Hunting Badger jlajc-14

by Tony Hillerman

  “Oh. You mean he was waiting for a woman then?” He didn’t pursue that. Didn’t ask her how she knew all this, or why she hadn’t passed it along to the FBI. Didn’t ask her why she had come here to tell him about it.

  “I don’t know what to do,” Bernie said.

  “Probably nothing,” he said. “If you do, they’ll want to know how you got this information. Then they’ll talk to his wife. Mess up his marriage.”

  “He’s not married.”

  Chee nodded, thinking there could be all sorts of reasons a guy wouldn’t want the world to know about a woman picking him up at 4 A.M. He just couldn’t think of a good one right away.

  “They’ll be trying to get him to tell who the robbers were,” Bernie said. “They’ll come up with some way to hold him until he tells. And he won’t know who they are. So I’m afraid they’ll find something to charge him with so they can hold him.”

  “I just got back from Alaska,” Chee said, ”so I don’t know anything about any of this. But I’ll bet they got a good idea by now who they’re looking for.”

  Bernie shook her head. “No. I don’t think so,” she said. “I hear that’s a total blank. They were talking at first like it was some of the right-wingers in one of the militia groups. Something political. But now I hear they don’t have a clue.”

  Chee nodded. That would explain why the FBI had been so quick to announce the aircraft business. It took the heat off the area Agent in Charge.

  “You’re sure you know Bai was waiting for a woman? Do you know who?”

  Bernie hesitated. “Yes.”

  “Could you tell the feds?”

  “I guess I could. I will if I have to.“ She put the coffee cup on the table, untasted. “You know what I was thinking? I was thinking you worked here a long time before they shifted you to Tuba City. You know a lot of people. With the FBI thinking they already have the inside man they won’t be looking for the real inside man. I thought maybe you could find out who really was their helper in the casino. If anybody can.”

  Now it was Chee’s turn to hesitate. He sipped his coffee, cold now, and tried to sort out his mixture of reactions to all this. Bernie’s confidence in him was flattering, if misguided. Why did the thought that Bernie was having an affair with this rent-a-cop disappoint him? It should be a relief. Instead it gave him an empty, abandoned feeling.

  “I’ll ask around,” Chee said.

  Chapter Three

  The only client in the dining room in Window Rock’s Navajo Inn was sitting at a table in the corner with a glass of milk in front of him. He was wearing a droopy gray-felt Stetson and reading the Gallup Independent. Joe Leaphorn stood at the entrance a moment studying him. Roy Gershwin, looking a lot older, more weather-beaten and wornout than he’d remembered him. But then he hadn’t seen him for years—not since Gershwin had helped him nail a U.S. Forest Service ranger who’d been augmenting his income by digging artifacts out of Anasazi burials on a Gershwin grazing lease. That had been at least six years ago, about the time Leaphorn had starting thinking about retirement. But they went far back beyond that—back to Leaphorn’s rookie years. Back to a summer when Leaphorn had arrested one of Gershwin’s hired hands on a rape complaint — a bad start with a happy ending. That had been the first time he’d heard Gershwin’s deep, gruff whiskey-ruined voice -an angry voice telling Leaphorn he’d arrested an innocent man. When he had answered the telephone this morning, he recognized that odd voice instantly.

  “Lieutenant Leaphorn,” Gershwin had said. “I hear you’re retired now. Is that right? If it is, I guess I’m trying to impose on you.”

  “Mr Gershwin,” Leaphorn had replied. “It’s Mr Leaphorn now, and it’s good to hear from you.“ He had heard himself saying that with a sort of surprise. This was what retirement was doing to him. And what lay ahead. This old rancher had never really been a friend. Just one of those thousands of people you deal with in a lifetime spent as a cop. But here he was, genuinely happy to hear his telephone ring. Happy to have someone to talk to.

  But Gershwin had stopped talking. Long silence. The sound of the man clearing his throat. Then: "I guess this ain’t going to surprise you much. I mean to tell you I got myself a problem. I guess you’ve heard that from a lot of people. Being a policeman.”

  “Sort of goes with the job,” Leaphorn said. Two years ago he would have grumbled about this sort of call. Today he wasn’t. Loneliness conditions.

  “Well,” Gershwin said, "I got something I don’t know how to handle. I’d like to talk to you about it.”

  “Let’s hear it.”

  “I’m afraid it’s not something you can handle over the telephone,” Gershwin replied.

  So they arranged to meet at three at the Navajo Inn. It was now three minutes short of that. Gershwin looked up, noticed Leaphorn approaching, stood and motioned him to the chair across from him.

  “Damn good of you to come,” he said. “I was afraid you’d tell me you were retired now and I should worry somebody else with it.”

  “Glad to help if I can,” Leaphorn said. They polished off the required social formalities faster than usual, discussing the cold, dry winter, poor grazing, risk of forest fires, agreed that last night’s weather report sounded like the monsoon season was about to start and finally got to the point.

  “And what brings you all the way down here to Window Rock?”

  “I heard on the radio yesterday the FBI’s got that Ute Casino robbery all screwed up. You know about that?”

  “I’m out of the loop on crimes these days. Don’t know anything about it. But it wouldn’t be the first time an investigation went sour.”

  “The radio said they’re looking for a damned airplane,” Gershwin said. “None of them fellas could fly anything more complicated than a kite.”

  Leaphorn raised his eyebrows. This was getting interesting. The last he’d heard, those working the case had absolutely no identifications. But Gershwin had come here to tell him something. He’d let Gershwin talk.

  “You want something to drink?” Gershwin waved at the waiter. “Too bad you fellows still have prohibition. Maybe one of those pseudo beers?”

  “Coffee’d be good.”

  The waiter brought it. Leaphorn sipped. Gershwin sampled his milk.

  “I knew Cap Stoner,” Gershwin said. “They oughta not let them get away with killing him. It’s dangerous to have people like that around loose.”

  Gershwin waited for a response.

  Leaphorn nodded.

  “Specially the two younger ones. They’re half-crazy.”

  “Sounds like you know them.”

  “Pretty well"

  “You tell the FBI?”

  Gershwin studied his milk glass again and found it about half-empty. Swirled it. He had a long, narrow face that betrayed his seventy or so years of dry air, windblown sand and dazzling sun, with a mass of wrinkles and sunburn damage. He shifted his bright blue eyes from the milk to Leaphorn.

  “There’s a problem with that,” he said. “I tell the FBI, and sooner or later everybody knows it. Usually sooner. They come up there to see me at the ranch, or they call me. I’ve got a radio-telephone setup, and you know how that is. Everybody’s listening. Worse than the old party line.”

  Leaphorn nodded. The nearest community to the Gershwin ranch would be Montezuma Creek, or maybe Bluff if his memory served. Not a place where visits from well-dressed FBI agents would go unnoticed, or untalked about.

  “You remember that deal in the spring of ’98? The feds decided to announce those guys they were looking for are dead. But the folks who snitched on ‘em, or helped the cops, they’re damn sure keeping their doors locked and their guns loaded and their watchdogs out.”

  “Didn’t the FBI say the gang in 1998 were survivalists? Is it the same people this time?”

  Gershwin laughed. “Not if the feds had the names right the last time.”

  “I’ll skip ahead a little,” Leaphorn said, "and you tell me if I have i
t figured right. You want the FBI to catch these guys, but in case they don’t, you don’t want folks to know you turned them in. So you’re going to ask me to pass along the -"

  “Whether or not they catch them,” Gershwin said. “They have lots of friends.”

  “The FBI said the 1998 bandits were part of a survivalist organization. Is that what you’re saying about these guys?”

  “I think they call themselves the Rights Militia. They’re for saving the Bill of Rights. Making the Forest Service, and the BLM, and the Park Service people behave so folks can make a living out here.”

  “You want to give me these names, and I pass them along to the feds. What do I say when the feds ask where I got them?”

  Gershwin was grinning at him. “You got it partly wrong,” he said. “I’ve got the names on a piece of paper. I’m going to ask you to give me your word of honor that you’ll keep me out of it. If you won’t, then I keep the paper. If you promise, and we shake hands on it, then I’ll leave the names on the table here and you can pick it up if you want to.”

  “You think you can trust me?”

  “No doubt about it,” Gershwin said. “I did before. Remember? And I know some other people who trusted you.”

  “Why do you want these people caught? Is it just revenge for Cap Stoner?”

  “That’s part of it,” Gershwin said. “But these guys are scary. Some of them anyway. I used to have a little hand in this political stuff with the ones who started it. But then they got too wild.”

  Gershwin had been about to finish his milk. Now he put the glass down. “Bastards in the Forest Service were acting like they personally owned the mountains,” he said. “We lived there all our lives, but now we couldn’t graze. Couldn’t cut wood. Couldn’t hunt elk. And the Land Management bureaucrats were worse. We were the serfs, and they were the lords. We just wanted to have some sort of voice with Congress. Get somebody to remind the bureaucrats who was paying their salaries. Then the crazies moved in. EarthFirst bunch wanting to blow up the bridges the loggers were using. That sort of thing. Then we got some New Age types, and survivalists and Stop World Government people. I sort of phased out.”

  “So some of these guys did the casino job? Was it political?”

  “What I hear, it was supposed to be to finance the cause. But I think some of them needed money to eat,” Gershwin said. “If you’re not working, I guess you could call that political. But maybe they did want to buy guns and ammunition and explosives. That sort of stuff. Anyway, that’s what folks I know in the outfit say. Needed cash to arm themselves to fight off the federal government.”

  “I wonder how much they got,” Leaphorn said.

  Gershwin drained his milk. Got up and extracted a folded sheet of paper from his shirt pocket.

  “Here it is, Joe. Am I safe to leave it with you? Can you promise you won’t turn me in?”

  Leaphorn had already thought that through. He could report this conversation to the FBI. They would question Gershwin. He’d deny everything. Nothing accomplished.

  “Leave it,” Leaphorn said.

  Gershwin dropped it on the table, put a dollar beside his milk glass and walked out past the waiter arriving to refill Leaphorn’s cup.

  Leaphorn took a drink. He picked up the paper and unfolded it. Three names, each followed by a brief description. The first two, Buddy Baker and George Ironhand, meant nothing to him. He stared at the last one. Everett Jorie. That rang a faint and distant bell.

  Chapter Four

  Captain Largo looked up from the paper he’d been reading, peered over his glasses at Sergeant Chee, and said, “You’re a few days early, aren’t you? Your calendar break?”

  “Captain, you forgot to say, 'Welcome Home. Glad to have you back. Have a seat. Be comfortable.' "

  Largo grinned, waved at a chair across from his desk. “I’m almost afraid to ask it, but what makes you so anxious to get back to work?”

  Chee sat. “I thought I’d get back to speed gradually. Find out what I’ve been missing. How’d you get so lucky not to get us dragged into another big manhunt as bush beaters for the federals?”

  “That was a relief, that airplane business,” Largo said. “On the other hand, you hate to see people shooting policemen and getting away with it. Sets another bad example after that summer of ‘98 fiasco. You want some coffee? Go get yourself a cup, and we’ll talk. I want to hear about Alaska after you tell me what you’re doing here.”

  Chee returned with his coffee. He sipped, sat, waited. Largo outwaited him.

  “OK,” Chee said. “Tell me about the casino robbery. All I know is what I’ve seen in the papers.”

  Largo leaned back in his chair, folded his arms across his generous stomach. “Just before four last Saturday morning a pickup drives into the casino lot. Guy gets out, takes out a ladder, climbs up on the roof and cuts the power lines, telephone lines, everything. Another pickup pulls in while this is going on and two guys get out wearing camouflage suits. A Montezuma County deputy, guy named Bai, is standing out there. Then Cap Stoner comes running out, and they shoot both of ‘em. You remember Stoner? He used to be a captain with the New Mexico State Police. Worked out of Gallup. Decent man. Then these two guys get into the cashier’s room. The money’s all sacked up to be handed to the Brinks truck. They make everybody lie down, walk out with the money bags and drive off. Apparently they drove west into Utah because about daylight a Utah Highway Patrolman tries to stop a speeding truck on Route 262 west of Aneth, and they shoot holes in his radiator. Pretty high-powered ammunition according to what Utah tells us.”

  Largo paused, pushed his bulky frame out of his swivel chair with a grunt. “Need some of my coffee, myself,” he said, and headed for the dispenser in the front office.

  Sort of good to be back working under Largo, Chee was thinking. Largo had been his boss in his rookie year. Cranky, but he knew his business. Then Largo was coming through the door, holding his cup, talking.

  “With the lines out, and all the scared gamblers scrambling around trying to get away from the casino, or trying to grab some chips, or whatever you do when the lights go out at the craps table. Anyway, it took a while before anybody knew what the hell was going on and got the word out.“ Largo eased back into his chair. “I think just about every track you can drive on was blocked by sunup, but by then they had a hell of a lead. Next thing, maybe nine-thirty or so, the word went out somebody in a pickup had shot at the Utah trooper. That shifted the focus westward. The next day a couple of deputy sheriffs found a banged-up pickup abandoned up by the Arizona-Utah border south of Bluff. It fit the description.”

  “They find any tracks? Were they walking out, changing cars or what?”

  “Two sets of tracks around the truck, but here came the feds in their 'copters"—Largo paused, waved his arms in imitation of a helicopter’s rotors—"and blew everything away.”

  “Slow learners,” Chee said. “That’s the same way they fanned away the tracks we’d found across the San Juan in that big thing in ’98.”

  “Maybe we ought to get the Federal Aviation Administration to order all those things grounded during manhunts,” Largo said.

  "They have anything to match them with? Did they find any tracks at the casino?”

  Largo shook his head, paused to sip his coffee, shrugged. “It looked like we were going to have an encore performance of that 1998 business. The federals got a command post set up. Everybody was getting into the act. Regular circus. All we needed was the performing elephants. Had plenty of clowns.”

  Chee grinned.

  “You’d have loved to come home to that.”

  “I’d have gone right back to Alaska,” Chee said. “How’d the FBI find out about the airplane?”

  “The owner called in to report it stolen. He said he’d been away up in Denver. When he got home he noticed somebody had broken into his barn, and the airplane he kept there was gone.”

  “Close to where the pickup was abandoned?”

/>   “Mile and a half or so,” Largo said. “Maybe two.”

  Chee considered that. Largo watched him.

  “You’re thinking they must have liked to walk.”

  “Well, there’s that,” Chee said. “But maybe they wanted to hide the truck. Or if it was found, keep it far enough from the barn so there wouldn’t be a connection.”

  “Uh-huh,” Largo said, and sipped coffee. “The FBI says the truck was disabled.”

  “Out there, it’s easy enough to blow tires or bust an oil pan on the rocks if you want to,” Chee said.

  Largo nodded. “I remember back at Tuba City you did that to a couple of our units, and you claimed you weren’t even trying.”

  Chee let that pass. “Anyway,” he said, “I just hope that airplane had enough gas in it to get ‘em out of our jurisdiction.”

  “Full tank, the owner said."

  “Makes you think, doesn’t it?” Chee said. “I mean how neat everything worked out on both ends of this business.”

  Largo nodded. “If this was my responsibility now, I’d be getting that rancher’s fingerprints and checking out his record and seeing if he was maybe tied up with survivalists, or the Earth Liberation Front, or the tree-huggers, or one of the militia.”

  “I imagine the FBI is taking care of that. That’s the part they’re good at,” Chee said. “And how about the casino end? What do you hear about that?”

  “They think the rent-a-cop was part of the team. Filled ’em in on when the money was sacked up for the Brinks pickup. Which wires to cut, which security people had the evening off. All that.”

  “Any evidence?”

  Largo shrugged. “Nothing much I know about. This Teddy Bai they’re holding in the hospital, he had a juvenile record. Witnesses said he was acting skittish all evening. Waiting around out in the lot when he was supposed to be in watching the drunks.”

  “That’s not much,” Chee said.

  “They probably have more than that,” Largo said. “You know how they are. The feds don’t tell us locals anything unless they have to. They think we might gossip about it and screw up the investigation.”