St Kilda Consulting 01 - Always Time to Die

don’t.”
    She didn’t know what to say, so she followed Dan in silence, wondering how his hand could be so warm and hers so cold.
    Abruptly, he stopped walking and said something really unpleasant beneath his breath.
    Carly followed his glance. Her car was sitting oddly, like it had been parked on a stairway.
    At first she thought someone had let the air out of the tires. Then she realized that three out of four tires had been slashed. Shreds and chunks of tread were scattered around like pieces of black flesh. Red spray paint was smeared over the windshield. When she looked in through the open door, bloodred paint pooled all too realistically on the front seat.
    The driver’s seat.
    She swallowed past the sudden dryness of her mouth. “Your place. If you still want me.”

TAOS
TUESDAY AFTERNOON
19
    THE SHERIFF ’ S TEMPORARY OFFICE WAS A LOT NEWER THAN THE TOURIST PART OF Taos. Most of the double-wide mobile home set down in a vacant lot was given over to various county functions, civil and criminal. The sheriff’s desk had been wedged into a corner. Office furniture of all ages was crammed everywhere in the room. There wasn’t any space left for partitions that would have offered at least the illusion of privacy.
    Carly grimaced. “You’re sure we need the sheriff? How about the city police? They must have better quarters.”
    “The sheriff has more territory.”
    “My car is inside the city limits.”
    “The rat was in the county. So was the governor’s threat. So was the phone call. I’d rather start with the sheriff and let him coordinate. Besides, the police chief is his cousin by marriage. What one knows, so does the other.”
    “Just what I need,” Carly muttered. “A general announcement that some nutcase is harassing me.”
    “Maybe when word gets out that you went to the cops, the asshole will think before he gets cute again.”
    “Don’t malign anal orifices. At least they have a useful function.”
    A smile flickered over Dan’s mouth.
    The aisles between desks were so narrow that Carly had to turn sideways in places just to get through. The radio dispatcher’s voice and the answering deputies or police officers made a background noise that was like the sound of a file gnawing through metal. There were three microphones and only one woman to handle them.
    “…scene with victim. We’ll need a chopper to get him down the mountain before…”
    The radio dispatcher took rapid notes while at the same time speaking into another microphone about a drunk and disorderly at a different location. A third call came in.
    “…request backup on milepost…”
    In the distance came the sound of a siren, either fire or ambulance or local police. Maybe all three.
    “Busy day,” Carly said.
    “They all are when you’re understaffed,” Dan said.
    Sheriff Mike Montoya was solidly built with just enough gray hair and gut to put him well into middle age. The wide leather belt circling his waist held everything—flashlight, handcuffs, keys, a big sidearm, plus other items Carly couldn’t identify. If the set of the sheriff’s jaw meant anything, he had the temperament of a chained pit bull.
    There were empty chairs at the desk closest to him, the one that had name plaques for three different deputies.
    “No wonder he looks mean,” Carly said under her breath to Dan. “Even though he’s the only one left to deal with the public, he still can’t cough without contaminating someone’s coffee.”
    “Yeah. I’ve seen more spacious prison cells.”
    “Really?”
    He ignored her and went closer to the man at the desk. “Sheriff Montoya? The lady at the door told us to come right in, because you’re the only one left to take a report.”
    Montoya grunted and said, “Been a long time, Duran.” His voice said it hadn’t been long enough.
    “This is Carolina May,” was all Dan said.
    “You the woman Winifred Simmons called in?” Montoya asked Carly.
    She nodded.
    In the background the radio kept spitting out partial phrases as deputies and dispatcher spoke in clipped words to each other. Carly shut out the other sounds and focused on the sheriff.
    “What happened?” Montoya asked her.
    “I parked my car in an alley—legally, by the way—and when I came back, someone had slashed three tires and smeared red paint around the inside.”
    The sheriff said something under his breath in Spanish that wouldn’t have been approved language in English. “Hijo de la chingada.”
    Carly