Chapter 29

After a bit Cecelia sent me to bed, and I went, after bringing the lawn chair back up beside the picnic table, under the overhang. Cecelia had learned plenty in our years of coming here, but she hadn't grown up in the desert and wasn't nearly as good as I am at using its cover. She'd watch from the clearing.

When I woke up the sun was shining, and I knew I'd slept well. And that told me how much confidence I had in Cecelia's judgment and abilities. I knew that if she'd detected someone coming she'd have woken me, and if it came to shooting before she could do that, she'd trust me to roll out gun in hand, and careful of where I pointed it.

It also told me that despite my fear of the night before, I hadn't really believed the trouble would come to us. If I'd truly thought that the shooting might come in our direction, I wouldn't have been able to sleep at all, much less so soundly.

I had only taken off my gun, hat, and boots, and so getting dressed was a quick affair. I looked around when I got out of the Blazer and didn't see Cecelia. I went walkabout around the area, and found her looking out over the desert to the west. She was leaning on the back wall of the shed, and in the second before she noticed me I thought once again of Nefertiti, and of the Maya, and then – incongruously because Cecelia's a committed Christian – of a Navajo offering pollen to Dawn Boy.

When she turned to me and smiled I mentioned that last notion. She smiled back and said, "If I were to engage in such a practice, I would need to be on the other side of this building – whose door is, as it happens, situated as is that of a traditional hogan – and I would need to begin somewhat earlier; the sun has already cleared the horizon."

"I didn't say that you really were praying, just that that's what you reminded me of."

"I know – but you don't expect me, I hope, to give you the slightest opportunity to escape my tongue." She grinned at me, and took my hands in hers. "As it happens, though, I was in a sense praying. I did not utter words, nor did any coherent sentences pass through my mind, but I was marvelously grateful to God, as I watched the land lighten, for His creation and for my family and for the safety that we all have enjoyed these past hours."

I squeezed her hands, feeling the knobs of the knuckles and the thinness of her fingers. I'd thought her a stick woman when we first met, and if any part of her fits that it's her fingers, which felt something like twigs in my hands. "Gratitude is a good thing, ain't it?"

Just then my phone rang, and when I pulled it out of my pocket I saw that it was Sergeant Castro. I showed the display to Cecelia, and then opened the phone. "Yeah?"

"Mr. Carpenter, I wondered if you were awake. Probably you heard the firing last night."

"Yeah. One of us was always awake, just in case."

"I'm sorry it disturbed you. It was our suspect, and several sheriff's deputies and Highway Patrol officers. Someone had spotted him in Needles, and the chase led from there to Amboy, and then out here on back roads. He finally TAed, and we surrounded him, but he was in the brush and it was dark, so we waited till this morning to move in. He'd fallen asleep, and he'd suffered a minor wound, but he surrendered without further resistance."

"That's good. You got anything out of him yet?"

"He invoked as soon as we Mirandized him."

"I know a judge won't think so, but I'd say that's an important fact."

"I agree. I have to go, Mr. Carpenter, but I wanted to let you know what the shooting was, and that our suspect is in custody."

"Thanks, man. I owe you."

When the conversation was over I closed my phone and slipped it into my pocket. "It was the guy last night." I translated the law enforcement jargon into plain English for Cecelia. "He crashed his car and they were able to surround him, and then this morning they got him in cuffs. He demanded an attorney as soon as they read him his rights, so they don't have a confession or anything, but at least he's out of our hair."

"That's very good, Darvin. Give me your gun." I did, and she took it and headed for the Blazer, pulling her own off her belt as she walked. I didn't complain. One thing I don't miss about being a cop is wearing a gun all the time. I do wear it sometimes when I'm working, but usually it stays in the Blazer, since I don't often run into people who might want to shoot me. Most PIs, in fact, work without a gun on their belt. It's not all that common a necessity in our line of work.

I poked my head into the shed, and saw Darlia still asleep, her hair spread out around her head like a halo, though I doubt that any Byzantine icon painter ever thought of a halo that reached down to the subject's waist. Her mouth was slightly open, and I could hear her breathing gently, not quite snoring. One arm held a doll at her side, and her other hand was outflung, the fingers spread and slightly curled. I may not be a mother, and my first instinct might be to protect Cecelia, but just then I knew that if anyone ever threatened Darlia I would hurt him badly, if necessary, to protect her. A father's love, I guess, might be different from a mother's, but it's no less powerful.