'On my way,' Brandon said, turning away.
'How's your dad?' the clerk asked.
'Hanging in there,' he responded, 'but that's about all.'
Sheriff DuShane sat with an open newspaper spread out on his desk.
'This is a hell of a note,' he said, glancing up as his secretary escorted Brandon Walker into the room.
He pointed to the upper left-hand corner of the page. 'You realize, of course, that this makes us all sound like a bunch of stupid jackasses?'
'Sorry,' Brandon said. 'I haven't seen a paper yet this morning.'
Nonetheless, he had a pretty good idea about the contents of that offending article. He was sure it reported Toby Walker's unauthorized use of a police vehicle.
'You in the habit of letting your whole goddamned family use county cars whenever they damned well please?'
. 'it never happened before,' Brandon began. 'I had no idea my father would take the keys off the . . .'
'I don't give a good goddamn how it happened, but let me tell you this. If it ever does again, you're out of here, Walker. We don't need this kind of shit. Can't afford it.
Lucky for you the car wasn't damaged, or you'd be on administrative leave as of right now. So keep your damn car keys in your damn pocket, you hear?'
Brandon had seen news clips of DuShane out in public charming both the media and his constituents. He wondered if those people knew that, on his own turf, DuShane was incapable of speech free of profanity.
The detective waited to see if there was anything else.
DuShane didn't exactly dismiss him, but he turned back to the newspaper as though Walker had already left the room. The younger man stood there wavering, wondering if he shouldn't let DuShane know of the possible problem brewing over Andrew Carlisle.
'Well,' the sheriff said. 'What are you waiting for?'
'Nothing,' Brandon replied, deciding. 'Nothing at all.'
If DuShane didn't even have the good grace to ask how Toby Walker was doing, why the hell should Brandon tell him anything? After all, it wasn't his case, not officially.
Sister Katherine met them in the office when Diana and Davy arrived at San Xavier. The nun, taking Davy under her wing with a promise of popovers, left at once. Diana was shown into a sparsely furnished office. She sat down on a rickety visitor chair facing a spare, balding old man who introduced himself as Father John.
'I hope my telephone call didn't alarm you, Mrs. Ladd,' he said, 'but I wanted you to understand that I consider this a matter of utmost importance.'
'About Rita?' Diana asked.
He nodded. 'You see, her nephew and another man, a medicine man called Looks At Nothing, came to see me yesterday. . . .'
'They came to see you, too?' she asked in some surprise. 'I knew they had spoken to Brandon Walker, but why you?'
Father John seemed taken aback. 'You mean they discussed this situation with someone else?'
Diana nodded. 'With a detective at the Pima County Sheriff's Department. He came to the house last night and told me.'
Father John folded his hands in front of him, thoughtfully touching his fingers to his lips. 'How very odd,' he said.
'Why would a detective have any interest in Davy being baptized?'
Now, it was Diana's turn to be puzzled. 'Davy? Baptized? What are you talking about?'
'About the accident, Rita's accident.'
'What does that have to do with Davy?' Diana asked.
'And what does his being baptized have to do with anything?'
'How long have you been here on the reservation?' he asked.
'Since sixty-seven.'
'Doing what?'
'Teaching.'
'Have you made any kind of study of the Papago belief system?' the priest asked.
'I'm a schoolteacher, Father John, a public schoolteacher. I don't interfere in my students' spiritual lives, and they don't fool around in mine.'
'That may be where you're wrong, Mrs. Ladd,' the priest said quietly.
'It's my understanding that you were raised in the Catholic Church, but that you've moved away from it as an adult.'
'Really, I don't see what that has to do with. .
