Desert Wind by Betty Webb

odors that could permeate such places: vomit, urine, fear. The only smell I noticed, besides a blending of deodorants, was the tea rose cologne emanating from a woman sitting across from us. One of her eyes was bruised and a long scab marred her jaw. It looked like someone had worked her over. The toddler on her lap, a little girl, wore a cast on her left arm. On the bench next to them was a large metal lunchbox, nothing a woman or child would use. Maybe she was dropping it off for someone at the complex. I wondered who the thug was.
    I could hear Jimmy grinding his teeth. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” he whispered.
    “Maybe it was a car accident.”
    “Not with that…”
    “This is neither the time nor the place, Jimmy. We’re here to see Ted, nothing else.” For the rest of our wait, I kept my eyes averted, otherwise I’d wind up grinding my teeth, too.
    A few minutes later, the loudspeaker belched out our names. Before we joined the line in front of the jail’s security station, I hurried over to the bruised woman and handed her my business card. “If you’re having a problem with a domestic partner, give me a call.”
    She snatched up the card, but kept her eyes down.
    “Fifteen minutes, that’s all you get today,” an elderly detention officer said, as he greeted us by name once we’d entered the jail’s visiting room. “Mr. Olmstead’s attorney is due any minute and he’ll want privacy.”
    The room proved as bland as the lobby. Small plastic cubbies offered a modicum of privacy, and reinforced Plexiglas separated visitor from prisoner. Small holes in the barrier allowed them to communicate, however poorly.
    When another detention officer brought Ted in, I was shocked by how much he’d changed in the months since I’d met him. His weight was down and his eyes had settled deeper into his gaunt brown face. Understandable, really. In that time, his wife had been shot to death, and now he was involved in another homicide case.
    We couldn’t touch him but before sitting down, Jimmy raised his open hand and pressed it against the Plexiglas. Ted leaned forward and did the same, covering the shape of Jimmy’s hand with his own.
    “My brother,” Jimmy whispered.
    “My brother,” Ted repeated.
    To some Easterners all Native Americans look the same, but in reality, each tribe has its own culture and physical attributes. Jimmy, a Pima, had a big, muscular build that sometimes got him mistaken for Polynesian. Ted, a Paiute, was shorter and darker, with a distinct Asian cast to his features. Despite their differences, they didn’t need to speak to communicate. For the longest time the two stood there silently, their hands separated by a quarter-inch of Plexiglas, their eyes saying everything that needed to be said.
    Finally, Ted—more for my benefit than Jimmy’s, I suspect—said, “I didn’t do it.”
    “I know,” Jimmy and I chorused.
    We took our seats while Ted told his side of the story.
    Yes, he admitted, he had been involved in an argument with Ike Donohue, but the other man had started it. Donohue arrived at the gas station first, and was filling up his Mercury Sable at the gas pump on the opposite side of the island. When Ted got there, he pulled alongside the diesel pump needed for the ranch’s big truck, but as soon as he lifted the handle, Donohue rushed across the island and jerked it out of his hand, splashing fuel on Ted’s pants.
    “Donohue’s car used regular, so what was the big deal?” Jimmy asked.
    I suspected their set-to wasn’t about gas at all. “The newspaper account I read before driving up here said a woman named Mia Tosches witnessed the altercation. I saw her at a restaurant last night, and she’s pretty attractive.”
    Ted shrugged. “If you like the type.” His own Kimama had been a raven-haired Paiute beauty.
    “Where was Mrs. Tosches standing when Donohue challenged you for the diesel pump?” I asked.
    “She was coming out of the gas station