The Wailing Wind - Leaphorn & Chee 17 (3 page)

"Officer Manuelito picked this up at the crime scene, in a bush beside the car. She used it to hold the weed seeds she'd been collecting."

"Looks like an old
Prince Albert
tobacco tin," Leap-horn said.

He looked at Chee, expression curious.

Chee took another plastic bag from his pocket, handed it to Leaphorn.

"When she got home and dumped her seeds out into a bowl, this came out."

"Looks like arroyo bottom sand," Leaphorn said. He shook the bag in his palm, studied it. "Or is it?" he asked. "Color's a little off and it seems too heavy."

"It's partly sand and I think it's partly placer gold dust."

"Be damned," said Leaphorn. He opened the plastic bag, rubbed a pinch of the sand between his fingertips, and examined what stuck to the skin. "I'm no assayer, but I'll bet you're right."

"She said she picked up the can from some weeds maybe three or four feet from the driver-side door," Chee said. "Gave it to me because she thought it might be evidence." He laughed at that, a sort of grim laugh.

"For you to give to the fbi?"

"Sure," Chee said, sounding bitter. "To do my duty. And absolutely guarantee she'll get suspended with a reprimand in her file. I told her that's what would happen, and she said she guessed she deserved it." Chee grimaced at that and looked down into his cup, seeing not coffee but Bernie standing rigidly in front of his desk, looking very small, very slim, her black hair glossy and her uniform neater than usual. She had glanced down and away, made one of those vague motions with her lips that expressed regret and apology and then looked up at him, her dark eyes sad, awaiting his verdict. And he had understood then why he'd never rated her as cute. There was dignity in her face. She was beautiful. And then she had said: "I guess I'm just too careless to be in police work." And what had he said? Something stupid, he was sure. And now Leaphorn was studying him, wondering why he was just staring into his cup of coffee.

"It might be evidence, all right," Leaphorn said. "With that placer gold in it. It could be connected to the crime."

"So, Lieutenant, how do I handle this? I guess I'm asking you what you'd do if you were me?"

Leaphorn put a forkful of enchilada in his mouth. Chewed it. Took another bite. Frowned. "Do you know the L.C. of this one? Is it the one you got crosswise with a couple of years back in that case involving the eagle poaching?"

"No. He was transferred," Chee said. "Thank God for that small favor."

Leaphorn took another bite, said: "But the memory will linger in the federal tribe for a while."

"I'm sure it will," Chee said.

"I think if it was me, and the officer was a good one I wanted to keep in my department, I'd take that tobacco can and put it back exactly where Bernie found it. Then I'd tell someone, in a suitably subtle way, someone who had some business out there, tell them where to look for it and ask him to go find it. Then he could call the fbi and tell them he's noticed this tin out there and let them find it for themselves. Do you have any of your Shiprock people working the crime scene?"

"They've dealt us out of it," Chee said. He'd thought he'd got beyond being surprised by Leaphorn, but he hadn't. Was the Legendary Lieutenant volunteering to do this himself?

Leaphorn was smiling, mostly to himself.

"Well then, I've got a legitimate reason to go out there and take a look," he said. "I still get kidded now and then about being obsessed with that McKay killing. I'll be looking for a connection. Worst they can do is tell me to go away."

"Connection? Isn't that going to sound pretty weak?"

"Awful weak," Leaphorn said. "Maybe I'll just tell 'em I'm a bored old ex-cop looking for a way to kill time. Maybe they'll be finished at the scene and nobody will even ask."

"I've always wondered why you were so interested in that case," Chee said. "Hell,
Denton
laid it all out. Admitted he shot McKay, claimed it was self-defense, and worked out a plea bargain. You've had doubts about that?"

"He got a year, served part of it with time off for behaving," Leaphorn said. "I had some doubts about the self-defense, but mostly I've always wondered what happened to Linda Denton."

"Linda Denton? What do you mean?" Leaphorn was surprising him again. Chee checked his memory. The way it came to him, the young Mrs. Denton had set her wealthy old hubby up for McKay's swindle and then ran when the plan didn't work out. "Now I'm wondering why you've been wondering."

Leaphorn smiled, consumed a bit more of his lunch. Shook his head.

"You're going to think I'm an old-fashioned romantic," he said. "That's what Louisa—what Professor Bourbonette says. Tells me to get real."

Chee finally took the first bite from his hamburger, studying Leaphorn. The Legendary Lieutenant actually looked slightly abashed. Or was he imagining it?

"You really want to hear all this?" Leaphorn asked. "It takes time."

"I do," Chee said.

"Well, of course it was a
McKinley
County
case because
Denton
built his house outside
Gallup
city limits. Lorenzo Perez was undersheriff then and handling major crime investigations. Good man, Lorenzo. He had himself a clear-cut uncomplicated case with the shooter admitting it. Only question was how much self-defense was involved. Where'd the gun come from the con man had? You remember the story
Denton
told? McKay had told him he'd located the Golden Calf diggings and needed money to file claims and begin development. He'd let
Denton
in for fifty grand. In cash. So
Denton
drew the money out of his bank, had it in a briefcase at his house. McKay shows him a bunch of stuff, a little bit of placer gold, part of a map, some other stuff.
Denton
spots it as bogus, tells McKay to get out. McKay says he'll take the money with him. He pulls a gun and
Denton
shoots him."

Leaphorn stopped. "McKay was an ex-con with a record of trying to run con games. That didn't seem to leave much to investigate."

"Yeah," Chee said. "That's the way I remember it. But how does this bring us to Linda Denton? The story was she wasn't home when it happened."

"
Denton
said she'd gone to have lunch with some friends and wasn't there when it happened and never did come back. He said he was worried. Couldn't imagine what had happened to her." Leaphorn made a wry face. "It seemed pretty easy to guess if you remember the circumstances. Turned out Linda had introduced McKay to her husband.
Denton
said she'd met McKay before she married him. Met him at that bar-grill where she used to wait tables."

Their waiter came and refilled their cups. Leaphorn picked his up, looked at it, returned it to the saucer. "And she never did come back. Ever. Not a word. Not a trace."

It sounded sad, the way he said it, and Chee asked: "Didn't that seem natural? Young gal working in a bar meets a rich guy about thirty years older, bags him, then decides he's too boring for her taste so she locks onto a slick-talking young con man to get the old bird's money. It turns into a homicide with her maybe facing some sort of conspiracy charge. So she runs."

"That's the way I read it at first," Leaphorn said. "Lorenzo wanted to find her. See what she had to say. I started on it. Went out to see her folks at Thoreau. Couple named Verbiscar. They were frantic. Said she would never leave
Denton
. Loved him. Something had to have happened to her."

Chee nodded. It seemed to him about the sort of response you'd expect from the woman's parents. And he noticed Leaphorn had sensed his attitude.

"They sat me down and told me her story," Leaphorn said. "Great kid. Went to the St. Bonaventure School there. Real bookish girl and very much into music. Not much for boyfriends. Good grades. Scholarship offers from
University
of
Arizona
, couple of other places. But her dad had a heart problem. So Linda Verbiscar turned the scholarship down and enrolled at the u.n.m. branch at
Gallup
. She got herself that restaurant waitress job. She and another girl from Thoreau rented themselves a little place out on
Railroad Avenue
. Brought home a boyfriend once for them to look over but decided he was sort of stupid. Then she brought Wiley Denton out to meet them."

Leaphorn paused, the polite Navajo gesture to give the listener a chance to comment.

Chee tried to think of something sensible to say, and came up with: "Linda doesn't sound like the kind of woman I had in mind."

Leaphorn nodded.

"They said it scared 'em to death when she showed up with Wiley Denton. She was twenty then and he was early fifties. Older than her dad, in fact. Big, homely, rich old guy." Leaphorn chuckled. "Verbiscar said they knew he hadn't been born rich because he had the kind of broken nose that can't be overlooked and is easy to fix if you can pay the surgeon. All they really knew about him was he had been in the Green Berets in the Vietnam War, made a ton of money off oil and gas leases out around the Jicarilla Reservation and built himself that huge house on the slope outside
Gallup
. That, and everybody said he was an eccentric sort of loner."

Leaphorn stopped again, drank coffee. Looked over the cup at Chee. "Did you ever meet him?"

"
Denton
? No. I just saw him on television a time or two. At the sentencing, I guess. I just remember thinking if they had charged him with being ugly he was guilty."

"Well, Mrs. Verbiscar said they got invited to a meal at his house and the big impression he made on her was that he was bashful. She said she noticed he had a grand piano in the living room and asked him if he played and he said no, he'd bought that for Linda to play if he could get her to marry him. She said he seemed real shy. Sort of clumsy. Nothing much to say."

Chee laughed. "What some people would call 'deficient in social graces.'"

"I guess," Leaphorn said. "He seemed that way to me when I interviewed him with Lorenzo Perez. But to get on with this, both of Linda's parents said they liked him. Way too old for their daughter, but she seemed to love him dearly. And a little after she turned twenty-one she said she wanted to marry him. And she did. Catholic wedding. Flower girls, ushers, the whole business."

"Now the bad part starts," Chee said. "Am I right?"

Leaphorn shook his head. "Unless a lot of people were lying to me that didn't start until the day
Denton
killed the swindler. But I was thinking like you are. When she went missing, I went to talk to people who knew her."

Leaphorn's first call had been on the woman Linda Verbiscar had lived with in
Gallup
. Linda and
Denton
were a match made in heaven, she'd said. Linda didn't date much. Uneasy with men. Sex would wait until she met the right man, and married him, and then it would be forever. But something about
Denton
, homely as he was, attracted her right away. And awkward and bashful as he was, you saw it was mutual.

"According to her roommate, Miss Verbiscar seemed to like the awkward and bashful types," Leaphorn said, and chuckled. "And broken noses. The only other man she seemed real friendly with was a Navajo. Couldn't remember his name, but she remembered the crooked nose. She said Linda never went out with him, but he'd come in the place middle of afternoons when it was quiet. He'd get a doughnut or something and Linda would sit down and talk to him. Nothing going there, but with
Denton
it got to be real, genuine, romantic love."

Leaphorn paused with that, looked thoughtful. "Or, so her roommate said."

"Okay," said Chee. "Maybe I've been too cynical."

And then Leaphorn had gone to
Denton
's massive riverside house and talked to his housekeeper and his foreman. It was the same story, with a variation—the variation being that now
Denton
was falling deeply in love. Obsessively in love, the housekeeper had said, because Mr. Denton was an extremely focused man who tended to be obsessive. His overpowering obsession had been to find that legendary mine. Which was what the housekeeper and the foreman said got him into the trouble with McKay. But the bottom line was, there was no way they would believe the official police theory. Linda would never, never leave Wiley
Denton
. Something had happened to her. Something bad. The police should stop screwing around and find her.

While Leaphorn talked, Chee finished his hamburger, and his coffee, and another cup. The waiter left his ticket and disappeared. The gusty wind rattled sand against the window where they sat. And finally Leaphorn sighed.

"I talk too damn much. Blame it on being retired, sitting around the house with nobody to listen to me. But I wanted you to see why I think there was more to that killing than we knew."