Hillerman, Tony - [Leaphorn & Chee 17] (8 page)

“That’s odd,” Chee said.

“I thought so, too. But this old fellow had taken a smaller diamond out of a different snuff can. So maybe they’re his storage units. And the can he gave Reno was in a leather pouch. Sort of like a medicine pouch.”

“He was an Indian? What kind?”

“Shorty said Reno didn’t know. But he didn’t speak much English. And gave some hand signals saying the diamonds came out of an airplane crash.”

“The pouch. Was that like one of ours?”

“About the same. But it had a sort of Anasazi-looking symbol stitched into it. Big figure with a tiny head, very broad upper torso, tiny stick legs.”

“Any ideas about that?”

“I don’t know. Maybe a clan totem, or a symbol of one of his tribe’s spirits.”

“Didn’t look like any of the tribal figures you’d recognize, then?”

“No, but I’ve never had much contact with any of those tribes that far down the Colorado.” Leaphorn chuckled. “I sort of neglected to give the pouch back to Shorty when I returned his diamond. Thought I’d show it to Louisa when she gets back. She’s down in the canyon now, collecting her oral histories from the Havasupais.”

“Well, thanks again,” Chee said. “I guess I’ll have to actually find that guy and ask him about it. And if something comes up and you need to find me, you have my cell phone number.”

“Ah. Yeah. I think I wrote it down.”

That concluded the conversation and left Chee to decide what to do about it. He’d call Dashee, of course. Discuss it with him. Find out what he wanted to do. But first he had to call Bernie.

He dialed her number. Thinking what he could have told Leaphorn if he wanted to confess the truth. He could have said he hadn’t told Bernie he loved her a long time ago because he was afraid. Cowardice prevented it. It
hurt when he learned that Mary Landon didn’t want him. She wanted the dairy farmer she could make out of him. Lonely again after that. It hurt even more when he finally understood that he was just the token Navajo to Janet, someone to be taken back to Washington and civilized. Even lonelier than before. And when he found Bernie, right under his nose, he knew here was his chance. The really right one. He loved everything about her. But he was too damned scared to make the move. What if she rejected him? Mary and Janet, they’d found him someone they could mold into what they wanted. But he had found Bernie. And if she turned him down, he’d never find anyone like her. He’d never have a wife. He’d always be lonely, all the rest of his life.

He listened to Bernie’s number ring nine times before he decided she wasn’t home. And then he called Dashee. Told him the good news first, and then the bad news.

“I know,” Dashee said. “I think that clerk and that widow are both lying, with the widow telling the clerk what to say. But the sheriff doesn’t. And I don’t think old Shorty McGinnis’s story is going to change his mind.”

“Afraid you’re right,” Chee said.

Dashee sighed. “You know, Jim, I gotta go down there, anyway. Down to that canyon bottom and see if I can find that old man. Or somebody who knows about him. Or something. Billy’s had too much tough luck. And nobody to help him.”

Chee said nothing to that. He’d foreseen it. He knew Cowboy too well to expect any less of him. He took a deep breath.

“Do you think you’re going to need some help?”

“Well, I was hoping you’d ask.”

“When are you going down there? And how you going? And here’s a harder question: How you going to go about this business? Finding a maybe imaginary old man that trades diamonds for things?”

“Sooner the better, is the first answer. And I’m going to make Billy Tuve come along and show me just exactly where he made that trade and try to retrace where the old man he dealt with might have gone in that little bit of time he was gone. What do you think?”

“How many years ago did that happen? Many, many, wasn’t it?”

“Billy’s always been very vague about chronology. Ever since that horse fell on him.”

“So maybe it was ten years, or twenty. Or maybe the old man was out of sight thirty minutes, or thirty hours, or several days?”

“It’s not that bad,” Dashee said. “He tries.”

“So what’s plan number two?”

“While Billy and I are looking for the diamond man along the river, I thought you might be mingling among the old folks in the Havasupai settlement. You’ve had a couple of cases down there. Know some people, don’t you? Know a little of their language?”

“Damn little,” Chee said. “And all I was doing was looking for stolen property. You don’t make friends doing that.”

Dashee made a sort of dismissive sound. Or was it just frustration?

“Hell, Jim,” he said. “I know it’s a long shot. But what am I going to do? Billy’s my cousin. It’s family. I’m a religious sort of man, you know. So are you. Sometimes we
have to just make ourselves an opportunity to get some outside help from the Higher Power. Call it luck, or whatever.”

Chee considered that for a while. “How soon you want to do this?”

“Right away, I think. The sheriff sounded like they might be revoking the bond, with that new story they have about the diamond. I thought I’d drive over to Second Mesa in the morning and pick him up before they get the revocation order.”

“I’ll have to call you back, Cowboy. I’m supposed to get with Bernie tomorrow. You know how it is before a wedding. All sorts of planning stuff.”

“So I can’t exactly count on you?”

“Well, you probably can. I’ll call you.”

The telephone rang just after he ended that call. It was Bernie. She’d noticed his number on her “missed calls” tattletale. “What’s up?” she said.

“Well,” Chee said, “how do I start?”

“You start by telling me you miss me and just wanted to hear the sound of my voice.”

“All true, but I also wanted to know what you have planned for us. You were telling me we need to get together. To do some planning.” He paused. “And maybe some other things.”

Bernie laughed. “Other things are more fun,” she said. “But we do have to find a place to live. Unless you’re going to change your mind and make that trailer of yours our bridal suite. I hope that wasn’t what you were calling to tell me.”

“No,” Chee said. “But now I’ve got something else on my mind. Remember Cowboy Dashee’s problem?”

“Sort of,” Bernie said. “His cousin accused of shooting that store operator at Zuni, and trying to pawn that big diamond?”

“Well, now it’s worse. The store owner’s widow and a former clerk at the store are claiming the homicide victim owned the diamond. Dashee thinks the sheriff is going to have the bond revoked, put Tuve back in lockup. Dashee’s going down into the canyon. Try to find the old man he claims gave Tuve the diamond. He wants me to go along.”

“When?”

“Right away. Like tomorrow.”

“Hey,” Bernie said. “That sounds like fun. I haven’t been down there since I was a teenager.”

Chee looked away from the telephone, through the window, at the cloud building over the mountains. Would Bernie ever stop being unpredictable?

“That sounds like you want to go along?”

“Yes, indeed,” Bernie said.

“Bernie, going down on a school bus with a bunch of kids won’t be anything like this. That must’ve been some sort of campground with a road to it. No roads this time. This is going all the way to the bottom. Climbing down several thousand feet or so. Rough going. And then we may get stuck down there a day or two, depending on what luck we have finding anything. It’s going to be tough.”

That produced an extended silence.

Chee said, “Bernie?”

Bernie said, “Jim. I want you to remember. I’m not Officer Bernadette Manuelito, rookie cop, anymore. I resigned from your squad. Now I’m on leave from the U.S.
Border Patrol. So I’m not talking to you as Sergeant Chee now. Okay? Now, tell me what makes you think you’re any better at climbing down into canyons than I am.”

“On leave! I thought you’d resigned.”

“Well, I sort of did. But they put me on some sort of medical leave. Sort of let me know I could get my job back if I wanted it.”

This was making Jim Chee very nervous.

“Bernie,” he said. “I thought…”

Bernie was laughing. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I was just sort of kidding you, Jim. I’m bad about that. Kidding people. Actually, the only way I’d go back to the Border Patrol would be if I could take you along. And you could be boss, too, since the one I was working for got fired. But first I’ve got to marry you.”

“Sooner the better,” Chee said.

“Anyway, I want to go with you. I’ll get all packed, sleeping bag and all. Where are you meeting Cowboy, and when? And do I need to come there, or will you pick me up? I know you have to carry drinking water into the canyon. Should I bring any food?”

Chee sighed. “I guess so,” he said, recognizing a lost argument, probably the first of many. But Bernie was right. It would be fun.

Brad Chandler had pulled his rental Land Rover into the arriving passengers’ parking zone of the Flagstaff airport, scanned those hurrying past to the shuttle buses, and spotted the man who must be the one he had come for. His name was Fred Sherman, a bulky man carrying a bulging briefcase, wearing a sweat-stained cowboy hat, and looking like a middle-aged retired policeman—which was exactly what he was. Chandler lowered the passenger-side window, waved, shouted.

“Hey, Sherman! Over here.”

Fred Sherman came to the car, not hurrying. He leaned on the windowsill. “Yo, Chandler,” he said. “Long time since I’ve dealt with you.”

Chandler motioned Sherman into the car. “Let’s go talk business.”

Sherman settled himself in the front seat. “Pretty fancy truck for a skip tracer to be driving,” he said, studying Chandler. “I been wondering what you looked like ever since you got me to help grab that Phoenix bond jumper a while back. You sounded like a kid on the telephone.” He chuckled. “Come to think of it, you still did when you called me last week.”

“You sounded like some old fart in a nursing home,” Chandler said, “but you look healthy enough. What kind of information have you got for me?”

“First I got a question. What’s my split on this?”

“No split,” Chandler said. “If we bomb out, we pay you your expenses plus your regular hourly rate. If we get the deal done, you get that plus a twenty-thousand bonus.”

Sherman digested that. Looked at Chandler. “This don’t sound a bit like a bail bond case.”

“I already told you that,” Chandler said. “I told you I want you to find out everything you can about that robbery-homicide they were holding a Hopi Indian named Billy Tuve for doing. Everything about that big diamond he had that got him arrested. Everything about who has just bonded him out. And why they put up the money. This Tuve hasn’t jumped bond. But I want to know where he’s living now. Probably he’s at his home on the Hopi Reservation. But I want to know for sure. And what’s he doing? What’s going on? Has he just gone home and rested? Or what?”

It occurred to Chandler as he finished that string of bad-tempered questions that he had adopted exactly the same arrogant tone that Plymale had used with him. Sherman was staring at him now, eyes squinted, an expression that suggested he, Sherman, hadn’t liked it any better than Chandler had. But Sherman merely shrugged.

“Well, now,” he said. “First I have another question. Where are you taking me now?”

“I’m going to get someplace where those airport security rent-a-cops won’t be hassling us to move along. We’re going to circle like we’re waiting to pick up a passenger. Then when we get our talking done, I’ll drop you off at the cabstand.”

“It would be quicker to just go into Flagstaff, stop at my hotel, and do our talking in air-conditioned comfort,” Sherman said. “Maybe in the bar with a Scotch-and-water in hand.”

Chandler ignored that.

Sherman studied him. “I’d guess you have some reason that I can’t think of right now not to want somebody or other to see you and me together at the hotel. Does that sound like a sensible guess?”

“Possibly,” Chandler said.

“Well, then, let’s see if I can answer some of those questions you were asking.”

Sherman extracted a slim little notebook from a shirt pocket.

“The bond for Billy Tuve was fifty thou,” Sherman began, and recited what else he’d learned at the clerk’s office, down to Tuve leaving the place with Joanna Craig.

“Going where?” Chandler asked.

“Be cool,” Sherman said. “The hotel where she was staying in Gallup was the El Rancho,” he reported, and then rattled off what and who he’d seen there, down to the ordering of room service. “Then…”

Sherman paused, peered at Chandler. “I understand this right, don’t I? You’re paying the expenses.”

Chandler nodded.

“I mention it because this cost me twenty bucks. The clerk was getting tired of talking to me. Anyway, then a big, tall Navajo, looked like an athlete, showed up with a Hopi deputy sheriff, asking about Joanna Craig. They went up to her room. A while later another Indian came in. He said he was supposed to come to the hotel and pick up Billy Tuve. Said he was his uncle giving him a ride back out to Second Mesa, wherever that is. Sounded like he was taking him home. So the clerk called Ms. Craig’s room, and they all came out and left.”

“All? Tuve left with them? And were they all together? Or how?”

“Tuve left with the man who claimed to be his uncle. Then the other two men left. Don’t know about Ms. Craig because I left myself.”

“How about why she put up Tuve’s bond?”

Sherman responded to that with an incredulous stare.

“Well? What’s the answer?”

“If I had been dumb enough to ask her, her answer would have been it was none of my damn business. And who was I, and who was I working for, and so forth,” Sherman said. “But I’d guess it’s something to do with that lawsuit you were telling me about on the telephone. You didn’t tell me much, but you did say we’d be working for one side of some sort of big-money court case.”

“How about the diamond? Where it came from?”

“Tuve told the cops an old man swapped it with him for his shovel. Down at the bottom of the Grand Canyon.” Sherman laughed. “My connections in the district attorney’s office weren’t taking that very seriously when I first asked ’em about the case, but I have something
new on that. I got a call back from my man there, and he told me—”

“Hold it,” Chandler said, and pulled the Land Rover into a tree-shaded turn bay, and stopped. “Told you what?”

“Told me another diamond had turned up. Or at least another diamond story. Come to think of it, two new diamond stories. Both pretty doubtful.”

“Go on,” Chandler said.

“This first one sounds like what you call a groundless rumor. My man heard from a cop he knows in the New Mexico State Police, got it from somebody in the Navajo County Sheriff’s Department, who picked it up in Window Rock. Probably from Navajo Tribal Police, who—”

“Come on,” said Chandler. “Cut down on the BS. What’s the story?”

Sherman said nothing.

Chandler glanced at him, noticed his expression. Said, “Sorry. I didn’t mean to sound so impatient.”

“The story is that a little trading post at Short Mountain, way up in the northwest corner of the Navajo Reservation, got burglarized some years back. Owner gave the cops a list of missing stuff, including a very expensive diamond. When this robbery-homicide Tuve pulled off came up, with Tuve trying to pawn a big diamond, the old Navajo cop who had worked the Short Mountain case checked on it. The trader claimed a cowboy had come in out of a snowstorm and traded it to him for some groceries and a ride into Page. This cowboy said he was down at the bottom of the Grand Canyon and an old man came along and swapped him the diamond for a fancy jackknife he had.”

Chandler considered this without comment.

“End of story,” Sherman said. “You ready to have me hurry through the other one?”

“You have the name of the Navajo cop who checked into this? Or the trading post owner? Or whether this diamond swap was in the same part of the canyon? That damned Grand Canyon is two hundred and seventy-seven miles long and more than ten miles wide.”

“It couldn’t be as long as that,” Sherman said. “And I don’t know where he got the diamond. Don’t know the names, either. But I guess I can get them.”

“I’ll want them,” Chandler said. “Now, what’s the other story?”

“Exactly what you’d expect. The widow of the guy killed in that curio store robbery claims Tuve lied in his story about where he got that stone. She said her husband had that big diamond for years and she wanted to make damn sure the law took good care of it and gave it back to her when the trial was over.”

Chandler laughed.

Sherman grinned at him. “I didn’t really think that would surprise you.”

“It doesn’t,” Chandler said. “I think I may have gotten myself involved in a situation in which diamonds have punched the avarice button on two greedy women.”

“Two? Who’s the other one? You mean that Craig woman? How does she fit in?”

Sherman was leaning back against the passenger-side door, studying Chandler, watching a driver who had hoped to use the turnout lane creeping cautiously past.

Chandler ignored the question.

“I think you need to tell me what this is all about,”
Sherman said. “Otherwise I might run across something useful and not even know it.”

“Like what?”

“Well, hell. Like who we’re trying to find. He might walk right past me.”

Chandler laughed. “I don’t think that’s likely. This guy who is being looked for is dead.”

“Dead?”

“And we’re not trying to find him. Or if we do, we’ll never admit it. We’ll just hide him again.”

Sherman, not enjoying this, said, “I don’t like playing children’s guessing games. What are you paying me to do?”

Chandler took a folded envelope out of his shirt pocket.

“There’s a list of stuff in here. Where you can find me, phone number, all that. And a list of instructions. Information I need. Names. All that. Then I want you to locate Tuve, find that woman who posted bond for him. If she went back to where she came from, find her address and what she does there. If she stayed out here, find out where and what she’s doing. Who she’s talking to, all that.”

Sherman took the envelope, extracted the note inside, read it, stared at Chandler.

“I’ll still say I could be a lot more useful, and quicker, if I know what our goal is in all this.”

Chandler nodded. He gave Sherman a quick summary starting with the airlines colliding, then moving on to the diamond case padlocked to the arm. But how much of this did he want Sherman to know?

“It was a man named Clarke,” he continued. “Like most of the victims, his body was never recovered.”

Sherman was frowning. “You going to tell me we’re looking for this Clarke bird? Dead for how many years?”

“No. I was going to tell you that a daughter of his old girlfriend got a psychic message through some spiritualist that Clarke had his arm torn off in the crash, and he sent her psychic orders to find it and bury it properly with the rest of his corpse so it would quit hurting him in the spirit world.”

“Come on,” Sherman said. “Get serious.” He laughed.

“The one she wants is the arm that had the case of diamonds handcuffed to it.”

Sherman considered that for a moment, said, “Oh, I guess I get the picture.”

“I’m not quite certain I get it myself. But it seems like the interests you and me are representing here are the foundation which inherited all that Clarke fortune. And probably the insurance, which paid out its hundred thousand dollars maximum airline flight fee for the jewels, and somebody interested in patching Clarke’s body back together.”

“And you figure that burial sentiment is actually based on trying to get those diamonds, right?”

“Well, a civil suit is now hung up in court. A woman is claiming to be an out-of-wedlock granddaughter of Old Man Clarke and therefore the valid heiress to the Clarke billions. And that lawsuit was months after the news that even old bones can yield DNA evidence to prove family lineage.”

“I’ve heard about that crash, I think,” Sherman said. “Long, long time ago, wasn’t it? And we’re trying to find the bones of that guy carrying the diamonds.” He shook his head, laughed. “You serious?”

“Well, actually it’s not that simple. Here we have one side of a two-sided game. People on the other side are trying to find those bones and use them to capture the Clarke fortune,” Chandler said. “Our job is to make sure that poor fellow’s bones stay lost and never get dragged into a courtroom.”

Sherman considered that, face solemn. Then he smiled. “Yeah,” he said. “That sounds like a worthy cause with righteous purposes. And I can see how that would be a lot easier.”

Chandler nodded.

“Finding old bones down in that canyon is worse than hunting the needle in the haystack. It’s like hunting the needle in a whole farm full of haystacks. And not even knowing which farm it’s on. So maybe we could just be happy with keeping anyone else from finding them.”

“Yes,” Chandler said. “Easier to find the hunter than the needle.”

“You sound like maybe you have a plan,” Sherman said. “I’d like to hear it. You know, it helps me if I understand what you’re trying to do.”

“You’re getting the idea now,” Chandler said. “First, we understand our goal. Our goal is not—underline that,
not
—not to find the bones. Our goal is to keep somebody else from finding them. We want to find ’em, that’s good, but only because then we can make sure the other folks don’t get their hands on them. You understand that?”

“Sure,” Sherman said, looking slightly resentful. “I already said I understood it.”

“That’s the first thing to understand. Now, the second thing is this. We know that case full of diamonds was handcuffed to the owner’s arm. To the bones in question.
We have to presume that the Tuve diamond, and that trading post burglary diamond, came from that package. Thus they are the only clues to where those bones might be. The other side, the bad guys, know as much about that as we do. Maybe more. So our goal is to get there first. Got it?”

“Of course,” he said, and then thought about it awhile. “Then do what? My impression is that your paycheck depends on the other side never getting hold of those bones. At least not long enough to get them into court. Right? So what do we do if the other side gets there first?”

“I guess that would depend on how much you wanted to earn that big bonus,” Chandler said. “I guess you’d do whatever the situation demanded. You know. To get those bones away from the bad guys.”

Sherman spent another moment thinking.

“Arizona is a death penalty state,” he said. “For murder done in commission of a felony, anyway. But I’ll bet you already knew that.”

“I did,” Chandler agreed. “I also know the bottom of that canyon is loaded with dangerous places. Falling rocks. Folks swept away in the river rapids. Drowning. People slipping and tumbling down the cliffs.”

Sherman nodded. Grinned at Chandler. “Wouldn’t you hate to be the district attorney trying to prove somebody was pushed instead of just slipped? I mean, when nobody saw what happened?”