Brandon Walker 02 - Kiss Of The Bees (v5.0)

by J. A. Jance

  No matter what he did, Mitch would never be able to touch that.

  For some time after Alvin Miller left, Brandon and Diana simply sat in the living room together, sharing many of the same thoughts, but for minutes at a time, neither of them spoke.

  “Should we call Fat Crack?” Diana asked at last.

  “I don’t see what good that would do,” Brandon said.

  “But what if…”

  “If what?”

  Diana paused for a moment before she answered. “What if he’s right and this is what he meant yesterday when he was talking about the evil coming from my book?”

  “How could it be?” Brandon returned. “I don’t see how Lani’s disappearance now can have anything to do with Andrew Carlisle showing up here twenty-one years ago.”

  “I don’t either,” Diana said. “Forget I even mentioned it.”

  Again they were quiet. “What if we’ve lost her forever, Brandon? What if we never see her again?”

  Swallowing hard, Brandon Walker leaned back and rested his head on the chair. He had already lived through this agony once when they lost Tommy. It had never occurred to him that he might lose a second child.

  “Don’t say that,” he said. “We’ll find her. I know we’ll find her.”

  But even as he said the words, Brandon’s own heart was drowning in despair. He had heard those same platitudes spoken by other grieving parents about other missing children, some of whom had never been heard from again.

  “At six o’clock sharp, I’m going to be on the phone to the department, raising hell. Ford Myers may not be the one who comes out here to take the Missing Persons report, but someone sure as hell will be, or I’ll know the reason why!”

  Diana glanced at her watch. It was ten of one. “Maybe we should go to bed. Even if we can’t sleep, it would probably do our bodies some good if we lay down for a while.”

  Brandon looked at Diana. Other than having kicked off her shoes, she was still wearing the dress she had worn to the banquet, but she looked bedraggled. Her hair had come adrift. Brandon was startled by the dark shadows under her eyes and by the bone-weary strain showing around the corners of her mouth.

  “You’re right,” he said quickly, standing up and helping her to rise as well. “If there’s a phone call, we can take it in the bedroom just as easily as we can take it here.”

  They walked into the bedroom together. Brandon stripped to his shorts while Diana undressed and hung up her dress. The bed was still in disarray as a result of their afternoon lovemaking. As Brandon set about straightening the covers, a plastic cassette tape slid out from under Diana’s pillow.

  “What’s this?” he asked, picking it up. Other than the manufacturer’s label, there was no marking on it of any kind. “Did you leave this tape here, Di?” he asked.

  Diana, dressed in a nightgown, came out of her walk-in closet. “What tape?” she asked.

  “This one,” Brandon said, holding it up so she could see it. “I found it under your pillow.”

  Diana Ladd Walker swayed on her feet and groped for the door-jamb to keep from falling. Her face turned deathly pale. “Where did that come from?” she whispered.

  “I told you. I found it under your pillow. Maybe it’s a message from Lani.”

  “No,” Diana said. Shivering, she looked at the tape and shook her head. “No, it isn’t.”

  But Brandon’s mind was made up. “She probably decided to leave us a tape instead of a note,” he said.

  Tape in hand, Brandon was already on his way to the living room, headed for the stereo deck with the built-in cassette player. Diana came after him. “It’s not from Lani, Brandon. Don’t play it.”

  The brittle note of warning in her voice was enough to cause him to turn and look at her in alarm. “Why not?” he asked.

  “Don’t play it,” she said again. “Please don’t.”

  Brandon looked at his wife impatiently. “What’s gotten into you?” he asked.

  “The tape isn’t from Lani,” Diana said. “It’s from Andrew Carlisle. I know it is.”

  Disgusted and impatient, Brandon turned to the stereo. As he inserted the tape into the player, he glanced back at his wife. “You and Fat Crack,” he said. “Dead men don’t do tapes. How could he?”

  Hunching her shoulders and doubling over as if in pain, Diana Walker sank down on the couch. “Brandon, listen to me. It is from Carlisle. You don’t want to play it.”

  “Diana, if there’s a chance this is going to help us locate Lani, of course we’re going to play it,” he said.

  As the sound filled the room, they both recognized Lani’s voice almost at once, but it was muffled and difficult to understand, as if it had been recorded from a great distance. Pressing the remote volume control, Brandon turned it up several notches.

  “What was that?” he said, frowning with concentration. “Didn’t it sound as though she said something about Quentin?”

  Still bent over and staring at the floor, Diana shook her head and said nothing. Brandon hit the “stop” button, rewound the tape a few rotations, and then hit “play” once more.

  And he was right. It was Lani’s voice, louder now, but still fuzzy and indistinct, saying her brother’s name over and over. “Quentin,” she was saying. “Quentin, Quentin, Quentin.”

  “What the hell does Quentin have to do with all this?” Brandon asked.

  Almost like a sleepwalker, Diana got up off the couch and walked over to where Brandon was kneeling in front of the stereo. “Shut it off,” she begged, leaning against him, putting both hands on his shoulders. “Please, Brandon. Don’t listen to any more of it. You don’t understand. I can’t stand to listen to any more.”

  “Diana,” Brandon said curtly. “This is bound to help us find Lani. We’ve got to listen to all of it—every single word. Be quiet now for a minute so I can hear what they’re saying.”

  Trying to decipher the tape over Diana’s continuing objections, Brandon punched the volume control one more time. And that was where it was when the unearthly scream came tearing through the speakers.

  The sound ripped into Diana’s whole being, robbing her legs of the strength needed to stand upright. Her beseeching hands went limp on Brandon’s shoulders and slid down his back. While Brandon stared uncomprehendingly at the now silent speaker, Diana dropped to her knees, leaning against him.

  “Oh, my God,” she sobbed. “He’s killed her. I know Andrew Carlisle’s killed her.”

  Slowly, an ashen Brandon Walker turned around to face her. Grasping his wife by the shoulders, he shook her. “You knew what was coming, didn’t you? That’s why you didn’t want me to play the tape. How did you know?”

  It was a question, but the way he said the words turned it into an accusation. At first Diana didn’t answer. “How?” he demanded again.

  “We’ve got to call Fat Crack,” she murmured. “He’s the only one who can help us now.”

  She reached out then as if to cling to him, but he moved away from her. The sudden fury rising in Brandon Walker’s soul was so overwhelming that he no longer dared allow himself to touch her.

  “It’s got nothing to do with Andrew Carlisle!” he snarled back at her. “You heard what she said. Quentin was the one who was with her. Whatever happened just then, Quentin is the one who did it, the little son of a bitch. And once I lay hands on him…”

  The rest of the uncompleted threat hung in the air as Brandon got to his feet and headed for the kitchen. Diana was still sitting there when he returned. Without another word, he ejected the tape from the player and then put both it and the carrying case into a paper bag.

  When he headed for the kitchen once again, Diana got up and followed him. “Where are you going?” she asked, when he took his car keys down from the Peg-Board.

  “I’m going to take these to the department so Alvin Miller can check them for prints. Then I’m going to ask him to run Quentin’s prints as a comparison.”

  “Lani’s dead, isn�
�t she?” Diana said.

  Brandon Walker bit his lip and nodded. The agony in that scream left him little else to hope for.

  “Yes,” he said at last. “I suppose so.”

  For a moment husband and wife stood looking at each other. The fury Brandon had felt earlier was gone. “You knew what was coming, didn’t you?” Diana nodded wordlessly. “How?”

  “There were others.”

  “Others?”

  Diana looked away then, refusing to meet his eyes. “Other tapes,” she answered.

  “Of other murders?”

  “Yes.”

  “But you never mentioned anything about it.”

  Diana shook her head, still refusing to meet her husband’s probing gaze. “They were so awful, I never told anyone about them, not even you. I didn’t want anybody else to know or to have to listen.”

  “You mean like snuff films, only on audio?” Brandon’s voice trembled as he asked the question. He felt suddenly slack-jawed. “You mean you’ve heard them?”

  “Yes.” Diana took a deep breath. “Two of them. There was one of Gina Antone’s death. The other was about that costume designer that he killed in downtown Tucson. This one makes three.”

  “But that’s Andrew Carlisle. Lani was talking to Quentin. To my son.”

  “Quentin and Carlisle were in prison together,” Diana suggested quietly, in a voice still choked with emotion. “Carlisle had an almost hypnotic effect on Gary Ladd. He was there with Gina when she died, and I’m sure that’s why he killed himself. Maybe Carlisle did the same thing to Quentin.”

  The anger that had been holding Brandon upright collapsed inside him and sent him lurching drunkenly into Diana’s arms. Still holding the paper bag in one hand, he used his other arm to pull Diana against his chest while he buried his head in her hair.

  “We’re going to need help,” he murmured. “Go get dressed now, Diana,” he said, pushing her away. “I’ll start the car and we’ll go do whatever it is we have to do. We’ll take this thing to the department. We’ll take it to the FBI Missing and Exploited Children unit. If it’s the last thing I ever do, I’m going to find Quentin and put him away.”

  “I’m sorry,” Diana said. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Not nearly as sorry as I am,” he murmured back, wiping the tears from his eyes. “Not nearly.”

  The ICU waiting room Dan Leggett returned to was far more crowded than when he had left it several hours earlier. Off to one side of the room sat a group of Indians that included an attractive woman in her mid-to late thirties, a solidly built man in his mid-to late forties, and an elderly woman. The three of them were talking together in low voices.

  In the middle of the room, Deputy Brian Fellows snoozed in a chair next to another Indian, a portly man somewhere in his sixties, who was also dozing.

  Leggett stopped in front of Brian Fellows’s chair. “What’s happening?”

  Brian’s chin bounced off his chest. Blinking, he straightened in his chair. “Sorry about that, Detective Leggett. I must have fallen asleep.”

  “So I noticed. What’s going on?”

  “That’s Delia Cachora over there,” he said. “The younger woman. The older one is Delia’s aunt, Julia Joaquin. And that’s Julia’s son, Wally Joaquin. And this,” Brian added, motioning toward the man seated next to him, “is a friend of mine named Gabe Ortiz.”

  Dan Leggett nodded politely and held out his hand. “Any relation to the Tohono O’othham tribal chairman?”

  Fat Crack straightened himself in the chair. “I am the tribal chairman,” he said. “Mr. Chavez’s daughter, Delia, works for me,” he added as if to explain his presence. “I gave her a ride into town.”

  “Has anyone been able to talk to him yet?”

  Brian shook his head. “Not as far as I know, although you might try talking to Ms. Cachora.”

  “Let’s do it then,” Dan Leggett said. “Come over and introduce me. There’s no time to lose.”

  “Why? What’s wrong?”

  Dan Leggett shook his head. “You’re not going to believe it,” he said. “Lani Walker’s turned up missing, and she may be involved in all this.”

  As soon as he made that last statement, Dan noticed that Gabe Ortiz came to attention, but the detective was too focused on Delia Cachora to wonder at the connection. “I’m Detective Dan Leggett from the Pima County Sheriff’s Department,” he said, stopping in front of the trio of Indians and not waiting for Brian to make introductions. “I’m in charge of investigating the assault against your father. It’s important that we ask him some questions as soon as possible. When’s the last time you tried to speak to him?”

  “It was almost an hour ago now. Why? What’s so important?” Delia asked.

  “We’re working on what may be a related case. I need to know if there’s anything he can tell us about the attack. We’re wondering if his assailant acted alone or if there was someone else involved.”

  “Lani Walker isn’t involved,” Gabe Ortiz declared forcefully. “She couldn’t be. I’ve known her since she was a baby. She would never do anything like this.”

  Accustomed to Gabe Ortiz’s usually soft-spoken ways, Delia looked at the tribal chairman in some surprise. “You think a woman is involved in the attack on my father?”

  “It’s possible,” Dan said.

  Delia stood up and leveled another questioning look in Gabe Ortiz’s direction. “I’ll go check,” she said. “The problem is, even if he’s awake, they probably won’t allow anyone in other than family. Do you want me to ask whether or not a woman was there?”

  Dan shook his head. “Don’t put words in his mouth. Just ask if he remembers anything about it, especially whether or not his attacker was operating alone.”

  Delia left. The waiting room was silent for a long moment after the doors swung shut behind her. “Lani didn’t do it,” Gabe said again.

  Brian Fellows nodded. “I know her, too, Dan. The Lani I know wouldn’t harm a fly.”

  Dan Leggett turned to face Gabe. “Mr. Ortiz,” he said, “we have a fingerprint from the bones that matches one found in the Walkers’ house. I said she may have been involved. What I didn’t say is that her involvement may have happened under duress.”

  “Duress? What does that mean?”

  “It means Lani Walker may have been kidnapped,” Dan Leggett said. “No one has seen her since she left to go to work sometime around six yesterday morning. She didn’t show up for her shift or for a concert date with a friend yesterday evening.”

  “Kidnapped?” Brian Fellows echoed.

  Delia came to the door and motioned to her elderly aunt. “He’s talking, but in Tohono O’othham. I don’t remember enough of that to be able to understand.”

  Again the people left in the waiting room drifted into silence. Gabe Ortiz walked across the room and sat down in a chair, burying his face in his hands. “Mr. Ortiz seems very upset about all this,” Dan Leggett observed. “Is he related to Lani Walker somehow?”

  Brian Fellows nodded. “He and his wife are Lani’s godparents.”

  “Oh,” Dan Leggett said. “That explains it then.”

  A few minutes later, Julia Joaquin emerged from the ICU. Walking stiffly, she passed directly in front of the waiting detective and deputy, going instead to where Gabe Ortiz was sitting. Dan Leggett and Brian Fellows trailed after her.

  “Manny only remembers seeing a man, not a woman,” the old woman said, speaking to the tribal chairman, addressing him softly in Tohono O’othham rather than English. “The man was tall and skinny—a Mil-gahn. And he was driving an orange truck of some kind.”

  “The girl wasn’t there?” Gabe asked.

  Julia Joaquin shook her head. Gabe Ortiz sighed in obvious relief.

  “What are they saying?” Dan Leggett asked, and Brian translated as well as he could.

  “Manny Chavez’s back is broken and he may be paralyzed,” Julia Joaquin continued, still addressing Gabe Ortiz, rather than any of the othe
rs. “Do you know of a medicine man who is good with Turtle Sickness?”

  “I do not,” Gabe answered. “But I will find out.”

  “Thank you,” Julia said. She turned to the detective just as Brian finished translating once more.

  “Turtle Sickness?” Dan Leggett repeated.

  Julia Joaquin nodded.

  “How can you call it a sickness? Somebody hit him in the back with a shovel!”

  “Turtle Sickness—paralysis—comes from being rude,” she explained firmly. “My brother-in-law has always been a very rude man.”

  Just then Delia Cachora returned to the waiting room. “Aunt Julia told you what you needed to know?” she asked.

  Dan Leggett nodded. “She certainly did,” he said.

  Gabe stood up and took Julia Joaquin’s hand in his. “I’m glad the ant-bit child wasn’t there.”

  Julia nodded. “I am, too,” she said.

  “Ant-bit child?” Delia Cachora asked. “What are we talking about now?” She seemed almost as puzzled about that as Dan Leggett was about Turtle Sickness.

  Julia Joaquin turned to her niece. “There was an old blind medicine man, years ago, who was always telling people that an ant-bit child would someday show up on the reservation and that she would grow up to be a powerful medicine woman.”

  Delia glanced warily at Detective Leggett. “Aunt Julia,” she cautioned, but Julia Joaquin disregarded the warning.

  “Kulani O’oks,” she continued. “She was the woman who was kissed by the bees. Looks At Nothing said the ant-bit child would be just like her, that she would save people, not harm them, not even someone like Manny.”

  “Thank you,” Gabe Ortiz said to Julia. “I’m sure you’re right.”

  The tribal chairman left then. Dan Leggett handed Delia Cachora a business card. “I’d appreciate it if you’d keep us posted on your father’s condition,” he said. “In the meantime, Deputy Fellows and I will head back out to the department to see if there’s anything else we can do.”