Kiss the Bees bw-2

by J. A. Jance

  "He was hoping to humiliate me publicly," Diana answered. "I think he thought he could get me to make a public commitment to writing the book and then force me to back out of it. But it didn't work. I wrote the book anyway."

  For the first time, Mitch was surprised. Diana's answer was right on the money. Andy had told him that he didn't think she'd have guts enough to go through with it. That was another instance, one of the first ones Mitch had noticed, where Andy Carlisle's assessment of any given situation had turned out to be dead wrong.

  "It still doesn't make much sense," Monty said, making a show of dusting crumbs of tortilla chips out of his lap.

  Diana knew it did make sense, but only if you had all the other pieces of the puzzle. Monty Lazarus didn't have access to those. No one did, no one other than Diana. Those were the very things she had left out of the book, the ugly parts she had never mentioned to anyone, including Brandon Walker.

  She had absolutely no intention of telling the whole story to Monty Lazarus, either. Those things were hers alone-Diana Ladd Walker's dirty little secrets. Instead, she tossed off a too-casual answer, hoping it would throw him off the trail.

  "Let's just say it was a grudge match," Diana said. "Andrew Philip Carlisle hated my guts."

  Almost a month after that first interview with Carlisle up in Florence, Diana was still waiting for the first written installment, which had taken far longer for him to deliver than he had said it would.

  Davy was home from school for a few weeks. Over the Fourth of July weekend, Diana and Brandon had planned to take Lani and Davy up to the White Mountains to visit some friends who owned a two-room cabin just outside Payson. The four-day outing was scheduled to start Thursday afternoon, as soon as Brandon came home from work. Fate in the form of a demanding editor intervened when the Federal Express delivery man came to the door at nine o'clock Thursday morning. The package he delivered contained the galleys for her next book, The Copper Baron's Wife, along with an apologetic note from her editor saying the corrections needed to be completed and ready to be returned to New York on Tuesday morning.

  "I'd better stay home and work on them," she said to Brandon on the phone that day when she called him at his office. "You know as well as I do that I can't do a good job on galleys when we're camped out with a houseful of people up in Payson. I have to be able to concentrate, but you and the kids are welcome to go. Just because I have to work doesn't mean everybody else has to suffer."

  Brandon had protested, but in the end he had taken Lani and Davy and the three of them had gone off without her. Once they were piled in the car and headed for Payson, Diana had locked herself up with the galleys and worked her way through the first hundred pages of the book before she gave up for the night and went to bed. The next morning, when she went out to bring in the newspaper, she found an envelope propped against the front door. Although it was addressed to her, it hadn't been mailed. Someone had left it on the porch overnight.

  Curious, she had torn the envelope open and found a cassette tape-that and nothing else. No note, no explanation. She had taken the tape inside to her office and popped it into the cassette player she kept on the bookshelf beside her desk.

  When the tape first began playing, there was no sound-none at all. Distracted by a headline at the top of the newspaper, Diana was beginning to assume that the tape was blank when she heard a moan-a long, terrible moan.

  "Please," a woman's voice whispered. "Mr. Ladd, please…"

  Diana had been holding the newspaper in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other. As soon as she heard her former husband's name, she dropped both the paper and the cup. The paper merely fell back to the surface of the desk. The cup, however, crashed to the bare floor, shattering on the Saltillo tile and sending splatters of coffee and shards of cup from one end of the room to the other.

  Diana leaned closer to the recorder and turned up the volume. "Mr. Ladd," the girl's voice said again. "Please. Let me go."

  "No help there, little lady," a man's voice said. "He's out cold. Can't hear a word you're saying."

  The voice was younger, but Diana recognized it after a moment. Andrew Carlisle's. Unmistakably Andrew Carlisle's and… the other? Could it be Gina Antone's? No. That wasn't possible! It couldn't be!

  But a few agonizing exchanges later, Diana realized it was true. The other voice did belong to Gina Antone all right, to someone suffering the torments of the damned.

  "Please, mister," the girl pleaded helplessly, her voice barely a whisper. "Please don't hurt me again. Please…" The rest of what she might have said dissolved into a shriek followed by a series of despairing sobs.

  "But that's what you're here for, isn't it? Don't you remember telling us that you were taking us to a bad place? It turns out you were right. This is a bad place, my dear. A very bad place."

  There was a momentary pause followed by another spine-tingling scream that seemed to go on forever. Diana had risen to her feet as if to fend off a physical attack. Now she slumped backward into the chair while the infernal tape continued to play. Gradually the scream subsided until there was nothing left but uncontrollable, gasping sobs.

  "My God," Diana whispered aloud. "Did he tape the whole thing?"

  Soon it became clear that he had. It was a ninety-minute tape, forty-five minutes per side. Halfway through the tape, the girl began passing out. It happened over and over again. Each time he revived her-brought her back to consciousness with splashes of water and with slaps to her face so he could continue the terrible process. Sick with revulsion, Diana realized he was orchestrating and prolonging her ordeal so the whole thing would be there. On tape. Every bit of it, even the horrifying finale where, after first announcing his intentions for the benefit of his unseen audience, Andrew Carlisle had bitten off Gina Antone's nipple.

  Shaken to the core, Diana listened to the whole thing. Not because she wanted to but because she was incapable of doing anything else. She sat in the chair as though mesmerized, as though stricken by some sudden paralysis that rendered her unable to make the slightest movement, unable to reach across to the tape player and switch it off. Unchecked tears streamed down her face and dripped unnoticed into the mess of splattered coffee and broken china.

  And when it was finally over, when Gina Antone's awful death was finished at last and the recorder clicked off, Diana leaned over and threw up into the mess of coffee and broken cup.

  For a while after that she still couldn't move. Carlisle had made it last that whole time. He had tortured the girl for a carefully calculated ninety minutes. And that was just the part he had taped. From the sound of it there must have been some preliminaries that had occurred even before that. And for inflicting that kind of appalling torture, for premeditating, planning, and savoring every ugly moment of that appalling inhumanity, what had happened to Andrew Carlisle?

  A superior court judge had allowed him to plead guilty to a charge of second-degree manslaughter. The torture death of Gina Antone hadn't even merited a charge of murder in the first degree. The State of Arizona had extracted a price of six short years from Andrew Carlisle in exchange for Gina Antone's suffering. Six years. After that, he had been allowed to go free. Free to kill again.

  Stunned, Diana sat for another half-hour, trying to decide what to do. There was no sense in turning the tape over to the authorities. What would they do with it? What could they do? Preposterously light or not, Andrew Carlisle had already served a prison term in connection with Gina Antone's death. Double jeopardy would preclude him from being tried again for that same crime.

  So should she keep the tape? Comments made by Andrew Carlisle during the tape seemed to make it clear that Diana's former husband, Garrison Ladd, had been present at the crime scene but drunk and passed out during most of that terrible drama. Twenty-two years after the fact, Diana Cooper Ladd Walker finally had some understanding of her former husband's involvement in Gina Antone's death. It would seem that Garrison hadn't been actively involved in what was done to G
ina, but that didn't mean he was blameless. Mr. Ladd. Gina had called him by name. No doubt he was the one she knew. That meant Garrison was probably the one who had lured her into the truck in the first place.

  When he did that, when he had offered her a ride, had he known what was coming or not? There was no way of unraveling that now, and listening to the tape again or a hundred times, or having someone else listen to it wouldn't have provided an adequate answer to that haunting question.

  Getting out of the chair at last, Diana set about cleaning up the mess of vomit, spilled coffee, and broken pottery. Down on her hands and knees, for the first time ever she was grateful that Rita was dead. Had Gina's grandmother still been alive, Diana would have had to face the moral dilemma of whether or not to play the tape for the old woman. With Rita dead, that wasn't an issue.

  But what about Davy? What would happen if he heard it? That thought hit her like a lightning bolt. Diana's son-Garrison Ladd's son-was still alive. If he ever came to know what was on that tape, it would tell him far more about his father than he ever needed to know.

  Finally, there was Brandon to consider. He had headed the investigation into Gina Antone's death and he had eventually arrested Andrew Carlisle. The plea bargain that had followed the arrest had been negotiated behind Brandon Walker's back. If he had to endure listening to the grim recorded reality of Gina Antone's death, Diana knew Brandon would be devastated. He would blame himself for the unwitting part he had played in allowing Andrew Carlisle to slip off the hook and escape what should have been a charge of aggravated first-degree murder.

  Thinking about what exposure to the tape would do to both Brandon and Davy was what finally galvanized Diana Ladd Walker to action. Brandon was already carrying around a big enough load of guilt. His son Quentin was in prison due to a fatality drunk-driving charge. As another source of free-flowing guilt in Brandon Walker's life, that tape was the last thing he needed.

  With a fierce jab of her finger, Diana ejected the offending tape. She popped it out of the player and then carried it out to the living room. It was the first weekend in July. At eight o'clock in the morning, the air conditioner was already humming along at full speed when Diana knelt in front of the fireplace and opened the flue. Carefully, she laid a small fire with kindling at the bottom, topped by a layer of several wrist-thick branches of dried ironwood.

  Once the kindling was lit, she sat on the raised hearth and waited until the ironwood was fully engulfed before she tossed the tape into the crackling flames. As the heat attacked it, the clear plastic container began to curl and melt. Like a snake shedding its skin, the magnetic tape slithered off its spindle and escaped the confines of the dwindling case. The tape writhed free, wriggled like a tortured creature, burst into flames, and then withered into a glowing chain of ash.

  Only when there was nothing left of the tape and container but a charred, amorphous blob of melted plastic did Diana turn her back on the fireplace. Hurrying into the bathroom, she showered and dressed. Then, after raking the remainder of the fire apart, she left the house and drove straight to Florence. That day, Diana Walker Ladd was the first person inside the Visitation Room when the guard opened the door at ten o'clock in the morning.

  Andrew Carlisle was led to his side of the Plexiglas divider a few minutes later. "Why, Mrs. Walker," he said, sitting down across from her. "To what do I owe this unexpected honor? I don't remember our setting an appointment for today."

  "We didn't, you son of a bitch," she said.

  He brightened. The puckered skin around his mouth stretched into a pained imitation of a smile. "I see," he said. "You must have received my little care package."

  "Why did you send it to me?"

  "Why? Because I wanted you to know what this was all about."

  "That's not true. You wanted someone to know the truth about what you did and what you got away with. You wanted to gloat and rub somebody's nose in it."

  "That, too," he conceded. "Maybe a little."

  "Where was it all this time?"

  "The tape? That's for me to know and for you to find out," Andrew Carlisle answered.

  "Who brought it to my house? Who dropped it off? And how many more ugly surprises do you have in store for me?"

  "One or two," he answered. "Or does that mean you're quitting?"

  "No," Diana told him. "It doesn't mean I'm quitting. You think this is some kind of a game, don't you? You think this is a way to get back at me for what I did to you. Well, listen up, buster. I'm not a quitter. I'm going to write this damned book. By the time I finish, you're going to wish you'd never asked me to do it."

  "That sounds like a threat."

  "It is a threat."

  "In other words, you're abolishing the ground rules."

  "I'm writing this book regardless."

  "That will make the process far more interesting for me. More hands-on, if you'll pardon the expression. Especially when it's time to talk about the time we spent together."

  "Go fuck yourself, Mr. Carlisle!" She stood up, turned her back on him, and stalked over to the door. She had to wait in front of the door for several long moments before a guard opened it to let her out. While she was standing there she glanced back. Behind the Plexiglas barrier he was doubled over. And even though she couldn't actually hear him without benefit of the intercom-the sound nonetheless filled her head and echoed down the confines of the prison hallway long after the heavy metal door had slammed shut behind her.

  That ghostly sound was one she would never forget. It was Andrew Philip Carlisle. Laughing.

  9

  While Mualig Siakam and Old Limping Man were talking, some Indians came carrying a child. The child seemed asleep or dead. The people said she had been that way for a long time. They laid the child on the ground in the outer room of Medicine Woman's house.

  Mualig Siakam took a gourd which had pebbles in it that rattled. She took some small, soft white feathers, and she took a little white powder. Then she sat down at the head of the child and she began to sing.

  The Indians could not understand Medicine Woman's song because she used the old, old language which is the oneI'itoi gave his people in the beginning. All the animals understand this language, but only a very few of the old men and women remember it.

  As Medicine Woman sang, she rattled the gourd which had on it the marks ofshuhthagi — the water-and ofwepgih — the lightning. For a long timeMualig Siakam sang alone, but when the people who were sitting around had learned the song, they sang with her.

  And then Medicine Woman took some of the white feathers and passed them softly over the child's mouth and nose. She passed the feathers back and forth, back and forth. Sometimes she passed the feathers down over the child's chest. Then again she passed them back and forth across the child's face.

  And the face of the child changed. Her body moved. Medicine Woman gave a silent command to the child's mother, who brought water. The child drank, and everyone looked very pleased.

  The next morningOld Limping Man went to the house ofMualig Siakam. Medicine Woman was feeding the child, who was sitting up. And that day, the child's people took her home.

  Halfway to the highway, walking in scorching midday heat, Manny Chavez took a detour. The wine was gone. He was verging on heatstroke. In the end it was thirst and the hope of finding water that drove him off-track.

  Under normal circumstances, no right-thinking member of the Desert People would have gone anywhere near the haunted, moldering ruins of the deserted village known as Ko'oi Koshwa — Rattlesnake Skull. An Apache war party, aided by a young Tohono O'othham woman, a traitor, had massacred almost the entire village. The only survivors, a boy and a girl, had sought refuge in a cave on the steep flanks of Ioligam several miles away.

  More recently, in the late sixties, a young Indian girl named Gina Antone had been murdered there. Anthony Listo, now chief of police for the Tohono O'othham Nation, had been a lowly patrol officer during that investigation. From time to time, he had been
heard to talk about the girl who had been lured from a summer dance to one of the taboo caves on Ioligam, where she had been tortured and killed. Her body had been left, floating facedown, in the charco — a muddy man-made watering hole-near the deserted village itself.

  A whole new series of legends and beliefs had grown up around that murder. The killer, an Anglo named Carlisle, was said to have been Ohbsgam-Apachelike. People claimed that the killer had been invaded by the spirits of the dead Apaches who had attacked Rattlesnake Skull Village long ago.

  All the caves on Ioligam were considered sacred and off-limits. They had been officially declared so in the lease negotiations when the tribe allowed the building of Kitt Peak National Observatory. In the aftermath of Gina Antone's death, however, the caves close to Ko'oi Koshwa became taboo as well. People said Ohbsgam Ho'ok — Apachelike Monster-lived there, waiting for a chance to steal away another young Tohono O'othham girl. Parents sometimes used stories about the bogeyman S-mo'o O'othham — Hairy Man-to scare little boys back in line. On girls they used Ohbsgam Ho'ok.

  Manny Chavez, thirsty but no longer drunk, considered all these things as he headed for the charco near what had once been Rattlesnake Skull Village. It was late in the season. Most of the other charcos on the reservation were already dry and would remain so until after the first summer rains came in late June or July. But no one ran any cattle near Ko'oi Koshwa. Without livestock to reduce the volume of water, Manny reasoned that he might still find water there-at least enough to get him the rest of the way to the highway.

  Earlier, as Manny walked, he had heard and seen a four-wheel-drive vehicle making its way both up and down part of the mountain. Suspecting the people inside of being Anglo rock-climbers, Manny had given the tangerine-colored older-model Bronco a wide berth. He'd be better off on the highway, trying to hitch a ride in the back of an Indian-owned livestock truck, than messing around with a carful of Mil-gahn.