Wild Wild Death (26 page)

I’m not exactly the philosophical sort so, rather than think about it, I played with the little plastic straw in my drink. “That’s a tough one,” I said.

“It wouldn’t be. Not if you loved someone as much as I love Dan.”

“So what you’re saying is that you have been lying to the police. To protect Dan.”

She didn’t answer.

“Look…” I rested my elbows on the table. “We’re dealing with an awful lot of dead people here, Norma and Arnie and…” I decided to throw caution to the wind. “Brian is dead, too,” I told her, and watched what little color there was in her cheeks fade away. “I found his body this afternoon. Dan’s cel phone number was written on a piece of paper in Brian’s pocket.”

She went as stil as stone.

“You’re not surprised.”

When Caridad pul ed in a breath, it was so sharp, I swear even my lungs hurt. A fresh cascade of tears started, and this time, she didn’t even try to dab them away.

“Caridad, if you know Brian and Dan were working together, you have to tel the police. They’re going to find out anyway, and—”

Her spine went poker straight. “Then they do not need to find out from me.”

“If you keep secrets, it’s only going to look worse for Dan. And if you run…” I caught the little movement when she braced her hands against the arms of her chair to push it away from the table. “That’s not going to look good, either, and they’re going to find you.

The only thing that’s going to help Dan now is you coming clean and tel ing the cops everything you know. Then they can find Dan and we can get this whole mess cleared up.”

“You are working with them.”

“The police?” I was chewing a mouthful of nachos when I said this, and it came out sounding like…

wel , like someone trying to talk while chewing a mouthful of nachos. I swal owed. “The police? No, not official y. But if you tel me something, Caridad—”

“You cannot tel them! Swear to me, swear to me you wil not.”

“But if it’s important to the investigation—”

“You must swear!”

I struggled with the ethics of the situation. For maybe three seconds. Then I pul ed my hands onto my lap, crossed every finger I could, and gave her the earnest look of a truth-tel er. Who says years of dating had never prepared me to be a detective? “I swear.”

She took my vow at face value. Thank goodness.

“A few weeks ago…” Antsy, Caridad rubbed her right hand up her left arm and along her shoulder.

“We were at the excavation. I was actual y down in the kiva. It is…” For a second, her expression was transformed. The worries of the last days disappeared, her eyes cleared, and a smile touched her lips. “It is an amazing place. Even I, who do not believe as Dan does in the world of spirits… even I could feel a presence there in the darkness of the kiva. I was down there alone. Only, I was not alone.”

She snapped out of the memory and shot me a look.

She snapped out of the memory and shot me a look.

“I am sorry. To you, this is an everyday thing. Dan says you see and feel and talk to the spirits al the time. To you, my musings must sound sophomoric.”

Since I didn’t even know about my Gift in high school, I wasn’t sure what she was getting at. Since I didn’t have it anymore, anyway, it hardly seemed to matter.

“So you were down in that kiva thing.” In spite of the late afternoon warmth, a shiver crawled over my shoulders. “Isn’t it creepy?”

“I imagine I find such cultural treasures as fascinating as you find the mausoleums and gravestones in the cemetery where Dan tel s me you work.”

I imagined not.

I shook away the thought. “So you were down there in that kiva…”

“And when I came again out of it, I saw Dan near our tent. He was talking to a man.”

I didn’t need a road map to see where this story was leading. The only way to counteract the sudden sourness in my stomach was a nice, long sip of margarita. “Brian,” I said when I was finished.

“Yes.” Caridad shook her head. “Dan, he introduced me. The man’s name was Brian, Brian Reynolds.”

“And did Dan explain what Brian was doing there?”

“Dan told me they had business together.”

“The bones.”

“We do not know this. Not for certain.”

“But if we’re going to get anywhere in our investigation—”

“You promised. You swore you would not tel the police what I have revealed.”

“Yes, I did.” Notice how I did not add anything like
and I’m not going to.
“That’s not what I was going to say.” This much was the truth. “I was going to say that if we’re going to get anywhere in this investigation and find Dan, then let’s just play with some ideas.

Let’s say Dan is the one who wanted Brian to get the bones. I mean, just for argument’s sake.”

She nodded. The movement sharp and quick.

“For argument’s sake.”

“According to the legend, if there’s a ceremony at the kiva, and if the ceremony somehow uses the bones of one of the people entrusted with the location of some magical, mystical something…”

“A bowl, yes. A silver bowl.” She fil ed in the blanks of my memory. “The bones, the sacred ceremony… these are what cal the spirits. And these spirits, they wil reveal where the silver bowl has been hidden for more than one hundred years.”

“So I get why Dan would be interested. It’s the whole woo-woo thing. He’d want to perform the ceremony and cal the spirits. But why would he care about this silver bowl?”

“This I do not know.” I could tel from the way she shook her head sadly that she wished she did.

“Maybe it is because this bowl, it is old and valuable.”

“We both know money doesn’t mean that much to Dan.”

“Then maybe it is just to prove that the spirits are real.” She warmed to the idea, and sat up a little straighter. “If Dan, he says he performed the sacred ceremony and the spirits showed themselves, then everyone, they wil just shake their heads and say yes, yes, that is Dan, believing too much in the paranormal. But if Dan, he can say that those spirits showed him where to find the bowl…”

“Then that would prove he had information he couldn’t have gotten in any other way. I like it. It works.”

Except it worked in al the wrong ways. But before I even had a chance to cringe and kick our argument in a direction that wasn’t Dan’s guilt, a flash of movement out on the sidewalk caught my eye.

Buckskin dress.

Feathered headband.

Long, dark braids.

While I was stil processing the details and wondering why they looked so familiar, Caridad was tisking. “Obviously she knows very little,” she said.

“The woman is dressed al wrong for a Pueblo Indian. This is the costume of a Plains Indian. If you ask me, she isn’t even a Native American. She is playing at it. No doubt if we gave her a chance, she would start talking about corn ceremonies, as if she were some expert.”

Corn ceremony!

The pieces clicked into place, and just as they did, I took off and raced out of the bar. It didn’t take me long to get out onto the sidewalk, but by then, me long to get out onto the sidewalk, but by then, Morning Dove—the woman who’d been at the Indians game back in Cleveland and wanted me to arrange for her to get into the cemetery to remove Goodshot’s curse—was already gone.

I

never did find out who San Felix de Gerona was exactly, except that he was the patron of the Taopi people, and that every year at the end of June, they had a huge to-do in his honor. That, and that he apparently didn’t have any pul when it came to determining the weather for his big day.

The morning of the feast dawned cloudy and cool. From what I heard from the crowds of people who mil ed around me when I arrived at the pueblo, this was unusual. Thank you, San Felix. So much for showing off the cute little lemon-colored, square-necked tank I was wearing with an adorable A-line batik skirt in blues and greens and accents of the same fresh yel ow. When I got out of the Mustang, I grabbed Quinn’s blue windbreaker from the backseat. Not that I had any intention of wearing it. I just figured if I carried it along, maybe the weather gods would get the message, the clouds would part, and I’d get to bask in a little Southwestern sunshine.

The pueblo was packed with tourists, vendors, and Taopi, who, I found out later, always returned for the celebration, even if they’d moved to faraway places. I sidestepped my way through the plaza over to where I saw a yummy-looking guy in a uniform watching the crowds from behind his sunglasses.

“Hey, Officer!” I made sure my smile was as sunny as my tank top. “How’s it going?”

I didn’t have to see Jesse’s eyes to know he slid me a look. I could feel the heat everywhere his gaze touched. It slipped from my tank top, to the skirt that ended three inches above my knees, to the open-toed, high-heeled sandals I was wearing with it. And al the way back up again.

“Nice,” he purred.

“I hope you’re not talking about the weather.”

He twitched his broad shoulders. “Not much I can do about that. But at least everything else is going wel .” Another officer walked by and Jesse signaled for him to keep an eye on things and led me down a short street alongside the buildings that faced the plaza. He took off his sunglasses. “I’m sorry I’m not going to be able to spend much time with you today,”

he said. “We’l have thousands of visitors coming and going al day long.”

“Not a problem.” It real y wasn’t since I wasn’t planning on hanging around long. “I’l take a look around and then I’l get back to work. Stil no word on Dan?”

A shake of his head was al the answer I needed.

Just what I was afraid of. Which was why I had a plan. “I’m going to go back into Taos and see Caridad again. I got her talking once, maybe she’l open up some more.”

“Oh, no.” As if he thought I was going to take off right then and there, Jesse put a hand on my arm.

“Today is the feast, and you’re not working. Besides, my parents want to meet you.”

I took a moment to process the information.

Processing done, I found myself feeling a little off-kilter—and completely terrified.

“Dinner,” Jesse said, before I could come up with an excuse that would satisfy him. And his parents.

One that was good enough to keep me from being thrown into a situation that made me woozy just thinking about it. “Feast day dinners are very important. And my family stil owns one of the pueblos in the old vil age so that’s where we’l be eating. It’s an honor to be invited.”

“I’m sure it is, but—”

“I told them al about you.”

I hoped he wasn’t being literal because if
all
real y was
all
, then it would include al we’d been doing together the last couple weeks. And I didn’t want to go into a first meeting with the parents with that on my mind. Then, of course, there were the ghosts. Or at least there used to be the ghosts. If Jesse’s parents thought like him and actual y believed that talking to the dead was some kind of privilege, and they expected me to have some kind of wacky Gift, they might be disappointed to learn the truth. Or they might think I was crazy. Or…

I swal owed hard. “You told them al about me, huh? Is that good news or bad news?”

One corner of his mouth pul ed in a wry smile.

“You’ve got nothing to be nervous about.”

“I’m not nervous.” I folded my arms over my chest,

“I’m not nervous.” I folded my arms over my chest, and when that didn’t do anything to kil the chil that made my knees knock together, I took drastic measures: I slipped on Quinn’s windbreaker and hugged it tight around me. “I’m just thinking… you know… that we don’t have any time to waste. You know, when it comes to the case. And finding Dan.

And the murderer. Somebody needs to talk to Caridad again. Right now.”

“Brian’s murder is a problem for the sheriff up in Antonito. He’s a good man, and he’s on top of things. Trust me.”

“I do.” Through my flash-frozen terror, I somehow managed a smile. “It’s just that—”

“My parents and my two brothers and my sister…

they’re al going to love you.” The quick kiss he gave me told me he had to get back to work. “Just like I do.”

Yeah, that’s how he left it. He turned right around and walked away with those words stil hanging in the air.

Just like I
do.

What’s a girl supposed to think?