Dance of the Bones

by J. A. Jance

  “A man named Henry Rojas kidnapped my daughter and locked her in the trunk here,” Brandon explained, stepping toward the Fusion. “I believe this woman was his accomplice.”

  “I didn’t!” the woman screamed. “I had nothing to do with it—­nothing at all. And that man set his dog on me. Look at my wrist. It’s a wonder I’m not dead.”

  Ignoring the woman’s protestations, Officer Lopez followed Brandon and Bozo to the back of the Fusion and peered inside.

  “Is that your daughter?” he asked.

  Brandon nodded.

  “Is she dead?”

  “She’s still alive, but she needs medical attention. The man holding the other dog is Dan, her husband.”

  “Any guns here?” Officer Lopez asked.

  “I have one,” Brandon admitted. “And so does Dan. He’s Border Patrol. I’m Brandon Walker, retired sheriff of Pima County. We both have permits. The woman there tried to draw a weapon on us. It’s over there on the far side of her vehicle. If it hadn’t been for Bozo here, Dan and I would be history.”

  Lopez nodded. “Sounds like a valuable animal. We had a report of shots fired, but we couldn’t get an exact location. When someone called in to report a disturbance at this address, we came here instead.”

  “You said there were shots fired?” Brandon asked. “I never heard any.”

  Just then an oversized van with SWAT stenciled on the outside pulled up beside Dan’s vehicle, and a team of battle-­ready cops spilled out.

  Officer Lopez turned to the woman. “Excuse me, ma’am, is there anyone else in the residence? This Mr. Rojas, I believe the name was. Is he still inside?”

  “I don’t have to talk to you,” she said. “I want my lawyer, and I need a doctor.”

  “What’s your name, ma’am?”

  “Dobson,” she said. “Jane Dobson.”

  “The wrist doesn’t look all that bad,” Lopez said. “In fact, it’s already stopped bleeding, but do we have permission to search your premises?”

  “You most certainly do not!” Jane Dobson said. “You need a warrant.”

  Unperturbed, Lopez turned to Brandon. “Is it your understanding, Mr. Walker, that Mr. Rojas might still be inside the house and could possibly be in danger?”

  When it came to needing a search warrant, the belief that someone might still be in danger was an automatic get-­out-­of-­jail-­free card.

  Brandon nodded. “We know Rojas drove Lani here, but we haven’t seen any sign of him.”

  Someone Brandon assumed to be the shift supervisor rolled up in an unmarked vehicle, and a uniformed officer named Sergeant van Dyke stepped out. He and Lopez huddled for a moment. At the end of their discussion, Lopez cuffed Jane Dobson and led her toward his patrol car while Van Dyke ordered everyone else away from the area.

  “But what about my daughter?” Brandon demanded. “She needs medical attention.”

  “I’m sorry,” Van Dyke said. “She stays where she is until we clear the residence.”

  Much as he didn’t like it, Brandon knew that was the right call—­the only reasonable call. Moments later, the SWAT officers entered the house with weapons drawn. The team leader was back out in less than a minute. “House is clear, but we need the M.E.”

  “You’ve got a body?”

  “Yup.”

  Van Dyke turned back to the nearest EMT. “You’re good to go,” he said.

  Brandon followed the medics back into the garage and watched while they carefully removed Lani from the trunk and placed her on a gurney.

  “Any idea what they gave her?” one of them asked.

  Brandon pointed. “There are some vials over there and a ­couple of used needles.”

  “Okay,” the medic said. “We’ll get them. And don’t worry. Her vitals are good. I don’t think she’s in any real danger.”

  Brandon had been fine the whole time, but that’s when he lost it. He leaned against the interior wall of the garage and let his body slide down until he was sitting on the floor.

  Now the medic was concerned about him. “Sir,” he barked. “Are you okay?”

  “Look after Lani,” Brandon muttered. “I’m just a little weak in the knees.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “I’m sure.”

  Bozo evidently shared the medic’s concern. Whining, he walked over to Brandon and nosed him on the shoulder. Grabbing the dog’s sturdy body with both arms and burying his face in his long fur, Brandon Walker did something he hadn’t done in a very long time—­he wept.

  DELIA AND LEO ORTIZ WERE camped out in the hospital waiting room. Lorraine José was still too ill to come look in on Tim, so Delia was spending time in his room while Leo went in and out of Gabe’s.

  Right now, with both boys asleep and resting, they sat side by side. “Did you know Lorraine has cancer?” Delia asked.

  Leo shook his head. “I thought it was just the car accident.”

  “She told me tonight that it’s liver cancer,” Delia said. “Fourth stage. They found the tumor when they were treating her other injuries.”

  “I didn’t know,” Leo said.

  “She’s worried about Tim,” Delia continued, “worried about what will happen to him once she’s gone.”

  “Maybe Lorraine’s sister will take him.”

  “What about us taking him?” Delia asked. “Those two boys are close, and they will be even more so after everything that happened today. Besides, Gabe’s always wanted a brother.”

  “Are you serious?”

  Delia nodded. “I am,” she said. “If Lani was willing to help us with Gabe, we should be willing to help Lorraine with Tim.”

  “Let’s think about it, then,” Leo said. “We don’t have to rush. We can talk to Lorraine and both boys and see what they think.”

  “Yes,” Delia said, “we’ll talk about it after.”

  Leo’s phone rang. He answered it, and Delia studied her husband’s stolid face as his expression changed from serious to joyous. “Great,” he said. “That’s wonderful news, Dan! Thank you for letting us know.”

  “Know what?”

  “They found Lani. It sounds like she’s all right. Rojas is dead. His accomplice is under arrest.”

  “Accomplice?”

  “He was working with some woman, I guess.” Leo stood up. “I need to go tell Gabe.”

  “But he’s asleep.”

  “I’ll wake him. He won’t mind.”

  Delia nodded. “And I’ll go tell Lorraine.”

  Inside Gabe’s room, Leo stood for a moment, looking down in wonder at his sleeping son. Leo and Gabe had talked off and on during the course of the evening. Leo knew about Tim José’s knife and about how Gabe had figured out a way to cut them loose. He also knew now that had Henry Rojas opened the box, his son had been prepared to do battle with him. Leo was grateful it hadn’t come to that, but he was proud to know that his son was brave and that he was old enough to kill a coyote—­old enough to be a man.

  Fighting back tears again, Gabe reached down and gently shook the boy’s shoulder. “Dan just called,” he said as Gabe’s eyes blinked open. “Henry Rojas is dead, and Lani is safe.”

  Gabe smiled. “I knew she would be,” he said.

  “How did you know?”

  Gabe reached over and took four tiny transparent stones off his bedside table. “I looked in these,” he said. “They told me she’d be fine.”

  With that, Gabe went back to sleep.

  CHAPTER 28

  AND SO, NAWOJ, MY FRIEND, even today, if you go out into the land of the Desert ­People to that deep water hole in the foothills near Baboquivari that is always full of water, you will find that the White-­Winged Doves still gather there. And if you stand very still and listen, you will hear Shining Falls laughing and singing. And she still holds Little Wh
ite Feather in her hand.

  “MOMMY, WAKE UP.”

  When Lani’s eyes opened, she was in a hospital room staring into Micah’s unblinking blue eyes. She looked around. Dan and Angie hovered in the background.

  “Who found me?” she asked.

  “Daddy and Grandpa,” Micah said. “Grandma was really mad about that. She said Grandpa should have known better.”

  Lani laughed. “I’ll bet she said a lot more than that.”

  Dan nodded in agreement. “And in not very grandmotherly terms,” he added.

  Micah held up his hand. “Where did you get this?”

  “Get what?” Lani asked.

  He dropped something into her hand. It took a moment for her to realize that it was a tiny olla. She knew from touching the object that this was something ancient and probably very valuable, but maybe dangerous as well. Holding it up to the light to examine it, she spotted the faint images of both a turtle and an owl etched into the clay.

  “Where did this come from?”

  “You were holding it in your hand when the EMTs carried you out of Ava’s garage,” Dan answered.

  “Who’s Ava? That crazy lady?”

  Her husband sighed. “It’s a long story. Henry Rojas and Max and Carlos José got caught up with a woman named Ava Richland, who was smuggling blood diamonds through Mexico and into the United States. When everything went south, Ava tasked Henry with getting rid of the younger José brothers while at the same time putting out a hit on the older one.”

  “Which was successful?”

  Dan nodded.

  “Tim’s the only one left?”

  Dan nodded again.

  “Poor Lorraine.”

  “What about Henry Rojas?”

  “He’s dead, too. Ava shot Henry and then loaded you in the trunk of your car. We’re pretty sure she was leaving you there to die of an overdose while she drove off into the sunset. The FBI was going after a warrant to track your phone. They probably would have found you before you corked off, but your dad figured out a way to locate you sooner than that—­soon enough that Ava didn’t have a chance to sneak out of Dodge.”

  “What’s going to happen to Ava?”

  “She’s in jail on suspicion of five counts of homicide and three counts of attempted homicide, to say nothing of several counts of conspiracy and smuggling. The only case where we know for sure she pulled the trigger is Henry’s, but since the others died in the course of the commission of a felony, she’s just as responsible as the shooter.”

  “Did you say five?” Lani asked.

  Dan ticked them off on his fingers. “Max, Carlos, Paul, a state prison employee named Jason Swanson, and Henry. The attempteds are you, Gabe, and Tim. She’s also a person of interest in two cold cases—­the murder of a guy named Amos Warren back in the seventies and a guy named Kenneth Myers who was murdered in the Seattle area in the early eighties. John Lassiter went to prison for Amos Warren’s murder. He was attacked in prison at the same time Max José was, only Lassiter didn’t die. The detectives are working on the theory that Ava was most likely involved in that hit as well.”

  “Can I keep the pot?” Micah asked, abruptly changing the subject.

  Lani thought about that for a moment. “I’m not sure,” she said. “Let me keep it for right now, okay?”

  “Okay,” Micah said. “But why’s there an owl and a turtle on it?”

  “Have I ever told you the story of Little White Feather?”

  Micah frowned and shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

  “I think the woman who made that pot knew about that story—­about how Turtle and Owl helped a girl named Shining Falls. When I get home, maybe I can tell it to you.”

  “Can’t you come home now?”

  “I need to talk to my doctor and ask him.”

  “But you are a doctor. Can’t you just tell him?”

  Lani laughed and kissed the top of his head. “When you’re the patient, it doesn’t quite work that way.”

  AS FAR AS DIANA LADD and Brandon Walker were concerned, the Tucson Festival of Books took a big hit on Sunday. After their Saturday from hell, Diana was an understandable no-­show at her Sunday panels and signings. And if anyone wondered why, all they had to do was take a look at the front page of the Arizona Daily Sun.

  Besides, putting on a smiling face with her husband would have been a challenge, since Diana was barely speaking to the man. Yes, she was overjoyed that Brandon and Dan had found Lani and engineered her rescue, but she was not pleased that they had put themselves in danger. The only member of the team who wasn’t in the doghouse happened to be the dog. Bozo’s timely heroics left him entirely free of blame.

  Amanda Wasser called Brandon late in the afternoon. “My father is out of the ICU,” she said. “His condition has been upgraded from guarded to serious.”

  “Have you seen him?”

  “Yes.”

  “And?”

  “His first words were ‘You look just like your mother.’ But that’s not why I called. I just got off the phone with Mr. Glassman. Ava Richland confessed.”

  Brandon was astonished. “She did what?”

  “The prosecutor agreed to take the death penalty off the table if she confessed to everything, and she did—­to Henry Rojas’s death, of course, but also to the murder of Amos Warren. She killed him so she could lay hands on his stuff, and she murdered Kenneth Mangum/Myers because he was trying to blackmail her. And then there’s the case of Clarence Hanover . . .”

  “Wait, are you telling me that Ava murdered her first husband?”

  “Yes, and she got away with that one, too. She pushed him into Pantano Wash during a flash flood. I guess she admitted to his homicide because her attorney convinced her that if anything else surfaced later on, her death penalty plea agreement would go away. In addition to that, she admitted to ordering the deaths of the José brothers and masterminding the prison riot scheme designed to cover the attacks on Max José and my father.”

  “Does your father know about any of this?” Brandon asked.

  “Not yet,” she answered. “I called you first.”

  “Even with Ava taking responsibility, Big Bad John isn’t going to want to be released from prison,” Brandon warned her. “He’s worried about being a burden to you.”

  “Mr. Glassman says that if all this works out, there should be some wrongful conviction funds to help with my father’s continuing care.”

  “Back to Ava; you say Kenneth tried to blackmail her?”

  “He may have pretended to be my father’s best pal, but it turns out he was also an accessory after the fact in Amos Warren’s homicide. Ava confessed that he helped her retrieve Amos’s vehicle from the crime scene. He also helped her remove Amos’s goods and transport them from his home as well as from the storage unit. I’m not sure why he bothered testifying on my father’s behalf at the first trial, since every word out of his mouth was a lie. Maybe his conscience was bothering him.”

  Just then something else occurred to Brandon. “When I got to Ava Richland’s house yesterday afternoon, an ambulance was just taking her current husband, Harold, to the hospital. Did she try to do him in, too?”

  “Probably not. It turns out she was far better off with him alive than dead. Harold’s son has created a complicated marital trust that would have left him running Ava’s show once Harold passes on. That’s most likely why she was leaving town. She’d put together a collection of smuggled diamonds that would have kept her in the manner to which she’d become accustomed. She was planning on going elsewhere and living under an assumed name—­several assumed names. It almost worked. If it hadn’t been for TLC and you, it might very well have worked.”

  “It wasn’t just me,” Brandon objected. “A guy named J. P. Beaumont up in Seattle and his pal Todd Hatcher helped out, too.”


  “How are the two boys doing?” Amanda asked.

  “Gabe was released from the hospital early this morning. Tim is still there, but my daughter tells me he’ll be fine.”

  “And your daughter?”

  “She’s fine, too.”

  “I’m so glad,” Amanda breathed. “I couldn’t have stood being responsible for anyone else coming to grief. I’ve done quite enough harm as it is.”

  “You can’t blame yourself,” Brandon counseled. “None of this is your fault. Do the doctors say how long John will be hospitalized?”

  “Most likely the better part of a week.”

  “Let him know that I’ll be dropping by,” Brandon Walker said. “I hate to think of you sitting around in the hospital all by yourself.”

  “I’m not by myself,” Amanda said. “A man from the prison is here with me. His name is Aubrey Bayless. He says he’s my father’s friend, and he’s going to hang around to make sure nothing else happens.”

  I WAS AT THE AIRPORT waiting in the cell-­phone lot for Mel’s plane when Brandon Walker called to give me an overview of what had happened. I knew some of it already because Todd Hatcher had kept me apprised as to how things had played out the night before.

  Ava’s confession to multiple murders, however, came as a complete surprise. There was a certain righ­teous­ness in the fact that Amanda Wasser, the daughter of the man Ava had framed for one of her own murders, was the one who ultimately brought her down. I liked that. It may have been justice delayed by decades, but it was far better than no justice at all.

  “And Myers died because he tried to blackmail her?”

  As I asked the question, I couldn’t help thinking about Calliope Horn-­Grover. She may have had her suspicions, but she still clung to the hope that the Kenneth Myers she had known was a good guy. She still wore the pendant he had given her. That left me in a dilemma. Would I tell her about the blackmail scheme or wouldn’t I? Would I reveal that, more than just knowing about something, he had been an active accomplice? Right at that moment, I couldn’t say for sure one way or the other. Sometimes we’re better off living with our illusions wavering but relatively intact than we are knowing the whole truth.