Santa Fe Rules Read Online Free PDF Page B

“indescribable.”
    “I can imagine. Were they naked?”
    “Yes. Their clothes were scattered around the room.”
    “You were wrong about me; how did you identify Julia and Jack?”
    “Well, of course, I had never seen any of you naked before, and the faces…the wounds were all to the head. Jack was wearing that enormous silver ring he bought from an old Indian on the plaza that day. We were with him, remember?”
    “Yes. And Julia?”
    “The tattoo.”
    Mark nodded. Julia had, before he had known her, had a tiny sunflower tattooed onto her right breast, high enough that it would show when she was wearing something low-cut. It had always amused him; he remembered how often he had run his tongue over it. “There’s no doubt about her, then.”
    “I’m afraid not. I hope I can be forgiven for thinking the other man was you. He was the same size and build, and his hair, what was left of it, was thick and graying, like yours.”
    “A natural enough mistake,” Wolf said absently.

    “I told Martinez about that afternoon,” Mark said.
    Wolf looked up. “What about that afternoon?”
    “Just that I had a drink with you over there around five, then came home. The day of the murders.”
    “You had a drink at my house that same afternoon?”
    “Well, of course; you called me. You were there alone. Surely you remember that.”
    “I don’t remember anything about that night, Mark, and nothing about the day before.”
    The two men stared at each other for a moment, and some unspoken fear seemed to pass between them.
    Mark spoke first. “Tell me where you’ve been,” he said, in the voice he had used when Wolf had been his patient.
    Wolf told him about waking alone in the house, about the trip to the Grand Canyon, his stay there, the trip back.
    “Well,” Mark said, when Wolf had finished. “Who would ever have thought to look for you at the Grand Canyon?”
    “Who would have thought to look for me at all?” Wolf said. “After all, I’m supposed to be on a slab somewhere.” He winced at the thought. “Mark, where is Julia?”
    “At the county morgue, with Jack and…whoever. The body won’t be released until a postmortem has been conducted—another day or two, I should think.” He paused. “Wolf, you said you read the Times; did you read the obituaries, too?”
    “Yes.”
    “Then you know about Julia’s…background.”
    “Yes. How the hell did they find out about that? I never knew about it. Why would they put a thing like that in an obituary, for Christ’s sake?”
    “I called a friend at the Times and checked that out,” Mark replied. “A Times reporter had interviewed Julia’ssister in prison a couple of times. She was apparently trying to interest him in a book about her case. She told him about Julia’s background when he called to tell her about the murders.”
    “Mark, you were her analyst. Did you know anything about that?”
    Pain crossed Mark’s face. “Yes. After a long time had passed. I sensed she was holding something back, and finally she came out with it.”
    “The Times stuff was true, then?”
    “All of it, I’m afraid. I hope you understand why I couldn’t tell you, Wolf.”
    “Sure, doctor-patient confidentiality, and all that.”
    “Exactly. Julia would never have told me anything if she’d had the slightest notion that I might tell you. I was in something of a quandary about it, but I decided to go by the book.”
    “Of course.” Wolf remembered something. “Mark, the Times said something about your having been arrested in New York for practicing medicine without a license.”
    Mark sighed deeply. “It was accurate, as far as it went. When I was in medical school at Columbia, I got a girl pregnant. We were at a lake house upstate for the weekend—I didn’t know about her condition—when she miscarried. Our friends were out shopping in the car, and there was no phone. I helped her as best I could, then sedated her and made her comfortable. The other