Day of the Dead - J. A. Jance [30]
Even so, there had been some unavoidable talk at school. Once migrant workers, Emma Orozco and her husband had moved to Sells from Ak-Chin—Arroyo Mouth—while their daughters were still young. Henry Orozco worked for the Bureau of Indian Affairs. His wife became an aide with the tribal Head Start program. Andrea and Roseanne Orozco attended Indian Oasis School. Since Diana taught at Topawa Elementary, the district’s other elementary school, she hadn’t known either one of the Orozco girls personally.
Still, some of the gossip had penetrated Diana’s emotional deflectors. “I seem to remember there was something wrong with Roseanne—that she was developmentally disabled or autistic. And something makes me think she was pregnant at the time of her death.”
Diana and Brandon had gone back inside the house. The afternoon was warm. They had retreated to the kitchen, where Brandon rummaged through the freezer and found two small steaks which he put in the microwave to thaw. With Lani gone, they had slipped into an easy rhythm of sharing the cooking duties and eating dinner early.
“Not autistic,” Brandon corrected. “According to her mother, one day when Roseanne Orozco was about five, she stopped talking—to anyone. Emma said they took her to the Indian Health Service doctors and even to a medicine man, but nothing helped. And you’re right, she was fifteen years old and pregnant at the time of her death.”
“Who was the father?” Diana asked. “Wouldn’t he be a natural suspect?”
“That’s the problem,” Brandon replied. “No one had any idea who the father was. As far as anyone knew, Roseanne didn’t have a boyfriend. Law and Order suspected incest.”
“You mean they suspected Henry Orozco of abusing his daughter?” Diana demanded. “I knew Henry. He seemed like a perfectly nice man. No way would he do such a thing.”
“That’s what Emma said as well. She said that when Law and Order broached the subject that Henry had done something bad with his daughter, he was really upset, and so was she. Ultimately, Law and Order couldn’t prove it one way or another. DNA testing didn’t exist back then. Paternity wasn’t nearly as easy to prove as it is now. Henry Orozco was a suspect in the case, and although he was never tried for it, he was never exonerated, either. When Law and Order allowed the investigation to go cold, Henry was more than happy to ignore it as well. Now, with Henry dead, Emma is willing to open it up again.”
“And you’re going to help?” Diana had asked.
“Absolutely,” Brandon had answered. “To the best of my ability.”
It took time to deal with the body. Gayle had learned the art of butchering meat at her father’s knee. Growing up on the family ranch north of Tucson, Gayle rather than her prissy, puking brother, Winston, had accompanied Calvin Madison to the slaughterhouse when it came time to butcher cattle. By the time Gayle was twelve, her father liked to brag to his pals that if he turned Gayle loose in the slaughterhouse, she could do the whole job herself.
And she could have, too—from beginning to end. Since the sight of blood made Winston sick, Gayle learned to love it. Sometimes, when her mother wasn’t around, she’d bathe her hands in the gory stuff. Then she’d track down her baby brother, wave her bloodied hands at him, and chase him into the house. Her parents caught her doing it once. Her mother had insisted that Calvin take the belt to her, but Gayle didn’t mind. Anything that tormented Winston was worth it.
But a serious butcher knife was what was needed to do the job properly, to cleave bone and flesh apart at the joints and sever them into manageable pieces for bundling and carrying. She was unaccustomed to using Erik’s machete. It seemed like a clumsy tool for the job, and it wasn’t nearly sharp enough.
Not only that, Gayle had to do the messy work in clothing far too big for her. Despite three pairs of socks, Erik’s Nikes threatened to fall off at every step. She had to cinch his belt up tight to keep his pants from falling down