by J. A. Jance
“That means that the killer must have had an accomplice,” I said. “Assuming the victim’s vehicle was at the crime scene originally, someone had to help transport it to the spot where it was found.”
“We always assumed there was an accomplice,” Brandon said, “but we could never get any traction when it came to finding out who it was.”
“I think I may know,” I told him. “The dead guy up here.”
“Ken Mangum?”
“I just talked to Kenneth’s old girlfriend, Calliope Horn. Shortly before he disappeared, he told her he was going to take a trip to Arizona and that he expected to come back with an armload of money. Then, the very day he disappeared, Ken was seen in the company of a well-dressed woman—a stranger no one up here had ever seen before. Calliope thought it might be an old girlfriend, and maybe that’s true. But what if it’s more than that? What if Ken was somehow involved in Amos Warren’s death? Or maybe the woman was the one who committed the murder, and Kenneth Mangum/Myers either knew about it or figured it out. What if that windfall he was expecting had something to do with blackmail?”
“That would make sense,” Brandon said. “When I talked to Lassiter earlier today, his first suggestion was Ava Martin Hanover Richland. Lassiter’s daughter, Amanda, said the same thing. She tried to point the JFA folks in Ava’s direction, but they weren’t interested.”
“Would blackmail have worked on Ava?” I asked. “Would she have been a likely target?”
“Absolutely. By the time Amos Warren’s remains surfaced, Ava Martin had reinvented herself and moved up in the world. She would have had a lot to lose, especially when Lassiter’s second trial was about to get under way and even more so now.”
Excitement bubbled in Brandon Walker’s voice and in mine as well. We were a pair of old hounds who had just caught a scent. It was a very faint scent and one that might not pan out, but it was still there, and we were on it.
“Is there any way to discover if the lady in question was in the Seattle area in the early part of May of 1983?” Walker asked.
“Doesn’t seem likely,” I answered.
“Maybe I should go pay her a call. Ava and her most recent husband have a house somewhere here in Tucson. The problem is, I don’t have an address.”
“Let’s see what Todd Hatcher can do in that regard. Is it all right if I give him your number?”
“Sure,” Brandon said. “Whatever works.”
IT WAS LANI’S WEEKEND OFF, but after her meeting with Lorraine José, she didn’t go back home. Instead she retreated into her office at the hospital and closed the door. Before leaving the house to go meet with the FBI agents at the café, she had opened her medicine basket and dropped her divining crystals into the pocket of her lab coat. She put the list containing the José brothers’ phone numbers face up on her desk, then she brought out the crystals. She went down the list, one at a time, studying the blurry numbers through the crystals, but that told her nothing. No wavering images appeared in her mind’s eye. She had attempted to explain to Gabe how viewing things through the crystals often helped her see things in another light. This time that didn’t happen.
Lani’s sense of hopelessness and despair deepened. Tim José was most likely lost, she realized. That meant there was a good chance Gabe was lost, too. And there was nothing—not one thing—she could do about it.
Sitting at her desk, Lani stared down at the crystals with her chin propped in her hands. That was when her lack of sleep from the night before finally caught up with her. She dozed off only to be awakened later by a light tap on the door. Jarred awake, Lani looked up to see Dan poke his head inside.
“There you are,” he said. “I saw your car on the way past.”
“On the way past,” Lani echoed. “Where are you going and where are the kids?”
“I called Mrs. Hendricks to come look after them. The FBI got a hit on Tim’s cell. The last time it pinged was somewhere out near the airport. Law and Order is calling for volunteers to come search. Hulk and I are on our way there now.”
Lani breathed a sigh of relief. The FBI had done its job after all. She scrambled to her feet. “I’ll come with you,” she said, reaching for her purse.
Dan gave her an appraising look. “Are you sure? You look beat. Shouldn’t you have a lie-down?”
“No,” she said. “I’ll come, too. Has anyone told Lorraine José what’s going on?”
“I’m not sure, but I doubt it.”
“I’ll go tell her, then I’ll come help.”
“Suit yourself.”
Lani hurried into the convalescent wing just in time to see Lorraine José answer a call on her cell phone. Lorraine listened briefly, then, as her face went pale with shock, she dropped the phone, letting it crash onto the tiled floor.
“What is it?” Lani asked, hurrying toward the distraught woman. “What’s wrong? Did they find Tim?”
Anguish flooded Lorraine’s face. “It’s Max,” she whispered. “That was Father O’Reilly calling from Florence. There was a riot in the prison a little while ago. Max is dead.”
“Dead?” Lani repeated. “How can that be?”
Lorraine shook her head hopelessly. “I don’t know. How is it possible that I’ve lost all my boys, even Tim, on the same day?”
“People are still looking for Tim,” Lani said, hoping she sounded more reassuring than she felt. “With any kind of luck, they’ll find him.”
“Would you ask I’itoi for me?” Lorraine asked. “Please?”
It wasn’t a request Lani could ignore. She had slipped her divining crystals back into the pocket of her lab coat as she left her office. Now, sitting on the chair next to Lorraine José’s bed, Lani took out the stones, gripped them tightly in her hand, and began to sing. As the song filled the room, Lani was no longer Dr. Pardee. She was Medicine Woman, filled with the spirit of Mualig Siakam, Forever Spinning. Together they were singing for power and singing for all of them—for Tim José and Gabe Ortiz, for Delia and Leo Ortiz, for Lorraine José, and for the whole community. As Lani sang, she hoped in her heart of hearts that Elder Brother was listening.
AMANDA WASSER LISTENED IN SUBDUED silence when Brandon Walker delivered his news about the prison riot.
“This is all my fault,” she said when he finished.
“Your fault,” Brandon echoed. “How so?”
“You went to see my father at my instigation. A few hours later someone comes after him, killing two people and wounding another? This can’t be a coincidence.”
“I’m sure you’re right about that,” Brandon agreed. “There’s bound to be a connection. That can only mean that reopening your father’s case constitutes a threat to someone.”
“Who?”
“Who indeed? There’s no statute of limitations on homicide, Amanda. If John Lassiter didn’t kill Amos Warren, someone else did, and that killer has gotten away with murder all this time. Whoever did it may be worried that their luck is about to run out.”
“You believe my father, then?” Amanda asked. “You believe he didn’t do it?”
Brandon nodded. “I do,” he said.
“So who’s the killer?” Amanda asked.
“You told me earlier that you thought Ava Martin needed looking into. When I asked John Lassiter straight out, ‘If you didn’t kill Amos, who did?’ that was his answer, too—‘Ava Martin.’ ”
“I tried to get JFA to take a look at her,” Amanda said. “They were so focused on the prosecutorial misconduct issue that they saw no need to go any further.”
“We do,” Brandon told her. “In fact, we already are.”
“Good,” she said. “In the meantime, I need to pack up and get going.”
“Going where?”
“To Mesa, where else?” she said. “Since I’m the one who put my father in that hospital, I’m go
ing to go there to see him whether he likes it or not.”
“You do know why John Lassiter refuses to see you, don’t you?” Brandon asked.
Amanda had turned her scooter and was on her way to the bedroom. She paused and turned back to Brandon. “Why?”
“Because he wants to clear his name first.”
Amanda’s eyes filled with tears. “Don’t you understand? As far as I’m concerned, his name was cleared a long time ago.”
BRANDON WAS JUST LEAVING AMANDA Wasser’s driveway when J. P. Beaumont’s friend Todd called to give him Ava Richland’s address. It was somewhere in the far reaches of Tucson’s Ventana Canyon, and Brandon was making his way there when his phone rang again.
“Warden Huffman,” the caller said when Brandon answered. “This is not an official call, by the way, but I’m hoping you might be able to help us get ahead of this thing.”
“In what way?”
“I’m sitting here studying the surveillance tapes,” Huffman said. “Over the years I’ve been around plenty of prison riots. This one simply doesn’t add up. I can tell that the action in the center of the room was clearly designed to pull attention away from what was happening in the far corner, which turned out to be a well-organized hit on two individuals.”
“John Lassiter and who else?”
“The other victim was a young guy from Sells, Max José. A priest showed up in the middle of all the mess, asking to see Max and saying that he had come, at Max’s mother’s request, to let him know that his two younger brothers had been murdered near Sells earlier today and that his youngest brother is missing.”
“Max is dead now, too?” Brandon demanded. “Are you kidding?”
“Unfortunately not, so here’s my question. Can you tell me if there’s any connection between the José family out in Sells and John Lassiter?”
“Not right off, Warden Huffman,” Brandon answered. “But if I come up with one, I’ll let you know.”
The GPS led Brandon to a house perched on the mountainside high above the rest of the city. The spectacular window-lined structure seemed to wrap itself around the contours of the mountain. A wrought-iron gate at the end of the driveway was open. He was about to turn in when an aid car, lights ablaze, came tearing down the drive. Brandon pulled aside to let it pass.
When he arrived at the front of the house, a fire truck was just departing. A woman in what appeared to be hospital scrubs stood on the front verandah, wringing her hands. Brandon got out of the Escalade and walked toward her. She turned on him. “Who are you?”
“My name is Brandon Walker,” he said. “I’m a friend of the family. I was hoping to speak to Mrs. Richland.”
“Mrs. Richland isn’t here. That was her husband in the ambulance. He had another stroke. They’re taking him to TMC. I’ve been trying to reach Mrs. Richland to let her know what’s going on, but she isn’t answering her phone. She’s probably out in the middle of the desert somewhere where there’s no signal.”
“Do you know where she was headed?”
“Their condo in San Carlos, down in Mexico,” the nurse answered. “I tried calling there, too. That was strange. When I spoke to the housekeeper, she had no idea Mrs. Richland was coming there today.”
“What kind of car does she drive?” Brandon asked.
“A black Mercedes S550.”
“Did you notify the authorities in Mexico and ask them to look for her?”
“Not yet. Do you think I should?”
“How bad off is her husband?”
The nurse bit her lip. “Pretty bad,” she answered.
“In that case,” Brandon said, “if I were you, I’d make that call.”
CHAPTER 24
NOW SHINING FALLS, WHO WAS neither all asleep nor all awake, lay in a place where the water was very deep. She was not able to move much, but she still held Little White Feather tightly in her hand.
Evil Giantess came to look for the girl, but Owl was free. His feet were no longer tangled in her hair. Owl spread his wings over the water and made it very dark so Evil Giantess could not see Shining Falls lying beneath it.
Finally Evil Giantess gave up and went away.
The next morning the White-Winged Doves went to the village and called and called. At last Shining Falls’s mother heard them call and followed them to the big water hole, which is always full of water. It was daytime when they arrived, so Owl was asleep.
The mother of Shining Falls looked everywhere for her child but could not find her. She could not understand why the doves had brought her there.
HENRY ROJAS’S SHIFT THAT DAY was pure agony, primarily because he’d had so little sleep the night before. A couple of times during those endless hours, he had tucked himself into out-of-the-way spots in hopes of grabbing a power nap, but sleep wouldn’t come. As soon as he tried closing his eyes, images of those two bullet-ridden bodies danced in his head. The only thing that made them disappear was reopening his eyes.
Finally off work, Henry was tired to the bone, far too weary to drive straight into town. He thought about stopping by the garage to check on things but nixed that idea immediately. Instead, he went home to shower—and to think. With Lucy over at the hospital working the night shift, he stood under the shower for a good long time.
He had connected with Jane Dobson years earlier through somebody who knew somebody who knew somebody else. He met with her periodically or stopped by the house to drop off goods and pick up cash. The woman lived in a nondescript house in a marginal neighborhood. Nevertheless, she seemed to have more money than God. She struck him as a sweet little old lady with silver hair who wore colorful dresses, got around with the aid of a walker, and depended on a portable oxygen tank. How was it possible for someone who looked so harmless to be so ruthless? Yes, the José brothers knew too much and they had to go, but still, the idea that Jane had ordered their deaths without so much as blinking an eye came as a shock.
Henry had always let Jane think she was the only game in town. That wasn’t entirely true. He had developed a second thriving side business specializing in smuggled prescription drugs. Occasionally, when the meds arrived in his hands before they could be passed along to the buyer, he kept them stored in a safe in his garage out at the airport, along with a growing stash of greenbacks and a number of weapons. He knew that if anyone ever took a close look at the guns, they would lead straight back to what the newspapers were always referring to as “Fast and Furious weapons.”
One of the benefits of being on the Border Patrol’s front lines, especially as a patrol supervisor, meant that Henry knew what was going on and could make the best of it. He was the one who posted patrol schedules, so it was easy for him to work around them. He also didn’t believe for a minute that he was the only member of the Border Patrol who earned way more money on the side than he did on the up and up.
It had been a piece of extreme good fortune that, on the night Jane ordered him to take the José boys out, he’d had his latest shipment of succinylcholine stashed in his safe awaiting delivery the next time he drove up to Phoenix. A year or so earlier, when he’d delivered his first load of that to a well-heeled customer up north, he’d asked Lucy, his wife, who was also an L.P.N., about it. She’d answered his question without having any idea why he was asking, but that was how he knew the medication’s primary use was in paralyzing patients prior to surgery. Henry had a feeling that the guy who bought it from him in boxes containing a dozen vials of the stuff was using it for something a lot more interesting than prepping surgery patients.
The point was, Henry had been in possession of a supply of the medication when he’d needed it most. And because Lucy was a diabetic and on insulin, he’d had easy access to a supply of syringes as well. Once he had collected those, he was good to go.
First he’d set up a meeting with Carlos, assuring him that Jane had agreed to co
me through with the extra cash. Henry had suggested Rattlesnake Skull charco as the site for their meetup because most people on the reservation avoided the spot whenever possible. The two men had been sitting side by side in the cab of Carlos’s Jeep Cherokee having a little chat when Henry had plunged the loaded syringe into the man’s bare upper arm. Henry had been both amazed and gratified to see how quickly and thoroughly the drug had worked.
By the time it wore off, Henry had Carlos cuffed and secured to a cottonwood sapling growing on the edge of the charco. After that it was just a matter of collecting the other two brothers and bringing them along for the ride. Henry had come to the meeting with one of his stash of unregistered weapons, knowing and dreading the whole time that he might be forced to use it.
Yes, Jane may have ordered him to do it, but Henry had reasons of his own for being willing to. Henry had needed the José brothers gone on his own account, and Gabe Ortiz as well. They all knew who he was and could identify him. Henry couldn’t afford to be sent to prison any more than Jane Dobson could.
Henry’s real problem with carrying out Jane’s order was that, despite all his years in law enforcement, this was the first time he had ever killed someone. He had assured Carlos and Paul that if they’d just tell him where the shipment was, he’d let them go. That had been a lie, of course, but they’d believed him—or at least Paul had. Once Paul spilled the beans and admitted that Timmy had put the shipment somewhere safe, that was it. Henry had covered their faces with grocery bags before stepping back and pulling the trigger. Then, after barfing his guts out, he’d fired again. Carlos and Paul were dead after that first round of bullets hit them. The second volley was just to be sure. After that Henry had gone looking for the kid, who, in all the hubbub, had managed to get loose and make good his escape.
He’d called Jane while he was looking, thinking she’d appreciate having an update. That had backfired. He could tell she was pissed, but so was he. It was easy for her to sit on her lazy ass in Tucson and issue the orders as long as she had Henry working his own butt off to carry them out.