianna shook her head impatiently.

"If you want to listen to my story, then you have to listen. Don't you know how many reporters have tried to get me to tell this to them? Usually at this time of year, too. Right before what they call the ‘anniversary.' As if I might be having a cake and a party. They called the first year, and the second. The fifth and the tenth, the fifteenth and the twentieth. It's not just the local media, either, but reporters from Dallas and Houston, and Texas Monthly. Unsolved Mysteries even showed up on my doorstep one time. This year, the twenty-first will probably be a little quieter than some. But someone will come by. Someone always does."

She stopped, her eyes fixed on some spot in the garden wall. Tess knew to leave the silence alone.

"And then one day, someone shows up who doesn't know anything. A young woman with an accent as flat and matter-of-fact as she is. A young woman whose ignorance allows me, for a moment, to not tell the story I thought everyone knew. Yes, I rewrote history for a day. Horace dead in a hunting accident. Well, it happened in a hunting camp. Lollie, Frank, and Pilar, dead in a car accident. "Suddenly, brightly: "Did they tell you they tortured him?"

"Who?"

"My Frank." She held a finger to her lips. "Only we're not allowed to say how. That's something only the killer knows."

Jimmy Ahern's book had hinted at details about Frank's death that had never come to light, but Tess had assumed he was a bad reporter.

"I'm sorry, I didn't-"

"-know. You didn't know. Exactly. That was your charm."

Charm. The Duchess of Euphemism had struck again. What Tess had been was stupid, even arrogant.

"So you knew who Tom Darden was all along."

"No, I was truthful on that count. When you came here on Friday, Tom Darden was nothing more than a corpse on my property. Yesterday was the first I heard that he was thought to know something about how Lollie and Frank…died." She smiled ruefully. "You should understand the Sternes and I have not been kept informed about all the developments over the years. Perhaps we should have been less critical of the police investigation. But they made such a mess of things, at first."

"How so?"

Marianna looked weary and pale beneath her careful makeup. Tess was beginning to understand why she had permitted herself the lies that allowed her to avoid this topic, at least for one afternoon.

"Small things. Probably unimportant things. But when it's you, and it's your husband-or your first cousin, and the servant who all but raised you, in the case of Gus Sterne-there are no small things. All I know is they never came close to making an arrest, and they didn't seem to have many satisfactory explanations as to why. Now the detective tells me Darden and this other man were in prison all these years, so the case ‘lacked urgency.' Well, it never lacked urgency for me.

"What about Emmie?"

"What about her?"

"Could she have known about Darden?"

"I'm sure Emmie would like to see justice done, but Lollie's death has never preoccupied her."

Tess leaned forward. "I thought today was the day you weren't going to tell lies. If people associate you with your husband's death to the exclusion of almost everything else, then the murder of Emmie's mother must be the central fact of her existence as well."

"That sounds logical, but it didn't work that way. Enunie didn't have a before and after. Her life is all aftermath. She never knew Horace, and she accepted the family's explanation that he died in a hunting accident. When Lollie died, she was only two. The truth is, she doesn't even remember her mother. She's like a child who had a bad dream and woke up to find herself safe and warm in a house where everyone loved her. Gus did a very good job of protecting her while she was growing up. It was her mother's absence that scarred Emmie. Gone is gone."

"However you want to "plain it, she's clearly disturbed. Did she ever get professional help?"

Marianna sipped her tea. Tess had worded the question as carefully as she could, but it obviously was too blunt for Marianna's sensibilities.

"When she was a teenager, Emily began…acting out in various ways," Marianna began cautiously. "She saw various counselors and doctors. One decided she could recover Emily's memory of what happened the night of the murder. I'm sure she thought she'd solve the crime and be a big hero. At any rate, she put Emily under hypnosis. When Emily couldn't remember anything, she became hysterical, convinced something was wrong with her. Gus gave up on doctors after that."

"How was she ‘acting out'?" Marianna's habit of casting other's words in invisible quotation marks was catching.

"Pardon?"

"You said Emily was sent to all these doctors because of her behavior. What was she doing?"

"Oh, typical adolescent rebellion. Truthfully, I think Gus over-reacted. His son, Clay, is so well-behaved, he makes normal children look out of control. Emily is a Sterne through and through, very headstrong. Clay's genes were watered down by his mother. She was a Galveston girl, pretty enough, but weak-willed. I think eating all that shellfish thins the blood."

"‘Was'? Is she dead, too?" Jesus, how many "accidents "could one family have?

"Oh no, she and Gus divorced about ten years ago, and she settled in California. Another blow for Emmie. She ended up losing two mothers before she was thirteen."

"I don't imagine it did much for her son, either."

Marianna lifted one shoulder in a tiny, ladylike shrug, as if Clay's problems were of little interest to her.

"Would Emmie go to her uncle if she were in trouble?"

"I told you the first time we met that they haven't spoken for five years."

"You told me lots of things the first time we spoke," Tess reminded her.

Marianna Barrett Conyers's face had a way of clicking off abruptly, like a coin-operated television set in a bus station.

"Waste your time if you like. Sterne Foods is on the Austin Highway, not that far from here. It runs off Broadway, near an old Mobil Station, the one that was a dress shop. You'll find it easily. But don't be surprised if you have trouble getting in. Security is very tight just now."

"Why does a restaurant chain need security? Is someone trying to get the recipe for the secret sauce?"

"I wouldn't know." And Marianna Barrett Conyers tilted her face toward a nonexistent sun, her part of the conversation clearly over.

Tess liked roads that told you where they went. Back home, it was York Road, Frederick Road, Harford Road-not to be confused with Old York Road, Old Frederick Road, and Old Harford Road. They weren't the fastest routes to their namesakes, but they were always more interesting than the interstate. Here, it was Fredericksburg and Blanco and Castroville. And if the Austin Highway was no longer much of a highway, it seemed cheerful about its demotion. Tess stopped for lunch at a place called the Bun and Barrel, on the theory that any restaurant configured to look like its namesake was always worth a visit. Although only the barrel was present here, and it was just a little decoration on the roof, the theory still held. It was almost two when she finished her burger and drove a little farther up the highway, to the fortress that was Sterne Foods.

One of the older buildings along this stretch of road, it had a fierce spick-and-span quality. The squat stucco rectangle was blinding white, with a red trim that was so shiny it looked wet. The cyclone fence-and the razor wire stretched across the top-shimmered in the midday sun. The grass was bright green and sharply edged, the flower beds severely symmetrical. No risk of E. coli here, Tess thought. Sterne Foods put the process in processed foods.

The only scruffy note was a slow-moving line of protesters in front of the fence. With union members on both sides of her family, Tess automatically assumed these were disgruntled workers. But their placards told of a much deeper dissatisfaction with Sterne Foods. SAVE YOUR OWN SOUL-DON'T EAT MEAT, read one sign. COWS DON'T DESERVE THE DEATH PENALTY. HUMANITARIANISM DOESN'T STOP WITH HUMANS. And, a little mysteriously, CHRISTMAS IS CARNAGE. Tess couldn't let that one go.

"Christmas? It's not quite Halloween."

"It's from Babe," said the picketer, a stringy woman with yellow-orange skin, the color of an expensive pepper. "You know, the movie about the pig who wants to herd sheep."

"A classic," Tess agreed. She and Esskay had watched it on video several times. "So what's your beef with Sterne Foods?"

The picketers looked alarmed, as if even the metaphorical use of the word was forbidden to them.

"We've been out here every day for a year, since the city gave Gus Sterne permission to stage the All Soul Festival," said the stringy woman, who seemed to be the leader. "He calls it a celebration of food and culture, but it's really just a way to promote his chain of barbecue restaurants. Oh, sure, he'll give all the profits to local charities, but he's still responsible for the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of cows. He's made his millions off animal genocide, but no one ever talks about that."

"Eating meat is legal."

"That doesn't make it moral. Or safe."

A young man leaned into the conversation. "Cigarette smoking was acceptable, too, once. We want to marginalize meat eating in the same way, with additional taxes and more truth in labeling."

Tess had a sudden image of the office building of the future, with workers standing in little clusters, some smoking, others hunched over roast beef sandwiches.

"You didn't pick an easy state to start your fight, I'll give you that much."

She had meant to appease the group, but the stringy woman took offense.

"We aren't interested in easy battles. San Antonians think it's not a celebration unless meat is consumed. We're petitioning city hall for meatless, cruelty-free venues at all the major festivals here."

"Life is cruel. Existence is predicated on destruction."

"Those are very fancy rationalizations for being a flesh-eater," sniffed the human yellow pepper. I wouldn't want to be in the Donner Party with you, Tess decided. Although her lack of body fat would probably doom her early on, she'd be much too lean to support those left behind.

"I had a cheeseburger for lunch," Tess announced sunnily. "Medium rare."

Some of the people in the group took a few steps backward, as if they might catch something from her, but the stringy woman held her ground.

"This isn't a joke," she said. "We're willing to go pretty far to press our agenda. I wouldn't plan on having too good a time at the All Soul Festival, if I were you."

"Oh, be off before someone drops a house on you, too!" Tess muttered, pushing past the pickets to a small guardhouse that bisected the wide drive into Sterne Foods. An automatic fence separated her from the guard, and she hooked her fingers into the mesh, rattling it to get his attention.

"I'd like to see Gus Sterne," she said.

"You got an appointment?" asked the guard, barely glancing up from the sports page.

"No, it's a personal matter."

The guard shook his head. "Uh-huh. That won't work."

"Pardon me?"

"Oh, this crazy sports columnist, Robert Buchanan, he thinks the Texas Longhorns need more offense. He is so retarded. Where do they get these guys? I could write a better column."

"About Gus Sterne-"

"Sorry. No one gets in unless they're on the list. You want to see him, you have to call, get an appointment first, and show two forms of ID when you show up here. Fact is, he's pretty busy right now, what with the festival and all the traveling he's been doing. You won't be able to get an appointment for a week, maybe two."

Even as the guard spoke, a silver Lincoln Continental convertible was gliding down the hill. The gate began to slide open automatically and Tess jumped back, surprised by the sudden movement. The Lincoln was possibly the largest car she had ever seen. Brand-new, it would have been gross, the kind of stereotypical excess expected of Texans. But this car looked to be at least forty years old, which lent a certain dignity to its oversized proportions.

The same could be said of the broad-shouldered man behind the wheel, a man not much older than the car he drove. His shoulders were broad, his hair blond running to silver. As a young man, he had probably been handsome in a coarse, almost too-obvious way. Age had improved him.

One could only hope it would do the same for the young man in the passenger seat. His lines were as blurry as a second-generation photocopy. He hadn't gotten his face yet, as Kitty might say. His profile was mushy, his shoulders narrow and round, and his posture was noodle-limp.

The gate was open all the way now, and the guard lifted his hand in a gesture that was halfway between a wave and a salute. The picketers seemed confused by the sight of the car-instinctively jumping out of the way, then drawing close again as it waited to make a left turn into the heavy traffic. The driver paid no attention to them at all, but the younger man scrunched down in the passenger seat until he almost disappeared. The Lincoln caught a break in the traffic and slid smoothly into it.

"Well, you got your wish," the guard said.

"What?"

"You saw Gus Sterne. You just didn't get to speak to him. And li'l Gus. Excuse me-Clay." The guard grinned. "He's a watery-looking kid, isn't he? It's like he came out of the oven before he was baked through. Clay's a good name for him. Play-Doh would be better."

"He's young."

"He's my age," the guard said, with a truly proprietary outrage, as if he owned the year in which he was born. "Twenty-two, just graduated from UT. I hear he wants to go back and study something like history, but Daddy says the only way he'll pay for any more school is if he goes for an MBA, or a law degree. It's pretty funny if you think about it. Gus Sterne has a foundation that sends all these poor kids to college, but he won't let his own son go back. Poor baby. He wants to go be a history teacher, and his daddy's making him run a multimillion-dollar business."

"Everywhere I go, I hear Gus Sterne's a pretty nice guy. Practically a saint."

"He's fine as bosses go. But you get used to making rules for other people, you start thinking you're better than them, that you know best all the time. I could have had me one of those Sterne Scholar gigs, then I read the fine print. You wouldn't believe all the requirements attached. Not only a B average, but you had to do volunteer work, too. Man, I'd rather work for the guy than take his charity. Fewer strings attached."

Tess pulled out the photograph of Little Girl in Big Trouble, the one from the newspaper. "I'm looking for a girl, Gus Sterne's cousin. Emmie Sterne. This is her. Blond, kind of small and frail looking."

The guard shrugged. "I don't remember her coming to the gate. But she looks like she'd have fit right in with that gang at the foot of the driveway, and I don't pay them too much attention, long as they keep moving and don't block the path of any cars."

"Are they the reason security is so tight?"

"Big part of it. I think they're all talk, but you never know. Meanwhile, no one gets in, unless Sterne's secretary phones and tells me they're okay."

"What about the cops?"

"Even they don't get in, unless I'm told it's okay."

"No, I mean, have they been here recently?"

"Some captain came by a month ago, but I think it was to go over the parade route. Like there's anything to go over. We only have about twenty parades a year in this town, and they all go the same way. Down Broadway, past the Alamo. Hey, I get to work security for the All Soul parade. I'm gonna drive the car."

"What car?"

"That sweet silver Lincoln you just saw. Pretty cool, huh? Too bad I can't really open it up, but you gotta drive slow, so the boss and his son can do the big wave from the backseat." He did a passably good imitation of a prom queen's wave. "I'm going to wear mirrored sunglasses, and a little wire in my ear. I'm gonna be Secret Service, practically."

Tess nodded absently. It had been silly to come here. If Emmie had decided to pull the prodigal daughter routine, Sterne Foods wouldn't be the site of their tearful reunion, despite the surplus of fatted calves on the premises. To go home again, you have to go home. Hermosa Street, she had said. A handsome place, the shrine of Saint Gus, who had come to believe that he always knew best.

Which, in Tess's experience, made him a very dangerous man indeed.