Mary shrugged.
Leaphorn could see her relax a bit more.
“You mentioned the lady’s cancer. I know some great herbal tinctures and infusions that make a good tea. Maybe something like that? Or a plant, or . . .”
Leaphorn finished his meal as the ladies chatted. He knew Louisa was fishing for details, but they’d moved out of his comfort zone with talk of tea and cookies. He’d rather discuss how to spot a gang member by studying his tattoos.
Louisa opened her purse, took out a piece of paper and a pen, and handed them to Mary. “Mrs. Pinto will need to know where to ship the gift. Could you write the name and number for her?”
Leaphorn cringed, and Mary ignored the ploy. “I have been thinking about what Mr. Leaphorn told me about Hwéeldi and the weaving. It touched my heart. The man who had the gallery mentioned that there were things he owned that he would like to give away when the gallery closed. Maybe he forgot to put the old dress in the box.”
Leaphorn said, “So you understand why we would like to talk to him to find out for sure.”
“And you understand why I can’t tell you any more than I have. A clever person like either of you can figure out how to find him from the information I’ve given you.”
Mary reached into her pocket and extracted a red wallet. “I have to get to work. The lady gets a massage to help with her pain. She will be ready to leave in twenty minutes, and it takes me fifteen to drive there. Then we stop at the grocery.”
Louisa put a hand on Mary’s arm. “Put your money away. This is on me. My friend Mrs. Pinto would want that.”
Leaphorn watched Mary pick up her box of food, leave the restaurant, and climb into a white Mercedes sedan. When he squinted, he could make out three characters on the car’s license plate, enough for Jessica to follow up if necessary. He turned back to Louisa to see her fiddling with her phone, typing. “I can figure this out. An Indian art gallery on Main Street that closed two years ago after twenty years in operation.”
“Rye. Rafferty.”
She looked at him, puzzled.
“Rafferty bought da bracelet.”
“That’s good. I’ll tease this out.”
Leaphorn grabbed the check, took it to the cashier, and came back.
Louisa grinned. “Lloyd and Barbara Rafferty. They own a place off Highway 87. I put the address in my GPS.”
“Les go.” He stood, keys in hand.
“Hold on. Mary left her sunglasses on the table. Let me grab them.” Louisa put the glasses in her purse.
He would have given the glasses to the woman at the front counter for Mary to pick up. But Louisa had a mind of her own, and he was learning when to roll along with it.
He lowered the windows before he turned on the air-conditioning. Louisa climbed in. “I imagine Mr. Rafferty’s instinct will be to slam the door on us, assuming he opens it to a couple of strangers in the first place. Talking to an aging lady college professor might make the situation smoother than dealing with a guy who, despite being retired, still looks and acts like a cop.”
Leaphorn focused on driving. After the second stop sign, he realized she had a point.
“You take da lead.”
“I’ll say this harmless-looking college professor needs a favor for a friend, who has a question about Indian art, his area of expertise. We would have gone to the gallery, but we realized it had closed. What do you think?”
He nodded.
“Once we’re in, I’ll tell him more of the truth, that the questions concern an item Daisy thought she was receiving as a gift, but the gift never arrived. I will say that Mrs. Pinto doesn’t know his identity and that we won’t tell her but that I’m wondering if he forgot to send it. And I’ll introduce you as my friend. How does this sound?”
“Kay.” If Louisa could build a bit of rapport with Rafferty, the plan could evolve. If he put the dress in the box, Rafferty would assume it had been stolen. Bad for the museum staff’s reputation, unless Rafferty blamed it on the post office or on Mary.
As he expected, they found the home in an older, well-kept part of Winslow where houses sat far apart overlooking the city, with views of the Little Painted Desert and the San Francisco Peaks. The home was perched at the end of a paved driveway. Beauty surrounded those who lived here. Louisa intertwined her fingers. “I’m nervous about this.” Then she pushed the round white button to the right of the carved wooden door. They heard a chime and then a voice. “Who is it?”
Louisa gave her name. “I’m a professor from Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, Mr. Rafferty. I would have contacted you through the gallery, but I see that it’s closed. I have a question about a piece in your collection. Or at least something you used to have.”
She’s already improvising, Leaphorn thought. In his years as a cop, he’d seen too many operations fail when a team member went off on a tangent.
They heard the latch release and felt the wave of air-conditioning as it moved from the cool home toward the warm porch.
A slim man with a head of thick white hair and brilliant blue eyes studied them. Louisa had the lanyard with her NAU ID card around her neck and showed it to him. “NAU? What do you teach?”
“Nothing at the moment, but cultural anthropology is my field. I’m doing research now. I just finished consulting with a summer program. This shouldn’t take long. I appreciate your help.”
“Who’s that gentleman with you?”
“My friend Joe Leaphorn. He offered to drive since I’ve never been to Winslow.”
He turned to Leaphorn. “Yá’át’ééh.”
“Yá’át’ééh.” Leaphorn asked, in Navajo, if the man spoke Navajo.
“No. I understand a few phrases, like that one we said, but no, sorry. Wish I did.”
Louisa took charge again. “I’m here to thank you. My friend Daisy Pinto is the director of the Navajo Museum.”
“Never heard of her.” Leaphorn noticed Rafferty stiffen.
“She told me she wished she could find who had sent that wonderful box so she could extend her gratitude and find out more about the items.”
“That’s interesting, but it doesn’t concern me, Professor. You both need to leave.”
Leaphorn had expected the man to deny his involvement. “We hab questions abow a missin biil.”
Rafferty sucked in his breath. “Missing? What do you mean?”
Leaphorn spoke slowly, in Navajo, hoping that Rafferty could understand. “This is about Juanita’s dress. The Hwéeldi dress, the great treasure you want the Navajo people to have. It was not in the box.”
The old man took a step away from them. “How did you find me?”
Leaphorn switched to English. “Navajo detective.”
Rafferty looked at him. “That’s you, right?”
“Rye.”
When Rafferty smiled, his teeth had a glint of gold. “I thought you had more business here than a friend and a driver. Let’s get this over with before my wife returns.”
Rafferty turned from them and headed down the hall, the heels of his polished dress shoes clicking against the tile floor marking each purposeful step. They followed to a large living room decorated with paintings of the desert and stone sculptures. A coat-like garment with ornate, Plains Indian–style beadwork hung under glass on the wall between two large windows. Rafferty motioned them to the couch. “What do you mean the dress is missing?”
Louisa answered. “When Mrs. Pinto looked at the inventory list you sent with the gift, she noticed a reference to a weaving from around the time of the Long Walk. But when she examined the contents of the box, that piece was not there.”
Leaphorn noted that Louisa didn’t speculate or cast any blame.
“The lady must have overlooked it. I packed it first. There’s some mistake.”
Leaphorn shook his head. Louisa spoke. “No, sir. We wish that were the case.”
Rafferty paced to the window and studied the view, then turned toward them. “That old dress
didn’t look like much, but it reflects an important part of Navajo history. I was amazingly fortunate to acquire it—that’s a story in itself—and I treasured it. But I always felt that it didn’t belong to me, that it belonged to history and especially to the Navajo Nation. I could have sold it ten times over to other collectors or museums. It was in the box.” He underlined the verb with his tone of voice.
“You know, I used to greet all my students by name after two classes. Now it takes me half a semester. We all get more forgetful as we age.” Louisa’s tone kept the remark conversational.
“You’ve noticed I’m what I call seasoned, but I’m not so far gone that I’d neglect to add the very heart of the donation to the shipment.” Rafferty stepped toward them. “Come this way. I’ll show you something.”
They followed through another hallway, this one decorated with paintings of deer and rabbits and Pueblo Indian dancers, art that Leaphorn recognized from reading he had done about Dorothy Dunn. In the early twentieth century, the woman led a fine arts program at the Santa Fe Indian School that taught many Native artists a salable, distinctive style that collectors came to love. Walt Disney invited some of the artists to Hollywood to work in his production studio. They declined.
Rafferty opened a door and flicked on the lights, motioning them in ahead of him.
Leaphorn felt the dry, chilled air of the storage room and recognized the museum-quality sliding drawers and movable shelves. What treasures did they contain? On the top of a repair table, an alabaster carving of an eagle lay on its side. The lower third of one wing had broken, and the piece sat nearby awaiting reattachment.
Rafferty stopped in front of a storage cabinet. “When I was in the business, I spent every summer going to Indian shows and art fairs in New Mexico and Arizona. Barbara and I don’t have children to argue over these things, so I’m finding homes for them while I can. I’m donating them anonymously.”
He tapped the label on the drawer as he read aloud: “‘1860s Navajo textile. Juanita Manuelito.’” The drawer slid out smoothly with his touch. Except for a large brown envelope, it was empty.
“If, as the professor so tactfully suggested, I’ve grown senile, the piece would be here. Clearly it is not.”
Leaphorn looked at the drawer. “You sure iz Juanita’s?”
“Well, Detective, I’m sure Juanita wore it because I have a photograph of her wearing it. And because of the times, I’m almost positive she wove it herself.” He picked up the envelope, opened the flap, and slipped out a piece of paper, a photocopy of a portrait, a second color photo, and a typed sheet.
“Here she is.” The black-and-white reproduction showed a young Juanita, fiercely beautiful, dressed in a biil. Unlike the dress she wore in the famous portrait with her husband, this garment was simpler.
The second photo was a color shot of the dress itself in what looked like a plastic bag.
Leaphorn pulled out his phone and moved his index finger up and down, as though it were on a camera’s shutter. “A pitcher?”
Rafferty shrugged. “Go ahead as long as you promise not to tell anyone where you took it.”
Leaphorn snapped a few shots.
Louisa said, “Why is the biil in that bag?”
“Textiles are prone to insect infestation. The same is true with artifacts that have leather, feathers, anything that a moth or a silverfish might consider edible. It was stored with pesticides to keep it safe.”
Leaphorn frowned.
“Don’t worry, Mr. Detective. I made sure the toxins were removed before I shipped it.” Rafferty replaced the papers, closed the drawer, and led them back through the house.
“One mo question. Insurance?”
“Everything in the house is insured. But the box?” Rafferty sighed. “No. Because I sent it anonymously, I couldn’t insure it. Everything I have ever mailed through the post office from the gallery always has arrived safely. Every time, for more than ten years.” His voice vibrated, and Leaphorn felt the anger. “Everything, I guess, except this precious dress. Was the box damaged when it arrived?”
“No.”
“Then, Mr. Detective and Madame Professor, shipping insurance would not have made a difference. You are dealing with a case of theft.”
As they followed him toward the front door, Leaphorn thought of how to pose a complicated question with the fewest words. “I nee to axe another kestin bout da gifs.”
“Excuse me?” Rafferty frowned. “Was anything else missing?”
“Yes.”
Louisa answered before he could find the words. “A bracelet by a Navajo artist named Peshlakai.”
“I think your friend has a robber on her staff.” Rafferty opened the big front door.
“May we be in touch if the museum has a question about something you’ve sent?”
He hesitated, then extracted a slim black wallet and handed each of them a white business card. “I trust you to protect my anonymity. Understand?”
“Of course.”
Leaphorn nodded slightly and put the card in his pocket.
Rafferty closed the door behind them.
As they drove away, Mary passed them driving the white Mercedes, headed toward the house.
Louisa said, “We’ve got a lot to talk about on the way to Flagstaff.”
17
Jim Chee returned to the Chinle station for another look at the burglary reports. If he learned as much as he could today, he could save himself a drive tomorrow and use the phone and computer instead of gasoline and boot leather to continue the investigation.
This time, he noticed more similarities in the crimes. With the exception of Mr. Natachi’s case, all the victims reported that the break-ins happened on a weekday while they were away from home. Chee checked a calendar. Each burglary was on Tuesday or Thursday morning. Interesting. Did the criminal have a job that gave him those days off? Perhaps he or she was someone from outside the community who had reason to be in Chinle on those days and added crime to the schedule?
Chee noticed, again, that the reports mentioned no “vandalism.” Whoever committed the thefts knew where to look. Some of the places were as obvious as jewelry boxes. Some were more original. One woman, Mrs. Morgan, kept her treasures in a cookie jar on the kitchen counter. Another used a large coffee can in the refrigerator. He wondered if the thief was selling the items to someone who specialized in old Navajo jewelry or exchanging everything taken for drugs. He made a note to follow up with Indian jewelry dealers.
The only case that didn’t fit the pattern was Mr. Natachi’s. Chee remembered the house and realized that Mr. Natachi’s television had not been stolen from its place of honor in the living room. The intruder left the valuable rodeo buckle, also in plain view, untouched.
There was, he thought, no such thing as a victimless crime, and these burglaries disturbed his sense of hozho, of balance.
His cell phone buzzed and he glanced at it. It was Elsie. “I called the hospital to check on Mr. Natachi, but they won’t tell me anything. I called Ryana, but she didn’t answer. So I called you. How’s the old one doing?”
Chee heard the worry in her voice. “He was resting comfortably when I checked and the nurse told me he seems a bit stronger.”
“I’m glad. Some of the people here have been asking, you know, the staff and his buddies who come to the senior center. Mrs. Morgan told me to let him know she’s praying for him.”
“Mrs. Morgan? Was she one of the people who lost something in a burglary?”
“Poor thing. Her great-grandfather made that necklace.”
Chee thought about that. “What about other people at the center?”
“My goodness, it has been awful. So many of these elderlies lost things. Do you want to know who they are?”
“Sure.” He wasn’t surprised when her list matched the reports. “Do you have programs at the center every day?”
“No, we can’t afford that. Just twice a week.”
“Tuesdays and Thursdays?
”
“That’s right.” Elsie made a clicking sound. “I hope you can get their things back.”
“Me, too. So I guess Nicky’s program didn’t help much?”
“It should have. We brought him in before the burglaries.”
Chee was closing his computer when his phone buzzed again. This time it was Bernie. He realized he had worked way past dinner and hadn’t called.
But that wasn’t what was on her mind.
Bernie left Agent Berke to finish his examination of the trunk and went back in the house. A few moments later, she saw Berke pick up a piece of paper, study it, then put it back in the trunk.
Bernie motioned Ryana over to the couch and spoke softly. “I need to ask you about something before Berke comes back in.”
The second agent started toward them.
“Give us a minute.”
He frowned, then returned to his post at the door.
Ryana whispered, “What’s the question?”
“Someone mentioned to Sergeant Chee that you’d made some movies. My sister worked with a guy who knows a lot about video and he helped her find the work you’d done. And—”
“Don’t say anything else.” Ryana grasped the arm of the couch so hard her fingernails turned pale. “I know what I did. I was stupid.”
“Did Nicky have any connection to that?”
“No.” Ryana sucked in her breath. “Are you going to talk about the movies with these guys?”
“Do the movies have any tie-in to what’s in the car?”
“How could they? I don’t even know what’s out there.”
Bernie nodded. For once, she knew Ryana was telling the truth.
Berke came through the front door with a look of determination. He and his partner conferred briefly, and then the other man went out to stand by the car.
Berke spoke to Ryana. “Tell me about the items out there.”
“A spare tire, a jack, maybe some jumper cables.”
“Don’t get smart. I found a note addressed to you. Do you know what it said?”
She shook her head. “Like I told you. I never opened the trunk.”
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