by J. A. Jance
“This way,” Brian said. He led Detective Leggett over to his small collection of previously unearthed skeletal remains. “There’s a skull down there too,” the young deputy said. “Down there, toward the far end of the hole. As soon as I realized what it was, I left it there for fear of destroying evidence.”
Leggett blew out a cloud of smoke, held the cigar so he was upwind of both the cigar and the smoke and downwind of the bones. He stood there for a moment, sniffing the air. Finally, he stuffed the cigar back in his mouth.
“Thank God whoever it is has been dead long enough that he or she doesn’t stink,” he said. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a second cigar and offered it to Brian. “Care for a smoke?” he asked.
Brian shook his head. “No, thanks,” he said.
Leggett shrugged and stuffed the cigar back in his pocket. “Just wait,” he said. “If you’re in the dead-body business long enough, you’ll figure out that there are times when nothing beats a good cigar. At least, that’s what I keep telling my wife.”
Clearly amused by his own joke, Leggett was still chuckling as he pulled on a pair of disposable latex gloves and then dropped to his hands and knees in the dirt. Chomping down on the lit cigar, he held it firmly in place while he used both hands to paw away loose sand. Brian kept his mouth shut and watched from the sidelines.
It wasn’t long before Dan Leggett picked up a small piece of bone and tossed it casually onto the pile with the others. “Looks like a finger to me,” he mumbled.
Still saying nothing, Brian waited anxiously for Leggett to locate the skull. Eventually he did, pulling it out of the dirt and then holding it upside down while sand and pebbles drained out through the gaping holes that had once been eyes and nose. When the skull was finally empty, Dan Leggett examined it for some time without saying a word. Finally, with surprising delicacy, he set it down on the ground beside the hole, then he stood for another long moment, staring at it thoughtfully while he took several leisurely puffs on his cigar.
Brian Fellows found the long silence difficult to bear, but he didn’t say a word. Lowly deputies—especially ones who intend to survive in the law enforcement game—learn early on the importance of keeping their mouths shut in the presence of tough-guy homicide detectives. Finally, Leggett looked up at Brian and gave him a yellow-toothed grin.
“Well, Deputy Fellows,” Leggett said, “it looks to me like you’re in the clear on this one.” He knocked a chunk of ash off the end of the cigar, but Brian noticed he was careful none of it landed in the hole or on any of the recently disturbed dirt around it.
Brian had been holding his breath. Slowly he let it out. “Why do you say that?” he asked.
“Because, if this guy had been dead for a couple hundred years, I doubt his head would have five or six silver fillings. I doubt the Indians who lived around here back then were much into modern dentistry.”
“No,” Brian agreed. “I suppose not. Can you tell what killed him?”
Leggett shook his head. “Much too soon to tell,” he said. “Looks like there was quite a blow to his head, but it doesn’t mean that’s what killed him.”
Stuffing the cigar back in his mouth, the detective climbed out of the hole. Brian was surprised to think the detective would give up the search so soon.
“So what do we do now?” Brian asked.
“We dig,” Leggett returned. “Or rather, you dig and I watch. I’ve got a bad back. I trust you were wearing gloves when you handled those first few bones?” Brian nodded.
“Good boy. Chances are there won’t be any fingerprints, but then again, you never can tell.”
As the sun went down behind the Baboquivari Mountains in the west, Detective Leggett sat to one side of the hole, smoking, while Brian Fellows dug. He pawed in the soft dirt with renewed vigor. Slowly, one bone at a time, the grisly collection beside the hole grew in size. After several minutes of finding nothing, Brian was about to give up when his gloved fingers closed around something thin and pliable.
“What’s this?” he asked. “Hey, look. A wallet.”
Leggett was at his side instantly, hand outstretched to retrieve the prize. “This hasn’t been down there long,” he said, holding it up to examine it in the fading light. Leaving the wallet to Detective Leggett, Brian returned to searching the hole for any remaining evidence.
“That’s funny,” Leggett reported a few moments later.
“What’s funny?”
“There’s a current driver’s license here,” Leggett reported. “One that still has a year to run. I would have thought the corpse was far too old for that.”
“What’s the name?” Brian asked, climbing out of the hole.
“Chavez,” Leggett answered. “Manny Chavez. Indian, most likely. There’s a Sells address but no phone number. Want to have a look?”
Leggett handed the wallet over to Brian, leaving the plastic folder opened to the driver’s license page. Brian glanced at it, started to give it back, then changed his mind to take a second look.
“Wait a minute,” he said, pointing to the picture. “That’s the guy from this afternoon. I’m sure of it.”
“What guy?”
“The one we air-lifted into TMC just before I called for a detective. The one who’d had the crap beaten out of him before Kath Kelly found him.”
“You’re sure it’s the same guy?”
“Hell, yes, I’m sure.”
“In that case,” Leggett said, “I guess I’d better go talk to him. You stay here and keep the crime scene secure. I’ll call for a deputy with a generator and lights to come out and relieve you.”
“What are you going to do?” Brian asked.
“I already told you. Go to the hospital and talk to the guy.”
“How?”
“What are we doing, playing Twenty Questions?”
“How are you going to talk to him?” Brandon insisted.
“You’re some kind of comedian, Deputy Fellows,” the detective said. “To quote a former President, read my lips. I’m going to talk to Mr. Chavez with my mouth.”
“Do you speak Tohono O’othham?” Brian asked.
“No, do you?”
Brian nodded. “As a matter of fact, I do.”
“No shit?”
“No shit!”
For a moment Leggett stood looking at him. Finally he shrugged. “In that case,” he said, “I guess we’ll get somebody else to secure the damn crime scene, because you’re coming with me.”
Mitch Johnson had a large, trunk-sized box that he sometimes used to haul canvases around. Both the top and floor of the custom-made wooden box had matching grooves in them that allowed him to stack in up to twenty wet canvases without any of them touching each other. In advance of heading into town with Lani, he had emptied the box and loaded it into the back of the Subaru. Then, after blindfolding Lani with one of the cut pieces of scarf, he led her out of the Bounder.
Already the new dose of scopolamine was having the desired effect. Clumsy on her feet, she stumbled and fell against him as she stepped down out of the RV. It gratified him to hear the involuntary moan that escaped her lips when the injured breast, encased now in a still-sodden cowboy shirt, brushed up against his body.
“Smarts, does it, little girl?” he asked.
The Bounder was air-conditioned; the Subaru had been sitting in the afternoon sun. The interior of the box was stifling as he heaved her inside, sending her body sprawling along the rough, splintery bottom. There were ventilation holes in the sides—that was, after all, the point of the thing. He put canvases inside it to dry. That meant that once he turned on the air-conditioning in the car, the temperature inside the box would reduce some, too. Enough to keep her from croaking, most likely. Not enough for her to be comfortable.
Mitch had slammed the tailgate shut and was headed for the driver’s seat in the Subaru when he saw a set of blue flashing lights snaking across the desert floor from Tucson. His heart went to his throat. A damned co
p car! Surely they hadn’t already discovered the girl was missing. How could they?
Close to panic, he almost had a heart attack when the car slowed at the turn-off to Coleman Road and then again as the pair of headlights came speeding toward him. By then he could hear the siren wailing through the still desert air.
What the hell do I do now? he wondered. Really, there wasn’t any choice. He would have to gut it out. Bluff like hell and hope for the best, but in the meantime, he started the engine on the Subaru and then turned on both the radio and the air conditioner at full blast. That way, if the girl was still aware enough to make any noise, chances were the cop wouldn’t hear her.
Moments later, with his heart pounding in his throat, he saw the headlights take a sharp turn to the left a mile or so north of where the Bounder was parked. He could still see the blue lights flashing, but behind them there was only the pale red glow of taillights.
“Whew!” Mitch said aloud. “I don’t know what the hell that was all about, but it was too damn close for comfort.”
Wanda and Fat Crack were getting ready to go to the dance at Little Tucson. They had always enjoyed going to summertime dances, although Wanda liked it less now than she had before her husband’s elevation to tribal chairman. Before when they went to dances, they danced. Now, often as not, she was left to dance with one of her sons or grandsons while Gabe went about the never-ending business of politicking.
“Did you tell her yet?” Wanda asked, as she watched Gabe fasten the snaps on his cowboy shirt.
They hadn’t been talking about Delia Cachora, but Fat Crack knew at once who and what Wanda was asking about. Wanda had disapproved of his bringing Delia back to the reservation, after thirty years away, to take on the assignment of tribal attorney.
“We need somebody who knows how to go head-to-head with all those Washington BIA bureaucrats,” Gabe had told his wife back then while the tribal council was wrangling over the decision. “If she can handle those guys, she can take on Pima County and the State of Arizona.”
As Gabe expected, Delia Chavez Cachora did fine when it came to dealing with Mil-gahn paper-pushers. Where she fell short of the mark was in relating to the people back home, the ones who had never left the reservation. And that was part of the reason Fat Crack had hired David Ladd to serve as her intern. Schooled by Gabe’s Aunt Rita and old Looks At Nothing, Davy had forgotten more about being a Tohono O’othham than Delia Cachora could ever hope to know.
When Gabe didn’t answer, Wanda knew she was right. “You’d better tell her pretty soon,” she warned. “Davy’s supposed to be here next week, isn’t he? She may be real mad when she finds out.”
Looking in the mirror, Gabe slipped a turquoise-laden bola tie on over his head. He sighed as he pulled it tight under his double chin. “You’re right,” he said. “She’ll be mad as hell. Maybe I’ll tell her tonight, if I have a chance. If she’s there. That way she’ll have time to get used to the idea before Monday when I have to see her at work.”
The shrug Wanda sent in her husband’s direction as well as the derisive look said as clearly as if she had spoken that Wanda Ortiz didn’t think Delia Cachora would be over the issue of Davy Ladd anytime soon.
“She’ll be at the dance, all right,” Wanda told her husband. “If her Aunt Julia has anything to say about it, Delia will be working in the feast house.”
The painful shock of scraping along the rough wooden floor shattered Lani’s druggy haze and brought her back to agonizing awareness. But it’s better to hurt, she thought. At least that way I know what’s going on.
The blindfold had caught on a splinter of wood and had been pulled loose as she slid across the floor. When she realized the scarf was gone and opened her eyes, she knew it was daylight from the light leaking in through the ventilation holes. The interior of the box felt like a heated oven. Moments later, a car engine started and she could feel a tiny breath of cool air blowing across her damp clothing. The car started, but for some time it didn’t move.
There in the dark and alone, without the man watching her and gloating, there was no need to hold back the tears. Lying flat on her back, she gave in to both the pain and to her growing despair, letting the tears flow. She couldn’t understand why this calamity had befallen her, or what she could do about it.
Somehow, in her aching grief, Lani raised one hand to her throat. There, beneath her fingers, she felt the smooth, woven surface of the basket, the o’othham wopo hashda she had made from her own hair and from Jessie’s.
What if her hair charm, her kushpo ho’oma, fell into the hands of this new evil Ohb? Lani had woven the maze, the ancient sacred symbol of her people, into the face of the medallion. It was bad enough that Mr. Vega had copied the basket onto that awful picture of his, the one he had drawn of her while she slept, but Lani was suddenly determined that, no matter what, he would not have the basket itself.
Struggling in the dark, she worked desperately to unfasten the safety pin that kept the woven brooch on the slender gold chain. Even as her fingers struggled with the pin, Lani could feel the drug cloud begin to wrap itself around her, dulling her senses at the same time it soothed the terrible throbbing of her wounded breast.
She fought the drug with all the resources she could muster. And even though she couldn’t hold it off forever, she did manage to keep it at bay long enough to slip the precious woven disk into the safety of her jeans pocket.
Only then did she give in and let the enveloping sleep overtake her. Whatever the drug was, Lani hated it because it had made her helpless and turned her into a victim. At the same time, she loved it, too, because while she slept, the searing band of pain that was now her right breast no longer hurt her. The drug put her mind to sleep and the pain as well.
Her last waking thought was that Mr. Vega was right. The drug was awful, but it did help.
David Ladd fought his way up out of the nightmare with the awful scream still ringing in his ears. Throwing off the covers, he sat up in bed, shaking all over and gasping for breath.
“David!” Startled out of a sound sleep, Candace sat up in bed beside him. “For God’s sake, what’s the matter?”
“It was a dream,” he managed, through chattering teeth, but already the punishing heartbeat was pounding in his head and chest. Another attack was coming. Helplessly, he fell back on the pillows.
Scrambling out of bed, Candace reached for the phone. “I’ll call a doctor.”
“No, please. Don’t do that,” Davy begged.
“But David . . .”
“Please. Just wait! It’ll go away in a few minutes. Please.”
He held out one trembling hand. Reluctantly, Candace put down the phone and grasped his hand. With a worried frown on her face, she settled back down on the bed beside him. For the next several minutes she leaned over him, murmuring words he could barely hear or understand but ones that somehow comforted him nonetheless. Eventually the terrified beating of his heart began to slow. When his breathing finally steadied, he was able to speak.
“I’m sorry, Candace. I didn’t mean for you to . . .”
Realizing that the immediate crisis was past, her solicitous concern turned to a sudden blast of anger. “So what are you on, David Garrison Ladd?” she demanded. “Crack? Speed? LSD? All this time you’ve had me fooled. I never would have guessed that you did drugs.”
“But I don’t,” David protested. “I swear to God!”
“Don’t give me that,” she snapped back at him. “I’ve been around enough druggies in my life to know one when I see one.”
“Candace, please. It’s nothing like that. You’ve got to believe me. This has been happening to me for weeks now, every time I go to sleep. First there’s an awful dream and then—” He broke off, ashamed.
“And then what?” she demanded.
“You saw what happens. My heart beats like it’s going to jump out of my body. I can’t breathe. I come out of it soaked with sweat. The first time it happened I thought I was h
aving a heart attack. I thought I was going to die.”
“You should see a doctor,” Candace said.
“I did. He told me I was having panic attacks. He said they were brought on by stress and that eventually I’d get over them.”
“I’ve heard about panic attacks before,” Candace said. “One of the girls in the dorm used to have them. Isn’t there something you can take?”
“Nothing that wouldn’t be dangerous on a cross-country drive,” David told her. “All of the recommended medications turn out to be tranquilizers of some kind.”
“Oh,” Candace said. “And how long has this been going on?”
“For a couple of weeks now, I guess,” David admitted sheepishly.
“And why didn’t you tell me before this?”
David shrugged his shoulders. “I was embarrassed. I didn’t know what you’d think about me if I told you.”
“And it’s always the same thing? First the dream and then the panic attack?”
“Yes,” David said, “pretty much, but . . .” The rest of the sentence disappeared as he gazed off into space.
“But what?”
David swallowed. His voice dropped. Candace had to strain to hear him. “I used to dream about the day Andrew Carlisle came to the house and attacked Mother. But now the dreams are different.”
“Different how?”
“Different because Lani is in them. At the time all that happened, Lani wasn’t even born. This one was different, and it was the worst one yet.”
Getting up off the bed, David walked over to the window and stared outside at Chicago’s nighttime skyline. He stood there in isolation, his shoulders hunched, looking defeated.
“You said this dream was worse than the others,” Candace said. “Tell me about it.”
David shook his head and didn’t speak.