But Diana did mind. She dreaded the idea of going home without the dog.
Bone was her first line of defense. She glanced at her watch.
It wasn't dark yet and wouldn't be for some time, but once it was, she wanted the dog with her.
'I'd rather wait, if it's not going to be too long.'
'Suit yourself,' Dr. Johnston said. 'It won't take long, but it isn't going to be pretty.'
Half an hour earlier and 120 miles away, Pinal County homicide detective Geet Farrell had considered his options and hadn't liked any of them. He tried calling Brandon Walker directly, but there was no answer, either at his office or at home. Farrell refused to waste any more time in stationary phoning, but he didn't want to abandon his questioning of Myrna Louise Spaulding, either. There might be more she could tell him, details he had so far neglected to ask.
Farrell flung the phone back on the hook. 'You do know what he's up to, don't you?'
Myrna Louise nodded. 'I do now.'
'I'm going to try to stop him,' the detective continued grimly. 'Will you help? I'll need you to come with me.'
'Yes,' Myrna Louise answered, rising unsteadily to her feet. 'I'll do whatever I can. Just let me get my purse.'
They left Weber Drive in a spray of gravel and headed for 1-10. Once across the Pinal County line, Detective Farrell switched on lights and sirens and drove like a bat out of hell. They sped south on the Interstate through the hot desert evening, while Farrell's mind grappled with the problem on threedifferent levels.
First, he dealt with the car, navigating with fierce concentration.
Second, he played radio tag, trying to get a good enough connection to be patched through to someone in Tucson who could actually help him.
Third, he listened to -Myrna Louise Spaulding's seemingly endless story.
It wasn't until a Pinal County dispatcher hooked him up with the counterpart dispatcher in Pima, a guy named Hank Maddern, that Farrell finally felt as though he was talking to somebody real, someone with a sense of urgency.
'What can I do for you, Detective Farrell?' Maddern asked. 'Brandon Walker told me to expect your call.'
'Where is he?'
'At the hospital. His father's dying.'
'I'm sorry as hell to hear it, but this can't wait. You've got to get him on the phone for me.'
'Why?'
'Tell him we've got trouble. Tell him it's bad. I just don't know how bad.'
'It could take some time,' Maddern cautioned. 'They're in the ICU at Tucson Medical Center. Can anyone else help?'
Considering what Myrna had told him about Carlisle's illegal purchase of police records and what Farrell himself knew about the graft and corruption in the Pima County Sheriff's Office, the detective was leery about bringing in any more players whose loyalty might be questionable.
Maddern sounded like the genuine article, but Farrell remained skeptical. Someone high in DuShane's administration had helped Andrew Carlisle at least once before. It might very well happen again.
'I don't want to have to brief someone else if it isn't necessary,' Farrell hedged. 'Try getting through to Walker.
I'm just now passing Picacho Peak. If you can't reach him within a matter of minutes, then we'll have to do something else.'
By six-thirty Wanda Ortiz, Fat Crack's wife, was finishing the last batch of tortillas. She had started out early that morning by making six dozen tamales, a big vat of pinto beans, and another of chili.
With a dozen preparations left to do before the singers arrived, she was hot, sweaty, and tired. She was also annoyed.
She was annoyed because her mother-in-law, Juanita, had refused to lift a finger to help her. Real Presbyterians didn't participate in pagan baptisms, Juanita had archly informed Fat Crack when he had gone to his mother's house asking for help. She wouldn't lend her support to Looks At Nothing's crazy idea, not even as a favor for her own sister.
So Wanda had done all the cooking herself, not complaining, but with a layer of very un-Christianlike anger seething just beneath her seemingly placid surface.
This was Wanda's second church-related battle with her mother-in-law in less than a month. The first had been over whether or not Juanita's grandchildren would attend Presbyterian Daily Vacation Bible school.
Juanita had won the skirmish hands down since the Presbyterian church also happened to own the reservation's only swimming pool.
There were times, Wanda thought, slapping the last tortilla on the griddle and picking it off with nimble fingers, that she wished all the Anglo missionaries would go back where they came from. Even Fat Crack's Christian-Science studies sometimes provoked her.
Wanda was still nursing her grudge when Looks At Nothing pounded on the door with his walking stick. She wasn't especially happy to see him, either. At that particular moment, the Indian medicine man was more trouble than all the others put together.
'What is it?' she asked curtly, wiping her hands on her apron.
