Summary

While off-duty, police officer Bernadette “Bernie” Manuelito attends a tightly packed basketball game in her small town of Shiprock, New Mexico. The game is a contest between the local high school’s current team and a select squad of the school’s alumni. Over the raucous crowd noise, Bernie hears an explosion from outside: she goes into the packed parking lot and sees that a car has exploded, although she can’t tell if anybody has been injured in the blast or not.

Bernie calls the police station for back-up while she takes extensive photos of the scene. To her distress, the officer who arrives is Wilson Sam, who is relatively new. Bernie and Sam argue about whether or not it is safer to keep the packed crowd inside the gym, with the game nearing its conclusion, or to have them leave the...