Dance of the Bones

Brandon couldn’t remember the exact year—-sometime in the late ’70s. He and Diana had married by then, but Lani had not yet come into their lives. Whenever it was, he’d been a detective for some time, but it had been a grudging promotion, done over Sheriff Jack DuShane’s strenuous objections. Yes, he was a detective, but he was still on DuShane’s shit list. That meant Brandon still worked the crap shifts and was given the crap assignments, and that had included his first encounter with what would eventually become the Amos Warren homicide investigation.

The initial call had come in on a hot Sunday afternoon in the middle of August. Brandon had been sprawled on the living room floor teaching the game of checkers to a pair of towheaded nine--year--olds who looked like they could have been brothers but weren’t. One was Brandon’s stepson, Davy, and the other was Brian Fellows. His own sons, Quentin and Tommy, had zero interest in checkers.

Brandon had served in Vietnam, far enough from the front lines that he didn’t wake up at night quaking from dreams of the war, but close enough to understand the concept of collateral damage. Brandon thought of Brian as the opposite of collateral damage.

Brandon had been devastated when his wife, Janie, had divorced him, taking his two sons, Tommy and Quentin, with her. In the divorce proceedings, she had claimed that her husband neglected her and that she was tired of coming in second to the Pima County Sheriff’s Department. The whole “neglect” issue turned out to be nothing but a ruse. Brandon learned later that, long before the divorce came along, Janie had been playing around behind Brandon’s back. She was also pregnant with another man’s child, a guy who skipped out as soon as he heard a baby was on the way. Brian was born a scant six months after Janie’s divorce from Brandon became final.

Brandon had lost the house in the divorce and almost everything else as well. He never missed a single one of his child support payments, but his meager salary at the sheriff’s department didn’t stretch far enough for him to buy or even rent someplace decent to live. He’d ended up moving back home to live in his old bedroom with his ailing father and his incredibly bossy mother.

Living at home, however, meant that on visitation days, he could splurge and take Tommy and Quentin out to do special stuff. He took them to U of A Wildcat baseball games, which were the ones he could best afford. They also went bowling and saw movies. On those Saturdays when he’d go to pick up his boys, it had broken his heart to see Brian standing sad--eyed and alone as they drove away. One day, on a whim, he’d asked Brian to join them, and the poor neglected little kid had been overjoyed. Much to Tommy’s and Quentin’s dismay, their annoying half brother became a regular on those visitation excursions with their father.

Three and four years older than their half brother and Brandon’s new stepson, Davy Ladd, Tommy and Quentin had as little to do with the younger boys as humanly possible, but Davy and Brian became fast friends. And Brandon, having missed out on much of Tommy’s and Quentin’s childhoods, enjoyed having a do--over of sorts with Brian and Davy.

On that Sunday afternoon, Brandon had no way of knowing that this second chance at fatherhood would be far more successful than his first attempt with his own sons, and that Brian—-a boy who was no blood relation—-would one day follow Brandon’s footsteps into the world of law enforcement.

“It’s for you,” Diana said, passing him the phone. “It’s the department.”

Brandon levered himself into a sitting position. “Detective Walker here,” he said.

“Got a dead one for you,” Luke, the Dispatch operator said. “A -couple of hikers just called in saying they found human remains out near Soza Canyon on the far side of the Rincons. It’s probably some Indian who’s been dead for a hundred years or so, but it’s your problem now.”

“Where’s Soza Canyon?” Brandon asked. “I’ve never even heard of it.”

“Not surprised,” Luke said. “I hadn’t heard of it earlier, either. As I said before, it’s on the far side of the Rincons. According to my topo map, the spot they’re referring to is just barely inside the county line. Soza Canyon evidently drains into the San Pedro River, somewhere east of where the hikers found the body.”