St Kilda Consulting 01 - Always Time to Die

the federal government, he hadn’t talked about his job. After he’d quit a few years ago to work for St. Kilda Consulting, he still didn’t talk about his job.
    Another figure got out of the car with the lithe energy of youth. Whatever the woman wore was concealed beneath an overcoat that went to her ankles. The loosely tied wool scarf around her head lifted in the wind. She snatched it with gloved hands and knotted it more securely. But for just a moment, rich auburn hair burned in the winter light with the vivid colors of life.
    “That her?” John asked.
    “The fool who’s going to go stomping around in the Quintrell minefield? Yeah, that’s her, one Carolina May, Carly to her friends.”
    “You check her out?”
    “What do you think?”
    “You did. And?”
    “Sweet Carly hasn’t a clue.”
    John grunted. “Too bad.”
    “Shit happens.”
    The gate clanged open and the ravens flew into the pale cottonwood branches to wait.

QUINTRELL FAMILY GRAVEYARD
TUESDAY MORNING
2
    CARLY MAY HAD BEEN RAISED IN THE COLORADO ROCKIES , WHICH MEANT THAT SHE was no stranger to the knife-dry cold of a mountain winter. Even so, her hands felt numb beneath the black gloves she’d hastily bought for the funeral. Part of Carly, the part that loved to discover and write family histories, was honored to be at the renowned Senator Quintrell’s family funeral. The rest of her felt like the outsider she was. No news there. She’d been an outsider all her life.
    Hoping she looked suitably attentive to the funeral of a man she’d never met, Carly mentally checked off a list of the electronics and clothes she’d crammed into her little SUV. After Winifred Simmons’s demand that Carly come to the ranch four weeks early to work on the Castillo family history, she’d shipped some of her basic genealogical supplies by overnight air to the Quintrell ranch. They hadn’t been waiting for her when she’d arrived last night, exhausted by the drive from her northern Colorado home.
    She bit back a yawn and focused on the grave. This was what she had rushed here for, to witness and relate for future generations the funeral of a legendary man.
    “…not to mourn the passing of a great man,” the minister said, “but to celebrate his transition from the bitter coils of…”
    Carly kept a straight face while the minister sliced and diced Shakespeare to fit a former senator’s graveside eulogy. She glanced sideways at another man of the cloth, a priest who had hoped to be celebrating the conversion of a dying celebrity to Catholicism. Father Roybal was here at the special invitation of Josh Quintrell, the Senator’s only surviving child and the governor of the great state of New Mexico. Despite the honor, the good father looked like he would rather be saying mass than standing mute. Or perhaps he was simply unhappy over losing one of the best-known souls in the nation.
    The wind flexed and raked icy nails over the land. Anne Quintrell pulled her mid-calf sable coat more closely around her and raised the wide hood over her head. Yesterday in Santa Fe, where cameras flashed and TV lights burned like wild stars, she’d worn a simple black wool coat. The fact that she’d been born to sable rather than wool was something that she and her husband were careful not to parade in front of voters. No matter how blue the blood, when cameras were present near a man who had presidential hopes, the man dressed like Abe Lincoln and made sure his wife did the same.
    Carly noted Anne’s rich sable coat with the same detachment that she’d noted Miss Winifred’s occasional chesty cough and the lines of fatigue on Governor Josh Quintrell’s face. Even when you were over sixty, losing your father was hard.
    “…with the blessed as they wend their solitary way…”
    Now the minister was mining Milton. Carly ducked her head to hide a smile and wished she’d been brave enough to bring her recorder to the graveside. She didn’t want to lose any of the small facts that would transform the Quintrell family history from a dry genealogy to a living story of hope and loss, hate and love, success and tears and laughter. But she’d only been here a few hours, and hadn’t quite dared ask to be allowed to digitize the private service.
    The minister kept talking despite the fact that his audience showed every sign of being cold and miserable. Even the relentless wind couldn’t hurry the man along. He’d come with a feast of platitudes and intended