Read The Wailing Wind - Leaphorn & Chee 17 Online
Authors: Tony Hillerman
A dazzling lightning bolt connected the slope of the mountain with the cloud, producing an explosive crack of thunder and suggesting the cloud might be winning. Just then a Chevy sedan rolled into the parking lot, with sheriff painted on its side. The driver slowed to park near the porch, then aborted that move and rolled his car over to Leaphorn's tree.
"Lieutenant Leaphorn," said the driver, "you oughtn't be sitting under a tree in a lightning storm."
A face from the past. Deputy Sheriff Delo Bellman.
Leaphorn raised his hand in greeting, considered saying: "Hello, Delo," but said: "Delo,
ya eeh teh
."
"You been listening to the news?" Delo asked.
"Some of it," Leaphorn said. Bellman didn't need a radio to collect the news. He was widely known as the premier gossip of the Four Corners Country law enforcement fraternity.
"Hear about the killing?" Bellman said. "That man your guys found dead near Cove the other day. It turns out he was old Bart Hegarty's nephew. Fellow named Thomas Doherty."
Leaphorn produced the facial expression appropriate for such sad news. His experiences with Bart Hegarty had been neither frequent nor particularly pleasant. He hadn't been among the mourners when the sheriff hadn't survived sliding his car into an icy bridge's abutment a few winters back. "Died of what?" Leaphorn asked. "If he was the sheriff's nephew he must have been fairly young."
"Late twenties, I guess. Bullet in the back," said Bellman, with the somber pleasure gossips feel when passing along the unpleasant. "Rifle bullet."
That surprised Leaphorn, pretty well saying the Doherty boy hadn't been shot in the car. But he didn't ask for details. He nodded, trying not to give Bellman an interested audience. Maybe he would go about his business. Leaphorn had heard on the TV news last night that neither cause of death nor identity of the victim had been released by the fbi. But the mere fact the Federals had taken the case away from the ntp had told Leaphorn that either it was a homicide or the victim was a fugitive felon.
Bellman chuckled. "Funny, don't you think? A woman named Hegarty would marry a man named Doherty." He glanced at Leaphorn, awaiting a response. Getting none, he said: "You know, an 'arty marrying an 'erty."
"Yeah," Leaphorn said.
"Probably a hunting rifle," Bellman added, and waited for a comment from Leaphorn. "Looked like who ever done it was quite a ways behind Doherty. Just took a bead on him and went bang." Leaphorn nodded. So the crime scene crew had concluded the victim had been shot, and then put in the vehicle where he was found. Interesting.
"That's probably why your officer had it pegged as natural causes, no sign of violence."
"Did he?"
"She," Bellman said. "It was the Manuelito girl."
Bernadette Manuelito, Leaphorn was thinking. Smart young woman, from the impression he'd had of her last year when he'd gotten involved with Jim Chee in investigating that casino robbery business. Smart, but she'd still be a greenhorn. "Well," he said. "Things like that are hard to see sometimes, and I think she's new at patrolling. I can understand how she could miss it."
Easy to understand, he thought. Bernie was the daughter of a traditional Navajo family, taught to respect the dead and to fear death's contamination—the
chindi
spirit that would have lingered with the body. She wouldn't have wanted to handle it. Or even be around it more than she could help. Just turn the body over to the ambulance crew and keep her distance.
"I hear the Feds aren't so understanding. Heard they bitched to Captain Largo about the way she handled it." Bellman chuckled. "Or didn't handle it."
"What brings you to
"Just touching bases," Bellman said. "Finding out what's going on." He restarted his engine, then leaned out the window again.
"I'll bet the fbi is going to give Jim Chee a ration of paperwork out of this. You think?"
"Who knows?" Leaphorn said, even though he knew all too well.
Bellman grinned, knowing Leaphorn knew the answer, and recited it anyway. It had three parts. The first was the friction between Sergeant Chee and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, widely known and happily celebrated in the Four Corners Country law enforcement fraternity; the second being a general belief by the same fraternity that Captain Largo, where the buck stopped in the Shiprock district of the Navajo police, detested paperwork and would pass it down where Sergeant Chee would be stuck with it; the third being gossip that Chee and Officer Manuelito had romantic inclinations—which meant Chee would strain himself to defend her from any allegations of mishandling evidence in a homicide.
"And something else, Joe," Bellman continued, "I got a feeling you're going to get interested in this one before it's over."
Leaphorn opened his mouth, closed it. He wanted Bellman to drive away before Louisa came out with her trophy, or without it, rushing up and giving Bellman more ammunition for his gossip mill. "Guess who I saw with old Joe Leaphorn out at the T.G.H. trading post?" Bellman would be saying. But now Leaphorn was curious. He blurted out a "Why?"
"The stuff they found in Doherty's truck. Bunch of maps, some computer printouts about geology and mineralogy, a whole bunch of Polaroid photographs taken in canyons, that sort of material."
Leaphorn didn't comment.
"Had a folder full of reprints of articles about the Golden Calf Mine," Bellman added. "I'll bet that will remind you of old Wiley Denton and what's his name? The con man Wiley killed five years ago. McKay, wasn't it?"
"Marvin McKay," Leaphorn said. Yes, it did remind him, but he wished it hadn't. The Wiley Denton case was one he'd like to forget if he could. And he probably could, if he could ever find out what had happened to Wiley Denton's wife.
Chapter Three
Sergeant jim chee came out the side exit of the Navajo Tribal Police headquarters in a mood compatible with the weather—which was bad. The gusting west wind slammed the door behind him, saving Chee the trouble, blew up the legs of his uniform pants, and peppered his shins with hard-blown sand. To make things worse, the anger he was feeling was as much against himself—for complicating the problem—as against the Chief for not just telling the fbi to mind its own business and against Captain Largo for not handling this himself.
Part of the dust blown against Chee was now being stirred up by a civilian pickup truck being parked in one of the clearly marked "Police Vehicle Only" spaces. It was a familiar truck, blue and banged up, rust spot on the right fender—the truck of Joe Leaphorn, now retired but still the Legendary Lieutenant.
Chee took two steps toward the truck and was abruptly beset by the familiar mixed feelings of irritation, admiration, and of personal incompetence he always had around his former boss. He stopped, but Leaphorn had his window down and was waving to him.
"Jim," he shouted. "What brings you down to Window Rock?"
"Just a little administrative problem," Chee said. "How about you? Here at the office, I mean?"
"I was just scouting around for somebody to buy me lunch," Leaphorn said.
They got a table at the Navajo Inn, ordered coffee. Chee would eat a hamburger with fries as always, but he pretended to study the menu while struggling with his pride. All during the long drive down U.S. 666 from his Shiprock office in answer to the Chief's summons, he'd considered going by Leaphorn's place and asking for some advice. This idea had been rejected on various grounds—unfair to bother the lieutenant in his retirement, or he should be able to deal with it himself, or it would make him look like a nerd in the eyes of his former boss, or… Finally he'd rejected the idea—and then there was Leaphorn waving at him through the dust.
He glanced over the menu at Leaphorn, whose own menu still lay unopened on the table.
"I always have an enchilada," Leaphorn said. "People fall into habits when they get older."
That seemed to Chee as good an opening as any. "You still have that habit of being interested in odd cases?"
Leaphorn smiled. "I hope you mean the killing of that Doherty boy. I'm sort of interested in that."
"What do you hear?" Chee asked, thinking it would be just about everything—except maybe the final twist to his own problem.
"What I read in the
Gallup Independent
and the
Navajo Times
, which was what the fbi was telling. No suspect. And I guess no known motive. Doherty apparently shot somewhere else, hauled to where he was found in his own pickup truck. That's about it."
"How about what's on the rumor circuit?"
"Well, it's said that the fbi's not happy with how the crime scene was handled." Leaphorn was grinning at him. "And if I was into betting, I'd bet that's what brought you down to see the Chief today."
"You'd win," Chee said. "The dispatcher sent Officer Manuelito out to check on an abandoned truck. Bernie looks in and sees the body. Doherty slumped over on the driver's side. No blood. No sign of violence. Just like ten thousand drunks you've seen pulled over to sleep it off. When Doherty doesn't wake up, Bernadette reaches in to check an ankle for a pulse. It's cold. So then she calls in and asks for an ambulance and hangs around waiting for it."
Chee stopped. Leaphorn waited. He sipped his coffee.
Chee sighed. "And she says she walked around some, collecting seed pods and that sort of thing. Bernie's a botany buff. The ambulance guys pull the body out and then, finally, the blood gets noticed. Of course by that time everybody has walked all over everything. But there wasn't a way in the world Bernie could—" He stopped. With Leaphorn, there was never any need to explain anything.
He waited for Leaphorn to tell him that Bernie should have looked more closely at the situation, should have taped off the site. But of course Leaphorn didn't. He just sipped a little more of his coffee and put down his cup.
"I ran into Delo Bellman yesterday at
Chee nodded, made a wry face. "As you may have heard I'm not all that popular with the Bureau these days. But the grapevine told me it looked like Doherty might have been looking into that McKay homicide himself. I heard some of the stuff the Federals found in his briefcase must have been copied out of the evidence files in that homicide."
"He was old Bart Hegarty's nephew," Leaphorn said. "And it's an old dead case. He could have gotten that easily enough."
"I gather there's no suspect yet. I wonder if the Bureau has picked
Denton
as its man," Chee said.
Leaphorn sipped his coffee and considered. Chee was asking him what he thought about that idea. And, indeed, the fact was he had thought about it. He hadn't found any sign of a sensible connection, but something about it nagged at him. Hinted there might be one if he was smart enough to find it.
"What would be
Denton
's motive?" Leaphorn asked.
"Pretty vague," Chee said. "I guess the theory of the crime is that Doherty wanted to finish what McKay started. Tell
Denton
he'd located the Golden Calf, try to milk him for some money."
Leaphorn smiled. "Vague indeed," he said. "That would make him either pretty stupid. Or maybe suicidal." He wanted off this subject. To get Chee to tell him what was really on his mind. So he said: "Bellman said he heard the Federals wanted Manuelito suspended."
"That seems to be true," Chee said.
Leaphorn shook his head. "I wouldn't worry much about it. Nothing happens if you arrest the killer. Otherwise if a scapegoat is required, she'd get suspended a week or so. Probably with pay. I'd think that would be the worst."
Chee said: "Well…" then stopped.
Leaphorn waited awhile, took another sip of coffee. "Miss Manuelito seemed like a fine officer from what I saw of her when you were working on that casino robbery. Probably has a good record in her personnel jacket. But maybe there's something I don't know about this."
"There is," Chee said. "Can I talk to you in confidence? Because I may wish I'd kept my mouth shut."
Their lunches arrived. Leaphiorn stirred sugar into his fresh cup of coffee.
"I guess you're sort of asking if maybe you can tell me something that if it came down to crunch I might have to deny you told me?"
"Something like that," Chee said. You never had to explain anything to the Legendary Lieutenant.
"Well," Leaphorn said. "I think I know you well enough so I can rely on your judgment. Go ahead and tell me."
Chee extracted a Ziploc bag from his jacket pocket and put it on the table.