J. Jance - Day of the Dead

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.

J. A. Jance

Day of the Dead

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.”