J. Jance - Day of the Dead

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.

Kath was gone by the time Brian woke up, which wasn’t a good sign. She usually kissed him good-bye when she left for an early shift. When he went into the kitchen and found she hadn’t made coffee, either, he knew he was in trouble. They generally managed only one day off together each week. Kath didn’t take kindly to being cheated out of it-even if the reason was work-related. Especially if it was work-related.

At least we’ll be together at the funeral this afternoon and the feast tonight, Brian told himself. Maybe that’ll get me out of the doghouse.

Haunted by his mother’s scattershot approach to love and marriage, Brian had entered into his union with Kath determined to make it work. It was a challenge to combine law enforcement careers with two different agencies in the same household. As for having kids? That was too complicated even to consider.

He showered and dressed. An hour later, he was sitting in his cubicle poring over faxes of information from the other similar cases he had located on Sunday. For several of them, he had only cursory reports, but the details were surprisingly familiar. The bodies, so far all unidentified, had been strewn in the desert-just the way this Saturday’s victim had been. In two others-one near Sierra Blanca, Texas, and one near El Centro, California-the dismembered remains had been stuffed into Rubbermaid trash containers. He was reading through one from Yuma County-the one where AFIS had picked up that single fingerprint-when a clerk dropped off Roseanne Orozco’s dusty paper file. Her case, dredged out of the archives, seemed eerily similar to the others.

The Papago Tribal Police, as they were then called, had been the primary investigative agency. Having played a secondary role, Pima County didn’t have extensive involvement. The Orozco file was painfully thin, but the facts were clear. Roseanne’s dismembered body had been found by highway workers collecting trash along Highway 86 west of Sells. The body had been hacked to pieces and stuffed into a Coleman cooler. An autopsy had revealed that the fifteen-year-old homicide victim had been pregnant at the time of her death. For some reason, Henry Orozco, the girl’s father, was initially considered to be a prime suspect both in terms of Roseanne’s death and as the father of her unborn child. When a blood test excluded him as the baby’s father, he was dropped as an official suspect in the murder investigation as well. Within weeks of Roseanne’s death, new entries in the file ceased completely as the investigation was left to go dormant.