Hunting Badger jlajc-14

by Tony Hillerman

  Chee laughed. “What! Us gossip?”

  Largo was grinning, too.

  “Have they connected Bai with any of the suspects?”

  Largo laughed. “That cold air up in Alaska made an optimist out of you. Not a hint far as I hear. There was some guessing that one of the militia did it to get money for blowing something up, or maybe it was the Earth Liberation Front, but I haven’t heard Bai was in any of them. The Earth Liberation folks have been pretty quiet since they burned up all those buildings at the Vail ski resort. Anyway, if anything checked out, they haven’t gotten around to informing the Navajo Tribal Police.”

  “What do you think, Captain? Has your own grapevine been sending any messages about Bai that you haven’t gotten around to telling the feds about?”

  Largo studied Chee, his expression suggesting he didn’t like the tone of that, and he wasn’t sure he would answer it. But he did.

  “If Deputy Sheriff Bai is on the wrong side of this one, I haven’t heard it,” he said.

  Chapter Five

  Officer Bernadette Manuelito was absolutely correct when she reminded Chee that he knew a lot of people around Shiprock. That had paid off. A chat with a senior San Juan County undersheriff, a drop-in talk with an old friend in the county clerk’s office at Aztec, a visit at the Farmington pool hall and another at the Oilmen’s Bar and Grill had provided him with a headful of information about the Ute Casino in general and Teddy Bai in particular.

  The casino came off better than he’d expected. There was the usual and automatic assumption that organized crime must have a finger in it somehow, but no one could offer any support for that. Otherwise, the people most likely actually to know anything considered it well run. No one had any specific notion about who might have been the robbery’s inside man if Bai wasn’t. There was agreement that Bai had been a wild kid and mixed opinion on his character in later life, with the consensus in favor of salvation. He had married a girl in the Streams Come Together Clan, but that hadn’t lasted. One of the regulars at Oilmen’s said since the divorce, Bai came in now and then with a young woman. Who? Chee asked. He didn’t know her, but he described her as ‘cute as a bug’s ear.' It wasn’t the metaphor Chee would have chosen, but it could fit Officer Bernadette Manuelito.

  It was also at Oilmen’s that he learned Bai had been taking flying lessons.

  “Flying lessons?” Chee said. “Really? Where?”

  Chee’s source for this was a New Mexico State Police dispatcher named Alice Deal. She delayed taking the intended bite from her cheeseburger to wave the free hand toward the Farmington Airport, which sat, like the flight deck of an aircraft carrier, on the mesa looking down on the city.

  The sign over the office door of Four Corners Flight declared it the source of charter flights, aircraft rentals, repair, sales, parts, supplies and FAA-certified flight instruction. It didn’t appear to be busy in any of those categories when Chee walked into the front office. The only person on the premises was a woman in the manager’s office. She interrupted her telephone conversation long enough to wave Chee in.

  “Well, now,” she was saying, "that’s no way to behave. If Betty acts like that, I just wouldn’t invite her anymore." She motioned Chee into a chair, listened a moment longer, said, "Well, maybe you’re right. I’ve got a customer. Got to go,” and hung up.

  Chee introduced himself and his subject.

  “Bai,” she said. “He owes us for a couple of lessons. The FBI already talked to us about him.”

  “Could you -"

  “Matter of fact, they wanted the names of everybody we’d been teaching for way back. Then they came back again to talk specifically about Teddy.”

  “Could you tell me if he had his license yet?”

  “I doubt it. You’re-going to have to talk to Jim Edgar,” she said. “He’s out there talking to the people at the DOE copter, and if he’s not there, he’ll be working in the hangar.”

  The copter was a big white Bell with Department of Energy identification markings. Round white bathtub-sized containers had been attached above the skids, and a woman in blue coveralls was doing something technical at one of them. The only others present were two men in the same sort of coveralls engaged in conversation. Probably pilot and copilot. Chee tried to guess what the big tubes would contain, with no luck. Obviously none of these people was Jim Edgar.

  He found Edgar in the back of the hangar, muttering imprecations and doing something at a workbench to something that looked like a small electric engine. Chee stopped a polite distance away and stood waiting.

  Edgar put down a small screwdriver, sucked at a freshly injured thumb and inspected Chee.

  Chee explained himself.

  “Teddy Bai,” Edgar said, inspecting his thumb as he said it. “Well, he’d soloed, but he wasn’t near ready to be licensed. He was sort of mediocre as a student. I already told the FBI fellas if he was going to be flying that old L-17, I didn’t want to be along on the trip.”

  “That’s the one that was stolen? Why not?”

  “He was learning in a new Cessna. Everything modern. Tricycle landing gear. Power-assisted stuff. Different instrumentation. Piper built that L-17 thing for the army in World War Two. Easy enough to fly, I guess, if you understand it, but you’d do a lot of things different than that little Cessna he was learning in.”

  Edgar paused, seeking a way to explain this. “For example that was one of the first of that sort of plane to use wing flaps. But you can’t use ‘em on the L-17 if your airspeed is over eighty. And you have to set the tabs on the ground. Little things like that you have to know about.”

  “And more than fifty years old,” Chee said. “Do you know anything about what shape it was in?”

  Edgar laughed. “From what I heard on the television, the FBI thinks those casino robbers flew away in it. They better be lucky if they did. Unless Old Man Timms decided to spend some money on it since I saw it.”

  Chee found himself getting more and more interested in this conversation.

  “Was that recently? What was wrong with it?”

  Edgar grinned at him. “How much time you got?”

  “Any serious stuff?”

  “Well, he brought it in for an FAA inspection last autumn. Wanted to get the FAA airworthy certification renewed. Way overdue anyway for an overage plane like that one, and he could have gotten in trouble for just flying it. First thing I noticed he’d let the mice get into it. He keeps it in a barn out at his ranch, which ain’t too uncommon out here. But if you do that, you’ve got to keep the rodents from chewing on things. Set the tail wheel in a bucket of kerosene, maybe. So the wiring and fabric needed inspection, and the engine was running sour. Then these things have twelve-gallon gasoline tanks built into each wing root, feeding into a header tank behind the engine fire wall. Had a little leak in one of the lines.”

  Edgar shrugged. “Other things, too.”

  “He got them fixed?”

  “He got me to give him an estimate. Said it was way too damn high." Edgar chuckled. “Said he’d sell me the plane for half that. He was going to fly it up to Blanding and get the inspection done at CanyonAire up there. That’s the last I saw of him.”

  “Would you have a phone number for Mr Timms?” Chee asked. “Or his address?”

  “Sure.”

  Edgar walked across the hangar to his desk and sorted through a Rolodex file. Chee stood watching, trying to understand his motive for what he was doing. What did this have to do with Bernie’s boyfriend’s problem? Had he spent so many hours fishing and fighting mosquitoes in Alaska that he yearned for some way to get himself into trouble? Was he hungering for some explanation of the wildly illogical way the casino bandits had managed their escape? Whatever his motive, Captain Largo would be very unhappy indeed if Largo learned that Chee had stuck his nose into FBI business and the FBI caught him at it.

  Edgar interrupted these thoughts by handing him a copy of a Mountain Mutual Insurance claim form.

&n
bsp; “He had me sign off on his insurance claim. He’d left the plane out in the weather and gotten some hail damage,” Edgar said. “That was several years ago, but as far as I heard, he hasn’t moved.”

  Chee jotted the information he wanted into his notebook, thanked Edgar and headed back to his truck. Then a sudden thought caused him to grin. With the plane now stolen, Timms would be filing another insurance claim.

  “Mr Edgar,” he shouted. “Do you remember what you’d have had to charge Timms for those repairs? When he said he’d sell it for half your estimate?”

  “I think the estimate was close to four thousand dollars,” Edgar said. “But if I was stupid enough to want that thing, and made him an offer, he’d have said it was a valuable antique and asked for about thirty thousand.”

  Chee laughed. That, he thought, would probably be about what Timms would claim from his insurance company.

  “How about using your telephone?” Chee asked. “And the directory.”

  He punched in the Mountain Mutual Insurance Farmington agent’s number, identified himself, asked the woman who ran the place if she still handled Eldon Timms's insurance.

  “Unfortunately,” she said.

  “His airplane, too?”

  “Same answer,” she said. “Or I guess you’d say the former airplane, the one those robbers stole?”

  “Does he have another one?”

  “Lordy, I hope not,” she said.

  “He file a claim on it?”

  “Yes, indeedy, he did. Right away. I just heard about the robbers stealing a plane out there and flying off in it, and he’s on the phone asking about getting his money. And I said, “What’s the hurry. They have to land someplace and the cops recover it and you get it back.” And he said, “If that happens, we tear up the claim.”

  “How much was the insurance?”

  “Forty thousand,” she said. “He just jacked it up to that a couple of months ago.”

  “Sounds like quite a bit for a fifty-year-old aircraft,” Chee said.

  “I thought so,” she said. “But no skin off my nose. Timms was the one paying the premium. He said it was an antique, a real rare airplane, and he was going to sell it to that military-aircraft museum in Tucson. I have a feeling he was using that higher-insured value to sort of—you know—establish a sales price.”

  Edgar had been standing nearby, listening.

  “That do it for you?”

  “Yeah,” Chee said, "and thanks. But by the way, what’s that Energy Department helicopter doing here? And what’s the DOE doing with those big white pods?”

  “Actually, the pods aren’t DOE, they’re EPA,” Edgar said. “You are looking at a rare case of inter-agency cooperation. The Environmental Protection bunch borrows the copter and the pilots from the DOE’s Nevada Test site. They got radiation detectors in those pods, and they use them to find old uranium mines. Get the hot stuff covered up.”

  After he left Four Corners Flight, Chee dropped in at the New Mexico State Police office below the airport and made two more calls—the first one to the Air War Museum at Tucson. Yes, the manager told him, Mr Timms had flown his L-17 down in June and offered it for sale. And, yes, they would have liked to add it to their collection, but they hadn’t made an offer. Why not? The usual reason, said the manager. He wanted way too much for it. He was asking fifty thousand.

  The second call was to Cowboy Dashee, his old friend from boyhood. But it wasn’t just to reminisce. Deputy Sheriff Dashee worked for the Sheriff’s Department of Apache County, Arizona, which meant the ranch of Eldon Timms—at least the south end of it—might be in Deputy Dashee’s jurisdiction.

  Chapter Six

  For no reason except habit born of childhood in a crowded hogan, Joe Leaphorn awoke with the first light of dawn. The bedroom he and Emma had shared for three happy decades faced both the sunrise and the noisy street. When Leaphorn had noted the noise disadvantage to Emma she had pointed out that the quieter bedroom had no windows facing the dawn. No further explanation was needed.

  Emma was a true Navajo traditional with the traditional’s need to greet the new day. That was one of the countless reasons Leaphorn loved her. Besides, while Leaphorn was no longer truly a traditional, no longer offered a pinch of pollen to the rising sun, he still treasured the old ways of his people.

  This morning, however, he had a good reason for sleeping late. Professor Louisa Bourebonette was sleeping in the quieter bedroom, and Leaphorn didn’t want to awaken her. So he lay under the sheet, watched the eastern horizon turn flame red, listened to the automatic coffeemaker go to work in the kitchen, and considered what the devil to do with the names Gershwin had given him. The three had stolen themselves an airplane and flown away, which took some of the pressure off. Still, if Gershwin was right, having their identities would certainly be useful to those trying to catch them.

  Leaphorn yawned, stretched, smelled coffee, wondered if he could get to the kitchen and pour a cup quietly enough not to disturb Louisa. Wondered, too, what solution she would offer for his dilemma if he presented it to her. Emma would have told him to forget it. Locking robbers in prison helped no one, she’d say. They should be cured of the disharmony that was causing this bad behavior. Prison didn’t accomplish that. A Mountain Way ceremony, with all their friends and relatives gathered to support them, would drive the dark wind out of them and restore them to hozho.

  A clatter in the kitchen interrupted that thought. Leaphorn jumped out of bed and put on his bathrobe. He found Louisa standing at the stove, fully dressed and cooking pancakes.

  “I’m using your mix,” she said. “They’d be a lot better if you had some buttermilk.”

  Leaphorn rescued his mug from the sink, rinsed it, poured himself a cup, and sat by the table watching Louisa, remembering the ten thousand mornings he had watched Emma from the same chair. Emma was shorter, slimmer, and always wore skirts. Louisa had on jeans and a flannel shirt. Her hair was short and gray. Emma’s was long and a luminous black. That hair was her only source of vanity. Emma had hated to have it cut even for the brain surgery that killed her.

  “You’re up early,” Leaphorn said.

  “Blame it on your culture,” Louisa said. “These old-timers I need to talk to have been up an hour already. They’ll be in bed by sundown.”

  “How about your translator? Did you ever manage to get hold of him?”

  “I’ll try again after breakfast,” Louisa said. “Young people have more normal sleeping habits.”

  They ate pancakes.

  “Something’s on your mind,” Louisa said. “Right?”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because it’s true,” Louisa said. “I could tell last night when we were having dinner down at the Inn. Couple of times you started to say something, but you didn’t.”

  True enough. And why hadn’t he? Because it would have taken him too close to his relationship with Emma—this hashing over of something he was working on. But now in the light of morning he saw nothing wrong with it. He told Louisa about Gershwin, the three names and his promise — ambiguous and vague.

  “Did you shake hands on it? Any of that male-chivalry stuff?”

  Leaphorn grinned. Louisa’s way of striking right to the heart of matters was something he liked about her.

  “Well, we shook hands, but it was sort of a 'goodbye, glad to see you again,' handshake. No cutting our wrists and mixing blood,” he said. “He had the identification information written on a piece of paper, and he just left that on the table. With sort of an unspoken understanding that if I took it, I could do whatever I wanted with it. But promising him confidentiality was implied no matter what I did.”

  “And you took the paper?”

  “Not exactly. I read it, then wadded it up and dropped it in the wastebasket.”

  She was smiling at him, shaking her head.

  “You’re right,” he said. “Throwing it away didn’t work. I’m still stuck with the promise.”

 
She nodded, cleared her throat, sat very straight. “Mr Leaphorn,” she said, “I remind you that you are under oath to tell this grand jury the truth and the whole truth. How did you obtain this information?” Louisa stared over her glasses at him, her stern look. “Then you say you read it off a piece of paper left on a restaurant table, and the lawyer asks if you know who left the paper, and…"

  Leaphorn raised his hand. “I know,” he said.

  “Two choices, really. After all, that Gershwin jerk was just trying to use you. You could just forget it. Or you could figure out some sneaky way to get the names to the FBI. How about an anonymous letter? In fact, don’t you wonder why he didn’t write one himself?”

  “I guess it was timing. A couple of days pass before the letter gets delivered. Then if it’s anonymous, it goes right to the bottom of the pile,” Leaphorn said. “I guess he knew that. I think he’s afraid these days. That the bandits know that he knows, and they don’t trust him, and if they aren’t caught, they’ll be coming after him.”

  Louisa laughed. “I’d say they have pretty good reason not to trust him. You shouldn’t either.”

  “I thought about faxing it in from some commercial place where nobody knows me, or sending an e-mail. But just about everything is traceable these days. And now there’s a reward out, so they’ll be getting dozens of tips by now. Probably hundreds.”

  “I guess so,” Louisa said. “Why don’t you call one of your old FBI buddies? Do the same thing to them Gershwin’s doing to you?”

  Leaphorn laughed. “I tried that. I called Jay Kennedy. You remember me telling you about him? Used to be Agent in Charge at Gallup, and we worked on several things together. Anyway, he’s retired over in Durango. So I tried it on him. No luck.”

  “What did he say?”

  “Same thing you just told me. If he passes it along to the Bureau, they ask him where he got it. He tells ‘em me. They ask me where I got it.”

  “So what’s your solution? How about disguising your voice and giving them a telephone call?”