St Kilda Consulting 01 - Always Time to Die

put up on a pony. Liza with a barrel racing ribbon from the local rodeo and a proud father standing by her stirrup.
    “With his hand on her calf and lust in his eyes,” Dan said from behind Carly.
    “She can’t be much older than thirteen.”
    “If gossip is correct, that’s about the time she started going wild. Drugs, booze.”
    “That’s also the last time the Senator and his daughter got together for a picture,” Carly said. “Other people, other family, but not her.”
    “If what you think is true, Liza wouldn’t want to be within a country mile of her father.”
    Carly divided the screen and called up the Senator’s wedding. “I keep remembering one photo where he had his arm around his bride and—here it is. The look he’s giving that other woman.” She zoomed in on part of the photo, excerpted it, put it next to the photo of Liza and the Senator, and felt her stomach clench again. “I wish Sylvia had killed him.”
    Dan studied the two photos. Nothing had changed about the Senator’s predatory look except the female it was directed at.
    “When I think of how much my mother and grandmother endured because of him,” Dan said finally, “I could kill him myself. There’s only one problem.”
    “He’s already dead?”
    Despite the grim brackets around Dan’s mouth, he smiled and tugged at the coil of hair Carly was winding around her finger. “That, too. But we’re assuming that the secret—whatever it is—the one the governor is so worried about coming out, outlasted the Senator’s death.”
    “Is there a statute on incestuous rape?” Carly asked bitterly.
    “Sure. We have laws about when and where you can spit.” Dan shrugged. “Even if we prove that the Senator had a child with his own daughter, I can’t see it doing anything but getting a sympathy vote for Josh Quintrell. I doubt if the governor would get his dick in a twist over a fifty-year-old secret coming out. He would be publicly repelled, fund a committee to study and prevent the origins of incest and help the victims, and go to church to pray for the Senator’s soul and that of his poor sister. None of the above would hurt him in the polls.”
    “So what you’re saying is that no matter what crimes the Senator committed, legal responsibility for those crimes dies with him.”
    “Basically, yes. At least in terms of threatening Josh’s political career at this point in time. There has to be something else that he’s worried about.”
    “Worse than incest? That’s a scary thought.”
    “Isn’t it just.” Dan frowned.
    “Do you think Winifred knows—knew? Damn it, when will Melissa call us back about Winifred?”
    “Whenever Josh gets here to spin everything for the media. Until then, my vote is with the hispano grapevine. Winifred is dead.”
    Carly closed her eyes. “I wonder if she knew?”
    “The secret?”
    “No. That she was going to die. It would explain why she mailed that letter to me.”
    “I wouldn’t be surprised. Winifred was a woman out of her time. Maybe out of any time.” Dan focused on the fire again. “If you wanted to prove incest fifty years after the fact, when both parties are dead and the living won’t help, how would you do it?”
    “Proof?”
    “Genetic proof.”
    “I’d need a sample from the Senator. One from his daughter would be useful.”
    “But not vital?”
    “Not at this point. The sample we really need is one from the supposed child of incest. If she shows the Senator’s Y-DNA, then the Senator was her father. It’s that simple.”
    “‘The child.’ That would be my mother we need a sample from.”
    “Yes.”
    Dan pulled the bloody tissue from his pocket. “Would this work?”

CASTILLO RIDGE
SATURDAY AFTERNOON
60
    A DOT OF BRIGHT RUBY LIGHT PUNCHED THROUGH THE FALLING SNOW AS THE sniper sighted in his scope. The gallons of water he’d poured on the blind curve were invisible now, a sheet of black ice frozen beneath a dusting of snow. If ice didn’t send their vehicle caroming out and down several hundred feet to level land below, then it would be up to close work to finish the job. On the whole, he’d much prefer an accident. Fewer questions that way.
    Headlights glowed along the road from the ranch house. They bobbed and bounced but made good progress. Though the narrow road was technically on private land, the county managed to pass a blade over it often enough to keep ranch traffic moving. The headlights came on at surprising speed. Obviously