J. Jance - Day of the Dead

“Oh,” she said. “It’s you. What time is it?”

“Late. Once we booked the guy, I went back to the scene and hung out with the CSIs.”

“You booked somebody? You mean you already caught the guy?”

Nodding, Brian collapsed into his leather. “Looks that way,” he said. “But still…”

“Still what?”

“I don’t have a good feeling about it.”

Kath put down her book, got up, walked across the room to give Brian a peck on the cheek. “How come? And do you want something to eat?”

He nodded. “Now that you mention it, lunch was a very long time ago.”

“Good. I made some chili colorado.” Brian started to follow her into the kitchen. “Stay where you are,” she told him. “I’ll bring you a bowl.”

Brian leaned back, closed his eyes, and listened as she “beeped” numbers into the microwave. He liked the tranquillity of the life they shared. It was far different from the world he’d grown up in, the constant uproar in the home of his flighty mother, her string of husbands and gentleman friends, and his two juvenile-delinquent half brothers.

“Incidentally,” Kath said, returning to the doorway. “We’re not going to Brandon and Diana’s for dinner tomorrow night after all.”

“How come?”

“Gabe Ortiz died today,” Kath told him. “I thought about calling you on your cell phone, but I figured you’d be better off hearing the news after you got home.”

“Damn!” Brian muttered. “What a shame! Fat Crack was a hell of a nice guy. He always treated Davy and me like we were special.”

“Maybe you were,” Kath said. “Davy called earlier to say you and he are invited to come to Ban Thak early tomorrow morning to help dig the grave. Six A.M. I told him that you were working a case, and I wasn’t sure you could make it.”

“I’ll be there,” Brian said at once. “It’s an honor to be asked, and it would be bad form not to show up.”

The microwave sounded in the kitchen, and the mouthwatering aroma of chili drifted into the room. Kath disappeared and returned moments later carrying a tray laden with a bowl of chili, silverware, and a glass of cold milk.

“The milk’s to soothe the burn,” she told him. “I went overboard on the chili. Now tell me about your case,” she added, resuming her spot on the couch. “You’ve already got a suspect in custody. What’s wrong with that?”

“It’s just too easy,” Brian replied. “The victim is a little Hispanic girl-maybe fourteen or fifteen-who was hacked to pieces and dumped out near Vail. No identification of any kind, but we’re guessing from clothing left at the scene-clothing she wasn’t wearing when she was murdered-that she’s probably a UDA. Instead of an ID we found a guy’s business card-tucked in among the victim’s effects. The name on the card was Erik LaGrange and a phone number that turned out to be his home number was scribbled on the back.

“We located his house and went there to see if LaGrange could help us ID her. Instead, I found what looked like blood on the bumper of his truck and more blood on the front-door jamb.”

“Enough for a warrant?” Kath asked.

Brian nodded. “Once we gained access to his vehicle, we found lots of blood in his truck, and in the house we found bloody shoe prints in the hallway. There were shoes with blood on them in the bedroom closet and bloody clothes in a clothes hamper with the washing machine sitting right there next to it.”

“Why didn’t he stick them in the washer?” Kath asked.

“My thought exactly,” Brian responded. “I sure as hell would have had it been me. But back to the scene, I put in a call to the department. About an hour or so later, while I was waiting for PeeWee Segura to show up with the warrant, a guy in his mid-thirties showed up who turns out to be Mr. LaGrange. He was bloody and looked like he’d been in a bar fight. He claimed he’d been off on a hike in the mountains all morning long and all by his little lonesome. Of course, nobody saw him hiking, so he’s got no alibi, but still…”

Brian fell silent for a moment and savored the first bite of the piping-hot chili. Temperature wasn’t the only thing that made his mouth sizzle.

“Does the name Medicos for Mexico ring a bell?” he asked after chasing the chili with a swallow of cold milk.

“Sure,” Kath replied. “It’s a charity that uses volunteers to provide free medical care for impoverished patients across the line in Mexico. The people who run it, Gayle and Larry Stryker, are big shots around town. He’s a doctor, and she’s practically the first lady of Tucson. Their pictures and names are in the paper all the time, mostly in the society pages. Why? What about them?”

“Erik LaGrange works for Medicos for Mexico. He’s their development officer and reports to Mrs. Stryker.”

“What happens now?”

“LaGrange won’t talk to us without a lawyer. I’m hoping I can pull some strings and get one appointed tomorrow so we can interview him. The county attorney called a meeting tomorrow afternoon to speed up the process. With any luck the grave will be dug before that.”

“He called a meeting on Sunday?” Kath objected. “That’s our one day off together.”

“I’m sorry,” Brian told her. “When the county attorney says jump, grunts like PeeWee and me don’t have much choice but to do it.”

“I love it when elected officials remind us that we’re public servants and need to be treated as such,” Kath grumbled.

Brian Fellows took another drink of milk and then smiled at his wife. “That’s one of the things I love about you, Kath. When I come home from work with tales of woe, I know I’m talking to someone who understands.”

“Right,” she told him. “Now finish your chili. If you’re going to be at Coyote Sitting digging a grave at six tomorrow morning, you need some sleep.”

Kath had the right idea. They went to bed soon after that, but Brian had a hard time falling asleep. When he did, he woke up time and again. He kept having the same dream over and over, one filled with black plastic garbage bags overflowing with bloodied body parts.

J. A. Jance

Day of the Dead

Sixteen

Leo Ortiz snored the night away while Delia Ortiz tossed and turned. Years of living in the Anglo world left her ill suited to deal with death in the same undemonstrative way people handled it on the reservation. Leo and Baby Fat Crack had both loved their father and respected him, but they accepted his death with quiet fortitude and dealt with the logistics-getting a casket, making arrangements with a mortuary, and digging the grave-in the same unruffled fashion. Maybe that’s one of the reasons Leo slept so peacefully. He hadn’t been at war with his father. Delia had been. Guilt over the unresolved issues between her and Fat Crack kept Delia wide awake into the wee hours-that and the unrelenting kicking of the restless infant inside her womb.

Wanda Ortiz’s reaction to her husband’s death was much like that of her two sons. It had happened, and now she had things to do. Once the funeral and burial were over, all the attendees would show up at Ban Thak for the customary feast. Considering Fat Crack’s standing in the community, not only as a former tribal chairman but also as the acknowledged siwani-chief medicine man-both events would be widely attended. That required lots of food-and a good deal of organization. There were hundreds of tamales and tortillas to be made; vats of chili and beans to be cooked. To that end, Wanda Ortiz had summoned her daughter from Tucson, her two daughters-in-law, and any other able-bodied female relatives to appear at the family compound the next morning ready for a day’s worth of non-stop cooking.

Before Delia had returned to the reservation seven years earlier, she had never made a single tamale or tortilla. Aunt Julia had tactfully suggested that it might be a good idea for her to learn; Delia had resisted. It reminded her of the fading poster that still hung in the hallway of Ruth’s house outside Cambridge. It showed a photo of Israel’s first and so far only female premier, Golda Meir. The caption under the photo said “But can she type?” That had been Delia’s position as well. As tribal attorney, it didn’t seem necessary for her to know how to make tortillas and tamales. In D.C., the lack of those skills had never been a problem.