Hillerman, Tony - [Leaphorn & Chee 13] (15 page)

LEAPHORN AWOKE IN A SILENT HOUSE, with the early sun shining on his face. He
had built their house in Window Rock with their bedroom window facing the rising
sun because that pleased Emma. Therefore, both the sun and the emptiness were
familiar. Louisa had left a note on the kitchen table, which began: "Push
ON button on the coffeemaker," and went on to outline the availability of
various foods for breakfast and concluded on a more personal note. "I have
errands to run before class. Good hunting.

Please call and let me know what luck you're having. I enjoyed yesterday. A
LOT. Louisa." Leaphorn pushed the on button, dropped bread into the
toaster, got out a plate, cup, knife and the butter dish. Then he went to the
telephone, began dialing Mrs. Vanders's number in Santa Fe, then hung up. First
he would call Chee. Perhaps that would give him something to tell Mrs. Vanders
besides that he had nothing at all to tell her.

"He hasn't arrived yet, Lieutenant Leaphorn," the station
secretary said. "Do you want his home number?"

"It's 'Just call me mister' now," Leaphorn said. "And thanks,
but I have it."

"Wait a minute. Here he comes now."

Leaphorn waited.

"I was just going to call you," Chee said. "We found the
Jeep." He gave Leaphorn the details.

"You said the tire tracks showed the sand was still wet when it got
there?"

"Right."

"So it got there after Kinsman was hit."

"Right again. And probably not long after. It wasn't a very wet
rain."

"I guess it's too early to have anything much from the crime lab about
prints or—" Leaphorn paused. "Look, Lieutenant, I keep forgetting
that I'm a civilian now. Just say no comment or something if I'm
overstepping."

Chee laughed. "Mr. Leaphorn," he said. "I'm afraid you're
always going to be Lieutenant to me. And they said they found a lot of prints
everywhere matching the guy who stole the radio. But there was no old latent
stuff in the obvious places. The steering wheel, gearshift knob, door
handles—all those places had been wiped.

Very thoroughly."

"I don't like the sound of that," Leaphorn said. "No,"
Chee said. "Either she's on the run and wanted to leave the impression
she'd been abducted, or she actually was taken by someone who didn't want to be
identified. Take your pick."

"Probably number two if I had to guess. But who knows? And I guess it's
way too early to know anything about the blood," Leaphorn said. "Way
too early."

"Is there any chance you could find any samples of Pollard's blood
anywhere? Was she a blood bank donor? Or was she scheduled for any surgery that
she'd stockpile blood for?"

"That was one reason I was about to call you," Chee said. "We
can get next of kin and so forth from her employer, but it would be quicker to
call that woman who hired you. Was it Vanders?"

Leaphorn provided the name, address and telephone number.

"I'm going to call her right now and tell her the Jeep was found and to
expect a call from you," Leaphorn added. "Anything you've told me
that you want withheld?" A moment of silence while Chee considered.
"Nothing I can think of," he said. "You know any reason we
should?" Leaphorn didn't. He called Mrs. Vanders. "Give me a moment
to get ready for this," she said. People who call early in the morning
usually have bad news."

"It might be," Leaphorn said. "The Jeep she was driving has been
located. It had been abandoned in an arroyo about twenty miles from where she
said she was going. There was no sign of an accident. But some dried blood was
found on the passenger-side seat. The police don't know yet how long the blood
was there, whether it was hers or where it came from."

"Blood," Mrs. Vanders said. "Oh, my."

"Dried," Leaphorn said. "Perhaps from an old injury, an old
cut. Do you remember if she ever told you of hurting herself? Or of anyone
being hurt in that vehicle?"

"Oh," she said. "I don't think so. I can't remember. I just
can't make my mind work."

"It's too early to worry," Leaphorn said. "She may be
perfectly all right." This was not the time to tell her the Jeep had been
wiped clean of fingerprints. He asked her if Catherine might have been a blood
bank donor, if she had scheduled any surgery for which she would have
stockpiled blood. Mrs. Vanders didn't remember. She didn't think so.

"You'll be getting a call this morning from the officer investigating
the case," Leaphorn told her. "A Lieutenant Jim Chee. He'll tell you
if anything new has developed."

"Yes," Mrs. Vanders said. "I'm afraid something terrible has
happened. She was such a headstrong girl."

"I'm going now to talk to Mr. Krause," Leaphorn said. "Maybe
he can tell us something."

Richard Krause was not in his temporary laboratory at Tuba City, but a note
was thumbtacked to the door: "Out mouse hunting. Back tomorrow. Reachable
through Kaibito Chapter House." Leaphorn topped off his gasoline tank and
headed southwest—twenty miles of pavement on U.S. 160 and then another twenty
on the washboard gravel of Navajo Route 21. Only three pickups rested in the
Chapter House parking lot, and none of them belonged to the Indian Health
Service. Discouraging news.

But inside Leaphorn found Mrs. Gracie Nakaidineh in charge of things. Mrs.
Nakaidineh remembered him from his days patrolling out of Tuba City long, long
ago. And he remembered Gracie as one of those women who always do what needs to
be done and know what needs to be known.

"Ah," Gracie said after they had gotten through the greeting
ritual common to all old-timers, "you mean you're looking for the Mouse
Man."

"Right," Leaphorn said. "He left a note on his door saying he
could be contacted here."

"He said if anyone needed to find him, he'd be catching mice along
Kaibito Creek. He said he'd be about where it runs into Chaol Canyon."

That meant leaving washboard gravel and taking Navajo Route 6330, which was
graded dirt circling up onto the Rainbow Plateau for twenty-six bumpy empty
miles. Leaphorn avoided much of that journey. About eight miles out, he spotted
an Indian Health Service pickup parked in a growth of willows. He pulled off
onto the shoulder, got out his binoculars and tried to make out enough of the
symbol painted on its dusty, brush-obscured door to determine "whether it
was the Indian Health Service or something else. Failing that, he scanned the
area for Krause.

A figure, clad head to foot in some sort of shiny white coverall, was moving
through the brush toward the truck, carrying plastic sacks in both hands.
Krause? Leaphorn couldn't even tell whether it was a man or woman. Whoever was
wearing the astronaut's suit stopped beside the truck and began removing shiny
metal boxes from the sacks, placing them in a row in the shade behind the
vehicle. That done, he took one of the boxes to the truck bed, put it into
another plastic sack, sprayed something from a can into the bag, and then began
arranging a row of flat square pans on the tailgate.

It must be Krause on his mouse-hunting expedition, and now he was performing
whatever magic biologists perform with mice. He was working with his back to
Leaphorn, revealing a curving black tube that extended from a black box low on
his back upward into the back of his hood. Here was what Mrs. Notah had seen
behind the screen of junipers at Yells Back Butte. The witch who looked part
snowman and part elephant.

As that thought occurred to Leaphorn, Krause turned, and as he took the box
from the sack, sunlight reflected off the transparent face shield—completing
Mrs. Notah's description of her skinwalker. He turned to watch Leaphorn
approaching.

Leaphorn restarted the engine and rolled his truck down the slope. He
parked, got out, slammed the door noisily behind him.

Krause spun around, yelling something and pointing to a hand-lettered sign
on the pickup: IF YOU CAN READ THIS YOU'RE TOO DAMNED CLOSE. Leaphorn stopped.
He shouted: "I need to talk to you." Krause nodded. He held up a
circled thumb and finger, and then a single finger, noted that Leaphorn
understood the signals, and turned back to his work—which involved holding a
small rodent in one hand over a white enamel tray and running a comb through
its fur with the other. That job done, he held up the tiny form of a mouse,
dangling it by its long tail, for Leaphorn to see. He dropped the animal into
another of the traps, peeled off a pair of latex gloves, disposed of them in a
bright red canister beside the truck. He walked toward Leaphorn, pushing back his
hood.

"Hantavirus," he said, grinning at Leaphorn. "Which we used
to call, in our days of cultural insensitivity, the Navajo Flu."

"A name which we didn't like any better than the American Legion liked
your name for Legionnaire's disease."

"So now we give both of them their dignified Greek titles, and
everybody is happy," Krause said. "And anyway, what I was doing was
separating the fleas from the fur of a
Peromyscus
, actually a
Peromyscus
maniculatus
, and ninety-nine-point-nine chances out of a hundred, when we
test both fleas and mammal, the tests will show I have murdered a perfectly
healthy deer mouse who never hosted a virus in his life. But we won't know
until we get the lab work done."

"Are you finished here now?" Leaphorn asked. "Do YOU have
time for some questions?"

"Some," Krause said. He turned and waved at the row of metal boxes
in the shade. "But before I can peel off this uniform—which is officially
called a Positive Air Purifying Respirator suit, or PAPR, in vector controller
slang—I've got to finish with the mice in those traps. Separate the fleas and
then it's slice and dice for the poor little deer mice."

"I have plenty of time," Leaphorn said. "I'll just watch you
work."

"From a distance, though. It's probably safe. As far as we know, hantavirus
spreads aerobically. In other words, it's carried in the mouse urine, and when
that dries, it's in the dust people breathe. The trouble is, if it infects you,
there's no way to cure it."

"I'll stay back," Leaphorn said. "And I'll hold my questions
until you get out of that suit. I'll bet you're cooking."

"Better cooked than dead," Krause said. "And it's not as bad
as it looks. The air blowing into the hood keeps your head cool. Stick your
hand close here and feel it."

"I'll take your word for it," Leaphorn said. He watched while
Krause emptied the box traps one at a time, combed the fleas out of the fur
into individual bags and then extracted the pertinent internal organs. He put
those in bottles and the corpses into the disposal canister. He peeled off the
PAPR and dropped it into the same can.

"Runs the budget up," he said. "When we're hunting plague, we
don't use the PAPRS when we're just trapping. And after we've done the
slice-and-dice work, we save 'em for reuse, unless we slosh prairie dog innards
on them. But with hantavirus you don't take any chances. But what can I tell
you that might be useful?"

"Well, first let me tell you that we found the Jeep Miss Pollard was
driving. It had been left in an arroyo down that road that leads past Goldtooth."

"Well, at least she was going in the direction she told me she was
going," Krause said, grinning. "No note left for me about taking an
early vacation or anything like that?"

"Only a little smear of blood," Leaphorn said.

Krause's grin vanished.

"Oh, shit," he said. "Blood. Her blood?" He shook his
head. "From the very first, I've been taking for granted that one day
she'd either call or just walk in, probably without even explaining anything
until I asked her. You just don't think something is going to happen to Cathy.
Nothing that she doesn't want to happen."

"We don't know that it has," Leaphorn said. "Not for
sure."

Krause's expression changed again. Immense relief. "It wasn't her
blood?"

"That brings us to my question. Do you have any idea where we might
find a sample of Miss Pollard's blood? Enough for the lab to make a
comparison?"

"Oh," Krause said. "So you just don't know yet? But who else
could it belong to? There was no one with her."

"You sure of that?"

"Oh," Krause said again. "Well, no, I guess I'm not. I didn't
see her that morning. But she didn't say anything in the note about having
company. And she always worked alone. We often do on this kind of work."

"Any possibility that Hammar could have been with her?"

"Remember? Hammar said he was doing his teaching work back at the university
that day."

"I remember," Leaphorn said. "That hasn't been checked yet as
far as I know. When the lab tells the police it's Miss Pollard's blood in the
Jeep, then the alibis get checked."

"Including mine?"

"Of course. Including everybody's."

Leaphorn waited, giving Krause time to amend what he'd said about that
morning. But Krause just stood there looking thoughtful.

"Had she cut herself recently? Donated any blood? Any idea where some
could be found for the lab?"

Krause closed his eyes, thinking. "She's careful," he said.
"In this work you have to be. Hard as hell to work with, but skillful. I
don't ever remember her cutting herself in the lab. And in a vector control lab
getting cut is a big deal. And if she was a blood donor, she never mentioned
it."

"When you came in that morning, where did you find her note?"

"Right on my desk."

"You were going to see if you could find it. Any luck?"

"I've been busy. I'll try," Krause said.

"I'll need a copy," Leaphorn said. "Okay?"

"I guess so," Krause said, and Leaphorn noticed that some of his
cordiality had slipped away. "But you're not a policeman. I'll bet the
cops will want it."

"They will," Leaphorn said. "I'd be satisfied with a Xerox.
Can you remember exactly what it said? Every word of it?"