Always Time To Die sk-1

by Elizabeth Lowell

  Dan nodded. It was what he did, too. Sometimes it helped, sometimes it just confused the issue more. Either way, it was a new wall to beat against.

  "What if we approach this a different way?" Carly asked slowly. "What if we assume that Winifred wasn't clinical on the subject of the

  Senator and'the Senator's son? So we assume there was a rational aspect to her hatred."

  Dan went still. "Go on."

  "What if we also assume that your grandmother was more than a pathological liar and an addict? That maybe she knew what she was talking about, at least some of the time? Again, a possible rational basis for her actions."

  His eyebrows lifted. "That's a stretch."

  "Wait."

  Carly went to the bedroom, returned with her recorder, and found what she wanted on the second try. Diana Duran's voice whispered into the room, followed by Dan's.

  "It's happening again."

  "What is?"

  "Evil. Death that shouldn't have been. My mother, screaming and laughing, then just screaming."

  "Why was she screaming?"

  "Because the dead walk among the living. I know this for truth. My mothers friend saw it. Susan. She told my mother and my mother told me. My mother saw the ghost of another man. A dead man walking, using the name of life. Two days later she was dead."

  Then Carly's voice, gently questioning, "What other man did she see?"

  "Cain."

  After a moment, Dan's voice asked another question.

  Diana's haunted voice answered. "I remember. I remember the exact words. They live in my dreams. Nightmares. She said, 'The dead walk and eat at my father's ranch. Cain lives and Abel is dead.'"

  Carly stopped the recorder. "The Senator had two sons to speak of."

  Dan looked at the envelope he still held. "And a lot he didn't speak of."

  "Is it possible that Josh killed his older brother?"

  Dan's eyes narrowed. He went to his computer, called up files, searched. "Not likely. The newspaper articles about the Senator's valiant sons in Vietnam make it clear that Josh wasn't there when the heir apparent was. In any case, there were witnesses to the older son's death. Viet Cong. He died saving the lives of his fellow rangers. If he'd survived, he'd have so many medals he'd have a hard time standing up straight."

  "Okay. So Cain and Abel aren't an exact description." Carly paused. "But what if one of the bastards-"

  "Somehow took the place of a legitimate son?" Dan cut in.

  "Yes."

  "How? When?"

  She fiddled with a strand of her hair. "It would have to be after Sylvia had her stroke, or whatever happened to put her in a coma."

  "Why?"

  "No way Sylvia would let the Senator put one of his bastards in the family line of succession."

  "I agree. Especially if she thought he was shagging their daughter."

  Carly winced. "Not to put too fine a point on it."

  "There's no nice way to talk about incest."

  She let out a breath. "You're right. I just find the whole idea hateful."

  "I'd be worried if you didn't." Dan kissed her gently, then released her, only to find she didn't let go.

  "I'm sorry," she said. "I forgot for a moment that your mother…"

  "Might be a child of incest?"

  Carly nodded.

  "That's no one's fault but the Senator's, and he's dead."

  Dan led Carly back to the work area they'd set up. They were using the bed as a table, the card table as a computer center, and various cowhide chairs as storage units for files. The floor took the overflow.

  "Okay," he said, feeling the excitement of the chase humming in his blood. Even if the ideas went nowhere, they went nowhere in new territory rather than trudging through the same old'same old. "Following your assumptions, the switch had to take place no earlier than Sylvia's stroke."

  "Unless the switch was what set her off so that she jumped the Senator," Carly said. "My point was simply that she wouldn't have sat still for it."

  "Agreed."

  Dan sat down in front of one of the three computers they were using-two were his and one was hers. He woke up his own, which had a much more flexible program for retrieving data than Carry's, and which now held everything about the Quintrell family that hers did. Plus the ranch records he hadn't told her about yet.

  "At that time," Dan said slowly, "Josh would have been about twenty-seven. Anyone doing a switch with him would have to be close in age and build. Probably no more than five years on either side, and an inch either way in height. Also, that person would have to have 'died' when the switch was made. So I'm looking for a male senatorial bastard who was between six feet and six feet two inches in height, and between twenty-two and thirty-two years old, who died a few years on either side of 1967. Death certificates don't give height, so I'll do the age thing first."

  He pulled out the CD Gus had left, fed it into the slot, and downloaded it. Very quickly he was querying his data pool.

  " Vietnam," Dan said after a moment. "Has to be."

  "Where he died?"

  Dan nodded. "And where the switch was made. If there was a switch."

  "If there wasn't, our assumption will fall apart pretty fast, won't it?"

  "You'd be surprised," he said absently. "Assumption is the mother of all fuckups and has many children."

  Carly watched the screen anxiously. "Remind me to steal this program from you."

  "I'll modify it just for you. For a price."

  She gave him a sideways glance, saw him watching her, and said, "It's a deal."

  "You don't want to know what the price is?"

  "If I can't afford it, I'll think of something. Or you will."

  "You're distracting me," he said.

  "Thank you."

  "I'll be damned," he said, looking at his computer.

  "Excuse me?"

  "There are five candidates who fit the profile. Nine if you go the full five years on either side of twenty-seven years old."

  Carly didn't know whether she was excited or dismayed. "That many?"

  "Those are only the ones who died or disappeared and are reasonably close in height. A lot more than nine males were born in the area in the search years."

  "They're all the Senator's?" she asked in a rising voice.

  Dan laughed. "No. There's just nothing to prove they aren't his bastards."

  "I feel better. I think. The Senator might yet give Genghis Khan a run for his money."

  "What do you mean?"

  "According to some genetic studies of Y-DNA in Asia, around eight percent of the population are direct patrilineal descendants of Genghis Khan," she said. "Compared to the average man, that's an astronomically successful rate of reproduction."

  "What was his secret?"

  "Rape and murder. Murder the men and boys, impregnate the women and girls, and move on. If the accounts passed down can be believed, he was, um, tireless on more than the battlefield."

  Dan's eyebrows lifted. "The things I learn hanging around with a naive genealogist."

  "Naive?"

  "Beautiful. Did I mention beautiful?"

  "Now I know that bullet caused brain damage."

  Before Dan could retort, he felt the brush of her lips against his temple. Distracting. Very distracting.

  "Candidates," he said out loud. "What other requirements would they need beyond dying or disappearing or-honey, if you keep breathing in my ear, you're going to be in my lap real quick, and I'm going to be in yours real deep."

  Carly straightened and stepped back from temptation. "Candidates. Um, age, death. Got that." She blew out a breath. "What about height, eye color, that sort of thing?"

  "Give me a minute."

  She went to her own computer, booted up the family pictures and descriptions, and brooded over them. AJ. IV had black hair like the Senator and dark eyes like his mother. Josh had black hair and blue eyes, a complete senatorial copy. Liza had blond hair and dark eyes. The sister who had
died of polio at nine had brown hair and blue eyes. Diana Duran had black hair and dark eyes. Dan had dark hair and the most amazing green eyes…

  Don h even start.

  Carly jerked her mind back to phenotypes. There certainly was a variety to choose from. Everything from black hair and dark eyes to blond and blue-eyed. No help at all.

  So she began thinking about why Pete and Melissa had to die. Who benefited?

  Their children, probably, but they were grown and living out of state.

  Carly's mind returned to the intriguing idea of an identity switch. Certainly the Senator must have known. Did he do it willingly, just to have his own genetic son inherit the land and the power, or did the impostor have something to hold over the Senator?

  Something like incest?

  Murder?

  Not that Sylvia had died, but she certainly had been a victim of assault.

  Carly pulled over a yellow pad and began thinking on paper. Who certainly knew about the incest. Who might have known. Who was still alive in the present that might threaten the governor-if indeed he was an impostor.

  The Senator and Liza certainly knew. Given Liza's instability, she might have told or hinted to her best friend that her father had raped her. Probably more than one rape. She started going wild at thirteen but didn't have Diana until she was sixteen. Of course, it could have been one of Liza's boyfriends or tricks that impregnated her. As soon as Genedyne finished the test series, they would know if Diana had the Senator's Y-DNA. Until then, it was an assumption that fit the circumstances and memories of the living.

  Carly circled the Senator's and Liza's names. Obviously Liza could have been blackmailing the Senator-probably was, one way or another-but Liza died a long time ago and Pete and Melissa had just died, so to connect them through blackmail was a stretch.

  Susan.

  Susan Mullins, grandmother of Melissa Moore. She'd died a long time ago, too.

  With Liza.

  Carly felt the sizzle of energy that came when she was working a promising genealogical trail.

  If Susan knew, she could have told her daughter or her son-or even the Sneads, who might or might not be the Senator's grandsons.

  Wonder if they would agree to sending cheek swabs to Genedyne.

  If the daughter-what was her name, Letty, Kitty, Betty? That was it, Betty. If Betty knew, she could have told her own daughter, Melissa.

  Carly drew lines of genetic connection and lines of circumstantial and geographic connection. Nothing impossible so far. Everything could have happened. That didn't prove everything did happen. That was why courts were iffy on the subject of circumstantial evidence.

  She looked up and saw Dan watching her. "What?" she asked.

  "Just enjoying watching another analytical mind at work."

  "Fanciful is more like it, at least on my end." She wound a strand of hair around her finger and made a sound of disgust. "Well, it was fun while it lasted."

  "What was?"

  "It's too convoluted and loopy to explain."

  "Trust me. I have a very convoluted and loopy mind."

  Carly hesitated. "You're going to laugh."

  "No. At this stage in the investigation, nothing is so far-fetched that it's laughable."

  She looked at him and saw he meant it. "If you so much as smile, I'll bite you."

  "Now you're tempting me."

  Carly rolled her eyes but otherwise resisted the lure. "If there was an impostor, the Senator had to be in on it, right?"

  Dan nodded. "The man wasn't exactly father of the year, but chances are that he'd know his own son."

  "So there are two choices-the Senator agreed to go along or he was blackmailed."

  "With what?"

  "Incest."

  "How would the impostor know about the incest?"

  "Susan Mullins," Carly said. "She was Liza's friend-"

  "Coworker," Dan said. "She turned tricks to pay for drugs."

  "But she could have known."

  "Agreed. In fact, it's likely. A background of incest isn't all that rare in the sex trade. It's one of the things prostitutes bond over."

  "God," Carly said starkly. "What planet do those abusers come from?" Then she held her hand up, palm out. "Rhetorical question. Yes, I'm naive. I don't want to think about that kind of sick, ugly…" She forced out air in a whoosh. "Sorry. Empathy can be a bitch."

  "Can you think of this as parts of a puzzle rather than human beings who hurt and cried and hoped and lost?" he asked.

  She went still. "You feel it, too, don't you?"

  "I try not to."

  "But you do."

  "Yes. And all it does is get in the way of doing the job."

  Carly took Dan's hand, held hard, and let go. "Puzzle. Right. Here we go. Where were we?"

  "Susan Mullins reasonably could have had knowledge of the Senator's incestuous relationship with his daughter."

  "Relationship? As in more than once or twice?"

  "Incest, like rape, is about power rather than sex," Dan said neutrally. "As long as the child is within the age range of the predator's interest, the incest continues."

  She didn't want to ask, but she couldn't help it. "Age range?"

  "Abuse doesn't really have an age range. Abuse that has a sexual outlet is subject to the same peculiarities of preference as healthy sexual attraction. Some abusers are attracted only to prepubescent children. Some prefer infants."

  Carly's skin crawled.

  Dan's voice continued, relentlessly neutral. "Some abusers prefer the postpubescent child. The Senator seems to have been in the last category. Young, but not obscenely so. I believe thirteen is still considered a marriageable age in some states. In some countries, menstruation is the only division between a child and a woman. Between one week and the next, a girl becomes a sexually available woman."

  Pieces of a puzzle. Carly forced herself to breathe. Just pieces.

  "In other words," Dan said, "yes, the incest probably lasted until Liza left the house and possibly continued until she was thirty. So, yes, Susan could have had knowledge that would be useful to blackmail the Senator. Whether or not that happened…" Dan shrugged.

  "If she did have knowledge, she could have told her daughter, Betty."

  Dan nodded.

  "Who could have told Melissa," Carly continued, "who could have decided to continue the blackmail."

  "Only until the Senator died."

  Carly nodded.

  "Then why arrange an accident for Melissa?" Dan asked. "The only reason-other than bad luck-for the Moores to die is that someone alive had something important to lose if Melissa lived."

  "If there was an impostor, and Melissa knew, couldn't she have blackmailed him-the Senator and/or impostor-over that?"

  "Yes. So could her sort-of cousins, if they knew."

  Carly blinked. "Sort-of cousins? Oh, the Sneads. I hadn't thought about them. Their father Randal Mullins could have known about the incest, and he could have passed the information on to his lover-"

  "Folks were pretty clear on that point," Dan cut in. "Randal and Laurie Snead were a one-night stand, if they got it on at all."

  Carly sighed. "So you don't think the Sneads are involved?"

  "Jim Snead has my nomination as the sniper. He knows the land better than any man alive and is a dead shot at any distance under five hundred yards. I just haven't found a decent circumstantial thread to connect him to you."

  "Me?" She sat up straight. "Me?"

  "Jim or his brother empties live rattraps at the house."

  Carly remembered the rat in her room. A rat, according to Dan, that had still been warm. Dead and gory all over her pillow, but still warm.

  "Jim is the official Quintrell ranch predator control. He comes and goes from the place at will. He goes to town with the mail and brings back supplies. Sometimes Blaine does the errands. It depends on how straight Blaine is when he shows up wanting work."

  "You're saying it was Jim Snead."

 
; "No," Dan said, "I'm saying he has the skill and the opportunity. I just can't find a reason, and without a motive the rest is just so much circumstantial blue smoke and mirrors."

  "Besides, there are the Sandovals," Carly said.

  "You lost me."

  "Given the number of Sandovals dodging in and out of the Senator's life, and Liza's, it easily could have been a Sandoval who had knowledge of the incest and/or the substitute son, and therefore a reason to blackmail the Senator and/or the governor. God and the county sheriff know that some of the Sandovals have the means and mind-set required for crime." Carly muttered unhappy words under her breath. "The list of possible circumstantial suspects has just exploded. No wonder that kind of evidence is viewed with suspicion."

  Dan closed his eyes and tried to do what he'd been trained to do. Find patterns.

  Forget how close you are to the problem. Take your own advice.

  Pieces of the puzzle. That's all. Not people. Just pieces.

  But he kept remembering how it had felt to have Carly go dead limp against him, kept remembering the endless time marching up and down that frozen road, kept realizing how close Carly had come to dying.

  Chapter 64

  CHIMAYO

  MONDAY EVENING

  "IT'S RUBIN," ANNE SAID, HOLDING JOSH'S CELL PHONE OUT TO HER HUSBAND.

  "He won't take no for an answer."

  "I was expecting it," Josh said, taking the cell phone. "Hello, Mark."

  "You sound like a frog."

  "I told you I needed downtime. Now I've got a cold."

  "Flu," Rubin corrected instantly. "Only plebes get colds."

  "What couldn't wait until Wednesday?" Josh asked, then covered the phone and sneezed. "Sorry, what was that again?"

  "Dykstra," Rubin said. "She's on the air every ten minutes pumping the blood test thing. The networks have picked it up. Even the New York Times is looking interested."

  "Slow news week." He sneezed again.

  "Yeah. So let's put our spin on this. I want you to do a sit-down with Jansen Worthy."

  Josh looked surprised. "Going right to the top, aren't you? He's been anchoring a major news show longer than most people have been alive."

  "It's called clout and credibility. He has enough of both to bury Dykstra. So go on his show and tell the voters about your personal and recent losses, that sort of thing."