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It was interesting because Salvador didn’t have a picture; or much of anything else. Usually these days you drowned in data on anyone. There was nothing here but bare bones: a social security number, a passport number, and an address way, way out west of town. Just out of Santa Fe County, in fact. A quick Google Earth flick showed a big house on a low mountain or big hill, right in the foothills of the Sangres, nothing else for miles.
Not even a passport picture to go with the number. Someone likes his privacy, he thought, looking at the address. Then: Hey, could you . . . nah, nobody can evade the Web.
Demarcio hesitated, then pulled a framed picture out of a drawer. The glass was cracked, as if someone had thrown it at a wall.
“She told me she was going to break up with him. Couldn’t take the emotional distance and lies anymore. Then she didn’t show up to work yesterday.”
“So she’s missing the day before the fire
,” Salvador said, looking at the picture. “She didn’t call in? Just nothing?”
“Nothing. That’s not like her. She’s the most reliable person who’s ever worked for me.”
The photo beneath the cracked glass showed a youngish man, though on second thought perhaps Salvador’s own age. Or maybe somewhere between twenty-five and thirty-five. Dark hair worn a little longer than was fashionable these days, a vaguely Mediterranean-looking face. Handsome, perhaps a little too much so.
Androgynous, that’s the word. But there’s something dangerous looking about him too.
“He’s . . .” Demarcio frowned. “You know, I met him a dozen times and I listened to her talk about him a lot and I really can’t tell you much. He’s wealthy . . . very wealthy, I think. Some sort of old money, but that’s an impression, not knowledge. He wouldn’t tell Ellen anything about that either, just some vague bullshit about ‘investments.’ American born, but he has a slight accent, French I think, which would fit with the name. I know he speaks French and Italian and Spanish . . . and yes, German too. I couldn’t tell you where his money comes from, or where he went to university, or, well, anything.”
Salvador looked at the photo. Unobtrusively, he brought up the composite picture on the notepad. The resemblance to the reconstruction of the man the Lopez family had seen standing motionless outside their house just before the fire was unmistakable. He scanned the picture into the notepad, and the program came up with a solid positive when it did its comparison.
“Would you say this is Adrian Brézé?” he said and showed her the screen.
“Absolutely,” she said.
“And this is his sister?” he said, changing to the composite of the woman the Lopezes had seen with Ellen Tarnowski earlier.
“Well . . .” The picture wasn’t quite as definite; they’d only glimpsed the face in passing and through a window. “Yes, I’d say so. It’s a striking resemblance, isn’t it? Like twins, only they’d have to be fraternal.”
“Have you seen this man?”
The composite this time was the older man with the gun who’d frightened the Lopezes out of their home . . . and probably saved their lives, considering how fast the building had gone up.
“No, I can’t say I have. That is, it’s similar to any number of people I’ve seen but it doesn’t bring anyone immediately to mind.”
Salvador grunted; it was a rather generic Anglo countenance, in fact. Offhand he’d have said Texan or Southern of some sort; there was something about the cheekbones that brought Scots-Irish hillbilly to mind, and the long face on a long skull, but even that was just an educated guess. The Corps was lousy with that type.
“Do you think Mr. Brézé is capable of, mmm, violent actions?”
She paused for a long moment, looking down at her fingers. When she met his eyes again, his alarm bells rang once more.
“I think he’s capable of anything. Anything at all.”
“Had a temper?”
She shook her head. “No. He was always a perfect gentleman. But I could feel it.”
Which would be a big help in court.
“Now, you saw Ms. Tarnowski later that evening?”
Now Demarcio flushed. “Yes, with Ms. Brézé . . . Adrienne Brézé. At La Casa Sena; they were having dinner at a table near mine.”
That was an expensive restaurant on Palace, just off the plaza, in an old renovated adobe that had started out as a hacendado’s townhouse. Not the most expensive in town by a long shot, but up there.
“You didn’t speak with them?”
“No. They, umm, didn’t seem to want company.” Her eyes shifted upward and she blushed slightly. “They seemed sort of preoccupied.”
