Steve struggled to come out of the fog of a dream before he realized his phone’s command to be answered. Unlike his waking hours, the time spent in dreams came painted in colors and images, making it harder to come back to reality. After groping the top of the nightstand, he retrieved the unwelcome mechanical intruder and placed it to his ear.
"Yeah, Smiley here."
"Sorry to wake you, Steve." The gruff voice of Sheriff Blake sounded void of remorse. "I'm at the Voss Ranch. The ranch house and Hector's cabin are smoldering piles of ash. Nothing but rock chimneys left standing. The barn fared a little better, but not much."
Steve threw back the covers and swung his legs over the side of the bed. "What time is it?"
"Seven in the morning. The first call came in a little after midnight. You probably remember the houses and barn are about three miles off the nearest paved road. By the time the first pumper-truck arrived, the house had already collapsed, and the cabin looked like an Aggie bonfire, back when they had 'em."
After rubbing his sightless eyes, Steve said, "Two homes and a barn don't set themselves on fire at the same time."
"A state arson investigator is on his way."
Steve rubbed his palm across whisker-stubbles. "Mae and her future husband come to mind first, but they don't strike me as being dumb enough to do it themselves."
"I thought the same thing. Marvin and I are on our way to see them. Do you want to come along?"
Steve pondered the invitation, but not for long. "I think it best if I stay out of an arson investigation and concentrate on the homicides. I'd look along the shoreline to see if there're any traces of a boat pulling to shore last night. It would be a lot easier to come in from the water."
"I have deputies there now. I'll let you know if we find anything."
"Good luck. Arsons are hard to unravel and even harder to prove. At least you have a good idea of motive. Mae and that lawyer needed those buildings gone so they could develop the land. They told us yesterday they were going to buy Anna out. This may speed the process.”
"What about Rance? Do you think he might have done it?" asked the Sheriff.
“He'll have a million dollars and whatever he gets from the sale of the livestock. Heather didn't find any documents of insurance on the dwellings or barn. Even if there's an insurance settlement on everything that burned, it wouldn't be worth the risk to him."
"I talked to Rance at daybreak. He confirmed what you said about Charley not having insurance on the house or cabin."
"How did Rance sound when he heard about the fires?"
"Surprised at first, but then relieved. Said he was going to give the house to Mae anyway. He also said he'll talk to Anna about taking whatever Mae offers her for the cabin and he'll pay her an equal amount so she and Angelina don't have any ongoing dealings with Mae or Patrick.”
"That's generous."
The sheriff's voice changed. "I'm pulling up to the condo Mae rented. It won't hurt my feelings one bit to wake her."
After the phone went silent, Steve rose to his feet and stretched. Mae was a nasty piece of work, but that didn't mean she killed her father or Hector. But what about Patrick? He had ample motive. He also had the money to hire people to do the dirty work. How long had he known Mae and when did he start their relationship?
While brushing his teeth, Steve's thoughts continued to focus on the attorney. Patrick didn't hesitate to correct Mae about the property soon belonging to both of them. If he killed to gain half ownership of the property, what would keep him from killing again to get all of it?
"Too many questions and not enough answers," said Steve out loud.
He reached for his phone and told it to call Heather.
Her panting words and a whining noise told him she was on one of the resort's treadmills. "What are you doing awake?"
"The sheriff called. Someone torched the ranch house, barn, and cabin last night."
Heather remained silent until the whirl of the treadmill ceased. "It didn't take Mae and her lover long to pressure Anna to sell, did it? What do you want to do first?"
"Take a shower and eat breakfast. Let's go back to the Bluebonnet in Marble Falls. We'll make a plan for today while we eat. Let’s concentrate on Patrick. This evening I want us to go to the ranch and have a look."
"It will be a crime scene. Don't we need the sheriff's permission?"
"They'll have the gate to the property locked and maybe post a deputy, but we won't drive in."
"We won't?"
"Can you drive a boat?"
"I'm a blue blood from Boston. I can row, paddle, sail, and dock a yacht without chipping the paint. If it floats, I can operate it. Give me forty minutes and I'll be at your door."
Heather throttled up the one hundred-fifty horsepower engine of the rented pontoon boat. It took only seconds before she and Steve were skimming into the sun of Lake LBJ, her auburn hair whipping behind her. The ease at which the boat reached speed surprised her. The bulky appearance of the craft hid its versatility. It could seat eleven and clip along fast enough to pull a skier, even with a full complement of sun worshipers.
She shouted to Steve, who sat three feet to her left. "I'll keep it in the channel until we get to the ranch."
"How deep is the water here?"
Heather checked the depth finder on the boat's dashboard. "Forty-eight, but the girl at the rental said it's ninety feet in some spots."
Steve turned his baseball cap around so he wouldn't have to hold the bill. The cap was a purchase they made after Steve ate himself into a state of contentment at his newest favorite cafe. They stopped at Walmart to purchase inexpensive shorts, t-shirts, and tennis shoes for what Steve had in mind.
Heather's thoughts turned to the progress they'd made. She'd spent her time doing research on Patrick Shaw. He'd been a middle of the pack law student who started out in a reputable firm, but didn't last long. The reasons for his moving on were still obscure, but it had something to do with promising more than he could deliver. He played leap-frog with his career over the next ten years until he settled in with his present firm, where rumor had him in line to be a junior partner. A check of Yelp reviews revealed a three-star average with some entertaining and original comments about customer dissatisfaction. By reading between the lines, Heather gathered Patrick might try to collect more than the agreed upon fee, especially if the case involved the divorce of an attractive client. She'd been able to distill the least complimentary comments on Patrick Shaw down to three words: slippery, slimy and scum.
Steve shouted above the noise. "Are we in the middle of the channel?"
"Yes," hollered Heather.
"The old riverbed is the dividing line between Llano and Burnet Counties. It's the Colorado River and the primary source of water for a big part of Central Texas, including Austin. It empties into the Gulf of Mexico between Galveston and Corpus Christi."
The trip continued without words until Heather eased off the throttle. She checked a map of the lake and looked for landmarks along the shore while keeping a sharp eye on the depth gauge.
"We must be close," said Steve. "The wind is out of the southwest and I can smell burnt wood." He pointed. "Try that way and look for a sandy beach."
Sure enough, Steve's sensitive nose led them to the sandbar Angelina remembered wading on as a child. Heather cut the engine and allowed the boat to drift until the depth gauge read four feet. "I'm going to drop anchor here. I'll swing the boat around so the stern faces the bank. You should be in three feet of water when you climb down the ladder by the motor."
"Can you see what's left of the cabin from here?"
Heather had already moved to the stern to manipulate the ladder to its full extension. She raised up, shielded her eyes from the late afternoon sun and said, "There’s a path and I see a chimney. There's still puffs of smoke now and then. Too much brush to see anything beyond the cabin."
She descended the ladder into clear water that reached halfway up her chest. By pushing the starboard side, she maneuvered the rear of the boat over the sandbar and into shallower water. By now, Steve had his foot on the top step and his hands gripped the ladder's sides.
"Come on down," said Heather. “The water's deep enough that we won't have any trouble getting out of here.”
They trudged their way the first few steps, but soon walked through coarse dry sand.
"Say Hector's name," said Steve.
She did and waited.
"Nothing." said Steve. "Let's go to the cabin."
Steve's hand stayed on Heather's shoulder as she walked a narrow path, avoiding cactus and warning him of rock outcroppings. The smell of smoke increased the closer they came to what once was Hector's lakeside cabin.
“Say his name again," said Steve.
"Hector DeLeon."
Steve shuddered like he had a chill. "Red, but not bright red."
Heather knew what this meant. An impression of the color red came over his mind. His "gift," as she called it, was associative chromesthesia, a phenomenon more common with artists and composers. Certain colors manifest when some artists are deep into their creativity. If a person was murdered, Steve saw red. Accidents and misadventures that result in death didn’t rate color. A suicide might register pink. Negligent homicides and various categories of manslaughter moved up the color wheel. Murder topped the chart at bright red.
"That’s not a surprise, is it?" asked Heather.
"No. But they only found one casing from a rifle shell. I wonder if the first shot came from a boat anchored where we did. That would explain why they didn't find the first brass. It also might explain why the shot caught Hector in the leg. A wave from a boat that passed might have reached the shooter and caused the boat to dip."
"That's possible," said Heather. "Where to next?"
"The barn. Or what's left of it."
"Didn't you say the sheriff told you they found a spent cartridge by the barn?"
He grunted a positive response. "I want to confirm that's where the shot that killed Hector came from. I should see red."
The path to the barn was clear of most obstacles. Other than it being uphill, the fear of becoming a pincushion to cactus thorns came into play, so Heather tread with particular care.
Unlike Hector's cabin and the main house, the remnants of the barn didn't look so apocalyptic. "It's still standing," said Heather before she qualified her statement. "The major support of the walls is metal poles. They look like drill stem pipes, but spaced far apart and covered with corrugated metal. The roof has partially fallen in. It must have been mainly wood framing. The loft is gone."
Steve said, "Somebody had to work hard to do this. Do you see scorching running up the sides of the metal?"
The telltale sign of arson started at eye level and ran down to the ground, where someone doused an accelerant and then set it ablaze. "Most likely they used gasoline," said Heather.
"Where would you steady a rifle to take a shot?" asked Steve.
Heather scanned the immediate area. "There's a corral about thirty yards to the west, but my guess would be the corner of the barn."
"Take me there."
She did and said the name Hector DeLeon without being told to.
"Bright red. This is where they fired the kill shot."
Steve's gift of associative chromesthesia didn't come free. The price he paid was absolute certainty that he was standing in the spot a killer had stood. More than likely he'd get to relive the vision of what happened in tonight's dreams.
"Do you want to go to the house? There's not much left."
"Might as well since we're here."
Heather explained to him what she was seeing, but there's only so many words to describe mounds of charred wood and memories.
Steve's head jerked up. "Somebody's coming."
Heather strained to hear, and in a few seconds, she heard tires on gravel. "Do you want to make a run for it?"
"Is there crime scene tape?"
"No."
"Then we should be all right. Besides, my days of running down trails bordered by cactus are long gone. Let's see who it is."
"It's a pickup truck," said Heather. "It looks like Rance, and there's someone with him."
"Ah," said Steve. "That should be Angelina. Good. This will save us a trip."