Hillerman, Tony - [Leaphorn & Chee 13] (19 page)

But Chee wasn't kidding himself about his motivation. One of the reasons
he'd told Janet about the tape was to give her a weapon if she needed it. But
part of that was purely selfish—the kind of reason Frank Sam Nakai had always
warned him against. He wanted to find out how Janet would use this weapon he'd
handed her.

For that, he'd have to wait until tomorrow. Maybe a few days more, but he
thought tomorrow would tell him.

CHEE SLEPT FITFULLY, the darkness in his little trailer full of bad dreams.
He got to his office early, thinking he would get a stack of paperwork out of
the way. But the telephone was at his elbow and concentration was hard.

It first rang at eighteen minutes after eight. Joe Leaphorn wanted to know
if he could get a copy of the list of items found in Miss Pollard's Jeep.

"Sure," Chee said. "We'll Xerox it. You want it mailed?"

"I'm in Tuba," Leaphorn said. "I'll pick it up."

"You on to something I should know about?"

"I doubt it," Leaphorn said. "I want to show the list to Krause and
see if he notices anything funny. Something missing that should be there. That
sort of thing."

"Did you locate Mrs. Notah?"

"No. I found some of her goats. Somebody's goats, anyway. But she
wasn't around. After I waste some of Krause's time this morning, I think I'll
go there and look again. See if she can add anything to what she told McGinnis
about the skinwalker who looked like a snowman. Did the FBI pick up that
eagle?"

"They didn't want it," Chee said, and told Leaphorn what Reynald
had said without mentioning taping the call.

"I'm not too surprised," Leaphorn said. "But you can't blame
the people. I've known a lot of good agents. It's the system you get with
political police. I'll let you know if Mrs. Notah saw anything useful."

The next two calls were routine business. When call number four arrived,
Claire didn't just buzz him. She waved and wrote FBI in the air with her
finger.

Chee took a long breath, picked up the telephone, said, "Jim
Chee."

"This is Reynald. Do you still have that eagle?"

"It's here," Chee said. "What do—"

"Agent Evans is en route to pick it up," Reynald said. "He'll
be there about noon. Be there, because he'll need you to sign a form."

"What are you—" Chee began, but Reynald had hung up.

Chee leaned back in his chair. One question was now answered, he thought.
Janet had told Reynald she knew about the eagle, prodding him into action, or
she had told J. D. Mickey, who had told Reynald how to react. That solved the
first part of the problem. The FBI would have the lab test the eagle. He would
know sooner or later whether Jano had lied. That left the second question. How
had Janet used the club he'd handed her?

In the periods between his bad dreams the night before, he had worked out
three scenarios for Janet. In the first, she would simply stand aside, as she
had suggested she would, and see what happened. If nothing happened, when he
appeared on the witness stand as Jano's arresting officer, she would lead him
to the eagle during cross-examination.

"Lieutenant Chee," she would say, "is it true that you were
told by Mr. Jano that he had caught a second eagle after the first one slashed
his arm, and that you made an attempt to recapture that first eagle?" To
which he would have to say: "Yes."

"Did you capture it?"

"Yes."

"Did you then take the eagle to the laboratory at Northern Arizona
University and arrange for an examination to be made to determine if it had Mr.
Jano's blood on its talons or feathers?"

"Yes."

"And what did that report show?"

The answer to that, of course, would depend on the laboratory report.

He could now rule out that scenario. She hadn't stood aside. She had
intervened. But how? In scenario two, the one for which he ardently longed,
Janet went to one of the key federals, told him she had reason to believe the first
eagle had been caught and demanded to see the results of the blood testing.
Mickey or Reynald, or both, would evade, deny, argue that her request was
ridiculous, imply that she was ruining her career in the Department of Justice
if she was too stupid to understand that, demand to know the source of this
erroneous leak, and so forth. Janet would bravely stand her ground, threaten
court action or a leak to the press. And he would love her for her courage and
know that he was wrong in not trusting her.

In scenario three, the cause of the previous night's bad dreams, Janet went
to Mickey, told Mickey that he had a problem—that Lieutenant Jim Chee had gone
out and captured an eagle that he insisted was the same eagle her client would
testify had slashed his arm and he had then released. She would recommend that
he take custody of said eagle and have tests done to determine if Jano's blood
was on it. Whereupon Mickey would tell her to just relax and let the FBI handle
collection of evidence in its routine manner. Then Janet would say the FBI had
decided against checking the eagle. And Mickey would ask her if Reynald had
told her that. And she'd say no. And he'd say how did you find out then. And
she would say Lieutenant Chee had told her. And he'd say Chee was misleading
her, trying to cause trouble. And about there Janet would realize that she had
already caused career-blighting trouble in Mickey's mind and the only way that
could be fixed was by using Chee's secret weapon. She would then pledge Mickey
to secrecy. She would let him know that in telling Chee he wouldn't get the
eagle tested, Reynald had carelessly allowed his telephone conversation to be
taped and that on that tape Agent Reynald could be heard imprudently ordering
Leaphorn to get rid of the eagle and thus the evidence.

What would this prove? He knew, but he didn't want to admit it or think
about it. And he wouldn't have to until Agent Evans arrived to pick up the
bird. And not even then, if Evans's conduct didn't somehow tip him off.

Edgar Evans arrived at eleven minutes before noon. Through his open office
door Chee watched him come in, watched Claire point him to the eagle cage in
the corner behind her, watched her point him to Chee's office.

"Come in," Chee said. "Have a seat."

"I'll need you to sign this," Evans said, and handed Chee a
triplicate form. "It certifies that you transferred evidence to me. And I
give you this form, which certifies that I received it."

"This makes it awful hard for anything to get lost," Chee said.
"Do you always do this?"

Evans stared at Chee. "No," he said. "Not often."

Chee signed the paper.

"You need to be careful with that bird," he said. "It's
vicious and that beak is like a knife. I have a blanket out in the car you can
put over it to keep it quiet."

Evans didn't comment.

He was putting the cage in the backseat of his sedan when Chee handed him
the blanket. He spread it over the cage. "I thought Reynald had decided
against this," Chee said. "What made him change his mind?"

Evans slammed the car door, turned to Chee.

"You mind if I pat you down?"

"Why?" Chee asked, but he held out his hands.

Evans quickly, expertly felt along his belt line, checked the front of his
shirt, patted his pockets, stepped back.

"You know why, you bastard. To make sure you're not wearing a
wire."

"A wire?"

"You're not as stupid as you look," Evans said. "And not half
as smart as you think you are."

With that, Evans got into his car and left Jim Chee standing in the parking
lot looking after him, knowing which tactic Janet had used and feeling
immensely sad.

FOR LEAPHORN IT WAS a frustrating day. He'd stopped at Chee's office and
picked up the list. He studied it again and saw nothing on it that told him
anything. Maybe Krause would see something interesting. Krause wasn't at his
office and the note pinned to his door said: "Gone to Inscription House,
then Navajo Mission. Back soon." Not very soon, Leaphorn decided, since
the round trip would be well over a hundred miles. So he drove to Yells Back
Butte, parked, climbed over the saddle and began his second hunt for Old Lady
Notah.

After much crashing around the goats again, twenty one in all unless he had
counted some twice (easy to do with goats) or missed some others, he didn't
find Mrs. Notah. Recrossing the saddle required much huffing and puffing, a
couple of rest stops, and produced a resolution to watch his diet and get more
exercise. Back at his truck, he drank about half the water in the canteen he'd
carelessly left behind, and then just rested awhile. This cul-de-sac walled in
by the cliffs of Yells Back and the mass of Black Mesa was a blank spot for all
radio reception except, for reasons far beyond Leaphorn's savvy in electronics,
KNDN, Gallup's Navajo-language Voice of the Navajo Nation.

He listened to a little country-western music and the Navajo-language
open-mike segment, and while he listened he sorted out his thoughts. What would
he tell Mrs. Vanders when he called her this evening? Not much, he decided. Why
was he feeling illogically happy? Because the tension was gone with Louisa. No
more feeling that he was betraying Emma or himself. Or that Louisa was
expecting more from him than he could possibly deliver. She'd made it clear.
They were friends. How had she put it about marriage? She'd tried it once and
didn't care for it. But enough of that. Back to Cathy Pollard's Jeep. That
presented a multitude of puzzles.

The Jeep had come here early, as the note from Pollard suggested. Jano said
he had seen it arrive, and he had no reason Leaphorn could think of to lie
about that. It must have left during the brief downpour of hail and rain, not
long after Chee had arrested Jano. Earlier, Chee would have heard it. Later, it
wouldn't have left the tire prints in the arroyo sand where it had been
abandoned. So that left the question of who was driving it, and what he or she
had done after parking it. No one had come down the arroyo to pick up the
driver. But an accomplice might have parked near the point where the access
road crossed the arroyo and waited for the Jeep's driver to walk back to join
him or her along the rocky slope.

That required some sort of partnership, not a sudden panicky impulse.
Leaphorn's imagination couldn't produce a motive for such a conspiracy. But he
came up with another possibility. No cinch, but a possibility. He started the
engine and drove off in search of Richard Krause.

A stopoff at Tuba showed Krause's office still empty with the same note on
the door. Leaphorn refilled his gasoline tank and started driving. Krause
wasn't at Inscription House. The woman who responded to Leaphorn's knock at the
Navajo Mission office door said the Health Department man had left about thirty
minutes earlier. Going where? He hadn't said.

So Leaphorn made the long, long drive back to Tuba City, writing off the day
as a loser, watching the sunset backlight the towering thunderheads on the
western horizon and turn them into a kind of beauty only nature can produce. By
the time he reached his motel, he was more than ready to call it quits. Calling
Mrs. Vanders could wait. Tomorrow he'd rise earlier and catch Krause before he
left his office.

Wrong again. The note on the door the next morning suggested that Krause
would be working in the arroyo west of the Shonto Landing Strip. An hour and
sixty miles later Leaphorn spotted Krause's truck from the road, and Krause on
his knees apparently peering at something on the ground. He heard Leaphorn
coming, got to his feet, dusted off his pant legs.

"Collecting fleas," he said, and shook hands.

"It looked like you were blowing into that hole," Leaphorn said.

"Good eye," Krause said. "Fleas detect your breath. If
something is killing their host mammal and they're looking for a new host,
they're very sensitive to that. You blow into the hole and they come to the
mouth of the tunnel." He grinned at Leaphorn. "Some say they prefer
garlic on your breath, but I like chili." He stared at the tunnel month.
Pointed. "See 'em?"

Leaphorn squatted and stared. "Nope," he said.

"Little black specks. Put your hand down there. They'll jump on it."

"No thanks," Leaphorn said.

"Well, what can I do for you?" Krause said. "And what's
new?"

He removed a flexible metal rod from the pickup bed and unfurled the expanse
of white flannel cloth attached to the end of it.

"I'd like you to take a look at this list of stuff found in the
Jeep," Leaphorn said. "See if it's missing anything that should be
there, or if there's anything on it that tells you anything."

Krause had folded the flannel around the rod. Now he pushed it slowly into the
rodent hole, deeper and deeper. "Okay," he said. "I'll just give
'em a minute to collect on the flannel. Then when I pull it out, the flannel
pulls off the rod and folds over the other way and traps a bunch of
fleas."

Krause slipped the flannel off the rod, dropped it into a Ziploc bag, closed
it, then checked himself for fleas, found one on his wrist, and disposed of it.

Leaphorn handed him the list. Krause put on a pair of bifocals and studied
it. "Kools," he said. "Cathy didn't smoke so those must be from
somebody else."

"I think it notes they were old," Leaphorn said. "Could have
been there for months."

"Two shovels?" Krause said. "Everybody carries one for the
digging we do. Wonder why she had the other one?"

"Let me see it," Leaphorn said, and took the list. Under "on
floor behind front seat" it listed "long-handled shovel." Under
"rear luggage space," it also listed "long-handled shovel."

"Maybe a mistake," Krause said, and shrugged.

"Listing the same shovel twice."

"Maybe," Leaphorn said, but he doubted it. "And here,"
Krause said. "What the hell was she doing with this?" He pointed to
the rear luggage space entry, which read: "One small container of gray
powdery substance labeled 'calcium cyanide.'"

"Sounds like a poison," Leaphorn said. "It damn sure
is," Krause said. "We used to use it to clean out infected burrows.
You blow that dust down it and it wipes out everything. Pack rats,
rattlesnakes, burrowing owls, earthworms, spiders, fleas, anything alive. But
it's dangerous to handle. Now we use the pill. It's phostoxin, and we just put
it in the ground at the mouth of a burrow and it gets the job done."

"So where would she get this cyanide stuff?"

"We still have a supply of it. It's on a shelf back in our supply
closet."

"She'd have access to it?"

"Sure," Krause said. "And look at this." He pointed to
the next entry: "'Air tank with hose and nozzle.' That's what we used to
use to blow the cyanide dust back into the burrow. It was in the storeroom,
too."

"What do you think it means—her having that in the Jeep?"

"First, it means she was breaking the rules. She doesn't take that
stuff out without checking with me and explaining what she wants it for, and
why she's not using the phostoxin instead. And second, she wouldn't be using it
unless she wanted to really sterilize burrows. Zap 'em. Something big like
prairie dogs. Not just to kill fleas." He returned the list to Leaphorn.
"Anything else on there you'd wonder about?"

"No, but there's something that should be on that list that isn't. Her
PAPR."

"You always have that with you?"

"No, but you'd damn sure have it if you were going ; to use that
calcium cyanide dust." Krause made a wry face. "They say the warning
is you smell almonds, but the trouble is, by the time you smell it, it's
already too late."

"Not something you'd use casually then." Krause laughed.
"Hardly. And before I forget it, I found that note Cathy left me. Made a
copy for you." He fished out his wallet, extracted a much-folded sheet of
paper, and handed it to Leaphorn. "I don't see anything helpful on it,
though." The note was written in Pollard's familiar semi-legible scrawl:

"Boss—Heard stuff about Nez infection at Flag. Think we've been lied
to. Going to Yells Back, collect fleas and find out—Will fill you in on it when
I get back. Pollard."

Leaphorn looked up from the note at Krause, who was watching his reaction,
looking penitent.

"Knowing what I know now, I can see I should have got worried quicker
when she didn't get back. But, hell, she was always doing things and then
explaining later. If at all. For example, I didn't know where she was the day
before. She didn't tell me she was driving down to Flag. Or why." He
shrugged, shook his head. "So I just thought she'd gone tearing off
somewhere else."

"I wonder why she didn't tell you she was quitting," Leaphorn
said.

Krause stared at him. "I don't think she was. Did she tell her aunt
why?"

"I gather it was something about you."

Krause had spent too many summers in the sun to look pale. But he did look
tense.

"What about me?"

"I don't know," Leaphorn said. "She didn't get
specific."

"Well, we never did get along very well," Krause said, and began
putting his equipment in the truck. The legend on his sweat-soaked T-shirt
said, SUPPORT SCIENCE:

HUG A HERPETOLOGIST.