Day of the Dead - J. A. Jance [72]
“When do I get to talk to an attorney?” Erik asked as the barred door locked behind him.
“Beats me,” the guard replied. “I only work here, but it’s Saturday night. If I was you, I wouldn’t look for it to happen anytime before Monday morning.
Diana greeted Brandon at the front door with Damsel at her side. “I’m glad you’re home,” she said. “Are you all right?”
“I’m okay,” he said, but it wasn’t a convincing response.
“Dinner’s almost ready,” she said. “Are you going to want to eat or would you like a drink first? We could probably both use one of those.”
Brandon nodded gratefully. “A beer would be great.”
Diana headed for the refrigerator. Just then Damsel made a lunge for Fat Crack’s medicine pouch and managed to snag it out of Brandon’s hand. He rescued the pouch from the dog’s mouth and laid it down on the kitchen counter as Diana returned with the beer.
“What’s that?” Diana asked, scowling at the worn buckskin packet with its frayed fringe.
It surprised Brandon to think that in all the years he and Diana had been friends with Fat Crack and Wanda Ortiz, the medicine man had never once shown Diana his treasured pouch—the one that had come to him from Looks at Nothing. Now it belonged to their daughter, Lani.
“Fat Crack’s huashomi,” Brandon replied huskily. “He gave it to me this afternoon and told me it’s for…” He paused and swallowed before continuing. “It’s for Lani.”
A glance at Brandon’s bleak face told Diana how much he was hurting. She reached out and laid a comforting hand on her husband’s forearm. “He must have known he was going,” she said quietly. “I’m so sorry, Brandon, but there was nothing you could have done to change that, and nothing Lani could have done, either.”
Brandon nodded, and then leaned over to hug her close. “I know,” he said. “But it hurts like hell to lose an old friend,” he said. “It really makes you feel your age.”
Much later, when Diana and Brandon finally sat down to dinner, Brandon barely touched his food while Diana brought him up-to-date on the series of phone calls that had come in as the Ortiz family organized their resources and began planning the funeral.
“I’m so glad you took the tamales and tortillas back to Wanda,” she said. “She’s expecting a huge crowd at the feast house on Monday. She’ll need them far more than we do. By the way, I canceled dinner with the kids for tomorrow. There’s no way of knowing when you and David will finish up at the cemetery. Brian may even show up to help out at Ban Thak. I’ll be at Wanda’s helping with the cooking.”
For the first time all evening, Brandon summoned the ghost of a smile. “Don’t tell me you’re going to try your hand at making tortillas? Heaven forbid!”
Grateful Brandon’s mood had lifted enough so he could tease her, Diana teased right back. “Go ahead,” she said. “Make fun of my tortilla-making abilities if you want. My tortillas may be ugly, but I’m great at washing pots and pans. Something tells me there’ll be plenty of those.”
It was almost ten o’clock when Brian Fellows dragged his weary butt home to the small house in Tucson’s central area he and Kath had purchased for a song and then brought back from ruin with long hours of sweat equity. He found Kath asleep on the couch with an open library book facedown across her chest. When the hardwood floor creaked under his weight, she sat up briefly but then fell back onto the couch.
“Oh,” she said. “It’s you. What time is it?”
“Late. Once we booked the guy, I went back to the scene and hung out with the CSIs.”
“You booked somebody? You mean you already caught the guy?”
Nodding, Brian collapsed into his leather. “Looks that way,” he said. “But still…”
“Still what?”
“I don’t have a good feeling about it.”
Kath put down her book, got up, walked across the room to give Brian a peck on the cheek. “How come? And do you want something to eat?”
He nodded. “Now that you mention it, lunch was a very long time ago.”
“Good. I made some chili colorado.” Brian