Day of the Dead by J. A. Jance Read Free Book Online Page B

long time—long enough to know that among the Tohono O’odham, direct questions were viewed as impolite. Rather than ask something that would be regarded as rude, he limited himself to making a single observation.
    “You waited a long time to talk about this.”
    Emma nodded. “It was a bad time,” she said. “When it was over, Henry, my husband, said we should just forget about it. It’s not good to dwell on the past.”
    Brandon nodded and said nothing. Emma continued. “But Henry’s dead now,” she added. “I’m Roseanne’s mother, and I want to know.”
    Brandon didn’t look at Emma directly. That, too, would have been considered rude behavior on his part, but as she spoke, he studied her reflection in the entryway mirror. Coming here and digging up the past in the presence of a stranger and a Mil-gahn —a white man—besides, showed a great deal of courage and strength of character on Emma’s part. To do so meant that, in both regards, she was going against hundreds of years of tradition and a lifetime’s worth of teaching as well. He watched as she gripped the handle of her walker as if the plastic-covered metal might somehow help stiffen her resolve in the same way it helped hold her upright.
    “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