Author: Tom Darby

By Your most obedient and occasionally horrified servant, scribblin’ from the edge of perdition

If you’ll pardon an old feller a few lines of printed astonishment, let me tell you–the world’s gone clean slap-dab mad, and Nevada’s holdin’ the wheel.

One needn’t look farther than Carson City for proof, where a calm afternoon turned to a dusty gunfight right out of a dime novel. It began plain enough—as a deputy strolls over to a parked car in a casino lot, likely expecting no more trouble than a cigarette flicked the wrong way.

But lo! Inside that infernal metal carriage sat a gentleman, age thirty-five, with a stack of sins long enough to fill a preacher’s sermon—Arizona had his name in bold print for violating parole, aggravated assault, and such.

Our fugitive—like many fools before—chose to flee. And in that famous Nevada style, he didn’t just run–he also turned, displayed a pistol like he was auditioning for a tragedy–and met his end in a flurry of bullets.

No one else was hurt, save the cause of civil peace and maybe a few windows. Deputies, for their part, are now seated gently on administrative leave while the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office pieces together the ruin like hens scratching at dried corn husks.

Meanwhile, in that low-swinging basin of sin called Las Vegas, a man by the name of James Mosqueda—chemist, craftsman, and methamphetamine merchant—has been ushered into prison for a generous stretch of five years, with an encore of four more under the keen eye of the law.

Mr. Mosqueda, using a 3D printer, managed to build an arsenal of ghost guns and machine doodads, all without the courtesy of a license. Between September and November of ‘23, he hawked these wares like a snake-oil man at a traveling fair—multiple 9mm pistols, a .45, and enough meth to fuel a Nevada county fair.

Now, if that don’t frost your mustache, try this–Douglas Day, a seventy-two-year-old devil disguised as a kindly photographer, was plucked from his unholy darkroom on April 16th, charged with ten counts of child pornography. His enterprise, “Top Gun Images”—which sounds less like a family portrait shop and more like a bad joke—has been under the spyglass of lawmen for 17 months.

Turns out, this gray-haired ghoul had more than photos in his files. With a $2,000,000 bail tag, he won’t be snapping graduation pics.

And lastly, we turn to the fallen flower of Las Vegas politics–Michele Fiore, once a City Councilwoman, then a Justice of the Peace, now a cautionary tale told in whispers and frowns. In October of last year, she was convicted on six counts of wire fraud and one of conspiracy, having misdirected funds meant to honor dead police officers.

They say she could face up to 140 years in a federal dungeon, though she swears her lawyer was a nincompoop and is suing for a second spin of the legal wheel. The Elites call her a disgrace, while her fans call her a martyr.

So here we are, ladies and gents–bullets in the parking lot, untraceable weapons printed like newspapers, ancient perverts behind cameras, and public servants picking their teeth with the rule of law. Ain’t it grand?

By the dusty gauge of desert justice—and perhaps the dawdling rhythm of bureaucracy—two years is a mighty long time to wait for a man accused of murder to get clapped in leg irons. But lo and behold, the long arm of the law, slow as it may be, has proven it still knows its way ’round the border and back again.

Oswaldo Natanahel Perez-Sanchez, the man fingered for the brutal slaying of young Tabatha Tozzi in Las Vegas, has at last been yanked from his hidey-hole in Sonora, Mexico, where he’d been living under a borrowed name and likely hoping the world would forget him. The world did not.

You might ask, what does a man do after he shoots his girlfriend in the head during a domestic spat? If you’re Perez-Sanchez, you steal a car, vanish like a puff of smoke in a thunderstorm, and hightail it to Mexico with all the arrogance of someone who thinks accountability is a myth.

He fooled just enough people to stay one step ahead of the law for a while. But justice, as the old saying goes, may be blind–but she listens real close—and in this case, she had help from a chorus of law officers, federal agents, and Mexican authorities who were good and tired of his charade.

The Fiscalía Unidad Especializada en Aprehensiones, with a hearty assist from the Mexican Marines and other investigative forces south of the border, scooped him up in Ciudad Obregón. While not shouted from rooftops—the arrest was echoed in headlines and confirmed by the FBI, DEA, and about half the alphabet soup of law enforcement agencies that had kept his wanted poster tacked to their mental bulletin boards.

Las Vegas Metropolitan Police, never one to ignore a good piece of collaborative triumph, extended their thanks to all who helped track the fugitive down—from the U.S. Marshals in Nevada and Arizona to the Customs and Border Protection’s Special Operations folks out of San Diego. They’ve now got him in hand, and while he faces charges in Mexico first, his northbound trip for an American reckoning is reportedly already on the books.

Back in Las Vegas, where the shadow of this tragedy has hung like a stubborn dust cloud, the news came with a complicated blend of relief and grief. Tabatha’s family—led by her heartbroken mother, Regina Lacerda—has never let up.

Regina, a woman whose strength could probably shame a cavalry charge, has fought to keep her daughter’s memory from fading into a cautionary tale.

“She told me she was afraid,” Regina once said, “Afraid he’d hurt himself. I asked, ‘To himself or you?’”

Her daughter never got the chance to answer. On April 22, 2023, Tabatha called her mother, panicked and desperate.

Regina tried to get to her. She was minutes too late.

Though not hers to bear—it has hung heavy on her ever since. Since that day, she has spoken to news crews, organized rallies, and lit candles under the stars—all in memory of a daughter who was only beginning her life when it got cruelly ended.

Tabatha Tozzi was 26 years old when she died. Friends described her as warm and generous, the kind of soul who could charm a thunderstorm into holding off until you made shelter.

Her “Tabby Tribe”—a circle of friends and family that grew into a movement—never let the world forget her. They held vigils, called for justice, and promised this would not be one of those cases that cools in a drawer until the paper yellows and the names get misspelled.

Perez-Sanchez is also now under investigation in connection with another woman’s murder—this one discovered just days ago in Culiacán. If true, it paints a picture of a man who did not go quietly into exile but carried his violence with him like a worn-out suitcase.

He now awaits proceedings in Culiacán’s Aguaruto Penitentiary, and his journey back to Nevada will begin soon enough. There, he will face charges in a courtroom that will likely be filled with the faces of the “Tabby Tribe” and led by a mother who never stopped fighting.

Almost exactly two years since her death, on April 24, a memorial will be held for Tabatha at Craig Ranch Regional Park. It won’t be a quiet affair, but then justice never is.

It’s loud, messy, and often arrives late to the party. But when it comes, it kicks the door in.

And sometimes, that’s enough to make the desert breathe easy again.

By an Old-Fashioned Observer of Common Sense and Uncommon Nonsense

It has been my lifelong observation—born of long years loafing along muddy riverbanks, dusty roads, and under canopies of Redwood trees—that when a fellow calls himself a Republican but starts acting like a Democrat in church clothes, the only suitable word for him is RINO, and that is the very species our tale concerns. One Governor Joe Lombardo of Nevada, a man whose collar is plenty stiff but whose spine seems less so, has taken it upon himself to write a letter—not with quill or gumption, but with the sort of soft ink that runs when trouble comes—to President Donald J. Trump, imploring His Excellency to lift tariffs on lithium.

Before I go any further, let me set one matter straight as a rowboat’s keel–President Trump did not impose tariffs to make life hard on Nevadan miners or hinder the blessed miracle of American invention. He did it to put a boot to the backside of China–and perhaps a few Wall Street crooks besides, who have long made a game of gutting the American economy like a catfish on a Saturday night.

But what does Governor Lombardo say? He says Nevada is “uniquely positioned” to lead in energy innovation.

That sounds mighty fine on a stump speech, and it might even fetch applause in a Reno cocktail hall, but it carries no water when it comes to loyalty. You see, it’s one thing to believe in energy progress, but it’s another to believe Nevada deserves a special exemption just because ol’ Joe Lombardo slapped a bumper sticker on his car that said Trump 2024.

That’s not statesmanship—that’s horse-trading.

The good Governor complains that lithium is getting dug up in Nevada, sent to Canada and Mexico for refining, and then hauled back into the United States like a long-lost cousin at a family reunion, only with a hefty import fee. He moans that these tariffs, designed to keep China from licking the cream from America’s plate, make it hard for Nevada companies to compete.

Well, I ask you—who told them to ship their raw lithium out like bootleg whiskey instead of building a smelter in the land of sagebrush and sage advice? President Trump didn’t. He’s been hollering for American industry to come home since he rode down the golden escalator.

And now this Governor, who calls himself a Republican, wants to cut a side deal? Why? ‘Cause Nevada’s got lithium deposits? So do other states. They just ain’t whining about it. Lombardo wants the President to make an exception—for his state, his donors, and his idea of the future.

That’s not federalism. That’s favoritism.

Let me tell you something I learned from an old mule driver on the banks of the Klamath River: “Any jackass can pull a cart downhill. It takes a team to pull it up.”

President Trump is trying to pull America back uphill. It ain’t easy. It ain’t polite. But it’s necessary. And the last thing he needs is some high-polished RINO tossing rocks in the road because he figures Nevada ought to ride in a carriage while the rest of us walk.

If Governor Lombardo wants to get remembered as more than a man with a letterhead–he’d do well to start standing for the tariffs and building American refining in Nevada–where the dirt’s still rich with promise, and the people still know what hard work is. But if all he wants is an exemption for himself and his backers, then I say he ought to trade that elephant pin for a donkey tail and get done with it.

As for President Trump is doing what few men dared—put America first. And no letter from a tariff-fearing RINO in the desert ought to change that.

By a Humble Chronicler of Political and Societal follies while scribblin’ in the margins of modern America

Now, I ain’t one to go around insultin’ folks outright — but there’s a peculiar and persistent sickness creepin’ through the grand halls of our federal judiciary, and pardon the expression, it smells suspiciously like self-importance, fermented in a cask of bureaucratic boloney and served with a dash of sanctimony.

Let us look no further than the silver-shined bench of the Honorable–at least in the title–Judge Gloria Navarro, who — in her wisdom loftier than Mount Olympus and twice as cold — decided that a gentleman by the name of Adrian Arturo Viloria Aviles, 29, of Venezuela, deserved a reprieve from deportation. Why? Well, Your Honor wasn’t satisfied with sendin’ him off without a parade and a monogrammed invitation to the asylum line.

Now, this Mr. Viloria Aviles — he was plucked from the Utah roadside like a weed by Immigration agents, who say he’s a member of that cheery little outfit known as Tren de Aragua, a gang more fond of violence than a cat is of mischief. The man says he’s no such thing, and he’s got tattoos to prove otherwise — although one’s a dragon, which seems about as helpful to his case as a skunk is to a perfume contest.

The Trump administration, not one to tarry when the opportunity arises to pack a criminal’s suitcase, reached for the Alien Enemies Act — a relic of war and worry not often pulled from the shelf. That law, dusty and draped in martial solemnity, allows the swift removal of certain foreigners in the event of wartime danger. Venezuela ain’t invaded us — not yet anyway — but Uncle Sam felt the occasion still warranted a good spring cleaning.

But Judge Navarro, perhaps eager to remind us all who sits behind the black robe and gavel, slammed the brakes on that train, declaring that Mr. Aviles must get the luxury of due process, paperwork, and all the ceremonial folderol of the American legal machine. Why, he was bounced like a ping-pong ball between detention centers in Nevada, New Mexico, and Texas faster than you can say habeas corpus, and Judge Navarro seemed mighty cross about that.

Now, I don’t suppose judges are entirely unnecessary. Some of ’em serve like good watchdogs — loyal, alert, and with just enough bark to scare off the mischief-makers. Sometimes, a courthouse canine starts barkin’ at the postman and lettin’ the burglars in for tea. Judge Navarro’s order to halt deportation, prompted by a few civil libertarians and the ever-compassionate ACLU, falls into this category.

And what of due process, you ask? Well, it is a noble idea. So is a gold-plated outhouse–but one ought to ask if it’s necessary for every tramp with a tattoo and a tale of woe to receive the full brass band of American justice. ‘Specially when the only evidence he ain’t dangerous is his say-so and the inability of the government to explain itself–which is, regrettably, a chronic ailment in federal offices.

Meanwhile, in Lovelock, Nevada, the same government had no problem deportin’ one Federico Garcia-Cegueda, a Mexican feller convicted of murder and sexual assault, which sounds like exactly the kind of individual we should be fast-tracking to the nearest border crossing. But that case didn’t require a judge’s high horse or the rhetorical somersaults of the ACLU–no, sir–he was out the door with less ceremony than a telegraph operator on payday.

So here’s the rub–if we can’t deport gang members without a federal judge climbin’ up on a soapbox to mis-recite the Bill of Rights like it’s bedtime in kindergarten, then perhaps we ought to rethink who’s wearin’ the robe and who’s runnin’ the circus. For my part, I’d like to remind Their Honors that laws ain’t made for judges to admire like a peacock preenin’ in the mirror. They’re to protect the people who follow them–and that means keepin’ the criminals out, even when they wear tattoos shaped like birds and dragons and swear up and down they’re as innocent as lambs in spring.

So to Judge Navarro and all her robed brethren–kindly climb down from the ivory pedestal, wipe the ink from your spectacles, and remember that the good people of this Republic expect justice, not indulgence.

The wind cut sharp across the valley, rattling the bare limbs of the cottonwoods and driving the cold deep into the bones. Helen Dyer stood in the doorway of her cabin, a Henry rifle resting easy in her hands. She was a slight woman, but there was steel in her spine, and her eyes—blue as the Nevada sky—meant business.

A year had passed since George rode out that winter’s morning and never came home. She and the boys had searched nearly a month before they found him–lying cold in a lonely draw, his Winchester still in his hands. The tracks told the story—a group of riders, half a dozen or more, had ambushed him.

Bushwhacked–as straightforward as that. Helen buried him where he fell.

That spring, she taught the boys to shoot. “A gun’s no good if you don’t know when to use it,” she told them, “but when you do, you’d best not miss.”

Days later, as the dust cloud on the horizon grew, she reckoned they’d find out if those lessons had taken hold.

The riders came slow, five of them, their mounts lathered from the climb out of the valley. The leader, a rangy man with a scar cutting through his bristly beard, pulled up short.

His name was Jasper Cade, a known troublemaker out of Winnemucca.

“Mrs. Dyer,” he called, touching his hat in mock courtesy, “seems a shame, a woman an’ two young’uns trying to hold a place like this. We figure you’d be better off in town, where there’s folks to look after you.”

Helen’s hands never left the rifle. “We’re doing just fine, Mr. Cade. You’d best turn around.”

Cade chuckled. “Now, that ain’t friendly. Truth is, we ain’t askin’.” His men shifted in their saddles, waiting for the word.

Helen’s finger rested along the trigger guard. “You get off my land, or I’ll put you in the ground.”

The men hesitated. Something in her eyes gave them pause.

Finally, Cade shrugged. “Suit yourself. But you’ll wish you listened.” He turned his horse, spitting into the dust. “See you soon, Mrs. Dyer.”

The barn turned to flames that night, the dry timber catching fast. The boys ran out with buckets, but Helen stopped them. “A barn can be rebuilt,” she said. “We can’t.”

They watched it burn, the light flickering against the cold hills.

At dawn, they took their places—Helen at the cabin window, the boys on the porch with their rifles steady. They didn’t wait for the riders to dismount.

When Cade and his men arrived again, grinning like wolves, Helen’s first shot shattered the morning stillness. Cade never got his hand to his gun.

The Henry slug hit him high in the chest, knocking him backward off his horse. Then her boys opened up, their Winchesters spitting fire.

One man fell hard from his saddle, another groaned and sagged forward, his horse bolting. A third slumped sideways, dead before he hit the ground. The two still in the saddle wheeled their mounts, one gripping his bleeding arm, and galloped for the ridgeline.

Helen stepped onto the porch, chambering another round. The bodies lay sprawled in the dust, the horses snorting nervously.

She watched the two survivors disappear over the rise, then lowered the rifle.

“They won’t be back,” she said.

She was right.

Now, I’ve seen some sorry behavior in my time—seen men cheat at poker, lie in church, and run for office with less honesty than a rattlesnake in a rabbit warren—but what befell that free-range horse named Frost out in Stagecoach last year belongs in the catalog of the damned.

It was a bitter thing, that poor Mustang wanderin’ onto the Palmers’ property, wounded and wheezing, just to lay down and die among decent folk. Word soon followed that Johnathon Wilson—aged forty-one and short on sense—had loosed a crossbow on the creature.

Yeah, he used a weapon fit for medieval mischief to snuff the spirit of one of Nevada’s proud horses.

The law ain’t always quick, but it eventually laced its boots and got to work. Deputies tracked a trail of blood right back to Wilson’s door, and wouldn’t you know it—there sat the crossbow, like a smoking gun made of fiberglass and poor judgment.

Folks in Dayton came out in a line longer than a miner’s tab at the saloon, wearin’ shirts that hollered “Justice for Frost” across their chests. They stood outside the courtroom not out of spectacle–but because some things still matter—dignity, decency, and the belief that wild things ought to live wild and free, not skewered for sport.

Miss Tracy Wilson–no relation to the defendant but strong in spirit, declared, “There’s no room for cruelty in our communities.”

And I reckon she’s right. Ain’t no excuse, justification, or silver tongue that can talk down what Wilson did.

And now, after all the waiting and weeping, justice has caught up. On March 24, the court handed Wilson the maximum–24 to 60 months behind bars, with parole only after two years served. He’ll have time enough to ponder what it means to take a life just because it wandered too close.

Frost may be gone, but he’s not forgotten. He died walking toward kindness and left behind a community that still knows right from wrong. And that gives hope that the West still has a strong and wild heartbeat.

The law is like a shotgun—it works best when handled by someone with both aim and decency, but what happens when the one holdin’ the gun forgets which end goes bang?

Take Miss Shana Bachman, for instance. Once upon a time, she fancied herself fit to don the robe of a Justice Court Judge in Las Vegas. She ran a campaign and everything—smiles, handshakes, promises of justice from a menu. Voters, however, weren’t buying what she was selling, and she went back to being a public defender, this time up in Washoe County.

But justice has a funny way of catching up, even if it has to ride in the back of a Metro cruiser. On a quiet Sunday evening, Miss Bachman was reportedly seen driving her carriage with the grace of a headless chicken—arms flailing, tires swerving, and stop signs treated as mere suggestions. Upon closer inspection, officers say they found two open beer cans riding shotgun and a bag of what polite society calls “bad decisions in powder form.”

With her tongue as tangled as her driving, Miss Bachman admitted she’d been drinkin’. She asked the officers if they might show a little mercy because she was almost under the limit—an argument about as persuasive as a cat asking a bird for forgiveness mid-pounce. She now faces a stew of charges: DUI, felony possession, and more traffic violations than a Reno roundabout on a Friday night.

And wouldn’t you know it—she ain’t the only lawyer in Nevada trading in courtrooms for court dates. Another former public defender, Gary Guymon, finds himself embroiled in accusations of running a prostitution ring and plotting murder.

It makes you wonder if the courthouse ought to install a revolving door.

As for Washoe County, they’re clutchin’ their Black’s Law and whisperin’ “no comment” while the matter’s under investigation—which, in legalese, means–we sure wish this hadn’t happened on our watch.

Now, friends, let me tell you about a grand mess cooked up in the sagebrush state—a tale of boards, commissions, committees, councils, and more red tape than a Christmas morning at the Post Office.

Nevada, bless her bureaucratic heart, has over 300 state boards and commissions. Yup, three hundred!

That’s more boards than a lumber yard. These are all civilian-run outfits, supposedly here to help regulate barbers, boxers, opticians, and about every soul who wants a license to hang a shingle.

The state’s own Department of Business and Industry calls these boards a “de facto fourth branch of government.” If you ask me, three branches are already too many for the job most days.

Four? That’s just plain greedy.

Naturally, someone had the gumption to suggest we thin the herd. That someone is Governor Joe Lombardo, who says the system oughta be “smart, lean, and productive,” which is political shorthand for “We got too many folks doin’ not enough work.”

Enter SB78, a bill that tries to consolidate, prune, and bring some oversight to this overgrown jungle of regulation. But don’t go poppin’ your cork just yet. The bill barely crawled through its first test as Democrats on the committee couldn’t muster much enthusiasm—only one feller voted “yes,” and that was to “keep the conversation flowin’,” which is Capitol-speak for “this dog don’t hunt, but let’s see if it growls.”

Why all the pushback?

Well, it seems every one of these 300-odd boards has a choir of critics and defenders, not to mention lobbyists thicker than Nevada dust in July. Some worry the proposed consolidations will mix professionals like opticians and optometrists like peas and gravel—close in theory–but mighty different in practice.

One lady, head of the dispensing optician’s board, hollered that you can’t ask people trained in fitting glasses to regulate someone who performs eye surgery. Another warned that combining therapists, social workers, and gambling counselors would water everything down ‘til no one knew which way was up.

And while the state argues this cleanup act could save $15 million a year—no small pine nuts—the opposition claims it’s being rushed, poorly communicated, and mighty disrespectful to the expertise involved.

Now, here’s the kicker–most of these advisory boards, the ones that recommend things and don’t license a soul, aren’t even touched by this bill. That’s two-thirds of the whole pile, left right where they are, sittin’ pretty and makin’ suggestions like a peanut gallery with a printing budget.

So where does that leave us? Right where we started, more or less–too much government, too little accountability, and too many folks with fancy titles and no particular urgency to change a thing. Like molasses in January, reform in Nevada moves mighty slow—and sometimes not at all.

To sum up–300 boards is too many. It’s a government so tangled up it can’t find its feet.

Now, I’ve seen a great many things in my time—buildings blowin’ sky-high, politicians makin’ promises they got no earthly intention of keepin’, and Christmas toys turning sensible folk into violent lunatics—but I don’t reckon I’ve seen anything quite as damning to a so-called civilized place as a regular epidemic of folks killin’ the ones they claimed to love. And yet here we are, in the Silver State, where, according to folks who tally these grim matters, Nevada’s perched right up top among the states where domestic violence turns fatal.

Now there’s an outfit called SafeNest, and if angels ever walked around in work boots, I figure they’re employed there. A woman—name withheld, as she’s got good reason to be cautious—said she’d just about given up entirely, ready to lay down and let the storm take her. Then came SafeNest, and according to her, they didn’t just throw her a rope—they showed her the shore.

“They brought light to the future,” she said, and by thunder, that’s more than most preachers will promise on Sunday.

Their leader, Liz Ortenburger, ain’t sugarcoating the truth. She says Clark County’s become a kind of battleground where women are gettin’ murdered at the hands of men more often than most anywhere else.

Worse yet, folks just tryin’ to lend a hand or who have the poor fortune to fall in love with the wrong fella end up dead too—what she calls “bystander homicides.” Five in 2023, and she already knows of ten this year. That’s not bad luck—that’s a plague.

Now SafeNest wants to open a place they’re calling “One Safe Place,” a kind of fortress of compassion with police, lawyers, doctors, and warm beds all under one roof. Twenty-four hours a day, rain or shine, no questions too dumb, and no hour too late. The kind of place that might’ve saved a hundred lives already if it’d only existed sooner.

But of course, building such a haven don’t come cheap. Seventeen million dollars is the tab. The state ponied up $9 million, and the seller knocked another million off for good measure.

That leaves $7 million still hangin’ over the operation like a summer thundercloud. And don’t get her started on the county—Ortenburger says they offered money and yanked it back like a gambler regrettin’ his bet.

Still, the message from the survivor is clear and worth chiselin’ in stone– “Just be aware and know that there is support out there. You can get out. Don’t be stuck and don’t stay.”

Nevada may be glitterin’ with silver and neon, but if it can’t protect its people–it ain’t worth the shine.

In a yarn spun with precision–NDOT Director Tracy Larkin faced the music before the Board of Directors–addressing a state audit that sniffed out $25 million in record-keeping discrepancies as if the department’s books were penned by a sleepwalking clerk.

With a twinkle of resolve, Larkin declared no hoard of treasure—nay, not $25 million in goods—had vanished into the Nevada dust. The culprit? A clerical blunder, mistaking a stockpile of 40 million glass beads for road striping as a mere 404,000, accounting for $15 million of the auditors’ quarry.

Legislative Auditor Daniel Crossman, a man with the keen eye of a frontier scout, noted NDOT had patched some holes in its ledger since the audit’s shadow fell, but $10 million in discrepancies still loiter like unclaimed baggage. A follow-up report, due when the leaves turn, promises to reckon with these stragglers.

About a state vehicle cozying up to a director’s home, Larkin waved off scandal, claiming it’s a rightful perk for those poised to leap into an emergency fray, provided the IRS gets its paperwork dues. She vowed to spruce up NDOT’s vehicle policies, as one might polish a tarnished heirloom, ensuring all forms are as tidy as a parson’s Sunday suit.

Yet, on the audit’s whisper of $25,000 in tire invoices lost in the bureaucratic brambles, Larkin kept mum, her silence louder than a desert wind. Declining a chinwag on camera and with NDOT’s mouthpiece dodging queries like a coyote skirts a trap, Larkin’s retort to the audit’s prodding is this October, when the department’s six-month reckoning is due.

Till then–the tale of NDOT’s books, part-corrected but not wholly sung, lingers like a half-told story by a campfire’s glow.