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would wander the earth, lost and alone, frantic for eternity.
    â€œThe drums. She’d want the drums, and singers. She loved the old ways.” T.J. gave a little smile. “She was a traditional. We gotta bury her within three days.” A look of urgency crossed the man’s face. “That’s the Arapaho Way.”
    Father John patted the man’s arm, trying to reassure him, despite the warning look that Gianelli shot across the kitchen. There would be no burial until the coroner issued his report and released the body.
    â€œOh, T.J.!” A woman’s voice wailed from the living room.
    Father John glanced around. Vera Wilson, T.J.’s sister—small and determined-looking in a puffy green jacket, black hair tightly curled around her face—rushed into the kitchen and dove around the table. She threw both arms around T.J.’s shoulders and cradled his head against her chest.
    â€œOh, my God.” She was shouting. “It can’t be true. Tell me it isn’t true,” she went on, hardly drawing a breath. “What the hell was Denise thinking? Are you okay?”
    â€œLook,” Gianelli said, moving a couple of feet along the counter. “We don’t know the cause of death yet. Denise may have taken her own life, but the coroner could find another cause.”
    â€œAnother cause?” Vera let go of her brother and turned to Father John. “What’s he saying, Father? Murder? He’s saying Denise could’ve been murdered?”
    â€œIt could have been an accident,” Gianelli said.
    Vera grabbed hold of T.J.’s shoulders again. “You’re coming home with me,” she said. “I’m going to look after you.” Then, facing Gianelli, “I’m taking my brother home. Anything else you want to talk to him about, you can call his lawyer. Who you want for a lawyer, T.J.?” She leaned sideways, bringing her face close to her brother’s.
    â€œLawyer?” T.J. shifted around and stared at the woman. “Why would I need a lawyer?”
    â€œYou’re entitled to a lawyer,” Gianelli said. “I’ll want to talk to you again tomorrow.”
    T.J. was quiet a moment. “I guess I can call Vicky Holden,” he said finally.
    â€œThat’s settled then.” Vera sucked in a breath, as if she’d been prepared to do battle and had found the battlefield deserted. “Come on.” She took T.J.’s arm, urging him to his feet.
    The man started to sway as he got up, and Father John jumped up and took hold of his other arm to steady him. “I’ll help you out,” he said.
    They walked through the living room—two guards propping up the condemned man, Father John thought. An officer draped a coat over T.J.’s shoulders at the door, and they worked their way out onto the stoop and across the yard to the light-colored pickup next to the coroner’s van.
    Father John handed the man into the passenger seat while Vera ran around the front and crawled in behind the wheel. “I’ll come by tomorrow,” he told T.J. over the noise of the engine catching and growling. Then he shut the door and waited until the pickup had crossed the barrow ditch and turned left onto the road, headlights blinking in the moonlight.
    He was heading around the other vehicles toward the pickup when he saw Gianelli walking toward him. “What do you think, John? Any trouble that you know of between T.J. and Denise?”
    â€œWhat are you saying? You think that T.J. . . ?” Father John glanced out at the road. The taillights on Vera’s pickup glowed like tiny red coals in the distance. It wasn’t possible, he told himself, but something else was ringing in his head: Anything was possible.
    â€œWe haven’t found a note,” the fed was saying. “She wasn’t depressed or taking medications, according to T.J. People don’t up and shoot themselves