The numbing combination of the murder of Rita’s granddaughter, Garrison’s death by what was supposedly his own hand, and the disappointment of Andrew Carlisle’s plea bargain had left a heavy burden on Diana Ladd. She’d had far too much of murder. Too much heartache. She hadn’t wanted to hear about anyone else’s hurt because her own was still too close to the surface. Or maybe there had been so much mayhem in Diana’s life that the Orozco girl’s murder no longer touched her in the same way it would have once. Maybe a part of her heart had become too accustomed to such atrocities-accustomed and immune.
Even so, there had been some unavoidable talk at school. Once migrant workers, Emma Orozco and her husband had moved to Sells from Ak-Chin-Arroyo Mouth-while their daughters were still young. Henry Orozco worked for the Bureau of Indian Affairs. His wife became an aide with the tribal Head Start program. Andrea and Roseanne Orozco attended Indian Oasis School. Since Diana taught at Topawa Elementary, the district’s other elementary school, she hadn’t known either one of the Orozco girls personally.
Still, some of the gossip had penetrated Diana’s emotional deflectors. “I seem to remember there was something wrong with Roseanne-that she was developmentally disabled or autistic. And something makes me think she was pregnant at the time of her death.”
Diana and Brandon had gone back inside the house. The afternoon was warm. They had retreated to the kitchen, where Brandon rummaged through the freezer and found two small steaks which he put in the microwave to thaw. With Lani gone, they had slipped into an easy rhythm of sharing the cooking duties and eating dinner early.
“Not autistic,” Brandon corrected. “According to her mother, one day when Roseanne Orozco was about five, she stopped talking-to anyone. Emma said they took her to the Indian Health Service doctors and even to a medicine man, but nothing helped. And you’re right, she was fifteen years old and pregnant at the time of her death.”
“Who was the father?” Diana asked. “Wouldn’t he be a natural suspect?”
“That’s the problem,” Brandon replied. “No one had any idea who the father was. As far as anyone knew, Roseanne didn’t have a boyfriend. Law and Order suspected incest.”
“You mean they suspected Henry Orozco of abusing his daughter?” Diana demanded. “I knew Henry. He seemed like a perfectly nice man. No way would he do such a thing.”
“That’s what Emma said as well. She said that when Law and Order broached the subject that Henry had done something bad with his daughter, he was really upset, and so was she. Ultimately, Law and Order couldn’t prove it one way or another. DNA testing didn’t exist back then. Paternity wasn’t nearly as easy to prove as it is now. Henry Orozco was a suspect in the case, and although he was never tried for it, he was never exonerated, either. When Law and Order allowed the investigation to go cold, Henry was more than happy to ignore it as well. Now, with Henry dead, Emma is willing to open it up again.”
“And you’re going to help?” Diana had asked.
“Absolutely,” Brandon had answered. “To the best of my ability.”
It took time to deal with the body. Gayle had learned the art of butchering meat at her father’s knee. Growing up on the family ranch north of Tucson, Gayle rather than her prissy, puking brother, Winston, had accompanied Calvin Madison to the slaughterhouse when it came time to butcher cattle. By the time Gayle was twelve, her father liked to brag to his pals that if he turned Gayle loose in the slaughterhouse, she could do the whole job herself.
And she could have, too-from beginning to end. Since the sight of blood made Winston sick, Gayle learned to love it. Sometimes, when her mother wasn’t around, she’d bathe her hands in the gory stuff. Then she’d track down her baby brother, wave her bloodied hands at him, and chase him into the house. Her parents caught her doing it once. Her mother had insisted that Calvin take the belt to her, but Gayle didn’t mind. Anything that tormented Winston was worth it.
But a serious butcher knife was what was needed to do the job properly, to cleave bone and flesh apart at the joints and sever them into manageable pieces for bundling and carrying. She was unaccustomed to using Erik’s machete. It seemed like a clumsy tool for the job, and it wasn’t nearly sharp enough.
Not only that, Gayle had to do the messy work in clothing far too big for her. Despite three pairs of socks, Erik’s Nikes threatened to fall off at every step. She had to cinch his belt up tight to keep his pants from falling down over her hips, but the blood splatter would be in all the right places-on the inside bill of his Arizona Diamond-backs cap, on the outside of his sweatshirt and jeans, and on the outsides of his shoes as well. There was no faking that.
Her big concern these days was DNA. She had gathered some individual hair from Erik’s hairbrush and one or two curly reddish stray pubic hairs from his bed. She left those in strategic spots where an alert medical examiner ought to be able to find them. What she didn’t want to do was leave any evidence of her own presence behind.
Erik LaGrange had committed the unpardonable. He had left Gayle rather than the other way around. Gayle was no longer furious with him over it. That had passed away from her sometime overnight, leaving her determined to extract the highest possible price. For her purposes, it was just as well this was happening in Arizona. Arizona was, after all, one of the few states where the death penalty remained in full operation. It was a place where death sentences were not only given but where they were also carried out, something that suited Gayle Stryker just fine, thank you very much. The death penalty was exactly what she had in mind for Erik LaGrange.
Brandon Walker woke up later than he had intended-well past nine. He dressed, poured a cup of coffee, and then went out on the patio, where he found Diana hard at work on her laptop. He tried tossing the ball for Damsel. Panting, she ignored the ball and stayed in the shade.
“What’s up with Damsel?” Brandon asked. “Is she sick?”
Diana laughed. “She’s spent the whole morning chasing butterflies and jets.”
It was one of the dog’s most endearing peculiarities. For some reason, from the time she had come into their lives, the dog had focused her attention on the shadows planes and butterflies left on the ground rather than on the moving objects themselves. Chasing shadows was a game she played by herself, often to the point of exhaustion.
“Dummy,” Brandon told the dog, giving the winded animal a loving pat on the head in passing. “When are you ever going to wise up?” He sat down next to Diana. “I’m going out to the reservation today,” he said to her. “To see Fat Crack. Want to come along?”
“I wish I could, but I’d better not,” Diana said. “My deadline’s actively ticking at this point.” She paused. “Lani’s worried about him. When you get back home, give her a call and let her know how he’s doing.”
“It won’t be good news,” Brandon said, sipping his coffee.
“You know that, and I know that,” Diana returned. “Deep down, Lani probably knows it, too. She understands how serious this is even more than the rest of us. Her biggest worry is that Fat Crack won’t last long enough for her to get home. She wants to be here for him.”
“Just like he was for her,” Brandon returned.
That fateful day on Ioligam was still seared in Brandon Walker’s memory. By the time he had arrived, Mitch Johnson, Lani’s kidnapper, was already dead. Lani had killed him. Brandon had hurried there expecting to retrieve his daughter and take her home. Fat Crack had blocked his way.
“Where is she?” Brandon demanded of his longtime friend. “Is she all right? Why isn’t she here?”
“Because she killed a man,” Gabe Ortiz returned quietly. “She has to stay by herself. She has to fast and eat no salted food and pray for sixteen days.”
“Sixteen days!” Brandon exclaimed. “Out here by herself? Are you nuts? What the hell are you thinking?”
“It’s what Lani’s thinking,” Gabe replied, “and that’s what counts. It’s what she wants to do. It’s what she has to do.”
Brandon had always known Lani was different, from the moment she had walked into his life as a toddler and wrapped her tiny fingers around his heart. It had hurt him when others called his baby Kuadagi Ke’e Al-the Ant-Bit Child, but that was the reason Lani was Brandon’s in the first place. According to Rita Antone, Lani’s blood relatives had refused to take her in because they were scared of her. They were convinced that because she had been singled out by I’itoi, she was a danger to her family members. Nana Dahd believed that being ant-bit made Lani special.
Brandon Walker had heard all that, but he hadn’t really paid attention, and he certainly hadn’t believed it. For him, Lani was the light of his life. He had adored her, spoiled her, loved her. Now, for reasons he couldn’t
