Queen of the Night

by J. A. Jance

  “Good,” Brian said. “We’ll all have to work together on this—the tribe, Pima County, and Border Patrol.”

  “All right.”

  “Donald Rios’s father gave us a positive ID on his son. Can you do the same for Delphina?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. That would be a big help.”

  “I’ll do that for you if you’ll do a favor for me.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Martin told me on the way here that you speak Tohono O’odham. Is that true?”

  “Yes.”

  “I suppose you know that I don’t.”

  Brian recalled something about that—something about Delia growing up far away from the reservation. “A little,” he said.

  “The people in Nolic are old-fashioned,” she said. “I’d like you to go there with me to translate, if necessary. I know my officers could do it, but it might be better . . .”

  Brian Fellows got it. Delphina Enos’s grieving relatives would be so traumatized by the news they probably wouldn’t remember if the information came to them in English or Tohono O’odham or a combination of both. But if officers from Law and Order were on the scene when the notification took place, they’d be more than slightly interested if their fearless leader was anything less than fluent in what should have been her own language.

  “Sure,” Brian said easily. “I’ll be glad to go along and help out.”

  That was how, two hours later, Detective Brian Fellows found himself sitting in a grim concrete-block house that belonged to Delphina’s parents, Louis and Carmen Escalante.

  The house had been built some forty years earlier under a briefly and never completely funded program called TWEP, the Tribal Work Experience Project, which had allowed for the building of the bare bones of any number of houses on the reservation. Some had been successfully completed and improved. This one had not. The yard outside was littered with junk, including several moribund vehicles—two rusty pickups and one broken-down Camaro.

  Brian fully expected to conduct the next-of-kin notification out in the yard, but Delia’s presence resulted in their being invited into the hot interior of the house. They walked up a makeshift wheelchair ramp into a sparsely furnished living room. The place was stifling. A decrepit swamp cooler sat perched in one window, but it wasn’t working. At least it wasn’t running.

  Brian and Delia were directed to a dilapidated couch. Louis, looking thunderous, sat nearby in his wheelchair. Carmen brought a chair in from the kitchen and seated herself on that while Detective Brian Fellows, speaking in Tohono O’odham, explained that their daughter had been killed in a gun battle south of Topawa.

  Louis and Carmen took the terrible news with what Brian thought to be remarkable restraint. Louis listened in silence and nodded.

  “What about Angie?” Carmen asked softly. “Is she all right?”

  “She’s in the hospital at Sells,” Delia Ortiz said, breaking into the conversation in English. “She’s not seriously injured. She’s got some cuts and scratches. As I understand it, the hospital is keeping her there mostly for observation. You can go pick her up in the morning.”

  Carmen nodded in agreement. Her husband was the one who spoke out.

  “No!” Louis said forcefully.

  Carmen gaped at her husband while Brian, unsure of what was going on, glanced back and forth between them.

  “You don’t mean that,” Carmen said. “Angie’s just a baby.”

  “I told Delphina not to get mixed up with that boy,” Louis growled. “She did it anyway. Let Joaquin look after her.”

  “But he doesn’t even know Angie,” Carmen objected. “Joaquin’s never come around, not once. I heard that he was in jail somewhere.”

  Louis shrugged. “Let his parents do it, then. Angie can be their problem, not ours.”

  Without another word, Carmen Escalante rose from where she sat, picked up her chair, and disappeared with it into the kitchen. Brian glanced at Delia Ortiz. What he read in her face was absolute contempt for both these people, the husband and the wife. No wonder the tribal chairman had found Delphina Escalante Enos a job to do and a place to live far away from this vindictive excuse for a father and a spineless mother.

  “I’m sorry to have to ask you this kind of thing,” Brian said. “If you’d rather I came back later . . .”

  “Ask,” Louis Escalante growled. “What do you want to know?”

  “Was your daughter involved in drugs of any kind?”

  “I don’t think so,” Louis said. “But you should talk to that man of hers. I’ve heard that about Joaquin Enos. He does all kinds of bad things. His daughter will probably grow up to do the same. Someone else will have to look after her, if they’re brave enough.”

  “What do you mean, brave enough?” Brian asked.

  Louis shrugged. “She’s alive,” he said, as if that was all that mattered. “If everyone else is dead, why is she still alive?”

  “Because the killer didn’t see her,” Brian said.

  “Yes,” Louis said, “Kok’oi Chehia.”

  “Ghost Girl?” Brian asked.

  Louis seemed startled that Brian understood what he had said. He shrugged and looked away.

  When the interview was over, Brian drove Delia back to her home in Sells. He knew that at one time she and Leo had lived in the house Delia had inherited from her aunt Julia in Little Tucson, but sometime in the recent past they had moved back into the Ortiz family compound behind the gas station.

  Delia directed him to the proper mobile home. Brian pulled up next to it. Rather than getting right out of the vehicle, Delia sat for some time with her hand resting on the door handle.

  “Now you know why I gave Delia a job,” she said at last. “She and the baby needed to move out of there.”

  Brian nodded. “Yes, I can see that,” he said. “But I’m surprised that the Escalantes won’t take in that poor little girl. She’s their granddaughter, for Pete’s sake. That doesn’t make any sense to me. What happened to her mother isn’t her fault.”

  “No, but that’s how the Escalantes work,” Delia added. “Louis was talking about how bad Joaquin Enos is, but they’re not nice people, either.”

  Brian knew enough to say nothing more. Instead, he waited for Delia to finish. “Louis is Lani Walker’s uncle,” she said finally. “Her blood uncle.”

  Brian Fellows, who knew a lot about Lani Walker’s history, was taken aback. “Are you saying this is the same family, the people who wouldn’t take Lani back after she was bitten by all the ants?”

  Delia nodded. “The same family,” she said. “They wouldn’t take Lani back because they thought she was dangerous.”

  “And now they’re claiming Ghost Girl is dangerous, too,” Brian muttered. “What will happen to her?”

  “We’ll check to see what the father’s family has to say,” Delia told him. “If they don’t want her, either, then I guess CPS will have to step in and decide what to do with her.”

  “Angelina Enos is a possible witness to her mother’s murder,” Brian said after a pause. “The only reason she’s alive right now is that the killer doesn’t know she exists. If you place that little girl in state custody, you’ll leave a bureaucratic trail behind her—a paper trail that can be followed or a computer trail that can be hacked. People who want that kind of information know it’s there to be had for a price.

  “Whoever killed those four people at Komelik tonight did so in cold blood and without a moment’s hesitation. That means they won’t think twice about coming back to take out an eyewitness, either, even a four-year-old eyewitness, and they’ll do whatever it takes to find her.”

  “You think so?” Delia asked.

  “Absolutely,” Brian said.

  Delia thought about that for a while. Finally she sighed. “All right then, Detective Fellows,” she said. “I’ll see what I can do, and I appreciate your help.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “And I hope you catch
whoever did this,” she said. “The People need you to catch him.”

  Brian Fellows nodded. “Yes,” he said, “I understand.”

  And he did.

  Ten

  San Diego, California

  Saturday, June 6, 2009, 10:00 p.m.

  58º Fahrenheit

  Once Corrine Lapin had placed the 911 call, she felt as though she had done everything she could do. She watched TV for a while, but then she went to bed, leaving her cell phone on the bedside table next to her just in case someone did call her back. Sometime after one in the morning, when she was deep in sleep, the musical ring tone roused her.

  “Ms. Lapin, please,” an officious woman’s voice said.

  “This is she,” Corrine answered. “Who is this? Are you calling about my sister?”

  There was a momentary pause before the woman replied. “Yes, I am. My name is Detective Mumford,” she said. “Detective Alexandra Mumford with the Thousand Oaks PD. I’m afraid I have some very bad news.”

  Corrine’s heart began to hammer wildly in her chest. “Don’t tell me something’s happened to them!” she breathed.

  “After your 911 call was forwarded to our department, we dispatched a patrol car to do a welfare check,” Detective Mumford continued. “No one came to the door, but when officers went around to the side of the house, they were able to see what appeared to be signs of foul play.”

  “Foul play,” Corrine echoed. “Are you saying . . . ?”

  “I’m afraid the people we found inside the residence are all deceased, Ms. Lapin.” Alex Mumford’s voice was sympathetic but firm. “They have been for several days.”

  “Deceased?” It was only by repeating the words that Corrine was able to make sense of what was being said. “You’re telling me they’re dead? That can’t be true. All of them—all four of them?”

  “So far we’ve located only three victims,” Detective Mumford said. “Four if you count the dog. An adult female and two children, a boy and a girl, and a dog.”

  That was astounding. The people were all dead, and Major, too? He was Esther’s beloved beagle. Until Esther had real kids, Major had been like a child to her. She loved that dog to distraction, and he loved her. Naturally Jonathan had despised the dog.

  Thinking those thoughts, Corrine started to cry, but then she realized Detective Mumford was still speaking to her, asking a question. “. . . where he might be?”

  “Where who might be?” Corrine asked raggedly, pulling herself together.

  “Mr. Southard,” Detective Mumford said. “Your brother-in-law. It’s possible that he’s a victim of foul play, too, but . . .”

  Corrine stopped crying, her tears transformed into a flood of fury and anger. “He did this, didn’t he!” she declared.

  She threw off the sheet, scrambled out of bed, and groped for the light switch. She punched the speakerphone button so she could still hear the detective’s voice as she began pulling on clothes.

  “That no-good son of a bitch did this to them! He killed them all and left them to rot. How did they die?”

  “There’s evidence of gunshot wounds. A single wound to the head of each of the human victims. The dog was shot twice. He was found next to the adult female. There was blood on his muzzle. My guess is the dog was trying to protect her, and he may even have succeeded in biting the assailant before he was killed. We’ll be running tests on him as well, hoping to find DNA evidence that will help identify the assailant.”

  Corrine’s hands shook as she pulled a T-shirt on over her head—a Disneyland T-shirt. She had bought matching shirts for all of them when she and Esther had taken the kids there for spring break. But that was another time and place, forever banished to the past. She was no longer crying. She would not cry. She wouldn’t give Jonathan Southard the satisfaction.

  “We’ll need some information from you,” Detective Mumford said. “And if you can handle it, a positive ID would also be helpful. That’s going to be tough, though. As I said, they’ve been dead for a while. So there’s some decomposition.”

  Corrine threw her purse strap over her shoulder and grabbed the car keys off the counter.

  “How long have they been dead?” she said. Her voice cracked as she asked the question.

  “The M.E. will have to make a final determination on time of death,” the detective said. “I’d say they’d been there for a day or two, maybe even several. The air-conditioning is turned up to the max, so it’s hard to tell.”

  The idea that Esther and Timmy and Suzy had been lying there dead for days was utterly unthinkable! Yes, there had been problems in the marriage. With an arrogant jerk like Jonathan Southard, that was a given. And yes, Esther had talked to Corrine about divorcing him. That was something she and Esther had discussed in the hotel room at Disneyland late at night when the kids were safely asleep. What kind of animal would kill his family instead of giving his wife a divorce?

  No, Corrine thought, correcting herself. Jonathan Southard isn’t good enough to be called an animal. That was unfair to Major.

  “I’m on my way,” Corrine said. “I’m driving up from San Diego. I don’t know how long it will take at this time of night.”

  “Excuse me, Ms. Lapin, but under the circumstances, are you certain you should make that trip by yourself?” Detective Mumford asked. “It might be a good idea to have someone else come along to do the driving.”

  “No,” Corrine said. “It’s the middle of the night. I’m not going to wake up someone else. I’ll be fine.”

  And Corrine Lapin was fine—fine but furious. As she drove, she thought about calling their parents. They were on a Baltic cruise right then. She could probably reach them on a ship-to- shore call, but she couldn’t remember how many hours ahead they were. Besides, she didn’t want to throw them into turmoil until she knew for sure, until there had been a positive identification. There would be time enough then to call them then to deliver the devastating news.

  Corrine drove like a bat out of hell in almost zero traffic and with no enforcement. She arrived at Esther’s house at five o’clock in the morning to find a collection of police vehicles and medical examiner vans still blocking the street. The porch light was on, and lights shone in every window.

  Corrine bounded out of her car and started forward at a run as two attendants wheeled a loaded gurney—a gurney with an adult-size body bag—down the sidewalk toward a waiting van. Half a block from the house a uniformed police officer barred the way.

  “I’m sorry, ma’am,” he said, holding up his hand. “You can’t come any closer. Police business.”

  “I’ve got to get through,” she said frantically. “That’s my sister’s house. Call Detective Mumford. She knows I’m coming. I’m here to do the ID.”

  The cop spoke into a police radio as another attendant carrying a small wrapped bundle emerged from the house. Moments later a woman walked out the front door and strode purposefully across the front yard.

  “Ms. Lapin?”

  Corrine nodded.

  “We should probably wait until the bodies have been taken back to the morgue.”

  “No. I need to do it now so I can contact my parents. They’re on a cruise. I need to know for sure before I try calling them.”

  Detective Mumford shook her head. “All right. Wait here.”

  Corrine waited. The detective walked over to the van. The attendants had loaded the gurney into the van and closed the door. After conferring with them for a few moments, Mumford returned.

  “All right,” she said. “But you need to be prepared. This won’t be easy.”

  “I’ll be okay,” Corrine insisted.

  But she wasn’t okay. The gurney was removed from the van. As soon as the attendant zipped open the body bag, a cloud of putrid air exploded into the night. Covering her mouth and nose, Corrine approached the gurney. The face she saw was swollen and rotting, but she knew it was Esther’s. There was no doubt about that.

  Nodding hopelessly, Corrine turne
d away and then was desperately sick, heaving into the expanse of front-yard grass Esther had planted and loved so much. While her back was turned, she heard rather than saw the bag be zippered shut. Moments after that, the door to the van closed as well. The engine started.

  As the van lumbered down the street, Detective Mumford returned. She placed a comforting hand on Corrine’s shoulder. With the other hand she gave the woman a bottle of water.

  “Thank you,” she said. “I know how difficult that was. We’ll need to ID the children, too, but we’ll do that later. ”

  Corrine nodded and said nothing.

  “The whole house is considered a crime scene, so you can’t stay here,” the detective continued. “We’ll have people here processing the scene for the rest of the night and on into the morning. You should probably get some rest. My niece Kimberly works nights at the Westlake Village Inn. Do you know where that is?”

  Corrine nodded numbly.

  “Go there,” Detective Mumford said. “I called Kim and told her you might be coming. She has a room reserved in your name, and she’ll give you a good deal on it. Tomorrow morning, or rather, later on this morning, one of our investigators will come by to interview you and to do the remaining IDs. It may be me or it may be someone else, but right now, you need to take care of yourself.”

  “I’ll have to let my parents know how soon we can plan on scheduling a funeral.”

  “The timing of all that will be up to the M.E.’s office,” Detective Mumford said. “They’ll have to perform the autopsies. That takes time. In the meantime we need to concentrate our efforts on locating Mr. Southard. Does he have relatives in the area, someone to whom he could go for assistance?”

  Corrine shook her head. “Not that I know of. His parents are divorced and remarried. His mother lives somewhere in Arizona,” Corrine said. “From what Esther told me, he hates her guts. I don’t think he’d go to her for help even if he was dying.”

  “And his father?”

  “His name is Hank,” Corrine said. “Hank Southard. He lives in Ohio somewhere. I met him once, at the wedding, but that’s all I know about him.”