Pushing Up Bluebonnets

9

When I'd first arrived, I hadn't fully taken in the grandeur of the Richter home, but grand was everywhere. Pillars of dark wood separated the living areas from the hall that led to the back of the house. These were double living areas separated by the longest dining table I'd seen outside a wedding reception. Vases sat on little shelves; paintings that probably cost a small fortune hung on the walls; thick Oriental rugs protected polished oak flooring. As we headed back toward the way I'd come in, I glanced at rustic leather furniture and end tables with fresh flowers in the less formal living area. Up ahead to my right, brocade and satin upholstered chairs faced a grand piano. Richter led me to another hallway off the foyer.

We'd had no shortage of expensive art and antiques in our home while I was growing up, but this place was more well dressed than you'd expect a "ranch" to be. We turned left and seemed to travel for minutes, passing closed door after closed door. What was behind all of them? Bedrooms? Studies? Offices? Maybe a media center or a billiards room? Finally we reached JoLynn's room and Richter produced a ring of keys from his pocket and used one to open her door.

Locked? Hmmm. Who is he keeping out?

He caught my expression and said, "I only added the lock this weekend. I didn't want the others snooping around in her things."

"The others? You mean your family?"

"That's right." Richter widened the door. "This is it."

I expected more expensive decor, but the room, though large by non-master-bedroom standards, seemed, well, plain. The linens on the four-poster were beige. The two mahogany dressers had no photos on top. Two brown upholstered wing chairs with a small round table between them sat in front of a window that looked out on a fenced-in garden and fountain. I felt like I'd walked into an upscale hotel room—pleasant but impersonal.

Just then Eva appeared in the doorway. "Herr Richter? The policeman is here. He's asking for you." She had a thick German accent that hadn't come through when she'd spoken so few words earlier.

"Did he say what he wanted?" Richter said impatiently, never taking his eyes off me as I walked into the middle of the bedroom. I was taking in every corner, hoping to see something—anything—that might give me a hint of JoLynn's personality.

Eva said, "He says nothing except that he wants to speak with you, mein Herr."

"Go ahead. I'd prefer to work alone anyway, Mr. Richter," I said.

"I'm not sure—"

"My ground rules, remember?"

Richter turned on his heel and left with Eva.

I sighed and closed my eyes, the tension leaving my body. I hadn't realized how strongly his presence affected me. I kinda liked the guy who'd been charming and intelligent at lunch, but the intensity when he spoke about JoLynn seemed, well, scary. This little room search would be a welcome distraction. Maybe Kate could help me make sense of Richter when we talked this over later.

Since nothing in plain sight struck me as informative, I hit the nightstand and found a Bible with a gold-tasseled bookmark in the drawer. I opened to the marked page. Ecclesiastes, the fourth chapter. Not the chapter about how everything has a time and a season, but rather the one about how wealth cannot bring happiness, how you need a friend to help you up when you fall. We'd done Ecclesiastes in my adolescent Bible study and if I remembered right, these passages were about oppression and friendlessness. Her saving this particular page could be telling me something about JoLynn, or it could simply be the spot she'd stuck the thin gold ribbon attached to the Bible.

I moved on and found a half dozen pairs of shorts and T-shirts and some simple cotton underwear in one dresser. The drawers below the television armoire were filled with jeans, lightweight sweaters and pajamas. No trendy clothes like you'd expect from someone her age— not even in the nearly barren closet. Two black dresses, a few pairs of shoes, a pair of slacks and a shirt still in their dry-cleaner bags—that was about it. Her wardrobe pretty much resembled mine.

But then I went into the adjoining bathroom. The ledge of the corner whirlpool tub looked like a candle and bath-salts store. JoLynn apparently liked some luxury in her life, after all. I picked up one candle and sniffed. Vanilla. A jar of bath salts was brown sugar and, again, vanilla. And there was a coconut-vanilla foot scrub. Loofahs, bath pillows and a basket of French-milled soaps sat on the tub's marble seat. Nice and inviting, I thought. This was someone who took relaxation seriously.

The sink and vanity revealed a minimum of makeup— higher-end department store brands. Nothing you could buy at Walgreens. I knelt and opened a cabinet beneath the sink. Shampoos, a hair dryer and a curling iron. Again, everyday stuff. I was about to close up the cabinet and leave when I spotted a grocery-style plastic bag in one dark corner.

I sat on the floor and opened the bag. Here was the drugstore makeup, the cheap moisturizer and threedollar shampoo. Interesting. And three boxes of washin hair color. Black, chestnut and ash-blond. What was this about? My first thought was that she could grab this little escape kit, change her looks and disappear.

But before I could think of any other explanation, I heard voices in the bedroom and then Richter called my name.

I emerged from the bathroom after returning the bag to where I'd found it.

Cooper Boyd said, "Hi, Abby. Good to see you again." His melancholy smile and raspy voice were more welcoming than anything offered by Elliott Richter once the topic had changed to JoLynn.

"Chief Boyd has something to tell you," Richter said. "But can we talk in the great room? I find it rather uncomfortable in here."

"Uncomfortable without JoLynn, you mean?" I swore I was gonna get more out of this guy than perfect manners and a possessive attitude when it came to his granddaughter.

"Y-yes," he stammered. "I suppose there is a certain emptiness in the room that I find prickly."

As we followed Richter back down the hall, I decided I got at least some of what I was hoping for. He was flustered by the question, but prickly? I don't think I'd ever heard anyone use that word other than when describing a walk through a dewberry patch.

We went to the less-formal living area closer to the back of the house, the one with a giant stone fireplace, a distressed-leather sofa and matching club chairs. I took one of the chairs facing the sofa; Cooper sat across from me. This forced Richter to take the other chair.

Estelle appeared without Richter summoning her. All this hovering, kind of creeped me out—and she must have been hovering, since I didn't see Richter press any magic button or ring any bells to summon her. She asked what we wanted to drink and Boyd asked for iced tea. I declined and Richter spoke a German word. Not being up on my foreign languages, I didn't understand.

Once the drinks arrived—turned out the German word was the brand name of a beer—Richter said, "I'd like you to tell Abby everything you've told me. I've hired her to look into JoLynn's adoption. I fear someone from JoLynn's past has committed this crime against her and since I know nothing about her family or acquaintances prior to her arrival here, it's wise to find out about them."

"I agree," Cooper said. "Now, here's what I've—"

"One more thing." Richter stood and started pacing in front of us. "If by the grace of God JoLynn awakens soon, I ask that you do not discuss anything either of you have learned once you are in her presence."

Cooper pressed his lips together, looking pissed off. Then he took a long, slow drink of tea before carefully setting the glass on the end table next to him. "With all respect, Mr. Richter, when that girl wakes up, I will be interviewing her about anything and everything. A good lawman doesn't make promises like what you're asking."

Even though this disagreement didn't exactly involve me, I felt my shoulders and neck muscles tense. Cooper definitely had his back up and that voice made him sound meaner than he was.

Meanwhile, Richter's expression reminded me of someone who'd taken a slug of sour milk, and he might actually have felt that way because he grabbed up his beer from the end table and drank, perhaps to wash away the distaste of being challenged by yet another person today.

Richter finally said, "You're saying I can't be in the room?"

Cooper cocked his head. "Why do you need to be, sir?"

"B-because she's . . . fragile. She was that way when she came to me and this horror will only make her more vulnerable. I won't have you upsetting her."

"Well, guess what? You're making me think there's something you need to convey to this girl before she answers my questions. Is that a possibility?" Cooper's smile was long gone and his East Texas twang had grown stronger with each exchange.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Richter shot back. "Because if you think I had anything to do with JoLynn getting hurt, you'd better check your facts. I would never harm that girl. Never." Richter's face was florid with anger.

His emotional escalation seemed to please Cooper for some reason, because his half smile had returned. "I'm short on facts, Mr. Richter," he said. "I need plenty more. It's my job to find out who did this and why. Not your job, not even Abby's job, though I do appreciate her help. We on the same page?"

Richter had finished off the beer and set the bottle back down. He appeared more composed. "Certainly. Now, if you would inform Abby about the automobile and show her the driver's license, that might be useful information in her research of JoLynn's past."

"Sure." Cooper looked at me and now that he'd won the top-dog contest, he was relaxed, too. I realized he had generous laugh lines that had to have been created during another time in his life. He looked younger when he smiled, maybe forty tops.

"What have you got?" I asked.

"It's more what I haven't got—but that tells me something. The inspection sticker and registration sticker? Both fake. Good ones, I'll admit. No record of insurance that I could find."

"What about the plates?" I asked.

"Never used on any automobile registered in Texas," Cooper said. "I imagine someone's got an illegal source for plates, too."

Richter was standing in front of the fireplace, arms folded and looking concerned. "I once asked JoLynn about that car—in fact, I offered to buy her something more accessorized than that cheap compact. But she refused, said it was the first brand-new car she'd ever bought. So I asked about helping her with insurance, since she would have to change her county of residence, but she said she'd take care of it. I'm certain any fraud was the work of the charlatan who sold her the car in the first place."

Cooper tried to hide his "You've got to be kidding me" expression, but I caught it. He said, "No matter what the explanation, I have an untraceable car, so I can't check on Miss Richter's activities or acquaintances prior to her arrival here. We have to go down a different road—with Abby's help." He looked to Richter. "You got that birth certificate we talked about?"

"Yes," he answered. "Would you follow me?"

I started to get up, but Cooper spread his arms along the sofa back. "We'll wait here. Damn comfortable furniture you got, sir."

I eased back down in the chair.

Richter hesitated, then finally said, "Fine. I'll get it." He headed toward the long hallway with all its mysterious closed doors.

Cooper removed a driver's license from his uniform shirt pocket and held it up. "JoLynn left her purse when she took off that night. The address is this ranch, so I'm betting the license is fake, too. My guess? Richter will probably come up with an explanation that clears JoLynn of any wrongdoing."

"Are you saying there's a possibility JoLynn isn't related to Richter?" I said.

"Can't say for sure, yet," he answered. "Richter says she arrived here with that birth certificate, that Katarina's name was typed in the mother slot. Father unknown, which is damn convenient."

"Forged or not, that birth certificate might be enough for me to learn if JoLynn lied about being the granddaughter. I've come across plenty of fake certificates in the last few years and almost every forger screws up something."

"Being former FBI, I'm more familiar with counterfeit money than counterfeit birth certificates," he said.

But when Elliott Richter returned, he looked confused and troubled . . . and had no document or envelope in his hands.

"Sh-she gave it to me to put in the wall safe. That was over a year ago."

Even if I had barbed wire for brains, I could figure this one out. "Let me guess," I said. "It's gone."