Kiss of the Bees w-2

by J. A. Jance

  “Please tell me,” Candace urged, her voice gentler than it had been. “Please.”

  David shuddered before he answered. “I was certain the first attack was over,” he said at last. “Mother was in the kitchen because I could already smell the bacon cooking. Burning, really. Then the door to the cellar fell open, just the way it always does in the dream, except this time, the room was empty except for Bone, my dog. He was there in the kitchen, licking up the bacon grease, but the house itself was quiet and empty, as though everybody had left.”

  “Where did they go?”

  Davy swallowed. “I’m coming to that. I called Bone to come, and the two of us went from room to room, trying to figure out where everybody had gone. I checked every room but there was nobody to be found, until the last one, Lani’s. They were in there, Lani and the evil Ohb. He had her on the bed and he was—”

  Davy broke off and didn’t continue.

  “He was raping her?” Candace supplied.

  Davy shook his head. “I don’t know. I couldn’t see. All I know is he was hurting her, and she was screaming.” He put his hands over his ears as though Lani’s scream were still assailing them. “It was awful.”

  “It was a dream,” Candace said firmly. “Forget it. Come back to bed.”

  “But Rita, our baby-sitter, always said that dreams mean something. When I was a freshman in high school, I went out for JV football. One day Lani was taking a nap and she woke up crying, saying that I was hurt. Mom was trying to tell her it was nothing but a dream when the school nurse called to say that she thought my ankle was broken and that Mom needed to come pick me up.”

  “You’re saying you think Lani might be hurt?”

  Davy shook his head. “I don’t know what I’m saying. All I know is, that scream was the worst thing I’ve ever heard.”

  “She never called us back tonight, did she?” Candace said thoughtfully.

  Davy shook his head. “No,” he said. “She didn’t.”

  “So let’s try again.” Ever practical, Candace sat up in bed, plucked the telephone receiver out of its cradle and handed it over to Davy. “It’s only a little after nine there,” she said matter-of-factly. “Maybe somebody will be home by now. What’s the number?” she said.

  Grateful beyond measure that Candace hadn’t simply dismissed him as crazy, David Ladd held the phone to his ear while she dialed, then he waited while it rang. “The damned machine again,” he said finally, handing the receiver back to her. “Go ahead and hang up.”

  “Leave another message,” Candace ordered. “Tell Lani or your parents, either one, to call you back as soon as they get home.”

  Eventually the beep sounded in his ear. “Hi, Mom and Dad,” he said. “I’m still trying to get hold of Lani, but I guess nobody’s home. Give me a call. You already have the number. Bye.”

  He put down the phone. Candace was looking up at him. “Better?” she said.

  David nodded.

  “Lie back down, then.”

  He did as he was told. Moments later Candace snuggled close, her naked leg against his, her fingers brushing delicately across the hair of his chest.

  “Whatever happened to Bone?” she asked. “I’ve read your mother’s book, but I don’t remember her saying what happened to the dog.”

  “Poor old Oh’o,” Davy said. “I haven’t thought of him for years. When we first moved to Gates Pass he was my only friend and playmate. Nana Dahd always used to say that the first word I spoke was goks—dog—the day she brought him home as a gangly puppy.”

  “What kind of dog was he?”

  “A mutt, I’m sure. He looked a lot like an Irish wolfhound—he was that big, long-haired, and scraggly—but he could jump like a deer.”

  “What was it you called him again?”

  “Oh’o. In Papago . . . in Tohono O’othham . . . that means bone. And that’s what he was when Rita first brought him home, skin and bones. But he was a great dog.”

  “What did he die of?”

  “Old age, I guess. The year I turned thirteen. His kidneys gave out on him. My friend Brian Fellows and I carried him up the mountain behind the house and buried him among the rocks where the three of us all used to play hide-and-seek. Bone always loved being It.”

  “I guess he really messed up the guy’s arm. His wrist, anyway.”

  “Andrew Carlisle’s wrist?”

  Candace nodded. “From what your mother said in the book, when you let him into the kitchen, he went after the guy tooth and nail.”

  “He did?”

  “Yup. He wrecked it. She talked about that in one of the scenes that takes place in the prison, about how when she saw him again after all those years, his face was all scarred up from the bacon grease. She talked about his arm then, too, about how he had to wear it in a sling.”

  “Well, I’ll be damned,” David Ladd said. “I never knew that before, or if I did, I’ve forgotten.”

  Slowly, almost unthinkingly, Candace’s fingers began to stroke the inside of Davy’s thigh. “Stick with me, pal,” she said. “I’ll teach you everything I know.”

  She seduced him then, because she thought he needed it. Because it was the middle of the night and because they were both awake and young and had the stamina to do it more than once a night. Afterward, as David Garrison Ladd drifted off into the first really restful sleep he’d had in weeks, he felt as though, for the first time in his life, he had made love.

  12

  You will remember, nawoj, that when I’itoi divided the water and saved his people, the Tohono O’othham, from the Bad People, some of the PaDaj O’othham escaped.

  Now these Bad People lived in the south, and they were very lazy. They were too lazy to plant their own fields, so they came into the Land of the Desert People and tried to steal their crops—their wheat, corn, and beans, their pumpkins and melons.

  The Tohono O’othham fought these Bad People and drove them away, but after a time, the beans and corn which the Bad People had stolen were all gone. The PaDaj O’othham were hungry again. They knew the Desert People were guarding their fields, so they decided to try a new way to steal the crops.

  Near the village Gurli Put Vo—Dead Man’s Pond—which we now call San Miguel, the corn in the fields was ready to harvest. One morning Hawani—Crow—who was sitting in a tree, saw the Bad People coming up out of the ground and begin cutting the grain.

  Crow was so astonished that he called out, “Caw, caw, caw!” This made the people who were living on the edge of the field look up. When they saw their crop disappearing into the ground, they cried out for help.

  U’uwhig—the Birds—carried the call for help because the Desert People were always good to the Da’a O’othham—the Flying People—and never let them go hungry or thirsty. And very soon the Indians gathered and drove the Bad People back into the ground. But the bean fields were trampled, and the corn was badly damaged.

  It was almost dark before the relief deputy showed up. Detective Leggett parked him in the middle of the road about twenty yards from the charco. “You stay right here,” he said. “I don’t want anyone coming up and down this road until we can get a crime scene team in here tomorrow morning. You got that?”

  “Got it,” the deputy said.

  By the time Dan Leggett and Brian Fellows grabbed a bite of dinner and then turned up at TMC, Manuel Chavez had already been wheeled off to surgery. The clerk on the surgery wing was happy to glean that one bit of information, that John Doe now had a name. She called the information back down to Admitting.

  “That John Doe who just went into surgery is from Sells,” she told someone over the phone. “That means he’s Indian instead of Hispanic, so you might want to update your records.” The clerk covered the mouthpiece with her hand and turned a questioning look on Dan Leggett.

  “Has anyone notified the family?”

  Dan shook his head. “Not yet.”

  “Are you going to?”

  “We’re trying,” Detective
Leggett told her, then he looked at Brian. “I’m going outside to have a smoke,” he said. “Since you’re the guy who told me you speak Tohono O’othham, you can do the honors.”

  Obligingly Brian Fellows stood up and went in search of the nearest pay phone. He placed a call to the Tohono O’othham tribal police and spoke to an officer named Larry Garcia who spoke English just fine.

  “Sure, we know Manny Chavez,” Larry told Brian Fellows. “What’s he done now?”

  “Somebody beat him up pretty badly,” Brian replied. “He’s in surgery at TMC right now. Can you guys handle next-of-kin notification?”

  “We’ll try,” Larry said. “He’s got both a daughter and a son. We should be able to find one of them. What’s your name again?”

  “Brian Fellows. I’m a deputy with Pima County. I’ll be here at the hospital for a while longer. Let me know if you locate someone, would you?”

  “Sure thing,” Larry said. “No problem. Give me your number.”

  Brian gave him the surgical clerk’s extension, then went outside and found Detective Leggett stationed beside an overflowing breezeway ashtray, smoking one of his smelly cigars.

  “What’s the scoop?” he asked. “Any luck?”

  “The tribal police are working on it,” Brian replied. “They’ll let us know.”

  “I’ve been standing out here thinking,” Dan Leggett said. “When you first contacted me, we thought the guy was digging up some kind of artifact. Maybe poor Manny Chavez made the same mistake. For the time being, let’s assume, instead, that the first guy was burying something, specifically that pile of bones. Why would somebody go to all the trouble of doing that?”

  “Because he had something to hide,” Brian offered.

  “And what might that be? Maybe our grave digger had something to do with the first guy’s crushed skull. Think about it. We’re talking the same MO as with Manny Chavez. Whack ’em upside the head until they fall over dead.”

  Brian nodded. “That makes sense,” he said.

  “So we’ve for sure got assault with intent on this grave-digging guy and maybe even an unknown and consequently unsolved homicide thrown in for good measure. That being the case, I’m not going to let this thing sit until morning. I’m going to go back out to the department and raise a little hell. I asked for a crime scene investigation team for tonight, but all I got was a deputy to secure the scene and the old ‘too much overtime’ song and dance. I want faster action than that. If I play my cards right, I’ll be able to get it. In the meantime, you hang around here and wait for the next of kin. Once they show up, get whatever information you can, but if the doc says we can talk to Manny himself, you call me on the double.”

  “Will do,” Brian replied.

  He went back into the waiting room and settled down on one of the molded-plastic chairs. While he sat there and waited for one or the other of Manny Chavez’s kids to show up, Brian finished filling out his paper. As he worked his way down the various forms, Brian was once again grateful that Dan Leggett had taken the call. The deputy was glad not only for his own sake, but also for the sake of Manny Chavez’s unnotified relatives, whoever they might be. There were plenty of detectives in Bill Forsythe’s sheriff’s department who wouldn’t have given a damn about somebody going around beating up Indians—plenty who wouldn’t have lifted a finger about it.

  Fortunately for all concerned, Dan Leggett wasn’t one of those. He was treating the assault on Manny Chavez as the serious crime it was—a Class 1 felony. Not only that, Brian thought with a smile, the investigation Dan was bent on doing would no doubt necessitate interviewing everyone involved. Including a good-looking Border Patrol agent named Kath Kelly.

  Time passed. Brian lost track of how long. He was sitting there almost dozing when the clerk woke him up, saying there was a phone call for him.

  “Deputy Fellows?” Larry Garcia asked.

  “That’s right.”

  “I just had a call from one of my officers. He’s on his way to Little Tucson. There’s a dance out there tonight. We’re pretty sure Delia Cachora, Manny’s daughter, will be there. Once they find her, it’ll take an hour or more for them to get her into town. Will you still be there, at the hospital?”

  Detective Leggett had given Deputy Fellows his marching orders. “Most likely,” Brian told him. “Have her ask for me.”

  Quentin Walker was more than half lit and still in the bar at seven o’clock when Mitch Johnson finally showed up at El Gato Loco. Among the low-brow workingmen that constituted El Gato’s clientele, the well-dressed stranger sporting a pair of dark sunglasses stuck out like a sore thumb.

  “You’re late,” Quentin said accusingly, swinging around on the barstool as Mitch sidled up beside him.

  “Sorry,” Mitch returned. “I was unavoidably detained. I thought you said you’d be waiting out front.”

  “I was for a while, but it was too hot and I got too thirsty waiting outside. Want a drink?”

  “Sure.”

  “Well, order one for me, too. I’ve gotta go take a leak.”

  The beer was there waiting on the counter when Quentin returned from the bathroom. Coming back down the bar, Quentin tried to walk straight and control his boozy stagger. He didn’t want Mitch to realize how much he’d already been drinking, to say nothing of why. Quentin still couldn’t quite believe he had killed that damned nosy Indian, but he had, all because he had walked up and caught Quentin red-handed with Tommy’s bones right there in front of God and everybody.

  Now, Quentin was looking at two potential murder charges instead of one. Jesus! How had that happened to him? How could he have screwed up that badly? The one thing he didn’t want to lose sight of, though, was how much the money from those damned pots would mean to him now.

  Nobody knew Quentin Walker owned a car. It would take days, weeks, maybe, for all the paperwork to make its way through official channels. With a proper vehicle and a grubstake of running money, Quentin might even be able to make it into the interior of Mexico. He could leave via that gate on the reservation, the one he had heard so much about from Davy and Brian. It was supposed to be an unofficial border crossing where Indians whose lands had been cut in half by the Gadsden Purchase could go back and forth without the formality of border guards of any kind.

  When Mitch Johnson had first shown up with his offer to buy the pots, Quentin had been intrigued more than interested. Now, though, that very same offer of money was of vital importance. The last thing Quentin wanted to do was to spook Mitch into calling the whole thing off. If Mitch walked away, taking with him those five bills with Grover Cleveland’s mug shot on them, then Quentin Walker could be left high and dry, without the proverbial pot to piss in. He would have no money and nowhere to run, and he’d be stuck with two possible murder raps staring him in the face. Nobody was ever going to believe that Tommy’s death had been an accident.

  “How about something to eat?” Quentin suggested, thinking that food might help sober him up. “The hamburgers here aren’t bad.”

  “Sure,” Mitch Johnson said easily. “I’ll have one. Why the hell not? We’re not in any hurry, are we?”

  Shaking his head, Quentin leaned his arms against the edge of the bar to steady himself. “Not that I know of,” he said. “I do have some good news, though.”

  “What’s that?” Mitch asked.

  “I used some of the money you gave me to buy myself some wheels. I picked up a honkin’ big orange Bronco XLT. It’s a couple years old, but it runs like a top. If you want, we could drive out to where the pots are in that. I don’t know what kind of vehicle you’re driving, but the terrain where we’re going is pretty rough, and the Bronco is four-wheel-drive.”

  Mitch Johnson had to fight to keep from showing his disappointment. He had been planning all along that he’d be getting back almost a full refund of that initial five thousand bucks he had given Quentin. And he had less than no intention of giving the little creep his second installment. After all, once Q
uentin Walker was dead, he wouldn’t have any need of money—or of a car, either, for that matter.

  Instead of bitching Quentin out—instead of mocking him for his stupidity—Mitch was careful to mask his disappointment. “So, you bought yourself a car?” he asked smoothly. “What kind did you say?”

  “A Bronco.” To Mitch, Quentin’s answer seemed unduly proud. “It’s the first time I’ve had wheels of my own in years. It feels real good.”

  “I’ll bet it does,” Mitch Johnson agreed.

  After that exchange, Mitch sat for a long time and considered this changed state of affairs. His plan had called for the next part of the operation to be carried out in the Subaru. That way he would have the canvas-drying crate to use to confine either Lani and/or Quentin, should the drugs somehow prove unreliable. The idea of changing vehicles added a complication, but the whole point of being competitive—of being able to capitalize on situations where other people faltered—was being flexible enough to go with the flow. The idea was to take the unexpected and turn it from a liability into an advantage.

  “Hang on here a minute,” Mitch said to Quentin. “And if my food comes before I get back, you leave my hamburger alone.”

  “Sure thing,” Quentin said.

  Mitch walked out to the far corner of the parking lot where he had left the Subaru. There, he unlocked the tailgate, opened the wooden crate, and checked on Lani, who appeared to be sleeping peacefully. Putting on his rubber gloves, he removed Lani’s bike from the crate. Hurriedly he wheeled it over to the orange Bronco parked nearby, an orange Bronco with a temporary paper license hanging in the window next to a prominently displayed as is/no warranty notice. Predictably, the Bronco wasn’t locked. Mitch hefted the mountain bike into the spacious cargo compartment and then went over to secure the Subaru.

  “Sweet dreams, little one,” he said to a sleeping Lani as he once again closed up the crate. “See you after your brother and I finish up at the house.”

  When Mitch went back inside, the food had been served. Mitch ate his lousy hamburger and watched Quentin wolf his. There was something about the man that wasn’t quite right. There was a nervous tension in him that Mitch didn’t remember from the night before, but he put his worries aside. Whatever was bothering Quentin Walker, that little dose of scopolamine Mitch had dropped into Quentin’s first beer would soon take the edge off. In fact, Mitch’s only real concern was that Quentin was far more smashed than he should have been. With Quentin drunk, Mitch worried that even a little bit of Burundianga Cocktail might prove to be too much.