Aaron Elkins: Skull Duggery

“Interestingly enough,” said Marmolejo, “Josefa did. But she despised him on sight. ‘Un hombre brutal,’ she called him. She also said-” (and this he accompanied with a deferential bow in Gideon’s direction) “-that he had horrible breath, horrible, rotten teeth.”

“That he did.” Gideon had his palm resting on the skull. “You’re lookin’ at ’em now.”

“She knew the ranch hand, Manolo Garcia, as well,” Marmolejo continued. “He had just been fired from the ranch, and his jaw was wired shut, and he had no place to go, so on Brax’s urging, she allowed him to use her room for a few days too, even though she was frightened of him-another rufian, just like Tony. He and Faversham talked and talked over bottles of tequila, secretive discussions from which she was excluded. And then, one day, to her delight, Manolo was gone, and so was Tony. They had vanished.”

“Killed,” Carl murmured. “By Faversham.”

“It would seem so, yes.” Marmolejo paused to slowly consume another cookie, anise this time, and to collect his thoughts before continuing.

Whether Faversham had planned it all ahead of time, or had come up with the idea in Oaxaca, Marmolejo was unable to say, but somewhere along the line he had formed an audacious new plan. He had learned a great deal about the ranch and about the Gallaghers from Tony during their years in prison. And Tony himself, after all, had not been seen at the ranch since he’d been a teenager; now he was a grown man whose hard life had left him much changed. What if Faversham “became” Tony and showed up at the ranch to claim his inheritance? They were about the same age, they both had brown hair and brown eyes, they both tended toward overweight. Would the Gallaghers really know the difference? Certainly not Tony’s younger brother, Jamie, who had been a kid when he’d last set eyes on Tony. His father surely would have known his son, but his father was conveniently dead. That left Tony’s sister Blaze… who would therefore also have to be conveniently dead for the plan to work. Tony, of course, would have to go too; that went without saying. Thus…

“Josefa actually told you all this?” Carl asked.

“No, no, these are extrapolations on my part. Josefa says that when she asked Faversham what had happened to his two friends, he told her that Tony had gotten cold feet. He hated horses, and he hated his rotten family, and to hell with the ranch. He had learned about some lucrative ‘opportunities’ in the drug trade and he and Manolo had headed north to get in on them. It’s my belief that she knew nothing of the murders.”

“Well, she sure as hell had to know that Tony wasn’t Tony, and that she wasn’t anybody’s poor old auntie,” Annie declared.

“Of course she did. Faversham, apparently grateful for the care she had extended to him, and perhaps feeling some affection for her, offered her a safe lifetime sinecure here, requiring only that she pretend that he was Tony and that she was a distant aunt. In her situation-an aging streetwalker faced with the most wretched prospects imaginable-she was only too happy to accept.”

“What about Manolo?” Gideon asked. “How was he mixed up in this, do you know?”

“Well, there I must resort to extrapolation again. I believe that Faversham learned-how, we’ll probably never know-that Manolo was a former employee of the ranch who was seriously disaffected with-”

That brought a honk of laughter from Annie. “ ‘Seriously disaffected, ’ I love it. You mean Pop busted his jaw and fired his ass.”

Carl scowled wearily. “Annie…”

“One might equally well put it that way,” Marmolejo allowed. “In any case, I suspect that those secret discussions that Faversham had with him were with the end in mind of egging him on in his resentment. Was it Manolo’s fault that Blaze had found him so attractive? Of course it wasn’t. Did he want to get back at Carl for mistreating him so unfairly? Of course he did. Would making off with the ranch payroll assuage to some degree his feelings and even provide a kind of rough justice? Well, it just might.”

And so, said Marmolejo, the payroll had been robbed and Manolo had disappeared. When Blaze went missing at the same time, the obvious and inescapable conclusion was that the two of them had run off together with the money. Thirty years later, back came Manolo, having somehow found out that Faversham had been living Tony’s life all this time. The attractive possibility of blackmail must have presented itself and it would seem that he had surprised Tony at his repair work; hence-”

“Hence the use of a desarmador de cruz as a murder weapon,” said Gideon, nodding.

“So,” Jamie said slowly and uncertainly as Marmolejo wound down, “this man I’ve been treating as my brother for thirty years, this man we’ve been coddling and taking orders from all these years actually murdered my real brother… and my sister?” He shook his head. Tears gathered suddenly in his eyes. “It’s hard to take in, Colonel.”

“I understand.”

“He killed my mother,” Annie said wonderingly, half to herself. “And all this time he’s been lording it over us like a… like a… That miserable, lying, sonofabitch.”

Carl, his face unreadable, was too deeply submerged in his own thoughts to reprimand her. Gideon, sitting beside him, was close enough to hear his whispered words.

“She didn’t leave me.”

For a while, Jamie, Annie, and Carl just sat there digesting this latest weird chapter in the Gallagher saga-the Gallagher/Faversham saga-and then Jamie asked, “What will happen to Josefa now? Is she in trouble with the law?”

“For pretending to be your aunt when she wasn’t? Frankly, I’m not inclined to pursue it, but of course, if you wish to press charges-”

All three of them responded with demurrals, and Jamie said with a smile, “No way. We’re not dumb enough to get on the bad side of our new boss.”

“Oh, Josefa’s not your new boss,” Marmolejo told them. “She doesn’t own the hotel.”

“But Tony-I mean Faversham-left it to her in his-”

“Ah, Faversham, that’s the problem. Senor Faversham had no right to leave it to anybody. When your father died he left it to your elder brother Tony, not Faversham. Faversham had no legal title to it, and thus no right to dispose of it.”

“So what happens?” Annie asked. “Does his wife, Conchita, get it, along with everything else?”

“Let’s hope not,” Carl said. “All things considered, I’d a heck of a lot rather work for Josefa.”

“Conchita’s never going to keep it,” Carl said gloomily. “She has no interest in it. She’ll just sell it. And then… who knows?”

“No,” said Marmolejo, who was obviously enjoying himself, “Conchita may well be entitled to the rest of the estate; that remains to be looked into-she was, after all married to Faversham-but the Hacienda? No, under Mexican law it cannot go to Conchita.”

“Then who?” Jamie asked worriedly.

“To Tony’s next of kin, of course. It was originally left to Tony, but Tony, as we now know, died before the property could be conferred. Thus, his nearest relative is entitled-”

“His nearest relative?” Jamie echoed. “But that’s… that’s…”

Marmolejo, laughing, extended his hand. “Congratulations, patron .”“HOME,” Julie said with a sigh, as the 747 dipped its wings to allow passengers a better view of Mount Rainier. Seeing the mountain on their right meant that they would be on the ground at Sea-Tac in twenty minutes. “Feel ready to go back to work?”

“Sure,” Gideon said. “Looking forward to it.”

“Really? You didn’t exactly get much of a vacation down there.”

“Are you kidding?” He turned to her with a grin. “Julie, if that wasn’t the best vacation I’ve ever had, I don’t know what was.”