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doesn’t appear to have slowed you down.”
    I rested the bags on the counter and nudged Dog out of the place where he had put himself in case anybody got careless with the pastries. “A man’s got to eat, and I hope you got something more than donuts ’cause you know I don’t like them.”
    “You don’t like donuts?” Cord was sitting next to Nancy, a maple cruller in his hand.
    I shrugged. “I know it’s against type. . . .”
    “I don’t understand.”
    My undersheriff gestured to the office at large in an exasperated fashion. “Cops, donuts . . .”
    He looked at her questioningly and then back to me. “Is it because you’re big?”
    Vic snickered, and there was a long silence. Dorothy, in an attempt to deflect, spoke up. “Walt, if you don’t have any objections, I’ve offered the boy a job.”
    I turned and looked at her. “What?”
    She nodded. “Washing dishes.”
    The incredulity wrote itself on my face. “Dorothy, could I speak with you and Nancy in my office?” I took one of the bags of food with me as I made my way around the dispatcher’s desk and gestured from Ruby to the young man so that she knew to keep an eye on him. “Now, if you would.”
    Vic joined the two women and, sticking her finger in the hole where the doorknob to my office used to be, closed the door behind us. I set my breakfast on my desk and took off my hat, hooking it onto the hammer of my sidearm, crossing my arms over my chest. “What are you two up to?”
    Nancy was the first to speak. “Walt, it was my idea. I didn’t think it would be a bad thing for—”
    “I just got off the phone with Tim Berg over in South Dakota. He says that the boy’s mother was in the sheriff’s office three weeks ago.” I noticed they were looking at me a little funny. “What?”
    Dorothy spoke this time. “Walt, Cord seemed to intimate that his mother might’ve passed away.”
    I thought about it. “Since when?”
    They looked at each other and then back to me as Nancy spoke in a low voice. “It sounded quite recent.” She stepped in closer to my desk. “Walt, this boy shows all the classic symptoms of being a polygamy kid. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with him, psychologically speaking, but . . .”
    “Well, Tim said the mother was from some compound over there, and as soon as he gets back to me we’ll start getting some answers.”
    “What can it hurt?” Dorothy placed her fists on her hips and looked at me. “I need the help, and what else is he going to do, sit in one of your cells?”
    I glanced at Nancy, who jumped in quickly. “It would take me a day or two to come up with a foster home for him, so if Dorothy’s got a place . . . ?”
    “He’ll skip town like a Kansas City paperhanger.”
    Dorothy shook her head. “He won’t.”
    Vic joined in the conversation, and I was glad of another sane voice in the room. “Who the hell says?”
    “He does.” Dorothy crossed her own arms. “I made him promise.” We stood there looking at each other, the immovable object meeting the irresistible force. “He can stay here and work over at my place till we get him settled out.”
    Nancy joined Dorothy at the other side of my desk. “Walt, if it’s true that his mother is dead or has run off, then he’s lost his advocate within that group and they’re probably not going to want him anymore.”
    Throwing my hat onto my desk, I sighed and sat in my chair. “All right, but if he bolts, I’m holding the two of you responsible.” I glanced at the chief cook and used-to-be bottle washer of the Busy Bee. “And I’m going to want free lunch for a week.”
    Dorothy leaned in and looked down at me. “Oh, Walt, you know there’s no such thing as a free lunch.”
    I guess after the Kansas City paperhanger remark, she thought I deserved it.
    •   •   •
    It was five after five when Tim called, and he was none too happy. “They say they never heard of the boy or the mother.”
    I