Day of the Dead (25 page)

Brandon Walker’s heart constricted. It was nothing scientific—nothing he could take to court or turn in on a written police report—but instinctively he sensed a connection between this new case and an old one, between this new dead girl and Roseanne Orozco from 1970.

“Why do you ask?” Brian continued.

Brandon Walker knew that his close connection to Brian Fellows had often been a detriment to Brian’s career within the Pima County Sheriff’s Department. The passage of time had made most of that go away, and Brandon didn’t want to do anything that would jeopardize Brian’s future by bringing their relationship back to the fore. He knew that if he and TLC were to solve a case that the Pima County Sheriff’s Department had left hanging, Brian Fellows had better not be anywhere nearby when the shit hit the fan.

“There was another case like that a long time ago, a couple of years after I started working Homicide,” Brandon said carefully. “It happened out here on the reservation. The victim’s name was Roseanne Orozco. A highway worker found the body near Quijotoa. She’d been chopped to pieces and left in an ice chest. People called her the ‘Girl in the Box.’ ”

“I remember hearing about that,” Leo said. “I was just a kid. Grandma always used to tell us if we weren’t good, we’d end up chopped to pieces and in a box the same way she was.”

“Probably no connection,” Brian said. “There wasn’t any ice chest this time. This girl’s body was in garbage bags and left out in the open in the desert. Besides,” he added, “when did that homicide happen?”

“It must have been 1970 or so,” Brandon answered. That wasn’t entirely true. Brandon had gone over his notes with care. He knew exactly when it was, but he wasn’t about to say so. And since this was nothing but a hunch, he wasn’t going to push it.

“There you go,” Brian said. “The suspect we’ve got in custody wouldn’t even have been in kindergarten in 1970. Unless he set out to be a serial killer very early on…”

Eighteen

T
hey say it happened long ago that an Indian man and his woman loved their baby very, very much.

The mother took very good care of her little one. She kept the baby with her all the time. Even when the woman went to work in the fields, she took her baby with her. She never left her in the care of someone else at home.

The other babies of the village grew strong and fat and cried and pulled things. But this baby never ever cried. All day she lay in her cradle and slept or smiled but never cried.

This Indian mother carefully arranged the ropes for her baby’s
nuhkuth,
which, in the old days, was the soft cradle all Tohono O’odham mothers used to make to protect their precious babies. Over the ropes she put her softest blankets. She used extra ropes and extra blankets. When she took the baby to the field with her, she was so carefully wrapped that the
nuhkuth
looked like a big cocoon. And the mother always made sure that wherever she left her baby girl, it was nice and shady.

***

The grave was dug
before it got hot. The five men drove into Sells, where they gratefully tucked into a breakfast of fresh tamales and paper-thin, hot-off-the-griddle tortillas. Brian and Davy stayed only long enough to eat, then they both headed back to Tucson. While mostly female visitors trooped in and out of the house to pay their respects to Wanda, Leo and Baby held court outside. They gathered visiting menfolk around Baby’s baby—his blue 1983 Ford F-100 with its chromed-out valve covers and air cleaner and its oddball, low-powered 232 V6 engine. To a man they all marveled that anyone in his right mind would ever buy such an underpowered vehicle. Baby told them that the original owner, up in Phoenix, never drove it faster than thirty-five.

Tired of talking trucks and thinking Diana might be ready to head home, Brandon ventured inside to check. To his surprise, he found her busily wrapping corn husks around hunks of uncooked
masa
filled with meat.

“How soon before you’ll be done?” he asked.

“Not for a while,” she said. “Are you in a hurry?”

Brandon was, actually. Yesterday he had learned something concerning the Roseanne Orozco investigation that he was eager to follow up on today. He wanted to get started, but Diana, who spent most of her time in the solitary occupation of writing, seemed to be at home in the company of this group of industrious women.

“No,” he said. “I’m fine. I’ll wait outside with Leo and Baby and the others.”

For a time Brandon watched a collection of children play makeshift soccer on the cleared dirt field between the compound’s collection of houses and the mini-mart and auto-repair buildings along the highway. No doubt the kids had all been coached about the solemnity of the occasion, but childish natural exuberance could only be suppressed for so long. As they chased the ball back and forth, Brandon remembered when Lani was that age.

He had loved standing on the sidelines of her soccer matches, watching her jet-black ponytail plume out behind her as she raced up and down the field. Neither Tommy nor Quentin had been into sports. Besides, Brandon had been working too many hours when they were little. He had missed out completely on that part of their growing-up years, which probably accounted for his determination not to miss that time with Lani. He made it his business to be there for her—every game, every school program or play, every parent-teacher conference.

Brandon glanced at his watch and shook his head. If he’d known he’d be done in
Ban Thak
this early, he would have volunteered to collect Lani from the airport rather than sending Candace. Lani gave every evidence of adoring her nephew, but Brandon knew that the two-year-old—spoiled by both his doting mother and grandmother—could be annoying on his best days. With Fat Crack’s death weighing heavily on her heart, Brandon suspected Lani wouldn’t be up to dealing with Tyler’s antics. Besides, Brandon regretted missing out on a few private hours with his daughter. Now that she was grown, father-daughter times when it was just the two of them were rare. As soon as Lani arrived home, she’d be drawn into the funeral preparations and events. It might be days before Brandon had some time alone with her.

One of the mothers broke up the soccer game by summoning the children to come eat. Left at loose ends, Brandon considered his options for a moment and then made up his mind. He went back into the kitchen, where Diana was still wrapping tamales.

“I’ll be back in a while,” he told her. “I need to run an errand.”

“Where are you going?”

“To talk with Emma Orozco,” he said.

Brandon Walker remembered Fat Crack telling him once that, as part of a grant from Arizona State University in the early nineties, all existing health records from the Indian Health Services hospital in Sells had been fed into computers. The study had been intended to learn how Tohono O’odham longevity compared with that of other ethnic populations. It was also a way of assessing and keeping track of which diseases on the reservation accounted for which deaths. That study—with records from as far back as the fifties—along with money from tribal casino operations, was one of the reasons the hospital at Sells now had its own kidney dialysis center.

The study also meant that records of Roseanne Orozco’s appendectomy in July of 1970 should be only a few keystrokes away. But having the records available and being able to access them were two different things. Brandon knew that if he went to the hospital and asked, his request would be met with polite but implacable resistance. Whoever was in charge would take one look at his
Mil-gahn
face, smile respectfully, and tell him nothing like that existed. He hoped Emma Orozco wouldn’t encounter the same difficulty.

Brandon drove to Andrea Tashquinth’s place in Big Fields. It was a long, low adobe house that looked as though rooms had been added haphazardly over the years. When he drove up he heard two swamp coolers, one at either end of the house, humming away. A long-legged black mutt watched Brandon curiously but without objection as he stepped out of the car and knocked on what he hoped was the front door. Andrea herself answered. “What do you want?” she asked. Some of her initial hostility from the day before had returned.

“I’d like to speak to your mother,” Brandon said. “Is she here?”

“Yes, but she’s very tired.”

“I need her help…” Brandon began.

“Is it about Roseanne?” Emma Orozco called from somewhere beyond the half-opened door and out of Brandon’s view.

“Yes,” he said.

Andrea sighed and shook her head resignedly. “All right,” she said. “Wait here.”

Brandon was neither surprised nor offended by not being invited inside. Several minutes later Emma, leaning on her walker, hobbled out of the house. “What is it?” she asked. “Have you found something?”

“Not yet,” Brandon told her, “but I’m working on it. When I talked to Andrea yesterday, she mentioned that shortly before her death, Roseanne had been hospitalized with appendicitis.”

Emma nodded. “That’s right.”

“Do you remember the name of the physician who took care of her?”

“No. It was a long time ago. Why do you want to know?”

“Andrea said Roseanne was still sick after she got out of the hospital.”

Emma nodded again. “The doctor did some tests and said she had an infection from the surgery. He gave her something for it. Henry was supposed to bring her home from the hospital, but she left before he got there. We never saw her again.”

“Mrs. Orozco, you told me on Friday that as far as you knew, Roseanne didn’t have a boyfriend. Correct?”

“Yes.”

“And, because of Roseanne’s condition—her inability to speak—she didn’t exactly socialize.”

“Yes.”

“But she was pregnant when she was murdered. I’d like to track down her medical records. Then, if the autopsy results show how far along the pregnancy was when Roseanne was murdered—”

“You think she got pregnant while she was in the hospital?” Emma interrupted.

“It’s possible,” Brandon said. “Did anyone besides Andrea raise that issue at the time? Did she convince anyone at all to look into it?”

Emma pursed her lips and shook her head. “What do you want me to do?” she asked.

“Ride with me to the hospital,” Brandon said. “Tell whoever’s there that you’ve asked me to look into Roseanne’s murder and that I need to see her medical records. They’re usually confidential, but as her mother…”

Nodding, Emma turned and hobbled back to the door. Opening it, she called inside. “I’m going for a ride,” she said. “I’ll be back after.”

***

Brian Fellows arrived
at the Pima County Sheriff’s Department well before the appointed time for the interview with Erik LaGrange. Brian had been told that as of that afternoon, Erik would be represented by a public defender named Earl Coulter, which meant nobody was doing LaGrange any favors. Coulter’s nickname, the Snoozer, derived from his propensity for turning up at court still reeking of last night’s booze and then dozing throughout the proceedings.

All the way into town, Brian had been thinking about what Brandon Walker had said about the dead girl in the ice chest, the girl named Roseanne Orozco. The idea that there could be a connection between the two victims who had been murdered and dismembered more than thirty years apart seemed remote, but still…Brian was a cop who prided himself on keeping an open mind.

Once in his cubicle, he keyed Roseanne’s name into his computer. Her case popped up along with all the other unsolved cold cases in Pima County. Only the basic facts had been summarized in the computer. To learn more, he’d need to examine the paper file. After requesting it from Records, Brian turned to what was available on yesterday’s Jane Doe.
Although,
Brian corrected,
Juanita Doe would be more like it.

PeeWee showed up dressed as though he’d come straight from church. “Anything new?” he asked, settling at his own desk.

“Not much,” Brian returned. “LaGrange drew Earl Coulter as his public defender.”

“All the better for us,” PeeWee said with a grin. “What about the autopsy?”

“We won’t have that until tomorrow.”

“How come the ME can take weekends off and we can’t?” PeeWee complained. Detective Segura wasn’t known for maintaining a positive mental attitude.

“They’ve got refrigerators now,” Brian answered. “Speaking of weekends off, the prosecutor’s office is taking a pass on this meeting after all.”

“They’re the ones who set it up for today,” PeeWee objected.

“Right,” Brian said, “but right now it’s just LaGrange, Coulter, and us.”

“What a bunch of jerks,” PeeWee grumbled.

When they entered the interview room, Earl Coulter was already there. The airless, drab room reeked of beery breath and stale cigar smoke. “How’s it going, Earl?” Brian asked.

“Can’t complain,” Earl said. Sporting an atrocious, food-spotted tie across his protruding gut, he made as if to stand before deciding it wasn’t worth the effort. After rising an inch or two off his chair and holding out a pudgy hand, he settled back into his chair with a relieved wheeze.

A door opened and a guard escorted the prisoner into the room. The orange jail jumpsuit and fluorescent overhead lights combined to give Erik a sallow, sickly look. Brian could tell from looking at him that he’d slept very little. The lawyer made another abortive effort at rising. “Earl Coulter,” he said to Erik. “Glad to make your acquaintance.”

Barely acknowledging the greeting, Erik turned to Brian. “Look, Detective Fellows,” he said. “Refusing to talk to you yesterday without having an attorney present was poor judgment on my part. I was so shocked by what was happening that asking for a lawyer was all I could think of, but this mess is some kind of awful mistake. I know there’s been a murder. You told me yesterday that the victim is a girl, but I have no idea who she was or what happened to her. What I do know is that I had nothing to do with it. I want to help you find whoever’s responsible.”

“Really, Mr. LaGrange,” Coulter began, but Erik brushed aside his attorney’s objection.