Wild Wild Death (25 page)

“Now that it’s gone… I mean, your whole life has changed. How does that make you feel?”

I shrugged, then remembered this was the man who that morning—it seemed a hundred years ago

—had confessed that he was jealous because he didn’t know me as wel as Quinn did. Wel , if he wanted the whole package, this went with the territory.

“I was happy the other night when I first found out.

Today…” I looked toward the cemetery. There wasn’t even a hint of a supernatural sparkle there. Not for me. “I sure could use Goodshot’s help,” I admitted.

“And…” I don’t know why I bothered to lower my voice since it seemed obvious nobody on the Other Side could hear me. “I actual y kind of miss him. He was a great guy.”

“Taopi.” Jesse nodded like the fact that Goodshot was great and the fact that he was a Pueblo Indian were one and the same. For al I knew, they were. “Maybe you can get your Gift back.”

This time, my shrug wasn’t as helpless as it was unsure. “I’m not sure I want it back. I mean, a life without ghosts…” I drew in a deep breath of sage-scrubbed air. “No more trouble, no more hauntings, no more investigations. At least that’s what I told myself when I first realized I couldn’t see the ghosts anymore. But I’m stil investigating, huh? I guess I just wish—”

Even though it was my wish, I wasn’t sure what I was going to say, so I was glad one of the deputies came scrambling up. “Sheriff wants you to see this,”

he told Jesse. “Dead guy’s got a thousand bucks in his pocket. Cash. And this.” He handed Jesse one of those plastic evidence bags with a scrap of paper inside it.

Jesse took a close look, and I did, too.

“Phone number,” Jesse said. “We’l have to check it out.”

And I knew they would, too. And that it wouldn’t take them long to find out who the phone number belonged to. Which is, honestly, the reason I kept my mouth shut. I mean, besides that, Jesse never asked if I recognized the phone number so, technical y, I wasn’t obligated to tel .

wasn’t obligated to tel .

“I think you’re right,” I said, pushing away from the fence and heading out to the street. “I am going to go back to the motel for a while and rest. Finding a dead body…” I looked over to where Brian lay in the dust, daring Jesse to tel me I shouldn’t be upset. “I’m going to…” I poked a thumb over my shoulder. “I dunno. A shower and a nap maybe.”

“I’l cal you,” Jesse said, and he headed over to help out the other cops.

Just as wel . It would keep him busy, and right now, I needed him busy for a little while.

At least until I could figure out what Brian was doing with Dan’s cel phone number in his pocket.

C

harming bistro tables and chairs. Terra cotta–tiled floor. Pots overflowing with flowers in every shade of a New Mexico sunset.

Ah, signs of the good life!

Al set to step onto the outdoor patio of the Taos Inn, I paused, pul ed in a deep breath fragranced with salsa and limes, and smiled the smile of a person too long relegated to dry desert air, dust—and murder.

Soft music playing in the background, the purr of voices out on the sidewalk just on the other side of the iron fence that surrounded the patio, the artistic vibe of Taos with its gal eries, shops, and boutiques… after al I’d been through since I arrived in the Great Southwest, this was exactly what I needed, a real city with people and elegant hotels.

Oh yes, and running water, too.

For a moment, I stood in the sunshine, drinking in the warmth and the atmosphere, enjoying what felt like a moment in the spotlight.

I was so ready for it! Yes, I was a tad overdressed for a weekday evening. No matter.

There is, after al , no value that can be placed on self-confidence, and in my good jeans, sandals with five-inch heels, and a spaghetti-strap lace cami the color of a blush, I not only felt on top of the world, I looked good, too.

And later that night when we got back together, I was counting on Jesse noticing.

For now, I had other things on my mind. I snared the nearest waitress, ordered one of the Cowboy Buddha margaritas I’d heard the inn was famous for, and made my way over to a table by the fence where Caridad Valenzuela was waiting for me.

In a lemon-colored tunic top, she looked like a pretty little canary. She apparently ate like one, too.

Even as I grateful y accepted my margarita and ordered nachos with the works, I watched Cardidad pick at a plate of orange slices.

“We’ve got a problem,” I said, but not until after I took a sip of margarita and sank back in my chair, quenched and satisfied. “How does Dan know Brian?”

“This Brian, he is the one the police have asked about, isn’t he?” Her voice was husky, and when Caridad looked up at me, I saw that her big brown eyes were rimmed with gray. This was not a smoky-eyed fashion statement, but a testament to sleepless nights. Though she tried to cover it with foundation, her nose was red, too. Her trembling hands? That was something she couldn’t disguise. They fluttered over the orange pieces. “I am so…” She pul ed her hands onto her lap. “I am confused.”

“You and me both.” Another sip of margarita and maybe I couldn’t feel the confusion clear completely, but I could at least imagine there must be an answer to al this craziness. “Truth is, I think the cops are, too. You know what that means, don’t you? If we don’t help Dan, nobody wil .”

I hadn’t meant to get the waterworks going again, but then, I guess a woman whose husband is facing as many serious questions as Dan was could hardly help herself. She sniffed delicately and plucked a tissue from her purse. Like a heroine in some old, mushy movie, she dabbed it to her eyes.

“You are a good friend to Dan. When I see him again…” The words caught in her throat and she coughed, and took a sip of water. “He told me. How in Chicago, he thought he was making love to you.

How Madeline, she ruined this for the two of you.”

Caridad reached across the table and patted my hand. “I am embarrassing you. I am so sorry.”

“Not embarrassed. Honest.” It was true so it was no big deal admitting it. “Dan and I…” Since there was no easy way to explain, I simply shrugged and took another sip of my drink, and when my nachos were delivered—glorious, steaming, and cheesy—I offered some to Caridad. She refused, so I got to work on them myself. I scooped up cheese and salsa with one perfect chip.

“It wasn’t meant to be,” I said, “And it’s not like I’m brokenhearted about it or anything. I’m glad Dan and I are stil friends. Only, I’ve got to ask, when he told you about me and Madeline’s ghost and al …”

Another bite of nacho gave me the strength to go on.

“Didn’t you think—”

“Didn’t you think—”

“He was crazy to be talking so of ghosts? Oh, yes!” Caridad threw back her head and laughed, and I’d bet anything it was the first time she’d al owed herself to let go and relax since that day on Wind Mountain when Jesse and the elders closed the excavation and Caridad’s world came crashing down around her. “But he is Dan. And Dan is…” It didn’t take her long to find the words. “Dan is honest and genuine and so serious when it comes to his investigations. It was not long after we met that he trusted me enough to confide this information about Madeline and how her spirit occupied your body.”

“And you believed him.”

It wasn’t a question. She nodded anyway. “That is what love is al about, isn’t it?”

It took dying to convince Quinn. And he stil wouldn’t talk about it.

So unlike Jesse, who’d taken the news of my former Gift not so much in stride as he did like it was some kind of honor. Go figure.

I snapped out of that thought to find Caridad watching me careful y. She nodded and said, “You do know what I mean, Ms. Martin. I can tel this from the look in your eyes. You know about being in love and how love gives you the ability to trust. And to believe.”

“Maybe.” It was as much of a commitment as I was ready to make in front of an almost total stranger. “I can tel you love and trust Dan and that’s great. Unfortunately, cops are a whole lot less understanding. Things aren’t looking good for him, Caridad.”

“It is al a terrible mistake. It must be!” Though it was soft, her voice rang with certainty. “The police think Dan had something to do with the il egal permits for the excavation. They think he knows this Brian and that they are somehow involved in…” A helpless lift of her shoulders said it al .

That wasn’t al the cops thought about Dan and Brian. For one thing, they knew for sure that Brian and Dan knew each other. For another… wel , for now, I was keeping the news of Brian’s murder to myself. Caridad was already on the verge of hyperventilating. If I hoped to get any information out of her, I couldn’t afford to upset her even more than she already was.

“I suppose they have their reasons.” It seemed a nice, middle-of-the-road way to avoid dropping the news of the murder on her like a ton of bricks. “Could they be right?”

“There is no way Dan is guilty.”

We were on the same page. When I left Norma’s, hightailed it back to the motel to change clothes and get my car, and cal ed Caridad here at the inn, where Jesse had told me she was staying, I’d hoped we would be. In addition to being gratified, I found myself warming up to Wife No. 2. Which is saying a lot since Wife No. 1 tried to make me disappear forever into nothingness and Husband No. One and Only could have found a better way to let me know about his recent nuptials.

But that was sour grapes for another time.

“We…” Caridad leaned forward, every bone showing when she latched her fingers together on the table in front of her. “I believe we are the only ones who can help him. To prove he is innocent. It is what you are thinking, isn’t it?”

“That, yes. And I’m thinking we need to find him.

But to do that, we’re going to have to try and figure out what’s real y going on. So first things first. If Dan didn’t forge those excavation permits, who do you think did?”

Her shoulders were so slender, when she shrugged, I hardly noticed.

“Don’t get pissed, but I’ve got to ask—do you think it could have been Dan?”

Another shrug.

Yeah, I was surprised. I tried real y hard not to show it. I didn’t need her to get al defensive. “So you think it could have been him?”

“You know he is not that kind of man.”

“I do. But if it wasn’t Dan—”

“The others on the excavation, they’re al graduate students. None of them would have had the knowledge or the nerve.”

“Which brings us back to Dan.”

“Or me.”

Don’t think this wasn’t something I hadn’t thought of. I sipped my drink and studied her over the sparkle of salt on the rim of my glass. Pretty, professional, obviously very smart. Dan wouldn’t have fal en in love with her otherwise. But sparkle or no sparkle, it was time to get down to brass tacks. I set down my drink and leaned forward. “Did you?”

She rearranged the orange slices on her plate. “I She rearranged the orange slices on her plate. “I am an anthropologist. I study people and their cultures, and my specialty, it is Pueblo Indians. Most people believe this makes me a very dul individual.

Yet here I am…” She held out her arms and looked around, taking in Taos and al of the surrounding countryside. “Here I am in the middle of this mystery.

When I came here to New Mexico with Dan, my goal was only to assist him in his studies and to attend the San Felix de Gerona festival day later this week.

This is the special feast day of the Taopi Pueblo and I was eager to study the people and their traditions and their celebration. Now…” She shook her head sadly. “I cannot show my face at the pueblo. Not after what has happened. Not after the place that is sacred to the Taopi has been desecrated, and I have been a part of it.”

This was a roundabout answer to my question.

Maybe. Or maybe it was a dodge. Either way, it wasn’t helping, so I asked again, “Did you forge those papers, Caridad?”

With one finger, she traced an invisible pattern on the table. “I have thought of tel ing the police I did.

Just to convince them that Dan did not, that he isn’t hiding from them, and that they should go out and try to find him. But real y…” She bunched the tissue into one hand and held on for dear life. “I believe they would ask me how I accomplished this forgery and I would not know what to tel them. Instantly, they would know I was lying.” She picked up an orange slice, set it back down. “Would you do such a thing?” she asked. “Would you lie to protect the man you love?”