Queen of the Night

by J. A. Jance

  “Don’t expect me to tell you all my secrets,” he said. “I may want to surprise you again sometime.”

  Smiling, she leaned back in the seat and closed her eyes. The nap they had both missed this afternoon was starting to catch up with her. Truth be told, it was catching up with Jack as well, but he hummed a few bars of their special song, “Solamente Una Vez,” to keep himself awake.

  Everyone else knew the song as something schmaltzy about the Thousand Guitars, but a young dark-eyed singer with a local mariachi band had translated it for them that night after they had stood before the justice of the peace: “Only once in a lifetime does the light of love fall across your garden path.”

  And tonight the garden is the desert, Jack Tennant thought. And the light of love will be a full moon.

  So while Abby slept, Jack drove. She snored a little, but he was far too much of a gentleman to tell her that.

  It’s one of our little secrets, he thought to himself. He was incredibly grateful that, at their supposedly advanced ages, there was still enough room in their lives to have secrets. And fun. For a moment, and it was only a moment, Jack felt a fleeting bit of wistfulness for poor Irene, because she hadn’t lived long enough to find that out. Even if she had lived long enough, he suspected Irene never would have figured out the fun part.

  That was another place where Abby had Irene beaten six ways to Sunday.

  Tucson, Arizona

  Saturday, June 6, 2009, 6:00 p.m.

  81º Fahrenheit

  Jonathan was working his way through his second take-out burger when Jack Tennant backed his Lexus out of the garage. Then, with him holding the passenger door open, a woman came out through the garage and let him take her hand as she got into the car.

  Just seeing her made Jonathan’s heart leap to his throat. The last time he had spoken to his mother in person had been the afternoon he graduated from Wheaton. Both his parents had been there. It was the last time Jonathan had seen them together. He had known even then that his father had a side dish, but with a nag for a wife, who could blame him?

  He had been standing there having his picture taken with Esther when his mother came up to him, smiling. “I’m so proud of you,” she had said. “I thought this day would never come.”

  Of course you didn’t, Jonathan had told himself. Because you always thought I was dumb.

  “Do your homework. Study harder. Don’t hang out with those loser friends of yours. Listen to decent music instead of that punk rock. Don’t drink. Don’t do this. Don’t do that.” When he was little, Jonathan had thought he had the best mother in the world. By junior high, that had changed. By high school they were in an undeclared war. By college the hot war became a cold one.

  “Well, it did,” he had said to her then. “No thanks to you.”

  With that, Jonathan had walked away from his mother and stayed away. Permanently, until now. It turned out that absence hadn’t made the heart grow fonder. If anything, his opinion of her had deteriorated. Over the years, she became the root cause of everything that went wrong with his life.

  When Jonathan’s marriage began to come apart at the seams, it was because Esther was just like his mother. Jonathan’s father had told him that Abby was a spendthrift, and Jonathan believed it. His mother had spent Hank’s money; Esther had spent Jonathan’s. And every criticism Esther had leveled at him seemed to be an echo of his mother’s words and voice. He knew that his father was living a hellish existence with his relatively new wife and dipshit daughter, Jonathan’s half sister.

  But here was Abby living a seemingly carefree existence with this new husband. She had made a couple of halfhearted e-mail attempts at reconciliation over the years, but Jonathan hadn’t been interested. He didn’t need a mother in his life any more than he needed a wife. One was gone and the other would be soon.

  As he pulled into traffic a few vehicles behind the Lexus, it struck him that he had felt precious little remorse about what he had done so far. No, make that no remorse. He was relieved. Isn’t that what they always said during trials, that the killer showed no remorse? He wouldn’t, either.

  In the hours after the murders in Thousand Oaks and before he drove away from the house just prior to sunrise, he had used Esther’s phone to buy himself some time. He had sent out a series of text messages to people in her address book—even to the boyfriend he wasn’t supposed to know about—letting them know that she and Jonathan were taking the kids to Yosemite for a couple of days. Once the bodies were found in Thousand Oaks, once it made the news, maybe he’d feel something, but by then he expected to be somewhere south of the border, sipping margaritas and living off the funds he had already transferred to an account in the Cayman Islands. That was the thing about continuing education. In teaching bankers how to counter illegal money transfers, the instructors had inadvertently taught them how to do it as well.

  So the money that he didn’t have with him would be there waiting for him wherever he ended up. In the meantime, he knew that he had spared his own children the pain of knowing that one or the other of their parents had rejected them. He knew that feeling all too well. Yes, he had turned away from Abby, but only after she had already abandoned him.

  He had taken care of Esther. Tonight he would even the score for his mother’s betrayal as well. Once he had fixed that, he would be able to move on into his new life, whatever and wherever that might be. His old life was over. Jonathan Southard had finally gotten a little of his own power back—power both his mother and his wife had leached out of him.

  Once again he was careful to stay in the background. He expected they’d be going back to the reservation, so he was a little surprised when they set off in an entirely different direction. Eventually Jack turned off the freeway, first onto Cortaro Road and finally onto Sandario. When that happened, Jonathan knew he had been right all along about where they were headed. He could afford to relax. He would get there when he got there.

  Jack and Abby Tennant could start their little party without him, but he was the one who would finish it.

  South of Sells, Arizona

  Saturday, June 6, 2009, 8:10 p.m.

  78º Fahrenheit

  Dan was glad to be driving south toward the border. Coming from Tucson, he had been driving into the setting sun. This was much better.

  This would be his second full summer with the Shadow Wolves. Brainwashed by what’s on television, most people probably expected that every shift had at least one high-speed chase and maybe a running gun battle or two. That had been Dan’s preconceived notion as well, but Aaron Meecham had disabused him of that notion at his first official Shadow Wolves briefing.

  “Okay, guys,” Aaron had said. “Meet Dan Pardee, a San Carlos Apache who comes to us via Iraq and the U.S. Army.” There were a dozen uniformed men assembled in the briefing room that morning. Most of them nodded in welcome and three gave Dan a discreet thumbs-up. In other words, several guys there had the same kind of military credentials Dan did. That meant that, in a tight spot, whoever had his back would be someone he could count on.

  The guy sitting directly in front of Dan, a Paiute from Nevada named Russell Muñoz, turned back to Dan. “Welcome to the most dangerous cop job on the planet,” he said. “Got my passenger window shot out just last night, thanks to some jerk-face federale from across the border who decided to use my SUV for target practice. And all we get to carry around with us is a lightweight piece-of-crap Beretta.”

  Dan had to agree with that. Packing a new government-issue Beretta 96D didn’t inspire a whole lot of confidence on Dan’s part. If he was going to be involved in a shooting war, he would have preferred the comforting presence of his old M16.

  “And you did not return fire, correct, Mr. Muñoz?” Meecham asked.

  “I did not,” Muñoz replied grudgingly. “If you ask me, it’s about time somebody rescinded that standing order. If those bastards shoot at us, we should be able to shoot back. Why do we have to do this job with both hands tied beh
ind our backs?”

  “That order stands, Muñoz, and don’t you forget it,” Meecham told him. “I don’t want you creating an international incident with that little Beretta of yours. If you were to return fire, all hell would break loose around here, and the full wrath of the gods of DC would rain down on all our heads.”

  Meecham paused and looked around the room. “Let’s see a show of hands. How many of you think guns are the biggest problem you have when you’re out on patrol?”

  Russell’s hand shot in the air. No one else’s did.

  “Since its inception, this unit has had only one fatality, Mr. Pardee,” Meecham explained, speaking directly to Dan. “Mitchell Davis was a Rosebud Sioux, and he was wearing his Kevlar vest when he died. If he’d taken a bullet to the chest, he probably would have been fine. He had stopped a group of illegals. What killed him was the one-pound rock one of them picked up and used to bash in his skull.

  “Guns are expensive,” Meecham continued. “Ammunition is expensive. Rocks are free, and they’re everywhere. Fortunately for us, most of the federales aren’t well trained, and they can’t hit the broad side of a barn. That window they shot out last night was pure luck—good luck for them and bad luck for you, Mr. Muñoz. What makes you think it was a federale?”

  “I saw it,” Muñoz grumbled. “I heard it.”

  “Was it dark when this happened?”

  “Yes, it was dark,” Muñoz replied. “Of course it was dark. I’m working nights now, remember?” Russell Muñoz was beginning to sound aggrieved, as though he thought Meecham was picking on him.

  “Exactly,” Meecham said with a smile. “And after that flash, you were blind as a bat for a couple of seconds. If someone had rushed you right then, you wouldn’t have seen them coming. Rocks don’t have a flash, but they don’t make any noise, either. They’re the ultimate stealth weapon—silent and deadly. In other words, Mr. Pardee, watch out for rocks and for people throwing them.”

  Dan nodded. “Got it,” he said.

  The meeting had broken up shortly after that. As soon as Meecham left the room, Russell Muñoz turned back to Dan. “Beretta, my aching ass,” he said. “One of these nights I’m going to bring my AK-47 along for the ride and give those dickheads a taste of their own medicine.”

  “With your dashboard camera recording the whole thing for posterity.” That was from Kevin Ramon. He hailed from San Xavier District near Tucson and was the only full-blooded Tohono O’odham member of the unit. He was also one of the guys who had given Dan the old thumbs-up.

  “Already thought of that,” Russell told them. “I’m fixing up a Kleenex box that I’ll be able to drop over the camera as needed. What Meecham can’t see and doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”

  Kevin raised a disparaging eyebrow. “If you say so,” he said.

  With that, Russell Muñoz had stormed from the room. Dan had been taken aback by the whole exchange. You could maybe disagree with your superior officers, but doing so in public was out of bounds.

  “I’ll bet he doesn’t even own an AK-47,” Kevin said. “And if he ever tried to fire one, he’d probably shoot himself in the foot.”

  This was probably not the best time for Dan to mention to one of his fellow Shadow Wolves that he himself really did have such a weapon.

  It was the same AK-47 that he and Bozo had earned that day in Iraq. While Dan and his dog were taken away to be stitched up and bandaged, some of the other guys in the convoy had taken charge of the kid’s dropped weapon. They had carefully dismantled it and sent it home, one piece at a time, with directions inside to each of their loved ones that they should forward all pieces on to Micah Duarte in Fort Thomas, Arizona.

  By the time Dan’s deployment ended and he was back home, he had been amazed to discover that his grandfather Micah had reassembled the weapon from all those separate pieces. The gun was back together—cleaned, ready and waiting, and it was stored under lock and key at Dan’s house in Tucson.

  “That’s not to say we never have shoot-outs,” Kevin continued. “The mules who drive drugs for the cartels are usually armed to the teeth. They shoot first and ask questions later, but if that happens, don’t look to Russell to help you out. The federales may not be the best shots, but neither is Russell. Just wait’ll you see him on the target range,” Kevin added. “He’s pathetic.”

  “But I thought we were supposed to be the best of the best,” Dan argued. “Best shots, best trackers.”

  Kevin shook his head. “All that and ex-military, too, but as far as I know, the only uniform Russell ever wore was for Cub Scouts.”

  “How’d he get in, then?” Dan asked.

  “Pull,” Kevin returned. “His father’s a big mucky-muck in the BIA. He pulled a few strings, and here we are stuck with Russell. Take my word for it, one of these days he’s going to screw up bad enough that someone’s gonna get killed. As for Meecham’s rock lecture? Don’t take it personally. Meecham made it sound like it was meant for you, but it wasn’t. He was mostly talking to Muñoz.”

  Several months later, after Dan had talked Bozo’s way into the unit, he had his own up-close and personal experience with one of those “stealth” rocks. Dan now sported a jagged scar on his left cheek where he had been nailed. Kevin said it gave him “character,” but Dan knew the damage would have been far worse if it hadn’t been for Bozo. The dog had barked a warning, letting Dan know someone was there. Dan had ducked for cover just in time. The rock had grazed him, but had it not been for Bozo’s timely intervention, Dan Pardee might have died on the spot, or he could have lived the rest of his life with only one eye rather than two.

  Each night Dan wasn’t paired with Russell Muñoz, he counted himself lucky. Russell’s academy-acquired skills didn’t measure up to the real ones Dan, Kevin, and the others had picked up in military firefights. In crisis situations, when split-second decisions were called for and when someone’s life was hanging in the balance, Dan didn’t think Russell would be able to hold up his end. The Paiute was all bluff and bluster and precious little action, and no one had yet to see any sign of Russell’s legendary AK-47.

  Bozo, on the other hand, was just the opposite. The dog didn’t spend any time bragging about what he would or wouldn’t do, or agonizing about it, either. He simply did it. When the guy hiding on the cliff above him was getting ready to heave that potentially lethal rock in Dan’s direction, Bozo didn’t stand around discussing the relative merits of an AK-47 over your run-of-the-mill Beretta. Nope, the dog simply stepped up and did what needed to be done.

  When they were on patrol, Bozo always rode shotgun in Dan Pardee’s front seat. Why wouldn’t he? The dog was his partner. He had earned the right to sit there.

  Komelik, Tohono O’odham Nation, Arizona

  Saturday, June 6, 2009, 7:46 p.m.

  78º Fahrenheit

  Jack had barely finished parking the car before Abby was out of it and ready to don the overalls and hiking boots he had brought along for her. “Where is it?” she asked. “Can I go look now?”

  “Nope. First things first.”

  Carrying the cooler in one hand and the hamper in the other, he led her over to the waiting picnic table. The candles he had placed on the table earlier, long white tapers, hadn’t fared well in the afternoon heat. They tilted at odd angles, but Jack could see that the fact that the little clearing had been suitably dressed for this evening’s event was making a big impression on his wife.

  “This is beautiful,” she said. “You really went all out, didn’t you?”

  “Wait until you see the best part,” he said, setting down the hamper and the cooler.

  “How far is it?” she asked.

  “Not that far. We’ll light the luminarias as we go.”

  And they did, walking side by side and lighting the candles along the path as well as the cluster Jack had placed around the base of the ancient ironwood tree. Sticks of hardy deer-horn cactus wound around the trunk and encircled the tree’s lower branches. Slender s
talks holding the massive blooms protruded from the cactus. A few of the white blossoms were beginning to open. In the deepening twilight, some of the flowers seemed to spring straight from the tree bark itself.

  “It’s glorious!” Abby exclaimed, clapping her hands. “Can you smell them?”

  Jack nodded. Even he couldn’t help but notice the flowery aroma, a perfume that was like a cross between plumeria and orange blossom, sweetening the hot desert air.

  “How many blossoms?” she asked.

  “I counted over a hundred on this one plant.”

  “That’s amazing,” Abby said. “I never knew the night-blooming cereus could grow this big. How in the world did you find it?”

  “It took time,” Jack admitted with a grin. “Let’s just say I didn’t play nearly as much golf this spring as you thought I did.”

  Abby poked him in the ribs. “You rascal,” she said.

  “Happy anniversary,” he said. He reached down and turned on a battery-powered camping lantern. “This will give us a little more light when we come back in the dark. Now what say we go back and have our picnic? By the time we finish with that, I’m guessing our very own Queen of the Night will be in full bloom.”

  Six

  South of Sells, Arizona

  Saturday, June 6, 2009, 10:00 p.m.

  71º Fahrenheit

  Considering the fact that it was a full moon, Dan’s sector seemed surprisingly quiet that night. With the summer rains still weeks away, daytime temperatures were nonetheless intense, especially for people out walking through the Sonora Desert’s barren wasteland. With no concrete or blacktop to hold the heat, once the sun went down, temperatures plummeted, sometimes as much as thirty degrees. That was when the walkers often set off on their long and treacherous marches north. They tended to walk at night when it was cool and hole up during the heat of the day.

  According to the memos sent down by the folks in Homeland Security, supposedly this was all about the war on terror, but in the year and a half Dan had been a Shadow Wolf, he had apprehended zero terrorists and literally hundreds of nonterrorists. The illegals spilled across the border day after day and night after night in a never-ending flood. They came to do backbreaking work in the fields or in the construction industry; in slaughterhouses and in restaurants.