We had an argument in the parking lot. My car or hers. I insisted I was going with her to tell Chief Barnard. She growled that she didn’t need me. I growled back that she certainly did and that I’d been out there with her and could attest to what she took and why. After a few minutes of that, I got in the patrol car and rode over to the station with her. Anyway, facing down the pleasant Chief Barnard was better than going back to my place.

Chief Barnard was just slipping on a light jacket, getting ready to go home for the night, when we got there. Emergency calls that might come in after he left were sent directly to his house. Most of the time calling the police in Leetsville got you the chief himself, even if he was in his pajamas.

“See you found her,” Lucky greeted me.

I nodded.

Dolly said nothing. She’d removed her hat as a mark of respect and held it over her heart. If I’d ever seen a little kid in trouble, this was that little kid.

The chief looked from me to Dolly and back. He frowned, took off his jacket, and went back into his office. We followed and sat on the two armchairs across the desk from him. Dolly gave a huge sigh as she settled back, crossing her legs then uncrossing them.

“I take it something’s going on here,” the chief finally said after a few minutes of silence.

Dolly nodded.

I nodded.

“You want to tell me, Deputy Wakowski?”

She cleared her throat, squirmed on the hard chair, and settled her shoulders into a true slump. “I’ve done something I gotta tell you about, Chief.”

He nodded. Waited.

“Well, it’s about the bones, out to Sandy Lake.”

He nodded again, his long face very serious.

“I did something I shouldn’t have done out there.”

The kind man’s face drew into a scowl. He was smart enough to know that whatever was coming at him was a thing he didn’t want to hear. “What’d you do, Dolly?”

She looked around at me, then back at the chief. “I took something from the crime scene.”

“What’d you take?”

“I took something that could have been considered evidence.”

“What?” He said again, impatient now.

“I stole ID tags from the lake.”

“Whose tags?”

“Chet’s.”

“So, why’d it take a couple of days to ID him? What was the point in hiding the tags?”

“I wasn’t hiding … exactly. It was that they were my wedding present from him and …”

“And what?”

“Well, the last time I saw them they were around the neck of a woman Chet was with over at The Skunk.”

“This is serious, Dolly. You better come straight with me.”

“I know. I know.” She shook her head as if trying to get thoughts to line up right.

“There was this … .” She put her hand into a back pocket of her pants and drew out the corroded chain with tags and that red beer stein. “You see, I was afraid maybe Chet killed her and dumped her body out there.” She sat forward. “Not that he was violent. Never violent with me, I can promise you that.”

“Well,” Lucky shook his head and scowled harder. “That’s not what I was worried about. Somehow you thought he could be violent enough to kill a woman. That says something.”

“All it says, Chief, is that I was stupid. I wanted to find him before the state police got on his trail.”

“Planning on warning him, were you?” His thick eyebrows were up, his face more serious than I’d ever seen it. “You going to aid and abet a felon? Doesn’t sound like the Dolly I know. Never once in the fifteen years you been on the force with me, Dolly, did I ever know you to …”

Dolly shook her head, interrupting him because once started it was difficult to stop Lucky. “I just wanted to talk to him. Get him back up here with me.”

“Still, you tampered with evidence that could have been very important to the case. I don’t know how we’re going to resolve this.”

“I know. I don’t blame you—whatever you have to do to me. The dog tags aren’t even real. Don’t have his name on them. I found out from his sister that Chet wasn’t ever in the army.”

Lucky shook his head at her.

I leaned forward, having seen Dolly crawl as low as she could crawl. “I was out there with her,” I said.

“You too, Emily? I’m surprised you had anything to do with this. One of you should have known better. Seems to me that you two weren’t using your heads and …”

“She’s telling the truth. She only took them so she could talk to him first. After all, Chet was her husband.”

“More than that, if he murdered the woman.”

“But he didn’t. He’s dead, too.”

“Yeah, well, we know that now.”

“And something else …” I looked at Dolly, who avoided my eyes. “A man from the Odawa was out there. He saw Dolly take the chain and put it in her pocket. A friend of his came to my house and threatened to tell you about it. Maybe even go to the state police.”

The chief nodded. “When’s he gonna do all this?” He swung his chair right then left. He thought awhile, sat forward, and put his hand on the phone in front of him. “Got a name?”

I shook my head. “He left a number.”

“Let’s call the guy. See what he wants from us.”

Dolly pulled the slip of paper from her pocket and passed it over. The chief dialed, leaned back, and looked hard at both of us. “After this, we’re gonna have a talk about duty.”

Dolly, miserable now, shrank back in her chair to await her fate.

The phone must have been answered right away. Maybe the guy had been waiting to hear from us. The chief identified himself and went on to tell the man that his deputy had been in and told him quite a story. We could hear noise on the other end, but the chief interrupted to say he knew all about what she’d done.

“I’d like to come out and talk to you, if that’s all right,” the chief said finally. “I think we can clear up this part of the problem in a hurry, if you’re willing to listen.”

He waited, his face drawn and nervous. “OK, my deputy’s coming with me.”

The chief gave Dolly a tough look. She stopped the feeble protest she’d been about to make and folded her hands in her lap.

In a moment the conversation ended. The chief hung up, stood, straightened his shoulders and his gun on his hip. “We’re going out there now, Dolly. He’s meeting us at the tribal offices. His name’s Lewis George. He’s a tribal chief.”

She stood awkwardly, half falling over one arm of her chair. “If you think that’s necessary …”

“Hell yes, I do,” he said, coming around the corner of his desk. “We’re going to get this straightened out, and then we’ll talk about what has to happen to you.”

“Could I copy that phone number?” I asked. “I want to know who I’m dealing with.”

He held out the slip of paper for me to copy. The paper went back into his pocket.

I got up and followed them out of the office. The chief locked the door to the station and headed toward Dolly’s patrol car.

“You’re not going, Emily,” he turned back to me, putting a hand up like a crossing guard. “Deputy Wakowski needs to start concentrating on her job. I’m not a hard-nose. There are what you might call extenuating circumstances at work here, but we’ve got to get this evidence business cleared away first.”

Before Dolly got in on the passenger side, letting the chief drive, she lifted her saddened eyes to me. “If everything’s OK, we’ll go back to Peshawbestown tomorrow evening to see that woman about the Naquma girl.”

“Can’t tomorrow night, Dolly. I’m having dinner at Jackson’s.” I backed away from the car. Nobody’d mentioned giving me a lift to the restaurant. I was just as happy to walk the six blocks. I needed the exercise to clear my head.

“What the heck do you mean you’re having dinner at Jackson’s?” Dolly hissed at me. “We’ve got work to do here, Emily. He’s only taking advantage of you, and God knows where it will lead, you over there. We both know what kind of man …”

“Well …” I turned and walked off as fast as I could down toward US131. “That’s what I’m doing,” I called over my shoulder. “If you can’t go in the morning it will have to wait until Friday.”

“Yeah,” was all she said, and slammed the car door.