'What about?' Diana asked. 'You sound worried.'
David Ladd's mind raced, trying to find a plausible reason for calling that had nothing to do with what he was feeling. 'It's a secret,' he said, as inspiration struck. 'It's about your anniversary present. But that's all right. I can talk to her tomorrow.'
'Give me your number,' Diana said. 'I'll leave her a note in case she does come home before the concert.'
Blushing to the roots of his light-blond hair, David Garrison Ladd looked down at the phone on the nightstand and read his mother the number of the Ritz Carlton in Chicago, Illinois. He put down the phone praying fervently that Lani wouldn't stop by the house before the concert.
'Who was that?' Candace asked when she came out of the bathroom. 'I thought I heard you talking to someone on the phone.'
'I just called home to give the folks a progress report,' he lied. 'My mother worries about me, and I wanted her to know that everything is fine.'
Deputy Fellows was used to working on his own. After Kath Kelly left, it took some time for him to get his mind back on the job, but eventually he did. He made plaster casts of what footprints he found. He combed the area again, looking for clues. And three separate times he retraced the path of the dirt track from the place where the attack had taken place to the spot where Kath Kelly had found the injured man lying in the dirt.
It was a long way. Almost a hundred yards. The question was why the killer would drag his victim anywhere at all? Eventually the answer became clear. The attack had been a reaction to being discovered rather than a premeditated crime. As such, the attacker didn't view himself as a killer. Rather than finish his victim off, he had simply dragged the injured man away, and hopefully out of view, expecting nature to take its course.
That meant that the real crime and also the key to the attacker's real intentions and identity had something to do with the digging back on the edge of the charco. At four o'clock in the afternoon, Brian went back to his truck, took a long drink from the last of his water, and collected his shovel. At four-ten, he started to dig.
Digging is a solitary occupation done with an implement that has changed little from ancient times to modern. The act of shoving a sharp spade into the dirt and then extracting a heaping shovel leaves plenty of time for reflection.
With the scattered remains of Gina Antone's shrine mere feet away from him, pieces of Brian Fellows's own life intruded into his thoughts about the case he was working on. Most people would have said that Brian came from a 'troubled background.' He had found respite from his half-brothers' constant taunting only at school and during those precious hours when he had managed to escape Janie's chaotic household to spend time at the Walker place in Gates Pass.
As Davy Ladd's faithful shadow, Brian had been welcome in places where he never would have been able to venture otherwise. He had walked, wide-eyed, into the dimly lit adobe hut where a blind medicine man named Looks At Nothing had lain confined to a narrow cot. The blind man had been sick, dying of a lingering cough, but he had nonetheless continued to smoke his strange-smelling cigarettes, lighting them one after another, with a cigarette lighter that somehow never once burned his fingers.
Those Tohono O'othham people-Rita, Looks At Nothing, Fat Crack, all of them-had been unfailingly kind to little Brian Fellows in a way his own family-mother, stepbrothers, and successive 'daddies'-never had.
And now, as he worked in the hot sun with his shovel, he felt as though he was protected somehow from the restless spirits that Davy Ladd had once told him inhabited this place. He had barely come to that conclusion when his shovel bit into something hard. Not wanting to break it, he tossed his shovel aside and then got down on his knees to dig in the sand by hand.
Almost immediately, his hand closed around something long and smooth and straight. When he pulled whatever it was free of the dirt, he saw at once that it was a bone. A leg bone of some kind, he thought. Maybe from a weakened cow that had once become trapped in the muddy charco and drowned. He dug some more and was rewarded with another long bone and what looked like a rib of some kind. Up until he found the rib, he kept thinking the bones belonged to an animal. The rib, however, had a very human look to it. Then his hands closed around something round and smooth and hard. The hair rose on the back of his neck. Letting go of the skull, he didn't even bother to finish pulling it free of its earthen prison.
Instead, he climbed out of the hole, walked back to his Blazer, and called in. Fortunately, the dispatcher on duty earlier had gone home for the day. 'Where've you been, Fellows? I was about to send someone out looking for you.'
'Great,' Brian said. 'If you're sending somebody, how about a homicide detective? Have him come equipped with shovels and some water-especially the water. I'm about to die of thirst.'
'A homicide detective. Why? What have you got? The last I heard you were working on an assault. Did the guy die?'
'Not as far as I know,' Brian Fellows said. 'That guy was still alive when they loaded him into the helicopter. But somebody else out here is dead as a doornail.'
'Dead?' the dispatcher returned. 'Who is it?'
'How should I know?' Brian answered. 'That's why I need a homicide detective.'
'I'll get right on it,' the dispatcher said. This time Deputy Fellows was relatively sure the man meant what he said.
It was about time.
11
So I'itoi gave orders to chase the evil ones to the ocean. When they reached the shore of what is now the Gulf of California, Great Spirit sang a song. As I'itoi sang, the waters were divided and the Bad People rushed in to go to the other side. Then Elder Brother called the waters together again, and many of the PaDaj O'othham-the Bad People-were drowned, but some reached the other side.
Great Spirit again tried to have his good warriors kill those evil ones that had escaped the waters, but the warriors would not. AndI'itoi — Spirit of Goodness-felt so ashamed that he made himself small and came back from the other side through the ground, under the water.
Many of his people returned withI'itoi, but some could not, and these were very unhappy, for thePaDaj O'othham who had not been destroyed were increasing.
ThenI'itoi 's daughter said she would save these good Indians who were not happy. She took all the children to the seashore, where they sat down and sang together. This is the song thatI'itoi 's daughter andA'ali — the Children-sang:
O white birds who cross the water,
O white birds who cross the water,
Help us now to cross the water.
We want to go with you across the water.
Kohkod — the Seagulls-heard the song. They came down and studiedI'itoi' s daughter and the children. ThenKohkod flew up and circled around, singing:
Take these feathers that we give you
Take these white feathers that we give you-
Take the feathers floating round you
And do not fear to cross the water.
So the Indians took the white feathers that the seagulls gave them. They bound the feathers round their heads and crossed the water safely. That is why,nawoj, my friend, theTohono O'othham keep those white feathers-thestoha a'an — very carefully, even to this day.
Candace and David had a beautiful dinner together in the hotel dining room. The champagne Candace ordered was Dom Perignon. 'It's okay,' she said, sending a radiant smile in Davy's direction over the top of the wine list. 'Daddy said we could have whatever we want. It's on him.'
'Exactly how much did Bridget and Larry's wedding set your folks back?' David asked once the sommelier left the table. Bridget was Candace's next older sister. Her wedding had taken place two months before Davy and
