Queen of the Night

by J. A. Jance

  Brian had pulled an all-nighter. The idea of being bitched out by the sheriff himself didn’t go down very well right about then.

  “It was five-thirty or six before we made the Tohono Chul connection,” Brian said civilly. “So far we’ve got what looks like at least seven victims—three in California and four here.”

  “I don’t give a rat’s ass about the out-of-town victims,” Sheriff Forsythe bellowed. “Those are none of my concern, and none of yours, either. Law and Order can run the reservation part of the investigation. I want some hands-on treatment for these local folks. That part of the investigation should be handled by one of our A-teams, not somebody working solo. I believe the Aces are next up. I’ve already called them, and they’re on the way. Once they show up at the department, turn over whatever you’ve got to them, and go home.”

  Brian Fellows seethed with indignation. As long as Forsythe figured the victims were Indians or illegal aliens, he had no problem tapping Brian for the job. Once it was expedient to do so, the sheriff didn’t hesitate for a moment about calling in the big dogs. Everyone in the department understood that the Aces, Detectives Abernathy and Adams, were Forsythe’s go-to guys when it came to cases with the potential for any kind of political fallout.

  “Right,” Brian said through gritted teeth. “Will do.”

  When Sheriff Forsythe ended the call, Brian returned to the other phone. The interview with Corrine Lapin had ended, but Alex Mumford was still on the line, waiting for him. He might have mentioned to her that he’d just been sent to the locker room, but he didn’t.

  “How long do you think Southard had been planning this?” Brian asked.

  “There’s no way to tell. From what Corrine told us, I believe Esther intended to leave as soon as she had her share of the money.”

  “Did Jonathan know she was about to exit stage left?”

  “Hard to tell,” Alex said. “Some guys are so full of themselves that they can’t imagine anyone would ever up and leave them. In other words, maybe he knew and maybe he didn’t. Corrine indicated that regardless of whether charges were filed, there was some history of physical abuse.”

  Brian knew where she was going. In relationships where domestic violence is part of the equation, the moment one spouse tries to leave, things can get ugly.

  “Wait a minute,” Alex said. “The banking records I requested are just now coming in. Hang on.”

  Brian waited impatiently, drumming his fingers on the desk.

  “Okay,” Alex said after a long pause. “Okay. It looks like the 401(k) money landed in their joint account on Wednesday of last week, but it isn’t there now. It was withdrawn on Friday, as soon as the check cleared.”

  “The whole amount?” Brian asked.

  “Every bit of it,” Alex answered. “I’ve also spoken to a neighbor who reported hearing two people, a man and a woman, involved in a screaming battle on Sunday night. She also said that by Monday morning things seemed to have settled down. Quiet, anyway.”

  “So Esther discovered that Jonathan had hidden the money from her, and the two of them went to war over it.”

  “Right,” Alex agreed. “The only reason it was quiet on Monday is that Esther and the kids were already dead.”

  “The question is, was this his plan all along?” Brian asked. “Had he already gone to the trouble of setting himself up with another identity and made arrangements for fake IDs?”

  Detective Mumford thought about that. “Those can always be had for a price, but you have to have some connection in that world. I have warrants for his phone and Internet records, and I’ll know more once we have access. Banking records just showed up, but so far nothing else.”

  Brian was impressed. The investigation into the Thousand Oaks homicides was only a few hours old. Already Alex Mumford had managed to come up with court orders to cover banking and phone records. Considering it was 10:00 A.M. on a Sunday morning, that was pretty impressive.

  “He obviously drove from California to Tucson in his minivan. If we put out an APB with information on his vehicle, we might find him. Then again, we may not. So far he must be paying cash for his gasoline purchases. There’s no sign of any credit card activity. Since he evidently has plenty of cash, he may try to ditch his Dodge Caravan for something else in hopes of slipping by us. If he’s trying to travel by air, my guess is that he’ll still be using his own ID, or at least trying to.”

  “Have you released any information about finding the bodies on your end?” Brian asked.

  “Not yet. We’re still waiting on additional next-of-kin notifications.”

  “That won’t last forever, but it’s good for us. For right now Southard may not realize we’ve made the connection. If it hadn’t been for that neighborhood block watch lady, we wouldn’t have.”

  “Hang on,” Alex said. “Here comes the phone record info.”

  Again, Brian was left twiddling his thumbs while Alex scanned the information that had been dumped into her computer.

  “Okay,” she said finally. “It looks like he stopped using his cell phone Monday night, so there’s no chance of using that to pinpoint his location. He’s probably got himself a new one by now.”

  “There were no phones at all found at the crime scene on the reservation,” Brian told her.

  “So he may be using a victim’s cell phone? Can you get a court order for any of those?” Mumford asked.

  Not likely, Brian thought, especially since I’ve been thrown off the case. “Sounds like you might have better luck with that than I would.”

  “All right,” she said. “If you can get those numbers, send them over to me. Since we’re handling this as a joint operation, I might be able to get court orders for those, too.”

  The Aces would not be pleased to hear that bit of news, and Brian guessed that Detectives Abernathy and Adams would have a hard time keeping up with Alex Mumford.

  “Great,” Brian said, smiling to himself. “I’ll send you those numbers as soon as I have them.”

  “Can you dispatch deputies to the airport?” Alex asked.

  The Aces weren’t there yet, so why the hell not?

  “Will do,” Brian replied. “The one here has only two concourses, so covering those shouldn’t be too tough. I’ll pull up his driver’s license photo and hand out copies of that.”

  “Good,” Alex said. “What about car rental agencies?”

  “I’ll check with those and also with the local FBOs. If that 401(k) cash is burning a hole in his pocket, he just might pop for a charter to get where he wants to go in a hurry. If he goes to Phoenix to fly out, however, Sky Harbor is a lot tougher to cover as far as concourses are concerned, and there are lots more FBOs there as well. It’s also a hundred miles from here and out of my jurisdiction.”

  “Do you want me to contact someone there?”

  “You can try. One other question,” Brian added. “Did you find any brass at your scene?”

  “Lots,” she said. “All nine-millimeter. What about on your end?”

  “Nobody found any last night, but some could have turned up now that it’s daylight. The last I heard, CSI was still working the scene. Where’d Southard get a nine-millimeter?”

  “He bought it,” she said. “From a local gun shop here in Thousand Oaks. Even got himself a CWP. For defensive purposes only.”

  “Right,” Brian said. “For protection only. I’m sure that’s what the asshole told his dead wife and kids.”

  Twelve

  Sells, Tohono O’odham Nation, Arizona

  Sunday, June 7, 2009, 10:30 a.m.

  86º Fahrenheit

  Dan had been standing outside the hospital’s front entrance to make his phone call to Detective Fellows. On the way back inside, he stopped off long enough to speak to the charge nurse. “Any word on when Angie Enos’s relatives are going to show up?” he asked.

  “Not so far,” she said.

  Dan started to go back to the room, then changed his mind and went back
outside, dialing his cell phone as he went.

  He’d managed a couple of hours of sleep in that dreadful chair, but he wasn’t rested enough to stay awake through another ten-hour shift. It was already after ten in the morning. That didn’t leave him sufficient time to drive home, grab some z’s, and be back up and at ’em in time for his shift. Besides, what if Angie’s relatives never appeared? What would happen to her then?

  Dan Pardee already knew the answer to that question. Some unfailingly earnest CPS caseworker would ride up on her broom and whisk Angie off to foster care. Dan Pardee understood all too well about what was wrong with that scenario.

  Marco Benevedez, the sergeant on duty, answered his call.

  “Hey,” Dan said, casting around for a plausible excuse, “I stopped by the feast house at Vamori last night. I think I picked up a trace of food poisoning.”

  “No shit!” Marco said, laughing aloud at his own joke.

  “Just the opposite,” Dan said. He hoped he sounded suitably unamused.

  “Are you telling me you won’t be in?” Marco asked.

  “Not today.” And not Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday, either, Dan thought, since those were his regular days off.

  “We need a full report on your involvement with that Komelik shooting.”

  “No problem,” Dan said. “All I did was come across the victims after they’d been shot, but I’ll be glad to type something up and send it.”

  One of the side benefits of working for a far-flung unit was that reports could be e-mailed in rather than delivered in person.

  “Drugs, do you think?”

  Dan knew that Marco’s question was off the record. Stopping the flow of drugs and people across the border was one of the Shadow Wolves’ main areas of responsibility. Naturally Marco wanted to know if this shooting had anything to do with their mission. As far as Dan was concerned, the deaths of the people outside Komelik had nothing to do with smuggling. If what Brian Fellows had said was true, it was some nutcase from California going around killing people—starting with the people he should have loved above all others. That wasn’t a Border Patrol problem. It was a humanity problem.

  “I doubt it,” Dan said. “Time will tell. Gotta go,” he added.

  “Right,” Marco said, thinking Dan meant something else entirely. “So by all means, go!”

  “Did you bring me another coloring book?” Angie asked when he came back into her room. “I’ve used up all the stickers for this one.”

  And you already have me pegged for a sucker, he thought. “Not right now,” he said.

  “When is lunch?” she asked. “I’m hungry.”

  “Soon,” he said, and hoped like hell it was true.

  Sonoita, Arizona

  Sunday, June 7, 2009, 10:00 a.m.

  73º Fahrenheit

  When Brandon went inside to interview June Holmes, he left the convertible parked in the generous shade of a towering cottonwood. As Diana and Damsel settled in to wait, Diana wasn’t surprised when Garrison Ladd was the next one of her unending collection of bad boys to show up. Why wouldn’t he?

  Even though she’d been expecting him, it was disturbing that he appeared right beside her in the driver’s seat, sitting there with both hands on the wheel. At least Max Cooper had stayed in the backseat where he belonged. The good news about that was that the remains of the exit wound in his head were mostly invisible to her.

  “No matter what you think, sometimes suicide is the best solution for all concerned,” he said, taking up Max’s line of attack.

  “You of all people should know about that,” Diana said derisively. “After all, that was your solution of choice. By my count you’ve been dead for more than thirty years.”

  “But don’t bother selling the car,” he went on as though he hadn’t heard a word she said. “If you’re gonna do it, you’re gonna do it. It’s as simple as that. Brandon has a gun. You know where he keeps it. Even someone as dim as you are should be able to figure out how to use it.”

  This was nothing new. Garrison Ladd had always maintained that Diana was pretty much too stupid to live.

  “Don’t even mention Brandon Walker’s name,” Diana snapped at him. “You’re not in his league. Besides, I’d never use a gun for something like that. I wouldn’t leave that kind of mess behind for someone else to clean up.”

  “You mean like Brandon or Davy or maybe even Lani?”

  “Get out of the car,” she ordered. “You’re not here. You’re dead. I don’t have to listen to you. I won’t listen to you.”

  When he made no move to leave, Diana did. She got out, collected Damsel’s leash, and walked up to the front door of the ranch house, where she rang the bell.

  “I’m Brandon Walker’s wife,” she said to the silver-haired lady who answered the door. “Sorry to barge in like this, but it’s too hot to sit in the car. Do you mind if we wait inside?”

  “Of course not,” June Holmes said, smiling hospitably. “Do come in. Let me get you something cool to drink and something for your puppy, too. What’s the dog’s name?”

  “Damsel,” Diana answered. “For Damsel in Distress.”

  Sells, Tohono O’odham Nation, Arizona

  Sunday, June 7, 2009, 11:00 a.m.

  87º Fahrenheit

  When Lani jolted awake at eleven, Fat Crack’s crystals were still in her hand and her mind was made up. The answer to Delia’s question was yes—yes, she would take Angie. How could she not? Before she could turn that decision into action, however, there was something else she needed to do.

  Once showered and dressed, Lani returned to the medicine basket she had woven for herself so long ago. As her fingers and awl had worked with the bear grass and yucca, she had sensed that she was communing with the spirits of those who had come before her, the people who had schooled her in the traditions and teachings of the Tohono O’odham—Understanding Woman, Looks at Nothing, Betraying Woman, and Nana Dahd, and, of course, Fat Crack himself. As the basket took shape strand by strand, it had seemed to Lani that bits of each of those wise old people were being woven into the pattern.

  Once it was finished, it was only fitting that the basket should be stocked with all the treasured relics that had come to her from those folks as well.

  Rita Antone’s grandmother, Oks Amachuda, Understanding Woman, had been dead for decades before Lani was born, but two of the precious items came from her—a shard of red pottery with the form of a turtle etched into it and a hunk of geode covered with purple-shaded crystals. Understanding Woman had sent them with Rita, in a medicine basket very much like this one, when, as a young girl, Rita had been shipped off to boarding school at Phoenix Indian. That original basket still belonged to Lani’s brother, Davy.

  Nana Dahd’s owij, the awl she had used to make countless baskets, was there, as was the Purple Heart that was Rita Antone’s sole remembrance of her only son, who had died during the Korean War. The other important men in Rita Antone’s life were represented as well. Lani ran her fingers through the worn beads of Father John’s lasolo, his rosary. Smiling, she examined Looks at Nothing’s old Zippo cigarette lighter. The brass was smooth and fading to black in spots. It hadn’t lit anything in years, but the lighter’s connection to the past and to the old blind medicine man who had used it was almost palpable.

  Now, returning the crystals to the basket, she pocketed the tobacco pouch. Each year she made a special trip out into the desert to replenish her supply of wiw, the Indian tobacco used in the traditional ceremony called the peace smoke. Today, in her meeting with Delia Ortiz, that pouch of tobacco was all Lani needed.

  It was almost noon and scorching hot when Lani drove up to the Ortiz family compound behind the gas station. In the dusty open space inside the cluster of several mobile homes, two children—Gabe and Baby Rita—played a desultory game of kickball. The kids were evidently impervious to the heat while the adults of the several families hunkered down inside their air-conditioned houses and napped off the effects of bei
ng up all night at the Vamori dance.

  “Hey, Lani,” Gabe said. “Want to play kickball?”

  “Not right now,” she told him. “I need to talk to your mom.”

  “She’s asleep. Want me to wake her up?”

  “Please,” Lani said. “Tell her it’s about Angie and that I’ll meet her at her office.”

  Lani was grateful when Gabe headed inside to awaken his mother without asking any of his usual questions.

  Lani drove to the Tohono O’odham Nation’s office complex and parked next to the spot reserved for the tribal chairman. Before Lani formally agreed to Delia’s suggestion about Angie, she needed to be sure that she and the tribal chairman were on the same page.

  Sitting for several moments in her parked car, Lani reflected on her long-term rivalry with Delia Ortiz. Fat Crack had chosen both of them. Delia had been designated to be his political successor, and he had expected Lani to carry forward the traditional teachings that had been given to him by Looks at Nothing.

  Both women had done all they could to live up to Fat Crack’s expectations, with one major exception. He had thought they would become friends rather than enemies. Now, though, working together with the common purpose of salvaging Angie Enos, Lani glimpsed far enough into the future to see that perhaps Fat Crack had been right all along and that she and Delia would become friends.

  Exiting the Passat’s broiling interior, Lani walked over to the shaded picnic table where regular smokers of ordinary cigarettes could light up. Opening the pouch, Lani pulled out the paper and Indian tobacco and began rolling a smoke.

  Sells, Tohono O’odham Nation, Arizona

  Sunday, June 7, 2009, 11:30 a.m.

  88º Fahrenheit

  When Fat Crack first brought Delia Chavez Cachora back home to Sells to serve as tribal attorney, she had been away from the reservation for far more years than she had lived there. Her East Coast schooling and the years of living in D.C. made her seem far more Anglo than Indian. What made things happen in D.C. was thought to be pushy and abrupt on the reservation.