Kiss of the Bees

Before, when they had been working together and dealing with a crisis, Brian had been totally at ease. Now his natural reticence reasserted itself, leaving him feeling tongue-tied and dim-witted. “Brian Fellows,” he managed awkwardly.

If Kath Kelly suffered any social difficulties, they didn’t show. “Did you call for a detective?” she asked.

Brian nodded. “I did, but they’re not sending one,” he said. “Everybody’s busy, so I’m told. They told me to write it up myself, but the way Dispatch said it, you can tell they’d as soon I dropped the whole thing. After all, the guy’s just an Indian.”

Kath Kelly’s gray-green eyes darkened to emerald. “There’s a lot of that going around in my department, too,” she said. “So are you going to drop it?”

“No, I’m going to take Dispatch at their word and investigate the hell out of this. Crime-scene investigation may not be my long suit, but I’ve done some.”

“I can help for a while, but as soon as the helicopter leaves, I’ll have to get back on patrol. Before I forget, you don’t look much like an Indian. Where’d you learn to speak Tohono O’othham?”

“From one of my friends, in Tucson,” he said.

“Really.” Kath smiled. “Pretty impressive,” she said. “I speak French fluently and Spanish some, but I couldn’t understand a word that poor guy was saying. It’s a good thing you showed up. Is that why they have you working this sector of the county, because of your language skills?”

Brian shook his head. “Hardly,” he answered with a short laugh. “Nobody at the department knows I speak a word of Papago. And don’t tell them, either. It’s a deep, dark secret.”

For the next half-hour, working in a circle from the outside in, they carefully combed the entire area, finding nothing of interest. They were almost up to the edge of the charco before they came to a spot where, although someone had gone to a good deal of trouble to try to cover it up, there was clear evidence that the soil had recently been disturbed.

“It looks to me like this is where the bad guy was doing his forbidden digging,” Brian observed.

Kath Kelly nodded. “And the Indian showed up and caught him in the act. What do you suppose was down there?”

“It could be a lot of things,” Brian said. “There used to be an Indian village right around here called Rattlesnake Skull. My guess is we’ve stumbled on your basic artifact thief.”

“Sounds like,” Kathy agreed.

Before Brian could answer, one of the EMTs came looking for them. “Could the two of you give us a hand?” he asked. “We brought a gurney along, but we can’t use it—not in this soft dirt. And this guy’s way too heavy for two of us to carry him on a stretcher.”

It took all four of them to haul the wounded man out of the mesquite grove toward the waiting helicopter. The man was mumbling incoherently as they loaded him aboard. Again, Brian wasn’t able to make it all out, but he was able to pick out one or two words, one of which sounded like pahl—priest.

“I think he’s asking for a priest,” Brian told the EMT. “He’s probably worried about last rites.”

The man shook his head urgently. “Pahla,” he said. “Pi- pahl.”

The EMT looked at Brian. “What’s the difference?”

Brian shook his head. “Sorry,” he said. “I know some Tohono O’othham, but obviously not enough.”

“Just in case, we’ll call for a priest all the same,” the EMT replied, heading for the door.

“Wait a minute,” Brian called after him. “You didn’t happen to find any ID on the guy, did you?”

“None,” the medic told him. “Not a stitch.”

“And where are you taking him?”

“John Doe’s on his way to TMC.” Moments later, the helicopter took off in a huge man-made whirlwind. When the dust finally settled, Agent Kelly reached in her pocket and extracted a business card.

“If they’re gone, I’d better be going, too, but here are my numbers in case you need to reach me about any of this.”

“Good thinking,” Brian said, fumbling for one of his own cards. “I probably will need to get in touch with you. For my report.”

Kath Kelly looked up into his face as she took the card. “You’re welcome to call me even if it’s not for your report,” she said with a smile.

Then, tucking his card in her breast pocket, she turned and walked away, leaving an astonished Brian Fellows staring after her.

For eleven long years, Brian Fellows had been his mother’s main caretaker. Her overwhelming physical need had attached itself to Brian’s own hyper-developed sense of responsibility. His mother’s illness had sucked him dry, robbing him of the last of his adolescence and blighting his social life in the process.

At age twenty-six, faced with clear encouragement from a woman he found immensely attractive, he was left blushing as she drove away.

“I’ll be damned,” he said to himself. “I will be damned.”

Diana fumed all the way home. How dare Monty Lazarus imply that whatever had happened with Quentin and Tommy was in any way her fault? She was no more responsible for Quentin ending up in prison than Myrna Louise was for Andrew Carlisle’s being there.

By the time she drove past the Leaving Tucson City Limits sign two blocks before the turnoff to the house in Gates Pass, she was starting to feel better. The tension in her jaw relaxed. Their home, as well as five others, sat on a small ten-acre parcel which, because of the attractive nuisance of a nearby target-shooting range, had never