Your Next Breath (26 page)

“Uncle?”

“Kelly was intrigued by the amount of time Eduardo spent with his Uncle Francisco in the hills. It was one of her ‘dots.’ She was having Venable check on him. But after I found out about Maggi-Peron, I called Venable myself. I’d just got off the phone when I came down to talk to you.”

“And the uncle was a doctor, too?”

“A pathologist. Brilliant and well respected in the small town where he served as coroner. But very little social contact, no published papers. He was said to be devoted to his nephew and was teaching him the family business.”

“And that was?”

“He also had the only funeral home in town.” She paused. “A business that had been in the family for almost a hundred years. It was a nice little funeral home, and he was very competent. So were his father and grandfather and great-grandfather, but, of course, their reputations couldn’t compete with that of their distant cousin in Buenos Aires. Everyone knew that Dr. Pedro Ara was a pathologist without peer.” She nodded at Eva Peron’s photo. “He was the one chosen to embalm Evita Peron, the spiritual soul of Argentina.”

“And I understand he did a fantastic job with very unusual methods for the time.”

“Alcohol in the heel and neck. He and his assistant worked all night for perfect preservation. Which didn’t please Peron’s political foes. They would just as soon have tossed her in a ditch. They couldn’t touch Dr. Ara, but there was a certain amount of persecution leveled at those close to him, including the Montez branch of the family. Particularly in less civilized towns in the hills. Deaths. Beatings. That’s why the Montez clan made sure they never were exposed to the limelight again. They’d learned their lessons.”

“But not enough to close up shop and stop embalming their clients evidently.”

“Tradition … and the desire to prove they were as good or better than Dr. Pedro Ara and his world-famous embalming of Eva Peron.” She grimaced. “And then Uncle Francisco found that Eduardo was an even more brilliant doctor than Ara. He set out to train him to develop even more innovative procedures and show everyone that the Montez branch outshone Ara in every way. When the family saw that Eduardo Montez had potential, I think they coached him, educated him, then helped him experiment and have his discussions with experts in the field. But you can’t do that in complete privacy. Someone must have talked when Santos was asking questions.” She added, “Or when Delores asked questions.”

“On what subject?”

“Delores was vain. She was incredibly beautiful and did everything possible with makeup, clothes, and minor surgery to make sure that she stayed that way. I think that she had a horror of being ugly even in death. Heaven knows she’d seen and caused enough deaths to know what that looked like.”

“Are you guessing?”

“Yes, but some of the places she visited might have been a search. She spent a lot of time in the tombs of Ancient Egypt and the Kremlin. Egypt might have been the first culture to work on preservation. Lenin is still wonderfully preserved in Moscow. It probably impressed her. What if she heard that Montez had developed an embalming procedure that was better than the one Dr. Ara used on Eva Peron?”

“Then, if she thought of herself as great a leader as Eva believed herself to be, she would have done anything to make sure she would have an even greater chance for many years of preservation.” He nodded. “She was truly that vain?”

“From what I know of her, from what Kelly has found out, I’d say that she would have stolen Lenin’s coffin if she thought she could have gotten away with it.”

“Instead, she went after Montez.”

“And he suddenly came into a lot of money and moved his entire family to Guatemala shortly after he met with Santos and Delores.”

“They paid him for what? I believe Delores was in fine health until you shot her.”

“Future insurance? Eva Peron had her entire funeral planned, down to having her hairdresser come in and bleach her hair after her death.” She saw his brows rise, and she said in exasperation, “I don’t
know.
How could I? It is guesswork.” Her hands clenched. “But I’m close, Hu Chang. I know I’m close.”

“I know you are, too,” he said quietly. “And I do enjoy watching you move toward your goals. It gives me great pleasure to—”

“I’m not trying to entertain you, dammit.” She leaned forward. “I came down here for help. Now I’ve told you what I know and—”

“Guess,” Hu Chang corrected.

“Guess. Now you tell me what you know, you arrogant bastard.”

“Well, I wouldn’t actually say ‘know,’ although my calculated surmises are much more scientifically based than any you’ve—” He held up his hand as she opened her lips. “I’m getting there. And I admit that your insight has filled in several holes in my theory of what Montez was working on.” He looked back at the photo of Eva Peron. “Poor woman, she was born a little too soon. Delores was much more fortunate.”

“Hu Chang.”

“Well, until you killed her. But even then she was planning on not letting that defeat her.”

“You mean those equations are for an advanced procedure for embalming and preservation?”

“Yes and no. Think about the degrees that Montez earned and how they could apply.”

“Medical, chemical, mechanical engineering, theology,” she said impatiently. “And I don’t want to think. Tell me. Yes and no. What’s the yes?”

“Yes, there are chemical formulas in his book that are brilliant and innovative and probably concern an amazingly noninvasive form of embalming fluid.”

“So I was right.”

He smiled.

“Okay, what’s the no?”

“He wasn’t satisfied with just going a few giant steps further than Dr. Ara did with Peron. He decided that he could do much more.” He paused. “Hence the degree in mechanical engineering. He wanted to address not only cosmetic preservation but something more permanent. Or not. Considering your beliefs. I found formulas using liquid nitrogen and a glycerol-based chemical protectant mixture. I’m almost sure that they were to be used as a cryoprotectant.”

“Cryoprotectant?”

“Human antifreeze,” he said bluntly.

Then she understood. “Cryonics,” she said. “Delores planned on being frozen after death in hopes of being resurrected later, when medicine could take care of whatever had killed her.”

“That’s usually the purpose of people’s choosing to be kept in cryogenic-storage facilities. There are many arguments about whether there would be too much damage to the body from the freezing or the chemicals injected. It appears that Montez may have been able to solve those issues.”

“He did? How do you know?”

“I studied cryonics at one time. Preservation of life always interested me.” He shrugged. “But then I gave it up and went another direction. Too sedentary for me. I prefer to extend the life of the living, not the dead.”

“But Montez came close enough so that it would have had an instant appeal for Delores and Santos?”

“I couldn’t confirm that without experimentation. But his calculations are definitely more promising than anyone else’s work I’ve studied.”

Excitement was surging through her as she realized the possibilities. “He would have been a dream come true for Delores. An advanced embalming cosmetic procedure that would have preserved her youth and beauty. A cryogenic innovation that might bring her back from the dead someday. Still young, still beautiful.” Her lips tightened. “Still the monster she was when I killed her.”

“All of the above,” Hu Chang said. “Santos probably promised Montez a fortune for setting up Delores’s last resting place.” His lips twisted. “Or perhaps not only Delores. Santos has sufficient ego and desire for self-preservation himself. Maybe it was also for him.”

“But where did Montez set it up?” She was frowning. “Montez said that he didn’t know where Santos had set up his new headquarters. Yet I’d bet that Santos would have wanted his Delores near him.”

“Montez lied?”

“I don’t think so.” She reached for her phone. “But preparations would have had to be made immediately after Delores’s death, so there would be no deterioration. Isn’t that right?”

“Yes.”

“So Santos wouldn’t have let her be taken to the morgue.”

“As I recall, he was relatively helpless at that particular moment.”

“Maybe not.” She remembered Montez saying that Santos had begun wheeling and dealing the moment he was arrested. She hadn’t thought anything of it at the time. She began dialing her phone. “I’m calling Venable and asking him just how helpless Santos was that day.”

“Don’t you ever sleep?” Venable asked sourly when he picked up.

“Listen. Directly after Santos was arrested, was he making deals with the police and political bigwigs?”

Silence. “Maybe.”

“You know. Tell me.”

“It wasn’t a bad deal. I’d have taken him up on it, too.”

“What was the deal?”

“He offered up the location of two warehouses with close to a billion dollars in drugs and the names of the distributors. The only thing he wanted was for them to immediately release the body of his dead wife to Dorgal. He said he wanted her cremated. Of course, they took the deal. What good was a dead Delores Santos to them?”

“And no one checked to see if she’d been cremated?”

“Why? She wasn’t important to anyone but him.”

“She’s important now. Thanks, Venable.” She hung up and turned to Hu Chang. “She was turned over to Dorgal immediately. Supposedly to be cremated. So if there were injections to be given, it could definitely have been done. He paid very highly for the privilege of making sure Delores didn’t lose her chance.”

“But Montez had to be involved at that point. Preparation of the body. Insertion into the cryogenic coffin. Even if all the advance preparations had been made, Santos would have insisted Montez do the final.”

“I know all that.” She rubbed her temple. “Or maybe I don’t. I’m not certain about anything about this. The only one who can give us the answers is Montez.”

“And he won’t do it.”

“He’s got to do it. He’s my only hope. I’ll have to talk to him again.” She grimaced. “Without Cameron. Cameron and he are not compatible.”

“And are you and Montez compatible?”

“More than Cameron. But I don’t understand him. He should fight Santos.”

“In a way, he is fighting him. Just by not doing as he wishes, by opting out of the deal he made with him. Not everyone is a warrior like you and Cameron.”

“Cameron calls him a pacifist.”

“Or merely a man struggling to keep his soul.”

“What?”

“The third advanced degree. Theology. A strange major for a man who is fascinated by science and chemistry. Or maybe not so strange when you think that bringing back the dead could be breaking God’s laws. A religious man might have a struggle to balance his ambition to strike new ground against his sense that he had sinned and could lose his soul.”

His words hit home. Yes, Montez had exhibited all the signs of a man in the throes of crisis. Not only the guilt of the killings of those close to him but the agony of wrestling with his conscience before God. “You believe he was trying to find moral answers even as he was working on
Maggi
?”

“Don’t you?”

“I guess I do.” She lifted her chin. “But I can’t let it matter to me. He’s got to help me any way he can.” She stared Hu Chang in the eye. “I asked him to let Santos capture him so that I could track him. I told him I’d keep him safe.”

“If you could.”

“I’d find a way to do it.” She moistened her lips. “I won’t let any more of the people I care about be killed by Santos. Even if I have to risk Montez. Let him wrestle with his demons after I kill the biggest demon of all.”

“Very practical. Very Catherine.” He chuckled. “Our Erin would suffer and agonize with him and try to find a middle ground.”

“Which is admirable. I don’t have time to risk agonizing with him. I have a son.” She added deliberately, “And I have you, Hu Chang. Neither one of you is going to die because Montez won’t cooperate.” She got to her feet. “We’ve got a better grasp on Montez’s problems and the reason he’s on the run. We have to assume that Delores Santos was never cremated and that Santos made Montez do what he was paid to do. But we still don’t know where Delores’s body is now. If she’s with Santos, we may have the key to find him. Now I’ll have to use it to get Montez to do what’s right.”

“You’re going back to Guatemala?”

“If it’s necessary. I planted a few seeds before I left Montez. I’ll see if they take root. But I can’t give him much time.” She had the desperate feeling that time was running out. “I’ll try calling him to make contact. Dario is keeping tabs on him. He’d let us know if he was in danger.”

“And will Cameron go with you?”

“Perhaps. He says that I’m where the action is.”

“And he doesn’t have enough action in his life?” Hu Chang asked dryly. “Look deeper, Catherine.”

She didn’t want to look deeper. She was having enough trouble keeping their surface emotions in check. She knew the solution was to refuse to be with him.

It was a solution she didn’t want to accept. Even though the competitive edge was always there when she was with him, she always felt safe. It was as if when they were together, nothing could beat them, nothing could take them down. And the excitement of dealing with the unknown was there every minute. Why give that up when he was always an asset in the trenches? “I’ll let him know what we’ve figured out. He’ll have to make up his own mind what he wants to do.” She headed for the door. “But not before I try to get a nap. It’s almost morning.”

“But a bright day dawning?”

She smiled over her shoulder. “At least, it’s not as dark as it was when I went to bed last night. Together, we’ve shined a little light, haven’t we, Hu Chang?”

“Always,” he said softly. “That goes without saying. From the moment you found me when you were fourteen, the light came and never left us.”

She stood there, looking at him, taking in the darkness and the light. Intelligence close to genius, wry humor, philosophy drawn from life and the study of the world’s cultures. She remembered that first time when she’d run into his apothecary shop and thought that she was saving him from a street gang. Perhaps she had saved him, but he had also saved her a dozen times in the following years. What was just as important as the salvation he had given her was the barrier against the loneliness. “I’ve never regretted that day.” She cleared her throat. “Let me know if you find out anything else from Montez’s manual.” She opened the door. “I’ll tell Kelly what we’ve learned so that she can fill in a few of her dots and concentrate on where Dorgal might have really been going when he was island-hopping in the Caribbean.”