Queen of the Night

Fifteen

Tucson, Arizona

June to November 2009

Initially Brian was aware of living in a strange half-world that wasn’t really waking and wasn’t really sleeping. Sometimes he did sleep. Many of the people who appeared in his dreams were dead-Fat Crack Ortiz; his half brothers, Tommy and Quentin; his mother, Janie.

Kath was there, of course, sometimes in his dreams and sometimes standing next to him. Whenever he saw her, the expression on her face was strained. There were dark circles under her eyes, as if she hadn’t slept well for a long time. He worried that she was doing too much and was too tired. Sometimes the girls were there. His girls. Amy and Annie. They looked sad, too. When they kissed him hello and good-bye, their lips barely touched his skin-as if they were afraid he might break. As if they were shy about being around the IV tree and the tubes.

He was aware that he was in casts. At least that’s how it seemed. On his arms and both legs. The bed made funny noises and seemed to move under him, as if it were breathing or something. He wasn’t sure what that was all about. And for some reason he couldn’t ask. Couldn’t talk. Other people did all the talking. And there were lots of them, although they generally showed up only one or two at a time, and they mostly talked to each other, not to him.

Initially he was aware of seeing people from work occasionally-his old partner Hector Segura came by several times. Brian and PeeWee had worked well together, but Sheriff Forsythe had seen fit to split them up. And, speaking of the devil, William Forsythe himself appeared at Brian’s bedside a time or two. He never stayed long, but he’d be able to say he’d stopped by to check on his injured officer. That might be good for a few votes in the next election.

Oddly enough, some of Brian’s visitors were total strangers. For example, who was that old Mexican woman who was there time and again, always with a black-beaded rosary in her pocket? She would tell him hello in Spanish and then sit there for hours on end, saying her Hail Marys. Sometimes a little boy came along with her. When he was there, the kid jabbered a blue streak and there was no time for “Holy Mary, Mother of God.” Other times a young woman came with her and sometimes a young man, too. Brian gradually sorted out that the old woman was the little boy’s grandmother. He couldn’t tell if the woman was her daughter or if the man was her son.

The old Indian guy who came by from time to time was Thomas Rios from Komelik, but what about the guy who sometimes showed up in a Border Patrol uniform? He seemed familiar. Brian thought he might have seen him somewhere before, but he was there a lot of the time, too, although he didn’t seem to have much to say one way or the other.

The Walkers came, Brandon and Diana. Diana seemed distracted, but she had always seemed distant to Brian. His connection had been with Brandon, who was there in the room more than anyone, including Kath. He sat there day after day, dozing or reading in a chair. Brian liked having him around. They didn’t talk; they didn’t have to. The older man’s silent, watchful presence made Brian feel safe somehow-as though whatever was happening was going to be all right. Okay. That was the way it had been when Brian was little and the way it was now.

And Davy came, his good buddy Davy. He did talk. He talked about losing his son and his wife. Candace had divorced him and had moved back home to Chicago. Davy was angry and bitter about that. Of course, anyone who knew them had seen that coming a long time ago, almost from the very beginning. They were too different. Opposites may attract, and that might be good for dating, but not for marriage. In marriage, opposites can pull you apart. Brian wished he could say something to comfort his old friend, but he couldn’t. All he could do was listen and give Davy a chance to talk-to vent. If nothing else, in his current condition Brian Fellows was an excellent listener.

Lani came by, too, sometimes accompanied by Fat Crack’s grandson, Gabe, but always with a live-wire little girl named Angie. Brian couldn’t imagine how that had happened or when. Had Lani-his little Lani, the girl he and Davy had loved to tease and torment-grown up and gotten married while he was lying here in this noisy bed? Or had he been to her wedding some time in the past and forgotten all about it? If so, whom had she married and when? It must have happened long enough ago for her to have a baby who was now this little girl. Clearly Angie resembled her mother.

Tucson, Arizona

June to November 2009

For Brandon Walker, that summer stretched into months of interchangeable days. With the exception of the one day off he took to go serve as a pallbearer at Geet Farrell’s funeral, Brandon was at the hospital every single day. He got up early; he went to the hospital; he spent the day there; he came home late.

Kath was there every day, too, but not all day long. She couldn’t. After a month or so, she’d had to go back to work. She had the girls to look after and a house to take care of, but Brandon knew enough about hospitals to know that Brian needed an advocate in the room not only to run interference with the medical people but also to let Kath know what was going on when she wasn’t there.

After months of worrying about Diana, Brandon could spend his worrying capital on someone else. Lani had been right. What had ailed Diana all along had been drug interactions rather than something far more serious. Now that her meds had been adjusted, she was back to being her old self. Not quite her old self. She had handed the book rewrite over to a ghostwriter without so much as a backward glance. She would be going on one last book tour next spring, but after that she was retired.

Her pottery studio now took precedence over her computer. Between making pots and spoiling her new granddaughter-her accidental granddaughter, as she liked to call Angie-Diana Ladd Walker was busy and happy.

As the days moved into weeks and there was no visible change in Brian’s condition, Brandon began to lose hope. He prayed about it. He meditated about it. All he knew for certain was that he didn’t want to lose this man who had come to be so dear to him-his accidental son, he thought, mimicking Diana’s term for Angie-but it was seeming more and more likely.

One day, when Lani came to visit, little Gabe Ortiz came along with her. He stood for a long time by Brian’s bed. When he walked away, he stopped by Brandon’s chair and touched him on the shoulder.

“Don’t worry, Mr. Walker,” the boy said gravely. “He’s going to be okay.”

“How do you know that?” Brandon asked.

Gabe shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. “I just know.”

Having heard the news from Fat Crack’s grandson, the old medicine man’s heir apparent, Brandon Walker began to believe it, too, maybe because he wanted to believe it.

Brian Fellows would be all right. I’itoi would see to it. It was just a matter of time.

Tucson, Arizona

Friday, November 27, 2009, 4:30 p.m.

82º Fahrenheit

Gradually the haze began to lift a little. There was less distance between Brian and what was going on around him. He was aware that he had been moved from what had been a hospital room to some other facility-to a rehab kind of place. He still had the same cast of regular visitors, but the focus here was different. There was a lot more emphasis on physical therapy.

And one day, late one afternoon, he simply woke up-as if from a long winter’s nap. Why those words came to mind, Brian couldn’t imagine.

From the way the sun was slanting in the window, he could tell it was late afternoon. Kath wasn’t there. Brandon Walker was.

“Hey,” Brian said. “How’s it going?”

Brandon started so abruptly that he almost fell out of the chair. “Hello,” he said as a slow grin crossed his face. “Another station heard from.”

“Where’s Kath?” Brian asked. Just saying that much made his throat hurt. His voice sounded odd-as if he hadn’t used it for a very long time.

“She’s at work,” Brandon said, reaching for his phone. “I’ll call her and let her know.”

“So it must be Tuesday then,” Brian said. “She usually has Mondays off.”

“It’s not Tuesday, Brian,” Brandon said.

“What day is it then?” Brian asked. “How long have I been out of it?”

“Since the first week in June,” Brandon Walker told him. “It’s almost the end of November. Friday. The day after Thanksgiving.”

“Thanksgiving? How can that be? How come it isn’t June? What happened?”

“Don’t you remember?”

Brian shook his head. “I don’t remember anything. It’s a blank.”

“You were chasing a bad guy who took off on foot on I-10.”

“Did I catch him?”

“Oncoming traffic is what caught him,” Brandon said. “It turns out it caught you, too. There was a young woman there with her little boy. She had been taken hostage and you helped her escape. She had managed to get the kid out of the car, but a truck was coming. They both would have been killed if you hadn’t shoved them out of the way. You saved them both.”

While Brian tried to get his head around that difficult concept, Brandon was already punching numbers into his cell phone. “You’re not going to believe it, Kath,” he said. “You’ve got to get down here right away. Brian’s awake! He’s awake and talking.”

On the table next to his bed sat a small vase, a reddish-brown clay vase with a high-gloss glaze finish. In it was a single apricot-colored rose. Brian pointed at it and asked, “Where did that come from?”

“The rose came from our backyard, but Diana made the vase,” Brandon said. “She wanted you to have it.”

Brian shook his head in wonder. “I didn’t know she made pots.”

“Neither did I,” Brandon agreed. “I don’t think anyone knew that about her, but she does now. And if you ask me, she’s pretty damned good at it.”

Tucson, Arizona

Saturday, December 5, 2009, 3:00 p.m.

68º Fahrenheit

Lani Walker and Dan Pardee got married the first Saturday in December in a small ceremony in her parents’ house. The wedding was supposed to happen outside in the early afternoon. Naturally it rained-like crazy. The chill winter rainstorm would be good for flowers the following spring, but not so good for wedding guests.

Attending the wedding was Brian’s first outing. They gave him a furlough from the rehab center, but only for a few hours.

There weren’t that many people there. Still, Brian had a tough time sorting through them.

Most of the guests were family members and people Brian already knew, such as a family named Torres-including the young mother and son Brian had saved. There were several strangers as well, including Micah Duarte, the groom’s grandfather. He was Indian-Apache-and uncomfortable in all the uproar. Brian’s heart went out to the man. The only time he seemed at ease was when he was chatting with little Gabe Ortiz.

The other total stranger was an Anglo man who also seemed to have some connection to the groom.

During the reception, the man sat down on the couch near where Brian’s wheelchair was parked. “I understand you’re a real hero,” he said by way of introduction, holding out his hand. “I’m David Blaine. Retired LAPD.”

“You’re related to the groom?” Brian asked.

Blaine shook his head and smiled. “Not really,” he said. “At least I wasn’t originally, but I guess I am now. When Lani and Dan used the Internet to track me down in Palm Desert and invited me to come to the wedding, you could have knocked me over with a feather.”

Brian was struggling to connect the dots when Blaine explained. “I was the investigating officer years ago when Dan’s mother was murdered. I didn’t do that much, but I’m the one who carried him out of that terrible place. He couldn’t have been more than four years old. I’m surprised he remembered.”

Brian glanced wonderingly in Dan Pardee’s direction. His mother had been murdered? Why was it Brian knew nothing about any of that, nothing at all?

“Who knows?” Blaine continued. “Maybe the same thing will happen to you someday. You’ll get a call to come to the wedding of that little kid over there.” He nodded in Pepe Torres’s direction. “He may forget, but I can promise you his mother and his grandmother never will.”

Tucson, Arizona

Saturday, December 5, 2009, 10:00 p.m.

61º Fahrenheit

Brandon shivered as he held the door open for Damsel to come back in one last time. The guests were gone. The caterer was gone. He and Diana and Damsel finally had the place to themselves.

He, for one, was glad the wedding was over. Brandon had been happy to see all those people, but he had been even happier to see them all go home. As far as he was concerned, the high point of the day had come about when Angie, the flower girl, had escaped Diana’s clutches and raced to the bride and groom. She had grabbed on to Dan’s tuxedo-clad leg and resisted all efforts to pry her away. Finally Dan had relented. He had picked her up and held her on his hip for the duration of the ceremony.

Before letting the dog out, Brandon had stripped off his father-of-the-bride jacket, dress shoes, and tie. Thank God I don’t have to wear those anymore, he thought.

Damsel came in and shook, showering him with cold spatters of water. Outside it was still raining.

Going back through the house, Brandon was surprised to find Diana sitting on the couch in the living room. The only light in the room was from a single lamp on an end table next to where she sat holding a basket. At first Brandon thought it was one of Rita Antone’s, but when he came closer, he realized it was a burden basket he had never seen before.

“Hello,” he said. “I thought you’d already gone to bed. And what’s that? I thought you weren’t going to collect any more baskets.”

“I wasn’t,” she said. “It was a gift from Micah Duarte.”

“I couldn’t help liking that guy,” Brandon said. “He reminded me of Fat Crack, only not nearly as wide.”

Nodding, Diana passed the basket to her husband.

“Micah told me this originally belonged to his wife’s grandmother,” Diana explained. “He said he had heard about my basket collection from Lani and Dan. He thought it might be a good idea for me to look after it, either to pass along to Dan when he’s finally able to appreciate it or else to give it to Angie.”

Brandon examined the basket. It was old and frayed. In one spot some of the stitching had come undone.

“This doesn’t look like it’s made of bear grass,” he said.

Diana nodded. “It isn’t. The Apaches usually used willow and yucca. If you look closely you’ll see there’s even some yucca root.”

“So it’s valuable, then?” he asked.

Diana glanced around the room at all the other baskets-at Nana Dahd ’s baskets. “They’re all valuable,” she said. “And that has nothing to do with money.”

“She’d have a fit, you know.” Brandon chuckled as he gave the burden basket back.

“Who would have a fit?”

“Rita Antone,” he said. “The idea of having an ohb basket in here with all of hers.”

“No,” Diana said. After a moment’s pause, she smiled. “I don’t think Rita would mind one bit. Come on, old man. Let’s go to bed.”

Tucson, Arizona

January to June 2010

Lani and Dan had agreed from the outset that they’d live part of the time in her hospital-compound housing unit and part time at Dan’s place in Tucson. Lani assured Dan that this was historically correct, since the Tohono O’odham had always been known as the people with two houses-one in the mountains to use in the hot summer months, and one in the low desert for the winter.

What staying in Tucson overnight on Lani’s days off really meant was that she could spend more time with her folks without having to drive sixty miles one way. It also meant that Angie was able to spend more time with her new grandmother. Angie had taken to calling Lani’s mother Nana. That was close enough to Nana Dahd, and it made Lani smile every time she heard it. Diana spent hours patiently teaching Angie about clay and how to form it. When Diana and Angie weren’t closeted in Diana’s studio, they were out on the patio carrying on long conversations they both seemed to find mutually delightful.

“Why does Nana call me Lani sometimes?” Angie asked her mother one day.

“I’m sure it’s because you remind her of me when I was your age,” Lani answered with a laugh. “You don’t need to worry as long as she doesn’t start calling you Damsel.”

Lani had taken to calling her foster daughter-her soon-to-be-adopted daughter-Kskehegaj, Pretty One, because she was pretty. She was also spoiled rotten. Diana and Dan seemed to be in a contest to see who could spoil her more.

It was clear to Lani that when it came to getting her own way, Angelina Enos had Dan’s number-in spades.

Tohono O’odham Nation, Arizona

Saturday, June 26, 2010, 5:00 p.m.

101º Fahrenheit

On the last Saturday in June, Dan and Lani packed a picnic supper and then, with both Bozo and Angie in the back of Lani’s Passat, they set off to run a series of late-afternoon errands. First they stopped by the deserted village called Rattlesnake Skull, where they lit a candle for Rita Antone’s granddaughter, Gina Antone. Over the months, Dan had heard all these stories and had finally learned how the Walkers’ lives intersected with the Desert People. He had learned about Fat Crack and Nana Dahd and about how Lani had been abandoned by her family after almost dying of ant bites.

“Who’s she?” Angie wanted to know when Lani mentioned Gina’s name. She, too, had heard the stories time and again, but she loved having them repeated.

“A Tohono O’odham girl who died a long time ago,” Lani explained. “We’re lighting a candle for her today so she’s not forgotten.”

Months earlier, Lani had told Dan the story of Betraying Woman and her ohb lover. After she had told it to him for the first time, he noticed an odd expression on Lani’s face.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“I’m not sure,” she replied with a frown. “Up until now I always believed what people said about Betraying Woman-that she had betrayed her people to the Apaches. But maybe that’s not true. Maybe she really loved her young ohb warrior and maybe the Desert People were wrong to cast her out, shutting her away in a cave on Ioligam and leaving her to die.”

“Stranger things than that have happened,” Dan Pardee told her with a grin. “Look at the two of us.”

After leaving the ruins of Rattlesnake Skull village in the hot late-afternoon sun, they went on to Ban Thak, Coyote Sitting. There, in the village’s tumbledown cemetery, they lit another candle, this one for Rita Antone.

“Your godmother,” Angie said.

“Yes,” Lani agreed. “Nana Dahd. And now we’ll light one for Fat Crack.”

After that they drove to Komelik-to the place outside Komelik-the place where Angie’s mother had died a year earlier. Dan and Lani had talked it over for days in advance. Lani had worried that bringing Angie there might be too traumatic for the little girl, but she didn’t seem upset by it-more curious than upset.

“And now we’re going to light the other candles for my mommy?” Angie asked.

Lani and Dan were always careful to maintain that Delphina Enos was Angie’s biological mother, her real mother. The velvet-covered box containing the engagement ring Donald Rios had bought for Delphina had been in among the crime-scene wreckage along the freeway. That, along with the baptismal photo of Angie and her mother, were two treasures Dan and Lani Pardee were saving for their daughter.

“We have four candles left,” Lani told Angie now. “We’ll light one for your mother, one for Donald Rios, and one each for Mr. and Mrs. Tennant, the two Milghan people who died here.”

“Can I light them?” Angie asked.

Lani nodded. “But only if you’re very careful.”

As Dan watched Lani and Angie set out candles and place rock barriers around them, he couldn’t help thinking about how many lives had been impacted by what had happened here a year ago. Was it only a year?

When Dan had stumbled onto that nighttime crime scene, he’d had no way of knowing that Angie and Lani were about to walk into his life.

That was the good part of the equation. The bad part of tracking down the killer had to do with Brian Fellows. He had almost died as a result of a brain injury suffered in the course of the chase. He had spent months in a coma, and once he’d come out of that, he’d had to learn to walk again. Now he was learning to read again, too, right along with his daughters. He’d also been medically retired from the sheriff’s department, letting him be a stay-at-home dad while Kath continued to work for the Border Patrol.

As for the killer? Jonathan Southard had been injured in that car chase, too, but not nearly as seriously as Brian Fellows. On the advice of his attorney, he had accepted a plea agreement-life in prison with no chance of parole. He had taken that rather than risk going back to California to face a trial in the deaths of his wife and children, where, had he been convicted, he might well have risked receiving the death penalty.

When Bozo walked off into the desert, Dan followed him. He found the dog lying in the shady sand beneath an ironwood tree-the same tree that had a tangle of deer-horn cactus snaking up its trunk and onto the branches. Dan was surprised to see that the cactus was still covered with fat buds that had not yet opened.

Calling Bozo to follow, Dan returned to his wife and daughter. “I thought the night-blooming cereus would have blossomed by now.”

Lani shook her head. “The people at Tohono Chul told me last week that they’re running exceptionally late this year. The Queen of the Night may not bloom until early July. The woman in charge of the party said that she’ll let me know as soon as possible so I can go there that night to tell the story.”

“I love stories,” Angie said, clapping her hands with childish enthusiasm. “Can Dan and I come, too?”

That’s what she called him, Dan, not Daddy, but that was fine.

“Probably,” Lani answered. “You and Dan are Brought-Back Children, just like Old White-Haired Woman’s grandson.”

“Don’t go laying that idea on my grandfather,” Dan cautioned Lani with a smile. “He may have white hair now, but if you try telling that old black belt that he’s really Queen of the Night, Micah Duarte’s liable to take offense.”

Lani smiled back. “He could do a lot worse,” she said. “Now let’s go find a place for our picnic.”