Always Time to Die

by Elizabeth Lowell

  “I don’t remember.”

  “I don’t believe it.”

  “Smart as well as sexy. Damn, I’ve got it good. What do I do with the cards that are round all the way rather than just at the corners?”

  “Divide them into black, gray, or buckskin.”

  He sorted quickly.

  She sat down beside him, booted up her computer, and began recording tentative dates based on the type of stock used to mount various images.

  It wasn’t until later, much later, that Carly realized he had steered the conversation away from his past.

  Again.

  QUINTRELL RANCH

  WEDNESDAY EVENING

  29

  JEANETTE DYKSTRA’S LIPS MOVED BUT NO SOUND CAME FROM THE TV SCREEN. Celebrity images flashed, promoting her next show. The picture cut to an improbably sparkling toilet and a dancing toilet brush that threw glittering stuff everywhere.

  Winifred ignored the TV until all the commercials and station promos were finished. Only then did she pick up the remote control from her bedside table and take off the mute.

  A man in a blue shirt, multicolored tie, and gray-blue suit leaned earnestly toward the camera. His eyes were the same pale color as his shirt. The size of his ears gave him away as a man approaching seventy, but his hair was pure blond and his cheeks didn’t sag. His hand had more wrinkles than his entire face. He held the obligatory yellow tablet and blunt pencil in camera view, suggesting that he’d had actually been out doing some old-fashioned reporting a few minutes ago instead of being powdered and primped for the camera.

  “Good evening. In five minutes we will interrupt our normal programming to bring you breaking news from the governor’s mansion, where it’s rumored that Governor Quintrell will announce his candidacy for president of the United States.”

  Winifred’s hand clenched around the remote control. Despite the pallor of illness, color burned high on her cheekbones. She’d been busy today, taking swabs of Sylvia’s cheek and her own, packing them for mailing, pushing Blaine Snead until he drove the package to town and returned with her mailing receipt. Small things, really, but everything took so much energy now.

  She watched without moving while the usual scenes of international war, famine, and shouting heads marched in tightly edited procession across the TV. Politicians and pundits mouthed ten-second sound bites.

  “He wouldn’t dare,” she said hoarsely.

  Yet she knew he would.

  He’d dared a lot more and he’d won. The Senator’s death had changed many things, but it wouldn’t change that. Josh Quintrell was as clever and ruthless as anyone the Senator ever spawned.

  Tears of rage and regret shimmered in Winifred’s eyes. Even when Josh appeared on the screen, she didn’t blink the tears away. She didn’t have to. She knew what Josh looked like. The Senator’s eyes and arrogance and meanness. None of Sylvia’s sweetness. None of her kindness. Nothing of her at all. Just the Senator, a man who had raped his own daughter at thirteen, sending her careening down the road to hell, taking Sylvia with her. One daughter lost to polio. One daughter lost to the drunken lecher who couldn’t keep his hands off any female, even blood kin.

  And that was just the beginning of his sins.

  Long after Josh vanished from the TV in a flurry of applause and American flags, Winifred lay staring at the screen. There was a lot to do, and none of it good.

  But it would be done.

  Ignoring the dizziness that had begun to plague her, she sat up and put her feet on the floor. The cool tile beneath her feet helped to focus her. She stood slowly, waiting for her heart to settle.

  She had the strength to do what must be done. She wouldn’t accept anything less.

  All the years of hate would be repaid.

  After several minutes of forcing herself to breathe steadily, evenly, Winifred felt stronger. She took a wrapped syringe and a small clay bottle from her bedside drawer. Slowly, using the backs of chairs and then the doorframe, she worked her way to Sylvia’s room.

  Her sister was facing the window, watching the pool or the silvery moonlight or perhaps nothing at all. For the first time Winifred saw Sylvia as she really was, a husk of the past, a transparent mockery of life, a spirit chained when it should be free, a creature kept alive for a vengeance that never came.

  “Never enough time to live,” Winifred said to her sister. “Always time to die. Forgive me, querida.”

  Whether the forgiveness was for the past or the present, Winifred didn’t say and Sylvia didn’t care. With trembling fingers, Winifred opened the syringe she’d brought from her bedroom, took the stopper out of the small clay bottle, and filled the syringe. She closed her eyes, crossed herself, and injected the fluid into the IV that dripped slowly down to Sylvia’s wasted vein.

  When the syringe was empty, Winifred went to the fireplace, added several more chunks of wood, and sat in her familiar chair next to the bed. Gently she took Sylvia’s hand and held it, cool and frail, between her own. Together the two sisters looked out the window.

  Moonlight shifted and slid across the land, ghostly and beautiful and untouchable. Sylvia’s breathing slowed, then slowed even more, until it sighed out one last time and she became like the moonlight, beyond the reach of man.

  Only then did Winifred stand. She threw the little pot into the fireplace with enough force to shatter the clay and heaped more wood on top. With the fire blazing behind her, she went to her own room, buried the hypodermic in a pot of lemongrass, washed her hands, and went to bed.

  She fell asleep certain that she would see the Senator’s son in hell.

  QUINTRELL RANCH

  WEDNESDAY, 10:00 P.M.

  30

  MELISSA MADE HER FINAL ROUNDS OF THE HOUSE, CHECKING THAT OUTER DOORS and windows were secure, ovens and lights were turned off, and nothing was out of place if the governor made a surprise visit. In many ways, it was her favorite part of the workday. Everything was quiet and clean, a silent tribute to her efficiency.

  A strip of light still showed at the base of the door to the Sisters’ Suite. Melissa hesitated, then knocked lightly.

  “Winifred? Can I get you anything?”

  There wasn’t any answer.

  Again Melissa hesitated. “Winifred?”

  Silence.

  Melissa pushed open the door, saw Winifred sleeping, and walked softly over to the bed. Dr. Sands had been quite forceful about having Winifred checked every few hours. Melissa bent down and listened to Winifred’s breathing, glancing at her watch as she did. After a minute she straightened and frowned. The antibiotic hadn’t made much progress against the pneumonia. The old woman’s breathing was strained, with a distinct rattle. Melissa adjusted the oxygen tube with the skill of the nurse trainee she had been until she decided she’d rather clean houses than bedpans.

  Quietly she turned off the bedside light. A series of night-lights glowed to life, pointing the way to Sylvia’s bed in the other half of the suite. Melissa followed the lights, looked into the sickroom, and saw what she had for years—a hot fire casting flickering shadows over a lump beneath the covers. From the height of the flames, Winifred had been up and checking on her sister sometime in the past half hour.

  A glance told Melissa that there was plenty of wood to get through the night. She turned and quietly went back through Winifred’s part of the suite. The door closed with the click of a well-oiled lock. Just one more of Melissa’s many jobs.

  She walked swiftly toward the quarters she and Pete had made into an apartment for themselves. Once the apartment had been a second, separate guesthouse, complete with kitchenette, for the Senator’s private use. Or abuse. Melissa had heard the housemaids talking about the sex toys and such that the Senator’s “guests” left behind. When he’d become bedridden, he insisted on moving into the library, where he could see everyone coming and going.

  She hurried through the cold breezeway connecting the guesthouse to the main house. The clear night had frozen everything a
gain, leaving little daggers of ice on the muddy path. She opened the door quickly and then locked it behind her with a sigh. Off duty.

  Finally.

  “Pete?”

  “In the den,” he answered.

  Melissa kicked out of her boots, found a pair of slippers, and padded quietly toward the den. Pete sat in front of a foldout desk. He’d stacked papers and files on every surface.

  “What’s up?” she asked.

  “Josh is jumping up and down for the charity report.”

  Uneasiness shot through her. “It’s only been a few days.”

  “Yeah. He makes the Senator look like the saint of patience. Josh is hell to work for. But I’m hoping to be so valuable that he’ll make me his accountant, like the Senator did.”

  “Don’t bet on it. I heard Anne asking Josh if you were up to the task.”

  Pete went still. “What did he say?”

  “He saw me and said something about how he trusted you.”

  Pete swore.

  Melissa started pacing. Everything had been so certain for so many years and now…now it was unraveling faster with every hour. “Damn that priest anyway. Everything was so perfect.”

  Pete looked surprised and then shook his head. “That was then. This is now. And now, in my spare time, Josh needs an updated P and L statement on the ranch for the realtor. Plus all the water patents, land grants, rights-of-way, easements, a new survey, septic inspection, well inspection, the whole tortilla. That’s the stuff I’m sorting out now.”

  Josh is hell to work for.

  “He’s a real smart shark,” Pete said with as much admiration as unhappiness. “Makes me realize how good we had it with the Senator. Sic transit gloria and all that.”

  “I think we should quit,” Melissa said. “Really quit. All the way. Stop talking about the Caribbean and Brazil and go there.” She laced her fingers together and then forced them apart. “Let’s take our retirement and live a little before we’re too old to enjoy it.”

  Pete pushed back from his desk and looked at his wife. The lines of tension between her eyebrows and around her mouth added years to her age.

  “We’re some distance from our retirement goal,” he said. “A few more years should do it.”

  “That’s what you said years ago.”

  “Then the economy slowed and our investments tanked. We’re just getting back to where we were.”

  “It’s coming apart,” she said tightly. “All our dreams.”

  He pushed back from the desk and went to hug her. “Hey, darling. We’ll be fine. Ranches like this can take years to sell.” Or they can sell overnight to one of the vultures that had begun circling with news of the Senator’s declining health. “Plus Josh is bound to give you a good severance package. Me, too, if it comes to that. He can’t afford to look stingy or exploitive of the common man. Can you hang in long enough to get fired when the ranch sells?”

  She looked at him for a long moment, knew he was right, and sighed. “Sure. What’s a few more months or years? But if he fires you before that, then what?”

  Pete laughed. “Then we’ll be on the next plane to warm waters, cool breezes, and stiff drinks.”

  For as long as it lasts.

  But neither one of them said that aloud. They really needed a few more years to make up for some bad choices in the stock market.

  They really needed Josh Quintrell.

  And whether he knew it or not, he needed them.

  QUINTRELL RANCH

  THURSDAY 4:00 A.M.

  31

  A BLEARY-EYED DR. SANDS CONFIRMED WHAT EVERYONE ALREADY KNEW: SYLVIA Castillo Quintrell had died in her sleep. He went to the telephone and called Governor Quintrell on his private line.

  “What?” The word was a growl.

  “Governor Quintrell, this is Dr. Sands. I’m sorry to tell you that your mother has passed away.”

  At the other end of the line, there was silence, a woman’s voice asking a question, and then Josh said, “Thank you for calling. Do you need anything from me immediately?”

  “No. Miss Winifred has a list of Sylvia’s wishes. She’ll be cremated and her ashes scattered over the ranch. Given that she has been ill for so many years, I’ve recommended against an autopsy. There’s no point in distressing the family any more than death already has. It’s a miracle she lived as long as she did.”

  “I appreciate that. I have nightmares about the sleaze media ghouls drooling over autopsy photos. How is Winifred doing?”

  “Not well,” Dr. Sands said. “She wasn’t strong before this. Pneumonia in a woman her age is very dangerous, but she refuses to go to a hospital.”

  “Sylvia was all she had to live for.”

  “Yes. I’m sorry to be so blunt, but you should be prepared. It’s quite probable that Miss Winifred’s life span can be measured in days. A few weeks at the outside. She’s not responding well to the antibiotic. I’ll switch to another, of course, but in patients her age, pneumonia often is the body’s way of saying it’s tired of struggling with life.”

  “You think she’s given up?”

  “Finding her sister dead was very hard on her.”

  There was a long silence.

  Finally Josh said, “I’ll check my schedule, but I don’t think I’ll be able to get up to the ranch today. I’m booked for three meals a day in New Hampshire for the next six days. But if I could combine seeing Winifred with a memorial service for Sylvia…yes, that would be possible. A red-eye both ways. There will be a memorial for Sylvia Quintrell within forty-eight hours.”

  Dr. Sands was impressed with Josh’s ability to juggle personal and private demands when awakened from a dead sleep at 4:00 A.M. “In addition to my condolences, Governor, please accept my congratulations. I believe you’ll make a fine president.”

  “Thank you. I’ll send you an invitation for my next fund-raiser.”

  Laughing, Dr. Sands hung up the phone and made arrangements to have Sylvia’s body taken to a crematorium.

  TAOS

  THURSDAY MORNING

  32

  “WHAT DO WE HAVE SO FAR?” CARLY ASKED, LOOKING AT HER CHECKLIST.

  Dan shifted on the uncomfortable wooden chair that was the best the newspaper archive offered. He was bleary-eyed from old photos and computer monitors, and frustrated by his relentless physical awareness of Carly. Yesterday’s hours and hours of solid, boring groundwork on Winifred’s project should have taken the edge off his need.

  It hadn’t. It was there today, up close and personal. If Carly felt the same way, she wasn’t sharing the information.

  Swearing silently, he tapped out a few more commands on the keyboard and hoped she would catch up with him soon. Never had the wait for someone to discover what was obvious to him seemed so long.

  While Dan worked, Carly unrolled a sheet of paper that was twenty inches long and ten wide. Penciled notes went down the left margin. A faint grid divided the sheet into six long sections. The top center of the sheet was labeled CASTILLO SISTERS, GENERATION 6. From there, each horizontal section was labeled 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, separating generations of the family.

  “Marriage date for Isobel Castillo and the first Andrew Jackson Quintrell is March 11, 1865,” Dan said. “Isobel was born in 1850, probably before March 11, because her age is given as fifteen for the marriage. Quintrell was thirty, according to his Civil War record. Johnny Reb, by the way.”

  Carly wrote quickly, connecting married couples and keeping track of special dates along the margin for each generation. It wasn’t the approved method for creating a genealogy, but it worked for her. Later she would transfer everything onto ready-made forms.

  “Still want me to concentrate on the female Castillos?” Dan asked.

  “For now. I’ll go through the list of possible illegitimate offspring later. I can’t believe there are eleven of them.”

  “All maybes,” he reminded her.

  “The Senator was a swine.”

  “Swine are fertile.�
� Dan looked at the computer screen. “Isobel’s sister Juana married Mateo on June 3, 1870, at the ripe old age of seventeen. Mateo’s age isn’t listed. Neither is his family history.”

  “Surprise, surprise,” Carly muttered. “If Juana wasn’t Isobel’s sister, I doubt that the marriage would have made the newspaper at all.”

  “Welcome to the wonderful world of society sections.” Dan hit another key. “Juana died in childbirth in September of 1872. The baby, María, survived. In May of 1887, María married Hale Simmons. She died of cancer after a long illness on August third, 1966. Since a surviving husband isn’t mentioned, I assume old Hale kicked the bucket before then. Nothing in the archives about a funeral, though.”

  Carly worked quickly, neatly, filling in blanks with a mechanical pencil, the better to erase it later if/when new information appeared.

  “After an improbable gap of almost thirty years, María gave birth to—”

  “Improbable? Is that what the archive says?” Carly cut in.

  “No. It’s plain old common sense.”

  Smiling, Carly put a question mark in the margin and said, “Go on.”

  “Sylvia María Simmons y Castillo, no exact birth date. All we have is 1916.”

  “That’s okay. I have lots of sources I haven’t tried yet. We’ll stick with the archives and Winifred’s stuff for now and fill in gaps later.”

  “Eighteen years after Sylvia’s birth, in a totally fab June wedding complete with white roses and just yards of satin—”

  Carly snickered at Dan’s warbling tone and kept writing.

  “She married Andrew Jackson Quintrell III. Do I get to mention the Quintrells now?”

  “Hard to avoid them.”

  “Let’s see…A. J. Three’s grandmother was Isobel and his great-aunt was Juana, right?”

  Carly nodded and looked up. “Why?”