Practice to Deceive

friend of his meet me in the parking lot at Wal-Mart and I gave him Mark’s gun.”
    Fortunately, Mark remained in good shape. If indeed Peggy Sue had any plans to eliminate him and inherit his considerable wealth, she probably found herself blocked before she got very far with her nefarious plots. Ollie from the bar was a drunk, and he couldn’t be counted on to keep his mouth shut. As isolated as she was in Roswell, Peggy Sue didn’t have anyone else in her life who might accommodate her.
    By mid-2008, things were no better in Peggy and Mark’s life. It became clear that their marriage was headed for oblivion. Peggy Sue called her longtime friend when she was very intoxicated and said she was afraid she was going to commit suicide. She still had a rifle in her possession.
    “Someone has to take this gun away from me, Vickie. I don’t know what I might do.”
    Things around the Double Eagle grew increasingly tense. Vickie was planning to resign her job with Mark and remove herself from the continuing battle. But before she could do that, she heard screams coming from the master bedroom. It was Peggy Sue calling to her.
    “Vickie! Vickie!” she hollered. “Dial 911 right away!”
    Vickie did.
    When Peggy came running out toward Vickie, her blouse was ripped. Peggy cried that Mark had physically attacked her.
    The Allens had been married for not quite eleven months. For all intents and purposes, it was over in the summer of 2008. When Peggy Sue’s domestic violence complaint against Mark went for settlement a week later in a New Mexico court, she assumed that he would be banned from the Double Eagle.
    The judge shocked her when she said that it was Peggy Sue who had to move out. She wouldn’t even be allowed to get her belongings.
    The judge relented when Peggy pleaded and said that Vickie would go with her to oversee that she did not take anything beyond her own possessions.
    She had already taken far more than her share of Mark’s assets. In July 2008, Peggy Sue had her burgeoning bank account, the houseboat, the pontoon boat, several cars, jewelry, and probably valuables that no one knew about. Even so, it rankled her to think of the truck and the thirty-five thousand dollars that Mark had given to Vickie. She told her former best friend that the truck wasn’t really hers, and that the thirty-five thousand dollars for a mortgage down payment was meant to be a loan—not a gift.
    Vickie went to Mark Allen and asked him if this was true. He shook his head, and immediately signed an affidavit that said the mortgage money was a gift. Then he said, “The truck is yours. It always will be. It always was.”
    While Peggy Sue was banned from the Double Eagle Ranch, her mother, Doris, stayed on, comfortable in her fifth wheeler. Mark had always been good to Doris, and she was in no hurry to leave his generosity and protection. She urged Peggy to rethink what she was about to lose by going ahead with the divorce.
    Annoyed, Peggy told her firmly: “This is not your divorce! This is mine !”
    Few women would hug a divorce to her breasts and brag about it, refusing to share that “honor.” But, for Peggy Sue Stackhouse Harris Thomas Allen, the upcoming divorce was like a trophy she had won after carefully making her plans succeed.
    She moved into her houseboat, the seagoing luxury pad. One of the first things she did was rename it. No longer, the Peggy Sue, its new name was Off the Hook.
    Vickie Boyer and Peggy Sue exchanged some vituperative emails, however. Peggy was still angry about the truck and the thirty-five thousand dollars Mark had given to Vickie. Peggy considered them hers—and not Vickie’s. Vickie was upset because Peggy had rented a house to one of her daughters without consulting her and because she had finally had to accept that her caring friend had feet of clay. Peggy was badmouthing Vickie to anyone who would listen. She allegedly claimed that her longtime best friend was “a money-grubbing, bad bitch” who was only her friend to get at her money.
    For most of the eight years they were best friends, Peggy really didn’t have that much money to speak of and Vickie had always stood by her.
    In one email, Vickie wrote, “You never look at the whole circle, Peggy. I gave you plenty, did plenty, backed you up a hundred percent all the time and never did one thing to dishonor you. And you call me names, throw out words like people are nothing to you when all I was doing was covering your