A Texas Christmas: True Blue / A Lawman's Christmas: A McKettricks of Texas Novel
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He pursed his lips and his black eyes twinkled. “As you can see, I’m running to fat.”
She laughed. “That’ll be the day.”
He studied her quietly. “Can you sit down for a minute?”
She looked around. The lunchtime rush was over and there were only a couple of cowboys and an elderly couple in the café. “Sure.” She sat down across from him. “What can I do for you?”
He sipped coffee. “I’ve been enlisted to get some information to your son without telling him anything.”
She blinked. “That’s a conundrum.”
“Isn’t it?” He put down the coffee cup and smiled. “You’re a very intelligent woman. You must have some suspicions about his family history.”
“Thanks for the compliment. And yes, I have a lot.” She studied his hard face. “I overheard some feds who ate here talking about Dolores Ortíz and her connection to General Machado. Dolores worked for me just briefly. She was Rick’s birth mother.”
“Rick’s stepfather was a piece of work,” he said coldly. “I’ve heard plenty about him. He mistreated livestock and was fired for it on the Ballenger feedlot. Gossip is that he did the same to his stepson.”
Her face tautened. “When I first adopted him, I lifted my hand to smooth back his hair—you know, that thing mothers do when they feel affectionate. He stiffened and cringed.” Her eyes were sad. “That’s when I first knew that there was a reason for his bad behavior. I’ve never hit him. But someone did.”
“His stepfather,” Grier asserted. “With assorted objects, including, once, a leather whip.”
“So that’s where he got those scars on his back,” she faltered. “I asked, but he would never talk about it.”
“It’s a blow to a man’s pride to have something like that done to him,” he said coldly. “Jackson should have been sent to prison on a charge of child abuse.”
“I do agree.” She hesitated. “Rick’s last name is Marquez. But Dolores said that was a name she had legally drawn up when Rick was seven. I never understood.”
“She didn’t dare put his real father’s name on a birth certificate,” he replied. “Even at the time, his dad was in trouble with the law in Mexico. She didn’t want him to know about Rick. And, later, she had good reason to keep the secret. She married Craig Jackson to give Rick a settled home. She didn’t know what sort of man he was until it was too late,” he added coldly. “He knew who Rick’s real father was and threatened to make it public if Dolores left him. So she stayed and Rick paid for her silence.”
Barbara was feeling uncomfortable. “Would his real father happen to be an exiled South American dictator, by any chance?”
Grier nodded.
“Oh, boy.”
“And nobody can tell him, because a certain federal agency is hoping to talk him into being a go-between for them, to help coax Machado into a comfortable trade agreement with our country when he gets back into power. Which he certainly will,” he added quietly. “The thug who took over his government has human rights advocates bristling all over the world. He’s tortured people, murdered dissenters, closed down public media outlets … In general, he’s done everything possible to outrage anyone who believes in democracy. At the same time, he’s pocketing money from sources of revenue and buying himself every rich man’s perk that he can dream up. He’s got several Rolls-Royce cars, assorted beautiful women, houses in most affluent European cities and his own private jet to take him to them. He doesn’t govern so much as he flaunts his position. Workers are starving and farmers are being forced to grow drug crops to support his extravagant lifestyle.” He shook his head. “I’ve seen dictators come and go, but that man needs a little lead in his diet.”
She knew what he was alluding to. “Any plans going to take care of that?” she mused.
“Don’t look at me,” he warned. “I’m retired. I have a family to think about.”
“Eb Scott might have a few people who would be interested in the work.”
“Yes, he might, but the general isn’t lacking for good help.” He glanced up as one of Barbara’s workers came, smiling, to refill his coffee cup. “Thanks.”
She grinned. “You’re welcome. Boss lady, you want some?”
Barbara shook her head. “Thanks, Bess, I’m already flying on a caffeine high.”
“Okay.”
“So who has to do the dirty work and tell Rick the truth?” Barbara asked.
Grier didn’t speak. He just smiled at her.
“Oh, darn it, I won’t do it!”
“There’s nobody else. The feds have forbidden their agents to tip him off. His lieutenant knows, but he’s been gagged, too.”
“Then how in the world do they expect him to find out? Why won’t they just tell him?”
“Because he might get mad at them for being the source of the revelation and refuse to cooperate. And there isn’t anybody else they can find to do the job of contacting Machado.”
“They could ask Grange,” Barbara said stubbornly. “He’s already working for the general, isn’t he?”
“Grange doesn’t know.”
“Why me?” she groaned. “He’ll be furious!”
“Yes, but you’re his mother and he loves you,” he replied. “If you tell him, he’ll get over it. He might even be receptive to helping the feds. If they tell him, he’ll hold a grudge and they’ll never find anyone halfway suitable to do the job.”
She was silent. She stared at the festive tablecloth worriedly.
“It will be all right,” he assured her gently.
She looked up. “We’ve already had a disagreement recently.”
“You have? Why?” he asked, surprised, because Rick’s devotion to his adopted mother was quite well-known locally.
She grimaced. “His lieutenant gave the new detective, Gwen Cassaway, a rose, and I mentioned it in a teasing way. He went ballistic and I hung up on him. He won’t admit it, but I think he’s got a case on Gwen.”
“Well!” he mused.
That was a new and interesting proposition. “Couldn’t she tell him?” she asked hopefully.
“She’s been cautioned not to.”
She sighed. “Darn. Does everybody know?”
“Rick doesn’t.”
“I noticed.”
“So you have to tell him. And soon.”
“Or what?”
He leaned forward. “Or six government agencies will send operatives down here to disparage your apple pie and accuse you of subverting government policy by using organic products in your kitchen.”
She burst out laughing. “Yes, I did hear that a SWAT team of federal agents raided a farm that was selling unpasteurized milk. Can you believe that? In our country, in this day and time, with all the real problems going on, we have to send armed operatives against people living in a natural harmony with the earth?”
“You’re kidding!” he exclaimed.
“I wish I was,” she replied. “I guess we’re all going to be force-fed Genetically Modified Organisms from now on.”
He burst out laughing. “You need to stop hanging out on those covert websites.”
“I can’t. I’d never know what was really going on in the world, like us having bases on the moon.”
He rolled his eyes. “I have to get back to work.” He stood up. “You’ll tell him, then.”
She stood up, too. “Do I have a choice?”
“You could move to Greenland and change your name.”
She made a face at him. “That’s no choice. Although I would love to visit Greenland. They have snow.”
“So do we, occasionally.”
“They have lots of snow. Enough to make many snowmen. South Texas isn’t famous for that.”
“The pie was great, by the way.”
She smiled. “Thanks. I do my best.”
“I’d have to leave town if you ever closed up,” he told her. “I can’t live in a town that doesn’t have the best food in Texas.”
“That will get you extra ice cream on your next slice of apple pie!” she promised him with a grin.
But she wasn’t grinning when she went home. It disturbed her that she was going to have to tell her son something that would devastate him. He wasn’t going to be pleased. Other than that, she didn’t know what the outcome would be. But Grier was right about one thing; it was better that the information came from his mother rather than from some bureaucrat or federal agent who had no personal involvement with Rick and didn’t care how the news affected him. It did make her feel good that so far, they hadn’t blurted it out. By hesitating, they did show some compassion.
Rick went to his mother’s home tired. It had been a long day of meetings and more meetings, with a workshop on gun safety occasioned by the accidental discharge of a pistol by one of the patrol officers. The bullet went into the asphalt but fortunately didn’t ricochet and hit anything, or anyone. The officer was disciplined but the chain of command saw an opportunity to emphasize gun safety and they took it. The moral of the story was that even experienced officers could mishandle a gun.
Privately, Marquez wondered how Officer Sims ever got through the police academy, because he was the officer involved. The same guy who’d gone on stakeout with him and Cassaway. He didn’t think a lot of the young man’s ethics and he’d heard that Sims had an uncle high up in the chain of command who made sure he kept his job. It was disturbing.
“You look worn-out,” Barbara said gently. “Come sit down and I’ll put supper on the table.”
“It’s late,” he commented, noting his watch.
“We can have supper at midnight,” she teased. “Nobody’s watching. I’ll even pull down the shades if it makes you happy.”
He laughed and hugged her. “You’re a treasure, Mom. I’ll never marry unless I can find a girl like you.”
“That’s sweet. Thanks.”
She started heating up roast beef and buttered rolls, topping off his plate with homemade potato salad. She put the plate in front of him. “Thank goodness for microwave ovens.” She laughed. “The cook’s best friend.”
“This is delicious.” He closed his eyes, savoring every bite. “I had a sandwich for lunch and I only had time to eat half of it between meetings.”
“I didn’t even eat lunch,” she said, dipping into her own roast beef.
“Why not?”
“I had a talk with Cash Grier and afterward I lost my appetite.”
He stopped eating and stared at her with narrowed eyes. “What did he tell you?”
“Something everybody knows and nobody has the guts to tell you, my darling,” she said, stiffening herself mentally. “I have some very unpleasant news.”
He put down his fork. “You’ve got cancer.” His face paled. “That’s it, isn’t it? You should have told me …!”
He got up and hugged her. “We’ll get through it together. I’ll never leave your side …”
She pulled back, flattered. “I’m fine,” she said. “I don’t have anything fatal. That isn’t what I meant. It’s about you. And your real father.”
He blinked. “My real father died not long after I was born …”
She took a deep breath. “Rick, your real father is across the border in Mexico amassing a private army in preparation for invading a South American country.”
He sat down, hard. His light olive complexion was suddenly very pale. All the gossip and secrecy suddenly made sense. The feds were all over his office, not because they were working on shared cases, but because of Rick.
“My father is General Emilio Machado,” he said with sudden realization.
Chapter Five
“My father is a South American dictator,” Rick repeated, almost in shock.
“I’m afraid so.” Barbara pulled up a chair facing him and held his hand that was resting on the table. “They made me tell you. Nobody else wanted to. I’m so sorry.”
“But my mother said my father was dead,” he repeated blankly.
“She only wanted to protect you. Machado was in trouble with the Mexican authorities when he lived in the country because he was opposed to foreign interests trying to take over key industries where he lived. He organized protests even when he was in his teens. He was a natural leader. Later, Dolores didn’t dare tell you because Machado was the head of a fairly well-known international paramilitary group and that would have made you a target for any extremist with a grudge. He was in the news a lot when you were a child.”
“Does he know?” Rick persisted. “Does he know about me?”
Barbara bit her lower lip. “No. She never told him.” She sighed. “After Cash told me who your father was, I remembered something that Dolores told me. She said your father was only fourteen when he fathered you. She was older, seventeen, and there was no chance that her family would have let her marry him. She wanted you very much. So she had you, and never even told her parents who the father was. She kept her secret. At least, until she married your stepfather. Cash said that your stepfather got the truth out of her and used it to keep her with him. She didn’t dare protest or he’d have made your real identity known. A true charmer,” she added sarcastically.
“My stepfather was a sadist,” he said quietly. “I’ve never spoken of him to you. But he made my life hell, and my mother’s as well. I got in trouble with the law on purpose. I thought maybe somebody would check out my home life and see the truth and help us. But nobody ever did. Not until you came along and offered my mother work.”
“I tried to help,” she agreed. “Dolores liked cooking for me, but your stepfather didn’t like her having friends or any interest outside of him. He was insanely jealous.”
“He also couldn’t keep a job. Money was tight. You used to sneak me food,” he recalled with a warm smile. “You even came to visit me in the detention center. My mother appreciated that. My stepfather wouldn’t let her come.”
“I knew that. I did what I could. I tried to get our police chief at the time to investigate, but he was the sort of man who didn’t want to rock the boat.” She laughed. “Can you imagine Cash Grier turning a blind eye to something like that?”
“He’d have had my stepfather pilloried in the square.” Rick smiled, then sobered. “My father is a dictator,” he repeated again. It was hard to believe. He’d spent his whole life certain that his biological father was long dead.
“A deposed dictator,” Barbara corrected. “His country is going to the dogs under its new administration. People are dying. He wants to accomplish a military coup, but he needs all the help he can get. Which brings us to our present situation,” she added. “A paramilitary group is going down to Barrera with him, including some of Eb Scott’s guys, some Europeans, one African merc and with ex-army Major Winslow Grange, Jason Pendleton’s foreman on his Comanche Wells ranch, to lead them.”
“All that firepower and the government hasn’t noticed?”
“It wouldn’t do them a lot of good. Machado’s in Mexico, just over the border,” Barbara said. “They can’t mount an invasion to stop him. But they can try to find a way to be friendly without overt aid.”
“Ah. I see. I’m the goat.”
She blinked. “Excuse me?”
“They’re going to tether me out to attract the puma.”
“Puma.” She laughed. “Funny, but one of my customers said that’s what the local population calls ‘El General.’ They say he’s cunning and dangerous like a cat, but that he can purr when he wants to.” Her face softened. “For a dictator, he’s held in high esteem by most democracies. He’s intelligent, kind, he reveres women and he isn’t afraid to fight for justice.”
“Does he wear a red cape?” Rick murmured.
She shook her head. “Sorry.”
“Who’s in on this?” he asked narrowly. “Does my lieutenant know?”
“Yes,” she said. “And there’s a covert operative somewhere in your organization,” she added. “I got that tidbit from a patrol officer who has a friend on the force in San Antonio. A guy named Sims.”
“Sims.” His face closed up. “He’s got connections. And he’s a total ethical wipeout. I hate having a guy like that on the force. He got careless with a pistol and almost shot himself in the foot. He’s the reason we just had a gun safety workshop.”
“Learning gun safety is not a bad thing.”
He sighed. “I know.” He was trying to adjust to the shock of his parentage. “Why didn’t my mother tell me?” he burst out.
“She was trying to protect you. I’m certain that she would have told you eventually,” she added. “She just didn’t have time before she died.”
He grimaced. “What am I supposed to do now, walk over the border, find the general and say, hey, guess what, I’m your kid?”
“I don’t really think that would be wise,” she replied. “I’m not sure he’d believe it in the first place. Would you?”
“Now there’s a question.” He leaned back in the chair, his dark eyes focused on the tablecloth. “I suppose I could have a DNA profile done. There’s a private company that can at least rule out paternity by blood type. If mine is compatible with the general’s, it might help convince him … Wait a minute,” he added coldly. “Why the hell should I care?”
“Because he’s your father, Rick,” she said gently. “Even though he doesn’t know.”
“And the government’s only purpose in telling me is to help reunite us,” he returned angrily.
“Well, no, they want someone to convince the general to make a trade agreement with us once he’s back in power. They’re certain that he will be, which is why they want you to make friends with him.”
“I’m sure he’ll be overjoyed to know he has a grown son who’s a cop,” he said coldly. “Especially since he’s wanted by our government for kidnapping.”
She leaned forward with her chin resting in her hands, propped by her elbows. “You could arrest him,” she pointed out. “And then befriend him in jail. Like the mouse that took the thorn out of the lion’s paw and became its friend.”
He made a face at her. “I can’t walk across the border and arrest anyone. I might have been born in Mexico, but I’m an American citizen. And I did it the hard way,” he added firmly. “Legally.”
She grimaced.
“Sorry,” he said after a minute. “I know you sympathize with all the people hiding out here who couldn’t afford to wait for permission. In some of their countries, they could be killed just for paying too much attention to the wrong people.”
“It’s very bad in some Central American states,” she pointed out.
“It’s very bad anywhere on our border.”
“And getting worse.”
He got up and poured himself another cup of coffee. His big hand rested on the coffeemaker as he switched it off. “Who’s the mole in my office?”
“I honestly don’t know,” she replied. “I only know that Sims told his friend, Cash Grier’s patrolman, about it. He said it was someone from a federal agency, working undercover.”
“I wonder how Sims knew.”
“Maybe he’s the mole,” she teased.
“Unlikely. Most feds have too much respect for the law to abuse it. Sims actually suggested that we confiscate a six-pack of beer from a convenience store as evidence in some pretended case and threaten the clerk with jail if he told on us.”
“Good grief! And he works for the police?” she exclaimed, horrified.
“Apparently,” he replied. “I didn’t like what he said, and I told him so. He seemed repentant, but I’m not sure he really was. Cocky kid. Real attitude problem.”
“Doesn’t that sound familiar?” she asked the room at large.
“I never suggested breaking the law after I went through the academy and swore under oath to uphold it,” he replied.
“Are you sure you didn’t overreact, my darling?” she asked gently.
“If I did, so did Cassaway. She was hotter under the collar than I was.” He laughed shortly. “And then she beat the lieutenant on the firing range and he let out a bad word. She marched right up to him and said she was offended and he shouldn’t talk that way around her.” He glanced at her ruefully. “Hence, the rose.”
“Oh. An apology.” She looked disappointed. “Your lieutenant is very attractive,” she mused. “And eligible. I thought he might find Miss Cassaway interesting. Or something.”
“Maybe he does,” he said vaguely. “God knows why. She’s good with a gun, I’ll give her that, but she’s a walking disaster in other ways. How she ever got a job with the police, I’ll never know.” He didn’t like talking about Cassaway and the lieutenant. It got under his skin, for reasons he couldn’t understand.
“She sounds very nice to me.”
“Everybody sounds nice to you,” he replied. He smiled at her. “You could find one good thing to say about the devil, Mom. You look for the best in people.”
“You look for the worst,” she pointed out.
He shrugged. “That’s my job.”
He was thoughtful, and morose. She felt even more guilty when she saw how disturbed he really was.
“I wish there had been some other way to handle this,” she muttered angrily. “I hate being made the fall guy.”
“Hey, I’m not mad at you,” he said, and bent to kiss her hair. “I just … don’t know what to do.” He sighed.
“‘When in doubt, don’t,’” she quoted. She frowned. “Who said that?”
“Beats me, but it’s probably good advice.” He put down his cooling coffee and stretched, yawning. “I’m beat. Too many late nights finishing paperwork and going on stakeouts. I’m going to bed. I’ll decide what to do in the morning. Maybe it will come to me in a dream or something,” he added.
“Maybe it will. I’m just sorry I had to be the one to tell you.”
“I’ll get used to the idea,” he assured her. “I just need a little time.”
She nodded.
But time was in short supply. Two days later, a tall, elegant man with dark hair and eyes, wearing a visitor’s tag but no indication of his identity, walked into Rick’s office and closed the door.
“I need to talk to you,” he said.
Rick stared at him. “Do I know you?” he asked after a minute, because the man seemed vaguely familiar.
“You should,” he replied with a grin. “But it’s been a while since we caught Fuentes and his boys in the drug sting in Jacobsville. I’m Rodrigo Ramirez. DEA.”
“I knew you looked familiar!” Rick got up and shook the other man’s hand. “Yes, it has been a while. You and your wife bought a house here last year.”
He nodded. “I work out of San Antonio DEA now instead of Houston, and she works for the local prosecutor, Blake Kemp, in Jacobsville. With her high blood pressure, I’d rather she stayed at home, but she said she’d do it when I did it.” He shrugged. “Neither of us was willing to try to change professions at this late date. So we deal with the occasional problem.”
“Are you mixed up in the Barrera thing as well?” Rick asked curiously.
“In a way. I’m related, distantly, to a high official in Mexico,” he said. “It gives me access to some privileged information.” He hesitated. “I don’t know how much they’ve told you.”
Rick motioned Ramirez into a chair and sat down behind his desk. “I know that El General has a son who’s a sergeant with San Antonio P.D.,” he said sarcastically.
“So you know.”
“My mother told me. They wanted me to know, but nobody had the guts to just say it,” he bit off.
“Yes, well, that could have been a big problem. Depending on how you were told, and by whom. They were afraid of alienating you.”
“I don’t see what help I’m going to be,” Rick said irritably. “I didn’t know my biological father was still alive, much less who he was. The general, I’m told, has no clue that I even exist. I doubt he’d take my word for it.”
“So do I. Sometimes government agencies are a little thin on common sense,” he added. He crossed his elegant long legs. “I’ve been elected, you might say, to do the introductions, by my cousin.”
“Your cousin …?”
“He’s the president of Mexico.”
“Well, damn!”
Ramirez smiled. “That’s what I said when he told me to do it.”
“Sorry.”
“No problem. It seems we’re both stuck with doing something that goes against the grain. I think the general is going to react very badly. I wish there was someone who could talk to him for us.”
“Like my mother talked to me for the feds?” he mused.
“Exactly.”
Rick frowned. “You know, Gracie Pendleton got along quite well with him. She refused to even think of pressing charges. She was asked, in case we could talk about extradition of Machado with the Mexican government. She said no.”