Always Time To Die sk-1

by Elizabeth Lowell

  "Si. Yes," Lucia said.

  "I never ask where Alma gets her medicines," Diana said. "Ultimately, I suppose it is Armando."

  "Medicines." Dan's lips turned down. "Hell of a name for it."

  "The way I use opiates is medicine, just as it was before Anglo laws changed what was legal and what wasn't, but didn't change poverty and disease. Los curanderos exist because there is a need. We use what we have always used, the gifts of the land, poppy and peyote, morning glory and mushroom." Diana's dark eyes glittered with anger and impatience. "No Anglo law will change that."

  It was an old argument, one that wasn't going anywhere new, especially as Dan didn't really disagree.

  "The point is that someone put an overdose of opiates in the cups we all drank at the memorial service," Dan said.

  Diana's hand went to her throat. "But I heard it was the food."

  "No, it was an attempt to murder Carly or, maybe, me. Since no one has notified me about a new death threat, I have to assume Carly was the target. At least, until Armando tells me otherwise." Dan looked at Lucia. "Call him. Tell him to meet me at the Pico de Gallo in Las Trampas in half an hour."

  Chapter 39

  TAOS

  FRIDAY MORNING

  "WHY CAN'T I COME WITH YOU?" CARLY ASKED. "WHY SHOULD GUS HAVE TO RUN down and check on me every few minutes?"

  "Every half hour."

  "Whatever. You know what I mean. And I'm not talking about the archive babysitting rules."

  Dan looked at the woman standing in the middle of the crowded basement. Cold air filtered down the stairway through the gaps in the cellar door that was also part of the basement's roof. His leg felt like something was gnawing on it.

  He ignored everything but Carly. "The man I'm going to see is an international narcotraficante. I don't even want you in the same country with him, much less the same room. He's good for five murders on both sides of the border that we know of, and that doesn't include the poor illegals who died in the desert carrying forty-kilo backpacks of Mexican brown over the border in the middle of the desert. All those men wanted was a chance at a better life. What they got was death."

  Her chin came up. "I read the newspapers and watch TV. I know what happens."

  "But it doesn't happen to you. I want to keep it that way. I'll be back before lunch. If you aren't here, you'd better be in the office with Gus or with my parents."

  "Is that advice or an order?" she asked through clenched teeth.

  "Whatever works."

  When she would have argued, he distracted her by sticking his tongue in her mouth and kissing her until she softened and returned the favor. And the flavor. Slowly, reluctantly, he lifted his head.

  "Be here for me, Carolina May."

  "You're not playing fair."

  "I'm not playing at all."

  "Like I said…" She closed her eyes for an instant. "Okay, okay. You win."

  "No, we win."

  She watched him walk up the stairs and out into the overcast, snow-threatening day. The scars she had seen and touched on his leg this morning were red, barely healed; she knew they must hurt. Yet he refused to let it slow him down.

  In or out of bed.

  Don't go there, Carly told herself quickly. The man was way too distracting and she had a lot of work to do if she hoped to have a rough draft of Winifred's history in the next few weeks. Even if Dan came through with a bridge program to transfer material from microfilm to scanner to her computer, she would still be working sixteen-hour days to meet Winifred's new deadline.

  Mentally bracing herself, Carly went to the microfilm files. Somewhere in all those metal boxes was the answer to old questions and two very new ones.

  Who was trying to kill her?

  And why?

  Chapter 40

  LAS TRAMPAS

  FRIDAY MORNING

  SNOW LAY SPARSELY ALONG THE NARROW ROAD. THE HOUSING WAS A COMBINATION of cement block on the newer buildings and ragged, cracked adobe on the older ones. Both new and old buildings had tin roofs. House trailers of all ages and conditions hunched beside the uncertain protection of sagging wooden barns and outbuildings. Fences were made of willow posts and old boxspring mattress frames and discarded tires. Chickens and lop-eared mutts scratched out a living side by side in the cold mud.

  Occasional bursts of prosperity showed in houses covered by bright paint or brighter murals. Dan had parked near one of them. The long two-story building's ancient adobe bricks were hidden beneath a painting that combined the artistic traditions of Mexico's muralists with the flowing graffiti of barrio gangs. The result was darkly colorful and oddly menacing, a blunt statement that strangers weren't welcome.

  Dan had ignored it. The combination beer bar and taqueria was open, but as soon as he'd said he was Dan Duran and had come to talk to Armando Sandoval, everyone except the barkeep/cook had packed up and gone somewhere else. Dan wasn't surprised. He took his beer to a newly vacated table and waited. The room smelled of Mexican cigarettes, beer, fresh tortillas, and roasted peppers. The tables were like the men who had sat around them-dark, sturdy, and scuffed by use.

  Methodically Dan began emptying his pockets onto the table. As he'd left everything but keys and some money locked in the truck, it didn't take long. He toed off his boots, set them on the table, and took a sip of beer. It tasted like South America, thick and rich, earthy.

  Somewhere in the back of the building a door slammed. A minute later two men younger than Dan strode into the room. The first man was slim and dressed in black but for a belt with a solid gold buckle. There was a heavy diamond-studded gold cross hanging around his neck. The gun he carried was steel with silver and gold inlays. The briefcase was the same supple black leather as his jacket and pants. The second man wore jeans rather than leather pants. His gun was all steel and fully automatic. The blind muzzle followed Dan's heart.

  The barkeep went into the kitchen. He didn't come back.

  Without a word Dan stood up, held his arms out from his sides, widened his stance, and waited to be searched.

  The first man looked at the stuff on the table approvingly. "Senor Sandoval, he said you would understand."

  The second man stepped to the side where he'd be able to keep Dan under his gun without getting in the way.

  Dan watched with interest as the first man pulled a lightweight, very sensitive metal detector from the case. Cutting-edge and very expensive.

  Not a low-tech operation. No surprise there.

  Sandoval might use human mules for his heroin and pistol-whip people he didn't like, but when it came to conducting business he protected himself with the best technology money could buy.

  The man put the metal detector back, pulled out another piece of equipment, and all but combed Dan's hair and clothes with it down to and including shoving it inside his underwear.

  Wish I'd had this model in Colombia, Dan thought wryly. Bet I'd have found the bug before they used it to track me down. Then those kids wouldn't have been killed.

  But he wouldn't think about that. He needed to stay calm, businesslike, in control.

  The bug detector went back into the case.

  The final test was as old-fashioned as pistol-whipping-a thorough, slyly sexual pat-down that the slim man enjoyed more than Dan did.

  Dan knew the search was meant to be intimidating and humiliating. It failed. He'd been through a lot worse.

  "Bueno," the man said, taking Dan's boots and walking out of the room.

  Dan watched his boots disappear. "Careful with those. I just got them broken in."

  "Sit," said the second man, the one whose gun muzzle kept staring at Dan's heart.

  Dan scooped his keys and change off the table and sat.

  And sat.

  No impatience showed on Dan's face or in his posture. He leaned back, crossed his arms over his chest, and did a good imitation of falling asleep.

  Just one more part of the game.

  Armando must have had better things to do
than watch his caller sleep. After fifteen minutes he put an end to the nap by walking into the room. The gun in his shoulder holster was obvious enough. The gun in his boot less so.

  Dan spotted them both. He didn't react. He wasn't here for a fight and he doubted Armando was, either. The narcotraficante was simply doing the machismo dance so as not to lose respect with his men.

  He hadn't liked being told to meet Dan.

  Dan knew it, just as he knew that the pat-down by un pato had been Armando's revenge.

  "I am busy," Armando said. "What do you want?"

  The bluntness surprised Dan. He'd been expecting a lot of fencing, a lot of posturing. Armando must have a load coming or going right now.

  Not my problem, Dan reminded himself. Not this time. This time my only problem is keeping Carolina May alive.

  "I'm on medical leave," Dan said. "In other words, I'm not in New Mexico for any other than personal reasons. Personal, not professional. Tu comprendes?"

  Armando's thick black eyebrows rose at the use of the intimate address rather than the more formal Spanish.

  "Si." And his tone said that he wasn't buying it, not completely.

  "Did you tell Alma to put opiates in Sylvia's death toast?" Dan asked.

  Armando didn't even try to hide his surprise. Of all the questions he'd expected Dan to ask, obviously this wasn't even close. He looked at Dan and shook his head. "No."

  Dan believed him. "Do you know who did?"

  Armando shrugged. He didn't know and he didn't care. "Senorita Winifred is old. The old people make errors-mistakes. Even las brujas."

  Dan studied the other man. There was no nervousness, no shifting of feet or licking of lips, no unconscious gestures with his hands, no looking away. Either he was an uncommonly good liar or he was telling what he believed to be the truth.

  "Bueno," Dan said. "Do you have any professional or personal interest in Ms. Carolina May?"

  Armando frowned. "I no like her and Lucia." He lifted his shoulders slightly in a shrug. "But is a small thing, like a fly buzzing."

  A corner of Dan's mouth turned up. "Are your Colombian cousins still trying to kill me?"

  "In Colombia, maybe, but not here. Here I am el jefe. I say killing well-connected Anglos is bad for business."

  "Yeah. You'd be up to your lips in jalapenos real quick."

  "Si. New Mexico is not Colombia."

  Yet.

  And Dan was doing everything he could to keep it that way.

  Chapter 41

  TAOS

  FRIDAY NOON

  CARLY STRETCHED, THEN BENT OVER THE MICROFILM READER AND WENT BACK TO work on the articles about the death of Isobel Castillo Quintrell in 1880, when she was only thirty. Reading between the lines, Isobel had been worn out by marrying at fifteen, then bearing three live children, plus ten premature or stillborn babies in the next fifteen years.

  "They had methods of birth control then," Carly murmured into her recorder. "It must have been obvious what all the pregnancies were costing her. Why didn't… cancel that. She was a deeply religious Catholic wife."

  Carly read quickly, skimming for the facts she would need to recreate the funeral in print. " 'Predeceased by only sister, Juana de Castillo y Castillo, tragically lost during the birth of her first child in 1872.' Editorial comment: the Castillo sisters had a hard time with labor and pregnancy; maybe their parents married one too many cousins. Or maybe they married and started getting pregnant too early. Interesting. Wonder if there are any studies about the correlation between very young brides and wives dying very young."

  Her eyes searched the text, looking for names of people attending the funeral. There weren't any unfamiliar names, so'she went to the next item on her list and read, talking occasionally into her recorder. For the Castillo book, she would include reproductions of newspaper articles and images; she was already compiling a list for Dan to transfer.

  What she needed now was some sense of how close the children of the Castillo sisters had been.

  After two hours of reading, it was clear that major events-funerals, marriages, baptisms, Quinceaneras-were shared by first cousins. The generation after that there was more separation. They gathered for some funerals, but little else. The Quintrells became the backbone of the emergent gringo political system. The Castillo/Simmons/Sandovals stayed a fixture within the hispano community, making up a secondary, nearly parallel government. Instead of taxes, there was tribute. Instead of cattle, there was smuggling. Instead of English, there was Spanish and/or Indian languages.

  And through both cultures ran the same blood, the same genes, the same hopes and disappointments and joys.

  A feeling of excitement fizzed in Carly. She forgot the careful list she'd made and simply enjoyed the tapestry of family and New Mexico history that was condensing in her mind. This was what she loved about her job, the moment when the chaos of facts and questions stopped whirling around and settled into a pattern of family generations played out against a timeless land and a constantly changing culture. This was what she wanted to give to future generations of Quintrells and Castillos, an understanding that each person was part of a chain stretching back across the centuries and reaching out to the coming centuries. This was-

  The bang of the cellar door startled Carly out of her thoughts.

  "You're back early," she said without looking up from the reader. "Or is it Gus come to babysit me again?"

  "Keep guessing."

  Carly spun around and saw Sheriff Montoya standing six feet away.

  He didn't look happy to be there.

  She felt the same.

  "Good morning," she said coolly. "Or is it afternoon?"

  "Doesn't much matter. I understand you had some trouble out at the Quintrell ranch yesterday."

  Well, that's certainly blunt. "Trouble?" She shrugged. "Something didn't agree with me. I was sick."

  "What about your Siamese twin, Duran?"

  "He threw up, too." She didn't say any more. She didn't like the feeling of being grilled like a criminal about something she hadn't asked for and nearly hadn't survived.

  The sheriff took off his hat and smacked it against his thigh. Snow sifted to the floor.

  "Why didn't you tell me?" he asked curtly.

  "Since when do citizens report hurling to the local cops?"

  "You can't be as stupid as you sound, Ms. May."

  "Oh, you'd be surprised," Dan said from the stairway. "There's a big dose of stupid going around Taos right now."

  Montoya stiffened, then turned around to confront Dan. "You must have caught a double dose of it. What the hell were you doing with Armando Sandoval?"

  Dan whistled softly. "Quite the grapevine you have, Sheriff. Or did Armando tell you all by himself?"

  The sheriff didn't answer.

  Dan hadn't expected him to.

  "Well?" the sheriff asked.

  For the first time in years, Dan wished he had federal credentials again. A gold FBI shield was something the sheriff could understand. But all Dan had these days was a business card that read ST. KILDA CONSULTING. Below that was a toll-free telephone number.

  All things considered, Dan doubted that the sheriff was knowledgeable enough about the real world to be impressed by the card.

  "Nobody told me you were working on my turf," the sheriff said. "It purely pisses me off how arrogant you federal boys can be."

  Federal boys? Carly's eyebrows went up and her mouth stayed shut.

  "Nobody told you because I'm not working for the Feds anymore," Dan said.

  "Then why were you talking to Sandoval?"

  "Why do you care?"

  "Listen here-"

  "No," Dan cut in. "You listen. Until Armando Sandoval is proved in court to be a narcotraficante and a murderer, he's a citizen in good standing. What we have to say to each other is none of your business."

  The sheriff wanted to argue, but he had the losing side and he knew it. "You ever think I might be able to help?"

&nb
sp; "Not after the first round of complaints we filed and you forgot," Carly said behind him.

  A dull red showed on the sheriff's cheekbones beneath his toast brown skin. "I have enough problems with rich tourists," he muttered, not taking his eyes from Dan. "I don't need whining from a homeboy who sticks his nose in the wrong places and gets smacked for it."

  "Carly isn't a homeboy. She didn't deserve what happened to her."

  Sheriff Montoya looked over his shoulder at her. "Sounds like somebody wants you to leave."

  "Sounds like," she drawled. "Too bad this is a free country. I don't feel like leaving."

  The sheriff's dark eyes narrowed. "Ms. May, most times I'm lucky to have one deputy for every hundred square miles. That's how free this country is."

  "Is that a threat?" she asked.

  "It's a fact. That's why I don't have any patience with troublemakers, and there's trouble written all over both of you."

  "What? Armando Sandoval isn't trouble?" Carly asked in disbelief.

  "Armando Sandoval is the devil the sheriff knows," Dan said. "If it wasn't for Armando, there would be narcotraficantes killing each other until the next jefe chingon rose to the top of the cesspool and peace returned. With Armando in place, the sheriff knows there won't be any Taos County voters caught in the crossfire of a drug war, which means the citizens are happy, which means the sheriff is real likely to hang on to his job. It's win-win-win, except for the occasional outsider getting ground up between the gears of politics as usual."

  Carly grimaced, certain that she was the "occasional outsider" who was caught in the meat grinder.

  "You're a lot smarter than you used to be," the sheriff said calmly to Dan.

  Dan waited.

  "Now show me how smart," the sheriff said. "Take the little lady and go on a nice long vacation in the Bahamas."

  "Wait just a-" Carly began.

  "I don't have enough deputies to protect you if you stay here," the sheriff said, pinning her with a black glance. "By the time I get to the bottom of the rats and slashed tires and bad food, you could be badly hurt. Or dead."