S Stirling - The Council of Shadows

Salvador looked at the photo. Unobtrusively he brought up the composite picture on the notepad. The resemblance to the reconstruction of the man the Lopez family had seen standing motionless outside their house just before the fire was unmistakable. He scanned the picture into the notepad, and the program came up with a solid positive when it did its comparison.

"Would you say this is Adrian Breze?" he said, and showed her the screen.

"Absolutely," she said.

"And this is his sister?" he said, changing to the composite of the woman the Lopezes had seen with Ellen Tarnowski earlier.

"Well…" The picture wasn't quite as definite; they'd glimpsed the face only in passing and through a window. "Yes, I'd say so. It's a striking resemblance, isn't it? Like twins, only they'd have to be fraternal."

"Have you seen this man?"

The composite this time was the older man with the gun who'd frightened the Lopezes out of their home…and probably saved their lives, considering how fast the building had gone up.

"No, I can't say I have. That is, he's similar to any number of people I've seen, but he doesn't bring anyone immediately to mind."

Salvador grunted; it was a rather generic Anglo countenance, in fact. Offhand he'd have said Texan or Southern of some sort, there was something about the cheekbones that brought Scots-Irish hillbilly to mind, and the long face on a long skull, but even that was just an educated guess. The corps was lousy with that type.

"Do you think Mr. Breze is capable of, mmm, violent actions?"

She paused for a long moment, looking down at her fingers. When she met his eyes again his alarm bells rang once more.

"I think he's capable of anything. Anything at all."

"Had a temper?"

She shook her head. "No. He was always a perfect gentleman. But I could feel it. Sort of a, um, potential."

Which would be a big help in court.

"Now, you saw Ms. Tarnowski later that evening?"

Now Demarcio flushed. "Yes, with Ms. Breze…Adrienne Breze. At La Casa Sena, they were having dinner at a table near mine."

That was an expensive restaurant on Palace, just off the plaza, in an old renovated adobe that had started out as a hacendado 's town house. Not the most expensive in town by a long shot, but up there.

"You didn't speak with them?"

"No. They, um, didn't seem to want company." Her eyes shifted upward and she blushed slightly. "They seemed sort of preoccupied."

Ah, Salvador thought. That sort of preoccupied. Is this an arson case or a bad movie? Sister catches her on the rebound from her brother, so brother burns the house down? Where do this sort of people come from? Do they step out of TV screens or do the screenwriters know them and use them for material?

"You knew Adrienne Breze socially?"

"No. I'd never seen her before. Didn't even know Adrian had a sister."

"Then how did you know the woman's name?" he said.

An exasperated glance. "I asked the maitre d'hotel at La Casa Sena, of course! I'm a regular there. So is Adrian."

He hid a smile. I think Ms. Demarcio is a nice lady. She's concerned about Tarnowski. But I also think she's a gossip of the first water.

"Thank you, Ms. Demarcio-"

"Well, aren't you going to tell me anything?"

He sighed. Usually you didn't, but he needed to develop this source.

"We're investigating the circumstances of the fire at Ms. Tarnowski's apartment, and trying to find where she is."

Her eyes narrowed slightly; that meant, We think it was torched, without actually saying it.

"I talked to the Lopez family, and there was a man with a gun."

He sighed. Santa Fe was a small town. "True. We've got Santa Fe and Albuquerque and the state police all looking."

She hesitated, twisting her fingers together. "I…I got a call from Ellen today."

Salvador came alert without tensing.

"You did?" he said, the sort of polite verbal placeholder you used to keep people talking.

"She…she called me on a videoconference link. She said she was staying at Adrienne Breze's place in California. That she was…working for Ms. Breze now, cataloging her family's art collection."

Aha! Salvador thought. And again, aha!

"We'll need the address," he said.

"I…I'm afraid I don't have an address. Just a phone number. But Ms. Breze said not to use it very often."

This is one scared lady, Salvador thought. And I really don't think she's naturally a scaredy-cat.

He thumbed the number into his phone as she gave it, then spoke:

"Here's my card."

He slid it across the low table. "Please let me know immediately if Ms. Tarnowski contacts you again, or you get any other information."

"Detective," she said as he rose to go.

He turned, raising a brow, and she went on: "Remember I said Adrian was capable of anything at all?"

He nodded.

"Well, his sister struck me the same way. But worse." A swallow. "Much, much worse."

Outside Cesar met him, and they walked down towards the end of Canyon, then turned right across the bridge over the small and entirely dry Santa Fe River with its strip of grass and cottonwoods. That led to Palace just north of the cathedral, the reddish sandstone bulk of it towering over the adobe and stucco of the neighboring buildings. Salvador jammed his fists into the pockets of his sheepskin jacket and scowled, pausing only to give the finger to a Mercedes that ran the yellow light and nearly hit them. Right afterwards a rusting clunker with the driver's door held on with coat-hanger wire did the same thing.

Then he keyed the number into the police net, the service that gave you locations…

Not listed, it said.

"This is screwy," he complained, after he'd filled his partner in.

He looked at it again; California area code, south-central coast. But…

Not listed.

"You try, Cesar."

Not listed.

The next time Eric tried, a string of garbage scrolled across his phone.

"Now that," he said, "isn't just fucked-up. That is enemy action."

Cesar raised his hands palms up and made a weighing motion; he wasn't as paranoid as his senior partner. Maybe, it said.

"But at least we've got names to go with our composites. Adrian and Adrienne Breze," Eric conceded.

"That is fucked-up, too, amigo," Cesar said cheerfully. "Because the databases are still not giving us anything even though we've got the names. They don't have e-mail addresses; they don't have bank accounts…You did send them out?"

"Yeah, local, state, Fart, Barf and Itch, and Homeland Insecurity, which means the spooks. It can take a while, even now that they've got the whole system cross-referenced."

"It shouldn't take a while to get something. Everyone leaves footprints. The question is, my friend, should we be thinking of this as an arson case, or some sort of kidnapping?"

"A little early for that. According to Demarcio, she's wherever-it-is of her own free will. 'Sorting paintings,' if you know what I mean."

"Yeah, only we can't reach wherever she is, and anyone will say anything if they're persuaded right. But!"

Cesar grinned and showed his notepad, a picture of an elderly but well-maintained Prius. "Abandoned car on Palace, ticketed and towed about an hour ago. Registered to-"

"Ellen Tarnowski."

"So maybe, it's not so early to think about maybe some slight element of kidnapping."

Salvador's notepad beeped. "Well, fuck me. Take a look."

The picture was from the security cams at Albuquerque International Sunport, the airport in the larger city an hour's drive south; the face-recognition software had tagged it.

"That's Breze and our mystery man with the gun, all right. Still in the black leather outfit. Nine thirty to San Francisco last night, just opened up and the request got it. Wait a minute-"