Angie leaned into the backseat and blew the girls a pair of kisses. "You can't come, Ruth," she said. "Not right now. I have to go to work. I'll see you tonight."

"Read me a story?"

"Right," Angie said with her first smile of the day. "When I get there, I'll read you a story."

As she opened the door to the Blue Moon, she heard the phone ring. Behind the bar, Bobo Jenkins looked at his watch.

"It's for you," he said without bothering to pick up the receiver. "It's a good thing you're on time. This guy's been driving me crazy all morning."

"What guy?" Angie asked.

"You tell me," Bobo replied. "Just answer the phone."

"Angie?"

Dennis Hacker's clipped English accent was instantly recognizable. "Angie," he repeated. "Are you all right? I've been worried sick. I've been dialing your home number all night and all morning, too. Where have you been?"

Angie's initial pleasure at hearing his voice turned almost immediately to anger as she remembered his hurtful laughter once again. "I can't talk right now," she said. "It's time for my shift to start."

"But first you have to let me explain," Dennis said. "You must let me tell you what it was that set me to laughing."

"There's nothing to explain," Angie returned coldly.

"But there is. It's because of my great-grandmother, you see. I wanted to tell you about her in person, but I'm meeting with members of the Peloncillo Ranchers' Association later on this afternoon. It's taken weeks to put the meeting together, so I can't leave for Bisbee until it's over-sometime between four and five. What time do you get off work?"

"I don't see what your great-grandmother has to do with me-" Angie began her objection with every intention of hanging up, but Dennis Hacker didn't let her.

"Wait, please," he interrupted. "You don't understand, Angie. Great-grandmother Hacker has everything to do with you. That's what's so funny. She was a working girl, too. From Nome. If it hadn't been for her kindness, my great-grandfather would have died during the winter of 1898. He was terribly sick with pneumonia, so sick that he let the fire go out in his cabin. That's when the frostbite got him and he lost all those toes. For some reason, Caroline took pity on him. She nursed him back to health as much as possible. Eventually, his father relented and brought him back home to England to finish his recovery. As soon as he was well, he sent for her, brought Caroline to England, and married her.

"She was a runaway-a jilted bride from a good San Francisco family who had turned to prostitution as an alternative to going back home. Her upbringing in the States was such that no one in England ever knew about her real background, except for my grandmother, who still has the letters the two of them wrote back and forth.

"I just found out about all this a few weeks ago when I went home because my grandmother was so sick. She had me take the letters out of her strongbox and let me read them. I'm sure she thought she was dying and if she didn't tell me then, she wouldn't have another chance."

Angie was listening, trying to make sense of the words while Dennis Hacker hurried on. "The letters probably ought to be in a museum somewhere, but I have them with me. I want to show them to you. Can I come see you tonight? After you get off work?"

"I don't know," Angie said dubiously. "Really, I ..."

"Listen, Angie. What I'm trying to tell you is that if a working girl from Nome was the apple of my great-granddad's eye, then you're good enough for me. Much too good, most likely. End of story."

Blushing furiously, Angie looked up and down the bar. Everyone in the room was staring at her. The place was deathly quiet as all the weekday morning regulars waited to see what would happen.

"You don't mean that," Angie objected. "You barely know me."

"Just try me," Dennis Hacker returned. "I think you'll be surprised."

"I've got to hang up now," Angie said.

"Can I see you tonight? We'll have dinner together. We can talk."

"I don't think so," Angie said.

"Can I call you, then, after the meeting? I don't know what time I'll get away from there, but maybe you'll change your mind by then and agree to see me."

"I'll be working," she objected. "It'll probably be busy."

"I won't take long," Dennis pleaded. "I promise. Now tell me what time you get off so I don't miss you."

Taking a deep breath, Angie relented. "Six," she said.

"Good. I'll be sure to call before then."

Angie put down the phone. At the far end of the bar, Archie

McBride and Willy Haskins exchanged knowing smirks. Archie McBride shook his grizzled head and raised his nearly empty glass. "Damn those Boy Scouts anyway!" he said.

Mrs. Vorevkin led Ernie and Joanna through the house and showed them into a darkened study. David O'Brien was seated at a desk with only a single small reading lamp lighting the curtain-shrouded room.

"Why are you bringing them in here?" he demanded irritably of his housekeeper. "I thought I told you all inquiries were lo he directed to Katherine."

"Mrs. O'Brien isn't here right now," Olga said. "She had to go uptown to the mortuary, remember?"

"Oh, all right," O'Brien responded. "Come on in, then. What is it you want?"

Maybe it was only a trick of the dimmed lights, but the man hunched behind the desk seemed far less formidable than the arrogant swimmer Joanna had met on Saturday. Events in the two intervening days had taken their toll. By late Monday morning, all of David O'Brien's seventy-odd years showed in the sun-etched lines of his craggy face. Even his peevish verbal response to Mrs. Vorevkin lacked some of his previous stridency.

"We asked to speak directly with you," Joanna put in.

"I suppose it's just as well you're here." O'Brien sighed. "I uniderstand there have been deputies out front by the gate most of the morning, Sheriff Brady. What's going on? Brianna's been dead for days. Isn't it a little late for you to come prowling around now?"

"We're investigating another case," Joanna said. "An assault. In fact, we're actually looking for Alf Hastings. We'd like to him some questions about the incident."

"What incident is that?" O'Brien asked. "And what do you wont with Alf?"

"Has Mr. Hastings told you anything about what happened outside the entrance to your ranch on Saturday night?"

As they spoke, David O'Brien began sounding more and more like his old self-condescension, arrogance, and all. "You mean the one with the wetback he found sneaking around outside the gate? Fending off interlopers who are trying to gain access to my property is Alf's job. Of course he told me about it. He gave me a full report."

"Did he tell you this alleged wetback's name?"

"His name?"

"Ignacio Ybarra."

At once the fight went back out of David O'Brien. "Him?" he asked hoarsely. "Brianna's boyfriend?"

Joanna nodded.

"What was he doing here?"