shooter tracked him through Nathan’s knowing his name or through the cell call. He couldn’t hide in his new life and he couldn’t run.
‘Not if there’s no real chance your identity was disclosed. But I’d feel better if we put you up at a hotel for a few days under a different name. Until the arson investigation’s done.’
‘Fine. Can I go to work now?’ Miles asked.
‘Are you up for peddling art? I know you cared about Allison…’
‘Work’s the best thing for me right now.’ But Miles didn’t mean updating the gallery’s Web site or moving sculptures. I need dirty work, he decided, the kind I used to be good at, bringing secrets to light.
The gallery was not yet open, but Joy was working the phone at a sales rep’s desk, sweet-talking a deal with a collector in Boston. She wiggled fingers at him in a friendly wave, frowned at the scrapes on his face. He gave her a thumbs-up and suddenly wanted never to lose this job.
He unrolled the morning paper and scanned it. Nothing that DeShawn hadn’t already told him. Investigations continuing, the building a loss, remains recovered in such bad shape that DNA testing would be required. The article said Allison had lived in Santa Fe only a few months longer than Miles had; it surprised him she didn’t have deeper roots here. He checked the police report section: not a word about responding to any disturbances along Cerro Gordo. Maybe Nathan had gotten away.
Miles sat down at his desk, fired up the management software that the gallery used to track sales, contacts, artists, and works. He sorted through a list of incoming paintings to process, saw Joy’s note to craft e-mails to three major collectors interested in one artist’s seventeen new paintings that the gallery had received late yesterday. He needed to take digital photos of all the new paintings, load them onto the Web site, and enter them into the system so they could be tracked. Then a schedule to rotate paintings: hang selected new arrivals (all landscapes and portraitures of the high desert), ship the unsolds back to the artist or see if the staff could sell the works from the back room. And Joy’s new computer had arrived yesterday afternoon; he needed to hook it into the network and load it up with software. A long day. But he had his own mission to perform.
Joy hung up. ‘Good morning. What happened to you, hon?’
He touched his face. ‘It’s not an interesting story.’
‘I figured you were going to say you’d been out drinking with Cinco.’ She frowned. ‘Did you hear about that fire over on Palace?’
‘Yeah, I did. Awful. If you don’t mind, I’ll get your new computer set up first thing this morning. It just may take more time to get it hooked into the network. New operating-system protocols.’ Sweat showed its guilty face on his arm, in his hair, on his lip. He really hated lying to her. But no one could know what he was doing. Joy’s eyes glazed as soon as he said protocols.
‘Well… go do your voodoo.’
‘Okay.’ He startled at the jingle of the back door. Joy’s son Cinco, holding a massive cup of coffee, came in, yawning.
Miles asked, ‘Has either of you heard of a place called Sangriaville?’
‘No. Is it a new bar?’ Cinco asked. ‘Because new bars are officially off my list.’
‘I don’t think so. I thought it might be a town with a mental hospital.’
Joy blinked. ‘There is a private mental clinic way up the road, near where Canyon dead-ends, called Sangre de Cristo.’
Sangre de Cristo. Sangriaville. ‘Maybe it’s one and the same,’ Miles said.
Joy said, ‘I don’t know, honey. But then, I don’t know any crazy people.’
FOURTEEN
Upstairs, Miles closed the door to Joy’s office so no one could surprise him. He unboxed and fired up the new computer, hooked it up to the gallery’s wireless network, and downloaded a free open-source Web browser that he would delete when he was done; he didn’t want to leave a trail for Joy to find.
He Googled for a Web site for the Sangre de Cristo mental hospital in Santa Fe. There wasn’t one. Odd. A modern hospital without a Web site. Didn’t they need to provide information to the medical community or to potential patients? He found the hospital in the Yellow Pages; just a simple listing, no advertisement for their services.
He found a directory of New Mexican hospitals – Sangre de Cristo was listed, and licensed. Owned by the ‘Hope-Well’ Company. He Googled ‘Hope-Well’; no Web site.
Someone didn’t want to be found. Time to dig into the old bag of tricks.
He called the hospital, using his cell phone. ‘Hi, this is Steve Smith, I’m doing a story for Associated Press on the doctor who died last night, and I need to get information on your hospital.’
‘What doctor?’
‘You don’t read papers? Allison Vance.’
‘I’m afraid you’re mistaken,’ the receptionist said. ‘We have no doctor by that name.’
‘May I speak to your public relations officer?’
‘We have no comment.’ And she hung up.
He did a Web search for Nathan Ruiz, adding Santa Fe as an additional search term. There were two Nathan Ruizes in town: one owned a restaurant on the south side, one ran a community center. He clicked through the sites. The restaurateur was in his fifties; definitely not the young man who’d held a gun to his head last night. He phoned the number for the other Nathan Ruiz.
‘Corazon Community Services, Nathan Ruiz speaking.’
‘Mr. Ruiz, hi, this is Fred George with the State Insurance Board. I’m sorry to bother you but we’re conducting an investigation into insurance fraud and I’m hoping you can assist me.’
‘Um, sure.’
‘We’re tracing patterns of fraudulent claims. There have been a number of claims filed in your name for care at the Sangre de Cristo Hospital in Santa Fe and I’m calling to see if those are legitimate.’
‘I’ve never been to that hospital in my life,’ Ruiz said. ‘Am I liable for these charges? My insurance company hasn’t said a word.’
‘No, sir, you’re not liable at all. There may be a patient there with a similar name, but we’re finding that inaccuracies in filing protocols are causing claims to be misapplied to other people with the same name,’ Miles said in a rapid, officious tone.
‘It’s not me and I don’t know another Nathan Ruiz,’ the man said. ‘Do I need to call my insurance company?’
So no relative with the same name. ‘No, sir, you’ve been a big help. Thank you for your time,’ Miles said, and hung up. He went to the search engine, broadened the ‘Santa Fe’ to ‘New Mexico’, searched again.
He found a Nathan Ruiz in Los Alamos who had earned the honor of Eagle Scout, a Nathan Ruiz who had died in Clovis the previous month at the age of thirty-seven, a Nathan Ruiz who had been hurt in the Iraq war and come home to Albuquerque.
He clicked on the news story. This Nathan Ruiz had been a technician with an army battery squad, a team charged with firing missiles in the opening rounds of the Iraq invasion. His team had been accidentally bombed in the chaos of the advance toward Baghdad, misidentified and attacked by a U.S. jet as an Iraqi Republican Guard missile unit; four of the team had been killed, the others badly injured. Nathan Ruiz had been sent home.
If he was at Sangre de Cristo, coming home hadn’t gone well.
His father, Cipriano, was quoted in the story about Nathan’s homecoming. ‘We’re just so proud of his bravery, of his service, and we just want him back home with us.’
Cipriano Ruiz. Miles switched over to an Albuquerque phone listings site and found the number.
He dialed. A woman answered on the fourth ring. Her voice sounded dejected, as though each day were simply a series of disappointments. ‘Hello, Ruiz residence.’
‘Mrs. Ruiz?’
‘Yes.’
‘My name is Mike Raymond. I knew your son Nathan in Iraq.’
