anyway.”
“Other than the minivan,” Brian said, “did you notice anything else out of the ordinary?”
“No,” Mildred said. “That’s about it. Unleashed dogs wandering around, garbage cans left out on the curb that should have been taken inside, and that sort of thing. Nothing else comes to mind.”
Brian stood up, took out a business card, and gave it to her. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to get back to that next-of-kin situation, but thank you. You’ve been most helpful. If you think of anything else, though, don’t hesitate to call.”
Mildred studied his card. “You probably think I’m just a nosy old lady,” she said. “That’s what Carl would have said. He was my husband. He’s dead now, but he was always after me to mind my own business.”
Brian smiled at her. “I’m not sure how old you are,” he said, “and I’m not so sure about your being nosy, either, but believe me, in my business there are times when we need all the help we can get.”
Brian hurried out to his car. Despite what he’d told Mildred, he doubted anything would come of the license information. Just to be on the safe side, though, he pulled out his cell phone and asked Records to check it out.
Sells, Tohono O’odham Nation, Arizona
Sunday, June 7, 2009, 8:00 a.m.
69? Fahrenheit
Just before Lani got off shift at 8:00 A.M. on Sunday morning, she took a detour past Angie Enos’s room, popped in briefly, just long enough to say hello. Now that Angie had been moved out of the ER, another physician was in charge of her case. The little girl was sitting up in bed eating breakfast.
Angie looked up at Lani from her dish of Lucky Charms. “Are you a leopard?” she asked.
“A leopard?” Lani asked, glancing in Dan Pardee’s direction for help. He shrugged his own bafflement.
“What makes you think I’m a leopard?” Lani asked.
“Spots,” Angie said.
Lani held up her bare arm where dozens of tiny white blemishes dotted her skin. Lani was so accustomed to them that she no longer noticed them.
“Ants,” Lani said.
Angie’s eyes widened. “Kuadagi?” she asked.
Lani nodded. “When I was little-younger than you are-the people who were supposed to be watching me left me alone for too long. I got into an ant bed and the ants bit me,” she explained. “There were so many ant bites that I almost died. I had to go to a hospital just like this one.”
“My mommy doesn’t like me to get near ants,” Angie said. “She said they can be bad.”
“It’s true,” Lani said.
She noticed that Angie still referred to her mother in the present tense. The reality of her loss had yet to sink into Angie’s little brain.
“You’re not giving Mr. Pardee or Bozo any trouble, are you?” Lani asked.
Angie looked at the Shadow Wolf in his now somewhat bedraggled Border Patrol uniform. He looked tired. A dark five o’clock shadow bristled on his cheeks, but Angie gave him a sweet smile. “Even though he’s a grown-up, he says I can call him Dan.”
“I’d take him at his word then,” Lani said. “Come to think of it, maybe I’ll call him Dan, too. But I’m going off shift now, so I probably won’t see you again.”
“Okay,” Angie said with a shy wave.
Lani went outside. An irate charge nurse was waiting for her at the end of the hall. “What’s a dog doing in that room?” she demanded. “We have no business-”
“It is our business,” Lani interrupted. “That poor little girl’s mother was murdered last night. The dog is helping take her mind off her troubles, and believe me, that’s exactly what she needs.”
“When she goes, the dog goes,” the nurse declared.
“I’m sure,” Lani agreed.
“When will she be released?”
Lani glanced at her watch. She had more than half expected that Angie’s family would have arrived overnight to check on her. She was a little surprised that they had yet to put in an appearance, but she was sure they’d be there soon.
“My understanding is that someone is supposed to come pick her up this morning,” Lani said. “One of her relatives. Next-of-kin notifications were being done last night.”
The charge nurse picked up Angie’s chart. “Do we know who’ll be picking her up?” she asked.
“My guess would be the grandparents,” Lani said. “You’ll need to sort that out with her attending. I’m off.”
Lani left the hospital then. Weariness was catching up with her. She needed to get Gabe fed and on his way home, and then she planned to go to bed herself. Fortunately she had today and tomorrow off. That would give her a chance to catch up on her sleep. It had been a busy night in the ER. Once Jose Thomas had been shipped off to Phoenix Indian, Lani had treated two maternity cases, one of which had ended with the normal delivery of the infant. The other had required an emergency C-section. By the time Lani got off work, both mothers and both newborns were doing well.
She walked across the parking lot and through the hospital housing compound, where Lani was surprised to see Delia Ortiz’s aging Saab parked in front of her house. On dance weekends, when Gabe stayed with Lani, she usually returned him to his parents’ place later on in the morning, giving them a chance to catch up on their sleep.
Delia’s car was parked in Lani’s driveway, but she wasn’t in it. That meant she was probably inside. Lani and Delia knew each other, but they had never been close. The idea that Delia had gone inside Lani’s home without an express invitation and without Lani’s being there violated some age-old Tohono O’odham traditions where hospitality was a gift to be given rather than something to be expected or demanded.
Lani paused for a moment outside the front door, listening for the sound of the television set. Gabe Ortiz loved Saturday and Sunday morning cartoons, but there was only silence.
Turning her key in the lock, Lani let herself inside. Delia Ortiz was sitting in a rocking chair, dozing. She jerked awake when the door opened.
“Sorry to stop by unexpectedly like this,” Delia said. “I hope you don’t mind, but I needed to talk to you.”
“Where’s Gabe?” Lani said, looking around.
“I sent him home.”
Whatever this was, it was something Delia didn’t want her son to hear. That made Lani uneasy. “Can I get you something?” she asked. “Coffee?”
“No, thanks. No coffee. After this, I need to go home and take a nap.”
Lani needed sleep, too. Instead of going to the kitchen, she sat down on the couch and waited, allowing the silence between them to stretch.
“He had a good birthday,” Delia said eventually.
Lani nodded. She hadn’t been invited to Gabe’s eighth birthday party. She had been at work, but there was more to it than that. There was a certain rivalry between these two young women, a kind of sibling rivalry, even though they were not related. Both of them had been put forward by their mutual mentor, Fat Crack Ortiz. He had brought Delia home from Washington and he had seen to it that the Tohono O’odham paid for Lani’s medical education. So they were both women of influence on the reservation, but they were not friends. Not birthday-party friends.
“I’m glad,” Lani said.
“He loves video games,” Delia said.
Lani knew that, too. In many ways, Gabe Ortiz was an ordinary little kid. In other ways, he was extraordinary.
“You gave him to me,” Delia said after a pause.
“I wrapped him up in a towel and handed him to you,” Lani said with a smile. “You’re the one who had to do all the hard work.”
“What would have happened to us if you hadn’t been there that night to help?”
Lani shrugged. “Probably nothing,” she said. “It was a normal delivery. Faster than expected, but normal. You
