Queen of the Night

by J. A. Jance

  Tucson, Arizona

  Sunday, June 7, 2009, 7:00 a.m.

  72º Fahrenheit

  Always an early riser, Brandon Walker was up by five. By seven he was totally engrossed in his Sunday-morning culinary tradition. The blueberry muffins were just coming out of one oven and his spinach frittata was on its way into the other when Diana came down the hall. She had her hair pulled back in a ponytail. An Arizona Cardinals baseball cap was perched on her head.

  “Smells good,” she said, sniffing the air and pouring herself a cup of coffee.

  “Brandon Walker’s Sunday-morning surprise,” he answered with a grin, although that was hardly a surprise since those were the same dishes he made pretty much every Sunday morning. “If we’re going to go out and tackle the desert, we’ll have to keep up our strength. And if we’re taking the Invicta, we need to head out before it gets too hot.”

  Brandon was the cook in the family. Cooking wasn’t something that really interested Diana Ladd. If she had to, she could cook well enough to survive, but that was about it. For a long time, Nana Dahd had done the cooking for the family. Once she was gone, Brandon had stepped into the breach.

  “I see you’re dressed for travel,” he said as he set glasses and silverware on the breakfast bar in the kitchen.

  “Yup, sunscreen and all,” she replied.

  For a long time now, for weeks, Diana had seemed lost in a kind of despair that Brandon hadn’t been able to penetrate. She had always been reserved and quiet, preferring to observe those around her rather than being the life of the party. But this had seemed more serious than that, especially in light of what was going on with her publisher.

  Brandon had gone so far as to suggest that perhaps they should see a doctor and look into the possibility of having Diana take antidepressants. That suggestion had met with firm disapproval. This morning, however, the fog seemed to have lifted. Diana’s answering smile gave him cause to hope. Maybe he had been pushing panic buttons for no reason.

  “I sent June Holmes an e-mail and told her we’d be there around nine-thirty or so. If we go any later than that, we’ll roast. Or else we’ll have to ride with the top up, which,” he added, nodding toward the baseball cap, “probably isn’t what you had in mind.”

  “Yes,” she said. “Definitely top down.”

  “And what about Damsel?” Brandon asked.

  Diana shrugged. “She’s welcome to come along, as long as she doesn’t mind riding in the backseat. When you go in to interview the lady, the two of us will stay with the car or in the car, depending on if you park in the shade.”

  Diana’s good mood held all through breakfast and during the initial part of the drive to Sonoita. Speeding down the freeway with the sun broiling down on them and with the wind roaring in their ears, there wasn’t much chance to talk. From time to time, Brandon glanced in the rearview mirror at Damsel, who sat with her nose thrust outside the car and with her long ears flapping in the breeze. Soon after they exited I-10 onto Highway 83, Diana suddenly went somber again. The change in her mood was so abrupt it was as though a bank of clouds had suddenly passed in front of the sun or someone had flipped a switch.

  Damn, Brandon thought. I was hoping it would last all day.

  Highway 83, South of Tucson, Arizona

  Sunday, June 7, 2009, 8:30 a.m.

  75º Fahrenheit

  Diana saw Max Cooper sitting there in the backseat out of the corner of her eye.

  Her father—or rather the man she had always thought to be her father—was dressed the way she remembered him dressing back when she was a child and still believed he was her father.

  He wore a pair of rough work pants held up by heavy-duty suspenders. Even though it was the dead of summer, he still wore a set of flesh-colored long johns, the kind he had always worn for working in the woods and for overseeing the garbage dump in Joseph, Oregon. His chin was covered with rough stubble, and the anger that had always burned in his eyes when he looked at her was still there, as malevolent as ever.

  He’s dead, Diana reminded herself. He isn’t here, not really. My mind is playing tricks on me.

  Max Cooper had succumbed to cirrhosis of the liver at least a decade earlier. Diana had no idea what had become of Francine, his second wife, and she didn’t care. But here he was with his arms folded belligerently across his chest, glowering at her from the backseat of her Invicta while Damsel, unaware of his threatening presence, continued to stare at the passing scenery.

  “It won’t work,” he said. “You can sell the car if you want, but getting rid of it won’t keep you from doing what needs to be done. Why don’t you just go with the flow, take the easy way out?”

  Ignoring him, Diana stared at the road unspooling ahead of them, at a hot ribbon of pavement winding over parched rolling hills topped with tinder-dry winter grass.

  “Diana,” Brandon asked. “What’s wrong? What’s going on?”

  “Go away,” she said. “Leave me alone.”

  Of course, she meant those words for Max Cooper. In this case, Brandon was an innocent bystander. Max had appeared there in the backseat of the moving vehicle as if by magic. Diana wanted him to disappear that same way.

  “I know what you had in mind,” Max said with a snide smile. “Take this thing off the same curve out by Gates Pass, the one where Lani wrecked years ago. No seat belt. No roll bars. No nothing. You’d be gone just like that. Best for all concerned, don’t you think?”

  Max snapped his fingers. To Diana’s surprise she could hear that finger snap, even over the rushing wind. How did he know she had thought such a thing? And how did he know that was exactly why she wanted to unload her Invicta? So she wouldn’t be tempted. If what the future held for her was drifting further and further into some kind of dementia or even Alzheimer’s, that was bad enough. Her committing suicide wouldn’t help anyone, most especially the people she loved.

  She turned to Brandon. “How soon do you think you can get this up to Scottsdale for the auction?”

  “Are you sure you want to sell this old boat?” he asked. “You’ve always loved it, and nobody makes cars like this anymore.”

  “I’m sure,” she insisted. “I’m ready to let it go.”

  “If it’s going to be car-show worthy, then it’ll have to be detailed,” Brandon said. “Since Leo Ortiz did the original restoration work on it, I could check with him and see if he has time to do it.”

  Diana nodded, then turned to look at Max Cooper to see what he thought of that.

  Naturally he wasn’t there. By then the only passenger in the backseat was Damsel—Damsel and nobody else.

  It’s coming, Diana thought. I can still remember Brandon’s name and mine, but I still can’t remember Davy’s wife’s name. And I’m seeing people who aren’t there. At least I don’t think they’re there, but what if other people can see them, too, like little Gabe Ortiz did the other day? What does that mean? Do they exist, or am I just losing it?

  She looked over at Brandon. He was wearing sunglasses, but she could see the frown behind the green lenses. He wasn’t frowning because he was concentrating on driving. He was worried about her. She loved him for that, but she didn’t want to be the cause of it.

  About the time Andrew Carlisle had gotten out of prison and come looking for Diana, Brandon’s father had taken off in Brandon’s Pima County patrol car. They’d found him much later, wandering in the desert near Benson. Ultimately he had died of exposure, turning a seemingly harmless joyride into tragedy.

  Exposure. That’s what the death certificate had said, but that was back in the seventies. People didn’t talk about Alzheimer’s then the way they did now. That was what had really gotten Toby Walker, and Diana understood it was likely to get her, too. Driving the Invicta off a cliff was tempting—a siren call urging Diana onto the rocks when she knew it would take more courage to stay and face whatever was coming.

  In Diana Ladd Walker’s heart of hearts, she knew that leaving Brandon too early would hu
rt him more than staying and facing down the enemy together.

  Grateful for Brandon’s reassuring presence, she reached over and rested her hand on his thigh. His frown lifted. He turned and smiled at her. Then he squeezed her hand and lifted it to his lips.

  And that’s why, she thought, deliberately shaking off the evil spell Max’s unwanted presence had cast over them. Because he loves me more right now than Max Cooper ever loved anybody.

  Max Cooper had married a girl who was pregnant with another man’s child. In small-town Joseph, Oregon, he had grudgingly given her illegitimate daughter, Diana, the benefit of his own slender claim on small-town respectability, but that was all he had given her—his name and that was it. As a child, she had faced his constant torment—the beatings and the verbal abuse—with implacable resistance and without even once rewarding him with what he wanted—with tears or whimpers.

  She had fought him then and she would fight him now. If Max Cooper was in favor of Diana’s committing suicide, then she would be against it—to her very last dying breath.

  Sells, Tohono O’odham Nation, Arizona

  Sunday, June 7, 2009, 8:00 a.m.

  69º Fahrenheit

  There was silence for a time after Dr. Walker left Angie’s room. Dan could easily imagine someone being hospitalized for a snakebite. That was entirely understandable, but he had a difficult time getting his head around the idea of nearly dying of ant bites. That was far more difficult to fathom. But from the number of blemishes left on the doctor’s skin, not just the visible ones but the ones that had to be hidden under her clothing as well, there must have been hundreds of bites. No wonder she had almost died from the poison.

  “I got bit by an ant once,” Angie told him conversationally. “Will I have a spot, too?”

  “Do you have a spot now?” Dan asked.

  Angie shook her head.

  “Then you probably won’t,” Dan assured her. “Dr. Walker probably had so many bites that they got infected. That’s what caused the scarring.”

  “I’m scared of ants,” Angie said. “Are you?”

  “I wasn’t before,” he said, “but maybe I am now.”

  Angie pushed away the table with her empty breakfast tray on it. “When can I go home?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” Dan said. “I’m sure someone will tell us.”

  “But I won’t be going home with my mommy.”

  “No,” Dan said. “Not your mommy.”

  It hurt him to know that the reality of her situation was finally penetrating. The place she had lived with her murdered mother was most likely now a designated crime scene. It was reasonable to assume that Angie wouldn’t ever be going back there, and wherever she did go, her mother would never be there.

  Turning her face away from Dan, Angie lay back down on the bed and cried herself to sleep. Once she drifted off, Dan took Bozo and hurried out of the room. He drove to Basha’s, where he bought food for Bozo, another set of nearly out-of-date sandwiches for himself, and three children’s books for Angie. As far as books were concerned, the pickings were thin. He came away with one about a talking dump truck, one about a princess, and a coloring book about someone named SpongeBob SquarePants, whoever that was. He also bought a big box of crayons.

  Angie was awake when he returned. “Where were you?” she demanded.

  “I had to get some food for Bozo and for me,” he told her.

  “Why didn’t you eat some of mine?”

  “Hospitals don’t work that way,” he said with a smile. “That food is all for you, but I did find these.” He handed her his peace offering.

  Time passed slowly. There were stickers on the last several pages of the coloring book, and those were a far bigger hit than the crayons were. Watching Angie apply them with studied concentration, Dan found himself wondering how this little girl’s life would turn out. Would there be some loving grandparent to take up the slack, as Micah Duarte had done for him?

  “He was a bad man,” Angie said eventually.

  She was obviously thinking about the Milghan man with the gun. “Yes,” Dan agreed. “He was.”

  Dan’s lifestyle had given him very little contact with young children. He had no idea how much she understood of what had happened or how soon she would be able to process it.

  “I’m sorry Donald is dead, too,” Angie added matter-of-factly. “He was a nice man. I liked him. He gave me this.” She held up the pink-and-yellow pinwheel that she had kept hold of waking and sleeping.

  Dan nodded. “I’m sorry about Donald, too,” he said.

  There was another long period of quiet. Other people might have been tempted to fill it with conversation—to try to steer Angie away from dwelling on what had happened to her and to her family. Instinctively Dan knew better than to try to talk her out of it. After all, the life she had known had been destroyed. Now she was trying to make sense of what was left. He knew that she’d be doing that for the rest of her life—just as he was.

  “His arm was broken,” Angie added eventually.

  “Excuse me?”

  “The bad man,” she said. “His arm.”

  “What do you mean, it was broken? Was it in a cast?” Dan asked.

  Angie shook her head. “I don’t know about a cast. It was in one of those things around his neck.”

  “You mean it was in a sling?”

  She nodded.

  “And if you saw him again, would you know his face?”

  She nodded again. “I would know him,” she said.

  “Can you tell me what he looked like?”

  “Anglo,” she said. “He didn’t have much hair, and he was carrying a gun.”

  Daniel knew at once that he had just gained access to three important pieces of the puzzle, maybe three essential pieces. Solving the shooting wasn’t part of Daniel Pardee’s job description, but regardless of jurisdictional issues, Dan was now in possession of vital information that he intended to pass along to Detective Fellows. Immediately.

  “I need to go make a phone call,” he said. “Do you mind waiting here with Bozo?”

  “Will you be back?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he said. “I’ll be back.”

  “Okay then,” she said. “We’ll wait.”

  Sonoita, Arizona

  Sunday, June 7, 2009, 9:30 a.m.

  73º Fahrenheit

  Leaving Diana and Damsel parked in the shade of a towering cottonwood, Brandon stepped up onto the front porch of June Holmes’s Sonoita home and rang the bell. The silver-haired woman who opened the door was dressed in a church-worthy suit with a slim skirt and jacket, along with low heels and hose.

  “Mr. Walker?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he said, fumbling for his identification, but she waved that aside.

  “I’m sure that’s not necessary. Please come in.”

  Brandon stepped into a darkened living room. The blinds were closed and the curtains drawn. A single lamp burned next to an easy chair. Just inside the door sat a small old-fashioned suitcase, one without rollers. Next to it was a cardboard cat container complete with a vocal and very unhappy cat who was yowling its heart out.

  June went to the easy chair where she had evidently been sitting before the doorbell rang. She closed the book that was on a nearby end table. On his way to the sofa, Brandon found it easy to make out the gold-leaf letters on the worn black leather cover—The Book of Mormon.

  “Please excuse Miss Kitty,” June said, folding her hands in her lap. “Traveling anywhere makes her nervous.”

  In his years as an investigator, Brandon had seen enough body language to recognize that June Holmes was every bit as nervous as her unhappy cat.

  “The two of you are going on a trip then?” Brandon asked. Hoping to put June at ease, he tried to keep his voice casual and conversational.

  “I suppose so,” June replied. “Miss Kitty isn’t going far. My neighbor up the road has agreed to keep her while I’m gone, but she hates traveling so much that it�
�s impossible to take her even that far if she isn’t in a crate. Otherwise, she’d disappear the moment I open the door.”

  “If you’re on a tight schedule, then,” Brandon said, “perhaps we should get started. As you know, G. T. Farrell is in ill health at the moment and has been since before you sent him that note inviting him to stop by to see you. That’s why I’m here. He’s not in any condition to travel and probably won’t be any time soon.”

  “I’m sorry he’s ill,” June said regretfully. “I know he’s been involved in this case from the beginning. It must have been difficult having to pass it along to someone else.”

  “Yes,” Brandon agreed. “I’m sure that’s why he held on to it for so long. He thought eventually he’d be well enough to come see you himself. When it became apparent that wouldn’t be possible, he called me.”

  “Let’s get to it, then,” June said. She picked up the book and slipped it into a large open purse that sat on the floor next to her chair. “There’s no sense beating about the bush.”

  “This is about the murder of Ursula Brinker?” Brandon asked.

  June nodded. “Yes,” she said. “I called her Sully back then. That’s what everyone called her.”

  “You were friends?”

  June nodded again. “We were,” she said. “Good friends. Best friends.”

  “Tell me about spring break of 1959,” Brandon said.

  June closed her eyes for a moment before she answered. “Five of us drove over to San Diego in Margo Mansfield’s 1955 Chevrolet Bel Air.”

  “Who all went?” Brandon asked. He already knew the answer. The five names had been carefully listed in Geet’s notebook.

  “Margo, of course,” June said. “She drove. Then there was Sully, Deanna Rogers, Kathy Wallace, and me. We drove over on Friday afternoon after the last classes let out.”

  “What did you do once you got there?”

  “To San Diego? We checked into our hotel. We had a room that opened right on the beach.”