J Jance: Queen of the Night

“So it’s valuable, then?” he asked.

Diana glanced around the room at all the other baskets-at Nana Dahd ’s baskets. “They’re all valuable,” she said. “And that has nothing to do with money.”

“She’d have a fit, you know.” Brandon chuckled as he gave the burden basket back.

“Who would have a fit?”

“Rita Antone,” he said. “The idea of having an ohb basket in here with all of hers.”

“No,” Diana said. After a moment’s pause, she smiled. “I don’t think Rita would mind one bit. Come on, old man. Let’s go to bed.”

Tucson, Arizona

January to June 2010

Lani and Dan had agreed from the outset that they’d live part of the time in her hospital-compound housing unit and part time at Dan’s place in Tucson. Lani assured Dan that this was historically correct, since the Tohono O’odham had always been known as the people with two houses-one in the mountains to use in the hot summer months, and one in the low desert for the winter.

What staying in Tucson overnight on Lani’s days off really meant was that she could spend more time with her folks without having to drive sixty miles one way. It also meant that Angie was able to spend more time with her new grandmother. Angie had taken to calling Lani’s mother Nana. That was close enough to Nana Dahd, and it made Lani smile every time she heard it. Diana spent hours patiently teaching Angie about clay and how to form it. When Diana and Angie weren’t closeted in Diana’s studio, they were out on the patio carrying on long conversations they both seemed to find mutually delightful.

“Why does Nana call me Lani sometimes?” Angie asked her mother one day.

“I’m sure it’s because you remind her of me when I was your age,” Lani answered with a laugh. “You don’t need to worry as long as she doesn’t start calling you Damsel.”

Lani had taken to calling her foster daughter-her soon-to-be-adopted daughter-Kskehegaj, Pretty One, because she was pretty. She was also spoiled rotten. Diana and Dan seemed to be in a contest to see who could spoil her more.

It was clear to Lani that when it came to getting her own way, Angelina Enos had Dan’s number-in spades.

Tohono O’odham Nation, Arizona

Saturday, June 26, 2010, 5:00 p.m.

101º Fahrenheit

On the last Saturday in June, Dan and Lani packed a picnic supper and then, with both Bozo and Angie in the back of Lani’s Passat, they set off to run a series of late-afternoon errands. First they stopped by the deserted village called Rattlesnake Skull, where they lit a candle for Rita Antone’s granddaughter, Gina Antone. Over the months, Dan had heard all these stories and had finally learned how the Walkers’ lives intersected with the Desert People. He had learned about Fat Crack and Nana Dahd and about how Lani had been abandoned by her family after almost dying of ant bites.

“Who’s she?” Angie wanted to know when Lani mentioned Gina’s name. She, too, had heard the stories time and again, but she loved having them repeated.

“A Tohono O’odham girl who died a long time ago,” Lani explained. “We’re lighting a candle for her today so she’s not forgotten.”

Months earlier, Lani had told Dan the story of Betraying Woman and her ohb lover. After she had told it to him for the first time, he noticed an odd expression on Lani’s face.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“I’m not sure,” she replied with a frown. “Up until now I always believed what people said about Betraying Woman-that she had betrayed her people to the Apaches. But maybe that’s not true. Maybe she really loved her young ohb warrior and maybe the Desert People were wrong to cast her out, shutting her away in a cave on Ioligam and leaving her to die.”

“Stranger things than that have happened,” Dan Pardee told her with a grin. “Look at the two of us.”

After leaving the ruins of Rattlesnake Skull village in the hot late-afternoon sun, they went on to Ban Thak, Coyote Sitting. There, in the village’s tumbledown cemetery, they lit another candle, this one for Rita Antone.

“Your godmother,” Angie said.

“Yes,” Lani agreed. “Nana Dahd. And now we’ll light one for Fat Crack.”

After that they drove to Komelik-to the place outside Komelik-the place where Angie’s mother had died a year earlier. Dan and Lani had talked it over for days in advance. Lani had worried that bringing Angie there might be too traumatic for the little girl, but she didn’t seem upset by it-more curious than upset.

“And now we’re going to light the other candles for my mommy?” Angie asked.

Lani and Dan were always careful to maintain that Delphina Enos was Angie’s biological mother, her real mother. The velvet-covered box containing the engagement ring Donald Rios had bought for Delphina had been in among the crime-scene wreckage along the freeway. That, along with the baptismal photo of Angie and her mother, were two treasures Dan and Lani Pardee were saving for their daughter.

“We have four candles left,” Lani told Angie now. “We’ll light one for your mother, one for Donald Rios, and one each for Mr. and Mrs. Tennant, the two Milghan people who died here.”

“Can I light them?” Angie asked.

Lani nodded. “But only if you’re very careful.”

As Dan watched Lani and Angie set out candles and place rock barriers around them, he couldn’t help thinking about how many lives had been impacted by what had happened here a year ago. Was it only a year?

When Dan had stumbled onto that nighttime crime scene, he’d had no way of knowing that Angie and Lani were about to walk into his life.

That was the good part of the equation. The bad part of tracking down the killer had to do with Brian Fellows. He had almost died as a result of a brain injury suffered in the course of the chase. He had spent months in a coma, and once he’d come out of that, he’d had to learn to walk again. Now he was learning to read again, too, right along with his daughters. He’d also been medically retired from the sheriff’s department, letting him be a stay-at-home dad while Kath continued to work for the Border Patrol.

As for the killer? Jonathan Southard had been injured in that car chase, too, but not nearly as seriously as Brian Fellows. On the advice of his attorney, he had accepted a plea agreement-life in prison with no chance of parole. He had taken that rather than risk going back to California to face a trial in the deaths of his wife and children, where, had he been convicted, he might well have risked receiving the death penalty.

When Bozo walked off into the desert, Dan followed him. He found the dog lying in the shady sand beneath an ironwood tree-the same tree that had a tangle of deer-horn cactus snaking up its trunk and onto the branches. Dan was surprised to see that the cactus was still covered with fat buds that had not yet opened.

Calling Bozo to follow, Dan returned to his wife and daughter. “I thought the night-blooming cereus would have blossomed by now.”

Lani shook her head. “The people at Tohono Chul told me last week that they’re running exceptionally late this year. The Queen of the Night may not bloom until early July. The woman in charge of the party said that she’ll let me know as soon as possible so I can go there that night to tell the story.”

“I love stories,” Angie said, clapping her hands with childish enthusiasm. “Can Dan and I come, too?”

That’s what she called him, Dan, not Daddy, but that was fine.

“Probably,” Lani answered. “You and Dan are Brought-Back Children, just like Old White-Haired Woman’s grandson.”

“Don’t go laying that idea on my grandfather,” Dan cautioned Lani with a smile. “He may have white hair now, but if you try telling that old black belt that he’s really Queen of the Night, Micah Duarte’s liable to take offense.”