Tony Hillerman - Leaphorn & Chee 13 - The First Eagle Page 4

  Two floors below him the white Chevy had parked. The driver's-side door opened, a pair of black trouser legs emerged, then a hand holding a briefcase.

  "Lieutenant Chee," said a familiar voice just behind him. "Could I talk to you for a minute?"

  Joe Leaphorn was standing in the doorway, holding his battered gray Stetson in his hands and looking apologetic.

  So much for coincidences.

  Chapter Five

  "SOMEPLACE QUIETER, MAYBE," Leaphorn had said, meaning a place where no one would overhear him. So Chee led him down the hall to the empty orthopedic waiting room. He pulled back a chair by the table and motioned toward another one.

  "I know you just have a minute," Leaphorn said, and sat down. "The defense attorney just drove up."

  "Yeah," Chee said, thinking that Leaphorn not only had Managed to find him in this unlikely place but knew why he was here and what was going on. Probably knew more than Chee did. That irritated Chee, but it didn't surprise him.

  "I wanted to ask if the name Catherine Anne Pollard meant anything to you. If a missing persons report was filed on her. Or a stolen vehicle report? Anything like that?"

  "Pollard?" Chee said. "I don't think so. It doesn't ring a bell." Thank God Leaphorn wasn't involving himself in the Kinsman business. It was already complicated enough.

  "Woman, early thirties, working with the Indian Health Service," Leaphorn said. "In vector control. Looking for the source of that bubonic plague outbreak. Checking rodents. You know how they work."

  "Oh, yeah," Chee said. "I heard about it. When I get back to Tuba I'll check our reports. I think somebody in environmental health or the Indian Health Service called Window Rock about her not coming back from a job and they passed it along to us." He shrugged. "I got the impression they were more worried about losing the department's Jeep."

  Leaphorn grinned at him. "Not exactly the crime of the century."

  "No," Chee said. "If she was about thirteen you'd be checking the motels. At her age, if she wants to run off somewhere, that's her business. As long as she brings back the Jeep."

  "She didn't, then? It's still missing?"

  "I don't know," Chee said. "If she returned it, APH forgot to tell us."

  "That wouldn't be unusual," Leaphorn said.

  Chee nodded, and looked at Leaphorn. Wanting an explanation for his interest in something that seemed both obvious and trivial.

  "Somebody in her family thinks she's dead. Thinks somebody killed her." Leaphorn let that hang a moment, made an apologetic face. "I know that's what kinfolks usually think. But this time there's a suspicion that a would-be boyfriend was stalking her."

  "That's not unusual either," Chee said. He felt vaguely disappointed. Leaphorn had done some private detecting right after he'd retired, but that had been to tie up a loose end from his career, close out an old case. This sounded purely commercial. Was the Legendary Lieutenant Leap-horn reduced to doing routine private detective stuff?

  Leaphorn took a notebook out of his shirt pocket, looked at it, tapped it against the tabletop. It occurred to Chee that this was embarrassing Leaphorn, and that embarrassed Chee. The Legendary Lieutenant, totally unflappable when he'd been in charge, didn't know how to handle being a civilian. Asking favors. Chee didn't know how to handle it either. He noticed that Leaphorn's burr-cut hair, long black-salted-with-gray, had become gray-salted-with-black.

  "Anything I can do?" Chee asked.

  Leaphorn put the notebook back in his pocket.

  "You know how I am about coincidences," he said.

  "Yep," Chee said.

  "Well, this one is so strained I hate to even mention it-" He shook his head.

  Chee waited.

  "From what I know now, the last time anyone heard of this woman, she was heading out of Tuba City checking on prairie dog colonies, looking for dead rodents. One of the places on her list was that area around Yells Back Butte."

  Chee thought about that a moment, took a deep breath, thinking he'd been too optimistic. But "that area around Yells Back Butte" didn't make it much of a coincidence with his Kinsman case. That "around" could include a huge bunch of territory. He waited to see if Leaphorn was finished. He wasn't.

  "That was the morning of July eighth," Leaphorn said.

  "July eighth," Chee said, frowning. "I was out there that morning."

  "I was thinking that you were," Leaphorn said. "Look, I'm headed to Window Rock now and all I know now is from some preliminary checking a lawyer did for Pollard's aunt. I couldn't reach Pollard's boss on the telephone and soon as I do, I'll go to Tuba and talk to him. If I learn anything useful, I'll let you know."

  "I'd appreciate that," Chee said. "I'd like to know some more about this."

  "Probably absolutely no connection with the Kinsman case," Leaphorn said. "I don't see how there could be. Unless you know some reason to feel otherwise. I just thought-"

  A loud voice from the doorway interrupted him.

  "Chee!" The speaker was a beefy young man with reddish-blond hair and a complexion that suffered from too many hours of dry air and high-altitude sun. The coat of his dark blue suit was unbuttoned, his necktie was slightly loose, his white shirt was rumpled and his expression was irritated. "Mickey wants to get this damned thing over with," he said. "He wants you in there."

  He was pointing at Chee, a violation of the Dine rules of courtesy. Now he beckoned to Chee with his finger-rude in a multitude of other cultures.

  Chee rose, his face darkened a shade.

  "Mr. Leaphorn," Chee said, motioning toward the man, "this gentleman is Agent Edgar Evans of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He was assigned out here just a couple of months ago."

  Leaphorn acknowledged that with a nod toward Evans.

  "Chee," Agent Evans said, "Mickey is in a hell of a-"

  "Tell Mr. Mickey I'll be there in a minute or so," Chee said. And to Leaphorn: "I'll call you from the office when I know what we have."

  Leaphorn smiled at Evans and turned back to Chee.

  "I am particularly interested in that Jeep," Leaphorn said. "People don't just walk away from good trucks. It's odd. Someone sees it, mentions it to someone else, the word gets around."

  Chee chuckled. (More, Leaphorn suspected, for Evans's benefit than his own.) "It does," Chee said. "And pretty soon people begin deciding no one wants it anymore, and parts of it begin showing up on other people's trucks."

  "I'd like to spread the word that there's a reward for locating that Jeep," Leaphorn said.

  Evans cleared his throat loudly.

  "How much?" Chee asked.

  "How does a thousand dollars sound?"

  "About right," Chee said, turning toward the door. He Motioned to Agent Evans. "Come on," he said. "Let's go."

  Officer Benjamin Kinsman's room was lit by the sun pouring through its two windows and a battery of ceiling fluorescent lights. Entering involved slipping past a burly male nurse and two young women in the sort of pale blue smocks doctors wear. Acting Assistant U.S. Attorney J. D. Mickey stood by the windows. The shape of Officer Kinsman lay at rigid attention in the center of the bed, covered with a sheet. One of the vital signs monitors on the wall above the bed registered a horizontal white line. The other screen was blank.

  Mickey looked at his watch, then at Chee, glanced at the doors and nodded.

  "You're the arresting officer?"

  "That's correct," Chee said.

  "What I want you to do is ask the victim here if he can tell you anything about who killed him. What happened. All that. We just want to get it on the record in case the defense tries something fancy."

  Chee licked his lips, cleared his throat, looked at the body.

  "Ben," he said. "Can you tell me who killed you? Can you hear me? Can you tell me anything?"

  "Pull the sheet down," Mickey said. "Off of his face."

  Chee shook his head. "Ben," he said. "I'm sorry I didn't get there quicker. Be happy on your journey."

  Agent Evans wa
s pulling at the sheet, drawing it down to reveal Benjamin Kinsman's waxen face.

  Chee gripped his wrist. Hard. "No," he said. "Don't do that." He pulled the sheet back in place.

  "Let it go," Mickey said, looking at his watch again. "I guess we're done here." He turned toward the door.

  Standing there, looking in at Chee, at all of them, was Janet Pete.

  "Better late than never," Mickey said. "I hope you got here early enough to know all your client's legal rights were satisfied."

  Janet Pete, looking very pale, nodded. She stood aside to let them pass.

  Behind Chee the medical crew was working fast, disconnecting wires and tubes-starting the bed rolling toward the side exit. There, Chee guessed, Officer Benjamin Kinsman's kidneys would be salvaged, perhaps also his heart, perhaps whatever else some other person could use. But Ben was far, far away now. Only his chindi would remain here. Or would it follow the corpse into other rooms? Into other bodies? Navajo theology did not cover such contingencies. Corpses were dangerous, excepting only those of infants who die before their first laugh, and people who die naturally of old age. The good of Benjamin Kinsman would go with his spirit. The part of his personality that was out of harmony would linger as a chindi, causing sickness. Chee turned away from the body.

  Janet was still standing at the door. He stopped. "Hello, Jim."

  "Hello, Janet." He took a deep breath. "It's good to see you."

  "Even like this?" She made a weak gesture at the room and tried to smile.

  He didn't answer that. He felt dizzy, sick, and depleted. "I tried to call you, but you're never home. I'm Robert Jano's counsel," she said. "I guess you knew that?"

  "I didn't know it," Chee said. "Not until I heard what Mr. Mickey said."

  "You're the arresting officer, as I heard? Is that right? So I need to talk to you."

  "Fine," Chee said. "But I can't do it now. And not here. Somewhere away from here." He swallowed down the bile. "How about dinner?"

  "I can't tonight. Mr. Mickey has us all conferring about the case. And, Jim, you look exhausted. I think you must be working too hard."

  "I'm not," he said. "And you look great. Will you be here tomorrow?"

  "I have to drive down to Phoenix."

  "How about breakfast then? At the hotel."

  "Good," she said, and they set the time.

  Mickey was standing down the hallway. "Ms. Pete," he called.

  "Got to go," she said, and turned, then turned back again. "Jim," she said, "tired or not, you look fine."

  "You, too," Chee said. She did. The classic, perfect beauty you see on the cover of Vogue, or on any of the fashion magazines.

  Chee leaned against the wall and watched her walk down the hall, around the corner and out of sight, wishing he had thought of something more romantic to say than "You, too." Wishing he knew what to do about her. About them. Wishing he knew whether he could trust her. Wishing life wasn't so damned complicated.

  Chapter Six

  IT SEEMED OBVIOUS TO LEAPHORN that the person most likely to tell him something useful about Catherine Anne Pollard was Richard Krause, her boss and the biologist in charge of rooting out the cause of the reservation's most recent plague outbreak. A lifetime spent looking for People in the big emptiness of the Four Corners and several futile telephone calls had taught Leaphorn that Krause would probably be off somewhere unreachable. He had tried to call him as soon as he returned to Window Rock from Santa Fe. He'd tried again yesterday before driving back from Flagstaff. By now he had the number memorized as well as on the redial button. He picked up the telephone and punched it.

  "Public Health," a male voice said. "Krause." Leaphorn identified himself. "Mrs. Vanders has asked me-"

  "I know," Krause said. "She called me. Maybe she's right. To start getting worried, I mean."

  "Miss Pollard's not back yet, then?"

  "No," Krause said. "Miss Pollard still hasn't shown up for work. Nor has she bothered to call in or communicate in any way. But I have to tell that's what you learn to expect from Miss Pollard. Rules were made for other people."

  "Any word on the vehicle she was driving?"

  "Not to me," Krause said. "And to tell the truth, I'm getting a little bit concerned myself. At first I was just sore at her. Cathy is a tough gal to work with. She's very into doing her own thing her own way, if you know what I'm saying. I just thought she'd seen something that needed doing worse than what I'd told her to do. Sort of reassigned herself, you know."

  "I know," Leaphorn said, thinking back to when Jim Chee had been his assistant. Still, as much trouble as Chee had been, it had been a pleasure to see him yesterday. He was a good man and unusually bright.

  "You still think that might be a possibility? That Pollard might be off working on some project of her own and just not bothering to tell anyone about it?"

  "Maybe," Krause said. "It wouldn't bother her to let me stew awhile, but not this long." He'd be happy to tell Leaphorn what he knew about Pollard and her work, but not today. Today he was tied up, absolutely snowed under. With Pollard away, he was doing both their jobs. But tomorrow morning he could make some time-and the earlier the better.

  Which left Leaphorn with nothing to do but wait for Chee's promised call. But Chee would be driving back to Tuba City from Flag this morning, and then he wouldn't get into his files until he dealt with whatever problems had piled up in his absence. If Chee found something interesting in the files, he'd probably call after noon. Most likely there'd be no reason to call.

  Leaphorn had never been good at waiting for the telephone to ring, or for anything else. He toasted two slices of bread, applied margarine and grape jelly, and sat in his kitchen, eating and staring at the Indian Country map mounted on the wall above the table.

  The map was freckled with the heads of pins-red, white, blue, black, yellow, and green, plus a variety of shapes he'd reverted to when the colors available in pin-, heads had been exhausted. It had been accumulating pins on his office wall since early in his career. When he retired, the fellow who took over his office suggested he might want to keep it, and he'd said he couldn't imagine why. But keep It he had, and almost every pin in it revived a memory.

  The first ones (plain steel-headed seamstress pins) he'd stuck in to keep track of places and dates where people had reported seeing a missing aircraft, the problem that then had been occupying his thoughts. The red ones had been next, establishing the delivery pattern of a gasoline tanker truck that was also hauling narcotics to customers on the Checkerboard Reservation. The most common ones were black, representing witchcraft reports. Personally, Leaphorn had lost all faith in the existence of these skinwalkers in his freshman year at Arizona State, but never in the reality of the problem that belief in them causes.

  He'd come home for the semester break, full of new-won college sophistication and cynicism. He'd talked Jack Greyeyes into joining him to check out a reputed home base of skinwalkers and thus prove themselves liberated from tradition. They drove south from Shiprock past Rol-Hay Rock and Table Mesa to the volcanic outcrop of ugly black basalt where, according to the whispers in their age group, skinwalkers met in an underground room to perform the hideous initiation that turned recruits into witches. It was a rainy winter night, which cut the risk that someone would see them and accuse them of being witches themselves. Now, more than four decades later, winter rains still produced memorial shivers along Leaphorn's spine.

  That night remained one of Leaphorn's most vivid memories. The darkness, the cold rain soaking through his jacket, the beginnings of fear. Greyeyes had decided when they'd reached the outcrop's base that this was a crazy idea.

  "I'll tell you what," Greyeyes had said. "Let's not do it, and say we did."

  So Leaphorn had taken custody of the flashlight, watched Greyeyes fade into the darkness, and waited for his courage to return. It didn't. He had stood there looking up at the great jumbled hump of rock. Suddenly he had been confronted with both nerve-racking fear and the
sure knowledge that what he did now would determine the kind of man he would be. He'd torn his pant leg and bruised his knee on the way up. He'd found the gaping hole the whispers had described, shone his flash into it without locating a bottom, and then climbed down far enough to see where it led. The rumors had described a carpeted room littered with the fragments of corpses. He had found a drifted collection of blown sand and last summer's tumbleweeds.

  That had confirmed his skepticism about skin-walker mythology, just as his career in the Navajo Tribal Police had confirmed his belief in what the evil skin-walkers symbolized. He'd lost any lingering doubts about that in his rookie year. He had laughed off a warning that a Navajo oil-field pumper believed two neighbors had witched his daughter, thus causing her fatal illness.