Day of the Dead (29 page)

No wonder Hedda Brinker put him in charge,
Brandon thought.
Here’s a guy who isn’t afraid of using every available tool.

When Brandon got up from his desk, he had to stand for a long moment leaning against the wood and resting his arthritic hip before his leg would actually hold his weight. He had only clambered down into Fat Crack’s grave a couple of times, and he hadn’t worked all that hard, but his body was telling him otherwise.

He limped over to the door and switched off the light. “Getting old is hell,” he muttered under his breath as he started back down the hall to the kitchen.

Which is the same thing,
he thought,
that Fat Crack told me yesterday.

***

By the time
Brandon emerged from his office, the kitchen was clean, Diana had taken herself to bed, and Lani was sitting outside on one of the patio chairs, staring up at the sky. “Didn’t the stars used to be brighter?” she asked. “Or is that just how it seems?”

“They used to be brighter,” Brandon agreed. “As the lights in and around Tucson expand, they reflect off moisture in the sky, making it lighter. Stargazing is better on the other side of the pass.”

He sat down next to her. As his eyes adjusted to the ambient light overhead, he realized Lani was sitting with Fat Crack’s medicine pouch resting in her lap.

“I really wanted to talk to him,” she said.

“I know,” Brandon said.

“I feel like he abandoned me, and that he did it on purpose.”

“Lani, if he’d done things the way you wanted him to, if he had abandoned his beliefs and accepted the kind of medical care you wanted him to have, he wouldn’t have been true to himself.”

“I know that,” Lani said. “I guess.”

She wished she could have told Fat Crack about the strange woman’s dissolving face and the skull that had appeared in her crystals and obliterated the medicine man’s features, but she knew better than to try talking to her father about it. This didn’t seem like something Brandon Walker could understand or accept.

They both fell silent. While they sat quietly, what must have been a dozen Harleys came roaring up the road toward Gates Pass. The sound of their noisy engines reverberated off the cliff faces on either side of the road as they hurtled past. The echoes lingered on long after the motorcycles had crossed the pass and started down the other side.

Brandon was cold, but Lani, still sitting in her T-shirt and shorts, gave no hint of being chilly. “Are you tired?” he asked finally.

“A little,” Lani admitted. “I didn’t get much sleep last night.”

“Maybe you should try,” Brandon suggested. “Between the funeral and the feast tomorrow, it’s going to be a long day.”

“What do you think about Candace?” Lani asked suddenly.

“Candace? What about her?”

“Do you think she’s happy here?”

Brandon shrugged. “I’ve never given it much thought. She seems happy to me. Why?”

Lani shook her head. “I don’t know. It’s just that she’s so different from Davy. And the way she lets Tyler do whatever he wants to.”

Brandon nodded. That he had noticed. “I agree Tyler’s spoiled, but you have to remember his mother isn’t raising him the same way you and Davy were raised. I sometimes think that little boy could use a good healthy dose of Rita Antone. She’d straighten him out in ten minutes flat.”

Lani laughed at that. Nana
Dahd
had died on Lani’s seventh birthday. She vividly remembered the old Indian woman and her many lessons, all of them taught gently, but with the firm expectation that Lani would behave politely and respectfully.

“Maybe that’s where you come in, Lani,” Brandon said, rising and taking his aching hip and knee into the house. “You’re the closest thing we have to Nana
Dahd
around here. Isn’t that the way it works with the Desert People? Don’t aunts and uncles do the disciplining?”

Lani laughed. “That’s what I’ve heard, too. The only problem is, Tyler Ladd isn’t a Tohono O’odham kid, and I’m not sure his mom would want me to turn him into one.”

Picking up Fat Crack’s leather pouch and clutching it to her, Lani Walker followed her father into the house.

Twenty-One

Brandon and Diana were both sleeping soundly the next morning when Damsel went nuts. “What’s up, Damn Dog?” Brandon mumbled sleepily. Just then the doorbell rang. “I’ll get it,” he told Diana as he hopped out of bed and pulled on clothing.

He and Damsel reached the front door together as the doorbell rang again. Brandon used the security peephole to see who it was. Emma Orozco stood there, leaning on her walker. In the background her son-in-law, Sam Tashquinth, was hauling something unwieldy out of the back of his pickup and lugging it toward the gate. As he entered, Brandon saw Sam’s load was swathed in plastic garbage bags that had been duct-taped together.

Shutting Damsel inside, Brandon stepped out on the porch. “Good morning, Emma,” he said. “What can I do for you?”

“Bring it,” Emma said to her son-in-law, pointing to a spot next to her on the porch.

With a relieved sigh, Sam Tashquinth dropped his burden where she had indicated, while the old woman turned back to Brandon. “She’s here,” Emma said. “Roseanne’s baby.”

“You dug her up?”

Emma shrugged. “To ask permission we’d have to go before the tribal council. It would take too long. After dark last night, Sam and my grandson did it.”

In terms of speed, taking shovels in hand without waiting for permission got the job done. In terms of establishing a chain of evidence, Emma’s self-appointed grave robbing was entirely wrong. Had Brandon been a sworn police officer, his reaction would have been tempered by evidentiary considerations. As part of TLC, he was conflicted by the need to get results for survivors while, at the same time, being able to hold someone accountable in a court of law.

“Thank you,” he said. “I’m sure it was a difficult decision.”

“I want you to find Roseanne’s killer,” Emma said determinedly. “Even if he’s dead, I want to know he can’t ever do this again.”

“Yes,” Brandon said. “I couldn’t agree more.”

“Do you want me to leave it here, Mr. Walker?” Sam Tashquinth asked.

“My Suburban’s in the garage. We’ll put it there. I’ll go get the key.” He turned to Emma. “Would you like to come inside? My wife would be glad to make coffee…”

“No,” Emma said at once. “Thank you. We should go. Sam has to get to work.”

Brandon hurried inside. Diana was in the kitchen making coffee. “What’s up?” she asked.

“Emma’s out on the porch. They dug up Roseanne’s baby’s coffin. It’s on the porch, too.”

“They dug up the baby?” Diana looked appalled. “Why?”

Brandon removed the car keys from their pegboard hook. “We’re hoping DNA can identify the baby’s father—and help us find Roseanne’s killer.”

“What should I do?” Diana asked, collecting herself. “Invite them in? Offer coffee?”

“No,” Brandon said. “Emma told me they have to go back to Sells as soon as we load the casket into the Suburban.”

When he went to help, Brandon was surprised by the weight of the casket. It was heavy enough that it took both men to heft it into the Suburban. The fetus itself would have been tiny. “Why such a big casket?” Brandon asked as he shut the luggage doors.

Sam Tashquinth shrugged philosophically. “I asked that. Emma said the man at the mortuary told them it was the only size they had.”

And one they could charge more for, too,
Brandon thought.

Once they were finished, Sam stepped away from the Suburban, vigorously rubbing both hands on his jeans. The Indian man was clearly relieved to have the casket out of his possession, and Brandon could see why. Even without taking Tohono O’odham taboos into consideration, the idea of driving around with a corpse in the back of his vehicle wasn’t Brandon’s idea of a good time, either.

***

The barking dog woke
Lani. She came out to the kitchen to find her mother unloading the dishwasher. She looked upset.

“What’s going on?” Lani asked.

“Somebody just dropped a dead baby off on the front porch. Your father is loading it into the Suburban.”

“A dead baby? For Dad?” Lani was mystified. “How come?”

“It’s a case Dad’s working on for TLC—a girl from the reservation who was pregnant when she was killed some thirty years ago. Dad’s hoping that modern DNA testing can shed some light on the case.”

“He really is working for that volunteer cold-case group?”

Diana nodded. “It’s been good for him—given him back a sense of purpose, but I don’t think he expected to have a casket turn up on the doorstep at six o’clock in the morning. Come to think of it, neither did I.”

After pouring three cups of coffee, Diana took hers and headed for her office. Lani and Damsel waited until Brandon came in from outside to wash his hands. Lani handed him his coffee, then, calling Damsel, she headed for the door. “Let’s sit outside in the sun,” she said. “Mom told me about the case you’re working on, but I’d like to hear it from you.”

Out on the patio, Brandon told Lani about Roseanne Orozco and what had happened to her. Lani had been the same age as Roseanne when she had lived through her own harrowing experience at the hands of Mitch Johnson. Hearing the story of another Tohono O’odham girl, one who had not survived a similarly savage attack, left Lani feeling half sick. It also explained why her father was so deeply involved.

They had drunk that first pot of coffee and the better part of a second before Diana joined them on the patio. “I’m done answering e-mail,” she said. “Can I interest anybody in breakfast?”

Brandon nodded. “Sounds good,” he said, “but first I need to call Ralph Ames and find out what he wants me to do about our early-morning guest.”

As he headed for his office, Lani turned to her mother. “You’re right,” she said. “Dad really is happy to be working again.”

***

Ralph Ames answered
on the second ring. “You’re up and around early,” he said.

“Well,” Brandon replied, “I’ve got some good news and some bad news. The good news is, I have Roseanne Orozco’s baby.”

“Good,” Ames returned. “We should be able to start the DNA testing right away. I’ve found a place here in Seattle that may be able to get results on fetal remains. What’s the bad news?”

“I’ve got the whole body,” Brandon replied. “Coffin and all. The grandmother had it dug up overnight and delivered it to my doorstep bright and early this morning.”

Ralph Ames paused for a moment. “I guess that means we don’t have to worry about going through the tribal council.”

“You could say that,” Brandon agreed. “But whoever’s doing the testing won’t want us to ship them a loaded coffin.”

“Right. Let me give them a call and get right back to you,” Ames said.

The phone rang again a few minutes later. “Here’s the deal,” Ralph told him. “The customer relations lady at Genelex tells me we’ll need heart tissue. Was the baby embalmed?”

“I asked that. The grandmother doesn’t know.”

“It’s evidently more difficult to get results from embalmed tissue,” Ralph told him. “But they’ll be glad to try. Where do you want the kit sent?”

“Kit?” Brandon asked.

“A nonstandard tissue-collection kit,” Ralph said. “They’ll FedEx it to whoever’s obtaining the sample for us.”

“I suppose that’s better than shipping a coffin across the country,” Brandon returned.

“They want the sample collection to be done by an official agency, preferably a medical examiner’s office. How’s your track record with your local ME?”

“It wasn’t bad years ago,” Brandon said, “but times have changed. I’ve been out of the game for a while. My showing up at the morgue with a thirty-two-year-old corpse in the back of my car is likely to go over like a pregnant pole-vaulter.”

Ralph chuckled. “See what happens,” he said. “If you can’t find anyone willing to do the job, let me know.”

“Sure thing,” Brandon said. “I’d best get started.”

***

Larry Stryker’s back hurt
. He’d done a lot of unaccustomed physical labor over the weekend. He was getting too old to wrestle mattresses around by himself, but he’d managed. He’d done it. The basement room was ready again—ready and waiting.

Disappointed that Gayle had slipped away without staying the night, he dragged his aching body out of bed and staggered into the bathroom to get ready for work. He kept a radio there so he could listen to news while he showered and dressed. Today the lead story was about the murder of an unidentified female homicide victim whose body had been found near Vail on Saturday morning. An unnamed suspect had been arrested in connection with the case. The victim, estimated to be in her mid- to late teens, was thought to be Hispanic in origin.

Standing in front of the mirror, razor in hand, Larry smiled at his steamy reflection and experienced that incredible rush that always flooded through him at times like these. His most recent girl was dead, and Erik LaGrange was in jail, but for Larry nothing at all had changed. Except for one thing: Once news of Erik LaGrange’s identity leaked to the press, Medicos for Mexico would be overrun with reporters. Bearing that in mind, Larry chose that day’s clothing with care. If his photo was going to be in the papers or on television, he wanted to look his best.

During the hour-long drive into town, a few shadows of doubt crept into his thoughts. Always before, through years of disposing of bodies, Gayle had done so in ways that had never led back to Gayle or Larry or Medicos for Mexico. This was different. Was it possible that fury over Erik’s betrayal had carried Gayle a step too far? Was she losing her touch? Still, despite his misgivings, Larry knew from what Gayle had said the night before that maintaining a united front was essential. And since Larry’s name topped the Medicos for Mexico organization chart, he would have to be there to answer questions about their jailed employee.

That was Larry’s part of the job. His reward for hanging tough would come at the end of the week, when Graciella Duarte sent him the next occupant for the room downstairs. In the meantime, he’d have to remember to buy another mattress for the cot and a few more plastic tarps.