Day of the Dead - J. A. Jance [85]
One of the mothers broke up the soccer game by summoning the children to come eat. Left at loose ends, Brandon considered his options for a moment and then made up his mind. He went back into the kitchen, where Diana was still wrapping tamales.
“I’ll be back in a while,” he told her. “I need to run an errand.”
“Where are you going?”
“To talk with Emma Orozco,” he said.
Brandon Walker remembered Fat Crack telling him once that, as part of a grant from Arizona State University in the early nineties, all existing health records from the Indian Health Services hospital in Sells had been fed into computers. The study had been intended to learn how Tohono O’odham longevity compared with that of other ethnic populations. It was also a way of assessing and keeping track of which diseases on the reservation accounted for which deaths. That study—with records from as far back as the fifties—along with money from tribal casino operations, was one of the reasons the hospital at Sells now had its own kidney dialysis center.
The study also meant that records of Roseanne Orozco’s appendectomy in July of 1970 should be only a few keystrokes away. But having the records available and being able to access them were two different things. Brandon knew that if he went to the hospital and asked, his request would be met with polite but implacable resistance. Whoever was in charge would take one look at his Mil-gahn face, smile respectfully, and tell him nothing like that existed. He hoped Emma Orozco wouldn’t encounter the same difficulty.
Brandon drove to Andrea Tashquinth’s place in Big Fields. It was a long, low adobe house that looked as though rooms had been added haphazardly over the years. When he drove up he heard two swamp coolers, one at either end of the house, humming away. A long-legged black mutt watched Brandon curiously but without objection as he stepped out of the car and knocked on what he hoped was the front door. Andrea herself answered. “What do you want?” she asked. Some of her initial hostility from the day before had returned.
“I’d like to speak to your mother,” Brandon said. “Is she here?”
“Yes, but she’s very tired.”
“I need her help…” Brandon began.
“Is it about Roseanne?” Emma Orozco called from somewhere beyond the half-opened door and out of Brandon’s view.
“Yes,” he said.
Andrea sighed and shook her head resignedly. “All right,” she said. “Wait here.”
Brandon was neither surprised nor offended by not being invited inside. Several minutes later Emma, leaning on her walker, hobbled out of the house. “What is it?” she asked. “Have you found something?”
“Not yet,” Brandon told her, “but I’m working on it. When I talked to Andrea yesterday, she mentioned that shortly before her death, Roseanne had been hospitalized with appendicitis.”
Emma nodded. “That’s right.”
“Do you remember the name of the physician who took care of her?”
“No. It was a long time ago. Why do you want to know?”
“Andrea said Roseanne was still sick after she got out of the hospital.”
Emma nodded again. “The doctor did some tests and said she had an infection from the surgery. He gave her something for it. Henry was supposed to bring her home from the hospital, but she left before he got there. We never saw her again.”
“Mrs. Orozco, you told me on Friday that as far as you knew, Roseanne didn’t have a boyfriend. Correct?”
“Yes.”
“And, because of Roseanne’s condition—her inability to speak—she didn