Always Time To Die sk-1

by Elizabeth Lowell

  "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 ex-felon 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 TypeValley 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 he
sitated 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 pinon 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, de-pending 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?"

  Something unpleasant flared in Winifred's black eyes. It was in her voice, too, rough and nearly savage.

  Computer keys clicked softly as Carly's flying fingers took note of the dark emotion.

  "The original land grant was given to the husband of Ignacia Isabel Maria Velasquez y Onate before the Reconquista," Winifred said.

  Carly flipped through her memory of early Spanish history in the area that became New Mexico, and pulled out the date. "Late in the seventeenth century."

  "My ancestors held land in Taos before the Indians rebelled."

  "That's what makes this so exciting for me." Carly leaned forward with an eagerness she couldn't hide. "I love working with a family line that has roots deep in a state's history. Do you know the name of the original holder of the ancestral land grant?"

  "Juan de los Dios Onate."

  Carly wondered if the older woman knew that "de los Dios" most often meant a bastard child. De Jesus was another popular name for the fatherless. The custom came from centuries earlier when marriage was expected only of noblemen, but conception came to all classes of women. The luckiest of the noble bastards found favor with their aristocratic fathers. Apparently Juan de los Dios Onate had been one of the lucky ones. Land grants hadn't been handed out to people who didn't have influence with the Spanish court.

  "Do you-" began Carly.

  A sharp gesture from Winifred cut off the words. She leaned toward the bed, staring intently. Sylvia's head turned slowly toward the room. Her dark eyes were open, and as vacant as the wind.

  "What is it, querida?” Winifred said gently to her sister. "Did you hear the new voice? This is Miss Carolina May. She has come to write our family history. All of it." Winifred's smile was as predatory as her voice was soothing. "There will be justice, dear sister. On the grave of our mother the curandera, I promise this."

  Chapter 6

  TAOS

  MONDAY MORNING

  DAN SHUT THE WEATHERED DOOR OF THE TAOSMORNING RECORD BEHIND HIM. HE nodded to the receptionist-secretary whose improbable red hair defied the lines in her face. She'd worked for the Record longer than Dan had been alive and her hair color never changed.

  "Those better not be doughnuts," she said, sniffing the air hopefully. "My doctor told me to watch the sugar."

  "I never touch doughnuts," Dan lied, heading for the editor's door.

  "Huh. There's powdered sugar on your lips."

  "Oops. Snow. That's it-snow."

  Smiling, shaking her head, the woman went back to typin
g.

  Dan walked down the hallway. The uneven floor was the legacy of centuries of use and the random settling of the earth beneath the building. The door to the editor's office was ajar for the simple reason that the doorframe itself was warped.

  Gus looked up. As usual, there was a telephone pressed to his ear. He held up two fingers.

  Two minutes.

  Dan set the box of doughnuts on the desk, poured himself a mug of the black sludge Gus called coffee, and looked over the framed front pages in the editor's office. Except for those chronicling the Senator's career, and that of his son the governor, most of the biggest headlines were more than a century old. In Taos, not much in the way of banner headlines happened from year to year.

  The printing presses had arrived in the 1830s, and the Spanish newspaper that ultimately became known as the Taos Morning Record began. The Mexican governor made large land grants in 1842, with the major benefactors being Senor Baubien and Senor Miranda of Taos. Soon afterward, Lucien Maxwell married Baubien's daughter and set the stage for the Lincoln TypeCounty War. Kit Carson and Lucien Maxwell, both of Taos, scouted for John Fremont in the 1840s. The Mexican-American War flared in 1846. The Civil War rated a passing mention because it kept the newly created TypeTerritory of New Mexico from becoming a state. Billy the Kid and Pat Garrett played out their violent destinies in the 1880s. Statehood in 1912 rated a headline as big as the paper.

  After that, very little that was both local and newsworthy happened until the 1960s, when a ski resort was opened, the Senator's oldest son was killed in Vietnam and his other son injured, the hippies invaded Taos County, and a triple murderer was caught with a bloody knife. The fact that one of the women murdered was the Senator's wild-child daughter-a clinically designated pathological liar and a famous druggie-was discreetly mentioned, but not emphasized. Just one of three female bodies.

  Much more ink was given to the Senator's grief over the death of his oldest son and his dedication to discovering and celebrating the service history of every Taos TypeCounty veteran of the Vietnam War. Instead of lobbying for a memorial just for his son, the Senator dug into his own pocket and commissioned a statue listing the names of each Taos TypeCounty hero of an unpopular war.