J Jance - Queen of the Night

“Yes, I’m sure he’s a dog,” Dan told her reassuringly. He slipped off his windbreaker and wrapped it around her.

“What’s his name again?”

“Bozo.”

“That’s a funny name,” she said.

“He’s a funny dog,” Dan said. “Would you like to pet him?”

He started to kneel down next to Bozo, but the little girl wasn’t totally convinced. Shrinking against him, she resumed her death grip around his neck.

“What about you?” he asked. “Do you have a name?”

She nodded and gave him a tiny shy smile. “Angie.”

“Where’s your mommy, Angie?” he asked.

Still trembling, she took a long shuddery breath. Her eyes were enormous. “Over there,” she said, pointing. “She’s sleeping. She won’t wake up.”

“Did you see what happened?”

Angie shook her head. “I was sleeping. When I woke up, the car wasn’t moving. Donald wasn’t there. Mommy was gone, too, but I saw a man, a Milgahn man, walking away from the car. He was carrying a gun.”

Dan took a deep breath. The investigation into what had happened here had just taken a gigantic step forward. This massacre in the desert had a witness-an eyewitness.

“This man with the gun,” Dan said, “did you know him? Is he someone you had seen before?”

The little girl shook her head somberly.

“No.”

“Weren’t you scared?”

Angie nodded. “A little,” she said. “Mommy always says when Bad People come around, you should be very still so they don’t notice you. That’s what I did. I was quiet, and pretty soon he went away. After a while, I went looking for my mommy. She’s sleeping. So is Donald, and those other people, too.”

“Do you know the other people?”

“I just know Donald,” she said.

“And what were you doing here?”

She shrugged. “We were on our way to the dance, but Donald said there was something he wanted to show us first. He said it was a big surprise and that we’d really like it, but that when we got there we’d have to get out of the car and walk.”

Dan nodded. So the victims had come expecting a surprise. Instead they had unexpectedly driven into an ambush by an armed gunman. With that in mind, it surprised Dan to realize that Angie had been more scared of coyotes than she had been of someone carrying a gun.

“My name is Dan,” he told her now. “Like I said before, this big guy here is my dog.”

“Can I pet him?” Angie asked. Now that she’d been properly introduced to Bozo, she was evidently ready to be friends.

“Sure.” Dan had been holding Angie. The night air was chilly, but Bozo was panting. Dan set the child down next to the dog. Bozo stood still as a statue while the tiny girl wrapped her arms around his neck and buried her bleeding face in the soft fur of his shoulder.

“Bozo and I are here to help you,” Dan said. “Are you hungry?”

Angie nodded.

“Thirsty?”

“Yes.”

“My truck is back over there,” he said. “I have some sandwiches, some chips, and some sodas in a cooler. Would you like one of those?”

“I’m not supposed to drink Cokes,” she said, frowning, “but sometimes I do. Will you wake my mommy?”

“I’ll try,” he said. It was a lie, but it was the best he could do under the circumstances. “First let me get you back to my truck. Since you’re barefoot, I’ll carry you.”

Without a word, she let go of Bozo’s neck and held out her arms to him. He lifted her up and carried her back the way they had come rather than back past the two vehicles and the four bloodied victims. As they walked, Angie’s face rested in the crook of his neck. He was glad she didn’t look up at his face right then because she would have seen he was crying, too.

He had been in a scene similar to this one once before; only back then, Dan Pardee had been the child, and someone else-some other uniformed police officer-had been carrying a no-longer-innocent child away from a room filled with unimaginable carnage.

Tucson, Arizona

Saturday, June 6, 2009, 10:30 p.m.

73º Fahrenheit

As they drove back to the house in Gates Pass, Gabe fell asleep in the backseat. Lani was grateful for the break from his never-ending questions. It let her concentrate on worrying about her mother.

For much of the day, Diana had been strangely silent, and Lani didn’t know what to make of her mother’s odd behavior.

Lani had been back home for only a few months now, and she was living in the hospital housing compound out at Sells rather than at home with her parents in her old room. Since returning to the Tucson area, Lani had noticed that her parents had changed while she’d been away in Denver doing her residency. She supposed that part of the changes had to do with their getting older, but then so had she. She wasn’t the same person she had been when she graduated from high school or even when she had gotten her premed degree from the University of North Dakota. Since she had changed, it made no sense that she should expect her parents to remain the same.

“You should get married,” Diana said now.

“Married?” Lani repeated, nearly driving off the narrow road in surprise.

That was the last thing she expected her mother to say. Lani had been focused on her career-on becoming the best possible physician she could learn to be and on bringing those skills back to her own people, where native-born doctors were in short supply and where doctors who were Tohono O’odham were completely nonexistent. But the question itself shocked Lani. She was still mulling a possible answer when her mother continued.

“Yes, married,” Diana said. “I want to live long enough to have another grandchild.”

She and Brandon Walker already had one grandson. Davy and Candace’s son Tyler was nine now. As far as Lani was concerned, he was a spoiled brat and obnoxious besides. He hadn’t had the benefit of being raised by Nana Dahd, and it showed. There was something to be said for the old traditions in which the aunts and uncles supplied the discipline, but Candace had made it clear to all concerned that help with her son in that regard would not be welcome.

“We barely see Tyler as it is,” Diana said. “And the minute the divorce is final, no matter what the custody agreement says, what’s-her-name is going to take him back to Chicago to her parents, and we won’t get to see him at all.”

What’s-her-name? Lani wondered, repeating her mother’s phrase. Davy and Candace have been married for more than ten years, and Mom can’t remember her name? What’s going on?

That’s what she thought, but it wasn’t what she said aloud. “Davy is an attorney,” Lani replied. “He’s not going to let that happen.”

“The problem with Davy is that he’s a nice guy,” her mother corrected. “His wife’s been walking all over him for years. That’s not going to change, so you should get married.”

Lani couldn’t see how one thing automatically led to the other, but she decided that it was better to treat the whole discussion as a joke rather than be distressed by what she couldn’t help but regard as an invasion of her privacy.

“I’ll think about it,” Lani said, laughing. “But don’t hold your breath. I don’t see many prospects for matrimony walking into my life any time soon.”

She hoped that was enough to put the discussion to bed. Unfortunately, the next topic of conversation was even worse.

“What did Mitch Johnson do to you?” Diana asked.

“Mitch Johnson?” Lani repeated. “Why bring him up after all these years?”

“Tell me,” Diana urged. “He must have done something to you. What?”

“You know what he did to me,” Lani answered. “He kidnapped me and tried to kill me.”