J Jance - Queen of the Night

Silence had descended once more. Wherever the terrified child had gone, he or she was quiet now, quiet and hiding. No wonder. Anyone who had witnessed this horror had reason to be petrified, but before Dan went searching for the frightened child, he needed to assess what he was up against.

“Right here,” Dan whispered to Bozo. Once again, man and dog moved forward as one.

Ten feet down the path they came across the next body. This one, an Indian male who looked to be in his early thirties, lay on his back. He’d been shot twice-once in the chest and once in the head. He, too, was dead.

“So the woman was running away and she was shot in the back,” Dan said, explaining what he was seeing to himself as well as to the uncomprehending dog. “This guy here probably was trying to fend off the bad guy.”

The man had been dead for some time-long enough for most of the visible blood to dry. Dan knew that meant there was a good chance that the perpetrator had taken off, but maybe not. Perhaps that was only wishful thinking on his part. Just to be on the safe side, he didn’t holster his weapon. The last of the luminarias burned out, but a steady light still glowed in the distance.

The path rounded a looming clump of mesquite. There Dan found something that made no sense. The remains of a cloth-covered dining table and two chairs lay on the ground surrounded by a scatter of broken glassware, dishes, and silverware. Two still forms lay on either side of the fallen table, forms Dan suspected were also bodies.

Closer examination proved that to be true. These two, presumably Anglos, appeared to be an older couple somewhere in their sixties or maybe seventies. It looked as though the two of them had been seated at the table when they were attacked. The woman lay next to one of the chairs, as though she had been taken by surprise. It appeared to Dan that the man had sprung forward to fend off the attacker and had been shot full in the face.

Dan squatted on his haunches and looked around. These two victims, like the other two, had been dead for some time, even though the coppery smell of blood still lingered in the air, along with that same pervasive scent of flowers.

Bodies and flowers, Dan thought. Like a funeral.

“So where’s the kid?” Dan muttered to Bozo.

Standing up, he looked around, shining the flashlight in every direction. There was no sign of the child, but whoever it was had fled in the direction of the still-glowing light, the steady one, which was now just beyond another low rise.

“Hello,” he called. “I’m a police officer. Border Patrol. Where are you? Let me help you.”

There was no reply, but that was hardly surprising. If the kid had been here earlier and had seen all these people being shot, no wonder he had run away when he caught sight of someone else carrying a drawn weapon.

“Come on,” he said to Bozo. “We’ll look for the kid in a little while. Right now we need to call this in.”

Together they jogged back to the Expedition, where Dan radioed into Dispatch, letting them know what he’d found and giving the location of the crime scene as well as the condition of the four homicide victims.

Seconds later, Paul Jacobs, the night-watch supervisor, came on the line. “Drug deal gone bad?”

“Unlikely,” Dan answered. “Maybe a straight-out robbery.”

“Could it be we’ve got members of rival cartels duking it out?” Jacobs suggested.

“No,” Dan said. “I don’t think so. I don’t know that many elderly Anglo drug dealers. Besides, there’s no sign of a weapon on any of the victims, and no sign of the shooter as well.”

“Should I set up roadblocks?”

“I doubt it,” Dan said. “It’s probably too late for those to do any good. The killer’s back in Tucson by now or else in Mexico.”

“You told Dispatch the victims are both Anglo and Indian?”

“Yes,” Dan said. “Two of each.”

“Dispatch is contacting both Law and Order and Pima County?”

“That’s right. There’s a dance at Vamori tonight. Law and Order probably has a presence at that.”

“Is it possible these four people left the dance and came to that location to do some partying?”

“They weren’t together,” Dan said. “There were only two chairs.”

“Chairs?” Jacobs objected. “I thought you said this was out in the middle of the desert.”

“It is. It looks to me like the Anglo couple was having a picnic-at a table with a white cloth and good dishes. I’d say the Indians just happened by. I recognize both vehicles. The Lexus I’ve seen poking around here off and on when I was working day shift. As for the Blazer? I’m pretty sure it belongs to an Indian who lives somewhere around here. I think his father runs cattle in the area.”

“You called in the vehicle information?”

“Yes,” Dan said. “Records has it.”

Bozo whined again, looking off into the desert. Dan’s heart beat hard and fast in his chest. Maybe he was wrong and the killer was still lurking out there somewhere in the dark.

Bozo made as if to head off into the brush. Dan called him back.

“Wait a minute,” he said. “Come here.”

“Who are you talking to?” Jacobs wanted to know. “I thought you said there was no one else at the scene.”

“It’s my dog,” Dan said into the radio. “I’ve gotta go.”

He slammed the microphone down. “Bozo,” he ordered. “Right here!”

If the killer was still out there, Dan had the ultimate secret weapon-Bozo. If this turned out to be nothing more than a game of hide-and-seek with a petrified little kid, Dan Pardee could trust Bozo to handle that as well.

Remembering the tiny pair of tennis shoes he had seen on the floorboard of the Blazer, Dan hurried over to the vehicle, collected one of the shoes, and held it out to the dog long enough for Bozo to get the scent.

“Find it,” he ordered.

For the second time that evening, Dan released Bozo’s leash and the dog galloped away from him while his master, Beretta in hand, raced after him.

This time, Bozo ran on a trajectory that took them straight from the cars toward the steadily glowing light. Unable to keep pace with the dog, Dan reached the source of the light-a battery-powered lantern sitting under a towering ironwood-just as a barefoot child, a little girl, darted out from beneath the tree, screaming.

“Ban,” she sobbed, racing toward Dan with her arms outstretched. “ Ban! Ban! Ban! Don’t let him eat me!”

Dan managed to reholster his Beretta as the girl threw her body against his knees. He reached down and swung her up to his hip, where she clung to him like a burr.

Dan knew enough Tohono O’odham to realize that she had mistaken Bozo for a coyote.

“Sit,” Dan said to Bozo. To the girl, he added, “Not ban. This is a dog. Gogs. His name is Bozo. He won’t hurt you.”

For this one child at least, Dan Pardee wasn’t ohb. He was her savior. She wrapped her arms around his neck and continued to sob, her tears soaking his shirt. There was blood on her arms and on her legs and feet. No doubt she had cut herself running barefoot through the rocks and brush. She was quaking, whether from fear or cold, he couldn’t tell.

Dan was still standing under the tree holding her when, out of the corner of his eye, he saw a hint of movement in the tree above them. He started to reach for his pistol again, but then, looking more closely, he realized that what he had seen was the light from the lantern reflecting off a flower-an immense white flower. An even closer inspection revealed that there were actually dozens of the huge white blooms glowing luminously along the ironwood tree’s sturdy trunk and winding their way up into the branches.

The girl stopped crying abruptly, but her breath still came in hiccups. She was shivering. “That’s a dog?” she asked, pointing at Bozo. “Are you sure?”