An Easy Death (Gunnie Rose #1) Read online

  Long way around to say that when I met the grigoris in front of the stable, they were talking with John Seahorse, the owner. They were asking John to recommend the three horses least likely to give us trouble. I learned from their conversation that the grigoris had left their car in an unused room at the stable.

  We set off at eight thirty or thereabouts, riding Briar, Star, and Birdie. We weren’t carrying much besides ourselves—I’d brought a little emergency food, my guns (of course), and a canteen full of water, and Paulina and Eli had canteens only. The weather was clear and bright, the sky cloudless, and the talk . . . well, we didn’t, besides a comment or two from Eli about some feature of the landscape from time to time. We reached the scraggly outskirts of Cactus Flats about two hours before noon.

  Eli and Paulina told me to lead them to the sheriff’s office first. This was going to be very interesting for the sheriff and me and all the inhabitants of the town. I was counting on the people of Cactus Flats to be cool with this situation.

  The sheriff, Cal Trujillo, was sitting in the front room when we came in. He was gripping a pen. The day deputy, Maria Hannigan, was filling out paperwork at a smaller desk in front of Cal’s.

  Cal and Maria looked up with a certain amount of eagerness. The fact that there was paperwork on their desks may have had something to do with that.

  Since both Cal and Maria knew me, it would have made sense for me to introduce my employers and explain their mission, and I’d opened my mouth to do so. That was wasted effort. It didn’t seem to occur to either Paulina or Eli to step back and let me do this. They walked in ahead of me, taking it for granted that I was falling in somewhere behind them, just in case they needed me. They might as well have tied me up outside like one of the horses.

  Cal shot me a quick look that translated as What the hell is up with these people?

  From behind their backs, I shrugged, raised my hands, palms up. I got no idea. I’m along for the pay.

  “Sheriff,” Eli said, correctly identifying Cal, “I’m Eli Savarov, and this is Paulina Coopersmith, my partner.”

  He did not introduce me. He did not refer to the fact that I was in the room.

  “Yes,” Cal said after a pause. He didn’t think slowly, but he liked to let people believe he did. “Welcome to Cactus Flats. I’m Cal Trujillo, elected sheriff of this town. This here is Deputy Maria Hannigan.”

  Maria looked past Paulina at the fresh bandage on my head. She raised an eyebrow. I raised my hands again.

  “How can we help you two this fine morning?” Maria said, deciding that since my employers were ignoring me, she would, too . . . for the moment. Maria, mother of three, wife of one, was a better shot than Cal, but he was a better tracker. They made a good law enforcement team.

  Naturally, Paulina and Eli took the two good chairs in front of the sheriff’s desk. They did not look to see if I’d been seated. I sighed, but real quiet. The gait of the horse over the rough terrain hadn’t done me any favors. My head had been feeling better—a lot better—but now it wasn’t so good. I found the only remaining chair, a wobbly one that had been pushed into a dark corner for good reason. I tugged it around so I could watch the door with my left eye and the people with my right.

  “We’d like to ask some questions about a shooting that took place here,” Eli said.

  “Yeah?” Cal was trying hard not to look at me.

  Paulina said, “Some months ago a man named Oleg Karkarov was killed here, we were told. He was a low-level magic practitioner. What you call a grigori.”

  “We don’t get that many shooting deaths here,” Maria said. “Lots of bar fights, with knives, things of that sort.” She was trying just as hard not to glance my way.

  “So you remember it well.” Eli was doing a good job of looking relaxed and concerned. And he didn’t seem to be picking up on anything.

  “I do.” With a creak of his old swivel chair, Cal rose and walked to the front of Maria’s desk, where he parked his butt. He leaned against the desk like he had all the time in the world.

  Maria opened her mouth to tell him to move, but then she thought again and bent back over the paperwork. I noticed her pen didn’t move much.

  “Can you tell us how Karkarov was killed?” Paulina said, as delicately as if talking about it would rake up terrible memories for Cal.

  Cal covered his mouth with his hand for a moment. “I can do that,” he said, real sober. “Oleg Karkarov had passed through this part of Texoma round eighteen, nineteen years ago. He made quite an impression then. People were real interested when he came back. He started asking some odd questions around town. But then, after he’d been here maybe three days, someone caught up with Oleg behind Skelly’s place—that’s a bar, Elbows Up—and shot him.”

  “He died right away?”

  Cal laughed. “Yes, ma’am. He’d been shot four times before he hit the ground, so he definitely died right away.”

  Paulina turned to look at Eli, her eyes narrowed. She knew there was more to the story now. “Was Karkarov alone?” she asked in a much brisker voice.

  “When?”

  The grigoris looked at Cal blankly.

  “He was alone when he died,” Cal said. “Except for the shooter, of course.”

  “Did he arrive here with a companion?” Eli said.

  “Yes,” Cal said. “With two.”

  And here I sat up straight, because this part of the story was new to me.

  “Oleg checked into the hotel with a whore. Becky Blue Eyes, her name is. Oh, and there was a man with Oleg, too. Oleg told the hotelkeeper he was his brother. But the brother—Sergei, I think, was his name—he didn’t get a room at the hotel. He slept in the car. He said he was afraid thieves would pick on it during the night if he didn’t stay in it.”

  “That true?” Eli asked.

  “Possibly,” Cal said. “Mostly good people here, but every now and then someone wants an item that ain’t theirs.”

  “Did you have much conversation with this Sergei?”

  “I only know what other people told me,” Cal said. “I don’t think I ever did more than nod to the man when I passed him on the street. Either man, really. I just heard who they were. And I kind of remembered Oleg. When I heard the shots and ran behind the bar to find out what was going on, I came upon Oleg, dead as a doornail. While I was examining Oleg’s body, the brother, Sergei, took off in the car.”

  I hadn’t known that, either.

  “So Oleg was killed perhaps three days after he got to Cactus Flats?” Paulina was going to get it straight in her mind. That’s the kind of person she was.

  “Yeah.”

  “Someone followed him here.”

  “Or someone learned he was here as soon as he checked into the hotel,” Maria said, as if she was determined to be fair.

  “Was this Becky Blue Eyes a local?” Paulina said.

  “She is now.” Cal smiled.

  “What? Why?”

  “She didn’t have any way to leave,” he said.

  And that was that.

  Becky Blue Eyes was “plying her trade,” as Maria put it, from a back room at the bar across the street, Elbows Up. Many of the people in town (men) were pleased to have a “new” prostitute, since Miranda Redhead had passed away from a miscarriage, and Harvey Sweetcheeks was getting old.

  Paulina and Eli both got this narrow-lipped look, like they were about to crawl down a sewer, even before we walked through the door of Elbows Up. I didn’t know if it was the prospect of talking to a prostitute or going into a workers’ bar that had stuck something up their asses.

  Inside it was dark and there was music on the record player, some Mexican guitar group wailing about dead cowboys in Spanish. Since it was early in the day for drinking, there was only one person at the bar, a tall man with no flesh on his bones. He was a living cadaver, and loca
lly he was known as Skelly. However, since we weren’t dealing with locals, I introduced him to my employers as Jorge Maldonado, his christened name . . . if his parents had bothered to have the water put on his head.

  “Can I get you something to drink?” Jorge asked, moving back behind the bar to the serving side. “If you don’t want to start your day with something strong, I have tea or lemonade.” Jorge had a refrigerator. I envied him. Someday I would save enough to get one, and by that time the electricity in Segundo Mexia would be more reliable.

  While I stared at the refrigerator with longing, Eli and Paulina were polite enough to order some lemonade . . . or maybe they were just thirsty. This time Eli remembered I was a human being and offered me some, too. I accepted. Something cold might help my head.

  Skelly leaned across the bar to hug me. He’s tall, I’m short, so I had to boost myself up with one of the high stools. But the hug warmed me, after my stint of being invisible.

  “You two know each other,” Paulina said.

  Couldn’t get anything past her, no sirree.

  “Are you kidding?” Skelly asked, and he was about to go on when he caught my warning eye. “Ah . . . Lizbeth here’s one of the best-known gunnies in all Texoma. And I’m sorry for your loss,” he added just to me. “I heard what you did. Tarken would have been proud. Heard you got ’em all.”

  I appreciated his kind words.

  “We understand there’s a prostitute named Becky working out of here?” Eli said.

  “Becky might be up by now,” Skelly said. “If you want her to take on the both of you, though, better give her another hour.”

  I would have kissed Skelly if I’d been tall enough. It was all I could do to keep the laughter inside my mouth.

  “No,” said Paulina, who sounded as though she were being strangled. “We just need to have a conversation with her.”

  At that moment the door to the right of the bar opened and Becky stepped out. I’d never met her, but the minute she appeared, I knew I’d seen her before. I tried to blend into the wood of the bar. When Becky saw me, she froze. I gave her a little finger wave, both hands open and empty. She relaxed enough to smile at the two grigoris, but from then on she kept half an eye on me.

  “Becky, this here’s Eli and Paulina from the Holy Russian Empire, and they want to ask you a thing or two about that man you came here with,” Skelly said.

  I was certain Cal had called the bar the minute we left the sheriff’s office, and that Skelly had knocked on Becky’s door two seconds after that. Becky’s glossy brown hair was put up, with ringlets hanging down, all her makeup was on, and she wore a polka-dotted skirt that came just below her knees. Her red blouse had a big collar that was spread wider than it should have been to show her boobs. And she wore high heels, which not too many women in our part of the world did. Hard to find, really expensive, couldn’t run in ’em. It was quite a production.

  “Oh, what kind of thing or two would you like to know?” Becky said, sounding all flirtatious, though she flicked an anxious glance at me. Since Paulina and Eli were looking away from me, I gave her a wink. The brilliance of Becky’s smile increased. “Let me see. I was aiming to be a priestess in your Holy Russian Empire, but my bad, bad daddy spanked me for praying too long, and I developed a taste for it. I just love to be punished for my wicked ways.”

  Eli turned red, but he was also mashing down a smile. Paulina had turned to stone, far as I could tell.

  “Not about your . . . livelihood,” Eli said. “About Oleg Karkarov.”

  “May he burn in hell if there is one,” Becky said, and spat on the floor.

  The bar floor was used to way worse, but Skelly looked pained.

  “Why?” Paulina had made up her mind this conversation would be on point.

  “He brought me here from Juárez, where I was . . . vacationing. He said we’d be in this hick town a week while he tracked down a rumor he’d heard. Something he could turn to his advantage. Then he’d take me back home,” Becky said. She turned to look at her host. “Scuse me, Skelly, them’s his words. I didn’t know no different. He told me he hadn’t been hereabouts for nearly twenty years, time was ripe for him to visit again. He was sure no one would remember him from before.”

  Skelly and I both smiled.

  “So here I am, stuck in beautiful Cactus Flats, and Oleg’s in the graveyard, I guess. I didn’t check to see where they put him.” She raised an eyebrow at Skelly.

  “Traveler’s corner,” he said.

  “And I’m saving up enough money to get back to Juárez, or somewhere close,” she finished. “I had me a good job there. I’m exotic, to the Mexicans.”

  “What about the man driving the car?” Eli sounded wary. Maybe he’d realized there was more to the story than he’d been getting from the people of Cactus Flats.

  Becky yawned, a jaw-cracking gape that showed she was missing some back teeth. “Truth, I didn’t talk to either of them that much. They wasn’t interested in my conversation.”

  “Do you remember his name?” Paulina’s voice was sharp.

  “Oleg,” Becky said, looking at the grigori with surprise.

  “No, the driver,” Paulina snapped.

  “Don’t take my nose off, bitch! You ain’t paid me anything, you don’t own my time.” And Becky, who’d set herself down at a table, tapped the area in front of her. Skelly brought her a glass of tea. They had a routine.

  I enjoyed the sight of Paulina’s lip curling before she apologized. “I am sorry. We’re anxious to know his name, the driver,” she said more civilly.

  “Hmmmm.” Becky made a big show of remembering. “Russian name,” she said thoughtfully. “I think it was Dmitri. No, wait, Sergei.” She looked at them as though she was waiting for applause.

  “Thank you, Becky,” Eli said. “Do you have any ideas about where this Sergei might have gone? Or if it’s true he was Oleg’s full brother?” He didn’t sound too optimistic.

  To the astonishment of every person in the room, Becky said, “I reckon Sergei went back to Juárez, because there was a kid there he and Oleg took care of.”

  That bit of news set off the grigoris like a firecracker under their chairs. Paulina and Eli asked questions with a one-two punch. It was just like a fight on Saturday night at the gym. In short order they’d extracted every bit of actual information Becky had, and quite a few guesses.

  But the upshot was the same, though with tiny details. Sergei—or Oleg, Becky Blue Eyes said she wasn’t completely sure which one was the father and which the uncle—maintained a girl child in Juárez, of unknown age but not a baby. This girl had been left in the charge of her maternal grandmother during the men’s absence. The mother of the girl was dead.

  “Come to think on it,” Becky said, looking at the two wizards with close attention, “Sergei sounded more like the girl’s uncle. I think Oleg was the dad.”

  “Did Oleg and Sergei have both the same parents?” Paulina asked.

  “I never heard them say anything different,” Becky said. “Maybe, maybe not.”

  That riled up the two grigoris again. They pelted Becky with more questions. “Why would Sergei leave with such haste after his brother’s death?” Paulina said. “Wouldn’t he want to stay and get revenge? Do you think he knew the man who killed his brother?”

  Becky looked very thoughtful. “I do think so,” she said, not even glancing in my direction.

  If the dad was Oleg, I had a sister.

  And we were both in deep trouble.

  “Do you want to see the grave?” Skelly asked. He was also the undertaker.

  Paulina looked disgusted. “I don’t see how that would do any good,” she said. She turned to Eli and muttered, “We need a blood relative, not a corpse.”

  This time Skelly’s eyes flicked toward me, but I looked down as if the scarred surface of the bar was the
most interesting thing I’d seen in a long time.

  Paulina and Eli slid off their barstools, talking to each other in Russian. I was getting used to them assuming I’d just follow them. I was not getting used to them not letting me be the first one out the door. It was my job to see who might be waiting there. We were going to have to have a talk, it was clear. But this one time it was good that they left first. When they were safely outside, I said, “Thanks, Skelly.”

  Skelly nodded. “Sure thing. Those grigoris may know a lot about magic, but they don’t know shit about people.”

  “I’m seeing that.”

  “And about Oleg? If it hadn’t been you, someone else would have killed that son of a bitch. We all recognized him, we all knew the things he done. Spelling Candle was just one of ’em.”

  Becky Blue Eyes cleared her throat in a pointed way. “I didn’t tell them nothing. And I saw it all.” I put a coin on the table in front of her by way of thanks, and she nodded like a queen accepting a bow. “Just between you and me, honey child, I’m not sure Sergei had the same mom as Oleg.”

  “But he had the same dad?”

  Becky gave a big shrug. “He didn’t look much like Oleg. That’s no proof, of course. I don’t look much like my sister.”

  “Thanks, Becky.” I put more money on the table.

  I gave Skelly a quick hug before I followed the grigoris out to the horses, after one longing glance at the refrigerator. I was feeling grim, and I was thinking real hard. Looked like we were going to Juárez.

  I’d better stock up on ammo.

  The ride back to Segundo Mexia was mostly quiet, because the grigoris didn’t want to share their real thoughts with me. Which was fine; I wasn’t sharing mine with them. I’d find out sooner or later what they intended to do with the (possible) little daughter of Oleg (or Sergei) Karkarov. I wondered what the grigoris would do to me if they found out I was definitely the daughter of the low-level grigori they’d been tracking. I didn’t know them well, but I was pretty sure whatever they would do, it wouldn’t be pleasant. So I was keeping my little piece of news to myself.