Day of the Dead bw-3

by J. A. Jance

  It was one thing for Delia to agonize about her husband’s difficulties. Having this relative stranger offer advice about them offended her. She put down her drink. “No,” she said slowly. “I don’t think it would. Philip will be fine, and so will I. He’ll find his way.” She stood up then. “Thanks so much for the offer, Mr. Ortiz. I really appreciate it, but I can’t accept. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to get home.”

  “Sure,” Gabe said. “I understand.”

  As Delia walked away, she knew it was true. Fat Crack Ortiz understood far more than she wanted him to.

  After spending most of the night awake, Lani didn’t wake up until early afternoon. In the kitchen she made toast and a pot of coffee, then she settled in to study. For some reason she couldn’t keep her eyes open. No matter how hard she tried, the words on the pages drifted into nonsense and her head drooped.

  Sometime later, a ringing telephone startled her from a sound sleep. As she reached for the phone, she glanced at the clock. It was four o’clock in the afternoon.

  “Lani?”

  “Wanda?” Lani asked, struggling to recognize the woman’s voice. “Is that you?”

  “Yes,” Wanda Ortiz said. “I went outside to check on him, Lani. Fat Crack’s gone.”

  “Gone?” Lani took a deep breath and closed her eyes. There was no need to ask what “gone” meant. “I’m coming home,” she said. “I’ll call Mom and Dad first, then I’m on my way. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  It took several hours to contact her various professors and make arrangements for her finals as well as for having her belongings packed and shipped home. Once that was accomplished, she called for airline reservations. The only flight available meant she wouldn’t arrive in Phoenix until early afternoon the next day. Only after purchasing her ticket did Lani try calling her parents.

  She knew from experience that when dealing with offspring, her dad was a far softer touch and more understanding than her mother. Diana was the tough one-the disciplinarian. Brandon was a pushover. From the time Lani was tiny, she had been smart enough to play both those ends against the middle.

  She tried her dad’s cell phone first, but he didn’t answer. She hung up, but before she could dial again, her own phone rang.

  “Lani,” Diana said uncertainly. “Honey, I’m so sorry to have to tell you this. I just heard from Wanda Ortiz and-”

  “It’s all right, Mom,” Lani interrupted. “I already heard. Wanda called me, too. I’m on my way. I’ll be on the Northwest flight from Minneapolis that gets into Phoenix at one tomorrow afternoon. I’ll catch the shuttle from there home.”

  Lani expected her mother to say she shouldn’t come rushing home, but Diana surprised her. “Don’t even think about the shuttle,” she said. “Someone will be there to meet you.”

  “Thanks, Mom,” Lani managed. They both heard the catch in her throat. “See you tomorrow.”

  J. A. Jance

  Day of the Dead

  Fourteen

  They say it happened long ago that the Tohono O’odham first came to the northern lands looking for new hunting grounds. Because it was very hot and dry, the first thing the hunters needed to find was water. In some mountains with very steep slopes they came upon a hollow shaded by mesquite trees, and in this hollow was a pool of water. There was a rock in the middle of the pool and on it sat a coyote.

  When Coyote looked up and saw the hunters, at first he was very frightened because he didn’t know what the hunters would do to him. Then he looked back into the pool and said in a very loud voice, “Stay down there. Don’t come out and hurt these people.”

  This, nawoj, my friend, was back at a time when the Indians and the animals all still spoke the same language. When the hunters heard this, they were very puzzled because coyotes usually run away and hide somewhere.

  The hunters stopped at the edge of the water and looked around, but they could see nothing. Finally, one very old man stepped nearer and asked Coyote why he was talking.

  “Can’t you see?” Coyote asked. “I’m talking to my people who live in this pond. I do not want them to come out and kill you.”

  The hunters were surprised and told Coyote that they did not know his people lived in the water. Poor Coyote was trembling with fright but he answered bravely. “Oh, yes,” he said. “Up here many coyotes live in the water except when they hunt.” And then, looking back down into the water he said, “Do be quiet and let these people have some water.”

  And so, one by one, with Coyote watching, the hunters came to the pond and drank. After that, whenever Coyote saw the hunters coming, he would hurry to the pond. And there he would be, sitting on his rock, where the hunters first saw him.

  And that, nawoj, is where the village of Ban Thak-Coyote Sitting-is to this day, near the rock where Coyote sat to guard his pond.

  Please tell me about your sister,” Brandon said to Andrea.

  “What do you want to know?”

  “Everything. Was Roseanne smart?”

  Andrea Tashquinth stared off into the middle distance. “I think she was smart,” Andrea said finally. “When someone told a joke, she’d laugh along with everyone else. She never did any homework, but she could read. She loved reading books, especially the Bible. One of the nuns at Topawa told my parents there was a convent where she could go, a contemplative convent-where no one was allowed to speak. When our mother told Roseanne about it, she smiled and nodded. It was something she would have been good at and someplace where she would have fit in.”

  “Did she have boyfriends?”

  Andrea shook her head adamantly. “No. Never. We didn’t hang around with boys the way some girls do. Our parents wouldn’t let us. They wanted us to be good girls. They didn’t want people to think we were too easy.”

  “But Roseanne was pregnant when she died,” Brandon pointed out. “How do you think that happened?”

  Andrea Tashquinth shrugged and didn’t answer.

  “You say Roseanne didn’t have a boyfriend, and both you and your mother seem to think your father had nothing to do with it. Besides your father, then, were there any other men or boys who were around your house regularly? A visiting cousin or younger brother, perhaps?”

  “No,” Andrea answered. “Not that I remember.”

  “What do you remember, Ms. Tashquinth?” Brandon asked.

  It was warm sitting in the Suburban with the hot afternoon sun beating down on the roof. Through the windshield, Brandon saw families with laughing children pile out of pickups, vans, and SUVs. They trailed in and out of the store, returning with carts piled high with groceries. Silence lingered for several long moments. Brandon Walker was content to keep quiet forever. Andrea was the one who blinked.

  “It had to be at the hospital,” she whispered finally. “I tried to tell Law and Order that at the time, but nobody was interested in what I had to say. Nobody listened.”

  “What hospital?”

  “That one,” Andrea said, gesturing with her head in the direction of the Indian Health Services Hospital just up the road. “That summer Roseanne got sick and had to have her appendix taken out. After she got out of the hospital, she was supposed to be better, but she wasn’t. When school started that year, she was too sick to go. Finally, my mother took her to the doctor. He put her in the hospital for tests. When they let her out, Dad was supposed to go pick Roseanne up after work to bring her home. When he got there, she was already gone. Everyone assumed that she had just walked out of the hospital on her own. We never saw her again. The next week somebody found her body in an ice chest out along the road.”

  “You believe something happened to her while she was in the hospital the first time, for the surgery?” Brandon asked.

  Andrea Tashquinth turned so she was looking Brandon square in the face. “I know something happened to her,” she said fiercely. “I think my sister was raped.”

  “By whom?”

  Andrea’s diffidence returned. “I don’t know. Someone who
worked there, maybe? An orderly or a nurse. They had a few male nurses back then. Or maybe it was someone who was at the hospital visiting someone else.”

  “You told this to people at the time?”

  “Tried to,” Andrea said. “But I was sixteen. No one was interested in my opinions.”

  “Especially since they were all convinced that your father was the culprit.”

  “Yes,” Andrea agreed.

  “Did your parents or anyone else ever ask to see Roseanne’s medical records?”

  “I doubt it,” Andrea said. “When I told them that I thought something had happened to Roseanne at the hospital, my parents didn’t listen, either.”

  “What made you think that?” Brandon asked. “Did she say anything to you about it-communicate anything?”

  “No. It was just a feeling I had. It was probably nothing.”

  Maybe not, Brandon Walker thought to himself as he jotted a reminder in his notebook.

  That was one thing TLC had taught him. When you were doing cold-case investigations, you had to be willing to follow up on the dead leads everyone else had ignored.

  By the time Erik reached Pontotoc Road, he looked as though he’d been through a war. His clothes were a mess. He was dusty, hot, thirsty, bloodied, and sweaty, and his ankle hurt like hell. He was sure now that it wasn’t broken, but it was badly sprained. What he wanted to do was shower and then ice the damned thing, although this late in the game, icing was probably beside the point.

  He was surprised to see a cop car with a single occupant parked in front of his house. Erik hobbled up to the vehicle.

  “What’s up?” he asked as the officer rolled down the window. “Is something wrong?”

  The cop hustled out of the car. “My name’s Detective Brian Fellows,” he said, flashing a badge. “I’m an investigator for the Pima County Sheriff’s Department. And you are?”

  Erik glanced at his truck to see if it had been damaged in some way, but the Tacoma was fine and still parked where he’d left it. “I’m Erik LaGrange,” he replied. “I live here. What’s going on?”

  “You seem to be hurt,” the officer responded without really answering. “What happened?”

  “I fell while I was up on the mountain.”

  “When was that?”

  “A while ago. I don’t know exactly. I’m on my way inside to shower and ice my ankle. You still haven’t told me what’s up.”

  Just then a second sheriff’s department vehicle pulled up and parked. A second plainclothes officer stepped out and hurried over to Erik and Detective Fellows.

  “Got it,” the second cop said to the first one, who nodded. The meaningful glance that passed between them gave Erik an uneasy feeling. This wasn’t just a routine neighborhood disturbance call. Something was going on-something out of the ordinary.

  “This is my partner, Detective Hector Segura,” Detective Fellows said. “This is Mr. LaGrange.”

  Instinctively, Erik held out his hand. Instead of taking it, Detective Segura reached into his jacket pocket and removed a folded paper, which he placed in Erik’s outstretched hand. Erik unfolded the document and examined it. For what seemed like the longest time the words didn’t penetrate, didn’t register.

  “A search warrant?” he stammered finally. “You want to search the house? My house? My car? How come? What the hell’s happening here?”

  “A young woman was found murdered in the desert near Vail this morning,” Brian Fellows said easily. “Your business card was found among what we believe to be her effects.”

  “Somebody’s dead? Near Vail? I haven’t been anywhere near Vail in years. I know nothing about any dead girl. I have no idea why she would have had one of my business cards, but I work with a lot of people. Someone else could have given her one.”

  Erik heard the rising hysteria in his voice. He couldn’t help that any more than he could quell a growing sense of panic. Obviously these two cops thought he had something to do with this poor murdered girl, but how could that be?

  “Please, Mr. LaGrange. Don’t get yourself all worked up.”

  Worked up? he thought. What the hell am I supposed to do?

  When Erik spoke next, he made a concerted effort to sound calm and reasonable. “Look, you guys,” he said. “There must be some kind of mistake. I had nothing to do with whatever happened. And what about probable cause? It’s a long way from finding a business card to getting a search warrant. You can’t just walk in here and-”

  “Would you mind stepping this way, Mr. LaGrange?” the detective named Fellows asked, leading the way to the tailgate of Erik’s Tacoma.

  He was polite enough, so Erik voiced no objection.

  “Take a look at that.” Detective Fellows pointed to something on the bumper-a brown stain of some kind.

  “I’ve never seen that before,” Erik said. “What is it?”

  “From my training and experience, I’d have to say it looks like blood,” Detective Fellows said. “Do you mind if we open this up?”

  “I…” Erik began.

  “You’ll find this vehicle specifically mentioned on the warrant,” Fellows added. “Go ahead, Detective Segura.”

  Slipping on a latex glove, the other detective twisted the latch and raised the back door on the camper. Then he stood to one side, allowing all three of them to peer into the bed of the pickup. The smudge on the bumper had been baked brown in the sun. The pools of blood that lingered in the bed of the truck were still clearly red. Erik’s knees gave way beneath him. One of the officers grasped him by the elbow and kept him upright.

  “Easy,” Detective Fellows said, leading him toward one of two waiting Ford Crown Victorias. “You’d best take it easy for a while. Are you armed, Mr. LaGrange?”

  “Armed?” Erik asked. “Are you kidding?”

  “Sir, would you please lean up against my vehicle…” Detective Fellows said.

  Not believing his senses, Erik did what he was told. He stood with his hands on the Crown Victoria’s blistering hot hood and with his legs spread apart while the detective patted him down. Moments later, his backpack was removed and his hands were behind him, secured with some kind of plastic handcuff.

  “You’re not carrying any needles, are you? Or any illegal substances?” Detective Fellows asked the questions in an easy, conversational voice, but nothing in his tone could calm the quaking of Erik’s heart or fill the terrible sinking feeling that was growing in the pit of his stomach.

  “No,” Erik said. “I’ve got nothing on me and nothing to hide.”

  “These are the keys to your house?” Fellows asked, removing Erik’s key chain.

  “Yes,” he said. “The small one with the rectangular top is the key to the front door.” He sure as hell didn’t want these bozos breaking down the door.

  Taking the key chain, Detective Fellows tossed it to the other cop, who caught it in midair, turned on his heel, and headed toward his house. As Segura hurried away, Fellows opened the back door to the Crown Victoria and motioned Erik inside. “Please have a seat, Mr. LaGrange.”

  “Wait a minute,” he objected. “Are you placing me under arrest? Don’t I get a lawyer or something?”

  “Just have a seat,” Detective Fellows said more firmly.

  With the cop holding his head down to keep him from banging it on the top of the door, Erik slipped into the backseat. As he did so he caught sight of several of Professor Rice’s neighbors and a bunch of openmouthed kids watching in amazement.

  Shit! Erik thought. This can’t be happening.

  But it was. It surely was. At that very moment, the cop started reading him his rights, just as they did on that Cops show on TV. Only now, Erik LaGrange was the “bad boy” they had come for, and there was evidently nothing he could do to stop them.

  With Erik LaGrange secure in the back of the Crown Vic, Brian Fellows headed toward the front door of the house, where he met PeeWee coming back out.

  “What have we got?” Brian asked.


  “Plenty,” PeeWee said grimly. “I don’t think this is where he killed her, but you can bet Erik’s our guy, all right. I found a machete soaking in bloody water in the kitchen sink and what looks like bloody footprints on the living room carpet.”

  “We’d better call in CSI,” Brian said.

  “Already did,” PeeWee told him. “They’re on their way.”

  Brian stood for a moment scanning his notebook. Nowhere in Sue Lammers’s statement was there any mention that the man unloading the body had walked with a limp.

  But that was then, he said, putting his notebook away. Whatever’s wrong with LaGrange’s leg could have happened later.

  Erik sat in the patrol car-at least he assumed that’s what it was-and tried to decide what to do. Should he demand an attorney? On television, the guys who started squawking that they wanted an attorney were always the ones who were guilty and who knew their way around the law enforcement jungle.

  But what should Erik do? He wasn’t guilty. He still wasn’t sure what had happened. They’d told him that a girl was dead, but who was she and how could she have anything to do with him? And how had all that blood-it really was blood-got in the back of his truck? The Tacoma’s bed had been perfectly clean the last time he looked inside the camper shell. Erik had watched the guy vacuum it two days earlier, when he took it to the car wash at Speedway and Country Club. In fact, the vacuuming was the main reason he’d given the cleaning crew a nice tip.

  And if he was going to call a lawyer, who the hell should it be? Before last night he wouldn’t have hesitated. He’d have picked up the phone and called Rob Whistler. Rob was a good friend of Larry and Gayle Stryker. For the past three years, Rob had held a seat on the board of directors of Medicos for Mexico. As far as Erik knew, Rob had no dealings with criminal law, but he’d know someone who did. He’d have connections and know the right person to suggest.

  But considering the situation between Erik and Gayle at the moment, Erik didn’t think calling Rob was such a good idea. No, this was something Erik was going to have to figure out all by himself.