Day of the Dead - J. A. Jance [18]
“Mr. Ortiz said you belonged to some kind of group that looks into old cases…into old murders.” She stumbled over the last word.
Other people might have been surprised to hear the word murder stick in Emma Orozco’s throat more than thirty years after the fact. Brandon Walker was not. He knew how events like that—like the death of a child—might disappear from public view after a few days of newspaper and television coverage. But for the parents of a dead child, the loss is permanent, indelible. It becomes the central issue of existence, not just for mothers and fathers, but for sisters and brothers as well; for husbands and wives and children. That sudden death is a watershed. From that moment on, life’s perspective shifts. Everything dates from either before or after. This was as true for Brandon as it was for Emma Orozco; for he, too, had lost a child.
“Yes,” he supplied in answer to Emma’s comment. “The organization Mr. Ortiz told you about is called The Last Chance, TLC for short. It’s a private organization that was started a few years ago by a Mil-gahn woman named Hedda Brinker from Scottsdale—a woman not unlike yourself whose daughter was murdered in Tempe in 1959.”
Emma’s dark eyes sought Brandon’s. “Did they ever find out who did it?” she asked.
“No,” Brandon replied. “That’s what Hedda Brinker was hoping might happen when she started TLC—that someone would finally solve her own child’s murder.” He shrugged. “Maybe someday we will,” he added. “But right now the stated purpose of TLC is to help other people.”
“People like me?” Emma asked.
Brandon nodded. “Yes,” he said. “People just like you.”
“How much does it cost?” Emma asked. “I have some money. I can pay…”
“It’s expensive,” Brandon answered. “But it costs you nothing. Hedda created a charitable organization that pays all the costs.”
Emma reached for her purse, an ugly boxy vinyl one with a broken strap and brittle, damaged corners. At first Brandon thought she was going to offer him money after all. Instead, she dug out a ball-point pen and a small spiral notebook—the same kind of notebook Brandon himself had carried during his days as a homicide detective. Emma flipped through the notebook to a blank page. She handed the notebook to Brandon, who rose from his chair to take it.
“Please,” Emma said softly. “Please write down this nice white lady’s name for me. Tomorrow when I go to Mass, I will say a rosary for her and light a candle.”
Brandon Walker smiled to himself. He had never met Hedda Brinker. She had died more than two years earlier of congestive heart failure, but he imagined it would have come as a surprise for that “nice white lady” who was also Jewish to know that she was being prayed for and having candles lit by an equally nice Tohono O’odham lady who was a practicing Catholic.
He handed the pen and notebook back to Emma. She carefully filed both of them away in her purse. She clicked it shut, then waited for some time without speaking, staring once more at the Man in the Maze. Again Brandon Walker was the one who broke the silence.
“Perhaps you should tell me about your daughter.”
Emma’s gnarled fingers tightened around the handle of her walker. “Henry and I had two daughters,” she said softly. “The older one, Andrea, we called Mithol-mad—Kitten. The younger one, Roseanne, the shy one, we called Tachchuithch…”
“Beloved,” Brandon supplied without needing Emma to translate.
For the first time Emma looked at the Mil-gahn man—really looked at him. He was tall and well-built. His graying hair was cut short. Compared to Tohono O’odham faces, his was sharp and