Desert Vengeance Read online

  Remembering that my partner had volunteered to work the Inter-Tribal Pow Wow up on the Navajo Rez, I was surprised when he answered the phone on the second ring.

  “Thanks for finally calling me back,” he said, speaking loudly enough that I could hear him over the drums and yips in the background. “I’ve been trying to reach you for days.”

  “Sorry about that, but I’ve…”

  “We’ve been getting threatening phone calls at the office.”

  Threats aren’t unusual in our business. Someone is always getting pissed off by our investigations, so Jimmy and I have learned to ignore them. So why was he so worried all of a sudden?

  Trying to lighten him up, I forced a chuckle. ““Maybe we’ll break our record for the week.”

  More drumbeats. More yips. “Lena, they didn’t sound like the usual…”

  “Then we’ll have to batten down the hatches, won’t we? Look, I called you for a reason.”

  “Not for the pleasure of hearing my voice?” More than a drop of sarcasm there.

  I let it slide. “I need a favor.”

  A sigh. “What kind of favor?”

  “I need the address and phone number for Guy DeLucca. He was a social worker with Child Protective Services back in the bad old days.” DeLucca had placed me and the other victims with the Wycoffs, although I didn’t tell Jimmy that.

  “Can’t it wait until Monday? I’ve agreed to act as a judge for the Men’s Fancy Dance competition.”

  “You’re kidding me.”

  Traditionally, Fancy Dance—an energetic dance performed with rattles, bells—and lots and lots of beadwork, feathers, and sheep “fluff”—was usually performed by Plains tribes, such as Comanche, Kiowa, or Arapaho. Jimmy was Pima, and although he was a whiz at Chicken Scratch, Fancy Dance was outside his circle of knowledge.

  Another sigh. “I’m judging the judges. Last year there were complaints because one of the judges turned out to be related to the winner, and…”

  I interrupted. “To keep nepotism from rearing its ugly head, you were picked to do the dirty work. I get it. Look, I hate to be so pushy, but it’s important. I’ve already tried to get in touch with DeLucca and found out his number and address are unlisted.”

  “Social workers’ numbers usually are. Besides, my computer’s back at the office.” I heard cheering in the background, a horse’s whinny, someone—not Jimmy, I hoped—muttering what sounded like curses in Pima. Or was it Navajo? “That’s why God created laptops, and I happen to know you never go anywhere without yours. Isn’t that pow-wow taking place next to the trading post? I’m pretty sure they have Wi-Fi up there.”

  More muttering. “The Men’s Fancy Dance competition takes place in half an hour.”

  “Then you’ve got time.”

  Belatedly realizing how rude that sounded, I hastily added, “Something else. I need the same info on Sergeant Linda McCracken, formerly of the Scottsdale Police Force, long before my time there. Say, you still have a cousin in the Medical Examiner’s office, don’t you?”

  “Yeeesss.” Slow. Suspicious.

  “Ask him what caliber bullets were dug out of Norma Wycoff’s brain.”

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  “I’m stone cold serious, Almost Brother.”

  “Don’t you think you’re asking a lot of favors for someone whose calls you never answer?” He waited for my answer. When he didn’t get one, he said, “Oh, all right. I’ll call my cousin. And as soon as the Fancy Dance competition is over, I’ll fetch my laptop and find DeLucca and McCracken for you.”

  Before I could thank this paragon of patience, he hung up.

  To kill time, I looked around Monarch and began to count butterflies. I made it up to a hundred and fifteen before I realized the hopelessness of the task. With my mind engaged in such trivia, Dusty kept sneaking in. Dusty telling me he loved me. Dusty telling me I was the only woman for him. Dusty’s wife—the wife I didn’t know he had—aiming that big-ass .50-caliber Desert Eagle at me.

  Maintaining close relationships is difficult at best for former foster children, but the violence of my own background made it even harder. Shuttled from one home after another, only a crazy person would dare to love. So even as a child, I knew better than to set myself up for heartbreak. And yet I had loved. I had loved Reverend Giblin and his wife. I had loved Madeline, I had loved the Prestons.

  And God help me, I had loved Dusty.

  Disgusted by the memory of my own foolishness I grabbed the rod and reel out of the kitchen cabinet and walked down to Black Canyon Creek.

  The creek still raged, but I didn’t mind. The chuckling of the water, the whit-whit-whit song of cactus wrens, and the whispering breeze through the cottonwoods calmed me. Not expecting any luck, I cast and recast my line into the creek, taking care not to snag it on the branches floating by. As I sat there on a dry boulder, it occurred to me that there were worse ways to spend one’s time. Like mourning over the past. What was that saying? Yesterday is gone, tomorrow is but a dream, the only thing we truly have is today, this moment.

  So I gave myself up to it.

  An hour later, just as my casting arm had begun to tire, my phone rang.

  I took the call, only to find that people were still singing and dancing out there in Navajo Land.

  “How’d the Men’s Fancy Dance judging go?”

  “Won by an Arapaho out of Oklahoma, not related to any of the judges as far as I could tell.”

  “And you could tell.”

  “That’s why they picked me. Anyway, you’re in luck. I was able to reach my cousin, the one who works for the ME, and here’s the scoop. Two .22LR bullets, of all things, killed Norma Wycoff. Not exactly heavy artillery.”

  “It means the perp definitely came through the back, because people would have noticed somebody walking down the street with a rifle.”

  “My thoughts exactly.” A pause.

  “And?” I asked, waiting for the other information I’d requested.

  The pause lengthened uncomfortably until he finally said, “I’m still waiting for a thank you, Lena.”

  I duly complied. “What about those addresses and phone numbers I need?”

  A sigh. “First addy, Guy DeLucca, 5840 North Bonadventure, Phoenix, early retirement twenty years ago, medical, lives alone. Yeah, unlisted phone number but I managed to get it anyway. 555-760-4237. Second addy, Linda McCracken, formerly Scottsdale PD sergeant, also early-retired, in her case due to getting shot up in the line of duty. Partial paralysis. She’s at 47298 West Esmeralda Way, Peoria, 555-174-2973, lives with her daughter Delores, a Phoenix PD cop, never been shot. Not yet, anyway.”

  After I thanked him again, he became less testy, so we chatted for another few minutes about office stuff, then said our friendly goodbyes.

  Thus ended my fishing for the day. As I trudged back up the hill to my butterfly trailer, I placed a call to DeLucca, but wound up with voicemail. Maybe he was out fishing, too. Still feeling anxious about Debbie’s situation, I decided to head back down to the Valley of the Sun anyway, so after notifying Nicole of my plans, I grabbed my new backpack and hit the road.

  ***

  The problem with driving is that it gives you a chance to think. Even though I was blasting a Phoenix heavy metal station at top volume, that son of a bitch Dusty kept sneaking his two-timing way into my brain.

  Dusty.

  Dusty’s soft drawl. Dusty’s gentle hands. Dusty’s muscular back. Dusty’s…

  “Shit!” I yelled, shocking the man cruising next to me in a red Jaguar XKE convertible.

  “Sorry!” I yelled, allowing the Jag to pull ahead.

  Giving up, I turned off the heavy-metal station and let the memories roll in.

  In Hollywood parlance, Dusty and I had “met cute.” I was a cop, he was speeding, I pulled him
over. Long story short, his slow-talking cowboy charm swept me off my black-booted feet.

  Our relationship was great for a while, although I did notice that from time to time he would pull a disappearing act for a week or two. But I’ve never been the clinging type, and by then I had opened Desert Investigations and was so busy that I hardly noticed. Yes, I know. The folks in Al-Anon have a word for it: denial. If I had been more astute, I would have paid more attention to the frequent smell of liquor on Dusty’s breath, to his often blank look when I referred to an event we’d attended together a month, or even a day, ago.

  The truth was, Dusty was a drunk.

  Like many drunks, he was good at hiding it. At least he was until the time he returned from Las Vegas, stalked by the redhead he had married during a six-day bender. As if that weren’t bad enough, the redhead tracked him all the way to my apartment above Desert Investigations, where she proceeded to shoot up the place. I only managed to escape serious injury because the redhead—Joanne, I believe her name was—was a New York native who had never owned a gun before. That was the end of Dusty’s and my relationship. I didn’t care that he had entered rehab, I didn’t care that he annulled his “marriage,” I didn’t care that he swore how much he still loved me.

  I didn’t care, I didn’t care, I didn’t care. Given my childhood, I already had all the bad memories I needed. There was no point in accumulating more.

  But sometimes the nights were so lonely….

  ***

  Halfway back to Scottsdale my phone rang. Retrofitted hands-free system or not, I don’t like talking while navigating the whacked-out Valley freeways and was about to let it roll over to voicemail, when I heard a man’s baritone. I remembered that voice even though it had been almost thirty years since I’d last heard it.

  “Ms. Jones, this is Guy DeLucca. You left a message for me earlier. Call me back at the same number. I’m home now.” He hung up before I could reply.

  Instead of a call-back, I took the Bethany Home exit off Interstate17 and headed east toward the Biltmore area, a sorta-upper middle class enclave built around one of Phoenix’s premier resorts. Some of the new McMansions nudged the one million mark, but DeLucca’s wasn’t one of them. His tiny cottage, one of the original homes in the area, appeared ramshackle compared to its upstart neighbors, and the land was worth more than the house. The roof needed repair, the front gutter had snapped in two, and the wood siding looked like it hadn’t been painted since Nixon was president.

  DeLucca’s doorbell was broken, so I knocked. He opened the door immediately, displaying no wariness. But he looked hard at the scar on my forehead.

  “Lena Jones,” he said. “Formerly known as Little Girl Doe.”

  The social worker I remembered had been a fit, good-looking man somewhere in his twenties, with thick dark hair brushed back in a semi-pompadour. Now his hair had vanished and his once-trim waistline bulged. Creases furrowed his face, the deepest of them dug around his watery eyes.

  “Mr. DeLucca, I presume.”

  His sad smile revealed yellowed teeth. One of the canines was missing. “Come in, come in. Don’t stand out there in the heat.”

  Inside, it was much cooler, partially because of the blinds shut against the blazing sun. The house’s interior wasn’t quite as bad as its exterior, although the furniture showed considerable wear. Scratched oak plank flooring, ho-hum brown sofa and chairs, oak coffee table, end tables, and bookshelves displaying divergent tastes—from history to botany to the culinary arts, with an emphasis on desserts. Other than the books, the décor was so monotonous the whole room could have been ordered en masse from a catalog directed at people who were more interested in longevity than appearance. The only other items displaying personal taste were the weapons artfully arranged on the wall: a U.S. Cavalry sword circa 1865; a vintage-WWI Browning Auto-5 self-loading semi-automatic shotgun; and a Walther PPK/S pistol, the German honey of World War II.

  In keeping with the military motif, framed photographs on the bookcase behind DeLucca displayed various wars, yet similar faces. From the men’s uniforms, I surmised that DeLucca, his father, his grandfather, and even his great-grandfather had all served in the U.S. Army. One photo showed a man—probably his father—receiving a Silver Star. Another showed DeLucca himself as an honor guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

  “Family tradition,” DeLucca said, aware the photos had caught my attention. He pointed out something I hadn’t noticed: his father’s Silver Star sitting in a frame on one of the oak end tables. “A reminder of the sacrifices he and others made. Some say it’s only a symbol, but I happen to believe symbols are important.”

  I felt compelled to ask, “And your father sacrificed…?”

  “Two legs.”

  As he led me to a brown chair, I wondered if there were similar traditions in my family. But I did remember one sacrifice—my father gunned down in an attempt to save the children. I could still hear their screams in my dreams.

  To push the memory back into the shadows, I sipped at the glass of instant iced tea he’d fetched me. It still had undissolved crystals floating on top. “If I remember correctly, you’re the person who named me.”

  A faint smile. “When you first started talking, I thought you were saying ‘Lena.’ Was I wrong?”

  “I’m fine with Lena, but what about the Jones bit? You couldn’t think of anything more original?” I hoped my smile tempered what might be interpreted as criticism, because over time, I began to realize he had done the best he could with the limited information he’d possessed.

  DeLucca gestured toward one of the photographs. It showed him at a much younger age, with another man. The two stood in a jungle clearing, dressed in ragged battle gear.

  “The ‘Jones’ was for Corporal Jason Elroy Jones,” DeLucca explained. “A childhood friend. Jason and I served together in ’Nam. His hair was the same color as yours.”

  “Oh.”

  “Jason never made it home.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “He was brave. As are you, so the name fits. But I sincerely apologize if you don’t like it.”

  I peered carefully at the photograph. The younger DeLucca, smiling despite the threat of dense jungle behind him. The blond man next to him was smiling, too. The man prior to the ghost.

  “I like it more now, Mr. DeLucca. But I’m not sure I agree with you about symbols. Sure, they help us remember, but sometimes we have to forget in order to survive. At least that’s what I’ve found.”

  “Point taken. No apology will ever be enough for what I did to you, to those other children, I…”

  “You didn’t do anything to me or anyone else. Brian Wycoff did. And his wife knew all about it.”

  “If I hadn’t…”

  “They had a beautiful house, came across as nice people, and there were no red flags. Their neighbors, the people at their church, they all swore up and down the Wycoffs were the salt of the earth.”

  “I should have known…”

  “None of us can read minds. Now I don’t want to hear anything else about it, all right?” Smiling, smiling.

  He sighed. “Okay.”

  But we both knew it would never be okay.

  “Look, Mr. DeLucca, I contacted you in hopes that you can help me with something.”

  “Anything.”

  Judging from the look in those haunted eyes I had the feeling that if I’d asked him to take a dive off the twenty-fourth floor of the Hyatt Regency he would, but my request wasn’t as extreme. On second thought, maybe it was.

  “You’ve heard Norma and Brian Wycoff were murdered, right?”

  “It’s been all over the news.” From the edge in his voice, I knew he hadn’t shed any tears.

  “Someone I know, a very nice lady, is being looked at as a suspect.”

  He frowned. “Why?”

 
“She and her attorney want me to look into it, just in case charges are brought against her.”

  “You didn’t answer my question. Why is this woman a suspect? Women usually don’t go around murdering people.”

  I didn’t bother countering that I’d known several women who had done exactly that. In order to keep the conversation on track, I explained about Parents of Missing Children and Debbie’s Desert Oasis. “To make matters worse, the B&B is a short walk from the ranch where Wycoff was murdered.”

  As I talked, his frown deepened. “So you’re saying the police suspect her simply because she has a missing daughter? That she believed Wycoff might have been involved in her child’s disappearance?” His outrage matched my own.

  More to calm him than anything else, I said, “It’s not such a big leap, considering how close the Wycoffs’ house was to hers when her daughter disappeared. Just a couple of blocks, from what I hear.”

  “Still, suspecting her based on mere coincidence is ridiculous.”

  “I think so, too, but the police are the police, and they have to follow up. I can assure you that none of them personally give a damn about what happened to the Wycoffs, but they can’t let killers off the hook regardless of who the victim—or victims—are. As far as the state of Arizona and the various jurisdictions are concerned, Wycoff had paid in full for his crimes.”

  A snort of disgust. “Twenty-five years for ruining the lives of at least seven children? Not nearly enough.”

  Oddly, that statement made me realize something for the very first time.

  “I’m not ruined,” I assured him. Banged up around the edges, maybe, but not ruined.

  He bowed his head in agreement.

  “Maybe the others aren’t, either. People…” I had to clear my throat before continuing. “People can overcome amazing hardships.”

  When he raised his head again, a shadow had crossed his eyes which had nothing to do with the closed blinds. “Two of those children went on to commit suicide later. Did you know that?”

  It took me a moment before I could tell him I was all too aware of that tragic fact.