“I may have a vested interest in the place,” Rachel answered, her voice sounding like ice cracking. “Would you please pull the most recent tax records on this property, and while you’re at it, check the record of the date Mary Toliver DuMont became the guardian of William Toliver? She’d have applied in 1935.”
“That will be in the basement, in the archives, and it will take a while.”
“I’ll wait.”
The county clerk pulled away from the counter with a perplexed, uneasy look and disappeared behind a door. Rachel felt a spear of alarm. Just her luck that her husband would be Matt’s foreman. Suppose the woman, already suspicious, relayed her inquiries to him and he notified Matt? If he was at the plant, it would take at least a half hour to drive into town. She’d give the woman twenty minutes before she hotfooted it to the Suburban.
She was on the point of leaving when the clerk reappeared. “Here’s a copy of the 1984 tax statement,” she said, slapping it on the counter, “and one of a court order granting your aunt’s application for guardianship. Anything else?” She flicked a pointed glance at the clock over the water fountain. “It’s past my break time.”
Rachel cast a quick look at the date her father officially became Aunt Mary’s ward: August 7, 1935. “I’m afraid I have one more request,” she said. “I’d like a copy of page 306 as well as one of the plat map.”
The clerk pressed her lips together. “There will be a charge,” she said.
Rachel unzipped her purse. “Name it.”
A tense few minutes later, the photocopies stowed safely in her purse, she made her escape, but at the exit, she glanced back. As she’d expected, the clerk had the phone receiver pressed to her ear and was reading to her listener from the deed record.
MATT, THIS IS CURT. I don’t know if this is important or not, but my wife just called from the courthouse. She said that Rachel Toliver was in there a few minutes ago.”
The receiver to his ear, Matt swung his chair around from the window through which he’d been staring listlessly for the better part of an hour. “What? Rachel Toliver is in town?”
“That’s right. Marie said she was asking about a warranty deed.”
“Is she still there?”
“Just left, according to Marie.”
“Did she say where she was going?”
“No, Chief.” Curt’s sigh made it clear that he wondered why he’d bothered to call if Matt was interested only in Rachel Toliver. “Marie didn’t find her particularly friendly. I thought you’d like to know what she was poking about in.”
Matt pushed the speaker button on the phone and hung up the receiver as he rose. “I do, Curt. What was it?” He threw open a closet door and whipped his sports jacket off a hanger.
“She was in the courthouse asking about a land deed her great-aunt transferred to your grandfather way back in July of 1935,” Curt said. “Seems Miss Mary sold Mister Percy a section of land around then.”
Matt paused, one sleeve hanging empty. His grandfather had never mentioned buying a section from Mary. And why would that interest Rachel? “Are you sure Marie got her facts right?”
“Sure as I’m sittin’ down to meatloaf tonight. It’s Monday, ain’t it? Marie says the girl don’t look so good. Awful thin. We saw her at Miss Mary’s funeral, you know. A real knockout. Marie says she don’t look like the same girl.”
“So I’ve heard,” Matt said, finishing jerking on his jacket. “Did Marie say what land she was checking out?”
“Yes, she did. It’s the land right here where I’m standin.’ ”
Matt stared unseeing out the window. “The plant site?”
“That’s it. Marie was disturbed by her inquiries. Said the girl seemed… angry.”
“Yes… I’m sure she is,” Matt said. Good, he thought. Anger could keep you afloat. Grief would sink you—but anger against whom?
“And here’s the kicker, Chief. When Marie asked why she was interested in the plant land, she said that she may have a vested interest in it. Now what in hell could she mean by that?”
Matt recalled Bertie Walton’s terms: inner force… objective. And Rachel’s statement to Amos: You’ll know soon enough. “I don’t know, Curt, but I’m on my way to find out.”
“One other thing, Matt,” Curt said. “The Toliver girl had Marie check the date the court appointed Miss Mary guardian of her dad, William Toliver. Now doesn’t all that sniffing around sound ominous to you?”
Matt had his office door open, car keys in hand. “It gives you pause. Thanks, Curt, and… the less said about this the better—to anyone, understand?”
“I sure do, Chief. I’ve learned never to say nothing to a woman you don’t want discussed on every porch swing in the county.”
“Good man,” Matt said.
He raced out of his office to his car, punching in Amos’s office number as he sped out of the parking lot. “Susan? This is Matt Warwick. Put me through to Amos, will you?”
Amos had been pulled out of a deposition. “What’s the trouble, Matt?” he asked, his voice sharp with alarm. “Is it Percy?”
“No, Amos. Sorry to scare you. It’s Rachel. I was just informed she’s in town. What kind of car does she drive?”
“Why, a BMW, last time I saw her. Dark green. You mean she’s in town and didn’t let us know?” His voice vibrated with hurt. “How did you learn she was in Howbutker?”
“Tell you later. Right now I’m on the way into town to find her.”
“Matt—”
“Later, Amos,” he said, cutting him off to make another call. If Dallas was her home base, it could be that Rachel had already started back. He consulted an index on his console and dialed a number. “I need to speak to Dan,” he said to the dispatcher, and within seconds the sheriff of Howbutker County was on the line. Matt stated his request.
“A dark green BMW,” the sheriff repeated. “I’ll send some boys along I-20 to see if we can spot her and get back to you.”
“If they find her, tell them to go easy with her when they pull her over,” Matt instructed.
“What will be the charge?”
“I’m sure they’ll think of something, but make sure they’re nice about it.”
Matt considered his next move. It was almost four o’clock. He hoped to high heaven that Rachel realized she was in no condition to make the drive back to Dallas this late in the day. That would put her in the middle of rush-hour traffic, the craziest in Texas, except for Houston. He dialed his office. “Nancy, call the Fairfax Hotel, the Holiday Inn, and Best Western and ask if Rachel Toliver has registered. If you come up empty, leave them my number and tell them that as soon as she registers, I want to be notified. Then let me know what you find out.”
A thirty-minute zip around town turned up no sight of a dark green BMW, and his secretary called to say that the Toliver girl was not registered at any of the three numbers she’d called. At a loss what to do next and worried—why would Rachel think she had a vested interest in the plant?—Matt turned the Range Rover toward Houston Avenue to question his grandfather.
Chapter Sixty-six
Matt ran up the stairs to the upstairs study, where his grandfather seemed to spend more and more time of late. Since Mary’s death and the tragic events following, he’d lost his pep. His appetite had fallen off, and he’d given up his routine exercises at the country club. He made few appearances at the office, had not toured the company’s lumber sites in two months, and no longer attended the “Old Boys’ Club” kaffeeklatsches every Tuesday morning at the Courthouse Café.
His state of mind and health had become a matter of anxious concern for Matt and Amos, who daily exchanged impressions of his attitude and behavior.
Percy’s brows lifted in ironic surprise when his grandson strode into his study an unprecedented several hours earlier than usual, wearing what Percy dubbed his “don’t mess with me” look.
“To what do I owe the pleasure?” he drawled, stretched out in his recliner
before the fireplace with his feet still in house slippers. Matt saw that a luncheon tray had been brought up, the bowl of chicken noodle soup—his grandfather’s favorite—congealing alongside a half-eaten ham sandwich.
He helped himself to the sandwich, realizing he’d skipped lunch. “Rachel Toliver is—was—in town,” he said.
Percy lifted his head. “How do you know?”
“Curt’s wife called him from the courthouse, and he passed the word on to me. I’ve been out looking for her car but didn’t find it.” The sandwich gone in two bites, Matt washed it down with Percy’s glass of melted iced tea, wiped his mouth, and pulled up a chair to face him. “Marie said that Rachel was checking on a warranty deed to land that Mary DuMont sold you in 1935. Marie said she had a bee up her skirt about it.”
If he’d needed reason to justify his unease, he had it now. Matt watched the color drain from his grandfather’s face. “I never knew the Sabine site was built on land purchased from Mary,” he said. “Now I’m wondering how Rachel knew and what’s her interest in it.”
Percy sighed and dropped his head against the high back of his chair. “Oh, Matt…”
“What is it, Granddad? What’s going on?”
“I think we may be in trouble. I believe Rachel found the papers that Mary meant to destroy the day she died.”
The knot in Matt’s midsection tightened. “What papers?”
“The papers that were in the trunk Mary sent Henry to open. Remember Sassie telling us that her last words were that she had to get to the attic? Sassie must have told Rachel, too, and she figured out that something important was up there and went after it. Amos said that when he took Rachel to her room the night of the accident, he saw papers scattered on her bed… papers that had been in a green leather box that I remember belonging to Mary….”
“What was in them that would have sent Rachel to the courthouse?”
Percy held up a hand to say not to rush him. “Amos recognized one of them as the will of Vernon Toliver. In that will, Vernon left one section of land along the Sabine to his son, Miles….”
Matt scowled in confusion. “Wait a minute. You said that nothing went to Miles—that Mary inherited everything.”
“I never said any such thing. Mary and I allowed that to be the assumption. Not that there’s much distinction between the two.”
Matt pulled within closer conversing distance. “So… let me get this straight. William never knew his father had inherited that section?”
“That’s true.”
“The information was deliberately kept from him?”
“That’s true.”
“By Mary?”
“Yes.”
Matt felt the return of the ham sandwich. “And Rachel now knows the truth about the lie that helped to tear her family apart?”
“It appears so.”
“And our plant is located on the section that Miles inherited?”
“Yes.”
“How’d Mary get hold of it to sell to you?”
Percy wiped a liver-spotted hand across his face, looking his ninety years. “Well, I’m afraid the other papers in the box explain that. Amos said that he saw two letters… one in my handwriting and another he couldn’t make out before Rachel whisked everything back into the box, but I can guess who it was from….”
Matt felt his stomach heave as his grandfather reached shakily for a glass of water. After a couple of long swallows, he said, “It was a letter from Miles instructing Mary to hold that land in trust for William until he reached twenty-one.”
“Good God—” Matt drew back, aghast. “Are you saying that Mary went against her brother’s wishes and sold the land anyway?”
Percy nodded. “That’s right,” he said quietly.
“She must not have shown you the letter.”
“Of course she did. That’s how I know its contents.”
Matt stared at him, speechless. His neck grew hot. “Granddad, you and Miss Mary knowingly committed fraud?”
“It looks like that on the surface,” Percy said, “but it was the only way out for all concerned—Ollie, William, me, the town, and… Matthew. The DuMonts were in dire financial straits, and Ollie was about to lose his stores. The sweet bastard would never have borrowed money from me, and Mary was broke. I was in the market for waterfront property to build the pulp mill on, so she deeded Miles’s land over to me. It appeared to be a perfectly legal transaction. Mary’s name was on the deed as the new owner. But for Miles’s letter, she was entitled to do anything with it she chose. The nefarious part comes in by the boy never knowing he’d inherited from his father.”
Matt stood up, too appalled to remain seated. Now he knew what had been eating his grandfather alive these past months. He’d figured out Rachel’s discovery and had been waiting for the boom to go off. “Do you have any idea what withholding that information did to Rachel’s relationship with her mother—how it affected her family?”
“Not until you mentioned it a few months ago, and I regret it deeply. I’m sure Mary did, too, but she was powerless to correct the misperception after it became a problem. By the time Alice saw Rachel as a threat to William’s inheritance, I’d built the nucleus of Warwick Industries on that section, and Mary had more to consider than the truth to her nephew, especially when she considered the type of woman he married.”
Mortified, Matt asked, “Why couldn’t Mary have sold her precious Somerset to save Ollie’s store?”
“Mary couldn’t have given Somerset away in those days. Land wasn’t worth a plug nickel, and I would have done anything to help Ollie. Besides being the best man I’ve ever known, he saved my life in France. He pushed me out of the way of a grenade. That’s what cost him his leg.”
Matt raked a hand through his hair and fell into his chair again. God, the things he didn’t know about his family. “What did your letter say?”
“I wrote Mary that I agreed to the sale, but of course after fifty years, I can’t remember exactly how I phrased it. But the only way Rachel could have learned the approximate date of the deed’s transfer and that I was the buyer had to come from my note. By the time you’d arrived the night of the accident, she’d read the papers and put two and two together. It explains her attitude to you and further paints Mary and me as a couple of shits.”
Matt hunched forward. “You mean Rachel now has letters in her possession that put the Sabine site in jeopardy? Granddad, how could you build a lumber operation now worth one hundred million dollars on land that did not have a clear title?”
Percy waved a feeble hand. “Oh, Matt, for all intents and purposes, that section was Mary’s to sell and mine to buy free and clear. No muss, no fuss. How could we know the legality of the sale would be challenged? If only Mary hadn’t kept those letters…”
“Why did she?” Matt demanded.
“Probably because she could not bear to part with her brother’s last letter, and maybe she kept mine for… the comfort of knowing she had not acted alone in a breach of trust.”
Matt felt as if his blood had pooled in his feet. “Or maybe to blackmail you later.”
Percy looked at him, appalled. “Of course not! How can you think Mary capable of such a thing?”
“Why did Mary show you the letter from her brother?” Matt countered. “Why didn’t she keep it to herself, rather than involve you in her deceit?”
“Because she wasn’t that kind of woman!” Percy retorted, his cheekbones aflame with indignation. “She didn’t want me to go into anything without my knowing what I was getting into.”
“Well, wasn’t that decent of her!” Matt said, matching his fury. “That way she didn’t have to carry the burden of her duplicity alone.”
Percy slammed down the footrest. “Hold your tongue, boy! Don’t judge until you know what you’re talking about. Mary showed me that letter in order to give me a chance to say no. I agreed because I didn’t see I had much choice. William would have reached twenty-one with nothing left t
o inherit but a section of waterlogged land. He was seven at the time. As it was, the store survived, Somerset flourished, the county enjoyed jobs that I’d have had to take elsewhere, and, as Mary promised, William became her heir.” He paused to take another hasty swallow of water. “I’m not saying what we did wasn’t wrong, but at the time doing right didn’t seem the answer either.”
Matt digested all this in shocked silence. Finally, he said, “So you and Mary struck a deal, and that’s why she promised William that he’d be her heir. Then why in hell did she lead Rachel on?”
Percy let out a soulful sigh. “Because at the time of her promise to William, she didn’t expect Rachel.”
Matt shook his head in disbelief. “Damn, Granddad,” he said softly. “Did Ollie know about Miles’s letter?”
Percy glared at him. “Of course not. He’d never have gone along with the sale.”
Matt said dryly, “That sounds like the man I knew. Okay, let’s calm down and discuss what we think might be Rachel’s intentions. If those letters do prove fraud, do you think she’ll sue to get her father’s land back?”
“Oh, no,” Percy said quickly. “This isn’t about greed. She wants returned what she believes belongs to her, and she’s determined to get it, just like her great-aunt would have been. Rachel will want to trade. The Sabine site for Somerset. That’s what Mary would have done.”
“Well then,” Matt said, drawing a relieved breath, “that solves the problem. Simply give the place back to her.”
A look filtered into his eyes, and Matt—recognizing it—recoiled as if he’d caught a whiff of body odor. He bent forward. “Under these circumstances, you will give it back, won’t you?”
Percy made a sound in his throat. “It won’t ever come to that question when Rachel hears what I have to say. I’m convinced of it, Matthew. That’s why it’s important that you find her. She must hear the full story.”