Not her father's house in Flagstaff, where his new wife Linda arranged fresh flowers and displayed art from the Museum of Northern Arizona where she worked.Not the reservation, where the ghost of Kari's mother, Anna Chee, still walked in every familiar landmark.Just this aging establishment on Route 89 with its cracked vinyl booths and coffee that tasted like it had been brewed sometime during the Reagan administration.
They'd been meeting here every few weeks since late January, nearly three months of careful breakfast conversations that skirted around everything that mattered.
Kari watched her father across the table as he studied the menu he'd already memorized.James Cooper was sixty-five, fit and silver-haired, with penetrating blue eyes that had once dissected crime scenes for the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit.Now he worked with Canyon State University's Anthropological Research Division, lending his twenty years of law enforcement experience to academic research.He wore reading glasses that he hadn't needed when Kari was young, and there were new lines around his mouth that deepened when he was uncomfortable.
Like now.
"The pancakes are decent here," he said, not looking up from the menu.
"I know, Dad.I've been coming here with you for nearly three months."
He set the menu down and managed a small smile."Right.Sorry."
The waitress appeared—the same one who always served them, a woman in her fifties named Diane who had stopped asking if they wanted anything different.She poured coffee without being asked and took their usual orders with efficient sympathy.Kari wondered what story Diane had constructed about them.Father and daughter, obviously estranged, are trying to build something from the ruins.
Yeah, that about covered it.
When Diane left, silence settled over the table like dust.Kari sipped her coffee and watched the morning light slant through the windows, illuminating the parking lot where her blue Jeep sat next to her father's sedan.She was thirty-four years old, a detective with the Navajo Nation Police Department, and she still felt like an uncertain teenager in her father's presence.
"How's work?"James asked, the question as ritualistic as their menu orders.
"Quiet lately.Just routine calls."Kari wrapped her hands around the warm mug."Ben says it's the calm before the storm.He's superstitious that way."
"Ben Tsosie?Your partner?"
"Yeah.He's a good person.Born and raised on the rez.Knows everyone, which helps."
James nodded, a careful expression on his face.Kari knew what he wasn't saying—that she'd come a long way from Phoenix PD, where she'd been fast-tracking toward lieutenant before everything fell apart.Before Anna's death had pulled her back to the reservation, back to the heritage she'd spent years holding at arm's length.
"And you?"Kari asked."How's the university work?"
"Fine.Interesting, actually."He paused, then added, "Linda's been project lead on the curation side."
There it was—the careful insertion of his second wife into the conversation, a test to see if Kari would react.She'd been doing better with that, she thought.Linda wasn't the enemy.Linda probably wasn't even the reason her parents' marriage had ended, though the timeline was suspicious.Sometimes marriages just died, worn down by the friction of two people who loved each other but couldn't live in the same world.
"That's good," Kari said, meaning it.
Diane returned with their food—eggs and toast for James, oatmeal for Kari.They ate in companionable silence for a few minutes, the clink of silverware and the murmur of other conversations filling the space between them.
Kari had been planning to wait until after breakfast.She'd rehearsed the conversation in her head during her morning run, five miles of cold April air and internal dialogue.But the words were pressing against her teeth, demanding release.
"I need to ask you something," she said.
James looked up from his eggs and regarded her warily."Okay."
"It's about Mom."
His fork paused halfway to his mouth.He set it down carefully, buying himself time."Kari—"
"I know we don't talk about her.I know that's the unspoken rule of these breakfasts."Kari leaned forward, her oatmeal forgotten."But I need your help with something.Something related to her work."
"What kind of help?"His voice was cautious now, the warmth leaching out of it.
Kari pulled her mother's medicine pouch from her pocket—a small leather bag her grandmother Ruth had given her, the one Anna had carried.She set it on the table between them as if it were evidence."Two months ago, during that case involving the Native American Church, I attended a peyote ceremony.It was...complicated.But I had a vision."
Her father watched her, his face carefully blank.
Kari felt foolish saying this aloud, explaining a spiritual experience to a man who had spent his career dissecting human behavior into quantifiable patterns.But she couldn't stop now.
