Practice to Deceive

things for the horse, and encouraged Mark to buy the gelding.
    Mark’s new relationship didn’t look nearly as promising to Woolley. “Hell, she didn’t know which end of a horse to put the bridle on!”
    At the moment, however, Mark Allen was obsessed with Peggy. He asked her to marry him, and within a few months of their meeting, they invited those close to them to their wedding and lavish reception.
    Mark’s parents were there, along with Peggy’s mother, Doris, her father, Jimmie, her stepmother, Terry, her daughters Mariah and Taylor, her half sister Sue Mahoney, and of course, Vickie Boyer, along with a few dozen other friends and relatives. None of her six half siblings from Jimmie’s marriage to Mary Ellen attended. They were invited but had never heard of Mark Allen and they had virtually no forewarning of the wedding.
    The couple married under a pergola in a white, red, and gold-themed ceremony. Peggy Sue wore a snow-white halter dress, a diamond pendant, a crown of Austrian crystals, and carried eighteen pure white and yellow-red roses. Mark dressed in a black leather tuxedo and a black ten-gallon hat.
    As Jimmie Stackhouse walked his daughter down the rose-petal-sprinkled aisle, Peggy Sue’s future seemed as golden as the decor.
    The reception that followed featured a large cake with a cowboy-hatted bride lassoing a groom on its top. There was even a frosted stack of hay next to them.
    Mark and Peggy’s favorite alcoholic drink was Patrón tequila, an expensive liquor made from the blue agave plant. It cost around sixty dollars a bottle, but money was no object that night.
    Or any other night. The couple always kept lots of Patrón on hand.
    The guests celebrated into the wee hours, and Peggy had never looked happier.
    And yet, there were soon harbingers of trouble ahead.
    For most of their eight-year friendship, Vickie Boyer believed Peggy when she said she didn’t do drugs—until the day that she surprised Peggy snorting cocaine. She knew that Peggy was a heavy drinker; she couldn’t hide that, and after she married Mark, that continued unabated. Vickie was shocked to learn at last that Peggy Sue was heavily into illegal substances.
    Mark Allen hired Vickie to be his assistant. Her salary wasn’t all that much—forty-five thousand dollars a year—but he was more than generous to her and her husband, Scott. Allen bought Vickie a truck, and gave her thirty-five thousand dollars to put down on a house she wanted to buy.
    Mark was openhanded with many people he knew, including his bride. He had his house remodeled, adding two bedrooms for Peggy’s girls, two new bathrooms, and a fully outfitted kitchen. In the backyard, he constructed a swimming pool with a slide, and a barbecue.
    One feature of the farmhouse had been less than ideal when Peggy Sue and her daughters moved in. The master bedroom was adjacent to the ranch office, and the only doors in between were swinging, tavern-style doors. There was no real door to shut, much less lock, and the trainers and cowhands came and went often.
    Not surprisingly, they had little privacy. Mark added a new bedroom for them at the other end of the house, with a lockable outside door.
    “She had her mother move in,” Mark recalled. “They were a package deal. Peggy Sue said she wanted all ‘her people’ to take over from my employees. That wasn’t gonna happen.” Outside of that, Mark gave Peggy everything she asked for. He bought her mother, Doris Matz, a cozy fifth-wheeler to park at the ranch, as well as a new car.
    They had joint bank accounts without any limits on Peggy Sue’s withdrawals.
    Because Mark’s driver’s license was temporarily suspended, Peggy suggested that any vehicle, boat or other expensive equipment should be registered in her name. It would make things so much easier. He agreed.
    Mark was generous to her parents. He sent Jimmie and Terry on lavish vacation trips, bought them presents, and always welcomed them into his home.
    “Mark bought a posh houseboat and named it the ‘Peggy Sue,’ ” Vickie Boyer recalled. The Peggy Sue was plenty large enough for them or guests to live aboard, just like a real house. When a chunk of Mark’s oil money came in, they paid $253,000 for a pontoon boat for day outings on the water. Mark also bought numerous vehicles for them.
    All of their acquisitions continued to be in Peggy’s name only.
    Vickie Boyer’s job with Mark forced her uncomfortably into the private lives of her