"Not nearly as sorry as I am," he murmured back, wiping the tears from his eyes. "Not nearly."
The ICU waiting room Dan Leggett returned to was far more crowded than when he had left it several hours earlier. Off to one side of the room sat a group of Indians that included an attractive woman in her mid- to late thirties, a solidly built man in his mid- to late forties, and an elderly woman. The three of them were talking together in low voices.
In the middle of the room, Deputy Brian Fellows snoozed in a chair next to another Indian, a portly man somewhere in his sixties, who was also dozing.
Leggett stopped in front of Brian Fellows's chair. "What's happening?"
Brian's chin bounced off his chest. Blinking, he straightened in his chair. "Sorry about that, Detective Leggett. I must have fallen asleep."
"So I noticed. What's going on?"
"That's Delia Cachora over there," he said. "The younger woman. The older one is Delia's aunt, Julia Joaquin. And that's Julia's son, Wally Joaquin. And this," Brian added, motioning toward the man seated next to him, "is a friend of mine named Gabe Ortiz."
Dan Leggett nodded politely and held out his hand. "Any relation to the Tohono O'othham tribal chairman?"
Fat Crack straightened himself in the chair. "I am the tribal chairman," he said. "Mr. Chavez's daughter, Delia, works for me," he added as if to explain his presence. "I gave her a ride into town."
"Has anyone been able to talk to him yet?"
Brian shook his head. "Not as far as I know, although you might try talking to Ms. Cachora."
"Let's do it then," Dan Leggett said. "Come over and introduce me. There's no time to lose."
"Why? What's wrong?"
Dan Leggett shook his head. "You're not going to believe it," he said. "Lani Walker's turned up missing, and she may be involved in all this."
As soon as he made that last statement, Dan noticed that Gabe Ortiz came to attention, but the detective was too focused on Delia Cachora to wonder at the connection. "I'm Detective Dan Leggett from the Pima County Sheriff's Department," he said, stopping in front of the trio of Indians and not waiting for Brian to make introductions. "I'm in charge of investigating the assault against your father. It's important that we ask him some questions as soon as possible. When's the last time you tried to speak to him?"
"It was almost an hour ago now. Why? What's so important?" Delia asked.
"We're working on what may be a related case. I need to know if there's anything he can tell us about the attack. We're wondering if his assailant acted alone or if there was someone else involved."
"Lani Walker isn't involved," Gabe Ortiz declared forcefully. "She couldn't be. I've known her since she was a baby. She would never do anything like this."
Accustomed to Gabe Ortiz's usually soft-spoken ways, Delia looked at the tribal chairman in some surprise. "You think a woman is involved in the attack on my father?"
"It's possible," Dan said.
Delia stood up and leveled another questioning look in Gabe Ortiz's direction. "I'll go check," she said. "The problem is, even if he's awake, they probably won't allow anyone in other than family. Do you want me to ask whether or not a woman was there?"
Dan shook his head. "Don't put words in his mouth. Just ask if he remembers anything about it, especially whether or not his attacker was operating alone."
Delia left. The waiting room was silent for a long moment after the doors swung shut behind her. "Lani didn't do it," Gabe said again.
Brian Fellows nodded. "I know her, too, Dan. The Lani I know wouldn't harm a fly."
Dan Leggett turned to face Gabe. "Mr. Ortiz," he said, "we have a fingerprint from the bones that matches one found in the Walkers' house. I said she may have been involved. What I didn't say is that her involvement may have happened under duress."
"Duress? What does that mean?"
"It means Lani Walker may have been kidnapped," Dan Leggett said. "No one has seen her since she left to go to work sometime around six yesterday morning. She didn't show up for her shift or for a concert date with a friend yesterday evening."
"Kidnapped?" Brian Fellows echoed.
Delia came to the door and motioned to her elderly aunt. "He's talking, but in Tohono O'othham. I don't remember enough of that to be able to understand."
Again the people left in the waiting room drifted into silence. Gabe Ortiz walked across the room and sat down in a chair, burying his face in his hands. "Mr. Ortiz seems very upset about all this," Dan Leggett observed. "Is he related to Lani Walker somehow?"
Brian Fellows nodded. "He and his wife are Lani's godparents."
"Oh," Dan Leggett said. "That explains it then."
A few minutes later, Julia Joaquin emerged from the ICU. Walking stiffly, she passed directly in front of the waiting detective and deputy, going instead to where Gabe Ortiz was sitting. Dan Leggett and Brian Fellows trailed after her.
"Manny only remembers seeing a man, not a woman," the old woman said, speaking to the tribal chairman, addressing him softly in Tohono O'othham rather than English. "The man was tall and skinny-a Mil-gahn. And he was driving an orange truck of some kind."
"The girl wasn't there?" Gabe asked.
Julia Joaquin shook her head. Gabe Ortiz sighed in obvious relief.
"What are they saying?" Dan Leggett asked, and Brian translated as well as he could.
"Manny Chavez's back is broken and he may be paralyzed," Julia Joaquin continued, still addressing Gabe Ortiz, rather than any of the others. "Do you know of a medicine man who is good with Turtle Sickness?"
"I do not," Gabe answered. "But I will find out."
"Thank you," Julia said. She turned to the detective just as Brian finished translating once more.
"Turtle Sickness?" Dan Leggett repeated.
Julia Joaquin nodded.
"How can you call it a sickness? Somebody hit him in the back with a shovel!"
"Turtle Sickness-paralysis-comes from being rude," she explained firmly. "My brother-in-law has always been a very rude man."
Just then Delia Cachora returned to the waiting room. "Aunt Julia told you what you needed to know?" she asked.
Dan Leggett nodded. "She certainly did," he said.
Gabe stood up and took Julia Joaquin's hand in his. "I'm glad the ant-bit child wasn't there."
Julia nodded. "I am, too," she said.
"Ant-bit child?" Delia Cachora asked. "What are we talking about now?" She seemed almost as puzzled about that as Dan Leggett was about Turtle Sickness.
Julia Joaquin turned to her niece. "There was an old blind medicine man, years ago, who was always telling people that an ant-bit child would someday show up on the reservation and that she would grow up to be a powerful medicine woman."
Delia glanced warily at Detective Leggett. "Aunt Julia," she cautioned, but Julia Joaquin disregarded the warning.
"Kulani O'oks,"she continued. "She was the woman who was kissed by the bees. Looks At Nothing said the ant-bit child would be just like her, that she would save people, not harm them, not even someone like Manny."
"Thank you," Gabe Ortiz said to Julia. "I'm sure you're right."
The tribal chairman left then. Dan Leggett handed Delia Cachora a business card. "I'd appreciate it if you'd keep us posted on your father's condition," he said. "In the meantime, Deputy Fellows and I will head back out to the department to see if there's anything else we can do."
The two officers left the waiting room together. Once outside, Dan Leggett stopped long enough to light a cigar. "So Lani Walker's supposed to be a medicine woman when she grows up," he said. "That one takes the cake. Have you ever heard anything like it in your life?"
As the cloud of smoke ballooned around Detective Leggett's head, Brian Fellows realized there was a certain olfactory resemblance between that and wiw — the wild tobacco Looks At Nothing had always used in his evil-smelling, hand-rolled cigarettes. The smell brought back a string of memories, including Rita Antone saying much the same thing Julia Joaquin had just said, that Davy's new baby sister would one day grow up to be a medicine woman. It came as no surprise to him that Looks At Nothing would have been the original source of that story, and it hardly mattered that the old medicine man had been dead for years before Lani Walker came to live in the house in Gates Pass.