Day of the Dead (21 page)

He had finished the job as well as he could and was wrapping up the cord on the power washer when he heard the back door open and close upstairs. He’d been so busy—so focused on the task at hand—that he hadn’t bothered to lock the basement door as he usually did. For a moment Larry stood frozen to the spot, his breathing arrested and his heart pounding. Then he heard Gayle’s voice.

“Yoo-hoo,” she called. “Anybody home?”

Relief flooded through him. Once again Larry reveled in the thrill of getting away with something.

“Down here,” he called back. “I’ll be right up.”

First encounters after Gayle went on one of her rampages were usually tense and prickly. Gayle always made it clear that Larry was the one who set her off, and most of the time Larry knew exactly what he’d done wrong. This time he was entirely mystified. He had no idea what he had done to annoy her, but the best thing to do was to face up to whatever it was and get it over with.

Hurrying upstairs, he found Gayle standing next to the bar in the living room, preparing to make herself a drink. Ever the gentleman, Larry took the empty glass from her hand. “I’ll do that, sweetheart,” he offered. “What would you like?”

“Macallan,” she said. “Neat.”

Gayle left Larry to work the bar while she crossed the room and settled on the couch. Slipping off her shoes, she tucked her legs up under her skirt. When Larry handed her the drink, she accepted it gratefully and favored him with a smile. “Thanks,” she said.

Larry tried to be calm. He could tell from her drawn face that Gayle was tired and upset. He didn’t quite trust her when she was in one of her moods. He took his own drink and retreated to the relative safety of his chair. From the far side of the room, he launched off into his stock apology.

“I have no idea what I did wrong,” he began. “Whatever it was, I’m sorry.”

To Larry’s utter amazement, Gayle actually burst out laughing. “You didn’t do anything wrong, silly,” she said. She paused, took a delicate sip of her scotch and then smiled again. “And don’t worry,” she added. “I’ve already called Señora Duarte to let her know that we have another foster family available. She’ll be sending a new girl up sometime in the next few days—certainly by the end of next week. You should know by now that I’d never leave my poor Larry in the lurch. Don’t I always see to it that you’re well taken care of?”

There was no arguing with that. “Yes, you do,” Larry told her, with obvious relief flooding his voice. “And I’m very grateful. Cheers.”

They sat quietly for the better part of a minute. Anyone seeing them there would have thought them to be what they were—a long-married couple sharing a relaxing moment at the end of an uneventful Saturday. It was a fiction Larry would have been happy to continue indefinitely, but he was sure Gayle had come to impart some kind of bad news. He hardly dared breathe while he waited to hear what it was.

“How’s the room?” she asked, meaning how was the cleanup progressing.

“It’s pretty well done,” he told her. “The power washer I bought from Home Depot last year is a real miracle worker.”

“Good,” she said.

There was another long pause. Larry could do nothing but hold his breath and wait.

“You haven’t heard from Erik today, have you?” Gayle asked casually.

“Erik?” Larry returned. “Good God, no! Why would I?”

“I thought he might call.”

“Erik would never call me,” Larry declared, “especially not on a weekend.”

“He might try calling you today,” Gayle said, thoughtfully sipping her drink. “I wanted to give you a heads-up. It’s likely Erik will be facing some serious legal difficulties in the near future. He’ll probably come to us looking for help.”

Larry shook his head. “I can’t imagine anything serious enough to make Erik come crawling to me for help.”

“What about murder?” Gayle asked.

And then it all clicked into place. “You’re setting him up?”

Gayle smiled again. “I’d say so.”

“But why?” Larry began.

“Why? Because Erik LaGrange thought he could toss me out like yesterday’s garbage. It turns out I wasn’t quite done with him.”

Hearing the lingering outrage in her voice, Larry Stryker was careful to keep his tone noncommittal. “Is there anything I can do to help?” he asked.

“I thought you’d never ask,” Gayle said. She sounded genuinely grateful. “He’ll bring up the affair. He’ll claim I was with him last night and that we had a fight. I’ll agree that’s true, but I’ll say that afterward I came here and spent the night with you—last night and this morning, too.”

“But I had that damned golf tournament,” Larry objected. “I was gone by five-thirty.”

“Don’t worry,” Gayle said. “It’ll be a Pima County case. Without Brandon Walker running the show, we can rest easy. Bill Forsythe won’t let anybody push us around. If they do ask questions, we’ll both acknowledge the affair. We’ll also say that Erik learned last night he’s about to be given a bad job review. He’s getting even by putting us and Medicos in a bad light.”

It all seemed plausible enough, but for Larry a smidgen of worry still lingered in the background. He needed reassurance. “You’re sure it’ll be all right?” he asked.

Gayle unfolded her legs, stood up, and crossed the room. When she reached Larry’s chair, she bent down and gave him a long, inviting kiss. “It’ll be just fine,” she said soothingly. “Now what about something to eat? I’m starved.”

Knowing food wasn’t the only thing Gayle would need to satisfy her appetites, Larry stood up at once. “I’ll get you another drink,” he offered. “You sit here and relax. I’ll rustle up some food.”

Larry headed for the kitchen with a smile on his face.

***

“Davy?”

David Ladd sat in his office and wondered who was calling. In his corner office in one of Tucson’s leading law firms he was usually referred to as Mr. Ladd. Lani was the only person who usually called him Davy, but the male voice wasn’t Lani’s. Hesitant, softly inflected words identified the caller as Tohono O’odham, but this wasn’t someone whose voice he recognized.

“Yes,” he said. “Who’s calling?”

“It’s Baby,” Richard Ortiz said. “Baby Fat Crack. Mom wanted you to know about Dad.”

“He’s not…”

“He died this afternoon,” Richard went on. “The funeral’s Monday afternoon in Sells. Leo and I will be digging the grave at the cemetery in
Ban Thak
tomorrow, and we wondered if…”

David Ladd’s heart constricted. He was Gabe Ortiz’s godson, and Fat Crack’s family was offering him the honor of helping dig the medicine man’s grave at the same cemetery where he’d once helped dig the grave for his beloved Nana
Dahd
.

“Of course,” David said at once. “What time?”

“Early,” Richard said. “About six. Otherwise it’ll be too hot. And that friend of yours,” he added, “the one Dad liked so much, who was always hanging around with you…”

“You mean Brian Fellows?”

“Yes. That’s the one. If he wants to come, too, he’s welcome.”

“I’ll call him,” David Ladd said. “I don’t know about Brian, but I’ll be there for sure.”

Which was why, a few minutes later, when Diana Ladd called to ask if Davy could drive to Phoenix on Sunday to meet his sister’s flight, he had to decline.

“Sorry, Mom,” he told her. “My morning’s already booked. I’ll be out at
Ban Thak
digging the grave.”

“I’m sure Dad will, too,” Diana said. “I already told Wanda I’d come help cook.”

“What about Candace and Tyler?” Davy asked. “Maybe they could meet the plane.”

“You don’t think Candace would mind?” Diana asked.

“I’ll check with her,” Davy said. “I’m sure she’ll be happy to do it.”

When he finally got off the phone, Davy sat for a long time, staring out at the traffic rushing past on Broadway. He was surprised at how much it hurt to realize that Gabe Ortiz was no more. Rita Antone’s nephew had been an important and beloved part of David’s life for as long as he could remember, and somehow he had assumed Fat Crack would always be there.

Now he wasn’t.

***

Handcuffed in
the backseat of the Crown Victoria, Erik rode through the sally port at the Pima County Jail and felt as if he were being driven through the gates of hell. How could this be happening? It wasn’t possible. He’d done nothing. Surely this was some kind of bad dream, but he hadn’t dreamed that a tow truck had hauled his Tacoma off to an impound lot. And it wasn’t a dream that people had swarmed through his house and carried out cartons of supposed “evidence.” Erik had been wide awake when all that happened.

Fellows stopped the vehicle, got out, and then came around to the side and unlocked the door before helping Erik climb out. He was led through the booking process like a sleepwalker. He’d been sitting on his hands, and they were numb. When it came time for fingerprints, his hands flopped loosely at the ends of his wrists as though they belonged on someone else’s body. And when the booking officer lined Erik up for his obligatory mug shot, he suddenly realized why, in the mug-shot photos he’d seen, the poor stupes always looked dazed and completely bewildered. That was exactly how Erik LaGrange felt right then—bewildered.

Sometime later, dressed in an orange jumpsuit and hobbling along on a pair of ill-fitting flip-flops, he was shoved into a cell the guard called a holding tank.

“When do I get to talk to an attorney?” Erik asked as the barred door locked behind him.

“Beats me,” the guard replied. “I only work here, but it’s Saturday night. If I was you, I wouldn’t look for it to happen anytime before Monday morning.

***

Diana greeted
Brandon at the front door with Damsel at her side. “I’m glad you’re home,” she said. “Are you all right?”

“I’m okay,” he said, but it wasn’t a convincing response.

“Dinner’s almost ready,” she said. “Are you going to want to eat or would you like a drink first? We could probably both use one of those.”

Brandon nodded gratefully. “A beer would be great.”

Diana headed for the refrigerator. Just then Damsel made a lunge for Fat Crack’s medicine pouch and managed to snag it out of Brandon’s hand. He rescued the pouch from the dog’s mouth and laid it down on the kitchen counter as Diana returned with the beer.

“What’s that?” Diana asked, scowling at the worn buckskin packet with its frayed fringe.

It surprised Brandon to think that in all the years he and Diana had been friends with Fat Crack and Wanda Ortiz, the medicine man had never once shown Diana his treasured pouch—the one that had come to him from Looks at Nothing. Now it belonged to their daughter, Lani.

“Fat Crack’s
huashomi,
” Brandon replied huskily. “He gave it to me this afternoon and told me it’s for…” He paused and swallowed before continuing. “It’s for Lani.”

A glance at Brandon’s bleak face told Diana how much he was hurting. She reached out and laid a comforting hand on her husband’s forearm. “He must have known he was going,” she said quietly. “I’m so sorry, Brandon, but there was nothing you could have done to change that, and nothing Lani could have done, either.”

Brandon nodded, and then leaned over to hug her close. “I know,” he said. “But it hurts like hell to lose an old friend,” he said. “It really makes you feel your age.”

Much later, when Diana and Brandon finally sat down to dinner, Brandon barely touched his food while Diana brought him up-to-date on the series of phone calls that had come in as the Ortiz family organized their resources and began planning the funeral.

“I’m so glad you took the tamales and tortillas back to Wanda,” she said. “She’s expecting a huge crowd at the feast house on Monday. She’ll need them far more than we do. By the way, I canceled dinner with the kids for tomorrow. There’s no way of knowing when you and David will finish up at the cemetery. Brian may even show up to help out at
Ban Thak
. I’ll be at Wanda’s helping with the cooking.”

For the first time all evening, Brandon summoned the ghost of a smile. “Don’t tell me you’re going to try your hand at making tortillas? Heaven forbid!”

Grateful Brandon’s mood had lifted enough so he could tease her, Diana teased right back. “Go ahead,” she said. “Make fun of my tortilla-making abilities if you want. My tortillas may be ugly, but I’m great at washing pots and pans. Something tells me there’ll be plenty of those.”

***

It was
almost ten o’clock when Brian Fellows dragged his weary butt home to the small house in Tucson’s central area he and Kath had purchased for a song and then brought back from ruin with long hours of sweat equity. He found Kath asleep on the couch with an open library book facedown across her chest. When the hardwood floor creaked under his weight, she sat up briefly but then fell back onto the couch.

“Oh,” she said. “It’s you. What time is it?”

“Late. Once we booked the guy, I went back to the scene and hung out with the CSIs.”

“You booked somebody? You mean you already caught the guy?”

Nodding, Brian collapsed into his leather. “Looks that way,” he said. “But still…”

“Still what?”

“I don’t have a good feeling about it.”

Kath put down her book, got up, walked across the room to give Brian a peck on the cheek. “How come? And do you want something to eat?”

He nodded. “Now that you mention it, lunch was a very long time ago.”

“Good. I made some chili colorado.” Brian started to follow her into the kitchen. “Stay where you are,” she told him. “I’ll bring you a bowl.”

Brian leaned back, closed his eyes, and listened as she “beeped” numbers into the microwave. He liked the tranquillity of the life they shared. It was far different from the world he’d grown up in, the constant uproar in the home of his flighty mother, her string of husbands and gentleman friends, and his two juvenile-delinquent half brothers.

“Incidentally,” Kath said, returning to the doorway. “We’re not going to Brandon and Diana’s for dinner tomorrow night after all.”

“How come?”

“Gabe Ortiz died today,” Kath told him. “I thought about calling you on your cell phone, but I figured you’d be better off hearing the news after you got home.”