Kiss of the Bees (36 page)

“What guy?”

“The one we air-lifted into TMC just before I called for a detective. The one who’d had the crap beaten out of him before Kath Kelly found him.”

“You’re sure it’s the same guy?”

“Hell, yes, I’m sure.”

“In that case,” Leggett said, “I guess I’d better go talk to him. You stay here and keep the crime scene secure. I’ll call for a deputy with a generator and lights to come out and relieve you.”

“What are you going to do?” Brian asked.

“I already told you. Go to the hospital and talk to the guy.”

“How?”

“What are we doing, playing Twenty Questions?”

“How are you going to talk to him?” Brandon insisted.

“You’re some kind of comedian, Deputy Fellows,” the detective said. “To quote a former President, read my lips. I’m going to talk to Mr. Chavez with my mouth.”

“Do you speak
Tohono O’othham?
” Brian asked.

“No, do you?”

Brian nodded. “As a matter of fact, I do.”

“No shit?”

“No shit!”

For a moment Leggett stood looking at him. Finally he shrugged. “In that case,” he said, “I guess we’ll get somebody else to secure the damn crime scene, because you’re coming with me.”

Mitch Johnson had a large, trunk-sized box that he sometimes used to haul canvases around. Both the top and floor of the custom-made wooden box had matching grooves in them that allowed him to stack in up to twenty wet canvases without any of them touching each other. In advance of heading into town with Lani, he had emptied the box and loaded it into the back of the Subaru. Then, after blindfolding Lani with one of the cut pieces of scarf, he led her out of the Bounder.

Already the new dose of scopolamine was having the desired effect. Clumsy on her feet, she stumbled and fell against him as she stepped down out of the RV. It gratified him to hear the involuntary moan that escaped her lips when the injured breast, encased now in a still-sodden cowboy shirt, brushed up against his body.

“Smarts, does it, little girl?” he asked.

The Bounder was air-conditioned; the Subaru had been sitting in the afternoon sun. The interior of the box was stifling as he heaved her inside, sending her body sprawling along the rough, splintery bottom. There were ventilation holes in the sides—that was, after all, the point of the thing. He put canvases inside it to dry. That meant that once he turned on the air-conditioning in the car, the temperature inside the box would reduce some, too. Enough to keep her from croaking, most likely. Not enough for her to be comfortable.

Mitch had slammed the tailgate shut and was headed for the driver’s seat in the Subaru when he saw a set of blue flashing lights snaking across the desert floor from Tucson. His heart went to his throat.
A damned cop car! Surely they hadn’t already discovered the girl was missing. How could they?

Close to panic, he almost had a heart attack when the car slowed at the turn-off to Coleman Road and then again as the pair of headlights came speeding toward him. By then he could hear the siren wailing through the still desert air.

What the hell do I do now?
he wondered. Really, there wasn’t any choice. He would have to gut it out. Bluff like hell and hope for the best, but in the meantime, he started the engine on the Subaru and then turned on both the radio and the air conditioner at full blast. That way, if the girl was still aware enough to make any noise, chances were the cop wouldn’t hear her.

Moments later, with his heart pounding in his throat, he saw the headlights take a sharp turn to the left a mile or so north of where the Bounder was parked. He could still see the blue lights flashing, but behind them there was only the pale red glow of taillights.

“Whew!” Mitch said aloud. “I don’t know what the hell that was all about, but it was too damn close for comfort.”

Wanda and Fat Crack were getting ready to go to the dance at Little Tucson. They had always enjoyed going to summertime dances, although Wanda liked it less now than she had before her husband’s elevation to tribal chairman. Before when they went to dances, they danced. Now, often as not, she was left to dance with one of her sons or grandsons while Gabe went about the never-ending business of politicking.

“Did you tell her yet?” Wanda asked, as she watched Gabe fasten the snaps on his cowboy shirt.

They hadn’t been talking about Delia Cachora, but Fat Crack knew at once who and what Wanda was asking about. Wanda had disapproved of his bringing Delia back to the reservation, after thirty years away, to take on the assignment of tribal attorney.

“We need somebody who knows how to go head-to-head with all those Washington BIA bureaucrats,” Gabe had told his wife back then while the tribal council was wrangling over the decision. “If she can handle those guys, she can take on Pima County and the State of Arizona.”

As Gabe expected, Delia Chavez Cachora did fine when it came to dealing with
Mil-gahn
paper-pushers. Where she fell short of the mark was in relating to the people back home, the ones who had never left the reservation. And that was part of the reason Fat Crack had hired David Ladd to serve as her intern. Schooled by Gabe’s Aunt Rita and old Looks At Nothing, Davy had forgotten more about being a
Tohono O’othham
than Delia Cachora could ever hope to know.

When Gabe didn’t answer, Wanda knew she was right. “You’d better tell her pretty soon,” she warned. “Davy’s supposed to be here next week, isn’t he? She may be real mad when she finds out.”

Looking in the mirror, Gabe slipped a turquoise-laden bola tie on over his head. He sighed as he pulled it tight under his double chin. “You’re right,” he said. “She’ll be mad as hell. Maybe I’ll tell her tonight, if I have a chance. If she’s there. That way she’ll have time to get used to the idea before Monday when I have to see her at work.”

The shrug Wanda sent in her husband’s direction as well as the derisive look said as clearly as if she had spoken that Wanda Ortiz didn’t think Delia Cachora would be over the issue of Davy Ladd anytime soon.

“She’ll be at the dance, all right,” Wanda told her husband. “If her Aunt Julia has anything to say about it, Delia will be working in the feast house.”

The painful shock of scraping along the rough wooden floor shattered Lani’s druggy haze and brought her back to agonizing awareness.
But it’s better to hurt,
she thought.
At least that way I know what’s going on.

The blindfold had caught on a splinter of wood and had been pulled loose as she slid across the floor. When she realized the scarf was gone and opened her eyes, she knew it was daylight from the light leaking in through the ventilation holes. The interior of the box felt like a heated oven. Moments later, a car engine started and she could feel a tiny breath of cool air blowing across her damp clothing. The car started, but for some time it didn’t move.

There in the dark and alone, without the man watching her and gloating, there was no need to hold back the tears. Lying flat on her back, she gave in to both the pain and to her growing despair, letting the tears flow. She couldn’t understand why this calamity had befallen her, or what she could do about it.

Somehow, in her aching grief, Lani raised one hand to her throat. There, beneath her fingers, she felt the smooth, woven surface of the basket, the
o’othham wopo hashda
she had made from her own hair and from Jessie’s.

What if her hair charm, her
kushpo ho’oma
, fell into the hands of this new evil
Ohb
? Lani had woven the maze, the ancient sacred symbol of her people, into the face of the medallion. It was bad enough that Mr. Vega had copied the basket onto that awful picture of his, the one he had drawn of her while she slept, but Lani was suddenly determined that, no matter what, he would not have the basket itself.

Struggling in the dark, she worked desperately to unfasten the safety pin that kept the woven brooch on the slender gold chain. Even as her fingers struggled with the pin, Lani could feel the drug cloud begin to wrap itself around her, dulling her senses at the same time it soothed the terrible throbbing of her wounded breast.

She fought the drug with all the resources she could muster. And even though she couldn’t hold it off forever, she did manage to keep it at bay long enough to slip the precious woven disk into the safety of her jeans pocket.

Only then did she give in and let the enveloping sleep overtake her. Whatever the drug was, Lani hated it because it had made her helpless and turned her into a victim. At the same time, she loved it, too, because while she slept, the searing band of pain that was now her right breast no longer hurt her. The drug put her mind to sleep and the pain as well.

Her last waking thought was that Mr. Vega was right. The drug was awful, but it did help.

David Ladd fought his way up out of the nightmare with the awful scream still ringing in his ears. Throwing off the covers, he sat up in bed, shaking all over and gasping for breath.

“David!” Startled out of a sound sleep, Candace sat up in bed beside him. “For God’s sake, what’s the matter?”

“It was a dream,” he managed, through chattering teeth, but already the punishing heartbeat was pounding in his head and chest. Another attack was coming. Helplessly, he fell back on the pillows.

Scrambling out of bed, Candace reached for the phone. “I’ll call a doctor.”

“No, please. Don’t do that,” Davy begged.

“But David . . .”

“Please. Just wait! It’ll go away in a few minutes. Please.”

He held out one trembling hand. Reluctantly, Candace put down the phone and grasped his hand. With a worried frown on her face, she settled back down on the bed beside him. For the next several minutes she leaned over him, murmuring words he could barely hear or understand but ones that somehow comforted him nonetheless. Eventually the terrified beating of his heart began to slow. When his breathing finally steadied, he was able to speak.

“I’m sorry, Candace. I didn’t mean for you to . . .”

Realizing that the immediate crisis was past, her solicitous concern turned to a sudden blast of anger. “So what are you on, David Garrison Ladd?” she demanded. “Crack? Speed? LSD? All this time you’ve had me fooled. I never would have guessed that you did drugs.”

“But I don’t,” David protested. “I swear to God!”

“Don’t give me that,” she snapped back at him. “I’ve been around enough druggies in my life to know one when I see one.”

“Candace, please. It’s nothing like that. You’ve got to believe me. This has been happening to me for weeks now, every time I go to sleep. First there’s an awful dream and then—” He broke off, ashamed.

“And then what?” she demanded.

“You saw what happens. My heart beats like it’s going to jump out of my body. I can’t breathe. I come out of it soaked with sweat. The first time it happened I thought I was having a heart attack. I thought I was going to die.”

“You should see a doctor,” Candace said.

“I did. He told me I was having panic attacks. He said they were brought on by stress and that eventually I’d get over them.”

“I’ve heard about panic attacks before,” Candace said. “One of the girls in the dorm used to have them. Isn’t there something you can take?”

“Nothing that wouldn’t be dangerous on a cross-country drive,” David told her. “All of the recommended medications turn out to be tranquilizers of some kind.”

“Oh,” Candace said. “And how long has this been going on?”

“For a couple of weeks now, I guess,” David admitted sheepishly.

“And why didn’t you tell me before this?”

David shrugged his shoulders. “I was embarrassed. I didn’t know what you’d think about me if I told you.”

“And it’s always the same thing? First the dream and then the panic attack?”

“Yes,” David said, “pretty much, but . . .” The rest of the sentence disappeared as he gazed off into space.

“But what?”

David swallowed. His voice dropped. Candace had to strain to hear him. “I used to dream about the day Andrew Carlisle came to the house and attacked Mother. But now the dreams are different.”

“Different how?”

“Different because Lani is in them. At the time all that happened, Lani wasn’t even born. This one was different, and it was the worst one yet.”

Getting up off the bed, David walked over to the window and stared outside at Chicago’s nighttime skyline. He stood there in isolation, his shoulders hunched, looking defeated.

“You said this dream was worse than the others,” Candace said. “Tell me about it.”

David shook his head and didn’t speak.

“Please tell me,” Candace urged, her voice gentler than it had been. “Please.”

David shuddered before he answered. “I was certain the first attack was over,” he said at last. “Mother was in the kitchen because I could already smell the bacon cooking. Burning, really. Then the door to the cellar fell open, just the way it always does in the dream, except this time, the room was empty except for Bone, my dog. He was there in the kitchen, licking up the bacon grease, but the house itself was quiet and empty, as though everybody had left.”

“Where did they go?”

Davy swallowed. “I’m coming to that. I called Bone to come, and the two of us went from room to room, trying to figure out where everybody had gone. I checked every room but there was nobody to be found, until the last one, Lani’s. They were in there, Lani and the evil
Ohb.
He had her on the bed and he was—”

Davy broke off and didn’t continue.

“He was raping her?” Candace supplied.

Davy shook his head. “I don’t know. I couldn’t see. All I know is he was hurting her, and she was screaming.” He put his hands over his ears as though Lani’s scream were still assailing them. “It was awful.”

“It was a dream,” Candace said firmly. “Forget it. Come back to bed.”

“But Rita, our baby-sitter, always said that dreams mean something. When I was a freshman in high school, I went out for JV football. One day Lani was taking a nap and she woke up crying, saying that I was hurt. Mom was trying to tell her it was nothing but a dream when the school nurse called to say that she thought my ankle was broken and that Mom needed to come pick me up.”