Would he fall for it? Rita couldn’t be sure, but she knew that people saw what they wanted to see, heard what they wanted to hear. She had already tried that once, and back home, in Tucson, she had Understanding Woman’s original medicine basket stored safely away among her treasures as proof that it worked.
Mrs. Charles Clark wasn’t particularly nice as she conducted the initial interview with her new employee. The Clarks were not accustomed to dealing with girls of dubious virtue, but Father Mark had begged them to make an exception in this case. Rita would be allowed to remain and work providing her behavior was absolutely above reproach. She must attend church regularly, do no drinking or smoking, and have no male visitors.
There was another young Tohono O’odham working in the household, a slender, shy girl named Louisa Antone. Rita and Louisa shared the same last name, but they were not related. Rita was from Ban Thak, while Louisa came from Hikiwoni, or Jagged Edge.
Although Louisa was two whole years younger than Rita, she was much more well versed in the ways of the Clark household. Louisa explained Adele Clark’s complex housekeeping system that allowed every room in the house to be dusted at least twice a week. It wasn’t until the third day that Dancing Quail opened the door to what was known as the basket room.
She remembered Father Mark saying that the Clarks were interested in baskets, but until she entered the sweet-smelling room, she had seen no evidence of it. When she stepped inside, the clean, dry smell of yucca and bear grass overpowered her. Smelling them made her want to weep for her home, for her grandmother, and for all that was both familiar and lost to her. Tempted to cry, she forced herself to work.
Dancing Quail came from a society where baskets and livestock were signs of wealth. At home she had never seen so many baskets in one place. Many were crammed together, stacked against walls or piled haphazardly in corners, as though they’d been gathered in a hurry and no one had yet taken the time to sort them. The girl recognized some of the designs and patterns as ones from the Tohono O’odham, but there were baskets of many other tribes as well-Hopi, Navajo, Yaqui, even some of the hated Apache.
Slowly, savoring the smell and touch of familiar objects, Dancing Quail worked her way around the room, coming at last to a glass-enclosed case where someone had bothered to arrange the fine baskets displayed there. Cautiously, she opened one door, propped it up on its hinge, and began moving the baskets around on the shelf, gingerly dusting each basket as well as the shelf beneath it.
She had finished the first shelf and was ready to start on the next when she saw it sitting there, waiting-Understanding Woman’s basket, not the crude one from the leather case upstairs, but the original one with its fine, straight seams and smooth, silky weave, the basket that had been taken from Dancing Quail’s bedroll years before.
With trembling fingers, she took it in her hands and pried open the tight-fitting lid. Not only was the basket there, so were all of the things that had been inside, the sacred gifts her grandmother had given her, except for the missing geode. One at a time, Dancing Quail touched each precious item-the jagged piece of pottery with its etched turtle still clearly visible, the seashell her grandfather had brought back from the ocean, and the eagle feather Dancing Quail’s father had brought to his own mother when he was still a boy.
They were all there and all perfectly safe, as though they had been waiting for Dancing Quail to find them. As she put each item back inside and carefully closed the lid, she felt Understanding Woman’s spirit close beside her, guiding her.
Brandon swung by Tucson Medical Center on his way back through town. Nothing had changed with Toby Walker. Louella refused her son’s offer of a ride home.
“I’ve got to be going then, Mom,” he said.
“Going?” Louella asked vaguely. “Where?”
“I’m working,” he lied. “I’m on a case.”
“Oh,” she said distractedly. “You go on then. I’ll be fine.”
“What did the doctor say?” he asked gently.
Louella’s eyes filled with sudden tears. “That it’s up to me,” she said, “and I don’t want it to be. I want somebody else to make the decision, God or someone, just not me.”
She fell sobbing into Brandon’s arms. He held her for several long minutes. Louella didn’t ask her son to make the decision for her, and he didn’t offer. It wasn’t his place. “We’ll just have to wait and see then, won’t we?” he said.
Louella gulped and nodded. “Yes,” she said. “Wait and see.”
Brandon left the hospital and drove to Gate’s Pass. He had waited to contact Diana, hoping to have some definite news about Carlisle’s whereabouts before he told her anything. Once he talked to Mallory, there wasn’t time to reach her before leaving for Picacho Peak to meet Detective Farrell.
Driving to Diana’s house now, he worried about what he would say. He didn’t want to alarm her unduly, but he was worried. If Andrew Carlisle was responsible for Margie Danielson’s savage murder, and by now both detectives were fairly certain he was, that meant the man had somehow slipped over some critical edge. There was no telling who would be next.
A snippet of radio intruded into his thoughts, giving the first sketchy reports of a stabbing victim found dead that morning in a downtown Tucson hotel room. At least he wouldn’t be called out on that case, Walker thought. The Santa Rita was well inside the city limits, so the county would have nothing to do with it. He switched off the radio and kept on driving.
Brandon heard the dog bark from inside the house as soon as he turned off the blacktop. Oh’o, as Diana called him, was a monster of an animal, a rangy, ugly specimen whose teeth could inflict real damage. Right that moment, however, Brandon Walker smiled at the dog’s menacing presence. If Andrew Carlisle decided to try coming after Diana Ladd, he’d have to get past the dog first. In a fair fight, Brandon would have put money on the dog any day.
He half expected the door to open, but it didn’t. Remaining out of sight, Diana spoke to him through a partially opened window. “Who is it?”
“Brandon Walker. Is it safe to get out of the car?”
“It’s safe,” she called back. “Bone’s with me.”
Brandon waited outside while she unlatched a series of locks. That seemed strange. He didn’t remember seeing multiple locks on the door before, but of course they might have been there without his noticing. When the door opened, Bone sat directly behind Diana with Davy hanging on the huge dog’s neck. “May I come in?” he asked.
“Yes.”
He stepped over the threshold. “I’ve got to talk to you,” he said urgently. “In private.”
Diana Ladd stared up at him, her eyes fixed in turn on every aspect of his face as though examining him in minute detail. “Davy,” she said, without looking away, “take Bone out back and throw the ball for a while. I’ll call you in a few minutes.”
The child left the room, shoulders sagging, head drooping, with the dog following dutifully behind. “What do you want to talk to me about?” she asked.
All his careful plans for telling her flew out the window. “Andrew Carlisle,” he replied. “He’s out.”
“I know,” she said. “That’s why I’m wearing this.”
A raw recruit would have been drummed out of the academy for making such a mistake. It wasn’t until she touched it with her hand that he noticed the gun and holster strapped to her hip. And not just any gun, either-a gigantic.45 Colt single-action revolver.
“Jesus H. Christ, woman! Is that thing loaded?”
“It certainly is,” she told him calmly. “And I’m fully prepared to use it.”