Always Time to Die

by Elizabeth Lowell

  Gus didn’t know whether to smile or cry. The buzz of his intercom kept him from having to decide. He cleared his throat and held down the button. “Yeah?”

  “A Ms. Carolina May to see you.”

  “What does she want?”

  “Miss Winifred Simmons y Castillo has hired her to research the Castillo family.”

  TAOS

  MONDAY MORNING

  7

  CARLY GLANCED AROUND THE CLEAN, WORN RECEPTION AREA OF THE TAOS MORNING Record. Two chairs that looked like they were left over from the Spanish Inquisition sat side by side to the left of the receptionist’s desk. An unopened copy of today’s newspaper lay on a low coffee table in front of the chairs. Through a glass door on the right she could see a narrow hallway that presumably led to the newsroom and/or the editor’s office.

  There was barely enough room to swing a cat. Like the old adobe ranch house, this space had been made for people who were smaller than the norm today.

  “Ms. May?”

  Carly turned from her appraisal of the old building to find a much more modern creation. She took him in with the speed of someone who makes a living out of summarizing people. Mid-thirties, maybe forty. Easily six feet tall, probably more. Good shoulders beneath a turtleneck and leather jacket, long legs in a pair of worn-soft Levi’s and scuffed hiking boots, dark hair, the face of a fallen angel, and green eyes that had seen hell. Whatever his history was, it hadn’t been written in smiles.

  “Mr. Salvador?” She walked toward him, smiling, her hand extended. “It’s good of you to—”

  “I’m Dan Duran,” he cut in, shaking her hand briskly and releasing it the same way. “Gus is on the phone. Follow me.”

  She noticed a very slight unevenness in the first few steps he took. His left leg was stiff.

  “Are you a reporter?” she asked, catching up and walking alongside him in the narrow hallway.

  “No.”

  She waited a few moments, then ignored the man’s lack of invitation to chat. “Rancher? Artist? Skier? Cop?”

  “No.”

  “Butcher, baker, candlestick maker?”

  He glanced sideways at her. Something close to amusement changed the line of his mouth beneath at least a day’s worth of dark stubble. “Nope.”

  “Wow, a whole four letters in a single word,” Carly said. “Careful. You’re going to talk my arm off.”

  He glanced at the arm in question, and then at the woman, and wondered how someone with as much life and sass in her as Carolina May had chosen to make a career digging up graves. The thought of her with the gaunt, dour Miss Winifred made him shake his head.

  “What?” Carly asked.

  “Just imagining you with that old curandera.”

  “Who?”

  “Miss Winifred. She makes potions and lotions for half of Taos County.” She was also reputed to make spells and poisons, but Dan didn’t see any need to talk about it with a nosy outsider; his mother was often mentioned in the same breath with Winifred. Locally, both women were curanderas of great respect.

  “I didn’t know Winifred was a healer,” Carly said.

  “I didn’t say she was.”

  With that, Dan opened the door to Gus’s office and gestured Carly in.

  Frowning, she asked, “What does that mean?”

  He ignored her.

  Gus held up one finger.

  “He’ll be done in a minute,” Dan said. Then he gestured toward the wall of framed first pages. “Enjoy.”

  He turned to leave.

  Carly put her hand on his sleeve. “Wait,” she said in a low voice, not wanting to disturb the editor of the Taos newspaper. “Have you known Miss Winifred long?”

  “Yes.”

  “Were you raised here?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’d like to interview you on the subject of—”

  “No.”

  “Don’t leave yet,” Gus said, pointing at Dan.

  When Dan shrugged and leaned against the wall, Gus spoke quickly into the phone. Then he hung up and stood, holding out his hand across the desk with a warm smile that was meant to balance his brother’s chill.

  “Ms. May, I’m Gus Salvador. Don’t mind Dan. He lost his sense of humor somewhere in Afghanistan or Africa or Colombia, along with his manners.”

  Carly looked from Gus to Dan and back again. “Pleased to meet you, Mr. Salvador.”

  “Gus.”

  She smiled. “Gus. Miss Winifred isn’t feeling well today, so she sent me here to search through the morgue for clippings on the Quintrell and Castillo families. Is that all right?”

  “Sure,” Gus said.

  “Are they computerized?” she asked.

  Gus laughed. “Do we look computerized?”

  “Um, microfilm?”

  “It’s our standard archive method. Actually, a lot of the info is in searchable computer files, thanks to Dan. He made it a crusade, back when he was thirteen and a real computer geek.”

  She glanced warily at the man leaning against the wall. Although he appeared to be relaxed, she sensed he wasn’t. What she didn’t know was why.

  Maybe he hates women.

  “So, you’re an archivist?” she asked Dan.

  “No.” He really didn’t want to encourage the lithe young woman who was out stomping on everything in sight, looking for land mines.

  “Yes, no, nope,” she said. “You’re the kind of interview that makes me want to kick something.”

  “Me, for instance?” Dan asked against his better judgment.

  “Yeah.” Then she smiled, pulled her scarf off her hair, and shook out a loose tumble of red-brown curls. “You spend words like hundred-dollar bills. Good thing you’re not a Quintrell.”

  Gus started to say something. A look at his brother’s face changed his mind.

  “The newspaper archives are always available for research,” Gus said after a moment. “Only rule is no smoking and no food or drink.”

  “I don’t smoke and won’t eat or drink in the archives.”

  Gus glanced at his watch. “I’ve got a paper to put together.” He looked at Dan. “Take her to the archives and show her what she needs. You know more about it than anyone else.”

  Dan started to refuse, but didn’t. Beneath his smile and warm manner, Gus was tired, overworked, and worried about his family.

  “Right,” Dan said. “You keep the key in the same place?”

  “Lost the key.” The phone rang. “Broke the lock.” He reached for the phone. “Never fixed it. Yeah?” he said into the phone. “Mano? Did you get the perp walk?”

  Carly waited until they were out in the hall to ask, “What’s the—”

  “Perp walk?” Dan cut in.

  She nodded.

  “That’s the photo op that comes when the cop slaps cuffs on the presumed bad guy and marches him in front of the media,” Dan said.

  Carly digested that while they walked down the hallway, away from the reception area. The back of the building opened out onto a small, deserted, and neglected courtyard. Maybe in summer it served as a retreat for workers in the surrounding buildings, but right now it looked as inviting as a meat locker.

  “Perp walk,” she said. “Got it. Who was it?”

  “Armando Sandoval, cockfighter and drug smuggler.”

  “Drugs? He’ll be going away for a long time.”

  Dan shook his head. “He was busted for the cocks. He’ll pay a fine and be home for dinner.”

  She closed her eyes against the wind lifting grit and snow from the courtyard. Her ankles and fingers stung from the cold. She yanked her scarf over her head and held it in place. “Does this happen all the time?”

  “The wind?”

  “No. The perp walk and the arrest and the fine.”

  Dan shrugged. “As often as it has to.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “You ask a lot of questions.”

  “I need a lot of answers,” she said. “It’s what I d
o. Like a reporter, except that a lot of my subjects aren’t alive to speak for themselves.”

  “So you suck up hearsay, rumor, gossip, and innuendo.”

  “You can go back to one-word answers anytime.”

  “Okay.”

  He grabbed the handle on a door that sat crookedly in its frame and gave it a yank. Frozen wood scraped over icy stone. She stepped past him quickly, eager to be out of the wind.

  “Wait.”

  She stopped when she felt the strength of his fingers gripping her arm. “What?” she said.

  “Bad footing.”

  Instead of the uneven wooden floor nearly all the old, single-story buildings had, this doorway opened abruptly onto a rickety cellar door set right in the floor. A tarp covered the door to keep in the heat of the room below. Dan flipped the tarp aside and turned on a switch.

  Carly’s eyes widened as she looked at the ancient door. The holes between the slats were big enough for her to step right through. Dan might not be the most outgoing man she’d ever met, but he’d kept her from a nasty fall.

  “Used to be the town icehouse,” he said, opening the cellar door. “During Prohibition it was the local speakeasy. Now it’s the archive for the paper. They cut another entrance to the first floor around the corner, but this way is easier to get to the basement.”

  She looked up at him with hazel eyes that flashed gold in the unshielded overhead light. “Thank you.”

  His left eyebrow raised in silent question.

  “For not letting me fall,” she explained, waving at the unprotected gap in the floor. “I know you don’t want me here.”

  He looked at the gold and smoke of her eyes, her lips full and slightly parted, and the shiny, lively curls falling over her cold-flushed cheeks. She was too intelligent, too attractive, too innocent, and way too alive. He didn’t want to see her hurt as part of the collateral damage of asking questions that shouldn’t be asked and finding answers that weren’t worth the cost of getting them. He was an expert on those kinds of answers.

  “You’re right,” Dan said, releasing her. “I don’t want you here. But we don’t always get what we want, do we? I’ll go first.”

  “Why? Are there rats or snakes?” she asked jokingly.

  “Snakes? Not in the winter. I go first so that if you trip, I can catch you before you break your nosy neck. Watch the fifth step. It’s cracked.”

  Nosy neck? She would have smiled but she knew he hadn’t been joking. She wondered if it was all outsiders he resented, or just women.

  If there had ever been a handrail, it hadn’t survived into the twenty-first century. Nor did the flooring right around the opening look very trustworthy.

  “What’s stored over there?” she asked, pointing toward the crates and boxes lining the walls of the first story.

  “Supplies.”

  Dan was already halfway down the stairs to the basement, moving with an ease that surprised Carly. His leg might bother him from time to time, but it didn’t affect his balance.

  Okay, I guess he could catch me if I tripped.

  But she wasn’t interested in putting it to the test. She turned sideways and edged carefully down the ten cement steps, taking special care with the fifth one. The thought of staggering down the steps and rolling into Dan like a human bowling ball made her smile. At the very least, it would shake up his cool reserve. Or maybe it wouldn’t. Either way, she’d learn something about him.

  Forget it. He’s not part of my research.

  Too bad. That’s an interesting man. Really interesting.

  The thought surprised her so much she missed the last step. Before she could catch herself, Dan did. He was so quick that she found herself lifted, set on her feet, and released before she could do more than make a startled sound.

  “My bad,” she said. “I was thinking when I should have been looking.” And I was thinking stupid. The last thing I need right now is a big, moody male messing up my life.

  “No problem.” He leaned past her and flipped a switch. Light flooded the basement. Stainless-steel cabinets and files gleamed.

  “Wow,” Carly said. “I was expecting piles of crumbling newsprint.”

  “We’ve got some of that, too.”

  “I’ll save it for last.”

  Dan opened a cabinet and pointed to row after row of narrow trays. “Microfilm. Most recent at the top. Oldest at the bottom. I haven’t scanned in anything for the last six years,” he added, pointing to a computer terminal. “Quality isn’t great on the photos but rats don’t nest in the hard drive.”

  “And they do in the newspapers and microfilm files?”

  “Every chance they get.”

  She glanced around at the shadowy corners and aisles between storage cabinets. “You need a big cat. Several of them.”

  “Too many coyotes.”

  “Even in town?”

  “Especially in town. Nothing like a trapline of garbage cans to fill a lazy hunter’s belly.”

  Dan went down an aisle and along the far wall. Twice he bent down, fiddled with something she couldn’t see, and then stood up again.

  “What are you doing?” Carly asked.

  “Resetting traps.”

  When he came back, two big dead rats dangled by their naked tails from his left hand.

  “Yuck,” Carly said. “At least mice are cute. Does this happen all the time?”

  “It’s late to be catching rats. Usually they come in after the first hard freeze. They must have been chased out of their digs by the last storm.” He glanced at the computer. “I’ll get rid of these and show you how to use the archive program. Don’t poke around while I’m gone. There are more traps. You could break a finger if you aren’t careful.”

  “Is that why they use live traps at the Quintrell ranch house?”

  “One of Sylvia’s purse pets was maimed in a kill trap a long time ago. Ever since, they’ve used live traps only.”

  “Makes sense. Can I use the computer?”

  “The program you’d be working with is a bitch to learn. Stick with microfilm until you know your way around.”

  She watched him climb easily up the treacherous steps. The dead rats swung in rhythm with his stride.

  “Don’t forget to wash your hands,” she called after him.

  Carly thought she heard him chuckle, then decided it must have been just his boots scuffing over cement. The outer door opened with a groan and a scrape and closed the same way, leaving her alone with the past and a roomful of rattraps.

  Now I know why newspapers call their archives the morgue.

  Rubbing at goose bumps that wouldn’t stay away, she set her jaw and headed for the first cabinet.

  QUINTRELL RANCH

  MONDAY MORNING

  8

  THE WRITING WAS IN THE ERRATIC FAINT SCRAWL OF A MAN AT THE END OF HIS strength.

  Blackmail, Josh.

  One of the charities has to be a front.

  Never found out who. Safer to pay.

  Josh Quintrell wondered who of all the many people the Senator had screwed had finally found a way to get even. Winifred, probably. She heard all the gossip from the hispano community; they feared her as much as they respected her. She’d hated the Senator after she’d found out about his women, and she hadn’t known the half of it.

  Senator, you were a real piece of work. Which of your secrets was it? You had almost as many of them as women.

  Josh didn’t want to read about any of it in the headlines. Not until after he was the surviving candidate in the primaries. Not until after the election itself.

  The Senator’s secrets had been kept for almost a century. Surely Josh could keep them buried for eleven more months.

  He closed the Senator’s private safe without looking at the gun and the cash, but he did remove the kind of evidence of civic corruption that some cops would have loved to have. The dial spun with a vague humming sound. After a glance at the locked door, Josh stood and went to the corner fireplace.
There were only a few small pieces of piñon burning, just enough to give the room a scent of resin. He dropped the Senator’s note in, watched it burn, and ground the ash into a smear across the small hearth. He did the same with the other papers.

  Obviously, someone knew too much, which meant he couldn’t trust anyone local. At the same time, he couldn’t afford to make local people suspicious. He’d act like it was business as usual and use an out-of-state accountant to track down the blackmailer.

  Until that happened, he had other problems. Carly May was at the head of the list.

  Josh unlocked the office door and strode quickly to the end of the house everyone called the Sisters’ Suite. He knocked very softly before he opened the door to Sylvia’s room. He didn’t wait for permission to enter; it was his house now.

  As always, Sylvia’s body made a slight mound on the hospital bed. As usual, Winifred’s chair was drawn close and the piñon fire was blazing. Sylvia’s empty black eyes stared into the room from beneath a carefully combed halo of white hair.

  Nothing much changed from visit to visit except the seasons beyond the windows and Sylvia herself, becoming more and more ghostlike, translucent. Every week when the doctor visited, he told Josh that he expected Sylvia to be dead.

  So far no one had been that lucky.

  “Good morning, Aunt Winifred,” he said quietly. “How is Mother today?”

  “Alive.”

  Josh bit back a sigh and a curse. Neither would make a difference. Winifred had never liked him. She would go to her grave that way. “Alma said you weren’t feeling well.”

  “I’ll live.”

  “I’m sure you will. Nothing would be the same without you.”

  Winifred leaned forward, opened a rough pottery jar, and scooped out something that looked—and smelled—like it had been scraped off a barn floor and mixed with rotten fish. Gently she rubbed the greenish goo over Sylvia’s withered torso, careful not to disturb the various tubes.

  “Your love and devotion have kept her alive,” Josh said, trying not to gag on the smell of whatever Winifred had concocted. “We’re all grateful for that.”