He continued to smile and nodded. “You’re probably right.” He made a face as he listened to the cell phone. “That’s strange. The messages are from Anna.” He waited for a moment, listening. “She sounds very agitated.”
Evidently, the Doc spoke Crow.
When I got back to the reception desk, the more tanned and less anxious version of Kay Baroja was standing at the counter talking with Janine about how easy it was to get certified as a scuba diver in a three-day crash course in the Keys. I thought about slipping out the side door, but I needed to talk to her and this was the first time I’d seen the twins apart since she’d arrived. “Carol Baroja-Calloway?”
She turned with a smile like a barracuda. “Carol Baroja, period!” There had been some work done, the face a little tighter, the lips a little fuller, and the hair with bleached sun streaks. She smiled a perfect smile, the teeth a little too white, and extended a hand with no trailing bracelets or wedding ring. “Sheriff Longmire, I am so pleased to meet you!”
Yikes. I smiled. “We’ve met.”
She leaned in and exposed a formidable cleavage, which also looked engineered. “I was hoping you would forget.” She scooped up my arm and steered me toward the chairs at the other end of the waiting room. “I just wanted to apologize for my sister’s behavior. Kay can be rather trying.”
“That’s all right. I didn’t take any of it personally.”
“Even the part about being a son of a bitch?” She sat us on one of the sofas; if she had been any closer she would have been lap dancing. She was still holding onto my arm. “I was on my way in to check on Lana, but this is just too good of an opportunity to let pass. I just want to thank you for taking such a personal interest in my mother’s death and Lana’s welfare.”
“It’s nothing, I…”
“No, you have no idea how reassuring it is to know that we can depend on you in these difficult times. Is that horrible young woman from the division of criminal investigation still bothering you?”
I thought about it, finally remembering that she was talking about Cady. “Continually.”
“I’m so sorry.” She blinked, the steady way that contact lens wearers do. “Are there any leads as to who might have done this to poor Lana? The word is leads, isn’t it?”
I nodded and readjusted, but she still clung to my arm. “We’re following up on it, but there isn’t anything strong enough to discuss just yet.” She continued to look at me, and it was the first pause since the conversation had begun. “Would you mind if I asked you a few questions?”
Another pause, and the grip on my arm lessened. “I’m not a suspect, am I?”
I cleared my throat. “When was the last time you visited your mother?”
She thought. “About two years ago.”
“And what was your relationship like?”
The animation in her face subsided for a moment, and I think I was getting the first unrehearsed performance of the day. “Did you know my mother, Walter? Do you mind if I call you Walter?” She measured her next discourse. “In a word, she was a pickle. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think my mother had a very easy life.” That was the understatement of the century. “And I think that that had an effect on her financial views.”
“I see.” I was wondering how long it was going to take for the money to come up.
“She had a simplistic view of our financial situation, all our financial situations.”
“Meaning yours, Kay’s, and Lana’s?”
“Yes. I don’t know if you’re aware of the arrangements my mother made concerning her estate?”
“As you know, I have a copy of the Will to aid in the investigation of your mother’s murder.”
The word murder didn’t stop her. “Lana is not really capable of understanding the magnitude of our financial situation, especially concerning Four Brothers.”
“You mean the meek shall inherit the earth, but not the mineral rights?” She leaned back and studied me as though I were suddenly a stain on the bathmat. In for a penny in for a pound, I continued. “What about your father, Charlie Nurburn?”
The look held. “He abandoned my mother fifty years ago, so he’s no longer an issue.”
She looked as though she was ready for the interview to be over. “Just a few more questions. Where does Father Baroja fit into all of this financially? He wasn’t mentioned in the Will.”
She ran a tongue across her teeth and pivoted at the waist, allowing her blouse to open-no tan lines. “Mother and Jolie were the only children of my grandfather and his three brothers. There was another child, Arturo, but he died of pneumonia. When the last of the brothers passed away a number of years ago, the estate was divided between Jolie and my mother, at which point Uncle Jolie sold his half of the ranch back to Mother along with half of his half of the mineral rights and began giving his money away to charity.” She paused, but I didn’t say anything. I was used to quiet, but she wasn’t. “He did not get along with my mother, so I took it upon myself to counsel him on a certain amount of financial responsibility, but I fear that his faculties are beginning to fail him.”
“In what way?” I wanted to hear her talk about the fairies.
“His grasp on reality is a little fractured.”
“So Father Baroja was found psychologically incompetent?” She wasn’t going to talk about the fairies.
“Oh, no. He voluntarily put his part of the estate in a Trust, controlled by a money manager.”
“And who is that?”
She smiled. “I really couldn’t say.” It was probably the fairies.
I cleared my throat and took her hand from my arm as I turned. “Do you have any idea who might have murdered your mother and would wish your niece harm?”
“I wasn’t that good a daughter, and I haven’t been that good of an aunt. I should have kept closer track of Lana, but I’m afraid she’s a little headstrong. The whole Basque thing…”
“Basque thing?”
She placed a synthetic fingernail across a mouth I was sure wasn’t finished speaking. “I think she may have been involved with some political activities when she was over there at culinary school.” She said over there as though it were a venereal disease.
I tried hard to not roll my eyes. “Hmm… ETA?”
“Yes.” She clutched my hand with both of hers, and it was starting to seem more like a wrestling match than an interview. “I’m afraid that she might have gotten involved with some sordid characters while she was in Europe. It could be that they are interested in Mother’s money.”
“I see.” I let the dust settle on that one and tried to reconcile Lana as the naive innocent with Lana the intriguing terrorist and couldn’t.
I went back to the office to see if Bill Wiltse had faxed the picture of Leo Gaskell, but Leo didn’t fit as Charlie Nurburn’s illegitimate mystery child. That child had been born in 1950, which meant he’d be in his midfifties. Leo Gaskell was in his thirties. But someone poisoned Mari Baroja, someone tried to kill Isaac, someone tried to bludgeon Lana Baroja to death, and someone had tried to kill Lucian.
Someone was killing everybody who knew or thought that Charlie Nurburn was dead. Maybe they thought that they could get money from Mari’s estate if Charlie could be shown to be alive. Illegitimate children could not inherit, but Cady had mentioned that in Wyoming a husband could claim half of an estate, even if he was not in a Will or Trust, as an elective share. Maybe they wanted him alive for that purpose and then they could kill him off and inherit?
The sky was the color of liberty ships left in the sun too long with faint tinges of a deeper gray at the horizon. It wasn’t snowing, but what had fallen looked like albino BBs rolling around the parking lot. Vic and Sancho pulled up beside me and disturbed my reverie. I shut the Bullet down and climbed out. Saizarbitoria trailed along after Vic, and I could see that he was covered from head to tactical boot with a thick coating of ice and black soot; even his face was only marginally visible. “The chimney fire?”
He shifted from boot to boot. “You two don’t mind if I go in before I completely harden?”