J. Jance - Day of the Dead

Even so, Brian thought, Brandon remembered her the moment I brought it up. Why? There was no mention of Brandon Walker’s name in the file. His signature didn’t appear on any of the reports. Still, it was a case that stuck with him decades later.

Brian reached for his phone and dialed the Walker place in Gates Pass. Lani answered. “Hi, Brian,” she said. “You missed a great dinner last night.”

“I know,” he said. “Had to work. Sorry. Is your dad around?”

“No. He left a little while ago. Do you have his cell-phone number?”

“I do,” Brian said. “Thanks.” But before he had a chance to dial, PeeWee arrived and settled at his own desk. “What are you up to?” he asked.

Wanting his conversation with Brandon Walker to be private, Brian put down the phone. He had been sorting the faxed case files into two separate stacks: scattered remains versus contained remains. He added Roseanne Orozco’s file to the second stack and passed the piles along to Detective Segura. “Anyone for a serial killer?” he asked.

While PeeWee scanned the material, Brian walked down the hall. Returning minutes later with coffee, he found PeeWee engrossed in the files.

“You may be right about these being related,” PeeWee said, tapping the stack of faxes that dealt with containerized remains. “These may be connected, too, but this one?” He tapped the Orozco file, which he had pushed to one side. “LaGrange is too young for this one, but I’ll check his credit card transactions to see if we can put him in the vicinity for any of the others.”

PeeWee took a thoughtful sip of his coffee. “You picked all this stuff off the computer in a matter of hours. How come you’re the first investigator to make the connection?”

“Because I’m smarter than the average bear?” Brian asked with a laugh. “No, it’s the same old thing. Nobody else found it because nobody else was looking. I’m guessing these are all throwaway kids. They went missing and nobody even bothered to file a missing persons report.”

“And without some relative keeping the heat on…” PeeWee added.

They both knew why active cases went cold. Time passed and nothing happened. With no grieving relatives maintaining pressure, the respective investigative agencies finally stopped looking.

“Somebody’s applying pressure now,” Brian said. “You and me. So let’s get cracking. I’ll call Yuma and talk to the detectives over there. The Vail autopsy is scheduled for ten. Who’s going to do that?”

“I’ll flip you for it,” PeeWee said, tossing a coin in the air. “Heads you go. Tails I do.”

The coin came up heads. “Too bad, buddy.” PeeWee grinned. “This is one damned autopsy I’m happy to miss.”

Brandon drove to the back side of Kino Community Hospital and pulled up in front of the Pima County medical examiner’s office. He had come here often enough in the distant past, back when what he still considered the “new” hospital first opened. It had been years now since he’d had any official business with the ME’s office. He wondered what kind of reception he should expect when he showed up with a nonroutine corpse and a nonroutine request for a DNA sample.

Brandon walked through one door into a locked entry. While waiting to be buzzed in through a security door, he studied a reader board that listed the names of staff doctors and field investigators. Of those, he recognized only one-associate medical examiner Dr. Frances Daly. Brandon remembered Fran Daly as a brash young woman fresh out of school and just starting her first job. At the time, female MEs had been rare. No one had thought Fran Daly would last, but she had-lasted and thrived. She had moved up through the ranks and was now second in command.

“Yes?” a voice asked over an intercom. “May I help you?”

Brandon knew to start at the top, or close to it. “I’m here to see Dr. Daly,” he said.

“Do you have an appointment?”

“No. I’m a friend. Name’s Brandon Walker.” The disembodied voice sounded too young to remember that someone named Brandon Walker had once been sheriff of Pima County.

The lock buzzed. Brandon let himself inside. In the old days he had come into the place via this back door-the official cop entrance-but the office had seemed larger then. Now it was cluttered with a collection of apparently new and old desktop computers that covered every available surface. Behind the counter stood a young woman about Lani’s age. Her face was marred by a series of piercings-lips, nose, and chin. The gold and silver studs stuck in her flesh made Brandon’s heart flood with gratitude that Lani had so far avoided body piercings-at least ones her father could see.

“I’ll see if Dr. Daly is available,” the young receptionist said. “What’s your name again?”

“Walker,” he repeated patiently. “Brandon Walker.”

He half expected to be left cooling his heels. Instead, bare moments later, Fran Daly burst into the outer office. If anything, her colorful cowboy shirt was more outrageous than ones she’d worn years before. Her snakeskin boots were far more expensive than those she had worn in the old days.

“Why, Sheriff Walker,” she said, flashing him a gap-toothed smile and giving his hand a powerful shake. “It’s been years. How good to see you again! What can we do for you?”

The young woman had returned to her place behind the counter and was watching the meeting with undisguised interest. Although gratified by Dr. Daly’s enthusiastic greeting, Brandon wasn’t eager to discuss the corpse in his car within the young clerk’s earshot.

“Good to see you, too,” he said. “But if you don’t mind, I’d like to discuss this in private.”

“Of course.” She ushered him out of the lobby and into a corridor that stretched deep into the interior of the building.

“It’s good you caught me when you did,” she said. “I have an autopsy scheduled in a few minutes. If I’d started that, I’d have missed you. We’re shorthanded at the moment. A number of our people are in the reserves and have been called up for active duty. I hope to God their skills won’t be needed as much as some people think.”

Although Brandon had dealt with Fran Daly in the past, this was the first time he had ever ventured into her private domain. The room had no outside windows, but it was a surprisingly cheerful place, painted with colors that weren’t on any officially approved palette for decorating drab governmental facilities. One wall was dominated by a glass-fronted case full of rodeo-related trophies that dated from the late seventies and recounted Fran’s riding and roping prowess. Looking from the trophies to Fran Daly, Brandon saw her manner of dress in a whole new light.

“I had no idea you were into rodeo,” he said.

“It’s one of those things I never got over. I still compete occasionally, but it gets harder all the time.” She sat at a battered wooden desk and motioned Brandon into a chair. “Now, what can I do for you?”

“I’ve got a problem,” he said. “There’s a coffin in my car, a coffin containing whatever’s left of a fetus from thirty-two years ago. It’s been buried out on the reservation between then and now.”

Fran Daly was suddenly all business and all interest. “What’s the deal?”

“We’re attempting to identify the father.”

“With decomposed DNA,” Fran said, nodding. “Was the body embalmed or not?”

“I don’t know,” Brandon said. “The mother was murdered. The fetus was examined in hopes of identifying the father and perhaps the perpetrator. The grandmother has no idea what was done to the body prior to its being returned to the reservation for burial.”

“What’s your connection to all this?” Fran asked.