Blue Smoke and Murder

39

SEPTEMBER 15

6:00 P.M.

A new Dodge Magnum was waiting for them at Taos Regional Airport. Very quickly Zach loaded the six wooden crates aboard. Even though the rental was about the size of a covered pickup truck, there wasn’t much room left over behind the front seats for his duffel and Jill’s backpack. He frowned.

“I’d feel better if St. Kilda had rented us an armored truck,” he said as he slid into the driver’s seat.

“Why? My paintings are just frauds,” Jill said bitterly, getting into the passenger side and shutting the door hard. “Every Western art expert is certain of it.”

“Uh-oh. Someone was brooding while I slept on the plane.”

“Someone thinks this is all a waste of time and money.”

“That’s Faroe’s call,” Zach said. “Until we’re sure that Blanchard’s clock has been stopped, we play the game.”

“I’m not sure I like the sound of that,” she said.

“What? More game playing?”

“Stopping someone’s clock. Sounds final.”

Zach ignored her as he mixed with the early evening traffic. The daylight was slanting, rich, making everything look brushed with gold.

“What are we doing in Taos?” she asked bluntly.

“Seeing a Dunstan expert.”

“Why didn’t we phone it in? Everyone else seems to.”

“Garland Frost isn’t like everyone else,” Zach said. “That’s why we’re here.”

Jill watched while Zach skillfully found his way around on the short, unpredictable, and narrow Old Town streets. They were lined with time-worn adobe walls and ancient one-and two-story residences and businesses. Silently she looked at cottonwood trees as ancient as the one beside her ranch house and at windows whose glass was so old that its bubbles and ripples distorted the light pouring through.

Zach negotiated the narrow streets with the ease of long experience.

“Do you live here?” she asked.

“Not anymore.”

“What made you leave?”

“Garland Frost.”

“Then why are we here?” she asked.

“Garland Frost.”

Zach’s tone didn’t encourage more questions. Jill thought about hammering on him just for the entertainment value, then decided against it. Instinct told her that an angry Zach Balfour wouldn’t be entertaining.

The big Dodge turned onto a quiet street that ran alongside a head-high adobe wall. At the center of the block, a wide gate in the wall opened into a courtyard filled with cottonwood and evergreen trees. He stopped outside the front door of a sprawling adobe house and turned off the engine.

“Now what?” she asked.

“We see if we wasted jet fuel.”

“Someday you’ll give me a real answer.”

“Wasting jet fuel is as real as it gets.”

He opened the car’s rear door, worked the hinged door on one of the crates, and pulled out a metal suitcase. The green wood of the crate grumbled and squeaked, but closed again. The plywood sides of the box concealed the fact that it was now empty.

As soon as Jill was out, he locked the car with the remote security key and went to the front door of the house. Ignoring the electronic doorbell in favor of the old bronze captain’s bell, he rang it three times, hard.

And settled in to wait.

Nearly a minute later the door opened. A tall, silver-haired man in blue jeans, worn hiking boots, and a blue work shirt stood in the fading light. Lean, erect, fit, he had eyes as black as a night without stars.

He looked at Zach, then at Jill, then once more at Zach.

“So you came back after all,” he said. His voice was raspy, neither deep nor high, just rough. “At least you brought somebody nice for me to look at, since I don’t much care for the sight of you.”

“Mutual,” Zach said. “You going to let us in?”

The older man looked at Jill. He smiled and offered his hand. “I’m Garland Frost.”

She blinked and found herself smiling in return. Bet he was a real hottie when he was young. Even now, that smile could melt a glacier. She took his hand and shook it briefly. “I’m Jill Breck, and I’m pleased to meet you even if Mr. Surly isn’t.”

Frost gave a bark of laughter. “He knows me.”

“That’s why I’m surly,” Zach said.

“Come on in,” Frost said to Jill. “I like you already.”

“What about him?” she asked.

Frost looked at the silver suitcase in Zach’s hand. “Did you bring me something?”

“Why else would I be here?”

Something flickered in the older man’s eyes. It could have been anger, curiosity, hurt, impatience, or a combination of all four.

Jill didn’t need her years of summing up clients on the river to see that whatever it was that lay between Frost and Zach, the emotion was as complex as it was painful.

“Why else indeed?” Frost said roughly. “I should shut the door in your ungrateful face.”

“Then you’d never know what I brought you.” Zach smiled, showing a lot of teeth. “And that would irritate the hell out of you.”

Frost turned his back on Zach, took Jill’s arm, and led her into the house. “Welcome to Taos. Amazing that such a good-looking young woman would put up with Zach Balfour.”

Since Frost hadn’t slammed the door in Zach’s ungrateful face, he followed Jill inside.

He didn’t hurry to catch up. He knew exactly where and how Frost was going to test Jill. The great room was great in more than space. If anyone wasn’t fascinated by it, then Frost had no time to waste on that person.

Jill passed the test.

Silently she stared at Frost’s great room. She hoped her jaw wasn’t hanging open, but wouldn’t have been surprised if it was.

In one corner a fire crackled in an unscreened fireplace. The scent of burning cedar infused the room with a clean, natural perfume. Dozens of paintings hung high on the pale plaster walls. Beneath them, at eye level, display cases filled with earthen pots, cowboy bronzes, and Indian artifacts stood shoulder to shoulder around the perimeter of the room.

From what she could see, everything inside the cases was of museum quality.

Library tables covered with stacks of books and partially assembled pots took up much of the rest of the floor space, except for a huge wood desk that looked out like an observation post. The desk was on a platform that was raised two steps above the floor of the great room.

“She likes it,” Frost said to Zach. “Your taste in women has improved.”

“She’s a client,” Zach replied. “I’m on assignment.”

“Still with the government, then. Sorry to hear it. The contingent of bozos running the country doesn’t deserve help.”

“I left government work five years ago,” Zach said. “Now I’m with St. Kilda Consulting.”

Frost’s silver eyebrows lifted. “I’m surprised Ambassador Steele would put up with you.”

“He’s a scholar and a gentleman. We get along just fine.”

Unlike Frost and Zach.

Jill winced at the undercurrents, but hesitated to get between the two men. Besides, the room was fascinating. She itched to look in every drawer and cabinet.

“So you’re back in the art business?” Frost asked, his expression still guarded.

Zach shrugged. “I’m here, aren’t I? When I’m not out there, practicing carchaeology.”

“What the hell is that?”

“Collectible muscle cars. But if you still have that old International Travel-All of yours, I’ll give you five grand for it,” Zach said.

“Why?”

“I know a man who is looking for one and will pay at least eight thousand.”

“I don’t believe you,” Frost said. “What’s his name?”

“Nobody you know,” Zach said.

“I’ll find out,” Frost said. “There isn’t anything in the world of collectibles that I can’t discover in time.”

“Yeah?” Zach asked. “Then find me a 1971 Plymouth Barracuda convertible with a 426 Hemi engine.”

“I just might,” Frost said curtly. “If I have time to waste.”

“You’ll need a lot of it,” Zach said. “There were only nine of them made and eight have been found. Supposedly the last one was turned into scrap metal at a junkyard somewhere here in the Southwest, but I think that baby is still out there.”

“So what? Cars aren’t art.”

“Tell that to the guy who paid two million and change for convertible number eight,” Zach said.

“Two million dollars?”

“And change.”

“I’ll be damned,” Frost said. “But it still isn’t art.”

“Matter of opinion.”

“Quit baiting our host,” Jill said to Zach without shifting her attention from the paintings on the far wall. “You know art when you see it. And I’m looking at some really fine art right now.”

Zach and Frost both seemed surprised to be reminded that they weren’t alone. They followed Jill’s glance.

Eight Western landscapes flowed across the wall. All of them were beautifully presented with gilt museum frames and recessed illumination that brought out every bit of light and darkness in the canvases.

“Great Basin, western Rockies, Northwest coast, high plains, Southwest, every season and mood,” she said, moving toward the paintings. “Incredible.”

And two of the paintings were Dunstans.