J. Jance - Day of the Dead

Gayle had learned something about herself that afternoon as well. She’d been electrified by the girl’s first involuntary whimper as she tried to shy away from the invading touch of that chilled beer bottle. The child had been helpless. She couldn’t protect herself from what was coming, not from whatever Larry might want to do nor from what Gayle might want Larry to do. Gayle had felt that kind of power only once before in her life, but on the afternoon she had slaughtered Roseanne Orozco, it hadn’t occurred to her that the heady stuff was something that could be duplicated. That afternoon, as Larry finally did it-when at Gayle’s insistence he finally screwed up his courage and shoved the bottle home-Gayle had been thrilled. Hearing the cries, watching the girl writhe in agony had turned Gayle on in a way nothing else ever had.

That was when and why she had dreamed up Medicos for Mexico. Her parents, both of them, helped provide the initial seed money. Gretchen had written a check. Calvin had done his part by having the good grace to die and leave the ranch and a whole lot more to his daughter.

Over the years, running a cross-border charity had proved to be a gold mine. Yes, someone had to go out and raise money. That took work and skill, and Gayle was exceptionally good at schmoozing. But once those donated dollars flowed into the Medicos coffers, there was virtually no outside oversight-not from the public at large and not from the IRS. Medicos paid generous salaries to both Gayle and Larry. They paid their taxes on those without a whisper of complaint, but much of their lavish lifestyle was paid for in full or in part by monies gleaned from vaguely labeled items in the expense columns of the charity’s books. Artful skimming also accounted for the almost finished mansion Gayle was having built, at no small expense, in a gated compound outside Cabo San Lucas.

Medicos for Mexico had provided Gayle and Larry Stryker with money, respectability, and standing in the community. It also supplied that unending stream of girls-those expendable little girls-Gayle needed to keep Larry firmly in line. Sometimes just watching what Larry did to them was enough to satisfy Gayle, but there were other times when the pressure was too much, when Gayle needed more than simply observing. Which is exactly what had happened today-the pressure had been too much.

Gayle went to the bar and poured herself a drink. Last night, setting Erik up to take a fall for killing the girl had seemed a far better idea than it did tonight. Gayle had done something she shouldn’t have-she had allowed her emotions to get the best of her, thus creating a whole new set of problems. Now she’d have to figure out a way to deal with them. It was what she’d done in the past, and it was what she’d do again. The difficulty was, she wasn’t entirely sure how.

It would take a day or two to handle the money issues, to empty the Medicos accounts and ship the money to Mexico-or the Cayman Islands. Certainly the money she had would stretch a whole lot further if she didn’t have to split it two ways. That would mean sacrificing Larry, but so what?

He’d had a good run and enjoyed himself-probably more than he deserved-and he was every bit as expendable as Erik LaGrange.

J. A. Jance

Day of the Dead

Seventeen

As time went on, the hunters brought their families along when they came north. With everyone hot and thirsty, it was a good deal of trouble to slip up to the pond to drink, all the while watching for the coyotes.

One day, an old wise man from the village said to the others, “I am going to drive the coyotes away, or else I will make them share their water with us.” The old man went away and was gone for a week. When he returned, he was leading a baby coyote on a string. When they saw Baby Coyote on the string, the people of the village laughed and laughed. They laughed so loud and made so much noise that Coyote grew curious, wondering what all the noise and laughter was about. So he came out of his cave to see what was so funny.

Old Man led Baby Coyote a ways from the water and tied him to a tree. Then he told the children to go away and leave Baby Coyote alone. Soon Baby Coyote grew hungry and thirsty and lonely, and he began to cry.

Now the Mil-gahn-the Whites-will often walk away from other white men when they are hurt or injured or thirsty in the desert, but I’itoi’s people would never do such a thing. This is as true of coyotes as it is of the Indians who cannot deny a call for help. After Coyote and his mate listened to Baby Coyote cry for a while, finally they went to see who was in trouble. Mama Coyote went at once to find some food for the baby, but Mr. Coyote did not like the looks of that string that tethered Baby Coyote to the tree. The first thing Mr. Coyote did was chew the string in two.

Just then Baby Coyote cried, “Look. Here they come.”

Mr. Coyote looked and saw that the whole village had surrounded his water hole and the people were guarding it.

So the three coyotes ran away very fast, but even as he ran, Mr. Coyote laughed to think about how he had tricked the hunters and about how long he had kept the water from the hunters by sitting on that rock in the middle of the pool.

Baby’s here,” Leo Ortiz whispered in his wife’s ear. “Gotta go.”

Delia blinked awake. It was barely sunrise. She heard the rumble of Richard Ortiz’s Ford pickup outside the house.

“You’ll be at Mom’s later?” Leo asked.

Delia nodded, and Leo gave her blanket-covered belly an affectionate pat. “Don’t let Mom and my sister work you too hard,” he added. “And remember to sit down and put your feet up.”

“I will,” she said.

With Leo gone, Delia lay in bed and savored the fact that she didn’t need to get up just yet. The baby, who had spent most of the night pummeling her ribs, seemed to be snoozing, too. She lay there and was grateful that, after all that had happened, not only were Richard and Leo brothers, they were also still friends.

Once they started dating, Philip Cachora had somehow parlayed his temporary grant status into a permanent gallery situation, where he was installed as resident artist. He said he had taken the position so he could stay close to Delia. It also gave him a somewhat regular paycheck regardless of whether or not he was producing and selling paintings. There were other benefits in the relationship as well, but Delia was oblivious to those.

The gallery job ended for reasons Delia never quite understood, and they moved into the combination studio/loft apartment on Kalorama Street, but Philip’s paintings seemed to be losing their appeal as well as their patrons. Sales just weren’t happening. At least the money wasn’t there. Finally, insisting he had to do something, Philip bought a used van, loaded his unsold paintings into it, and took it on the road, heading off for a powwow in Montana. He returned home a month later with a credit-card balance full of hotel and meal charges and with most of his paintings still in the van.

A few nights later, Delia returned from work. On the living room coffee table she spied something that looked like a mushroom on a piece of clear plastic wrap.

“What’s this?” she demanded, holding it up.

“Peyote,” Philip answered, snatching it out of her hand. “Maybe you should try it sometime. It might make you less uptight. Besides, it’s a religious thing.”

“It’s also illegal,” Delia pointed out. “I don’t want it in my apartment.”

“It’s your apartment now instead of ours?” he returned.

“It is if you look at who’s paying the bills,” she told him. The moment she said it, she was afraid she had gone too far.

Philip rounded on her in fury. “If you were a real Indian instead of such a stuck-up, straitlaced Bostonian, maybe you’d understand!”