“I don’t think Nicky would want anyone poking around—”
Agent Berke cut her off. “Miss, your life will be easier if you cooperate with us. After you sign this consent-to-search form, we’ll take a quick look and let you go on with your day, talking to your auntie in peace. It’s not your car, right? Why worry?”
Berke’s partner gave him the envelope, and he took out an official-looking piece of paper and a pen. Ryana looked at Bernie, and Bernie nodded. The Feds wanted to make sure they had all the i’s dotted and the t’s crossed. Ryana signed, gave the form to Berke, then reached for her handbag.
Berke said, “Give the purse to Officer Manuelito, and she’ll get the keys to me.”
Bernie knew that the agent wanted to ensure that Ryana didn’t pull out a gun. Ryana looked puzzled but did as requested. “They’re in that little front pouch.”
Bernie handed Berke the keys. He juggled them slightly in his hand. “Stay in here with Manuelito and my partner.”
Ryana had parked in front of the house, and they watched from the window as the trunk lid sprang up a few inches. Berke nudged it open with his elbow. He looked in, then straightened up and made a call on his cell phone.
“What’s happening out there?” Ryana’s voice was barely more than a whisper. “I don’t like this.”
“Ryana, shouldn’t your aunt be home soon?”
“She told me she was stopping at the grocery after work. I hope these guys are gone before she gets here.”
Bernie watched as Berke leaned into the trunk. “Wait here.” She went outside before Berke’s partner could stop her. In the trunk, she saw computers of various sizes, cameras, and boxes. Berke had gloves on and held a large plastic bag that contained a silver-and-turquoise concho belt. She noticed other Indian jewelry sorted and bagged, along with mailing boxes and sealing tape. The trunk looked like a portable shop.
He turned to Bernie. “Why are you involving yourself in all this?”
“That man who got shot is a good friend of my mother. Ryana is almost like my niece.”
“You Navajos take family connections to the limit, don’t you?” Before she could take offense, he added, “You’re lucky to be part of something like that, Manuelito. But that young woman in there is gonna need more than luck and relatives. She’s gonna need a good lawyer.”
15
Leaphorn stopped by the police station on his way home from breakfast with Councilor Walker to ask Jessica if she could help with the call to Mary Nestor, the woman who had shipped the box. A thirty-something man he didn’t know sat at her desk.
“Jessica’s off for a few days. Anything I can do?”
“Do you know when she’ll be back?” he asked in Navajo, and saw the man switch gears.
From the answer, Leaphorn knew he’d understood the question, but the man spoke in English. “In a week, unless she gets bored out there in Las Vegas.”
“Is Officer Manygoats around?”
This time, the man’s response came in a mix of Navajo and English. “He just left, but he’ll be back shortly. He was griping about all the reports he has to write.”
Leaphorn took out his little book and wrote Manygoats a note. He handed it to the young man.
“I’ll be sure he gets this.”
As he walked out, Leaphorn decided to ask Louisa to make the call. He could type out the questions and email them to her along with the lady’s name and phone number. Louisa had good skills as an interviewer—she was a trained listener who had compiled dozens of oral histories. But as he started his truck, noticing the grinding sound again, he recalled that whatever he’d done to anger Louisa concerned the Peshlakai interview. Should he let her cool off a bit longer before asking a favor?
Why was it, he wondered, that situations that seemed simple on the surface grew more complex and convoluted as he searched for an answer? Not only his relationship with Louisa, he thought, but the case itself.
Giddi met him at the door, meowing loudly. He assumed that she’d finished her food or lapped up the water in her bowl, but no, she had what she needed. He had done his duty as cat wrangler, and she, of course, ignored both offerings and kept up the racket.
The message light on the landline was blinking, and he checked it after he put water for instant coffee in the microwave. It was a male voice. “Lieutenant Leaphorn, this is Jake. Hope you’re doing well. I’ve been missing you at our speech therapy sessions. You can schedule more appointments by giving me a call. I look forward to hearing from you, sir.” He deleted the reminder, grabbed his coffee mug, went to his office, and typed notes from his morning meeting with Councilor Walker.
Reviewing the conversation brought him back to Tiffany, the missing dress, and her unexpected death. In the old days, museums treated textiles with strong pesticides to preserve them. When these materials came home, repatriated to tribal museums or perhaps to families of the original owners, they sometimes brought sickness from the poison used to keep them safe. But the Navajo Nation Museum was a modern facility. Mrs. Pinto and her staff isolated items that might have been treated with toxic chemicals until they could be tested and cleaned. If Tiffany had stolen the textile before it was checked, could pesticides have made her sick, or worsened the illness she suffered from already?
The interlocked questions all revolved around the box. He now knew the name of the sender, Mary Nestor, and how to contact her. The link between Peshlakai, Fat Boy, and the reemergence of the long-lost jewelry added a new avenue to explore. If Rita Begaye had the name of the person who had purchased the bracelet from her dead husband, and if that person was Mary Nestor or a Mr. Nestor, the case moved closer to solution. Mary Nestor held the key.
He pictured meeting Mary, envisioning a frail elderly white woman. In the fantasy he heard her say, Oh my goodness, I guess I forgot to mail those things. She would hobble into the back room of a tiny house cluttered with a lifetime of collecting. Out she would come with the precious dress and the bracelet as a bonus. He’d present them to Mrs. Pinto, and she’d retire happy knowing that her dead assistant had nothing to do with the items’ disappearance. Louisa would thank him for helping her friend. And he’d get a check to fix his truck.
Two immediate problems shattered his scenario. First, Mary Nestor wanted her gift to be anonymous. She could deny any association with the gifts and hang up on him. Or reject the call in the first place. Second, if she agreed to see him, how would he talk to her? He could be forceful, persuasive, and even charming in Navajo. But his spoken English crippled him.
He noticed the empty hummingbird feeders on the porch. Louisa put something in them from a mason jar in the refrigerator, a recipe she cooked up in the microwave. He found the jar and used what was left as a refill. He left the empty jar on the counter so she’d realize she needed to make more.
He sipped the coffee, lukewarm now, and pondered the obvious, logical solution to the Mary Nestor problem. Winslow was about an hour’s drive from Flagstaff. Time to talk to Louisa about the case and see if she was still angry with him. If she could persuade Mary Nestor to meet him, they could drive to Winslow together.
He composed the note to Louisa in his head and was on his way back to the office to email her when the cell phone rang.
“Hey, Lieutenant, it’s Manygoats. I got your message. The autopsy report’s not ready, but I was able to get a little information from an inside source. Tiffany’s body showed no signs of trauma, no bruising, bleeding, anything like that. But it looks like she might have been smothered.”
“Smothered? You sure?”
“I’m not sure of much these days, but that’s what the guy said. He told me the skin around her nose and mouth was white, and they found fibers in her nose, like maybe someone pressed a pillow over her face.”
“How long for the toxicology results?”
“I’ll ask.”
“When you do, mention that Tiffany worked at a museum and may have been unintentionally exposed to pesticides or other chemicals.
And that she was taking medication. Did you learn anything else?”
The officer’s tone changed. “My source said that the examiner, a specialist named John Trestrail, called this an interesting case because of Tiffany’s rare lung disease. Evidently, most people treated for it with the drug she was taking get better. They will add that drug to the tox screen. Maybe an overdose or something. It’s all up for grabs at this point.”
Leaphorn went back to pondering what to say to Louisa when his cell phone chimed with a text. A message from Rita Begaye. Two little words: Found it.
He sent back, See you this afternoon.
He emailed Louisa an update on the case and the news that he was coming to Flagstaff and wanted to talk to her and that he hoped she would help him make a call on the Pinto case. Then he added, Quiet here without you.
Rita Begaye lived in Oak Springs, Arizona, a settlement on the way to Flagstaff if one took Indian Route 12 south toward I-40. He enjoyed the drive into the high country of ponderosa pines and rock cliffs, and he found her place with a minimum of difficulty.
A woman was sitting outside, evidently waiting for him. She looked older than she’d sounded on the phone, like a person who had squeezed more than her share of living into the allotted years. When she smiled, he saw a glint of mischief in her eyes.
“Welcome. It’s cooler out here than in the house.” She motioned to a chair with a flowery print pad. “Can I offer you some water?”
“Thanks.”
She returned to the porch carrying a tray with napkins, two big green plastic cups, and a plate of round cookies covered with powdered sugar. She set it on the table and then handed him the water. “Help yourself to a treat. I baked them last night. I was too excited to sleep.”
He saw a spiral notebook on the bench beside her and she noticed him noticing.
“After the accident, I put my husband’s carvings and that notebook away. I don’t know how much help this will be, but I was glad it turned up. I marked the pages he wrote while we were in Santa Fe.” She picked up a cookie and set it gently on a napkin. “It’s interesting to see his handwriting again. Sure stirs up memories.”
Leaphorn took a cookie out of politeness and discovered it was good. He took another when she passed the tray to him.
She reached for the notebook and removed a paperclip she had used to mark a place. She extended it toward him. “This is what he wrote about our trip. You can see the date at the top. The writing in black is for his own work.”
Alvin “Fat Boy” Begaye had been an excellent record keeper, an exception to the dual stereotypes that artists can’t manage money and that Indians are poor businesspeople. In clear penmanship, Begaye had described the item, its price, and when it sold. More often than not, he captured the name and even the address of the buyer. He left a space for comments. By several of his carvings he’d written “discount” and by one name “wanted red but took blue.” Leaphorn showed the note to Rita.
“I remember that. The man liked the horse but wanted one with a red saddle blanket. My husband told him blue was more authentic, talked him into it. He told me that next time he’d make some red and black ones, you know, like a rug design. But there was no next time.” She glanced away, out toward the road. “This August it will be twenty years since he died. It feels like yesterday, and it feels like a lifetime ago.”
Leaphorn let the memory sit. He handed the pad back to her, hiding his disappointment. “I don’t see any of the consignment items. Did he note those?”
She turned the page. “Here. ‘BF’ stands for Bullfrog.”
The same neat handwriting compiled Peshlakai’s consignments in a shorter list, just ten items. Leaphorn found a bracelet with necklace and earrings. The buyer was Lloyd Rafferty, with an address in Gallup, New Mexico. He jotted down the information, feeling the thread of a solution to the missing textile slip from his grasp. He handed the list back to Rita.
She sat it down. “I hope it helps.”
“Me, too. Thank you for going to the trouble.”
“You know, I’m glad I did it. It gave me some peace.”
Leaphorn considered how to ask his last question, or if he needed to ask it at all. Experience had taught him to forge ahead.
“I noticed that, when I mentioned Robert Peshlakai, you seemed to know him.”
Rita leaned toward him. “I do. He’s married to my sister, Lisa, but he and I dated before I met my husband. He’s a good man. I don’t want to stir up any jealousy.”
When he left her, Leaphorn drove south until he hit Interstate 40 near Lupton. He merged into traffic and headed west toward Flagstaff. His disappointment that a person named Rafferty, and not Nestor, had purchased the bracelet began to fade. He stopped to get gasoline and to stretch his legs in Holbrook and to send Louisa a text with his progress and ETA. He pumped the fuel and went inside for coffee to go. When he came back, his phone was buzzing in the charger.
It was Louisa. “I got the text and checked that name for you. No Rafferty at the Gallup address you gave me and none in that town at all. Shall I expand the search?”
“No tanks.”
“Let’s meet at my old office. You remember where that is?”
Of course he did. He made an affirmative grunt.
“I can call Mary Nestor from there. Then we can talk. If all goes well, we can treat each other to dinner. Be safe out there, and I will see you soon.”
“Dinner on me.” He had a clear idea of what the talk would be about: his shortcomings. He didn’t like the sound of “if all goes well.”
The last time he had driven to Flagstaff had been several years ago, on a trip that concerned another old weaving, what they called a Tale Teller rug, a textile that also dated back to around the time of Hwéeldi. That case, pursued as a favor for the wife of a friend, stirred uncomfortable memories. All Navajo weavings could be described as Tale Tellers. Each uniquely reflected its creator and the time of its creation.
With Nestor’s link to the bracelet in question, Leaphorn considered the other loose ends that could help him meet Mrs. Pinto’s deadline. He’d pass Rafferty’s name on to Peshlakai. Perhaps Rafferty had become a patron and the jeweler knew how to reach him. He thought about Councilor Walker and their plan for breakfast and her connections to people who knew people who knew Tiffany. He had the feeling that the pieces were almost in place, but he couldn’t decipher the puzzle.
He appreciated the part of the drive where the interstate entered the cool ponderosa forest outside of Flagstaff, the tall pines a factor of altitude and increased moisture—although this year, the mountain country of Arizona lacked the normal precipitation. He watched the San Francisco Peaks rise in the distance and recalled the stories his relatives had told of how the Holy People created the mountains and their intervention to make the world safer for the five-fingered ones. He smiled, remembering his uncle’s words: “I wish they had done a better job of it, then you wouldn’t need to be a policeman.”
Clouds shrouded the top of Mount Humphreys. If he didn’t know this country so well, Leaphorn would have assumed the possibility, finally, of rain on the parched land. A gift that the Hopi would tie to their prayers to the katsinas who dwelled there.
He took the exit for Northern Arizona University and made his way to the building where Louisa had worked. He saw her car in the lot and then found a welcome spot of shade for the truck. He noticed that the hallways had been repainted and the carpet replaced since he had last been in Louisa’s territory. The door to her office, or what had been her office when she taught here, stood open. He saw her organizing some books, moving them from a box to a shelf. He knocked.
“Come on in. I’m almost done.”
A wooden bench with cushions upholstered in shades of gray and orange sat against the wall. She motioned him there and sat next to him. “How was your trip?”
“Fye. You look guh.” Louisa seemed reenergized, he thought.
“Thank you. It’s been nice reconnecting wi
th my colleagues. I’m looking forward to finishing my research and finally putting my book together.”
Leaphorn nodded. He’d encouraged her to return to the project, a compilation of comparative contemporary spiritual beliefs of Southwestern tribes. Part of his motivation was to divert her searing intensity away from him and into the larger world.
“I’m sorry the Pinto case has brought so much frustration. Maybe this phone call will make the difference. Shall we do it?”
“Sure. Peas.”
She walked to the desk. “I looked at the questions you wrote. I’d like to suggest some changes, but I don’t want to impinge on your territory.”
“Go aheh.”
“What if I started by saying that she must be surprised to get this call and then reassuring her that we will not reveal her identity?” Louisa went on. Her changes both simplified and softened the inquiries.
He nodded his approval, glad they could agree and do this in person so gestures could fill in for spoken English.
“There’s a phone in the next room, on that desk the interns use. Bring it in here to listen to what Mary Nestor has to say.”
He nodded, found the phone, and came back to her office.
She dialed the number. A man answered.
“May I speak to Mary Nestor?”
“Hold on. She just got home.”
A few minutes later, a woman came on the line. Her voice and intonation told Leaphorn she had probably grown up in Dinetah and was younger than he’d expected. He jotted down a note and handed the message to Louisa as she was introducing herself and the reason for the call.
When Louisa finished those remarks she said, “Excuse me, ma’am. Do you speak Navajo?”
“Aoo’. Yes, but I’m a little rusty. Why do you ask?”
“I am handing this call to my Navajo friend Joe Leaphorn. He and I are working together on this project, and he is curious about something.”
The Tale Teller Page 20