by Sue Hardesty
“Did you care?”
Loni interrupted the hostile exchange. “Joy, tell me what happened.”
“Billy Joe said he was going back to town to get more beer.” She hesitated, rocking the boy in her arms. “Next thing I see, he's driving my truck without asking me. I didn't even know he got in it until I heard it start.” She stared at Billy Joe again. “You fuck! Why didn't you drive your own car?”
“You weren't using yours!” Billy Joe voiced his usual arrogance. “It was just sittin’ there to take.”
“Billy Joe,” Loni warned him. “I'll get to you.”
“We were in Paddy's car. We tried to stop him. I didn't want him driving my pickup. He started screwing around with us, driving in circles, then driving close and threatening to ram us. Jimmy ran out to stop him.” Joy's voice quivered. “He only wanted to stop him.”
“Wait a minute,” Billy Joe interrupted. “I was barely off the road.”
Loni squatted down in front of the two. “Paddy? Can you hear me?”
The sobbing boy nodded.
“Is that how you remember it?”
“Noooo.” Paddy stretched it out between sobs. “He pushed me off the road. I was trying to get away from him, and I didn't see Jimmy!” He ended the name in a wail.
Joy screamed at Billy Joe. “You wouldn't drive that way in your fancy red car!”
Loni stood. “Anyone else see what happened?”
The group glanced around at each other. Finally a voice came out of the crowd. “None of us did. We were sitting around the fire.”
Another voice came out of the fire. “We could see lights spinning around but that’s all.”
Billy Joe started defending himself again, but Loni ignored him as she photographed the ground and measured the tracks. Following her, his whiny voice continued to invade her space as she traced where the pickup and car had swerved off the road. The tracks stopped just beyond the boy. Loni stopped as the ambulance pulled up. “Billy Joe. Go back to the fire.”
EMTs were waiting to pick up the boy as she reached them to take more pictures.
The teenagers cried and argued as she wandered around the cars until she saw the Lamborghini. A fancy red car, the girl said. She had heard about this car a little too often. Loni got names and phone numbers, one by one, before she called the parents to come get their kids. She called Bobby to send someone to notify Jimmy's parents.
The dark night was thick with fear and grief as the coroner and the ambulance slowly disappeared into the dark. Loni watched the parents gather their children. Only Dorothea seemed indifferent when she picked up Billy Joe. She stood impassively, waiting for him to get in his car. After an eternity, she pulled out after him as they left.
Loni made one more careful pass around the crime scene before heading for the ranch.
CHAPTER 4
LONI PULLED INTO her grandparents’ driveway just as the sun hit the slowly spinning windmill fans, splashing light around her. She took a deep breath and shook the night off as she climbed down from her truck. Coco bounced to the ground and followed Loni, who soaked in the peace surrounding her.
Inside, she and Willie spent an hour moving the furniture to one side of the room. The sounds of Geri and the TO Boys gave Loni the rhythm for stirring Navajo White paint while a barefoot Willie danced around her in his favorite polka step. His dark bronzed skin popped against the white of his short-sleeved T-shirt. Loni grinned, thinking his tattered Levis would bring a pretty price at a designer’s show.
“Yip, yip!” Loni hollered as she joined Willie. They circled the work table a couple of times before they danced into the kitchen and grabbed Shiichoo. The giggling white-haired woman pushed at them after a few turns and wiggled away. “I don't have time for your silliness this morning, she grumbled through her smile.” Returning to her stove, she furiously stirred the pot muttering about burned stew and tried not to grin.
Loni skipped back and forth behind her grandma a few times pulling on her long braid. “Lovely dress, Shiichoo,” Loni said as she pulled on her grandma's paint-streaked smock and dodged swats from the wooden spoon. Moving over to her granddad, Loni chanted, “Chicken scratch, chicken scratch, we all do the chicken scratch,” Loni chanted at him.
Bahb laughed and shook his head as he tried to keep out of her way. “Way you dance looks chicken scratch. Move.”
“When's the last time you went out dancing?”
“I think Sacaton. Years ago,” Shiichoo said thoughtfully. “And you two won't eat unless you get that painting done sometime today!”
Grinning at each other, Loni and Willie danced back to their painting.
Loni cut the paint into the corners as Willie rolled the paint onto the walls and ceiling. When she wasn’t watching, he swiped her with the paint roller until she was covered with off-white stripes. She listened to Bahb's humming as he carefully painted the woodwork. Loni relaxed until she jumped at the loud bong next to her from the mantel clock that her father's parents had brought across the country. Willie laughed and swatted her with the roller again. “Pay attention. You're getting more paint on the floor than the walls.”
“Oh, yeah? Well you're getting more paint on me than the ceiling,” Loni complained, moving out of his reach.
The first half of the room was finished before noon, but the smells of cooking made Loni’s mouth water for a long time. They washed up and grabbed cans of frozen tea from the freezer while Shiichoo put lunch on the table.
Loni gobbled her stew and got up to fix the strawberry shortcake dessert. When she passed it around the table, she served Bahb last, watching for his eyes light up. She knew that strawberry shortcake was his favorite, and she wanted to soften him up for what she had to say. The quiet settled as everyone ate. Loni knew it was time and broke into the quiet. “I need to talk to all of you about something. My boss likes us to talk to our families in case something happens to us, you know?” Loni squirmed in front of the six dark eyes. “My end of life directive says if I'm brain dead or terminally ill, I don't want any heroic action taken. In other words, don't keep me alive,” she insisted. “Understand?”
They all stared at her.
“Come on,” Loni begged. “Tell me you agree.”
The three gawked at each other then and looked back to her. Finally Bahb spoke. “If you want, okay.”
“Good.” Loni nodded. “And now I want directives from the three of you.”
“What?” Bahb said.
“She wants to know how we want to die,” Willie explained. He turned back to Loni. “I want same as you.”
The other two nodded in agreement.
“Okay. How do you want to be buried? In the olden ways? Well, except for killing a horse. I refuse to do that.”
Willie grinned. “Old Buck not worth killing.”
Not certain she agreed, Loni watched the three of them nod as she said, “Last question. What do you want buried with you? Shiichoo, tell me.”
“I want to be buried in the graveyard out back.” She paused a minute. “All I want are my weaving sticks. Otherwise do what you want.”
“Bahb?”
“Wrap me in blanket from living room wall and bury under a rock next to Shiichoo.”
“Large, flat tombstone do?”
Bahb nodded in agreement.
“You won't get into trouble?” Shiichoo sounded worried.
“No. Law only says we have to be buried six feet or deeper to keep animals from smelling us and digging us up.”
“That's a special image, child.” Shiichoo frowned at her.
“Willie?”
“I want whole bit." Willie sat back, his arms crossed as he considered. "Sit me with head pointed south. Bury at night. No one stays, just cover and go. Use my ollos to leave pinole and water with me. Tomahawk placed in my arms.” He grinned at Loni then and reached over and pulled on the long dark French braid down her back. “You cut your hair.”
“No, no,” Shiichoo objected. “She will not! I
want her hair left long.”
“Part of old ritual.”
“We're done here.” Loni stood, picking up the dishes from the table and washed them in the sink. Grateful she had gotten that much out of them, Loni put off the paperwork.
As the sun dropped in the sky, the four of them stood back, admiring their work. With a sigh and a small grin, Bahb looked over at her. “Now done.”
"Not yet, Bahb. Tomorrow afternoon we do the second coat on the walls." Loni hugged him before she bounced into the kitchen and washed her face and hands. Grabbing three tamales, she pushed through the back door and called over her shoulder, “You get to clean up.” Popping her head back in, she said, “Oh, yeah. Can I bring you anything tomorrow?”
“Saddle soap,” Bahb said.
“Prickly pear pads,” said Shiichoo. “And Charmin toilet paper.”
“Why Charmin?”
“That's the only toilet paper your silly cat won't eat.”
“What?”
“Eat. That cat you drug in from the barn eats toilet paper. I'm tired of chasing half chewed rolls all over the house.”
Bahb laughed. “She just grabs beginning of the roll and flies.”
“Give her some grass,” Loni suggested. “Humm. Funny what that rhymes with.”
“Out! Out!” Her grandma picked up the broom and swept at Loni as she fell laughing out the door. Shiichoo opened the door again for the dog. “Better get, Coco! You'll be next.” The dog flew out the door and pushed past Loni's giggles as she scurried up into the cab of the truck.
CHAPTER 5
IT WAS THE HOTTEST part of the afternoon and Loni was stiff and sore from riding horses, painting, and sitting at her computer at work. Yet Shiichoo was on the mend, and Loni was glad to have family who loved her. Lowering herself carefully to the ground from her truck cab, she stiff-walked toward the hangar office as Coco ran around to the back of the building.
Daniel watched her shuffle into the office and slowly drop into one of the overstuffed chairs. “Been helping your grandparents again?”
"Tryin' to."
“I never did ask you,” Daniel queried. “Why didn't you move in with your grandparents when you came home?”
“We talked it over." Loni shrugged. "I knew Shiichoo would try to take care of me if I stayed at the ranch. When I patrolled highways at night, she'd have to be up and down all the time. I came home to help her, not the other way around.”
Daniel smiled. “You're right. Cleaning up after you, no one would get any rest.”
“With her as a cop on the premise, she's saving us from paying a salary for a security guard,” Uncle Herm reminded Daniel.
“So now you're giving her credit for being useful around here?”
With a grin, Loni ignored Daniel as she picked at a glob of paint on the tail of her shirt. Suddenly the roar of propellers drowned the conversation as a plane whipped into the big door to the hangar.
The propeller slowly stopped spinning, and a small, slender woman in designer jeans, high-heeled boots, and a silver silk shirt climbed out of the cabin. She shook long blond hair out of her eyes and tucked it behind her ears while she walked into the office and looked around. With a disapproving frown on her longish narrow face, she wiped the sweat off her forehead.
Loni’s Uncle Herm stood in greeting, and the woman complained. “Lordy, how do you live in this heat. It can't be healthy!”
Herm’s dark German bulk towering over her. He stared down at her and drawled, “Shore is, lady. Why, when I came here, I couldn’t walk nor talk nor turn myself over. Look at me now.”
Daniel fell over with giggles. The woman ignored everyone except Herm and nodded sagely. “I see. Were you very ill?”
“Well, not really little lady.” Uncle Herm smiled. “I was born here!”
The woman frowned in disgust. “I'd like a taxi.”
Daniel had begun another round of giggles, and Herm turned to Loni. “Do we have a taxi here?”
“Nope,” Loni answered with a straight face.
Daniel struggled to talk. “Usually the cops take people where they need to go.”
Grinning, Uncle Herm turned to Loni as Daniel got lost in more giggles. “Well, hell, Loni. Get up from there and help the woman.”
Grimacing at her sore body, Loni fought her way to stand from the worn out springs and hole in the chair. Enough was enough, she thought, and held out her hand. “I'm Loni Wagner, ma'am. Caliente Police Department. Where can I take you?”
The woman looked Loni up and down, ignoring her outstretched hand splattered with paint. “You're kidding, right?”
Dropping her hand, Loni looked her in the eye. “Nope.” She dug her badge out of her back pocket and held it up.
“God help me,” the woman sighed. “What next?”
Loni stood and waited.
“I need to see a client,” the woman finally explained, wiping her face on the sleeve of her silk shirt. “Although what I really want is to fly the hell out of here. Is it always this hot?”
“Nope,” Loni answered calmly. “It's usually hotter in the summer. This is fall weather.” Behind her, Daniel fell apart again in giggles.
Straightening up, the woman seemed to collect herself and became more civil. “I'm Janet Jace. I would appreciate a ride to the jail and directions to the hotel.”
“Daniel? Did you know we had a hotel?” asked Uncle Herm.
“Sure, Dad. Don't you remember? Behind the old movie theater.”
“Oh, yeah? Thought the fire they had last month closed it down.”
“Only the kitchen,” Daniel answered.
“Oh for heaven's sake!” the woman snapped.
“Ignore them, Ms. Jace,” Loni said as she turned to Daniel. “You're just rude, Daniel. If you would stop giggling for one minute, you could grab her luggage and toss it in my truck.” Loni turned back to Janet. “I need to wash a bit and change my shirt. If you could give me a few minutes?”
Dashing upstairs, Loni glanced in the mirror and saw the streaks of paint on her face. My god! Loni thought. She must think I’m wearing war paint! She scrubbed as best she could where she could reach and changed her shirt and Levis.
Janet was tapping her foot when Loni hurried down the stairs. Determined to be polite, Loni opened the passenger door and signaled Coco who scrambled up like mountain climber into the seat. “You're next,”
“Does that dog have to go with us?” Janet asked.
“She does if you want to go to town,” Loni answered. “She's a police dog and goes wherever I go.”
Turning away from Daniel’s offer of help, Janet stiffened her back and determinedly grabbed the seatbelt to pull herself up into the cab, pushing away Coco's long tongue. She pulled on the seat belt as she hugged the passenger side and stared around her. “I suppose you have a reason for parking in an airplane hangar?”
“I live up there.” Loni pointed to the top of her stairs.
Janet Jace's mouth fell open. “You live in an airport hangar?”
“She surely does, Ms. Jace,” Daniel answered as he closed the passenger door. Nodding at her three large suitcases in the bed of the truck, he asked. “You plan on being here a while?”
Rolling the window up in Daniel's face, Janet didn't answer. She sat back and waited.
Loni drove out of the wide hangar door and headed for town before she finally asked, “Anything I can help you with, tell you about?”
“You’re really a cop?”
“Yep.” Loni glanced over at the disbelieving expression on Janet's face. “Hard to believe, huh?”
Janet snorted. “There must be an interesting story here somewhere.”
“Maybe I'll tell you another time. You haven't told me yet why you’re here.”
“I heard there's no lawyer in this town. Is that true?”
“Yep. Last one ran off last year with the principal. Couldn't happen to a nicer guy.”
“You didn't think much of him?”
“
Hell, yes. Stu was fine. It was the principal I hated. I had him for calculus in high school and he was a leach. One of the other teachers caught him molesting a male student in a custodian closet. So what did they do to punish him? Made him principal which gave him even more power.” Loni shut up before she got mad all over again.
“Why didn’t you stop him? You're a cop.”
Loni glanced over with a snort. “I was in high school at the time.” Shrugging, Loni continued. “Probably couldn't have gotten him fired anyway. Small town politics. When you're here long enough you'll see. Plan on staying awhile?”
“I don't know yet. I have a case here, and I thought about looking around at the same time.”
“You caught the Charlie Thornton case?”
Janet shook her head. “I don’t know anything about that case.”
“If you're here very long, I bet you catch it. A big time murder case by a big time citizen. Owns a big farm outside of town.”
“Who'd he murder?”
“His wife, of course.”
Janet sighed. “I hate domestic violence cases.”
“What case did you get?”
“I'm representing a young man by the name of Ronnie Dobbs.”
Loni barked a short laugh. “How'd you catch that one?”
“As I said, I wanted to look around so I’m doing it pro bono. I understand that Dobbs is very poor.”
Loni snorted. “He comes from the Dobbs Ranch in the Alter Valley. Make the old man pay or you'll get laughed out of town.” She felt obliged to explain. “There's nothing that old man likes more than ripping off someone. He'll brag to everyone and embarrass the hell outta you.”
As they drove, Loni entertained Janet with a running commentary about the town. They passed the Mormon Church, stucco white with a tall, cone-shaped sphere reaching into the sky. “One of several churches I'm sure would welcome you.”
“But not you?” Janet guessed.
Loni glanced at Janet with a grin. After an empty service station came into view, Loni pointed to an old abandoned movie theater with a faded yellow sign on the big double doors that read “CONDEMNED.” The marquee pushed out over the sidewalk in all of its past splendor. Carved wood with chipped gilt surrounded a few plastic letters hanging precariously from their railings. “I think those letters once read To Kill a Mockingbird,” Loni continued. “Only theater in town. Closed when I was a kid. The last owner was old man Jandas, mostly deaf and blind. After he died, the city closed it down.”
