Always Time To Die (3 page)

TAOS
SUNDAY AFTERNOON

THE DURAN FAMILY LIVED ON THE OUTSKIRTS OF TAOS
,
BEYOND THE TOURIST AREA
with its timeless adobe buildings and modern parking meters measuring out minutes in silver coins. The Durans inhabited a Taos few visitors saw, a place of modest houses crouched among winter-bare pastures, surrounded by willow-stick and barbwire fences.

John drove into a narrow adobe garage that had once been a tack room and turned off his truck. Though the building was more than two hundred years old, it had been wired in the twentieth century. Motion-sensing lights flashed to life, revealing every timeworn adobe brick. The space itself was clean. Neither of Dan’s parents tolerated garbage, clutter, or worn-out machinery tossed around the property. Some of the neighbors felt that every man had a right to his own junkyard, but no one got upset about it either way. New Mexico had a long history of live and let live.

“You think Mom’s back from the pueblo yet?” Dan asked.

John glanced at his watch. Two o’clock. “She should be. She teaches after the noon mass.”

“Still doing English?”

“It’s what the kids need most. She does some simple math, too.”

Dan shook his head. “She never gives up, does she?”

“That’s why I love her. Heart as big as the sky. You should get a good woman to make you happy.”

“I’m already happy.”

“Really? You better wear a sign. Otherwise your expression will scare small children.”

“Yeah yeah yeah,” Dan said without much heat. He knew his father was right, but that didn’t change his memories of the past twelve years, the years when he’d experienced firsthand just how much of an animal man could be.

He shoved the memories away. They didn’t have anything new to teach him. He didn’t have anything new to bring to them. That was why he’d come home, hoping to find something new, something worth the pain of living for it.

John waited, hoped, but Dan didn’t say another word. “You’re like your mother. You keep it inside.”

Dan didn’t answer.

John didn’t expect him to.

The back door opened before Dan put his foot on the first step up to the narrow porch. Diana’s hair was short and dark black except for a wide streak of white at her left temple, legacy of a nameless ancestor. Her eyes were as dark and clear as ever, and her smile just as unexpected in her serious face. Gently rounded and as determined as any man, Dan’s mother was the light of many lives, including her son’s.

“That was certainly a long walk,” she said, watching him climb the stairs. Though she didn’t say anything, concern for his injury was in her eyes and in the troubled line of her mouth. “You must be freezing.”

Dan scooped her up in a hug and set her down gently. “I’m too big to freeze.” He sniffed the air that was rushing out of the kitchen. “What’s that?”

Diana gave John a worried look. He shook his head slightly.

“Posole soup and fresh tortillas,” she said, frowning. “I’ve got the woodstove going. Come in and warm your—Get warm,” she corrected quickly. Dan didn’t like discussing, or even acknowledging, his injured leg. Despite that, she couldn’t help wanting to ease the pain she saw occasionally in his face. “And carnitas. You didn’t eat much breakfast before you left.”

Dan’s gentle smile was at odds with the grim lines that usually bracketed his mouth. “I’m not a teenager anymore,
Mamacita
. I’m all grown up.”

“But—” She bit back her worry. Her son wasn’t a child to be fussed over, yet she had a lifetime of nurturing reflexes that made her want to coddle and cuddle him. “Coffee, too. Just the way you like it.”

“Hot as hell and twice as bitter,” John said unhappily. “Whoopee.”

Diana stood on tiptoe and kissed her husband’s mustache. “I made a second pot for you.”

Dan heard his mother giggle like a teenager behind him and knew that his father was nibbling on her neck. Dan smiled slightly, almost sadly. The older he got, the more he wondered if he’d ever find a woman or if—as he suspected—he was better suited for living alone.

With a stifled groan, he eased himself into the chair that was pulled up close to the old woodburning stove. Piñon crackled and burned hotly, scenting the air almost as much as the food bubbling on the stove itself. He dragged off his coat and hung it over the back of the chair. The black turtleneck he wore under his denim shirt was made of a high-tech cloth that breathed when it was hot and held heat when it was cold. At least, that was the theory. There was always an uncomfortable time before the cloth decided what it should do.

Right now, he was hot enough to think about going back out to the garage.

“So, did you see Mrs. Rincon on your walk?” Diana asked John.

“Didn’t go that way.”

“Ah, then you saw Señor Montez. How is his gout?”

“Didn’t go that way either,” John said.

Diana paused in dishing up soup. “No? At least you saw the Millers. Is their newborn—”

“We didn’t go there,” John interrupted.

Dan waited tensely for his mother to ask where they had gone.

She didn’t. Sometimes she could be just as tight-lipped with her family as she was with everyone else except children. She set the food out in front of her men and went to stir the fire.

Dan looked at the rigid line of his mother’s back and sighed. She didn’t have to ask where he’d been. She knew. He didn’t understand how she knew, but he was used to that. He’d inherited her fey ability to take a few words here and an expression there and come up with a conclusion that left other people wondering how he’d seen what they hadn’t. It was a gift associated with curandero blood, with natural healers, but Dan had never felt any call to herbs or potions.

“Mom,” he began unhappily.

“No.” Her voice was flat. She reached in her pocket for a tissue and held it to her nose. A spot of red appeared. Then another. The dry winter air always made her nose bleed. Not much, just enough to be annoying. She tipped her head back and pressed hard. “I will not hear the name of evil spoken in this house.”

“He was just a—”

“He was evil,” Diana cut in, crossing herself. “Do not say his name in my presence.”

“He was your grandfather,” Dan said.

She tilted her head forward, felt no more blood, and stuffed the tissue in her pocket. After she washed her hands, she picked up a plate of steaming tortillas and set them down in front of Dan with enough force to make them flutter.

Silence.

“Men do evil things,” Dan said, “but they’re still human.”

Silence.

“He was my great-grandfather. I wanted to…” Dan’s voice died. “I don’t know what I wanted. I just knew I had to go.”

“You did and it’s done,” Diana said. “Now eat.”

Dan glanced at John. His father had a worn, unhappy look on his face, the same look that came every time the subject of the Senator arose.

How can Dad stand living with her pain, with the ingrained fear of the past that lives beneath her silence?

For some people, time healed. For his mother, time made everything worse.

Abruptly Dan stood up, tired of dodging around family taboos and ignoring the dark, bitter currents that flowed deep beneath his mother’s quiet surface. His leg protested the sudden change of position, but held with little more than a sharp reminder of injury. The high, clean air of Taos was doing more to heal him than all the hospitals, surgeries, and medications had.

“Silence won’t make it go away,” Dan said in a level voice. “If it did, you’d be free. Why let a cruel old man ruin the rest of your life the same way he must have ruined your mother’s?”

“What happened to sleeping dogs and land mines?” John asked his son roughly. “Eat or take a walk.”

“Shit,” Dan said under his breath.

“You’ll not swear in your mother’s presence.”

“Sorry, Mother,” Dan said neutrally. “I keep forgetting that reality isn’t welcome here.”

“Daniel.” John’s voice was a warning.

Dan lifted his coat off the back of the chair and said to his father, “Call me when you want to get that tractor running.”

He closed the back door carefully and told himself he couldn’t hear his mother weeping.

But he could.

QUINTRELL RANCH
SUNDAY AFTERNOON

ANDY QUINTRELL V REACHED FOR ANOTHER BEER
,
ONLY TO HAVE HIS FATHER TAKE
the can away.

“You need to sober up,” Josh said.

“Why?” Andy waved his hand casually. “Not a camera in sight.”

“Winifred’s pet historian has cameras and her digital recorder is always on.”

“Who cares?”

Anne Quintrell walked into the kitchen. “I do. Your father does. You
should.
”

“Because you want me to be a senator when I’m thirty?” Andy belched richly, legacy of the two beers he’d drunk without a pause. “What about what
I
want, huh? What about that?”

Anne smoothed back hair that was already perfectly in place. “What do you want?”

“To get laid.”

Disgust flickered over Anne’s face.

Josh laughed roughly. “A real chip off the old block, aren’t you?”

“Hey, Granddad humped everything he saw and he spent his whole life being reelected.”

“That was then,” Josh said. “Today that kind of womanizing won’t fly at the polls.”

“Fuck the polls.”

“It’s about the only thing you haven’t jumped,” Anne said tiredly. “Why can’t you just keep it zipped?”

Andy rolled his eyes. “Spoken like a nun.”

“Then get married,” Anne said. “The Meriwether girl would be an excellent wife.”

Andy made retching sounds. “I’ve seen better-looking dog butts. Just because her father’s a senator doesn’t make her hot.”

“Hot?” Casually Josh reached out and jerked his son to his feet. “Listen to me, Andy, and listen good. I’ve had it with your hyperactive dick.”

“Josh—” Anne began.

“Not now,” Josh said without looking away from his son. “You have two choices. Grow up or sign up for the Marines. They’ve made men out of sorrier boys than you.”

Andy closed his eyes. “Not another lecture on the value of serving your country.”

“No lecture. Just fact. I’m through supporting you and I won’t let your mother give you so much as a dime.”

Andy’s eyes snapped open. What he saw in his father’s eyes made him cold.

Josh nodded. “That’s right. This is the end of the line. The Senator kept seeing himself in you, kept smiling at the thought of you drinking and screwing your way through life.”

“He understood me,” Andy said.

“He’s dead. Times change.” Josh let go of his son. “Change with them or get your spoiled ass out of my life.”

Andy looked at his mother.

“No,” Josh said. “She can’t help you. The Senator who understood you so well left everything to me.”

“How will it look if you simply throw out your only child?” Anne asked quietly.

“I’ll pay for rehab in Santa Fe. After that, he’s on his own.”

“Rehab?” Andy said. “You’re crazy. I’m not an alcoholic or—”

“If you refuse rehab,” Josh interrupted, “I’ll give a more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger interview to Jeanette Dykstra for her sniggering TV show. There are more parents out there with screwups for kids than solid citizens. If anything, my standing in the polls will go up.”

“That’s all you care about!” Andy shouted. “That’s all you’ve ever cared about!”

Josh shrugged. “And all you care about is getting laid. So what?”

A volatile mix of tears and rage shimmered in Andy’s eyes. He pushed past Josh and slammed out the back door of the kitchen.

“He has an appointment in Santa Fe with the New Day Clinic on Monday at ten o’clock,” Josh said to his wife. “If he doesn’t keep it, he’s on his own.”

“But this is so…sudden,” she said, shaking her head.

“Only for you. I’ve been ready to throw him out for ten years. But if I so much as lectured Andy, he’d go crying to you or the Senator.”

“But Andy’s so young,” she whispered.

“Men his age have fought and killed and died.”

“You say that like you approve.”

Josh swore wearily. “We’ve had this conversation too many times. Andy either cleans up his act or I’ll cut him loose. Conversation over.”

“The king is dead, long live the king, is that it?”

“That’s it.”

Tears magnified her eyes. “I’ll divorce you.”

He smiled slightly. “No you won’t. You want to be first lady as much as I want to be president. You’ve worked and sacrificed for that goal all our married life. You won’t throw it away because a spoiled child pitches a fit.”

Two tears slid down her cheeks. She didn’t want to agree with him, and she knew that he was right. “You know me too well.”

“That’s what it’s all about. Knowing people. When you know what they want, you have them by the short and curlies.” He finished his coffee and set the cup aside. “I’ll be in the Senator’s study going through papers.”

She sighed. “Need any help?”

“I’ll let you know if I do.”

But before he let anyone read over his shoulder, he’d be certain that the Senator had died without confessing his sins in a private journal.

QUINTRELL RANCH
SUNDAY EVENING

CARLY WALKED DOWN A HALLWAY IN THE OLD CASTILLO HOME
.
WITH EACH STEP SHE
murmured into her lapel, where she wore a nearly invisible microphone that was attached to a digital recorder at her waist.

“I wish the walls could talk,” she said quietly.

The walls in question were adobe, more than two feet thick at the base, and older than the United States. At least, one of the walls was that old; it had once held up the front of the original Castillo ranch house. The other walls dated from the first quarter of the nineteenth century, when the Castillo in residence had been favored by the new nation of Mexico. With the new duties and authority came prosperity. The rectangular shape of a gracious Spanish-style home had been built around a courtyard alive with fruit trees and the silver dance of fountains.

From what Carly had discovered, the Castillos’ enviable position had lasted only two decades, until New Mexico was ceded by Mexico to the United States after the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Then the customs of the Spanish, the Indians, and their culturally mixed children known as
genizaros
had bowed before the onslaught of Navajo raiders, Kit Carson, and land-hungry citizens from the eastern coast of the young, brawling United States.

“It seems so long ago to me,” Carly said in a soft voice, running her fingertips over the much-plastered surface of the adobe wall. “But it isn’t. Winifred’s grandmother lived through it.”
What would it be like to know who your grandparents and great-grandparents were, what they felt, how they’d lived?

But that was one thought Carly didn’t murmur into her microphone.

“The Castillo family, or some member of it, continuously occupied this house since it was built,” she continued. “Then, after the new house was built by the Senator and his wife, the old house became basically a guest quarters. From the look of the furnishings—antique and in reasonably good condition except for the dust—the guest house hasn’t been used very much.”

She continued down the hall, then hesitated at the door leading to the central courtyard. “It’s an odd feeling to see wooden doorsills worn concave by the passage of generations, doorways so small that I feel like ducking when I go through them, and I’m barely five foot four inches. Good food, good medicine, and suddenly bigger people are born to each generation.”

With a hard tug, she opened, then pushed the door shut behind her. As she hurried across the courtyard, a few dead leaves lifted on the wind, curling around her ankles like a cold cat. She could have stayed warm by taking the longer route through the hallway-gallery that ran along the inner side of the rectangular house, but she felt the need for fresh air.

Winifred might have invited her to live in the old place while she worked on the Quintrell history, yet Carly had the uneasy feeling that everyone else would rather she went home.

When she’d arrived, the guest quarters weren’t fit for a rat—which according to one of the maids, the ranch had plenty of. Winifred had been furious about the state of the guest quarters because “everyone knew” Carly was coming today. Rather than being apologetic about the oversight, the maids were surly, saying they hadn’t been warned that the guest was coming a month early. Carly had overheard the maids talking flawless English with Winifred, but when it came to the forgotten guest, the language of the day was Spanish.

Carly had started to respond in kind, then decided she could play the
yo no comprendo
game. So if Carly lacked something in the guest quarters—toilet paper for instance—she went to the main house and got it or asked Winifred to tell the maids what was needed. It was cumbersome, but worked well enough once Carly understood the game. The towels and sheets she’d requested were even clean, if old enough to vote.

Besides, eavesdropping on the blond hispana maid and her buddy was just another way to fill in the gaps of the local story. At least Carly hoped it would be. The tirades and weeping about Alma’s no-good exfelon boyfriend were better suited to TV daytime drama than the Quintrell family history.

The door leading into the entrance hall of the guest house from the courtyard didn’t respond to Carly’s key. She tried again, eyed the sagging doorframe, and gave the door a judicious thump just below the lock. The door opened obediently.

Wonder if the same trick would work on the maids.

Smiling slightly, Carly pulled the door shut behind herself, discovered that the lock was broken, not stubborn, and shrugged. The old house wasn’t exactly a magnet for visitors or thieves.

The front gallery was well rubbed and clean beneath the dust, telling Carly that the neglect was relatively recent.

“Wonder if the hired help used the Senator’s illness to slack off,” she said into the microphone. “I’m getting the feeling that Winifred doesn’t have much clout around here. That could be a problem. If the living aren’t willing to cooperate, I’ll be stuck with photos and newspaper files and such. Oh well. Won’t be the first time.”

Unlike the other doors in the house, the openings leading into the outer world made a grand statement—huge double doors with a beautiful handmade wrought-iron bar thrown across the eight-foot width to secure the opening. The bar’s grip was worn smooth by the countless times someone had grabbed it and moved it aside. The lock on the front doors was ancient and worked better than any modern lock in the house. The big skeleton key she’d been given turned easily and smoothly in the lock.

Carly hesitated, then shrugged and locked the door again behind her. Wind swept down from the cloud-shrouded peaks. She pulled her wool jacket more closely around her. The weaving was from the town of Chimayo, a place renowned for the quality of its wool garments. Bright, distinctive Southwest designs covered the jacket. The wool was thick and heavy, but no longer stiff. She’d worn the jacket for years and would wear it for years more. Chimayo weavings were made for the long run by people who understood the climate of northern New Mexico and southern Colorado.

The new house was a few hundred feet away. If dead or dormant plants were any indication, the pathway between the houses wound through a kitchen garden, a rose garden, and a family orchard. At the moment, everything that wasn’t white with snow was brown and ragged.

“Note: Ask Winifred for photos and/or memories of the garden in spring and summer and fall. In the right seasons, it must have been a favorite place for parties and quiet breakfasts.”

Carly ducked her head against the wind and moved as quickly as she dared with ice hiding under some patches of snow. Her shoes were sleek and leather and totally wrong for the outdoors at seven thousand feet in the winter. When she was more familiar with the intimidating Miss—
not Ms.
—Winifred, Carly would wear more casual shoes. Until then, it was leather shoes and wool slacks and cashmere turtlenecks under one of the three jackets she’d brought.

The new house had a sweeping modern design with a wall of triple-paned glass facing the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, which rose almost seven thousand feet above the Taos Valley floor. The layout of the house suggested a boomerang with the outer edge made of glass and the inner edge enclosing two sides of the patio with its zero-edge pool shimmering with concealed lights. Off to one side, connected by a glassed-in walkway, was an apartment once used by visiting dignitaries and now home to Pete and Melissa Moore.

“Interesting,” Carly murmured into the microphone. “Most people cover their pools in winter. Wonder if there’s a story behind that, or if it’s just an oversight because of the Senator’s long decline.”

The shorter side of the boomerang enclosed Miss Winifred’s suite and the specialized accommodations for her sister, Sylvia Quintrell, the Senator’s widow. Not that Sylvia knew she was a widow. She hadn’t spoken to anyone or otherwise acknowledged her surroundings since the 1960s.

“Note: See if there are any movies or videos of Mrs. Quintrell before her illness.”

Carly crossed the patio, skirted the pool, and arrived at Winifred’s door on a blast of wind that rocked her. She lifted the antique knocker—an upside-down horseshoe, to hold all the luck inside—and rapped three times.

No sound came from inside the house.

She waited, shivering in the wind. She’d decided to knock again, harder, when the door opened. Alma’s angular, aloof face appeared in the narrow opening. The maid didn’t say a word.

“Miss Winifred is expecting me,” Carly said.

Alma hesitated just long enough to make Carly angry before she stepped out of the way and grudgingly allowed the guest inside. Alma looked mussed and irritated, as though she’d been interrupted in the middle of some important task.

“You’d be much more attractive if you’d smile,” Carly said pleasantly in the language Alma acted as if she didn’t understand. “Perhaps if you smiled more, you’d be married.”

Alma’s eyes narrowed slightly, telling Carly what she already knew: the maid understood English quite well.

“But not all women are suited for marriage, are they?” Carly continued in the same friendly voice. “Though it’s a pity you don’t have Miss Winifred’s resources. Being a housemaid at seventy sounds quite bleak.” Carly’s sympathetic smile was all teeth.

Alma was forced to smile and nod in return, the timeless response of someone who didn’t comprehend a language—or wanted to appear not to understand.

“Very good,” Carly said. “You’re quite pretty when you smile.”
For a bitch.

The maid turned abruptly and led the way through a living room, past a small kitchen-dining area, and through the double doors that combined Winifred’s bedroom with her sister’s rooms. With a curt gesture, Alma turned and walked away, her spine straight and her dark slacks rumpled.

Carly took in the room with a glance. Sylvia Quintrell was a slight, motionless mound beneath the blankets of a hospital bed. An IV dripped fluid and medicines into her body. A feeding tube lay concealed beneath the blankets. The bed was positioned so that its occupant could look out over the patio gardens and pool. The murmur of Jeanette Dykstra’s muckraking talk show
Behind the Scenes
came from an old TV set.

The room was hot enough to grow orchids.

Winifred sat in a leather recliner next to the bed. She was wearing black—blouse, jacket, slacks, and shoes. It wasn’t out of respect for the recently dead Senator. Black was simply her preferred color.

Her eyes were closed and her right hand was wrapped around her sister’s slack fingers. An old, heavy Indian turquoise ring and matching cuff bracelet rested uneasily on her lean hand and wrist. The silver gleamed with the soft patina of constant use.

Slowly Winifred opened her eyes. They were dark, full of emotions. Carly wondered if the older woman would be willing to share those emotions with the family historian she’d hired, apparently over the protests of the rest of the Quintrells.

“Sit down,” Winifred said, gesturing toward an overstuffed chair. “Take off your jacket.” She leaned forward and fed a chunk of piñon into the fire. “I keep the room warm for Sylvia.”

Gratefully, Carly peeled off her jacket and hung it over the arm of the chair. “Thank you.” She looked toward the bed. “How is she today?”

“Same as every day.”

Right,
Carly told herself.
For now, I’ll shelve the topic of Sylvia Quintrell.

Winifred shifted the recliner lever so that the chair supported her legs. The soles of her sturdy shoes were scuffed and worn. Her skin was pale beneath its normal olive color. She looked exhausted and determined in equal measure. Breathing seemed to be an effort.

“We could do this tomorrow,” Carly said. “The funeral must have tired you.”

Winifred waved a gaunt hand, dismissing the younger woman’s concern. “I’m fine.”

Carly twisted the microphone pickup so that the tiny head was pointed toward Winifred. The sound quality would be uneven, depending on who was speaking, but she was used to that. She opened her laptop, called up the Quintrell file, and prepared to type as needed.

“You’re aware that my recorder is on?” she asked.

“You told me that whenever I saw you I should assume I’m being recorded,” Winifred said. “I have a good memory, Miss May. I don’t need any fancy gadgets to tell me what I heard a few hours ago.”

Neither did Carly, but the recordings sure saved arguments over who said what and when.

“I envy your memory,” Carly said, checking that the computer was ready to go. She had a digital camera, too, but didn’t want to start taking pictures until everyone was more at ease with her.

“Where do you want to start?” Winifred asked.

“That depends on what you want to accomplish. How far do you want to trace the Quintrell history—”

“I don’t give a tinker’s damn about Quintrell history,” Winifred cut in. “It’s Sylvia’s and my history I want preserved. We go back a lot farther than the Quintrells. I traced us back all the way to Ferdinand the Great.”

“Fascinating,” Carly said, trying not to sigh. Most connections to distant, famous ancestors were wishful thinking. Modern descendants weren’t happy to hear that their illustrious family tree existed only in some dead grandparent’s mind. “Do you have documentation?”

“My mother got it from her mother, who got it from her father’s sister, who was told by her mother.”

“I see. Anecdotal evidence is always a lively part of any family history,” Carly said carefully. “Physical evidence, such as land grants, marriage and birth registers, military records, church—”

“I have them, too,” Winifred interrupted curtly. The hand wearing the turquoise ring waved in the direction of a huge antique desk. “All the way back to the seventeenth century.”

Wonderful,
Carly thought with no enthusiasm at all.
That leaves a gap of six hundred years before we get to the eleventh century and Ferdinand the Great.

Carly typed quickly on her laptop computer. “I’m eager to go through those papers, but I’m unclear as to what you want me to do. How far back in time do you want my narrative of your ancestors’ lives to go?”