Day of the Dead - J. A. Jance [11]
“You can’t take this personally,” Brandon had counseled his daughter. “Fat Crack has to deal with his illness in his own way, not your way.”
“But he’s going to die,” a suddenly tearful Lani had objected. “He’s going to die and leave us, and he doesn’t have to.”
“You’re wrong there, sweetie,” Brandon had told her. “We all have to die.”
Brandon refocused his attention on the present and on Emma Orozco, sitting stolid and still on the living room couch. At first Brandon thought she was still staring at the baskets, but then he realized she wasn’t. She was looking beyond them—through them—in a way that took him back to his days in ’Nam and to the thousand-yard stare.
“But Mr. Ortiz suggested you should see me,” Brandon suggested gently. “My wife said it was something concerning your daughter.”
Emma sighed and nodded. “She’s dead.”
Brandon gave himself points. He had recognized the look on her face, and the hurt, too. “I’m sorry,” Brandon said.
“It’s all right,” Emma returned. “Roseanne’s been dead for a long time.” She paused then, searching for words.
Years in law enforcement had taught Brandon Walker the difficult art of silence. There were times when it was appropriate to ask questions and probe for answers. But there were other times, like this one, when keeping silent was the only thing to do. Emptying a room of sound left behind a vacuum that could only be filled by a torrent of words. Or, as in this case, by a trickle.
“She was murdered,” Emma Orozco whispered hoarsely. “In 1970.”
Suddenly Brandon Walker knew exactly why Emma Orozco was sitting there and why Fat Crack had sent her. “Let me guess,” he offered quietly. “Her killer was never caught.”
Emma nodded again. Brandon could see that, more than thirty years after her daughter’s death, Emma Orozco still found the subject painful to discuss. As the old woman struggled to keep from shedding shameful tears in front of a relative stranger—something firmly frowned upon by her people—Brandon opted to give her privacy.
“I’ll get some iced tea,” he said, rising from the couch. “We’ll drink first, then we’ll talk.”
“Thank you,” Emma whispered. “Thank you very much.”
Three
While bustling around in the kitchen, gathering glasses and ice, pouring tea, Brandon Walker remembered every word of the unexpected phone call six months earlier that had rescued him from wallowing in a sea of despair and drowning in a pot of self-imposed pity. He had been cranky and bored, tired of being seen by the world as nothing but Mr. Diana Ladd, and disgusted with himself for not being grateful now that Diana’s burgeoning success had made their financial lives more secure than either one of them had ever dreamed possible.
Diana had been somewhere on the East Coast, off on another book tour. Alone with Damsel, Brandon was finishing his second cup of coffee and reading the Wall Street Journal in the shade of the patio when the call came in just after 8 A.M. The caller ID readout said “Private Call,” which probably meant it was some telephone solicitor, but on the off chance that it was Diana calling from a new hotel and a new room, Brandon answered it anyway.
“Hello.”
“Mr. Walker?” an unfamiliar male voice asked.
“Yes,” Brandon growled, adopting his most off-putting, crotchety voice. The last thing he wanted to do was have to convince some slimy salesman that, as owner of a house constructed primarily of river rock, he had no need of vinyl siding.
“My name is Ralph Ames,” the man said. “I hope it’s not too early to call.”
“That depends on what you’re selling,” Brandon grunted in return. He had no intention of making this easy.
“I’m not selling anything,” Ames returned.
Oh, yeah, Brandon thought. That’s what they all say.
“Does the name Geet Farrell ring a bell?” Ralph continued.
Detective G. T. Farrell had been a homicide detective for neighboring Pinal County at the same time Brandon Walker had been