Day of the Dead - J. A. Jance [125]
“Why so late? Car trouble?”
Kath laughed. “Hardly. Before we left Ban Thak, one of Fat Crack’s daughters-in-law went into labor. We tried to get Delia to the hospital in Sells, but she ended up having her baby in Diana’s car.”
“What’d she have?”
“A little boy. He’s fine; so is she. We took them to Sells and checked them into the hospital after the fact. Delia told us they’re going to name the baby Gabriel after Fat Crack. And the middle name…Oh, I don’t remember it right now. I must be too tired. The second name comes from Delia’s family—from her father, I believe, the boy’s other grandfather.”
“Manny, by any chance?” Brian asked.
“Right. Manuel, but how come you know that?”
“You should, too,” Brian said. “Delia’s father, Manny Chavez, is the guy you found that time out on the reservation. The one Quentin whacked over the head with a shovel.”
Kath’s jaw dropped. “That guy was Delia’s father?”
Brian nodded.
“I didn’t know that, or if I did, I’d forgotten,” Kath said. “But then I’m a latecomer to the game. You’ve known these people all your life.”
“That may be true,” Brian said, giving his wife a hug. “Luckily for them, though, you’re the one who’s always around in a pinch.”
“I didn’t do anything,” Kath said. “All I did was drive. Lani did everything else.”
“Lani?” Brian asked in surprise. “Are you saying she knows how to deliver a baby?”
“She does now,” Kath said. “And so do I.”
By ten o’clock the next morning, Brandon Walker’s Suburban was parked outside the Medicos for Mexico office on East Broadway. He knew what he wanted, but he wasn’t quite sure how to go about getting it.
Brandon was groggy from lack of sleep. He had evidently strained his arm the other day when they were working on Fat Crack’s grave. The pain had kept him awake overnight, and it was bothering him still.
Out of practice as far as being in stake-out mode, Brandon relieved his boredom by walking across the street to the Circle K for a cup of coffee and to pick up a vending-machine newspaper. Much of the front page was occupied by an article about the homicide suspect who had attempted suicide in his Pima County Jail cell the night before. A small inset article toward the bottom showed a photo of two people Brandon recognized, Dr. Lawrence and Gayle Stryker, beaming out of the paper—Larry in a tux and Gayle in a body-skimming little black dress.
Settling back into the Suburban, Brandon scanned through the article, learning in the process that the prisoner was the man arrested on suspicion of murdering the teenager whose dismembered body had been found near Vail on Saturday. That meant this was Brian’s case, Brandon surmised, and the suspect had been a long-term employee of Medicos for Mexico, the locally based charity founded by Dr. Lawrence and Gayle Stryker.
The Strykers. Recognition surged through Brandon like an electric shock. The Strykers’ proximity to those two separate but similar cases—murdered and dismembered girls found thirty-two years apart—was too close to be considered a harmless coincidence.
Brandon was reaching for his phone to call Brian when it rang. “Good morning,” Ralph Ames said. “How’s it going?”
“I’m on the trail of Larry Stryker’s DNA,” Brandon said.
“How do you propose to do that?” Ralph asked.
“It’s not illegal, but it’s better that you don’t know,” Brandon said with a halfhearted chuckle.
“Don’t ask /don’t tell?” Ralph asked.
“Something like that. Now what’s the deal with getting me some backup?”
“I was thinking about calling the Pima County Sheriff’s Department,” Ralph Ames said. “But then I was going through my copy of the paperwork Research sent you. I saw that the Strykers were some of your opponent’s big-time campaign donors. I decided against it.”
“I could have told you that,” Brandon said.
“But I did talk to Geet Farrell,” Ralph Ames added. “He’s tied up until midafternoon, but he’ll be there this evening. He’ll call as soon as he gets to town. Is that all right?”
While Brandon watched, a pearlescent white Lexus, covered in a layer of dust, pulled into the back parking lot and stopped