Always Time To Die (16 page)

“So some of the men in those photos who look like death masks probably were?”

“Dead?”

“Yes.”

She nodded and began photographing the tintype, talking as she worked. “Mortuary photos or funerary photos or whatever you call them had quite a vogue. They were a way to unite families separated by miles that couldn’t be covered any faster than a horse could gallop or a ship could sail.”

He glanced sideways at Carly. She was wearing jeans and one of his old sweatshirts, no makeup, barefoot, clean white cotton gloves on her hands, wielding a high-tech camera, and talking matter-of-factly about the great American taboo—death.

“Not that they didn’t pretty up death,” she added. “The family corpses were washed and dressed in their finest for the photographers. The only time death was taken head-on was with posthumous photos of criminals. Then the bodies were just propped up so that the camera could record the bullet holes and the faces. Proof of death, as it were. Much easier than hauling a corpse all over the West to claim a Dead or Alive reward.” She put her fists into the small of her back and stretched. “Same for hangings. Photo cards of executed outlaws were real moneymakers for some photographers.”

Subtly Dan shifted in his chair, easing his healing leg into a new position.

Carly saw the motion. “Maybe we should take a break.”

“I’ve got another two hours before I get restless.”

“But your leg—”

“Is fine.” He held his hands over the keyboard. “What’s the next image?”

She swallowed her objections and picked up the next tintype, describing the presentation case, background, and other pertinent aids to dating. “Same woman, different mourning dress, different baptismal wrap for the child, who looks to be perhaps two months old. Dress is very flat down the front, cinched severely at the waist, and has a short train. Probably late 1870s.”

Dan typed in the description of the mortuary image. The next three tintypes were the same—only the style of the mourning clothes and the age of the dead child changed.

“Okay, that takes care of the deceased,” Carly muttered, taking a final photo. “On to the kids that made it.”

“Six dead children, none of them old enough to crawl. It’s a wonder that she survived,” Dan said. “You’re sure they’re all the same woman?”

“The black rosary dangling from her hands looks the same in each image. When I enhance it digitally, I’ll be certain.”

The next three tintypes were of living children, two girls and a boy. Even as a baby, the stamp of the first Andrew Jackson Quintrell came down in the son’s pale, brilliant eyes. His mother was in the shape of his jaw and the tiny ears.

“If you’re right and the woman is Isobel,” Dan said, “then the boy is A. J. Quintrell Junior. His sisters are…” He frowned and rummaged in his mind through old research, the kind that had made his mother so angry she didn’t speak to him for a week. “María and Elena, I think. Their birth would have been announced in the newspaper. Ditto for their death.”

“Do you remember any details? Winifred only talked about these,” Carly said, pointing to a swath of tintypes on the bed that looked very similar to the ones they had just recorded.

He shook his head. “Mom never talked about her immediate parents, much less her great-greats.”

Carly made a frustrated sound. “No matter what Winifred wants to believe, this is part of her family, too.”

“She’s paying the bills.”

“Still, I don’t like doing a half-assed job.”

He gave her a slow sideways look. “I’m so glad to hear that.”

“Stop that.”

“Stop what?”

“Acting innocent and throwing out double meanings for me to trip over.”

“You trip and I’ll beat you to the floor.”

She tried not to laugh. She laughed anyway. “Focus, Dan. Focus.”

“I am.”

“Don’t focus on
that.
”

“What?”

“Sex.”

“I’m a man, honey. That’s like asking me not to breathe.”

What he didn’t say was that it was good to feel like a man again, instead of a bloodstained wraith raging at what couldn’t be changed. But if he mentioned that, his curious Carolina May would have a thousand questions, none of which he could answer.

Carly saw the change in Dan’s expression, dark again rather than amused, and wondered what he was thinking about. Not sex. She would have bet on it.

With a stifled sigh, she picked up a tintype from the group Winifred had agreed to talk about, and started describing it. When she was finished, she added the information she’d received from Winifred. “The date is January third, 1870. Juana Castillo married a third cousin, Mateo Cortéz de Castillo.” Carly picked up another tintype, described it, and said, “Two years later she died in childbirth. This image is of her dead.” Carly picked up the next tintype, described it, and said, “María, daughter of Juana. Mateo Cortéz de Castillo remarried two years after his wife’s death. All trace of him in the Castillo family history stops as of his remarriage. His descendants didn’t count, even if they were half siblings to María.”

“Clannish lot,” Dan said.

“To put it mildly. From what I’ve gathered, Winifred and her mother didn’t think much of Mateo. He’s the one who pretty much lost the farm to the Anglos. That’s why he married off his barely fourteen-year-old daughter María to Hale Simmons.”

Dan whistled. “Fourteen? Even in the bad old days, that’s a little young.”

“Hale was at least forty. The odd thing is that they didn’t have any kids for almost twenty-five years. Then Sylvia María was born in 1916.”

“So Sylvia’s daddy is over sixty-five before he starts fathering kids with the same woman he’s been living with for a quarter century?” Dan asked skeptically. “Sounds like María finally jumped the fence to look for sperm donors.”

“You want to suggest that to Winifred?”

“Why not? She’s the one who’s hell-bent on detailing the maternal family history. Does she think she’s descended from a long line of Mother Teresas?”

“Um, right. I’ll ask her, but it probably won’t matter to her anyway. Simmons isn’t a Castillo.”

“You have a point. So Winifred was born right after her sister?”

“If you think ten years is right away, yes.”

He did some fast addition. “Menopause baby?”

“It happens. That’s why there’s a name for it.”

“New boyfriend? Hale was likely too old to get it up, much less shoot anything but blanks.”

“I’ll be sure to ask Winifred,” Carly said dryly. “But there were some stillbirths along the way, so I’m guessing the boyfriend was a steady one.”

“If you want to be sure, find Hale’s grave, get some DNA, and see if me or my mother could be related to him.”

Carly thought quickly. “It’s been a long time since Hale died.”

“You’d be amazed at what the labs can do.”

“I wonder if Winifred would pay for the tests.”

“Forget her. I’ll pay.”

Carly stared at Dan. “Why?”

“Because if Winifred realizes that she can’t control the results of her family history, she’ll probably decide not to do it at all.”

Carly put her hands on her hips and faced him. “Oh, gee, thanks. Forget about digging up Hale. Nice to know you want me out of work.”

Dan stood before she could back up even half a step.

“What I want,” he said, his face very close to hers, “is to keep you from being the one screaming into a microphone.”

TAOS
VERY EARLY WEDNESDAY

DAN STRETCHED HIS LEFT LEG AND KNEADED MUSCLES THAT WANTED TO KNOT UP
. Walking and running he could do well enough, but sitting at a computer for hours at a time was guaranteed to make his leg ache. He glanced over the summary of his report and hit the send button, letting people in D.C. know that Colombia was going to hell in a handbasket. Again. Maybe Colombia’s staggering government could pull the country out of the mire created by drug money and illegal armies. Maybe the World Bank could pump in enough legal money to keep things afloat for a while.

But nothing would replace the middle-class professionals and the upper class whose wealth and talents were hemorrhaging out of the country at a chilling rate.

Greed, the engine of the global train wreck.

He hoped his report made a difference in the speed of U.S. and world reaction to Colombia’s rapidly developing crisis. Nobody needed another failed state. Nobody benefited from it but the crooks at the top, the ones that rode the body politic right into the ground, murdering the competition and grabbing money with both hands as long as the ride lasted.

Thinking about it didn’t make Dan’s leg feel any better.

So think about Gus’s kids smiling and laughing. Soon they’ll be over the flu and running around, bursting with health and intelligence, well fed, well loved, well educated, and ready to take on the world.

Fuck the politicians.

It’s the kids that keep me trying to salvage something from the train wreck.

Quietly, efficiently, Dan shut down the computer, disconnected the box that automatically encrypted outgoing material and decoded incoming messages, and stored the machine in its titanium nest.

There was no sound from beyond the closed bedroom door, where Carly slept. At least Dan hoped she was sleeping. Thinking about her lying awake and alone in the living room would keep him awake and restless.

Don’t forget the bone.

How could I? The evidence is right there in front of me.

Two dogs barked in the darkness, from the direction of the Rincon house. The barks rose in savagery and then shut off at a shout.

Dan waited, listening for whatever had set off the dogs. He didn’t hear anything but the settling of piñon logs in the fireplace beyond the bedroom. Wind sighed over the roof and cried in the cottonwood’s massive branches. Moments later the dogs started barking again, drawing another irate shout from their owner.

Something is upwind of the house. The dogs bark every time the wind blows.

Suddenly glass shattered in the living room and something thumped to the floor. Alarms went off everywhere.

Dan was on his feet and in the living room before the missile stopped skidding across the wood floor. He saw instantly that it was an adobe brick, not a gasoline or pipe bomb. An envelope was tied to the brick.

Ignoring it, he went to the alarm panel in the living room and shut off the noise.

The neighbor’s dogs were going nuts.

“What’s going on?” Carly’s voice was hoarse with adrenaline and being yanked out of deep sleep.

“Don’t get up. I mean it, Carolina May. Stay put.”

She didn’t move, held in place more by the quality of his voice than his words.

He crossed back to his bedroom, knelt by the titanium case, and quickly went through the locks. This time he didn’t pull out a decoder.

The Desert Eagle didn’t shine with chrome. It was matte finish, dark, and all business. The weight of the weapon told Dan what he already knew—it was loaded. With automatic motions he released the safety and held the gun down along his leg. Quickly, silent but for the faint crunch of glass beneath his shoes, he went back across the living room and stood to the side of the broken window.

Moonlight poured into the living room through the torn curtains. He stared out at the front of the property. Nothing moved except a black shape speeding away down the road.

Someone was running without lights.

“Dan?” Carly’s voice was a whisper.

“Not yet.” His voice was low, pitched to reach only her. “I think he’s gone, but I want to be sure. Don’t move from your bed until I get back.”

“But why should you be the one to…” Her voice died as she spotted the gun held against his leg. “Oh.”

He tossed his cell phone to her. “Call 911. My house is in the county’s jurisdiction.”

She grabbed the phone out of the air and began punching in numbers. “You’re really going to have to tell me about your job,” she muttered.

He went out the kitchen door without saying anything. The night was bright and clean and icy. The faint smell of a badly tuned gasoline engine lingered on the air.

If Dan had thought he was the target, he would have taken a long, careful time going around the house and narrow lean-to. But Carly was the target and he wanted to wrap his fingers around someone’s neck. He went through the motions of a search with a speed that would have appalled his Special Ops trainers. But then, as he’d told them every day of training, he was a scholar, not a soldier, and there was no way they could turn him into a lean, mean killing machine.

All Dan found was a blurred set of tracks going from the road to the frozen front yard and back again. The combination of half-melted and then refrozen snow and mud didn’t offer much in the way of information. The person hadn’t been a giant or a midget, and hadn’t worn spike heels or anything that left a distinct impression.

He put the gun on safety and jammed it into his jeans at the small of his back. It wasn’t comfortable that way, but it wouldn’t wander.

“It’s okay, Carly,” he called out. “But stay in bed anyway. There’s glass all over and it’s damned cold.”

He went to the lean-to, found some old fence posts, and brought them into the house.

Carly watched in silence while he nailed the posts over the broken window. He wielded the hammer like a man with vengeance on his mind. The butt of the big handgun showed against his shirt.

Moonlight glittered through broken glass and vertical posts.

“Looks like a jail,” Carly said.

He smiled rather grimly. “It won’t do anything for the warmth, but it will keep out visitors. I’ll get some plywood in the morning.” He really looked at her for the first time. She was pale in the moonlight, almost ghostly. She was holding what looked like a greeting card. Her hand trembled. “You okay, honey?”

“Sure. Why wouldn’t I be? People throw bricks through my windows all the time. And leave dead rats, and trash my car, and scream at me over the phone, and…” She swallowed hard, trying to remove the adrenaline huskiness from her voice. “Outright death threats are still new. They’ll take some getting used to.”

He crunched through the glass and sat on his heels beside the inflatable mattress. Silently he took the card from her hand. It was a standard greeting card, available in any store. The front said:
I’VE BEEN MEANING TO TELL YOU
…

He opened the card. The action triggered the tiny recorder that was part of the card. A voice whispered,
“Get her out of town before she dies.”