Day of the Dead Read online

  “How you are when you’re on a case. Totally focused. And immune to sleep.”

  “I sleep,” he said.

  “Not as much as I do,” she told him. “And not as much as you should.” She reached up and kissed him as she went past. “Good night.”

  Brandon fed Damsel and used playing ball with her as an excuse to check out the yard and the exterior of the house. Finally, reassured nothing was amiss, he went into his office. Earlier, when his printer had been acting up, Brandon had only taken time to scrape the scattered papers into a pile. Now, sitting down to sort them, he discovered there was a rudimentary order to them. He laid them out like a game of bridge, matching faxes and page numbers rather than suits of cards.

  Once he had the material organized, he grabbed a highlighter and started to read, all the while keeping his ear cocked for the sound of the Buick’s big tires crunching the graveled driveway.

  Twenty-Five

  The woman dropped her own cradle blanket and ran to the nuhkuth from which the baby’s voice had come. She took the cradle in her arms, but her arms held only some dry brown leaves that were swinging from a spider’s thread.

  Then the woman heard another baby cry. This cry came from among some low bushes, but when she reached the place, there were only more dry leaves. The leaves were curled into tiny cradles, but the cradles were all empty.

  The woman stood, puzzled. From left and right and all around, she heard the cries of little babies, but when she looked she found only more dead leaves. And the leaves were thick under her feet. The noise of the dead leaves was almost as loud as the cries of the babies.

  The woman put her hands over her face.

  The last group of diners had been herded through the feast house before the cooks and servers finally sat down to eat. There weren’t enough tamales or tortillas to go around, but by then they were all too tired to eat very much anyway. Then they tackled the cleanup.

  Once the big pots and pans had been washed and dried, Leo and Baby loaded them into the back of a pickup truck. When they had finished loading, Leo popped his head back in the door and saw Delia sitting with her feet up. “Do you want to ride home with us?” he asked.

  Wanda cut him off. “Leave Delia here,” she ordered. “You two have all that stuff to unload. I’ll drop Delia off on the way. She’ll be home sooner if I take her.”

  “Is that all right with you, Delia?” Leo asked.

  Delia nodded. “Whatever gets me home and in bed the fastest is what I want to do.”

  Leo and Baby left a few minutes later as the women began the final wiping down of tables and sinks and sweeping the floor. Delia was half asleep when a sudden gush of water brought her fully awake. She was astounded to find herself sitting in the middle of a growing puddle.

  “Your water!” Wanda exclaimed. “It broke. The baby’s coming.”

  Delia heard only that much before her body was doubled over by a powerful spasm. It started at her rib cage, front and back, and then rolled down and through her body like a marauding truck, leaving her gasping for breath and clinging to the bench with both hands to keep from falling.

  The next face Delia saw was Lani’s, right in front of hers, barely inches away. Lani’s mouth was moving, but at first Delia heard nothing. Finally a few of the words came through. Something about “hospital.” And something about “walk.” And then the contraction ended.

  “I’m all right now,” Delia said. “I can walk.” She tried to stand, with her clothes dripping around her. As soon as she did, another contraction hit. She dropped back down on the bench as though her legs had been lopped from under her.

  When Delia came around again, Lani’s face was once more in front of hers. “…car…” she was saying urgently. Then, with Lani Walker at one elbow and Christine at the other, Delia felt herself being lifted off the bench and propelled out of the feast house. Just outside the door sat Diana Ladd’s huge convertible with the top down and the engine running. Kath was behind the wheel. She got out to help Lani lever Delia through the passenger-side back door and into the backseat. Delia was lying flat when the next spasm hit.

  She saw the worried look on Lani’s face and heard her say “…not make it…” Then she heard nothing more. When the contraction overcame her, Delia no longer cared if she was standing up or lying down.

  When she came to herself again, the space above her was filled with stars. Somehow she was moving through or maybe under them. I must be dead, she thought. The baby and I are on our way to heaven. But then Lani’s face obliterated the stars. This time she held a long, pencil-thin flashlight between her teeth. Her long hair whipped around her face. That was when Delia finally understood that she was in the backseat of an open convertible. As they bounced along over a rough dirt road, she realized Lani was there in the backseat with her. Before Delia could make sense of any of that or say a single word, she was overwhelmed by another powerful spasm.

  I’m not dead, Delia told herself. I just wish I was.

  Kneeling between the Invicta’s front and back seats, Lani tried to keep her face in front of Delia’s. “Breathe,” she urged. “Pant like a dog. It’ll help you deal with the contractions.”

  If Delia had ever heard of Lamaze, none of it was accessible. The contractions were coming too hard and fast. By the time Kath slowed for the intersection with Highway 86, Lani knew they’d never make it to the hospital in Sells in time. “We’ll have to stop,” Lani called to Kath. “Soon!”

  Wanda had offered to let them use her pickup, but Lani had nixed that idea. Putting a woman in labor in the bed of a pickup seemed like a bad idea, but the backseat of Diana’s Invicta was only marginally better.

  “Should we put the top up?” Kath had asked once Delia was lying in the backseat.

  Lani shook her head. “No time,” she said. “Let’s go.”

  Now, as Kath put the Buick in park along the shoulder of the road, she asked, “Have you ever delivered a baby before?”

  “No,” Lani returned. “But it’s probably pretty self-explanatory.”

  Seconds after they parked, Wanda pulled her Dodge Ram pickup up beside them. She jockeyed it around until her headlights blazed in through the Buick’s back door, lighting the scene. In the brilliant glare of Wanda’s high beams, Lani saw the unmistakably wet and shiny glow of a baby’s emerging head.

  Steeling herself for the task, she reached out and grabbed the baby’s head, easing it forward. “Do you have anything sharp?” she asked. “We’re going to need to cut the cord, and we’ll need a string to tie it with.”

  “There’s a Leatherman in my purse,” Kath replied.

  “Bring it.”

  Moments later Lani Walker held a squalling, slippery infant in her arms. Wanda Ortiz was there, too, holding a handful of clean towels—extras she’d brought along just in case they needed them at the feast house. While Wanda wiped off the baby boy, Lani’s fumbling fingers tied the rubbery umbilical cord with a piece of hem snipped from one of Wanda’s towels. Then she cut it with Kath’s Leatherman. Lani had just finished that when Wanda handed the baby back to her. Quiet now, he lay in her arms wrapped in the soft folds of an immense flannel shirt.

  Lani looked down at him. In that moment she understood why Fat Crack and Nana Dahd had so patiently answered all her questions. It was so she—Lani—would have those same answers to pass along to someone else.

  Did you ever teach Baby or Leo the things you teach me?” she had asked Fat Crack once as he showed her how to collect and dry wiw—the wild tobacco used in the Peace Smoke.

  He shook his head. “No,” he said after a while. “They’re not interested.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe if I had been a medicine man the whole time they were growing up, it might have been different. By the time Looks at Nothing showed up and started teaching me, Baby and Leo were already too old and didn’t want to learn.”

  “Weren’t you too old then, too?”

  “That’s wh
at I thought,” Fat Crack chuckled. “But not according to Looks at Nothing. I guess he was right.”

  “What about me? Am I too old?”

  “No, Kulani O’oks,” Fat Crack said softly. “You’re just right. Aunt Rita knew the moment she saw you that you were special—that she could pass along whatever she knew to you for safekeeping. I’ve learned the same thing, but the gifts we’ve given you aren’t yours alone, Little One. They are treasures for you to know and keep and then pass along when you find someone who’s worthy.”

  Looking down at that tiny baby—his fists clenched, his eyes pinched shut against the glaring headlights—Lani Walker knew who this child was. Leo and Baby hadn’t been interested in learning the lore and traditions their father had wanted to teach his sons, but this child—this baby boy—would be, and Lani would be there to pass it along.

  “Is he all right?” Delia asked.

  In reply, Lani turned to her and smiled. “He’s perfect,” she said, handing the baby to his mother. “Beautiful and perfect. What are you going to name him?”

  “Gabriel Manuel,” Delia Ortiz said. “After his two grandfathers.”

  Lani heard a strange whirring sound. “Get out of the way,” Kath ordered. “I’m raising the top. We’ll need to turn up the heat long enough to take this mother and baby to the hospital, where they belong.”

  Time dragged by moment by moment as a worried Brandon Walker tried to concentrate on the pages of faxed material.

  Ralph Ames’s researchers had been incredibly thorough in finding out all there was to know about Lawrence Stryker and his wife as well. The material detailed their respective childhoods—Larry’s growing up in impoverished circumstances in L.A. to Gayle’s high-society, old-money background both in Tucson and on her father’s family ranch northeast of Marana. There were old articles detailing Lawrence’s fourth-place standing in his graduating class at Emory University Medical School and newer ones about him and Gayle being named Tucson’s Man and Woman of the Year. There were literally dozens of articles that told about the founding of Medicos for Mexico and about Larry’s and Gayle’s unstinting and heroic efforts to make life better for those less fortunate. There was even a copy of Bill Forsythe’s public disclosure forms—the same forms Brandon had seen years earlier—with their names front and center on the campaign donor list.

  With all that mound of material, it wasn’t until well after midnight that Brandon found the needle—the one thing he’d been looking for. It was there in the form of a tiny article culled from a congressional committee doing oversight on the BIA’s Indian Health Service. It spoke about the appallingly large number of poorly trained and /or unethical physicians who for years had been allowed to practice nonstandard medicine on Indian reservations all over the country. Only a few physicians were mentioned by name. Dr. Lawrence Stryker’s name was listed in a group of doctors who had been dismissed following allegations of sexual impropriety.

  There were no further details—no discussion of who had lodged the charges or when the events took place, but now Brandon Walker had a pretty clear suspicion of why Larry Stryker had left his position at Sells. Neither Emma Orozco nor Andrea Tashquinth had mentioned Larry Stryker’s name in that connection. They might have had their suspicions but very little reason to bring them up. Stryker was Mil-gahn; they were Indians. Based on past experience, they would have had no expectation that people in authority would listen. In fact, no one had been listening back then. But Brandon Walker was listening now. He was hearing them loud and clear.

  It was all strictly circumstantial. Still, Brandon was convinced Larry Stryker had molested Roseanne Orozco. When the girl turned up pregnant, Stryker got rid of her. What could be simpler than that? Blame it on Roseanne’s poor father. Blame it on anybody. Meanwhile the good doctor went off to live his exemplary do-gooder life. Supposing Brandon’s suspicions were correct, what the hell was he going to do about it?

  The DNA sample collection kit would arrive in Tucson tomorrow morning. Once the material had been collected and sent back to Washington State, Brandon had no idea how long it would take for Genelex to get results, or even if results were possible. What Brandon did know was that, if DNA testing yielded results, he would need something for a match.

  “I guess I’ll be going back to see Dr. Stryker first thing tomorrow morning, Damsel girl,” Brandon said, speaking to the dog, who had remained in the knee-well of his desk the entire time.

  Having once been spoken to, Damsel stood up and stretched. “Out?” Brandon asked. Obligingly, Damsel headed for the door.

  He had let the dog back in and had apprehensively checked the yard one last time when the phone rang. The sound of it electrified him. Late-night calls were usually bad news. Fighting a wave of panic, he leaped to answer. “Hello!”

  “Dad?” Lani asked.

  “Where are you?” he demanded, his voice fueled now by a rush of relief. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m at the hospital in Sells, and yes, I’m fine.”

  “Are you hurt? Is anyone else hurt?”

  “Nobody’s hurt,” Lani answered, “but there’s a slight problem.”

  “Don’t tell me! You wrecked your mother’s Buick!”

  “It’s not wrecked,” Lani corrected. “But there’s a problem. Delia’s water broke while we were still at Ban Thak. Kath and I tried to get her to the hospital in time, but we didn’t make it. Gabriel Ortiz was born in the backseat. The car will have to be cleaned. It’s a mess.”

  “What is it, Brandon?” Diana Ladd asked from behind her husband’s shoulder. “Is it Lani? Is she all right?”

  Brandon Walker suddenly felt like laughing out loud. “She’s fine,” he said, handing her the phone. “Perfectly fine, but you may want to talk to her. It sounds like our daughter has been practicing medicine without a license and playing midwife—in the backseat of your Invicta.”

  A phalanx of media people were ranged around the entrance of St. Mary’s Hospital when Brian arrived there. He had to shoulder his way through them in order to get inside. When he reached the ICU waiting room, PeeWee Segura was there.

  “How’s it look?” Brian asked.

  PeeWee shook his head. “Not good. From what I hear, the guy’s brain-dead. They’ll probably end up pulling the plug.”

  “Shit!” Brian muttered. “Why wasn’t he on a suicide watch?”

  “Not our job, Brian baby. Not our job.”

  Brian glanced around the room. There were several different groups of people, each of them huddled in its own private hell of shared misery. “Anybody else here for LaGrange?”

  “Nope. When it comes to next of kin, you and I are about it,” PeeWee said.

  “What about Gayle Stryker? If Erik and Gayle Stryker were as close as he claimed, why isn’t she here?”

  “Funny you should mention her,” PeeWee said. “She was on the news a little while ago.”

  “Doing what?” Brian asked.

  “Throwing poor old Erik to the wolves, saying how sorry she and Doc Stryker are that their employee could do such a terrible thing, blah, blah, blah, blah.”

  “In other words, she’s doing damage control to pull Medicos’ reputation out of the fire.”

  “You got it.”

  The door at the far end of the waiting room opened. A bull-necked man in a T-shirt, cutoffs, and sandals burst into the room. He spoke briefly to the clerk at the reception desk, who nodded toward Brian and PeeWee. Leaving her, he hurried over to the two detectives.

  “My name’s Ryan Doyle,” he said, holding out his hand. “Erik and I have been friends since grade school. Who are you?”

  PeeWee and Brian produced their respective IDs. When he realized who they were, Ryan Doyle’s whole body was transformed. His fists knotted. His muscled neck bulged. His face reddened with anger. “Jesus Christ!” he exclaimed furiously. “You must be the ones who arrested him!”

  “That’s right,” Brian said mildly. “We are.”

  “Well, you’re
dead wrong about Erik. Him hurt a little girl? Not ever. He wouldn’t do such a thing, never in a million years. I just heard about it tonight, on the news. We didn’t know anything about it—that he’d been arrested, nothing. Why the hell didn’t he call us? Brianna and I would have tried to help. We would have been there for him.”

  Suddenly, all the fight went out of the man. Ryan Doyle slumped heavily onto a nearby couch and buried his face in his hands.

  Brian sat down next to him. “I’m sorry, Mr. Doyle. I’m sure all this is a terrible shock to you…”

  Ryan raised his head and looked around the room. “And where’s she?” he demanded. “Where’s the bitch?”

  “Who?” Brian asked.

  “Gayle Stryker,” Ryan muttered bitterly. “Who do you think?”

  “You knew about Erik’s relationship with Mrs. Stryker?”

  “Relationship? Bullshit! The word relationship implies a two-way street, something that goes in both directions. Gayle was playing with him, using him, leading him along. Bree and I both tried to warn him about her. Bree said when Gayle was done with him, she’d drop him like a hot potato. Erik didn’t believe it. For the longest time—for years, even—he was convinced that someday, somehow, Gayle would leave her husband for him.”

  “Was convinced?” Brian put in. “You mean he wasn’t anymore?”

  Ryan sighed and shook his head. “I’m not sure. Bree and I just had a baby—a boy. Erik and I talked on the phone. He was congratulating me, saying how lucky I was to have a wife and baby. It’s not that he said anything specific, but I could tell it really got to him. I told him, ‘You know, Erik, you could have this, too,’ and he said, ‘I know. Maybe I will.’ ”

  “When was this?” Brian asked. “When did you have this conversation?”

  “I don’t know. A couple of weeks ago. Why?”

  Brian was thinking about what Erik had told them. He had claimed that he had done nothing, that someone was framing him for murder. Brian had heard similar stories for years from punks complaining they were being framed, but maybe this time it was true.