Always Time to Die

by Elizabeth Lowell

  “Hell,” she said, smacking the wall with her fist.

  The light flickered on, all forty watts of it.

  The phone kept ringing.

  She dragged a chair away from the door—no lock, no key, and she was damned if she was going to sleep in an unlocked room after the rat. She yanked the door open and stumbled into the hall. Like everything else, the hall was cold. The phone was even colder.

  “Hello?” Carly said automatically.

  Silence.

  Breathing.

  A woman’s scream that climbed and climbed, breaking into sobs, pleas, then a shriek driven by unimaginable pain.

  Carly was too shocked to move. “Where are you? Who are you? Let me help!”

  The scream fragmented into sobs.

  Silence.

  And a voice whispering, “Get out of Taos or you’ll be the one screaming.”

  The receiver slid from Carly’s numb fingers. Sickness turned in her stomach. She leaned against the wall and tried to slow the terrified beating of her heart.

  QUINTRELL RANCH

  TUESDAY MORNING

  16

  JOSH QUINTRELL HUNG UP THE PHONE AND RUBBED HIS FOREHEAD.

  “Headache, darling?” Anne asked.

  He looked up from his desk. His wife, as always, was a walking definition of wealth and breeding. At the moment she was dressed “casually” in supple leather jeans and handmade Ruidoso boots, five-hundred-dollar designer shirt, and discreet Tiffany jewelry at ears and wrists and throat. A four-carat diamond flashed against her simple gold wedding band. If there had been a photographer around, the diamond would have been in a locked case and the gold band would have sent its own quiet message to the voters who cared enough to look: despite family wealth and the fame of high political office, Josh and Anne were real people.

  “He wants me to step up the amount of time I’m on the road,” Josh said.

  Anne knew that “he” had to be Mark Rubin, Josh’s campaign manager and the one man Josh took orders from.

  “Isn’t it a bit soon after the funeral?” she asked.

  “That’s what I said. He said that voters have a short attention span. I’ve been out of circulation too much. I need to be on some front pages and be featured in some six o’clock news leads.”

  “We can be packed and gone by afternoon.”

  “What about Andy?”

  She hesitated. A line of tension appeared between her beautifully shaped eyebrows. “He’ll go with us. He thought about what you said and decided rehab was best for everyone.”

  “Translation: He put the bite on you and you turned him down.”

  She nodded jerkily. “I still think…”

  He bit back a twist of anger and said, “Yes?”

  “I…” Slowly she shook her head. “I wish there was another way.”

  “Can you think of anything we haven’t tried?” His voice was patient despite the frustration that gnawed a hole in his gut every time he thought of his spoiled son screwing up a lifetime of work. Two lifetimes, if you counted the Senator. “We’ve done shrinks, meds, military schools, soft-love schools, tough-love schools, guilt trips, shouting matches, and New Age fuzzy-wuzzy. Nothing has done any good. The older he gets, the more he reminds me of Liza. Wild, careless, dangerous. Hell-bound and willing to take everyone along.”

  Tears glistened. Anne didn’t argue.

  “I know it’s old-fashioned,” Josh said slowly, “but I think there’s some bad seed in the Quintrell line. Sure as hell there are some kinks. The Senator knew what he was doing when he cut Liza loose. She would have ruined his public life.”

  “Are you,” she swallowed, “thinking of legally severing ties between us and our son? Of disowning him the way the Senator disowned Liza? At least he—he gave her money sometimes. Didn’t he?”

  Josh ignored the hopeful question. “I’m praying Andy will get his act together. I’m hoping you’ll help him by letting him go. He’ll never stand on his own as long as you’re busy giving him money and propping him up behind my back.”

  Anne flushed. “I’ve only done that—”

  “Every damn time he got close to hitting bottom,” Josh cut in coldly. “Every damn time he would have had to suck it up and grow up.”

  “I couldn’t see him go hungry!”

  Josh snorted. “Fat chance of that and you know it. When he’s sober, he can charm chrome off a trailer hitch.”

  Her fingers twisted together. “I know you’re right. It’s just…he was such a beautiful little boy.”

  “Liza was a beautiful little girl. As an adult she was a liar, a whore, and a junkie.” Josh stood and went to Anne. He needed her for the campaign to come, needed her as first lady if he won. And he had a very good chance of doing just that. The other candidates from his party would drop out after a few primaries. After that his only opposition was the aging vice president to a president nobody liked anymore. “I can’t do this without you. Are you in or out?”

  “In,” she whispered.

  He nodded. “You’ll be the most beautiful first lady ever. Designers will stand in line to have you wear their creations. You’ll be able to chair committees, lobby politicians at parties, and get the nation interested in your favorite charities.”

  She smiled. “I’m looking forward to that—the committees, fashion shows, charities. One of the first things we should do is cut the Senator’s standing contributions so that we can make our own name on the charity circuit.”

  “I put Pete to work on it already.”

  “Perhaps a more high-powered accountant,” she began. Then she saw Melissa out in the hallway. “I’m sure Pete will get the job done,” Anne said loudly, telling Josh that they weren’t alone anymore.

  “He always has,” Josh said, turning toward the doorway. “What is it, Melissa?”

  “You asked me to tell you when Miss Winifred and her personal historian were together. They’re working in the Sisters’ Suite right now.”

  QUINTRELL RANCH

  TUESDAY MORNING

  17

  CARLY FLIPPED QUICKLY THROUGH PHOTOGRAPHS, PLACING THEM IN A KIND OF rough generational order based on clothes, faces, or what she’d managed to get out of Winifred. The older woman had very definite feelings about what was important and what should be ignored. Carly had pointed out repeatedly that a family history that left out the men wasn’t a “history” at all. Winifred had finally said she’d think about it, and while she did, Carly could work on the Castillo women.

  So Carly set her teeth and looked at photos of women. It was better than thinking about the frightening call, the screams, the husky whisper threatening her.

  Get out of Taos or you’ll be the one screaming.

  Carly told herself that the sweaty, clammy feeling she had was because of the hothouse temperature of the room. She’d dressed for it by cutting off a pair of jeans and knotting the tails of a blue work shirt below her breasts. Her feet were bare. Her boots, scarf, mittens, and winter coat were stacked to one side of the door. The heat of the sickroom was suffocating.

  That’s why she was sweating. The temperature, not the awful screams and ugly words.

  “I understand that the Senator held yearly barbecues at the ranch,” Carly said.

  Winifred answered without stopping the repetitious exercises that, along with liberal amounts of herbal salve, were supposed to awaken or maintain nerve pathways in Sylvia’s body. Or at least to keep the body as healthy as possible. “Yes.” Bend and two and three and four and hold. “He loved playing el patrón.”

  The good news for Carly was that after the first fifteen minutes, her nose had stopped protesting the smell of the homemade salve Winifred rubbed into her sister’s unresponsive body. The bad news was that Carly had to get used to it all over again every time she left the room.

  She studied the picture she was holding. It showed a much younger Andrew Jackson Quintrell III, soon to be known as the Senator, standing near a young woman whose body was as lush
as her smile. The sexual speculation in his expression was unmistakable, yet he was still dressed in his wedding suit and his beautiful bride was laughing on his arm.

  “Do you recognize this girl?” Carly stretched to show the photo but didn’t stand. She’d been up and down with pictures so often this morning she felt like a yo-yo.

  Winifred glanced over without breaking the exercise routine. “Guadalupe Mendoza y Escalante. One of Sylvia’s bridesmaids.”

  “Did she know the Senator?”

  Winifred made a rough sound. “She was female. He liked women. A lot of them.”

  “Then Guadalupe was his lover?”

  Winifred flexed her hands, dipped some more reeking cream from a clay pot, and began the massaging motions that improved circulation to Sylvia’s limbs.

  “According to Sylvia, yes,” Winifred said. “But she didn’t know it when that picture was taken. It took her years to catch on to the philandering son of a bitch.”

  “Were there any children?”

  “With Guadalupe?”

  “Yes.”

  Winifred rubbed slowly, then briskly patted her hands over Sylvia’s withered leg. “Not that I know of.”

  “Would you know?”

  Winifred shrugged. “It was different seventy years ago. Unmarried girls who got pregnant took some herbs from a curandero or had the bastard and gave it up for adoption. Mostly the girls just had the bastards. Either way, it wasn’t much talked about outside the family. People took care of their own.”

  Carly didn’t say anything. She suspected that she herself was the unwanted result of a brief affair, something to be gotten rid of as soon as possible. Silently she flipped through more photos. It seemed that every time there was a picture of the Senator, he was eyeing one woman or another.

  Mostly the girls just had the bastards.

  “No wonder Dan said that in a village there are cousins under every bush,” Carly said quietly into her microphone.

  If Winifred heard, she didn’t say anything.

  “Did the Senator ever acknowledge any of his children outside of marriage?” Carly asked in a normal tone.

  “His bastards?”

  Carly winced. As far as she was concerned, the Senator was the real bastard. He had a choice. Any children born to his lovers didn’t. “Yes.”

  “Never. He knew what was good for him.” Winifred massaged in more cream.

  “You mean he didn’t want to ruin his reputation because of his political ambition?”

  “No.” Winifred’s hands moved vigorously. “He kept it quiet because my mother and grandfather would have had his philandering balls, and I don’t mean maybe.”

  “Are you saying they didn’t approve of Sylvia’s choice in husbands?”

  Winifred straightened, stretched her back, and flexed her hands. “The family knew what she was getting into. She didn’t. She was in love with him.”

  “Then why did your parents allow the marriage?” Carly asked, gesturing with one hand toward an old photo album of the wedding.

  “Same reason a branch of the Castillos married off one of their daughters to the first Andrew Jackson Quintrell in 1865. Land, pure and simple. The Castillos held a big piece of the original Oñate land grant. They saw their cousins and friends having land seized because they didn’t understand the Anglo system, where you pay property taxes or lose the land, where you’re taxed individually on lands held in common. In any case, the Castillos didn’t have money to pay taxes to their new government in Washington, D.C.”

  “So the Castillos arranged to marry an Anglo into the family, as a way to cope with the new rules?” Carly asked.

  Winifred nodded and bent down to Sylvia again. “The Castillos had land, cattle, water, horses, and the certainty they’d lose all of it to the Anglos. A. J. Quintrell had the connections to keep the Castillo land intact and a willingness to defend that land at gunpoint. He married Isobel Castillo and spent the rest of his life consolidating the Castillo grant.”

  “Was it a happy marriage?” Carly asked.

  The old woman shrugged. “No one ever said anything about it one way or the other. Back then, you married for the family, not for yourself. Isobel gave the first Quintrell an heir and two girls. The girls were married off to Sandovals in Mexico. A. J. Junior grew up to be an even better manager than his daddy.”

  “So the Castillos got what they wanted.”

  “One side did. The other side got swindled out of their rightful heritage. My side.”

  “What do you mean, your side?” Carly frowned, wondering what she’d missed. Quickly she checked the charge on her recorder. Once Winifred started talking, names and memories and family anecdotes came tumbling out too quickly to sort through, much less understand.

  “Isobel had a sister, Juana. She married a third cousin, another Castillo. They had one surviving child, María.”

  Carly wished she had the standard genealogical forms with her so she could begin filling in the blanks. Unfortunately she hadn’t planned to get into preceding generations this morning. And that was why she always had the recorder on; no one could predict where a conversation would go.

  “María,” Winifred said, “married an Anglo, Hale Simmons, but it was too late. The shared land had been lost to Quintrells. But Simmons proved as adept in his own way as the first A. J. Quintrell. Using Castillo and Sandoval family connections, Hale set up a caravan trade down into Mexico. Since he never paid duty, he did pretty well for the family.”

  “Wait,” Carly said. “Where did the Sandovals come from?”

  “Spain and Mexico, just like the Castillos. They were here before the Rebellion.” Winifred put Sylvia’s leg beneath the blankets, pulled out one wasted limp arm, and began massaging it firmly. “Lots of marrying back and forth since then. The border doesn’t mean spit to families.”

  Carly thought about the weary Sandoval woman she’d talked to last night and wondered if Lucia was somehow related to the Senator’s spoiled grandson.

  Cousins under every bush.

  “So the Sandovals are part of your family,” Carly said.

  “Don’t waste your time and my money on them. I’m only interested in Castillos. María Simmons was my mother. Sylvia’s mother.”

  Carly felt disoriented, like time was rushing around her, calling out names and memories. In one breath Winifred was talking about the settling of Mexico by Spain four centuries ago and the coming of the Anglos after the Civil War. In the next breath she was talking about her mother, as if history ran through her family as surely as genes.

  “My mother, María, had two living children.” Winifred bent Sylvia’s frail arm to a four-count beat and held the position. “Sylvia was María’s first child. I was her last. There were two miscarriages and a stillbirth between us.”

  Before Carly could ask a question, there was a knock on the door. Josh walked into the suite without waiting for permission to enter. The expression on his face reminded Carly of how she’d felt when Winifred had first opened the pot of vile-smelling cream and gone to work on her sister. Carly’s nose had finally stopped noticing. Josh wasn’t that lucky.

  “God, what a stink,” he said through his teeth.

  Winifred ignored him.

  “Good morning, Governor Quintrell,” Carly said quickly, getting to her feet.

  “Family photos?” Josh said, glancing at the various stacks.

  “Yes. Miss Winifred has been—”

  “Airing all the dirty laundry,” he cut in. “It’s what she does best.”

  “What do you want?” Winifred asked. “I’m busy.”

  Josh glanced at the pale, slack flesh held between her dark hands. “My wife, son, and I are leaving this afternoon.”

  Carly thought she heard Winifred say “Hallelujah” under her breath.

  “I take it that you’re going through with your so-called family history project,” Josh said, gesturing to the photos.

  Winifred focused on him with hard, dark eyes. “You take
it right.”

  The skin on Josh’s face tightened. “You can’t delay even a few months?”

  “I’m in my late seventies. The Senator’s finally dead. I’m through waiting.”

  Carly eased toward the door. She’d write about the quarrels of the dead and the living, but she’d really rather not have a front-row seat to the harangue.

  “Excuse me,” she murmured.

  “Stay where you are,” Josh said.

  Carly froze more at his curt tone than at the order itself.

  “My aunt won’t listen to reason,” Josh said to Carly. “For your sake, I hope you will.”

  She looked up at Josh and saw the Senator all over again in the ice blue of his son’s eyes and the hard, impatient line of his mouth. This was a man accustomed to power. To getting his way.

  “I don’t know what you mean, sir,” she said evenly.

  “Turn off your recorder.”

  Her eyes widened and her hand went to her waist in a protective motion.

  “Please,” Josh said.

  She prayed that the governor didn’t know anything about her high-tech machine. Her thumb depressed the pause button. The status lights flickered and went on standby.

  In five seconds the recorder would come back on.

  “It will come as no news that I’m running for president,” Josh said, “but until I make a public announcement, I don’t want a recording of my intent.”

  Carly relaxed. “I understand. I won’t say anything. And congratulations, sir. It’s an honor to be chosen by your party for the highest office in the land.”

  He smiled automatically. “Thank you. I haven’t been chosen yet, but I’m confident I will be.”

  Winifred dipped more salve and began working the smelly stuff into Sylvia’s other arm. Despite the new voice in the room, she lay slack, unresponsive. Her blank eyes gazed out over the shimmering mystery of the swimming pool.

  “The next months will be difficult for me and my family,” Josh said, holding Carly’s gaze. “The other side will be looking for every bit of dirt it can find to smear me with.”