A Pilgrimage to Death Read online

  Sam tugged at his short ponytail. “Maybe. Thanks, Jaycee.”

  “Sure.” The girl skittered off to greet some new patrons.

  “You think you know what the case is, don’t you?” Cici asked, pouring more tea into her cup.

  “Cici, I wasn’t in the area for Jeannette,” Sam said, ignoring the question at hand. Sam’s words jolted through Cici—mostly because of the tone. He used his all-business one that caused her to straighten in her seat. “Though I probably should get her something, seeing as how she’s my date Friday for the city shindig.”

  Cici sipped her tea, ignoring the heat biting into her tongue. The taste rolled down her throat, easing into her nauseous belly.

  “Oh?”

  “I came here to dig into the lead about Don I’d mentioned earlier.” Sam paused, seeming uncertain. Very un-Sam-like. The nausea in Cici’s stomach slammed back even stronger. She set the teacup farther from her.

  “See, I got word of an opioid ring down this way. It’s outside of my jurisdiction, but I wanted to talk to the county sheriff about it.”

  “Why?”

  “For a few reasons. I think Donald was helping the DEA flush out the opioid prescriber.”

  Cici picked up her teacup but then immediately set it back in the saucer, her eyes never leaving Sam’s face.

  “Hold up. You think Donald Johnson—the big shot lawyer—was popping ’Contin?”

  Sam leaned forward, lacing his fingers together as he lay them on the table. “I didn’t say that. But maybe. I don’t know.”

  He let out an exasperated grunt, his biceps flexing as he gripped his chair.

  “After my talk with the local guys here today, I know Donald drove down to the Madrid post office to pick up a stash of something. His PO box has opioids in it. Or did. They were confiscated about an hour ago. Evidence.”

  Cici leaned back in her chair, her mouth unhinged. She managed to snap it shut with a shake of her head.

  “No. Way.”

  Sam lifted his glass and drank deep.

  “I mean, I believe you,” Cici said. “But that’s . . . Donald was so integral to the community. He donated to all the arts. Heck, he was at The Lensic gala in March!”

  “Wealth doesn’t mean you don’t have problems, Cee. Think of your parents,” Sam said gently.

  Cici picked up her teacup again and drained the now-tepid liquid. “Right. I just need to wrap my head around Donald being an opioid-addict.”

  Sam tapped his blunt-edged index finger on the top of his glass.

  “I think Madrid’s drug ring is connected to the bigger one up in Santa Fe,” he said. “We haven’t been brought in on any investigation there, but . . .” He faltered.

  “Are you supposed to be telling me this?” Cici asked, suspicious. Sam held everything close—words, emotions, definitely work.

  His lips compressed before he met her gaze. His pale eyes seemed like shards of glass. Nothing good. Whatever he was about to tell her, Cici wouldn’t like.

  “No, I’m not.”

  Her hands began to shake just like they did whenever Anna Carmen’s name was about to pop into a conversation. She just . . . well, this must be part of the twin thing. Cici felt her sister’s name sliding into the conversation before it did.

  “What’s going on, Sam? Wait,” she said. Cici frowned, sidetracked by a tidbit, latching on to it, trying to breathe through a certainty she would never be able to change. “You’re telling me this all happens through the mail?”

  Sam took a deep drink through his straw as he lifted his eyebrow.

  “I don’t know why I’m surprised,” Cici murmured. She poured herself another cup of tea, sipped as she tried to find some modicum of control. Oh, Anna Carmen, what did you do? “It’s just . . . mail seems so passé.”

  Sam set his drink down. “Probably why it’s worked. Gotta have a physical drop for the drugs, and it’s safer than having people meet on street corners.”

  He played with his straw for another moment, then blew out a breath.

  “I actually planned to see you later tonight.”

  Cici leaned forward. This was it. What she didn’t want to hear. Sam turned to face her, his mouth twisting as if the words he was about to say settled sour in his mouth.

  “The drug business,” he said. “In Santa Fe.”

  Cici nodded encouragement even though she wanted to stand, to scream, to run away. Anything to keep Sam from uttering the next words.

  Sam blew out a breath. “I’ve known this for a while, but I didn’t want to tell you.”

  “Spit it out, Sam. Now that you started, I need to hear the rest.”

  His eyes smiled but his mouth remained pressed flat. His lawyer face, Cici called it. That ability to keep his facial muscles relaxed was better than any poker player’s she’d seen. That’s what made him such a great detective—that’s why he’d been chosen for that special task force in Denver. But Anna Carmen’s death changed Sam’s life nearly as dramatically as it changed Cici’s.

  And what continued to connect them—the loss of the one person who could impact both their past and future.

  “It’s moved around a bit. Started in Santa Fe, and I’m sure it’s the same one that’s here. The MO is the same, anyway.”

  Cici blinked out of her haze and focused on Sam’s words.

  “The drug cartel thingy?” Her heart rate sped up even further. No. No way Anna Carmen was linked to drugs.

  This time, Sam did smile even as he shook his head. Yeah, Cici knew she had a way with words.

  “It started on the university campus,” he murmured.

  “Saint John’s?” Cici gasped. That’s where Anna Carmen attended just about ten years ago now—so she could live at home and help their ailing mother, who’d passed away just weeks into their senior year of college.

  Anna Carmen won the better all-around human award compared to Cici. Not that it did her much good. Cici was still here and Anna Carmen was lying in her coffin.

  “Nah. Art and Design.”

  Cici dropped her chin to her chest, relief flooding her system. Donald’s death, Anna Carmen’s appearance on the mountain yesterday, clearly turned Cici’s mind to mush. She was attempting to make connections to her sister where none existed.

  “Yeah. Okay.”

  Sam finished his tea and pushed the glass away. “But this does have to do with Anna Carmen.”

  Crud. She’d just talked herself out of her sister’s involvement. Cici also pushed away her teacup again, her stomach too knotted to hold anything further—even something as soothing as chamomile.

  Sam once again faced the street, apparently unable to meet her eyes.

  “As you and I already guessed and the Office of Medical Investigation confirmed about an hour ago, the same type of knife was used to strike Donald. A switch blade. In the same location as Anna Carmen—the kidney. We’ve seen one other death like that in the past few years. Also unsolved.”

  He paused, waiting for Cici to digest this information. Cici dipped her head, eyes wide and fixed on Sam’s face.

  “And if we infer that Donald’s killer is the same as Anna Carmen’s, which we’ll definitely pursue, then we need to go back and look at the drug trafficking ring at Santa Fe College to determine if there’s a link there between the killer and Anna Carmen. Because we know Anna Carmen knew Donald through your father. The net’s tightening on this whole investigation.”

  Cici’s chair scraped a harsh shriek as she shoved back from the table. Sam didn’t turn back toward her, probably because he knew what was coming next.

  “Screw you, Sam.”

  He didn’t even flinch as she snarled the words.

  “And screw your shitty investigation that would try to link my sister to some drug ring.”

  He didn’t move as she picked up her gloves and stormed from the café.

  5

  Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t. —Shakespeare

  Anna Carmen dealin
g drugs—taking drugs—was like . . . like Cici dealing drugs. She snorted.

  Anathema.

  That’s what it was! Anna Carmen helped children get an education. She didn’t slide dope under desks to children. The idea was ludicrous.

  Cici slammed the door to her house, her mood even blacker now that she’d had time to further process Sam’s accusations about her twin. That he—the man who seemed to adore Anna Carmen for so much of their lives—would make the accusations that Anna Carmen had been involved in something nefarious, cut deep.

  Near as deep as losing her sister.

  And, knowing Sam as well as she did, Cici knew he knew that. Which was what made the revelation hurt even more. Because Sam never would have told her if he didn’t have some evidence—something concrete—to prove Anna Carmen’s involvement with a drug ring.

  Rodolfo and Mona danced around Cici, nuzzling into her hand and whining low in their throats. Cici dropped to her knees and flung her arms around Rodolfo, the larger of the two Great Pyrenees. Mona pressed her warm shoulder into Cici’s back and licked her ear.

  “I’ll be okay. Just . . . give me a minute.”

  She talked to her dogs. So what? Cici lived alone—it wasn’t like there were other people around for a constant high brown conversation. Plus, her dogs never told her terrible truths.

  Even if she needed to hear them.

  Cici sighed into Rodolfo’s thick white fur before she sat back.

  “You two need to potty? How about another short walk?”

  She came home from their trip around the block to find a white paper sack with her scones and a bouquet of hyacinth, her favorite flower, on the porch chair next to her front door. No note, not that she needed one.

  She didn’t smile when she shoved her nose into the soft, sweet blooms, but the headache that pounded against her temples all day receded a bit.

  A few hours later, Cici shoved back from her computer, rubbing her eyes. Her sermon remained nothing more than the weekly liturgical reading. Words wouldn’t come.

  Cici continued to see her sister’s hazel eyes staring back at her. Her eyes, too, but Anna Carmen’s always seemed so full of life, of goodness.

  Her phone rang again—for the tenth time that night.

  Not Sam. He’d wait for her to call him. She needed to . . . to thank him for the flowers. She hesitated once again. He was probably with Jeannette by now anyway.

  After changing into her pajamas and brushing her teeth, Cici climbed into bed with a sigh. Her body ached from fatigue but also from guilt. Sam told her about Anna Carmen because he wanted her to be prepared for the news hitting not just the papers but the gossipmongers’ tongues. They’d prove more vicious to both Cici and her extended family than the paper or even Anna Carmen’s former students and families, all of whom adored Anna Carmen and probably wouldn’t believe she’d been involved in something so sordid as drugs.

  Cici couldn’t believe that herself. Not that Sam said Anna Carmen was involved in selling drugs. Thank God.

  “You better not have been, Aci,” Cici said. “Or I’d be likely to stomp on your grave.”

  She thumbed off a quick text, letting Sam know she appreciated the scones, the flowers, and the heads-up on Anna Carmen’s name popping back up now that details of Donald Johnson’s death would begin to make the rounds.

  At least now, maybe, she would sleep. Rodolfo and Mona assumed their positions on their large pillows next to her bed. Cici pet Mona’s ears absently, thinking about Lyndon. He now oversaw that large dig in South America, in the location they’d chosen together. She’d also heard that he’d married two months ago, and if alumni gossip was to be believed (it was—those people knew things), he and his lovely blond bride were expecting their first child early in the new year.

  When she’d told Lyndon goodbye, Cici had sworn off intimate relationships. That had been the right choice then.

  But now? Cici was lonely.

  Sad and lonely and not at all healed in her soul. Even after all this time.

  Her dogs were the last descendants she had found that were born from Anna Carmen’s Great Pyrenees. In fact, these two were the children of Anna Carmen’s dog, Gidget. When these two passed, Cici would lose her last living, breathing connection to her sister.

  “I miss you, Aci. I wish I understood better what you’d been going through.”

  She swallowed hard and tilted her head back to stare at her beamed ceiling. “We weren’t as good as I projected, but maybe I shouldn’t have pushed Lyndon away when he tried to help me through losing you.”

  Cici blinked, then swiped at the lone tear sliding down her cheek.

  “I wish I wasn’t alone. Even though I know it’s all my own fault.”

  And, for the first time since the moment on the mountain, she felt her sister’s presence. Almost as if Anna Carmen wrapped her in a hug. Cici’s breathing evened out and she slid into slumber.

  The dream was tinged in blood.

  Anna Carmen’s blood.

  “You should have stopped pushing when you received the letter.” The voice whispered low and vicious in her ear, causing Cici to shiver. The voice sounded deeper than most females’ but not the low baritone of many of the males Anna Carmen knew. Hard to place, possibly on purpose. A faint, familiar scent wafted toward her face as people milled around. Such a large crowd this year. No one noticed the person pressed close to Anna Carmen’s back.

  “Powerful people want you to stop fishing for information. Don told you, too. I saw you talking to him. You should have listened.”

  No one turned toward her when she bowed back as a searing pain unlike anything she’d ever felt before ripped her ability to breathe, to scream, to stand.

  Anna Carmen’s hand—well, Cici’s hand in the dream—came away from her side covered in blood. Anna Carmen, no . . . Cici as Anna Carmen, turned even as she sank to her knees. Someone screamed. Another scream. People rushing toward her. Too late, she wanted to say, but couldn’t. Her vision dimmed.

  She tried to breathe through the searing pain in her side and back. She tried to see who had hurt her.

  Someone’s back, clad in a leather duster long enough to form an androgynous shape. Hair hidden under a beige felt cowboy hat. A quail feather stuck out at a jaunty angle.

  Cici. She’ll be hurt by my death. And Evan.

  The man Anna Carmen planned to marry. Evan should be here. No, Anna Carmen shouldn’t be here. She should be with Evan at La Casa Sena, drinking some nice wine on the patio.

  She never needed to get involved. She should have backed off when she received the first note.

  Oh, Evan, you were right. I’m so, so sorry.

  Cici awoke with a great shuddering start. Both dogs stood at attention next to her, quivering.

  She must have screamed. She sat up, rubbing her palms over her sweaty face.

  “Oh, Anna Carmen. What did you involve me in?”

  6

  The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves. ― Shakespeare

  Donald Johnson’s funeral proved a nice, if staid, affair, thanks in large part to Carole’s amazing organizational skills. Cici met with Susan once more in person and the two spoke again on the phone so that Cici could gather the information she needed to give Donald the send-off he deserved.

  Carole handled the pianist and flowers. She’d worked with Susan to get together a guest list and confirm timing with the caterers who’d set up for the wake at the Johnsons’ large home off Canyon Road, not too far from the oldest galleries and some of the best eateries in town.

  Cici had already begged off the fancy evening, claiming she needed to work on her sermon, which she did.

  More, she wanted to avoid seeing many of her father’s old colleagues, who would, no doubt, ask how he was.

  Cici didn’t know.

  Didn’t want to know.

  Susan sat in the front pew, stiff and dry-eyed, next to her younger sister. Donald and she had no children and neither had
large extended families, meaning many of the mourners were friends and colleagues.

  How had Susan not realized Donald had a drug problem?

  How did any couple live together and not realize the other party was keeping some monumental secret? Like, in her parents’ case, a long-standing affair.

  Cici took a deep breath and refocused on her notes settled on the podium in front of her.

  If Cici hadn’t spoken with Susan so often this week, she’d think the older woman’s shock related to Donald’s murder. Instead, Susan ached for the last earthly betrayals Donald perpetrated.

  No one knew anything about the woman who called in Donald’s location.

  The phone number used was from a burner phone they’d found—wiped clean both of prints and of data—in the possession of one of the homeless men the police picked up weekly from the Plaza.

  Cici spotted Sam sitting toward the back of her sanctuary. Jeannette sat next to him, as polished and sophisticated as her position as executive assistant to the mayor dictated. Her light, glossy hair was pulled back in a neat chignon and her suit must have been custom-tailored to fit her five-foot-nine form. She leaned in close and whispered something in Sam’s ear. Cici brought her gaze back to the mourners nearer the front. J.R. Pattison III and his wife, Joan, sat front and center. Joan’s eyes were as warm as always, though J.R. seemed distracted. Perhaps he was considering his workload as the sole remaining partner in the law firm where Donald worked.

  Cici inhaled sharply through her nose, letting the air trickle slowly back out. She stepped up to the microphone at the lectern in front of the congregation. Her throat was dry but she ignored her physical discomfort.

  “Thank you for coming today to help us celebrate the life of Donald Johnson.”

  Cici finished the service with her standard benediction, her hand held up to include everyone in the room, before heading over to embrace Susan.