Coyote carried the beads back to the village and told the great man what Beautiful Girl had said. Big Man was very angry because he was very powerful and used to having his own way. He told Coyote that he must go to the girl the next morning and tell her to take the beads. If she did not, Big Man would kill both her and her brother.

AFTER TOSSING AND TURNING FOR what seemed like hours, Brandon made his way into the bathroom to answer yet another call of nature. He glanced at the clock on his way by, but even though it was now after two, when he got back into bed he still couldn’t sleep. He was too caught up in remembering the investigation.

The day after his initial meeting with John Lassiter, Brandon had paid his first visit to El Barrio. The bar was one of those low-­life dives where time seems to stand still. Cigarette smoke hung thick in the air, with the odor of spilled beer and dried piss adding to the unhealthy mix. The tables were worn and scarred. The vinyl upholstery on the chairs and barstools was torn and duct-­taped together in spots.

The customers, mostly regulars propped on sagging stools that might just as well have had their names written on them, were a dodgy-­looking bunch of characters, as was the bartender, a man with multiple tattoos and the dubious handle of Unc Flores. Unc recognized Brandon as a cop the moment he walked through the door and long before he ordered black coffee.

Much to Brandon’s surprise, there seemed to be a kind of corporate memory lingering in El Barrio’s air along with all that cigarette smoke. Once he stated his business, no fewer than four ­people—­Unc included—­claimed to have been present the night ten years earlier when Amos Warren had taken out the man they all referred to as Big Bad John Lassiter. That was the first time Brandon heard John Lassiter called that, but it wouldn’t be the last. The short-lived fight between Amos Warren and his pal John seemed to have taken on a kind of legendary status. When Brandon mentioned that he was investigating Amos’s death, quite a few folks felt compelled to jump into the fray, each willingly sharing his own take on the story.

Since Brandon was still attempting to establish a timeline for the crime, that was where the conversation started. Members of the peanut gallery in El Barrio all seemed to agree that the fight had occurred in the springtime, but no one could agree on the month or even the exact year. On details of the actual fight they were all surprisingly clear. The timing of events was hazy.

Nevertheless, they all seemed to be in complete agreement when it came to deciding who might be responsible—­Big Bad John. Who else could it have been? As for what caused the fight? A woman, of course. Amos and John had gone to war over John’s exceedingly attractive girlfriend at the time, one Ava Martin.

“That little bit of a thing was cute as a button,” one of the old codgers said, shaking his head. “What a girl Ava was! She had that big old lump of a John Lassiter wrapped around her little pinkie. Led him around by the nose—­that’s what she did. I thought it was funny as hell.”

“More like she led him around by the balls,” another one offered.

The next time Unc showed up to refill his cup, Brandon put the question to him. “What do you think?”

Unc feigned innocence. “About what?”

“Everybody else around here seems to be of the opinion that John Lassiter might be responsible for Amos Warren’s death. I’d like to hear what you have to say.”

“I’m in the ‘John Lassiter did it’ camp. I’ve thought that all along, at least ever since we found out about Amos’s will. Once that news surfaced, that’s when I eighty-­sixed Big Bad John Lassiter and told him to get lost.”

“Wait,” Brandon said. “You knew about the will?”

“Sure I did, almost as soon as it happened. At the time, my sister Edna was working down at the county courthouse in the recorder’s office. She used to come in here now and again, so she knew Amos. When the deed transfer came through, she recognized the name and told me about it. Pissed the hell out of me. Think about it. This old guy goes missing and stays missing. Eventually he’s declared legally dead, and—­surprise, surprise—­his ex-­partner ends up being the sole beneficiary under his will. It doesn’t take a Philadelphia lawyer to put that one together.”

“Did you talk to the cops about your suspicions?” Brandon asked.

“I would have, I suppose,” Unc allowed, “if anybody had ever bothered to come around asking the questions, but nobody did—­not until you turned up today. In my business, it’s never a good idea to go looking for trouble unless it lands smack on your doorstep, especially when you’re running a joint like this. But the next time Big Bad John stopped by, I showed him the door and told him he wasn’t welcome. He had the unmitigated gall to ask me how come. I told him he already knew how come, and that was that. And you know what? If he walked through that door today, I’d take a baseball bat to the SOB myself.”

Brandon left El Barrio that day with a spring in his step and feeling as though he might possibly be making progress. He went back to the office to look for Ava Martin, and she wasn’t hard to find. John Lassiter had said that she’d moved up in the world. Based on public records, Brandon could see that was certainly true. At midmorning the next day, Brandon showed up at the spread Ava shared with her new husband. It turned out to be a five-­acre horse property just off Houghton Road on the far side of Pantano Wash. County records indicated that Ava was married to a man named Clarence Hanover. Brandon just happened to know for a fact that Hanover was one of Tucson’s top-­drawer ­attorneys.

Rather than call ahead, Brandon simply showed up. He parked in the drive of a low-­lying stuccoed, fully landscaped ranch house. Stepping up onto the front porch, he rang the bell. There was a long pause before the door cracked open, and a woman peered out.

“We don’t want any,” she announced immediately, as soon as she caught a glimpse of Brandon’s face. She would have slammed the door shut, but Brandon managed to insert the toe of his boot between the door and the jamb.

“I’m not selling anything,” he asserted. “My name is Detective Brandon Walker with the Pima County Sheriff’s Office. I’m here investigating a homicide.”

Ava sighed and opened the door a bit wider. Her blond hair was impeccably styled into a smoothly flowing pageboy. Her makeup was flawless. She wore a tight-­fitting cowboy shirt, equally tight jeans, a pair of boots, and enough turquoise and silver jewelry to choke a horse.

“A homicide?” she echoed. “Who’s dead?”

“A friend of yours, I believe, or at least an acquaintance—­a man by the name of Amos Warren. His skeletal remains were found out in the desert some time ago. After an autopsy, the M.E. concluded that Mr. Warren died of homicidal violence.”

Ava sighed again, letting Brandon know that she regarded his arrival on her doorstep as a grave inconvenience. “Okay, then,” she said, opening the door. “I guess you’d better come in.”

Ava led Brandon into a spacious living room and motioned for him to have a seat on a large cowhide-­covered couch, while she sat down on a wooden-­armed Eames chair with similarly covered cushions. Between them stood a coffee table constructed of thick glass covering what looked like the splintering remains of an antique wagon wheel. With friends living in real poverty out on the reservation, Brandon found the Hanovers’ pricey faux-­rustic decor more than a little annoying.

“I’m surprised to hear Amos is dead,” Ava said. “What did he die of?”

“This is an ongoing investigation,” Brandon answered. “I’m not at liberty to release that information at this time.”

“Where did it happen?”

“On the far side of the Rincons. Actually, not that far from here, as the crow flies,” he added, pointing, “but it’s a long way if you’re driving.” After a slight pause, he added, “So I take it you did know Mr. Warren?”