Dolly kept her beloved siren off. The car was quiet. I sniffed and stared out my side window as she kept her eyes straight ahead. We got to Leetsville and she sped on up 131.

I took my reporter’s notebook from my shoulder bag and began making notes. I wondered if immigration would have to be called in. What it sounded like to me was a dispute between the migrant workers coming in from Mexico. Maybe some kind of turf war. I didn’t know enough about the process to make any guesses, but since that’s all we had so far I was thinking the whole thing should be turned over to the government.

“ID the victim yet?” I turned to ask, keeping my face blank.

She shook her head. “Ran her through every site we know. Nothing. Lansing’s got the body. They’re asking the FBI to take a look at the prints. Who knows? This looks bigger than just what’s happenin’ here. Could be some kind of shakedown ring, getting money from Mexican workers, or from illegals. Maybe they’re bringing illegals into the country and demanding money not to turn them in afterward.” Her voice was the same stiff voice she used to talk to strangers. “You ever heard of ‘coyotes’?”

“You mean the guys who bring illegals across the border for a price?”

“Yeah. Like that. I been looking it up. Those guys don’t play around. If that’s the problem …” She hesitated. “Got a preliminary on the necropsy Lansing’s doing.”

I waited, figuring I shouldn’t have to beg for information.

“Old injuries on the dogs,” she said finally.

“What’s that mean?”

Dolly shrugged. “I don’t know. Just said old injuries.”

“From what?”

She double shrugged. “Could be abuse, they said. Could be the dog was used in dog fights.”

“Dog fights.” I didn’t buy that one. Not in my peaceful Northern Michigan—well—except for a murder or two.

“Had a dog-fighting group up here maybe twenty years ago. Townspeople turned those guys in. Can’t see it happening again without folks putting a stop to it. Still, you never know.”

That wasn’t something I wanted to hear. Not up here. That kind of mindless evil didn’t belong in my new world.

_____

In Mancelona Dolly pulled up next to a state police car parked at the side of the road and exchanged how-ya-doings with the cop sitting inside, then we were off again.

I settled down for the ride. Fifteen miles or more, depending on where this farm was. The notes I continued making, head down, concentrating, were now notes on groceries I needed, body lotion, a box of dog bones, and anything else I could think of needing within the next month or so. Then I started listing home improvements I might one day make—if my book sold and I made any money. Things like adding a greenhouse off the porch. Like building a garage for the Jeep. Maybe I’d look into a sauna for me so I could run out through four feet of snow, sit in heat for a while, then run back in the house, steaming all the way. I crossed that one off. So, maybe someday I’d get a boat and fish in deeper water. Or maybe I’d get a kayak I could strap on top of the Jeep and kayak in any river I came across. Or go to the Upper Peninsula and get out on some of those perfectly clear lakes. Since I was making “someday” notes, I added a new car and a TV that wasn’t twelve inches wide. Maybe … since I was at it … a trip to …

“So, I can’t talk about being pregnant to you. Since you seem kind of mad at me,” Dolly said to the windshield.

“I’m not mad at you, Dolly. It’s just that you’re so …” I sputtered, looking for a word that described her and how she made me feel. “You don’t drop something like being pregnant on a friend and then pull away, not let them help. I mean, you acted like you were sorry you even mentioned …”

She shrugged. “I’m not … well … good at needing people.”

“Nobody is. But there are a lot of people who care about you, whether you want to see it or not.”

“Not Cate. She wants out of here. Says she’s not up to takin’ care of a baby at her age. As if I’d even ask her. All my life I took care of me. Now I’ll take care of me and a baby. Don’t need nobody …” She was getting herself worked up again.

“See, that’s what I mean.” I sighed and settled back for a long ride.

Out of nowhere, stopping me in full throttle, Dolly asked, “You think I’ll love it? I mean, you think I’ll know how to be a mother? You know I didn’t get much in the way of … well … of being loved from all those foster mothers.”

I pulled in a deep breath. “I’m no expert, but I think it’s built into us. Loving babies.”

We were quiet. There was so much I didn’t know about being a mother. Maybe even about being a woman. So much about the basics of everything. Would she love it? How did I know? After a while I asked, “What about the father? A child deserves a father.”

“Lots of kids don’t have fathers,” she snapped back. “There’s divorce. There’s death. What’s different about this?”

“With something like death and divorce, you deal with it. The mom, the kid, they’re in it together. What if you have a boy, where’s the role model?”

“That’ll be me,” she said. “More than I ever had.”

“Your job’s dangerous. I don’t care that you’re in a small town. There’ve been small-town cops killed in the line of duty before. What then? What about the baby? You think about a guardian?”

“What are you talkin’ about? Anybody in town’d take my kid. Lots of good people in Leetsville. And what about you? Huh? You’d take my kid, wouldn’t you? You’d be a good mother. You wouldn’t let my baby go off to an orphanage or a lousy foster home.”

I couldn’t say a word, struck dumb at the thought of having a child. Anybody’s child.

“Anyway, what I need now is for you to tell me if you think I got a problem or not.”

“Yes, you’ve got a problem,” I snapped back too quickly.

“I mean a medical problem. Kind of scared me.”

I took a deep breath. One jump to the other.

“What kind of medical problem?”

“Blood in my drawers this morning.”

“Blood? You mean in your pants?” I took a deep breath.

“Yeah.”

“A lot?”

“No. Just some.”

“That’s spotting. Could be serious. Could be nothing. You call your doctor yet?”

“Don’t have one.”

“What! How do you know you’re even pregnant?”

“No periods. Throwing up. I’d say I was pregnant.”

“When are you due?”

She shrugged. “Don’t know.”

“Are you nuts? When in hell did you plan on seeing a doctor?”

“I was gonna go but I don’t want to see nobody around here. Everybody in town would hear about it right away.”

“Then go to a doctor in Traverse City.”

“Who?”

“Why would I know an Ob-Gyn?”

“Don’t you have one of them gynecologists? You’re the type.”

“What do you mean ‘the type’?”

“Regular checkups. Pap smears. Mammographs. Stuff like that.”

“Mammograms.”

“Whatever.”

“I’m that type, all right. I just don’t have health insurance. But I’m going to when I get the money,” I said.

“Yeah, well, me too.”

“I think we should head for the hospital in Petoskey. Let them check you out.”

“I’ll go after we see these guys we’re goin’ out to see.”

“I’ll go with you. I mean to the hospital.”

“You don’t have to.”

“Yes I do. You brought me into this and you’re not going to shut me out now.”

“Who says I’m tryin’ to shut you out? That’s just dumb.”

“Yeah, well … at least I know how to take care of myself.”

“Really? No doctor in … what … five years? When’d you get your last checkup?”

I sputtered, then sat glowering out my side window. She had me there. A long time ago now—since that dose of the chlamydia Jackson gave me for Christmas—like, seven years ago.

“Can’t answer, can you?”

“I’m stopping this conversation,” I said with the best huff I could muster. “I don’t have the kind of patience it takes to be your friend.”

“Who cares?” she said. “And you’re not going to be the godmother either.”

“Fine,” I said.

The rest of the drive was quiet, though I couldn’t get Dolly’s problem out of my head. Maybe I was mad, but I didn’t want anything to happen to her. Being irresponsible shouldn’t be a death sentence—for her or her baby. Then I wondered at the feeling I’d gotten when she said I could take the baby if anything happened to her. What was that lift inside of me? What was that extra heartbeat about? What biological trick was my body playing? The old ticking clock? More like a time bomb. I had no desire to raise a kid. None whatsoever. Not Dolly’s and not one of my own.

_____

This farm was a huge, going concern. Barns, silos, and a white, gabled farmhouse with extensions out the side and back. It was one of those lived-in farms that had settled in the midst of fields running back and off to the west, a farm set among rolling green hills with fields of corn in one direction, orchards in the other, and in between a fenced-in pasture where twenty or thirty cows ruminated and lowed in the hot afternoon sun. The ground in front of the biggest barn was bare, earth beaten down by the tractors and plows and trucks standing at all angles under two rows of huge oak trees.

I went off to find George Sandini while Dolly waited in the car. He was on the back porch of the sprawling, white farmhouse, sitting on an old kitchen chair reading the newspaper. We shook hands when he unfolded his long body. He nodded a few times, gave a kind of greeting, one long sentence about the weather, then we went back out to meet Dolly. The man was in his sixties. He wore faded overalls with a white undershirt beneath. His face was lined—too many years staring out at growing fields. His hair was mostly gray, with a few gray hairs sticking up from his undershirt, and even a few sticking out of his ears.

I introduced Dolly. They shook hands.

“My worker’s name is Carlos Munoz. Right now he’s doing a final spraying in the orchard,” he explained to both of us, dragging his words. “Be back soon. Better you wait ’til he gets here. Don’t either of you want to be out there with the spraying goin’ on.”

“Want to tell the deputy what you told me?” I said.

He nodded to Dolly, then nodded again. “Heard you’re doin’ a bang-up job there in Leetsville, Deputy. Be happy to help out anyway I can. What Carlos was sayin’ was that he got wind of things—workers getting scared off and such. He says it’s about something big that’s either going on already or might go on. Couple of illegals got involved, then got scared and hightailed it outta here. Nobody knows what’s happenin’, but I’m thinking drugs. Something like that.”

“What’s with the dead dogs?” I asked. “Your guy have any idea?”

George Sandini shrugged, bringing his wide shoulders up to his ears and down again. “Heard about that, too. One man had a dead dog thrown up near his house. Kids found it in the morning. Maybe it’s a Mexican thing. Like a warning they’d recognize right away.”

“Any idea who the murdered woman is?”

He shook his head slowly. “Nobody went missing far as I heard. Maybe Carlos can tell you something. Doubt it though. I’ll tell you one thing. This guy’s usually real steady. He’s with me permanently—long as I’ve got a farm. Carlos is a citizen. Been here over nineteen years. Good man. What he does is help the migrant workers when he can. I mean, helps them find places to shop, doctors when they need one. Things like that. But I never seen him as shook up as he is now. Already he sent his wife and kids to his brother in California. Says far as he can see, it’s gettin’ dangerous around here.” He made a face, took off his cap and scratched his head. “You ever hear of anything like that, Dolly? Dangerous up here? But I’ll tell you both, what I got to worry about is having help with the crops. Can’t handle the harvest by myself. No way. So we’re all hoping this thing gets resolved …” He put a hand over his eyes and looked off behind where we were standing.

An old green army truck drove in and stopped. A small, dark man with a thick head of straight black hair, wearing a blue-striped shirt and old jeans, jumped out and hailed George.

“You finish the apples?” Sandini asked.

The man nodded, smiled, and walked to where we stood waiting under the trees. George Sandini made the introductions and the man’s face closed down on itself. His eyes narrowed. All trust and friendliness got lost back in his head.

“Can you tell me what’s going on, Carlos?” Dolly asked, toeing the bare dirt with her booted foot, then looking off across the road, to another farm.

“Only what I told George here.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Workers are leaving when they shouldn’t leave. Harvest time is ahead. This is what they come for but now, one after another, they’re going away. Back to Mexico, I think. One whole family, the Diaz family, gone.”

“Why are they leaving?” Dolly asked.

Again he shrugged and looked hard at his dusty shoe tops. “I heard some things. Just some things I don’t know for sure. George asked me what I know and I told him not a lot. Just things I heard.”

“What are those things, Carlos?” Dolly asked, glancing at George Sandini then back to Carlos. “It would help if you could tell us what’s going on. One woman is already dead. You know who that could be?”

He shook his head. “I only heard one thing.”

“What’s that?” Dolly prodded.

“That the woman wasn’t just nobody. I heard she might be official, with the Mexican government.”

Dolly and I exchanged a look. What now? “Was she looking for somebody? Like a fugitive or something?”

Carlos shook his head again. “I don’t know. Somebody said he heard a woman was around asking questions. They thought she was from immigration at first but she was Mexican. I mean, she came right from Mexico. She showed one man a badge.”

“Badge? Like a police badge? Government badge?” Dolly asked.

“Don’t know for sure. Just a badge.”

“Can you give me the name of the person who talked to this government woman?”

“Yeah. But he left. He went out to where his cousin works, in California.”

“Right after this woman talked to him?”

“Soon after, is what I heard. I asked a friend of mine what he thought was going on. My friend said it’s something pretty bad.”

“Can I talk to your friend?”

Carlos shook his head. “He’s gone too.”

Dolly thought a minute. “How many have been threatened, that you know of?”

He shrugged, looked up at George Sandini, then back down at his shoe tops. “All I heard was six or more. The ones who pulled out. Seems some of them got dead dogs thrown at their houses. Some just got scared because of what’s going on.” He squinted his black eyes at first Dolly then George. “Since we heard about this woman getting shot—with that dog there with her—well, I think more men want to leave.”

“What about that Diaz family? You know them pretty good?”

He shook his head. “I knew of them, but …” Here he spread his hands to show he had nothing more to give.

“Are you afraid? I mean, now that you talked to us?” Dolly asked, voice low. “George here won’t say anything. We’re not going to bring you into it …”

Carlos shrugged. “I’m a citizen. Where can I go? I don’t have anybody in Mexico any more. I don’t know what this is all about. Maybe my brother, in California. But that would leave George, here, stranded right when he needs me the most.”

George toed the ground. “If it comes to your safety, Carlos. Nothing is worth putting your life on the line.”

We all fell silent.

_____

On the way home we kept our talk to what we’d just learned and what we didn’t learn. I had a lot more notes and many more questions.

Dolly said, “I’m gonna call Lieutenant Brent, see if we can get the government to find out who the dead woman is. Maybe immigration, I’m thinking. Or drugs. Those cartels down there are powerful. Could reach all the way back here, I guess. Not like we’re near a border or anything. Only Canada. Drugs don’t usually come in that way. More like down in Florida. But I heard even Atlanta’s got some big drug problems going on.” She talked almost to herself. “Still, I haven’t heard of any new drugs, or even more drugs, up here. A few guys grow their own weed. That’s about it. With the recession, nobody’s got money for crap like that.” She turned to face me. “Wha’d you think? Look like an agent to you? The dead woman?”

I shrugged. Never having seen a Mexican agent of any kind, I had no idea. “Had on shorts, not a uniform. Maybe she wasn’t here officially.”

“Wouldn’t you think somebody in this country would’ve been alerted if a Mexican agent came in? ’Less she was undercover. Something like that.”

“Wouldn’t you think she’d have tried to fit in then? I mean, she looked like a middle-class woman. Not the kind of thing she’d wear undercover if her trouble was with the migrant population.”

She shrugged. “People in different countries do different things. Could’ve been just the cover she needed.”

I let that one go by me. We could beat it to death, but I had something else on my mind and I couldn’t keep quiet.

“You going to get in to a doctor or a hospital now?” I asked, circling us back to where we’d been before.

She nodded. “Yup. Soon as I call Brent. Soon as I get this report turned in …”

“Soon as the moon turns purple …”

“Don’t you worry about it.”

“I won’t,” I answered.

She let me off at my mailbox. I slammed the car door behind me and she peeled off in a shower of stones. I was so pissed at her the stones felt good, hitting my bare legs. One more thing to be mad at Dolly Wakowski about.