Thomas Thompson - 13 Dec

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PRAISE FOR BLOOD AND MONEY

Un-put-downable. People

Thompsons uncanny skill at evoking a sense of place still had the power to shock me years after I read Blood and Money.... Remarkable. Ann Rule, bestselling author of The Stranger Beside Me

An extraordinary book. So absorbing and so suspenseful that even the most jaded reviewer will find it difficult to put down. In comparison, In Cold Blood seems shallow. The Washington Post Book World

A thoroughly absorbing epic of revenge. It has, as they say, everythingfrom gossip to grisliness, from savagery to suspense. The New York Times

Required reading. Houston Chronicle

A brilliant work of reportage. Larry McMurtry, Pulitzer Prizewinning author of Lonesome Dove

Thompson has done a terrific job on this gaudy story, which can hardly be surpassed for crass opulence, crude energy, and morbid fascination. Newsweek

The most gripping reading of the year. Los Angeles Times

A massive, detailed book... [that] reads like a novel.... Thompson has, one feels, presented it fairly, dispassionately and skillfully. He may have a bestseller on his hands. The New York Times Book Review

The most complex and interesting of any Texas murder except the Kennedy assassination. Thompson has done a superb job. Dallas Times Herald

The legal reverberations of these events are still sounding through the Texas courtrooms. A formidable nonfiction thriller. San Francisco Chronicle

Thompson covers every twist, turn and dark secret of the sordid tale. Time

The best [true crime book] Ive read. Roger Ebert, bestselling author of Life Itself

[Thompsons] most assured and ambitious book... A drama as tight as a sudden adhesive tape over your mouth in bed. Nondecaffeinated all-night reading. Kirkus Reviews, starred review

The high society of Houstons ultra rich is the setting of a spellbinding account of a mysterious death and the bizarre consequences set in motion by the murderous grudge it produced. A variegated, brilliantly woven documentary. Library Journal

The suspense is continuous. What happens in terms of the law, punishment, and death could, finally, perhaps only happen in real life. Stunning. Publishers Weekly

Blood and Money

Thomas Thompson

This is for my brother,

Larry D. Thompsona good

friend and a good lawyer.

Book One

JOAN

Behold a pale horse

During the night an early spring rain washed the city and now, at dawn, the air was sweet and heavy. Remnants of fog still held to the pavements of Houston, rolling across the streets like cobweb tumbleweeds, and the windshields of early commuters were misted and dangerous. The morning seemed sad, of little promise.

In his bed, the old man sweated and tossed. This night had been worse than most. He had awakened over and over again, and each time he checked the clock. He was impatient for the new day to commence so that he could order the flowers. One hundred perfect yellow roses would surely please his daughter. Not until he saw her laugh again would he sleep well.

Once, during the long darkness, he turned on the light and looked at the photographs which surrounded his bed. Above his head was Joan from a quarter century ago, when she was a child in best white organdy, her knee saucily crossed. To his right, on the wall, was Joan in her late teens, her beauty frozen by soft focus, her features glazed, the classic debutante. And to his left, on the old Grand Rapids dresser, was Joan in recent years, her face ablaze with the triumph of yet another win in the show ring. There were a thousand like these in the big house, filling the walls, pasted into scrapbooks, stuffed into drawers, spilling out of closets. Joan and her horses had become favorite subjects of photographers across the land, and the old mans home was a museum of her image.

But even these familiar suspensions of time could not push away the scene from the night before. Each time he bolted awake, sitting up in bed, throwing a hand across his face to smear the dampness from his eyes, it was still there in all the torment.

Joan, honey? He had crept a few steps into the hospital room. It smelled of sterile potions and pain. Two nurses were busy about his daughter with tubes and medical contraptions.

Pa? she answered weakly. Normally her voice could boom clear across a cornfield. Her pillow was slightly raised, and on it her hair spilled thin and lifeless, no longer silver white and electric like a noon sun.

They wont let me stay, honey, he said, fumbling for comfort. You hurry up and get well, now, and tomorrow morning when you wake up Im gonna fill your room with yellow roses.

Joan tried to smile. Id like that, Pa, she murmured.

Daddys gonna do that, Joan, he said. You know Daddys gonna do that.

Then one of the nurses pushed expelling hands toward him and he left the room. He stopped for a moment outside and leaned his heavy body against the wall. His heart pumped in alarm. Hadnt the doctors said she would be all right? They had, he reassured himself. He went in search of another one just to hear the words again.

When the door chimes rang just before 6 A.M. , the old man heard them. For an instant, in his bed, he opened his eyes and wondered who could be seeking entrance to his home so early, so unexpectedly. But he was weary, not yet ready to wake, and when he heard Ma stirring, he closed his eyes and fell back.

The old woman padded to the front door and opened it with good will. Perhaps, she thought, a neighbor is in distress. But when she saw the people with the gray and tragic faces standing at her threshold, looming out of the mist and fog, her knees buckled. They did not have to speak a word. She knew. She knew exactly what they had come to tell her.

Oh, my God, the old woman managed as she fell. Pitifully she began to retch, throwing up the whiskey that had helped her find sleep the night before. Her son-in-law, John Hill, watched, but he did not reach down to pick her up. Although a doctor, he lacked the will at this terrible moment. One of the friends who had come with him, another physician, knelt to help Ma. He grasped her gently and lifted her and walked her to the living room. There she fell, breathing hard, onto the sofa. John Hill watched her for a few moments, then he took a tentative step toward the back bedroom where the old man was sleeping. Clearly he dreaded to make this short journey.