J Jance - Queen of the Night

“From what I’ve heard, Bozo is anything but funny. Dan was out on patrol and a guy tried to bean him with a rock. Bozo took exception and would have torn the guy limb from limb if Dan hadn’t stopped him. In other words, no fast moves around Bozo.”

“Right,” Brian said. “I’ll do my damnedest not to piss off the dog.”

“Take care,” Kath told him.

Nodding, Brian pocketed his wallet, his badge, and keys. On his way down the hall he popped into the girls’ room and laid a kiss on each of their foreheads. One of Brian Fellows’s rules for living decreed that you had to kiss the people you loved every time you went to work, because one of those times you might not be coming back.

Only after his daughters’ kisses had been properly bestowed did Brian Fellows head out of the house. He took off his Husband and Daddy hats and put on the ones marked Murder and Mayhem. That’s what you had to do in order to do the job-you compartmentalized.

What was work was work. What was home was home, and never the twain should meet.

Komelik, Tohono O’odham Nation, Arizona

Saturday, June 6, 2009, 10:45 p.m.

67º Fahrenheit

As Dan carried Angie back toward the Expedition, he could feel her body relaxing. Gradually his jacket warmed her, and her trembling ceased. By the time they got to his vehicle she was dead weight in his arms and sound asleep. There was no question about giving her something to eat or drink. Instead he stretched her out in the backseat. For several long minutes after putting her down, he sat next to her just listening to her breathe. He was glad she was sleeping. It was better for everyone concerned, but most especially for Angie herself, if she didn’t have to see or remember what came next.

Dan had already called for assistance before he’d gone looking for the girl. He had no idea how much time had passed since then, but so far there was no sign of backup, and there was no way to tell how much longer it would take for other units to respond. Once they did, Dan understood that the crime scene would be disrupted. Unlike Dan and his fellow Shadow Wolves, the other officers would be far more accustomed to dealing with pavement and sidewalks than they were with dirt. He doubted that any of them would be capable of Shadow Wolves-type tracking.

Dan may have been the one who found the victims, but he understood that solving this horrific multiple murder was none of his official business. Still, he wanted to know more-wanted to know who had done these terrible things and why. He could have just sat there and waited, listening to Angie breathe, but he didn’t. Slipping Angie’s tiny shoes out of his pocket, he put them on the car seat next to her. Then, after ordering Bozo to stay next to the Expedition, Dan walked back to the Blazer.

He skirted around the outside of it, finding in the process that all four windows were rolled down, so it seemed likely that the vehicle’s AC wasn’t working. Examining the dust just outside the rear passenger door, he saw the set of barefoot tracks Angie had left behind after she had climbed out of the vehicle to go in search of her mother and found her “sleeping.” Remembering the child’s innocent words made Dan’s heart hurt.

He canvassed the scene, trying to suss out who had been the real intended victims of the attack. The several gunshots, he concluded, had been very specific. Druggies and drug smugglers both tended to spray the area with indiscriminate bullets. The gunshots here had been for one purpose only-to kill. They hadn’t been to bluff or to scare someone away.

From the way the tracks told the story, Dan could tell that the Anglo couple had been surprised while they were seated at the table. The Indian couple had arrived later, either during or just after the initial attack. It made sense that, since the two Indians were merely collateral damage, the killer hadn’t bothered to search the Blazer thoroughly enough to spot the little girl watching him from the backseat. The Milgahn man with the gun probably believed he was getting away with this. He had no way of knowing that he had left behind an eyewitness.

The only tire tracks Dan saw in the area were from the Lexus and the Blazer. The ones from the Blazer were clearly the most recent ones. The earlier tracks, including Dan’s, had been obliterated, but the presence of just those two meant that the killer had approached the scene from some other direction.

Dan walked back out to the road. He had a choice of turning north or south. Since south seemed to be closer to the makeshift grotto with its lantern and flowers, that was the way Dan turned. Fifty yards back down the gravel road, he saw where another vehicle had pulled off and stopped. Someone had exited the vehicle there and walked off into the desert.

Dan was reasonably sure the tire tracks he saw here were much like the ones he had seen earlier in the day, ones that had subsequently been obliterated by the arriving Lexus and Blazer. Whoever had done this had followed the Lexus earlier, so he had a reasonably good idea of where to find his victims. Then, instead of driving up and alerting them to his presence, he had maintained the element of surprise by approaching on foot.

Silent, Dan thought. Just like a one-pound stone.

He marked the spot with a crime scene flag that would let the CSIs know to come back here to make tire and footprint casts, although, in Dan’s experience, crime scene investigation wasn’t likely to be a huge priority on the reservation.

He was walking back to the Expedition when two Law and Order officers showed up-Martin Ramon and Damon Mattias. Dan escorted them around the perimeter of the crime scene, telling them what he knew and what he had surmised and pointing out what he thought might be important in terms of evidence.

In the years the Shadow Wolves had been patrolling the reservation, the unit had gained a measure of respect from the locals. When it came to credibility, it helped that Officer Martin Ramon’s older brother, Kevin, was also a member of the Shadow Wolves team.

The two Law and Order patrol officers listened carefully to everything Dan had to say. Both of them jotted copious notes into notebooks. When they approached the second body, Officer Mattias nodded.

“It’s Donald Rios, all right,” he said. “His family lives around here. We should go tell his father.”

The look on Martin Ramon’s face made it clear that going to tell some poor unsuspecting man that his son was dead was the last thing he wanted to do.

“I guess we’d better,” he said. “Oi g hihm.”

It was only after they left to go in search of Thomas Rios that Dan Pardee remembered the sleeping child. Since he hadn’t mentioned her to them before, he didn’t mention her to them now. The fewer people who knew about Angie right then, the better.

Moments after they drove away, headed toward Komelik, an aging Crown Victoria with a full light bar on top arrived at the turnoff. Motioning for the driver to pull over, Dan approached the vehicle.

“Detective Brian Fellows,” the driver said, rolling down his window and displaying his badge. “Pima County Homicide.” He parked his vehicle on the shoulder of the road and scrambled out of it. “You must be Dan Pardee,” he said, offering his hand.

Dan nodded.

“My wife said to tell you hello,” the detective added. “Kath Fellows.”

“Kath as in Personnel?” Dan asked.

Detective Fellows grinned. “One and the same. Now let’s get down to business. I just got off the phone with the M.E.’s office. They’ll be here eventually, but they’re running into trouble rounding up extra vans. Four victims at one time is more than they can handle. Now show me what we’ve got.”

They set off on Dan’s second guided tour of the crime scene. Detective Fellows was packing a small digital camera, and he used it to take photos of everything, including all visible footprints and tire tracks. Dan could tell from the detective’s reaction that the sheriff’s department wasn’t likely to be doing much in-depth crime scene investigating, either. Whatever Fellows found and whatever Dan showed him would probably be crucial.