Day of the Dead

by J. A. Jance

  “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.

  Just then the two cops returned from the house. As Erik watched them walk toward him, the grim set to their faces made the knot in his stomach grow even larger.

  Detective Fellows leaned down and looked inside the car. “Let me ask you this, Mr. LaGrange. Do you own a machete?”

  “Sure,” Erik admitted at once. “I brought one back from Mexico last year. I bought it from a dealer at one of the open-air markets. Why? What about it?”

  “Where was this machete of yours the last time you saw it?” Detective Fellows asked. Despite the ominous words, his voice once again exuded nothing but kindness and sweet reason.

  “In my bedroom,” Erik said. “At the bottom of my underwear drawer.”

  “I see. And what time did you leave your house this morning?”

  “I don’t know. Early. Five-thirty or six. Why?”

  “And where did you go?”

  “Up Finger Rock Trail.”

  “Did you go by yourself or with someone?”

  Even Erik could tell his story sounded lame. “By myself,” he answered.

  “Did anyone see you up there?” Fellows asked. “Anyone who could verify that they saw you there?”

  Erik thought about the other hikers on the trail—the ones he had deliberately avoided because he was so upset over what had happened between him and Gayle.

  “I saw a few people,” he conceded, “but I doubt they saw me.”

  “Anyone from around here who might have seen you go?”

  Erik shook his head. “You’d have to ask them. When I left the house, it was early on a Saturday. If anyone else was up by then, I didn’t see them.”

  “And you left your truck here? How come?”

  “The trailhead’s not far up the road. I was going on a hike. Why ride when you can walk?”

  “Does anyone else have keys to your vehicle or access to your home?” Fellows asked.

  Erik shook his head and said nothing.

  “What did you do yesterday?” the detective asked.

  “I went to work.”

  “Until?”

  He shrugged. “Five-thirty or six. I’m on salary. I don’t have to punch in and out.”

  “What did you do after that?”

  “I came home.”

  “Alone or with someone?” Fellows asked.

  That was the moment when Erik LaGrange finally got a glimmer of just how much trouble he was in. If the murder had happened while he was with Gayle, she could give him an alibi—if she would, that is. But if she did that, it would blow the whistle to Larry, and everything about Erik LaGrange’s private life would become public knowledge.

  “You know,” he said, “if you don’t mind, maybe I’d better have an attorney present before I answer any more questions.”

  When Andrea got out of the Suburban and headed off across the parking lot, Brandon Walker glanced at his watch and was amazed to see how much time had passed. Prior to the interview, he had turned his cell phone on silent. Now, when he took it out and switched it back, he had a total of five missed calls. He scrolled through the list. Two from home, one from Lani, one from Davy, and another from the home of Gabriel Ortiz in Sells.

  Without bothering to return any of the calls, Brandon put the Suburban in gear and headed for the Ortiz Compound on the far side of the highway. Seeing the number of cars parked around the three houses, Brandon knew before he ever went inside that Fat Crack Ortiz was no more.

  That son of a bitch, Brandon muttered under his breath. He told me he was going, but I didn’t think it would be this soon.

  Fat Crack’s boys, Leo and Richard, were already there. Brandon retrieved the cooler containing the homemade tamales and tortillas Wanda Ortiz had given him earlier. Knowing he was looking for their mother, the two sons nodded to Brandon as he passed. “She’s inside,” Baby Fat Crack said.

  A woman Brandon recognized as Delia, Leo’s wife, met him at the door made as if to bar his way. “I brought back some tamales and tortillas,” he explained. “Is Wanda here?”

  He could tell that Delia Ortiz was getting ready to send him pac
king when Wanda called to her daughter-in-law from the living room. “It’s all right, Delia,” she said. “Let him come in.”

  Without a word, Delia took the proffered cooler and headed for the kitchen. Brandon found Wanda in the living room sitting alone on the couch.

  “I’m so sorry,” Brandon said.

  “I know.” Wanda sighed. “But it’s all right. He was ready.”

  “Have you thought about a service?” Brandon asked after a pause.

  Wanda nodded. “The funeral will be held at the gym at the high school at four o’clock Monday afternoon. The minister from the Presbyterian church will do the service. We plan to bury him at Ban Thak. The cemetery at Coyote Sitting is where Fat Crack’s parents are buried and his aunt Rita as well.”

  “But a Presbyterian minister?” Brandon asked dubiously. “All this time I thought…”

  “That Fat Crack was a Christian Scientist?” Wanda returned, cutting Brandon off in midsentence. “That’s right. He was, but Christian Scientists don’t believe in funerals. I grew up a Presbyterian, and I do. Besides, the funeral’s for me and the kids and for The People. What Fat Crack wanted or didn’t want’s got nothing to do with it.”

  “I see,” Brandon said. And he did.

  As he drove back home to Tucson sometime later, he was struck by something. Both Wanda Ortiz and Emma Orozco had spent years doing things the way their respective husbands had wanted them done, but once the menfolk were out of the way, neither of them was the least bit hesitant to do things her own way.

  That’s how it works, Brandon told himself philosophically. I wonder what Diana will be up to once I’m gone.

  Fifteen

  Their long-established division of labor meant that Gayle disposed of the bodies and Larry cleaned up afterward, but he worried that he was getting too old to be doing such hard physical work. He had learned to duct-tape several layers of plastic tarp around the mattresses he used on the cot in the basement. One way or another, there were certain amounts of bodily fluids that got spilled on that cot. Larry had determined by trial and error that it was easier to get rid of ruined tarps than it was to ditch a fouled or bloodied mattress.

  This time Gayle had gotten carried away with herself. Blood spatters were everywhere—on the floor, the walls, and even on the ceiling. In several places the layers of tarp had been cut clean through, leaving the mattress soaked with blood.

  Larry decided to get rid of the mattress first. The cot was the size of an ordinary bunk bed, so the mattress was far smaller than a conventional single. Still, working alone, it was hell for him to wrestle the thing up the basement stairs, out through the back door, and into the bed of his old pickup. Then, since he was going to be using the backhoe anyway, he gathered up everything else that needed to go to the dump—the bloodied tarps, the filthy bedding, and—as an afterthought, the kitchen garbage. No sense having spoiled uneaten food sitting around smelling up the place.

  Generations of Gayle’s family had made use of The Flying C’s private trash heap a mile and a half from the house. There a tin shed housed several pieces of essential garbage-dump equipment—including a backhoe and a front-end loader. Twice a year Larry had a mechanic from Catalina make a shed house call to keep the equipment in decent running order, because when Larry needed a trench dug—as he did now—there was no substitute for a backhoe.

  Once finished with the task, Larry wiped his hands on his jeans and stood back to admire his handiwork. The trash heap looked as though it had gone undisturbed for years. And Larry trusted that would continue to be the case in perpetuity. Gayle, in her wisdom, had made arrangements to gift the property to the Nature Conservancy. Part of that arrangement was why The Flying C no longer functioned as a working ranch. Upon Gayle’s death, the conditions of the gift mandated that all buildings on the property were to be blasted to oblivion, leveled by bulldozer, and then left to be reclaimed by the desert.

  Tired but anxious, Larry returned to the house and began the real soap, water, and elbow-grease cleaning. He scrubbed the bed of the truck where the bloodied mattress had left a few dark smears. On aching knees, he used a scrub brush on the back porch and on the stairs. He scrubbed wherever he saw traces of blood and also where he couldn’t. Finally he tackled the basement.

  Cleaning that wasn’t as difficult as it might have been. When they’d done the basement remodel, Larry had told the contractor he wanted a drain built directly into the polished concrete floor. Larry didn’t know if the contractor had actually bought the story he’d made up about an overflowing washing machine, but the guy had been happy to install the system—the one Larry made good use of now as he sluiced blood off the ceiling, floor, and walls and let it flow straight down the drain. What could be simpler than that?

  He had finished the job as well as he could and was wrapping up the cord on the power washer when he heard the back door open and close upstairs. He’d been so busy—so focused on the task at hand—that he hadn’t bothered to lock the basement door as he usually did. For a moment Larry stood frozen to the spot, his breathing arrested and his heart pounding. Then he heard Gayle’s voice.

  “Yoo-hoo,” she called. “Anybody home?”

  Relief flooded through him. Once again Larry reveled in the thrill of getting away with something.

  “Down here,” he called back. “I’ll be right up.”

  First encounters after Gayle went on one of her rampages were usually tense and prickly. Gayle always made it clear that Larry was the one who set her off, and most of the time Larry knew exactly what he’d done wrong. This time he was entirely mystified. He had no idea what he had done to annoy her, but the best thing to do was to face up to whatever it was and get it over with.

  Hurrying upstairs, he found Gayle standing next to the bar in the living room, preparing to make herself a drink. Ever the gentleman, Larry took the empty glass from her hand. “I’ll do that, sweetheart,” he offered. “What would you like?”

  “Macallan,” she said. “Neat.”

  Gayle left Larry to work the bar while she crossed the room and settled on the couch. Slipping off her shoes, she tucked her legs up under her skirt. When Larry handed her the drink, she accepted it gratefully and favored him with a smile. “Thanks,” she said.

  Larry tried to be calm. He could tell from her drawn face that Gayle was tired and upset. He didn’t quite trust her when she was in one of her moods. He took his own drink and retreated to the relative safety of his chair. From the far side of the room, he launched off into his stock apology.

  “I have no idea what I did wrong,” he began. “Whatever it was, I’m sorry.”

  To Larry’s utter amazement, Gayle actually burst out laughing. “You didn’t do anything wrong, silly,” she said. She paused, took a delicate sip of her scotch and then smiled again. “And don’t worry,” she added. “I’ve already called Señora Duarte to let her know that we have another foster family available. She’ll be sending a new girl up sometime in the next few days—certainly by the end of next week. You should know by now that I’d never leave my poor Larry in the lurch. Don’t I always see to it that you’re well taken care of?”

  There was no arguing with that. “Yes, you do,” Larry told her, with obvious relief flooding his voice. “And I’m very grateful. Cheers.”

  They sat quietly for the better part of a minute. Anyone seeing them there would have thought them to be what they were—a long-married couple sharing a relaxing moment at the end of an uneventful Saturday. It was a fiction Larry would have been happy to continue indefinitely, but he was sure Gayle had come to impart some kind of bad news. He hardly dared breathe while he waited to hear what it was.

  “How’s the room?” she asked, meaning how was the cleanup progressing.

  “It’s pretty well done,” he told her. “The power washer I bought from Home Depot last year is a real miracle worker.”

  “Good,” she said.

  There was another long pause. Larry could do nothing but hold his
breath and wait.

  “You haven’t heard from Erik today, have you?” Gayle asked casually.

  “Erik?” Larry returned. “Good God, no! Why would I?”

  “I thought he might call.”

  “Erik would never call me,” Larry declared, “especially not on a weekend.”

  “He might try calling you today,” Gayle said, thoughtfully sipping her drink. “I wanted to give you a heads-up. It’s likely Erik will be facing some serious legal difficulties in the near future. He’ll probably come to us looking for help.”

  Larry shook his head. “I can’t imagine anything serious enough to make Erik come crawling to me for help.”

  “What about murder?” Gayle asked.

  And then it all clicked into place. “You’re setting him up?”

  Gayle smiled again. “I’d say so.”

  “But why?” Larry began.

  “Why? Because Erik LaGrange thought he could toss me out like yesterday’s garbage. It turns out I wasn’t quite done with him.”

  Hearing the lingering outrage in her voice, Larry Stryker was careful to keep his tone noncommittal. “Is there anything I can do to help?” he asked.

  “I thought you’d never ask,” Gayle said. She sounded genuinely grateful. “He’ll bring up the affair. He’ll claim I was with him last night and that we had a fight. I’ll agree that’s true, but I’ll say that afterward I came here and spent the night with you—last night and this morning, too.”

  “But I had that damned golf tournament,” Larry objected. “I was gone by five-thirty.”

  “Don’t worry,” Gayle said. “It’ll be a Pima County case. Without Brandon Walker running the show, we can rest easy. Bill Forsythe won’t let anybody push us around. If they do ask questions, we’ll both acknowledge the affair. We’ll also say that Erik learned last night he’s about to be given a bad job review. He’s getting even by putting us and Medicos in a bad light.”