Down These Strange Streets

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.”

Ah, Salvador thought. That sort of preoccupied. Is this an arson case or a bad movie? Sister catches her on the rebound from her brother, so brother burns the house down? Where do these sorts of people come from? Do they step out of TV screens or do the screenwriters know them and use them for material?

“You knew Adrienne Brézé socially?”

“No. I’d never seen her before. Didn’t even know Adrian had a sister.”

“Then how did you know the woman’s name?” he said.

An exasperated glance. “I asked the maitre d’hotel at La Casa Sena, of course! I’m a regular there. So is Adrian.”

He hid a smile. I think Ms. Demarcio is a nice lady. She’s concerned about Tarnowski. But I also think she’s a gossip of the first water.

“Thank you, Ms. Demarcio—”

“Well, aren’t you going to tell me anything?”

He sighed. Usually you didn’t, but he needed to develop this source.

“We’re investigating the circumstances of the fire at Ms. Tarnowski’s apartment, and trying to find where she is.”

Her eyes narrowed slightly; that meant We think it was torched, without actually saying it.

“And her disappearance?”

“Ah, yes. There’s no reason to suppose it’s anything but a sudden move—”

“And no reason to suppose it is. I talked to the Lopez family, and there was a man with a gun.”

He sighed. Santa Fe was a small town. “True. We’ve got Santa Fe and Albuquerque and the state police all looking. Here’s my card.”

He slid it across the low table. “Please let me know immediately if Ms. Tarnowski contacts you, or you get any other information.”

Outside, Cesar met him, and they walked down toward the end of Canyon, then turned right across the bridge over the small and entirely dry Santa Fe river with its strip of grass and cottonwoods. That led to Palace just north of the Cathedral, the reddish sandstone bulk of it towering over the adobe and stucco of the neighboring buildings. Salvador jammed his fists into the pockets of his sheepskin jacket and scowled, pausing only to give the finger to a Mercedes that ran the yellow light and nearly hit them. Right afterward, a rusting clunker with the driver’s door held on with coat-hanger wire did the same thing.

“This is screwy,” he complained, after he’d filled his partner in. “But at least we’ve got names to go with our composites. Adrian and Adrienne Brézé.”

“This is fucked up, amigo,” Cesar said cheerfully. “Because the databases are still not giving us anything even though we’ve got the names. They don’t have e-mail addresses, they don’t have bank accounts . . . You did send them out?”

“Yeah, local, state, Fart Barf and Itch, and Homeland Insecurity, which means the spooks. It can take a