Seven Sisters - Earlene Fowler [50]
“So there’s no love lost between Cappy and Willow.”
“Not much, though they mostly stay out of each other’s lives. Aunt Etta is the peacemaker, but Giles moving in on her territory caused some friction between her and Willow at times. He must have been really obnoxious about the merger, because Etta’s not someone who gets mad easily. But nothing’s ever meant as much to her as the winery.”
I looked into her eyes. “How much of this did you tell the sheriff’s detectives?”
She gazed squarely back at me, unflinching. “Why, none of it. It’s personal. I couldn’t tell family problems to one of those detectives. Cappy and the rest would kill me.” She swallowed hard, her face blanching when she realized the double entendre in her words.
I was beginning to see just how difficult investigating a crime within a family could be. As Detective Hudson suspected, there was much more to this situation than met the eye, and this family was expert at covering up and making things look good on the surface.
“You realize I have to tell Gabe what you told me, and he’ll probably tell Detective Hudson. I can’t hide anything from my husband.”
She scrubbed at her eyes, causing her mascara to smear. “I wouldn’t expect you to. I just feel better that someone knows. But can you at least not tell them where you heard it? I don’t think I could face talking to that detective about all this stuff.”
I contemplated her for a moment, wanting to reach over and stroke her nervous hands quiet. “I’ll do my best. That’s all I can promise.”
She nodded and stood up to leave. “Thanks.”
On the drive out to the ranch, I tried to sort out all the information she’d given me. I’d heard the saying that the rich were different, and there was no doubt that the Seven Sisters clan had their problems involving money, but I also knew that families had squabbled and killed over two hundred dollars just as much as twenty million. The amount of money didn’t seem to matter; the power struggle was the same, and that was formed when the family members were children, scripts written and parts assigned often before people were even born.
At the ranch it appeared that Dove was entertaining. A half dozen cars were parked in the circle driveway behind Dove’s new little red Ford Ranger pickup with a vanity license plate: DOVESTRK. The house was empty, but her red-and-white country kitchen showed evidence that supported my theory with the long breakfast counter covered with plastic-wrapped sandwich platters, casseroles, pies, and cakes. After picking through them and nabbing a miniature pecan pie, I went through the back screen door and across the yard to the barn. Crackly music poured out of the open double doors. Inside I found Dove sitting on a kitchen stool shouting through one of my old San Celina High Stallions cheerleading megaphones.
“Step, step, pause, step . . . Emmett, it’s step, step, not step, shuffle! Lift up those feet, old man! You’re supposed to be a teenage gang member! Dang it, Melva, how many times do I have to tell you? You’re a Jet, not a Shark. Get over to your own side.”
“What’s going on?” I asked, coming up behind her.
She turned and frowned at me, her pale peach face disgusted. “Land’s sakes, I swear I’m going to sell myself on the street corner. I’d make more money than we’ll bring in trying to put on a play.”
“First, I think Mac might disapprove just a little of the president of the Women’s Missionary Union hawking her wares down on Lopez Street, good intentions and Mary Magdalene notwithstanding, and second, what possessed you to put on a play, and am I guessing right that it’s West Side Story?”
“Ten-minute break, kids. Don’t go too far—we’ve got hours of rehearsing still to go,” she yelled through the megaphone. Emmett Penshaw, apparently the head Shark, made a disparaging gesture with his liver-spotted hand and mumbled something to the snowy-haired Jet next to him.
“I saw that, Emmett,” she called through the megaphone. “Give me ten push-ups.”
He ignored her and shuffled out of the barn toward the house.
Trying