been paralyzed every time she took a new call.
Yes, Louise Maynard was far better off not knowing about what had happened to Corrine Lapin’s sister Esther because she had a hunch that whatever it was, it wouldn’t be good.
Sells, Tohono O’odham Nation, Arizona
Sunday, June 7, 2009, 3:10 a.m.
65? Fahrenheit
Dan heard the thump, thump, thump of the approaching helicopter rotors. The familiar racket was enough to rouse him out of a restless sleep. For a moment he was back in Iraq, reaching for his weapons, bracing for action. Then he realized where he was-in a hospital room in Sells, Arizona, with a little orphaned Indian girl named Angie sleeping peacefully in the hospital bed beside his chair.
As the sound of the arriving helicopter jarred him awake, he forced his stiff body upright and sprinted toward the door and down the hall. Bozo was fearless about almost everything but not about helicopters. Suicide bombers didn’t scare him. Exploding IEDs didn’t bother him, either. His sensitive nose was able to sort out the presence of explosives, so he knew they were there and he was able to warn Dan.
Helicopters, on the other hand, could drop out of the sky toward them with no advance warning. One had done so when they’d been out on patrol. It was brought down by a handheld missile launcher, and it had fallen to earth only a few yards from where Dan and Bozo had been on patrol, killing both crew members on board.
As Dan bounded out the front door of the hospital, he saw the medevac helicopter landing in a far corner of the parking lot. He could also hear Bozo. Confined in the Expedition, the dog was on full alert and barking frantically. As Dan made for his vehicle, he caught sight of a patient being wheeled toward the helicopter.
Dan opened the door and Bozo leaped out, crashing into Dan in the process and almost knocking him over. The dog continued to bark, warning everyone within hearing range of what he perceived as a dire threat.
“It’s okay, Bozo,” Dan said, catching the dog by his collar, holding him, and calming the terrified animal as best he could. “It’s not going to hurt you.”
Bozo remained unconvinced. He continued to bark until the helicopter took off once more, disappearing into the moonlit distance.
While a pair of orderlies walked the empty gurney back into the hospital, Dr. Walker came across the lot.
“Bozo, I presume?” she asked. “He sounds pretty fierce.”
“That’s Bozo sounding scared as opposed to sounding fierce,” Dan told her. “He’s frightened of helicopters.”
“Really?” she asked.
“Really,” Dan said.
Dr. Walker didn’t ask why Bozo was scared of helicopters, and Dan didn’t go into it. He was afraid he was going to get a lecture on all the noise. This was a hospital zone, after all.
“You left him out here in the car?” she asked.
“He’s fine,” Dan said. “He would have been fine if it hadn’t been for the helicopter.”
Bozo had quieted now. As Dan went to get the water bowl and a couple more bottles of water, Dr. Walker reached out and patted the dog’s head.
“Sorry about that,” she said. “The helicopter, I mean. We had a snakebite victim. We managed to get him stabilized enough to have him transported to the Phoenix Indian Medical Center.”
Dan Pardee knew all about the Indian Medical Center in Phoenix. It was where his grandmother, Maxine Duarte, had died. While undergoing chemo, she had developed a raging infection and had died of it with so little warning that Micah, at work in Safford, hadn’t been able to make it to the hospital in time.
“You’re staying the whole night?” Dr. Walker asked.
Dan nodded. “I told Angie about her mother,” he said. “I also told her that I’d stay with her until someone comes to pick her up later this morning.”
Bozo finished drinking the water, then walked over to one of the back tires to raise his leg.
“You’re sleeping on one of those god-awful chairs in Angie’s room?” Dr. Walker asked.
Dan nodded. “Not the best,” he agreed, “but I’ve slept in worse places.”
“I’ll see if I can get them to find a roll-away for that room. What about Bozo?”
“Now that the helicopter is gone and he’s had a drink, he’ll be fine.”
“Why don’t you bring him inside?”
Dan was astonished. “Into the hospital?”
“Sure,” Dr. Walker said with a grin, her white teeth flashing in the moonlight. “Didn’t you tell me Bozo is a certified therapy dog?”
“Dr. Walker,” he began, “I said no such thing.”
“Just bring his water dish along,” she said. “You’re welcome to call me Lani.”
“And I’m Dan,” he said. “Dan Pardee.”
Dan Pardee, the ohb.
Tucson, Arizona
Saturday, June 6, 2009, 11:00 p.m.
73? Fahrenheit
Jonathan was careful to pay close attention to the speed limit as he drove into town. His heart skipped a beat when he saw flashing lights west of Three Points, but then he remembered the Border Patrol checkpoint. He drove up to it and stopped briefly before being waved through with no difficulty and no questions asked.
Back in Tucson proper, he made his way to one of the freeway hotels near downtown. Jonathan was from California. It made no sense to him that you’d have all the freeway entrances and exits blocked for miles. Few travelers seemed to have made their way to the nearly deserted businesses close to downtown. When he pulled into the Los Amigos Motel, the parking lot was almost empty, and the bored night clerk was more than happy to take cash for the room as opposed to a credit card.
Jonathan’s arm was giving him fits again. Once inside the room, he gulped down another dose of antibiotics and then made his way into the shower. The guy at Urgent Care had told him to keep the bandage dry, so he covered his bandaged arm with a hotel laundry bag and then held his right hand out of the shower as best he could. It felt good to let the hot water sluice over him even though washing his hair and scrubbing his body using only his left hand to grip the tiny bar of soap felt very strange.
Out of the shower, he lay on the bed and used Jack Tennant’s phone to call Aero Mexico. They had a flight leaving for Cancun at eleven-thirty the next morning.
“Do you wish to make a reservation?” the reservations clerk wanted to know.
“I’m not sure if I can make this work. I won’t know until tomorrow morning. Does it look overbooked?”
“Not at all,” the clerk told him. “I’m sure there will still be empty seats tomorrow.”
“Good,” he told her. “I’ll book the reservation when I’m sure I can get away.”
Relieved, Jonathan set the phone’s alarm clock function to awaken him at eight, then closed his phone and stretched out full length on the bed. After living in the minivan for several days, even a bad bed was a big improvement.
He knew that guilty consciences were supposed to keep you awake, but he didn’t feel guilty. He had done what had needed to be done for a very long time. Now he was worn out. Within moments he fell sound asleep and slept like a baby.
Komelik, Tohono O’odham Nation, Arizona
Sunday, June 7, 2009, 1:15 a.m.
65? Fahrenheit
Brian Fellows was sitting in his Crown Victoria and grabbing a drink of water when Delia Ortiz herself appeared on the scene. Brian hadn’t seen the woman for years, not since her father-in-law’s funeral, but he recognized her as soon as she got out of Martin Ramon’s patrol car. Brian also knew that in the intervening years she had become a
