Elizabeth Lowell: Always Time To Die

She was adopted. The file was sealed. End of assignment and casual conversation.

But not an end to feeling different, to being outside the vast mainstream of human experience, a nameless reject from someone's family tree.

Stop with the pity party , Carly told herself. Martha and Glenn raised me better than most kids are raised by their biological parents .

She shifted, trying to bring her feet to life.

The minister was made of sterner stuff. Only his lips moved.

Andy glanced sideways at Carly and winked. She ignored him. Even without the green tinge to his skin, the scion of the Quintrell family didn't appeal to her. He was a little too in love with himself. All right, a lot too in love with himself. Unfortunately, other than the employees' kids, Carly was the only woman under forty on the whole ranch. Two seconds after Andy met her, he'd decided that she was going to take the curse off the boring rural nights.

Finally the minister ran out of poets and signaled for the casket to be lowered into the grave. The mechanism worked slowly and not quite silently. When it was finally still, Josh threw the obligatory handful of dirt on the casket.

"Ashes to ashes, dust to dust," he said quietly.

Winifred surprised everyone by dumping a double handful of soil onto the casket. Her expression said she'd like to shovel more in and be done with it-and the Senator.

Carly made a mental note of her employer's hard pleasure in the Senator's death. If any of the Quintrells were surprised by Winifred's actions, no one showed it. That, too, intrigued Carly. Emotions were the flesh and wine of family history.

As the governor and his wife withdrew from the graveside, Father Roybal went to Josh. "I'm sorry, my son. Although the Senator never confessed to me, I feel that God will welcome this good man's soul into His keeping."

Winifred made a sound rather like the raven's.

Josh ignored her. "Thank you, Father Roybal. You and your church have brought comfort to many of New Mexico's citizens. I'll be certain to express the Quintrell family's appreciation in a more tangible way in the years to come."

The other man nodded. Like Josh, the priest knew that many of the citizens in the state were Catholic. Any good deeds done for the Catholic church by the governor would please a lot of voters.

"May I come and talk with you as I did your father?" Roybal asked.

"Unlike the Senator, I'm content in my religion," Josh said easily. "If that changes, I'll seek your counsel."

Roybal was young and ambitious, but he wasn't stupid. He accepted the refusal with grace. "I will keep your family in my prayers."

"Thank you, Father." Josh took Anne's elbow to help her over the frozen earth toward the hearse. "Prayers are always welcome."

Carly watched the state's first couple head toward the relative warmth of the hearse, followed by the Protestant minister and the Catholic priest. Each man of God had his own modest car. Vehicle doors opened and closed in a series of sharp noises.

She glanced at Winifred hopefully. The old woman was looking into the grave with an odd expression on her face. It could have been regret or even pleasure. It could have been indigestion. Carly didn't know Winifred well enough to judge. But if Carly had to bet, she'd go with a grim kind of pleasure.

"Carly?" Andy said. "Why don't you ride back with us? There's plenty of room. We could talk about family and things."

Winifred shot him a black look. "I'm paying her, not you. When I want her to interview you, I'll tell you."

"Hey. Indentured servitude is passe," Andy said. "She's a fully grown woman. She can talk for herself."

"She certainly can," Carly said distinctly. "Thank you for the offer of a ride, but Miss Simmons y Castillo and I have a lot to discuss before I'll be ready to interview family members."

"I won't be here long," Andy warned.

Thank God . Carly managed a smile. "Telephones work for me."

"They aren't very personal."

"Handicaps just make a job more interesting."

Andy's blue eyes narrowed. He turned and stalked after his parents.

Winifred laughed, a sound almost as rusty as a raven's warning cry. "Just like the Senator. Doesn't think there's a female alive that won't spread her legs for him."

Carly hesitated, then decided that it had to be covered sometime, and now was as good as any. "My research hinted that the Senator was rumored to be very, um, sexually active when he was young."

"He lifted every skirt he could get his hands on, and he got his hands on most. When he was too old to perform, he got those erection pills and kept at it until he died."

Carly's eyebrows rose. "He managed to keep his romantic life out of the media."

"Romance had nothing to do with it." Winifred's thin upper lip curled. "Lust, that's all. The reporters always knew how he spent his nights and lunch breaks. But back then, a politician could fornicate with anything willing or unwilling and no one said a word. Then Clinton came along." Winifred made a dismissive gesture. "By that time the Senator was on his way out of elected public life. Stories about his shopgirls and prostitutes weren't news anymore."

Carly made her all-purpose sound that said she was listening. It was what she was best at: listening.

And remembering.

"Who are those people?" she asked, looking beyond the fence. "The ones who didn't come to the graveside."

Winifred looked at the couple waiting patiently just outside the gate. "Pete and Melissa Moore. Employees. He's the Senator's accountant. She's the housekeeper."

The one who forgot I was coming?

But Carly didn't say it aloud. The Senator's death must have thrown the household into turmoil. She would find out when she met Melissa if there was anything deliberate in the oversight. Carly hoped there wasn't and at the same time was prepared for the opposite. It wouldn't be the first time she hadn't been welcomed by some members of the household whose history she'd been hired to record. An important part of her job was to disarm hostile people, getting them to relax and open up to her.

"Well, no need to stand here freezing," Winifred said. "Leave the diggers to finish their work. Then I'm going to buy some shiny red shoes and dance on that philandering bastard's grave."

The old woman marched toward the waiting car with the stride of a woman decades younger than her nearly eighty years.

Carly glanced for the last time at the grave, memorizing small details of color and temperature, wind and scent. After a few moments she sensed a flicker of motion on the ridge that defined the other side of the valley. She looked up just in time to see two silhouettes drop down the far side and out of sight.

Someone hadn't even cared enough to stand outside the fence.

When I get to know Miss Winifred better, I'll have to ask her who else wants to dance on the Senators grave.

The only tears cried at this funeral had been clawed out by the icy wind.

TAOS

SUNDAY AFTERNOON

THE DURAN FAMILY LIVED ON THE OUTSKIRTS OF TAOS, BEYOND THE TOURIST AREA with its timeless adobe buildings and modern parking meters measuring out minutes in silver coins. The Durans inhabited a Taos few visitors saw, a place of modest houses crouched among winter-bare pastures, surrounded by willow-stick and barbwire fences.

John drove into a narrow adobe garage that had once been a tack room and turned off his truck. Though the building was more than two hundred years old, it had been wired in the twentieth century. Motion-sensing lights flashed to life, revealing every timeworn adobe brick. The space itself was clean. Neither of Dan's parents tolerated garbage, clutter, or worn-out machinery tossed around the property. Some of the neighbors felt that every man had a right to his own junkyard, but no one got upset about it either way. New Mexico had a long history of live and let live.