St Kilda Consulting 01 - Always Time to Die

glance that said he was through playing. “Are you in or out?”
    “Does this have something to do with the baby names I’m tracking down?”
    Dan waited.
    Gus sighed. “Yeah, yeah, my lips are sealed, my hands are tied, and I won’t fart in code, okay?”
    Carly laughed.
    “I’m going to call the office,” Dan said. “They’ll be able to find out what Winifred sent to the lab.”
    “How can they—” Carly began.
    “Finding out things is what they do,” Dan said, “and they’re good at it.”
    “They,” Gus muttered. “I thought you weren’t working for the Feds anymore.”
    “I’m not.”
    Dan took out his cell phone and wished he’d brought the satellite phone. But he hadn’t. It was locked in the case with his encoder-decoder, gun, ammo, and a few other things he didn’t want children of any age playing with. He punched in a number, listened, punched in another number, and left his name and callback number.
    “Okay,” he said. “What else is in Winifred’s letter?”
    Carly fished out what looked like an old legal document, unfolded it carefully, and shook her head. “She shouldn’t have crammed this into a business envelope. There’s damage.”
    “Maybe she was in a hurry,” Dan said.
    “What is it?” Gus asked, trying to get around Dan so that he could read over Carly’s shoulder.
    “Some kind of legal document,” Carly said, scanning quickly. “Nineteen thirty-four. There’s an English translation at the bottom. At least, I think it’s a translation. My reading Spanish isn’t up to a point-by-point comparison.”
    “May I?” Dan asked.
    She leaned aside so that he could read.
    “It’s an accurate translation,” he said after a minute.
    “Of what?” Gus asked impatiently.
    “Looks like a nuptial or prenuptial agreement between the Quintrell family and Sylvia Simmons y Castillo,” Carly said, scanning the English version. “He agrees that in appreciation of their contribution of money and local support, he’ll guarantee that only a child of Sylvia Quintrell’s body can inherit the land, and thereafter only descendants of that child may inherit, world without end, amen. If anyone not of Castillo blood attempts to inherit—or in case of death before children or divorce—the land and all its buildings and livestock immediately revert to the Castillo family.”
    Gus looked surprised.
    “From the look and feel of it,” Carly said, “whoever made this document was working from an older template. If I had to guess, I’d say that template was the original Quintrell/Castillo marriage agreement in 1865. Maybe it’s somewhere in all the stuff Winifred gave to me.”
    “Guess the Castillos didn’t trust the Quintrells, then or now,” Gus said.
    “They were realists,” Carly said, “and the reality was that women in the mid-1860s often died before their husbands, who then remarried and started another family. The Castillos were just trying to make sure that the children of a second Quintrell wife didn’t inherit Castillo land.”
    “Then why the more recent agreement?” Gus asked, looking at the early twentieth-century document. “Women weren’t dying in childbirth as often.”
    “The second prenuptial agreement is the Castillo family’s estimate of the Senator’s morals,” Dan said dryly. “They were afraid he’d use the Castillo’s influence with the hispano community to get elected, and then dump their lovely Sylvia for someone without Castillo blood.”
    “Okay. So why does that matter now?” Gus asked. “The Quintrell begats are a matter of many public records.”
    Carly put the old document on the table and removed another piece of paper. It was a holographic will leaving everything of Winifred’s to Carly, plus the right to search for, copy, or otherwise gather anything from the ranch records that would be helpful to the family history. The will also stated that Carly was to have free run of the ranch as long as the ranch was owned by Castillo descendants. The document was dated last Tuesday.
    “What is it?” Dan asked, looking at her.
    Carly handed over the last paper. “Winifred must have felt worse than she let on. She made certain I would get her papers and access to the ranch if she died before the family history was finished.”
    “Smart woman,” Dan said, reading quickly. “This will help if the governor tries to get everything back and quash the history. If nothing else, it will give us time to copy all the papers and