Hillerman, Tony - [Leaphorn & Chee 12] (7 page)

Then Officer Manuelito said, “To be trapped up there. I try not to even think about it. It would give me nightmares.”

“What?” Chee said, who hadn’t been listening because by then he was working his way around a nightmare of his own. He was trying to think of another reason Janet Pete might have asked him about the Fallen Man affair. He wanted to find a reason that didn’t involve John McDermott and his law firm representing the Breedlove family. Maybe it was the oddity of the skeleton on the mountain that provoked her question. He always came back to that. But then he’d find himself speculating on who had taken Janet to that concert and he’d think of John McDermott again.

T
HE FIRST THING JOE LEAPHORN NOTICED when he came through the door was his breakfast dishes awaiting attention in the sink. It was a bad habit and it demanded correction. No more of this sinking into slipshod widower ways. Then he noticed the red light blinking atop his telephone answering machine. The indicator declared he’d received two calls today—pretty close to a post-retirement record. He took a step toward the telephone.

But no. First things first. He detoured into the kitchen, washed his cereal bowl, saucer, and spoon, dried them, and put them in their place on the dish rack. Then he sat in his recliner, put his boots on the footstool, picked up the telephone, and pushed the button.

The first call was from his auto insurance dealer, informing him that if he’d take a defensive driving course he could get a discount on his liability rates. He punched the button again.

“Mr. Leaphorn,” the voice said. “This is John McDermott. I am an attorney and our firm has represented the interests of the Edgar Breedlove family for many years. I remember that you investigated the disappearance of Harold Breedlove several years ago when you were a member of the Navajo Tribal Police. Would you be kind enough to call me, collect, and discuss whether you might be willing to help the family complete its own investigation of his death?”

McDermott had left an Albuquerque number. Leaphorn dialed it.

“Oh, yes,” the secretary said. “He was hoping you’d call.”

After the “thank you for calling,” McDermott didn’t linger long over formalities.

“We would like you to get right onto this for us,” he said. “If you’re available, our usual rate is twenty-five dollars an hour, plus your expenses.”

“You mentioned completing the investigation,” Leaphorn said. “Does that mean you have some question about the identification of the skeleton?”

“There is a question concerning just about everything,” McDermott said. “It is a very peculiar case.”

“Could you be more specific? I need a better idea of what you’d like to find out.”

“This isn’t the sort of thing we can discuss over the telephone,” McDermott said. “Nor is it the sort of thing I can talk about until I know whether you will accept a retainer.” He produced a chuckle. “Family business, you know.”

Leaphorn discovered he was allowing himself to be irritated by the tone of this—not a weakness he tolerated. And he was curious. He produced a chuckle of his own.

“From what I remember of the Breedlove disappearance, I don’t see how I could help you. Would you like me to recommend someone?”

“No. No,” McDermott said. “We’d like to use you.”

“But what sort of information would I be looking for?” Leaphorn asked. “I was trying to find out what happened to the man. Why he didn’t come back to Canyon de Chelly that evening. Where he went. What happened to him. And of course the important thing was what happened to him. We know that now, if the identification of the skeleton is correct. The rest of it doesn’t seem to matter.”

McDermott spent a few moments deciding how to respond.

“The family would like to establish who was up there with him,” he said.

Now this was getting a bit more interesting. “They’ve learned someone was up there when he fell? How did they learn that?”

“A mere physical fact. We’ve talked to rock climbers who know that mountain. They say you couldn’t do it alone, not to the point where they found the skeleton. They say Harold Breedlove didn’t have the skills, the experience, to have done it.”

Leaphorn waited but McDermott had nothing to add.

“The implication, then, is that someone went up with him. When he fell, they abandoned him and didn’t report it. Is that what you’re suggesting?”

“And why would they do that?” McDermott asked.

Leaphorn found himself grinning. Lawyers! The man didn’t want to say it himself. Let the witness say it.

“Well, let’s see then. They might do it if, for example, they had pushed him over. Given him a fatal shove. Watched him fall. Then they might forget to report it.”

“Well, yes.”

“And you’re suggesting the family has some lead to who this forgetful person might be.”

“No, I’m not suggesting anything.”

“The only lead, then, is the list of those who might be motivated. If I can rely on my memory, the only one I knew of was the widow. The lady who would inherit. I presume she did inherit, didn’t she? But perhaps there’s a lot I didn’t know. We didn’t have a criminal case to work on, you know. We didn’t—and still don’t—have a felony to interest the Navajo Police or the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Just a missing person then. Now we have what is presumed to be an accidental death. There was never any proof that he hadn’t simply—” Leaphorn paused, looked for a better way to phrase it, found none, and concluded, “Simply run away from wife and home.”

“Greed is often the motivation in murder,” McDermott said.

Murder, Leaphorn thought. It was the first time that word had been used.

“That’s true. But if I am remembering what I was told at the time, there wasn’t much to inherit except the ranch, and it was losing money. Unless there was some sort of nuptial agreement, she would have owned half of it anyway. Colorado law. The wife’s community property. And if I remember what I learned then, Breedlove had already mortgaged it. Was there a motive beyond greed?”

McDermott let the question hang. “If you’ll work with this, I’ll discuss it with you in person.”

“I always wondered if there was a nuptial agreement. But now I’ve heard that she owns the ranch.”

“No nuptial agreement,” McDermott said, reluctantly. “What do you think? If you don’t like the hourly arrangement, we could make it a weekly rate. Multiply the twenty-five dollars by forty hours and make it a thousand a week.”

A thousand a week, Leaphorn thought. A lot of money for a retired cop. And what would McDermott be charging his client?

“I tell you what I’ll do,” Leaphorn said. “I’ll give it some thought. But I’ll have to have some more specific information.”

“Sleep on it, then,” McDermott said. “I’m coming to Window Rock tomorrow anyway. Why don’t we meet for lunch?”

Joe Leaphorn couldn’t think of any reason not to do that. He wasn’t doing anything else tomorrow. Or for the rest of the week, for that matter.

They set the date for one P.M. at the Navajo Inn. That allowed time for the lunch-hour crowd to thin and for McDermott to make the two-hundred-mile drive from Albuquerque. It also gave Leaphorn the morning hours to collect information on the telephone, talking to friends in the ranching business, a Denver banker, a cattle broker, learning all he could about the Lazy B ranch and the past history of the Breedloves.

That done, he drove down to the Inn and waited in the office lobby. A white Lexus pulled into the parking area and two men emerged: one tall and slender with graying blond hair, the other six inches shorter, dark-haired, sun-browned, with the heavy-shouldered, slim-waisted build of one who lifts weights and plays handball. Ten minutes early, but it was probably McDermott and who? An assistant, perhaps.

Leaphorn met them at the entrance, went through the introductions, and ushered them in to the quiet corner table he’d arranged to hold.

“Shaw,” Leaphorn said. “George Shaw? Is that correct?”

“Right,” the dark man said. “Hal Breedlove was my cousin. My best friend, too, for that matter. I was the executor of the estate when Elisa had him declared legally dead.”

“A sad situation,” Leaphorn said.

“Yes,” Shaw said. “And strange.”

“Why do you say that?” Leaphorn could think of a dozen ways Breedlove’s death was strange. But which one would Mr. Shaw pick?

“Well,” Shaw said. “Why wasn’t the fall reported, for one thing?”

“You don’t think he made the climb alone?”

“Of course not. He couldn’t have,” Shaw said. “I couldn’t do it, and I was a grade or two better at rock climbing than Hal. Nobody could.”

Leaphorn recommended the chicken enchilada, and they all ordered it. McDermott inquired whether Leaphorn had considered their offer. Leaphorn said he had. Would he accept, then? They’d like to get moving on it right away. Leaphorn said he needed some more information. Their orders arrived. Delicious, thought Leaphorn, who had been dining mostly on his own cooking. McDermott ate thoughtfully. Shaw took a large bite, rich with green chile, and frowned at his fork.

“What sort of information?” McDermott asked.

“What am I looking for?” Leaphorn said.

“As I told you,” McDermott said, “we can’t be too specific. We just want to know that we have every bit of information that’s available. We’d like to know why Harold Breedlove left Canyon de Chelly, and precisely when, and who he met and where they went. Anything that might concern his widow and her affairs at that time. We want to know everything that might cast light on this business.” McDermott gave Leaphorn a small, deprecatory smile. “Everything,” he said.

“My first question was what I would be looking for,” Leaphorn said. “My second one is why? This must be expensive. If Mr. Shaw here is willing to pay me a thousand a week through your law firm, you will be charging him, what? The rate for an Albuquerque lawyer I know about used to be a hundred and ten dollars an hour. But that was long ago, and that was Albuquerque. Double it for a Washington firm? Would that be about right?”

“It isn’t cheap,” McDermott said.

“And maybe I find nothing useful at all. Probably you learn nothing. Tracks are cold after eleven years. But let us say that you learn the widow conspired to do away with her husband. I don’t know for sure but I’d guess then she couldn’t inherit. So the family gets the ranch back. What’s it worth? Wonderful house, I hear, if someone rich wants to live in it way out there. Maybe a hundred head of cattle. I’m told there’s still an old mortgage Harold’s widow took out six years ago to pay off her husband’s debts. How much could you get for that ranch?”

“It’s a matter of justice,” McDermott said. “I am not privy to the family’s motives, but I presume they want some equity for Harold’s death.”

Leaphorn smiled.

Shaw had been sipping his coffee. He drained the cup and slammed it into the saucer with a clatter.

“We want to see Harold’s killer hanged,” he said. “Isn’t that what they do out here? Hang ’em?”

“Not lately,” Leaphorn said. “The mountain is on the New Mexico side of the reservation and New Mexico uses the gas chamber. But it would probably be federal jurisdiction. We Navajos don’t have a death penalty and the federal government doesn’t hang people.” He signaled the waiter, had their coffee replenished, sipped his own, and put down the cup.

“If I take this job I don’t want to be wasting my time,” he said. “I would look for motives. An obvious one is inheritance of the ranch. That gives you two obvious suspects—the widow and her brother. But neither of them could have done it—at least not in the period right after Harold disappeared. The next possibility would be the widow’s boyfriend, if she had one. So I would examine all that. Premeditated murder usually involves a lot of trouble and risk. I never knew of one that didn’t grow out of a strong motivation.”

Neither Shaw nor Breedlove responded to that.

“Usually greed,” Leaphorn said.

“Love,” said Shaw. “Or lust.”

“Which does not seem to have been consummated, from what I know now,” Leaphorn said. “The widow remained single. When I was investigating the disappearance years ago I snooped around a little looking for a boyfriend. I couldn’t pick up any gossip that suggested a love triangle was involved.”

“Easy enough to keep that quiet,” Shaw said.

“Not out here it isn’t,” Leaphorn said. “I would be more interested in an economic motive.” He looked at Shaw. “If this is a crime it’s a white man’s crime. No Navajo would kill anyone on that sacred mountain. I doubt if a Navajo would be disrespectful enough even to climb it. Among my people, murder tends to be motivated by whiskey or sexual jealousy. Among white people, I’ve noticed crime is more likely to be motivated by money. So if I take the job, I’d be turning on my computer and tapping into the metal market statistics and price trends.”

Shaw gave McDermott a sidewise glance, which McDermott didn’t notice. He was staring at Leaphorn.

“Why?”

“Because the gossipers around Mancos say Edgar Breedlove bought the ranch more because his prospectors had found molybdenum deposits on it than for its grazing. They say the price of moly ore rose enough about ten or fifteen years ago to make development profitable. They say Harold, or the Breedlove family, or somebody, was negotiating for a mineral lease and the Mancos Chamber of Commerce had high hopes of a big mining payroll. But then Harold disappeared and before you know it the price was down again. I’d want to find out if any of that was true.”

“I see,” McDermott said. “Yes, it would have made the ranch more valuable and made the motive stronger.”

“What the hell,” Shaw said. “We were keeping quiet about it because news like that leaks out, it causes problems. With local politicians, with the tree-huggers, with everybody else.”

“Okay,” Leaphorn said. “I guess if I take this job, then I’m safe in figuring the ranch is worth a lot more than the grass growing on it.”

“What do you say?” Shaw said, his voice impatient. “Can we count on you to do some digging for us?”

“I’ll think about it,” Leaphorn said. “I’ll call your office.”

“We’ll be here a day or two,” Shaw said. “And we’re in a hurry. Why not a decision right now?”

A hurry, Leaphorn thought. After all these years. “I’ll let you know tomorrow,” he said. “But you haven’t answered my question about the value of the ranch.”

McDermott looked grim. “You’d be safe to assume it was worth killing for.”