"Thus all the yearly barbecues," Carly said, lining up the photos. "Taking the pulse of the hispano voters over a rack of ribs and a keg of beer."
"It worked. Without support from the hispano communities, the Senator wouldn't have made it, and neither would his son. Josh Quintrell is the first Anglo governor New Mexico has had in years. It was a close race. Without the Sandovals he couldn't have made it."
"The same Sandovals that run drugs and hold cockfights?"
"Yeah."
"Are you saying that the governor is involved in the drug trade through the Sandovals?"
"If by involved you mean getting paid on a regular schedule, probably not. If you mean accepting political contributions and having a damn good idea where the funds came from and how they were laundered, yes."
"I haven't read anything like that in any newspaper."
From overhead came the slam of the side door, followed by the sound of footsteps and heavy rolls of paper being moved across the floor.
Dan glanced at the ceiling and then back at the computer. "You won't read about laundered political contributions in this newspaper, no matter how many rolls of paper Gus uses up." Dan shrugged. "Unless someone gets caught dirty with a bag of cash, of course, but it's not likely. The Quintrell family might be a lot of things that I don't like, but stupid isn't one of them."
"No wonder Winifred wants to distance herself from them."
"Winifred would have hated any family her sister married into." Dan typed rapidly, scanned the screen, and typed again. "Besides, the Castillos are a lot closer to the Sandovals by blood and choice. And it's not like the Quintrells are the first politicians on the planet to accept laundered money in political contributions. Hell, in the bad old days on the East Coast and in Chicago, the pols didn't care if the cash was laundered, just so it was plentiful and green."
"You have a sour view of politicians."
"Realistic," he corrected. "And don't forget bankers and lawyers. One runs the laundries and the other facilitates the process. Then they take the squeaky-clean cash and invest it in legitimate enterprises on behalf of the illegitimate. Welcome to the real world, honey, where nothing is the way it seems and everybody's hand is in somebody else's pocket."
Carly grimaced and kept looking at the backs of photos. Some were dated. Some had names.
One of the names was J. Quintrell.
She flipped the photo over, picked up a magnifying glass, and went hunting for the younger Josh. He'd been caught in the act of upending a bottle of beer over another boy's head. Both young men-teenagers, probably-were laughing and leaning drunkenly on each other. In the background, the Senator watched with a grim line to his mouth. Next to the Senator was another young man, but this one stood straight and tall.
"I have a feeling Josh went back to boarding school right after this," she said.
Dan got up and walked over to Carly. He bent over the table near her, close enough to smell the light spice of her shampoo. He told himself that he hadn't left the computer just to inhale her unique scent, it was just a very nice side benefit. Like breathing.
"Good catch," he said. "If there's another newspaper photo of Josh before he came back from Vietnam, I haven't been able to find it, not even in the fifties and sixties stuff I scanned in a few years ago when I was home for three months."
"Months? How'd you manage that much time off?"
"Leave of absence," Dan said, staring at the rawboned young Josh. "Just like now."
"But you're not in the military."
"No. Just clumsy." He looked at the date on the photo and then went back to his computer.
"Clumsy," she said under her breath. "Yeah. Right. I've seen professional athletes who are less coordinated. Must have been one mean volcano you climbed."
He ignored her and set up a search for the name Quintrell, starting with one week on either side of the date on the photo. Then he skimmed through the articles he'd recalled, clicking from one highlighted Quintrell name to the next. The Senator was most often mentioned, with AJ. IV getting some ink for having graduated from college and then volunteering for the army. He was posted to Fort Benning, Georgia, for ranger training.
Poor bastard. Wonder if he knew what he was getting into?
"What was that?" Carly asked.
Dan realized he'd spoken his thoughts aloud. Not good. He was getting entirely too comfortable around Ms. Carolina May.
"AJ. IV was a ranger," Dan said.
"Ranger? Are we talking National Park Service and Smoky the Bear?"
For a few seconds Dan wondered what it would be like to live in a world where the first association with the word ranger was a cartoon figure. "Special Ops."
"Ops? Operations?"
"Yeah. The balls-out warriors."
"Another visual I could have lived without," she said. "Did he make it, or was he a wannabe?"
"AJ. IV made the grade and the Senator didn't have a damn thing to do with it. The old man was furious that his son didn't take the cushy admin job in the Pentagon that was all laid out for him."
"What article did you find?" Carly took the photo over to where Dan was and began reading the computer screen over his shoulder. "Where does it say that?"
"Between the lines."
She read aloud the section he pointed to on the screen. " 'The Senator, while naturally disappointed that his son passed up an opening at the Pentagon as a public information officer, is very proud that Andrew Jackson Quintrell IV has been accepted into the elite Army Rangers.' So what are you talking about? It says the Senator was proud."
"You didn't know him. Anyone who crossed the old man paid in blood. Lots of it. I'd love to have heard that father-son screaming match, but it happened before I was born. I'm betting that AJ. told the Senator to go crap in his mess kit. And I'm betting that's why Josh was invited home from his first year of college abroad, just for the barbecue. It would be the Senator's way of telling his first son that there was another heir in the pipeline."
Carly studied the photo again with the magnifying glass. "So the handsome dude with the rebar up his butt is AJ. IV?"
He looked where she pointed. "Handsome, huh?"
"Hey, they can't all be tall, dark, and oozing sex like you."
Dan wanted very much to bite the tender lobe of her ear but didn't. If he did that, the next thing he'd do was stick his tongue in her mouth and pretty soon after that they would be rocking and rolling on top of the heavy wooden table.
And how would this be bad?
"He sure looks more than three years older than Josh," she said.
"Ranger training is hell."
"Been there, done that?" she asked.
"I know some of them."
"The, um, balls-out warriors?"
"Yeah." In addition to being trained by them, he'd debriefed a lot of special forces types, but that was just one more on the long list of things he wasn't supposed to talk about, because the men weren't supposed to have been in the places Dan had been. And vice versa.
He watched Carly looking at the photo and tried not to think about how good it would feel to have her mouth all over him.
"Why are you frowning?" he asked after a few moments. Anything to get her talking instead of him fantasizing about stripping her naked and diving in.
"I'm trying to see the future Governor Quintrell in that rawboned baboon pouring beer over his primate buddy. The eyes are right but the chin looks off. Must be the stubble. He's got quite a crop of it. Josh's eyeteeth are just like the Senator's-that slight overlap that is more a sexy come-on than a flaw. He must have had them straightened later."
"Or else had his mouth redone entirely when he hit forty," Dan said. "A lot of politicians do. In America, bad teeth are equated with poverty and moral turpitude." He took the magnifying glass and studied the photo. "You've got a good eye, Carolina May. That chin isn't as impressive as Josh's is today. Gotta love implants and plastic surgeons."
"At least he let his hair go gray. A lot of t
hem don't."
"Them?"
"Anyone, man or woman, who spends time in front of cameras."
"Gray is distinguished, haven't you heard?" Dan said, smiling slightly.
"Tell that to an anchorman who has someone thirty years younger leaving footprints up his spine. You, of course, would be exempt."
He glanced at her. "I would?"
"Yes. You're going to be like your mother, dark except for one extraordinary silver streak over your left temple."
"I already have the streak."
"If five hairs make up a streak, sure."
"I have more than that."
She pretended to count the gray hairs above his left temple and gasped. "Omigod. Seven! You're definitely headed for the downhill slide into Viagra-land."
Dan was tempted to stand up and show Carly just how wrong she was about the sex pill but didn't. People were still moving around the storage area above them. At any moment a reporter could come down to the basement to research past newspaper articles. Dan didn't want Carly embarrassed or inhibited when they made love, biting her lip when she wanted to groan or scream.
Overhead, someone dragged the tarp aside, lifted the door, and called down. "Dan? You in there?"
Go away, Gus. "C'mon down, Gus."
"How long have you been down there?"
Too long. Not long enough. "Since breakfast. Why?" Dan said.
"Then you haven't heard the news."
"What news?"
Gus appeared on the bottom step. "Sylvia Quintrell finally died."
Chapter 33
NEW HAMPSHIRE
NOON, THURSDAY
GOVERNOR JOSH QUINTRELL SHIFTED ON THE METAL FOLDING CHAIR. HIS expression was engaged, interested. Behind the facade, he devoutly wished he was anywhere but in a gently shabby hall full of veterans of foreign wars trying to digest the indigestible, and reminiscing about wars nobody else gave a damn about anymore. Josh would use his service record and purple hearts to reassure voters, especially veterans, but did he talk about it every chance he had? Hell, no. He'd rather dye his hair pink and wear a tutu. Ninety-seven percent of the people in the dining hall hadn't been shot at, hadn't been tortured, hadn't killed; the three percent who had didn't want to talk about it.
The chicken salad lunch was truly incredible. They should pass out medals for eating it.
I'm going to get a doggie bag for my campaign manager, Josh thought as he clapped mightily for a speech that had left most of the hall comatose. Why should he miss all the fun he signed me up for?
His cell phone vibrated against his waist. He glanced at the call window, saw that it didn't list a number, and went to the message function. No voice message, just text. He punched in commands and wondered what had been so urgent that it had to break in to his campaign time.
Words scrolled across the tiny window: THE SENATOR HAD SECRETS WORTH KILLING TO KEEP. STOP INVESTIGATING CHARITIES.
Josh thought about it.
He thought about it some more. As the second speaker was talking about our brave boys overseas he decided to stop investigating charities on the ranch end.
Then he'd light a fire under the New York accountant's ass and wait to see what crawled out from under the rocks.
Chapter 34
QUINTRELL RANCH
THURSDAY EVENING
THANKS TO BAD WEATHER IN NEW HAMPSHIRE, THE GOVERNOR'S PLANE HAD BEEN late landing in Santa Fe. Sylvia Quintrell's memorial service would be delayed until the governor's helicopter arrived.
Carly didn't mind. Over Dan's protests, she'd driven out early in her newly cleaned and shod SUV, eager to interview Winifred on various subjects, including the possibility of the Senator's illegal offspring. Dan had followed her in his own truck. The extra hour delay before the memorial service had given Carly more time to talk with Winifred-and to prepare herself for another poet-mangling effort by the good minister, who was hovering in the hallway near Winifred's suite like a car salesman looking for a live customer. Dr. Sands hovered with him. He hadn't wanted Winifred to exert herself talking.
Winifred had told him to get out.
Silently Dan handed Carly another photograph for Winifred to look at. The box of plastic sleeves and forms that the airline had misplaced had been waiting at the ranch when he and Carly arrived for the service. While she talked with Winifred, he put various photos and documents between sheets of the clear protective plastic.
Winifred coughed. The sound was husky and dry, shallow, like her breathing. Dan had heard unhealthy noises like that in places where war or plain governmental incompetence kept antibiotics from reaching hospitals and villages. He wasn't a medic, but he really didn't like the sound of her breathing. He knew pneumonia was most dangerous when the chest was tight, not when the lungs loosened.
"Are you sure you should be talking, Miss Winifred?" he asked gently.
She ignored him and peered through reading glasses at the photograph Carly was holding out. Normally Winifred wouldn't have needed-or admitted that she needed-glasses, but she was too tired to struggle tonight.
"Andrew," she said. "Grammar school."
Carly filled in a label, peeled it from its backing, and stuck it to the plastic sleeve. Dan handed Winifred another sleeved photo.
"Victoria. After Pearl Harbor. She was seven."
Carly entered the data and labeled the photo.
"Victoria. On D-Day. Polio. Killed her before-she was ten."
"You need to rest," Carly said quickly.
"I need-to die," Winifred said.
Grimly Carly sorted through the pictures she'd selected for positive ID by Winifred. She'd hoped to find some of Josh and Liza after they were ten, but so far she'd come up empty. All the school and professional photos were of Andrew and Victoria. Family snapshots had stopped after Victoria died. The closest thing to group photos Carly had found after 1944 were the yearly political barbecues. Often as not, neither Sylvia nor the children attended-or if they did, there weren't any photographs to prove it.
The Quintrells weren't what Carly would call a close family. No surprise there.
When the photographs ran out, there was a list of names. "These are the Senator's possible children," Carly said in a low voice. "That is, these children were born to women within ten months of a probable liaison with the Senator. None of the birth certificates list the Senator as a father. Often they list another man, but you asked me to ignore that, correct?"
Winifred nodded curtly and took the list. Eleven names stretching over a period of sixty years, but most of them were clustered around the years before the Senator became a senator.
Jesus Mendoza. Maria Elena Sandoval. Manuel Velasquez. Randal
Mullins. Sharon Miller. Christopher Smith. Raul Sandoval. Maryanne Black. Seguro Sanchez. David McCall. Suzanne Fields.
All or none of them could be the Senator's. Four of them were dead. Two of them were grandmothers or great-grandmothers. Not one of them had claimed to be the Senator's offspring.
The name Winifred had expected, hoped, feared, wasn't there.
She handed the list back to Carly. "Keep digging. There were more kids born than are on this list."
Carly started to object but thought better of it.
"Why didn't Sylvia divorce the Senator?" Carly asked as she put the list away.
"Catholic. And keeping the land. For Andrew."
"Then Andrew died and she had a stroke."
"No," Winifred managed. "Tried to-kill the Senator. Fought him. Survived. Brain didn't."
Carly and Dan both went still. There was nothing, not even a hint of a whisper, in the family record or in the doctor's report after Sylvia's so-called stroke.
"My God," Carly said. "How did you-"
"Find out?" Winifred cut in.
"Yes."
"He told me-to let her die. And why."
"But you didn't," Carly said.
The line of Winifred's mouth was too savage to be called a smile. "He drove her-to it. Castillo land. Always."
"Of course," Carly said gently, trying to soothe the increasingly agitated older woman. "The Senator is dead and the land will go to Sylvia's son, a Castillo as well as a Quintrell."
Winifred's face darkened as she coughed harshly, uselessly, gasping for air.
Dr. Sands rushed into the suite. "No more talking, Miss Winifred. I mean it." He bent over and replaced the oxygen mask she'd pulled off an hour ago. "If I have to, I'll transport you to a hospital against your will. The governor agreed with me. If necessary, we'll call a judge and have you declared incompetent."
Winifred gave the doctor a burning look and fought to control her breathing.
Carly started to gather up photos and documents, only to discover that Dan already had. Together they quickly walked out of the room, leaving Winifred and the doctor to their clashing wills.
"I should have asked her about the old Spanish documents first," Carly said.
"Other people read old Spanish. Winifred is the only one left alive who remembers the Quintrell family during the last half of the twentieth century."
"What about the governor? He's alive."
"He probably knows less about what his family was like than you do. Josh Quintrell didn't even come home for Christmases."
"So Sylvia tried to kill the Senator," Carly said. "I wonder what triggered it?"
"Maybe she found out he was fathering bastards when he damn well knew how to prevent it. We'll check the birth dates around that time. All of the birth dates, not just the probable ones."
The whap whap whap of a helicopter's rotors announced that the governor might have missed all the holidays with his family, but he would make it to Sylvia's memorial service.
Carly wondered why.
"Why what?" Dan asked.
"Sorry, I didn't know I said it aloud."
Dan waited.
"Why does he bother coming here at all?" Carly said. "His parents sent him off to year-round boarding schools when he was seven and never looked back until his older brother died."
"Josh is the Senator's son through and through," Dan said.
"What does that mean?"
"He's political to his core. The last thing a politician would do is miss his mother's funeral."
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