J. Jance - Day of the Dead

“Not that I remember,” Lani said. “But I saw their picture in the paper this morning.”

“So did I,” Diana said. “I’m sure they’re really broken up over what’s happened to that nice young man who worked for them.”

“You knew him?” Lani asked. “The man who was in jail?”

“I met him a couple of years ago,” Diana said. “At a banquet in the Strykers’ honor.”

As Lani listened to her mother’s answers, she knew that what Diana was saying wasn’t enough. There was something more. Maybe Diana didn’t even know the problem existed, but Lani had to find out what it was. She tried to frame her questions in a way that would unmask the difficulty.

“Have you seen them recently?” Lani asked.

“Not for years,” Diana said. “Your father may have, though. He didn’t say for sure, but I know he was thinking about it.”

“About seeing the Strykers?”

“Well, one of them, anyway,” Diana said. “Years ago, Larry Stryker was one of the doctors at the hospital in Sells. He was working there when that girl whose case Dad’s working on was murdered. Dad was going to try to see Larry yesterday to see if he could find out who her attending physician was at the time she was hospitalized.”

Lani’s body was suddenly strung so tight she could barely breathe. Even without Looks at Nothing’s crystals, before Lani’s eyes the flesh was sloughing off Gayle Stryker’s photograph, leaving behind nothing but a gaping skull.

“Did he?” she asked, trying to keep the quiver out of her voice. “Do you know if Dad saw him…or her?”

“I have no idea,” Diana answered. “Things were so hectic yesterday with the funeral and everything, I never got around to asking him. Why do you need to know?”

“I was just wondering,” Lani answered lamely. “I saw the picture and remembered they were friends of yours.”

“You’re right,” Diana said. “They are. How’s the car?”

“Smitty’s working on it,” Lani said.

“Good,” her mother told her. “If anybody can get those stains out, Smitty’s the guy.”

Lani put the phone down and then stared out at the traffic going past on South Fourth. All her life she had heard stories about how, on the day Nana Dahd needed Looks at Nothing’s help, she had sent her nephew, Fat Crack Ortiz, to fetch him.

The Gadsden Purchase of 1852 had divided the ancient lands of the Tohono O’odham, leaving part of the tribe in Mexico and the rest in the United States. S’ab Neid Pi Has, a wiry old medicine man, had lived in a Tohono O’odham village just south of the border. Fat Crack had agreed to go on what he was convinced would be a fool’s errand. He drove as far as The Gate-an unsupervised and unregulated border crossing on the reservation-that allowed tribal members access to friends and relations on either side of the international border.

Because Looks at Nothing’s village had no telephone access, Fat Crack expected to have to park on the United States side of the border and then hitchhike or walk to the medicine man’s village. Instead, and much to his surprise, he found the blind old man resting in the shade of a mesquite tree patiently awaiting Fat Crack’s arrival. Somehow, without having to be told, he had sensed Nana Dahd’s need of him and had made his way to The Gate fully expecting that someone would arrive to take him to her.

Lani understood there were mysterious ways of knowing things-just as Fat Crack had known she would someday be a doctor, and as Lani herself knew Fat Crack’s new grandchild, Gabriel, would be a willing student of all the things Nana Dahd and Fat Crack had taught Lani.

Now, studying the photo, Lani’s vision kept the skull eerily superimposed over the woman’s face. In the process Lani suddenly could see something she hadn’t known before. Gayle Stryker was evil-in the same way Andrew Philip Carlisle and Mitch Johnson had been evil. Lani couldn’t quite discern what Gayle Stryker had to do with the Girl in the Box, but she knew it was Fat Crack who had brought Brandon Walker and the dead girl’s mother together. If Fat Crack had been the instrument of drawing Gayle Stryker-this Dangerous Object-into their lives, that meant that I’itoi, Elder Brother himself, was the real moving force behind all their actions.

Once I’itoi had brought Andrew Carlisle and Mitch Johnson to the reservation for one purpose and one purpose only: so the evil Ohbs could be destroyed. This had to be the same thing. Once again Lani picked up Smitty’s telephone. Wanting to warn her father of this possible danger, she dialed his cell-phone number. When the voice-mail prompt came on, Lani hung up. She couldn’t figure out how to leave that message.

And so, sitting in Smitty Coltharp’s grimy office waiting for her mother’s Buick to be finished, Lani did what Tohono O’odham siwani s always do. She began to sing under her breath, letting the words flow out, knowing as she did so that she was singing for power. Once the words of protection took wing, she repeated the four stanzas the required four times because, as Fat Crack and Nana Dahd had taught her, all things in nature go in fours.

Smitty came in a while later. “Car’s ready,” he said. “Good as new.” He examined Lani’s face. “Are you all right?” he asked. “You look upset.”

“No,” she told him. “I’m fine.”

But that wasn’t true. Dolores Lanita Walker wasn’t fine at all.

Once Larry left her office, it took time for Gayle to pull things together. The call to CitationShares was prompt and courteous, but not nearly fast enough to suit her. She waited on the line, drumming a pencil impatiently on her desk while the Owner Services representative checked aircraft availability. Finally the young woman came back on the line.

“All right, Mrs. Stryker,” she said. “We can have a CJ-1 at the Tucson Airport executive terminal by six P.M. this evening to take you to Cabo San Lucas. You’re familiar with the airport facilities there?”

Gayle breathed a sigh of relief. “Yes,” she said. “We’ve flown in and out of there several times. And a six o’clock departure will be fine.”

“How many passengers will there be?”

“Only one this time,” Gayle said. “I’ll be flying by myself. My husband won’t be able to join me until later. He’ll call for a plane once his schedule smooths out.”

“Will there be any special luggage requirements-golf clubs, that kind of thing?”

“No,” Gayle said. “This is work, not play. I’ll have several suitcases and briefcases, but no golf equipment.”

“Any special catering requirements?”

“I’ll be busy this afternoon, and I’m already missing lunch. How about some cold lobster and a nice Caesar salad to go with the white wine you already have on board.”

“Will you need us to send a town car to pick you up?”

“No, I’ll drive myself to the airport, but I will need a pickup at the other end.”

“What about hotel arrangements?”

“You’ve got my profile,” Gayle said. “The usual will be just fine.”

As soon as she was off the phone with CitationShares, Gayle dialed Larry’s extension. Larry came on the line almost immediately. He still sounded upset. “Is something wrong?” he asked.

“Oh, no,” Gayle said smoothly. “Everything’s fine. The plane is set.”

“Good. What time?”

“It’ll be at the Tucson International executive terminal at eight,” she answered.

“Will there be enough time for you to do what needs to be done?” Larry asked.

“Plenty of time.” Her answer was confident and reassuring. “Besides, what if we’re a few minutes late? The jet isn’t leaving without us. See you at the airport about a quarter to.”