LENORA HAD NEVER been to the Texas Panhandle before. Most of what she knew about the region came from weather reports on the evening news. The Panhandle had more winter storms and tornadoes than the rest of the state.
As their flight banked for a landing at the Amarillo airport, she was surprised to see the sprawl of a large city spread below them after flying over hundreds of miles of emptiness. “Why do so many people live down there?” she asked Bentley.
Bentley chuckled. “Amarillo is a major distribution center for oil and cattle,” he said, closing his briefcase. During the flight they had been going over his notes in preparation for the Marshall County commissioner’s meeting that he would be attending this afternoon.
“And there’s a huge facility for slaughtering cattle and a number of petrochemical plants,” he added.
Lenora made a face. “Sounds lovely,” she said.
Once they were on the ground, Lenora headed for the car-rental counter while Bentley made a few phone calls. Less than twenty minutes after landing, they were on their way. Lenora followed the signs that led her from the airport and soon was heading west on Interstate 40.
“Think you can light a fire under the county commissioners?” she asked.
“Actually, they really aren’t dragging their feet,” he admitted. “They’re having the motor rebuilt on their forty-year-old bulldozer. Your concern for Jamie Long has begun to rub off on me, though, and I took a certain perverse pleasure in prolonging Gus Hartmann’s irritation.”
“You know, either Gus Hartmann is getting more cantankerous or you’re suffering from burnout,” Lenora observed.
Bentley sighed. “Maybe it’s some of both. But the truth of the matter is I need Gus more than he needs me.”
“You signed the papers on the haunted house yet?” Lenora asked.
“Day after tomorrow. I’ve never seen Brenda more excited. She drives out there every single day, and yesterday I heard her whistling. I’ve been married to her for almost thirty-five years and never once heard my wife whistle.”
“So?”
“So I’m jealous of a goddamned house that would fall over if I leaned on it.”
“I’m sorry,” Lenora said.
“Me, too.”
Once they had left the outskirts of Amarillo, the landscape was unvaried but majestic in its vastness and loneliness. The drive to Alma took about an hour.
The most noticeable thing about Alma was the overpass that allowed motorists to sail over the town without even slowing down. Lenora parked in front of the Main Street Café, where they both ordered the blue-plate special-chicken-fried steak with mashed potatoes and gravy.
After lunch, Bentley headed for the courthouse, and Lenora drove north. Within minutes she had left the town far behind her, with only an occasional lonely farmhouse and its cluster of outbuildings to break the monotony of the landscape. Lenora realized as she drove along that she hadn’t seen another vehicle for miles, which she found disconcerting. She was a city girl. What if she had a blowout? Did AAA send tow trucks to such remote places? And where did one go to the bathroom?
Her first indication that the ranch was near was a high fence posted with signs warning DANGER! HIGH VOLTAGE. Then she saw a stone tower rising above treetops. As she drove a bit farther, she could see that the tower was part of a very large stone house set about a half mile or so back from the road in a grove of trees. And some distance north of the ranch house, she could see other structures, including a water tower and a large silo.
She expected some sort of impressive sign to tell her she had arrived at Hartmann Ranch, but all that greeted her was a closed gate and a large sign that said PRIVATE PROPERTY. NO HUNTING ALLOWED. TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED.
She pulled up to an intercom speaker mounted beside the gate and pressed the button. Shortly a female voice said, “Can I help you?”
“Yes, I’m here to visit Jamie Long.”
“Just a minute,” the voice said.
The minute proved to be a very long one. The house was not visible from this vantage point, just a curving drive lined with cedars. After five minutes, Lenora turned off the motor. After another fifteen minutes, she pressed the button again. This time a male voice responded.
“I am here to visit Jamie Long,” Lenora repeated. “I have come all the way from Austin for this purpose and have been waiting twenty minutes for the gate to open.”
“One minute, please.”
After several more minutes, Lenora once again pressed the button.
“Yes,” the same male voice said.
“I am here to see Jamie Long, and if you don’t open this gate, I plan to climb over it.”
“You would get quite a shock,” the man said. “And if you got inside, we would have to detain you.”
“Are you a policeman?”
“The ranch has a security force that has law-enforcement jurisdiction over ranch property.”
“Okay. Let’s start over. My name is Lenora Richardson. I work for Bentley Abernathy, who is the Hartmann family attorney in Austin. I have been trying to reach Jamie Long for months. She has not responded to my letters or phone calls. I am concerned about her and would really appreciate it if you told her that I am here to see her. If she does not want to see me, I want her to call me on my cell phone and tell me so in person. Now, pick up a pencil and write down this phone number.”
“Folks don’t have much luck with cell phones out here,” the man said.
“Then I want to speak to the person in charge.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” he said.
Lenora looked around for a tree or a bush. She really needed to go to the bathroom but was afraid to get too far from the intercom. Finally, she looked up and down the empty road to make sure no one was coming, then opened the door, pulled down her slacks, and squatted beside the car.
She had no sooner finished buckling her belt than she heard a woman’s voice saying, “Miss Richardson?”
“Yes,” she responded.
“This is Ann Montgomery,” a woman’s voice said pleasantly. “I am the head housekeeper here at the ranch and am so sorry you drove all the way out here to see Jamie Long. She no longer lives here.”
“Why is that?”
“I am not sure. She was with us for a time and then left.”
“Where did she go?”
“I have no idea. She had her car here at the ranch and simply packed up and left. Such a quiet young woman. I will let Miss Hartmann know that you came by. Perhaps she knows something about Miss Long’s plans.”
“I would appreciate that,” Lenora said. “Miss Hartmann can get in touch with me at the office of Mr. Bentley Abernathy in Austin.”
“Yes, I understand that. Again, I am sorry for your inconvenience.”
“You know, I have been trying to reach Jamie by telephone and by mail for some time now.”
“Perhaps she did not wish to respond,” the woman suggested.
“Yeah. Maybe.”
Lenora uttered an obscenity and got into the car. She backed onto the road and drove north toward the water tower and silo. As she drew closer, she realized that an entire community was spread out below the two soaring structures.
She turned onto the gravel road and stopped at a building with gas pumps in front and went inside what proved to be an old-fashioned general store with a serve-yourself concession area. A young Hispanic woman stopped stocking a shelf with breakfast cereal and stepped behind the cash register.
Lenora poured coffee into a Styrofoam cup. “I think I’m lost,” Lenora told the woman as she paid for the coffee.
“Where do you want to go?” the woman asked in accented English.
“Alma,” Lenora said.
“That way,” the woman said, pointing south. “Turn left at first road. Soon there is a road sign for Alma.”
Lenora tried to look suitably relieved. “It seemed like I had been driving forever. I was afraid I’d gotten lost. So, what is this place called?”
“Hartmann City. Is part of big ranch.”
“I met a young woman in Austin who said she was going to live at the Hartmann Ranch. Her name is Jamie. Would you happen to know her?”
The woman shook her head.
“Well, thank you for the directions,” Lenora said, taking a sip from her Styrofoam cup.
Back in the car, she drove through the community, drawing stares from children in the school yard and from a man in a pickup truck. Obviously they did not have many visitors here.
She made a U-turn and headed back toward Hartmann Road.
Lenora pulled into a drive-in on the way out of town. Bentley ordered a milkshake, and she requested a Coke.
“What I really want is a martini,” Lenora said.
“No luck, I take it,” Bentley said as she backed out of the parking space.
“You first,” Lenora said.
“The commissioners will rent a bulldozer from Oldham County. They hope to start the project in a couple of weeks. Now, what happened at the ranch? Did you see Jamie?”
Lenora explained what had transpired and concluded her story by saying, “Boss, I’m really worried about Jamie.”
“Well,” Bentley said, “the contract specified that she would be paid for her time and dismissed if she didn’t become pregnant after three insemination procedures. Maybe she drove off in her grandmother’s car and is back in college or gone back to wherever she came from.”
“Mesquite,” Lenora said.
“Yeah, maybe she’s back in Mesquite.”
“Maybe so,” Lenora acknowledged. “The whole experience was spooky, though. The Hartmanns have a regular fiefdom out there, with a feudal village for the serfs. The ranch house looks like a castle complete with a turreted tower, and in lieu of a drawbridge and moat, there are miles of electric fences.”
“You know what a big issue privacy is with them.”
“More like an obsession, I’d say,” Lenora said.
“But if the whole insemination deal is off,” Bentley pondered, “it does seem strange that Amanda didn’t let us know and request that we find another girl. Maybe she and her husband have changed their minds.”
Bentley thought of Gus and Amanda’s impatience during the search for a surrogate. Which had made him nervous. The Hartmanns’ annual retainer accounted for more than half of Bentley’s income. Pleasing them was a condition of his life.
“I saw Amanda the other night on television,” Lenora said. “She really is remarkable. There were moments when I got tears in my eyes and other times when I wanted to jump up and down and yell ‘Hallelujah.’ Amanda Tutt Hartmann is either the genuine article or the world’s greatest con artist.”
“I think she is sincere,” Bentley said. “Gus Hartmann is more pragmatic.”
And more ruthless, he thought. Back in the days when Bentley was dealing with angry landowners who claimed Gus or his grandfather before him had swindled them out of their mineral rights, lawsuits would quietly be dropped for no apparent reason. Bentley had always wondered what sort of intimidation had been used.
He also had wondered if Gus had something to do with the death of Amanda’s ex-husband. Bentley had tried to persuade the man that it was in his best interest to accept the Hartmanns’ generous offer and get the hell out of Amanda and Sonny’s life, but Lenny Bradford joined AA, swore off gambling, hired a lawyer of his own, and sued for shared custody. Both sides were gearing up for a huge court battle when Bradford was shot while coming out of a restaurant by a still unidentified assailant.
And more recently, Bentley had been bothered by Gus’s determination to find someone to blame for Sonny’s tragic accident. The company that manufactured the all-terrain vehicle Sonny had been driving claimed that the rollover had caused a wheel to come off. Gus hired one of the best trial lawyers in the country to prove that just the opposite was true-that the wheel coming off was the cause of the accident. When the manufacturer offered a huge settlement, Gus turned it down. The next day the CEO was found hanging from the rafters of his horse barn. His death was ruled a suicide. At first his family had refuted that finding but soon withdrew their protest.
Not that Gus would harm Jamie Long, even if she tried to back out of her contract. The Hartmanns were powerful people and not to be trifled with, but they could always hire another surrogate mother.
Probably Jamie had miscarried or the insemination procedure had never worked in the first place and she had been dismissed.
Yes, something like that must have happened, Bentley assured himself. They had given her some money and sent her on her way. Any day now Gus probably would be calling to demand that he find another young woman to replace her.