“Had a Tyler die a few weeks after that date,” Bradley said. “But that was a woman.”
“I wonder if whoever sent the obituary to the paper had the hospital right. Seems unlikely, but you—”
“Well, the obituary said this Totter was buried in the Veterans Administration cemetery. Turns out he wasn’t. No record of it, and the VA keeps good records.”
“Well, I thank you,” Leaphorn said. “I can’t say I’m surprised.”
“I am,” Bradley said. “Why would anybody pull a stunt like that?”
“I’m afraid I don’t know,” Leaphorn said. “Did you call Ted Rostic?”
“I did,” Bradley said. “He didn’t know either. But he didn’t sound surprised either.”
Leaphorn pulled back onto the highway, heading for Torreon, thinking how he’d have to handle this. Tommy Vang was watching him, looking curious.
Leaphorn sighed.
“Tommy,” he said. “I am going to tell you some very important things. Very serious for you and other people, too. That call was about Mr. Totter, the man who had that famous rug hanging on Mr. Delos’s wall. You know about that?”
“I heard something about it,” Tommy said. “About his gallery being burned, but somehow the carpet being saved. And about Mr. Totter going away and dying, and being buried.”
“That call was from an old retired newspaper reporter. Somebody about like me. He checked for me back in Oklahoma where Mr. Totter was supposed to have gone. But Mr. Bradley found out that Mr. Totter didn’t die in that hospital there. And he hasn’t been buried.”
“Oh,” Tommy said, looking surprised, awaiting an explanation.
“I think he is still alive. And I think he is a very dangerous man.”
“Ah,” Tommy said, and raised his eyebrows.
“You’re not going to like hearing what I’m going to tell you, Tommy. And I can’t prove a lot of it. But when we find Mr. Delonie, I’m going to tell him all this, too. And maybe he’s the one who can prove whether I’m wrong or right.” He shrugged. “Probably the only one, for that matter—”
“I guess this is all about what Mr. Delos has been doing with those cherries?” Tommy Vang said. His tone sad.
“Yes, and more than that. In a way, I guess it’s about all these religious things we’ve been talking about. About the chief of the evil spirits you Hmong call Nau Yong.”
“All right,” Tommy Vang said. “I will listen.”
“Let’s start way back when you were still a teenager, living in San Francisco. By yourself then, because Mr. Delos was mostly away on his long business trips. We move to this area. To a service station-tourist gallery-food store beside the highway, run by a couple named Handy. One day, a man showed up there. He gave his name as Ray Shewnack, a big, good-looking man, great smile, made friends fast.”
Leaphorn described what happened next, how Shewnack killed Handy and his wife, betrayed his new friends, and vanished with the money.
“Now we skip ahead to when you are a mature man, living mostly alone in California with Mr. Delos often away on a business trip. A man who calls himself Totter buys a roadside store, adds an Indian art gallery to it, does some business. Time passes; the three who went to prison for the Handys’ murders are now getting out on parole.”
Leaphorn paused, studied Tommy, who had his lips pursed, staring ahead, seeming deep in memories. Putting things together, Leaphorn hoped.
“I want you to remember the time element and the places. These three people the man called Shewnack had betrayed would be getting out of prison. Coming back right into this very empty country where everybody knows everybody. Think about that. Remember these three would recognize Shewnack if they saw him. Okay?”
Tommy nodded.
“So then this Totter hires a man, a stranger so it would seem, to help him at the store. Fire breaks out, the man is burned beyond recognition but left behind a bunch of stuff to identify him as Shewnack, who by then is on the FBI Most-Wanted-Fugitives list. Shewnack is declared dead. Totter collects fire insurance, sells the place, disappears. Then the death notice is published declaring Totter also dead.”
“Okay, okay, okay,” Tommy Vang said. “But he isn’t dead. And you are pretty sure that the man who was called Shewnack became Mr. Totter and got rid of Shewnack, and then announced that Totter was dead, and now he has disappeared again.”
“Not exactly vanished this time,” Leaphorn said. “I think we know the name he is using now.” He was staring at Tommy. “Do you agree?”
Tommy exhaled. “Like it would be Mr. Delos, the man who poisons people with fat red cherries?”
“And who, with the latest little packages of cherries, has fixed it very carefully so that if they kill Mr. Delonie, it will be Tommy Vang who brought the poison to the victim, whose fingerprints are all over the bottle, and whose handwriting is on the delivery note.”
Leaphorn waited a reaction to that. Got none.
“Does that make sense to you?”
Tommy nodded. “I am thinking how he had me press my thumb down on the top of the bottle cap. He said it was to make sure it was tight, but it was screwed on tight.” He held up his thumb, inspected the tip, rubbed his hand against his shirt.
“It makes me remember what he told me once, about people. About me. He said when God created humans he let them grow into two groups. A few of them—very few and only males among them—they are the predators. They are like our God of the devil spirits who ate the souls of the others. And the other people. Just about everybody else. They are the prey. The weak ones, he called them. Helpless ones. He said nearly all the Hmong were the prey. But maybe I was the exception. Maybe he could teach me to be one of the powerful ones.” Tommy paused, shook his head.
“Did he try to teach you how to be powerful?”
“At first, when we were living in that hotel. But pretty soon, he got very angry and gave up. Told me to just forget about it. And then after a while, he would try to teach me things again.”
“Did things happen to cause that?”
“I guess I just kept disappointing him. But finally, I came into the dining room where he had all the silver stuff, and I saw the old woman who worked for him putting some of the big serving spoons into her purse. I told her she better put them back because Mr. Delos would miss them, and he’d call the police, and she’d be put in jail. And then—”
Leaphorn violated one of the key rules of Navajo courtesy. He held up his hand, interrupting. “Let me guess. He was angry. He told you that you should have let her take the stolen stuff down to the exit, catch her there leaving, get hotel security involved, and then let her know that she was thereafter at your mercy. Anytime she didn’t follow your orders, you could bring charges against her.”
Tommy was nodding. “That’s the way it was. He sat me down, told me how powerful people get to be powerful. How they get control. But I think he saw it might not do any good, so he just got up and told me he guessed I would always be a prey. That I better start learning. And he walked away.”
“No more trying to make you a powerful person?”
“Not since then. Not hardly any.”
“Well, let’s go then and see if we can find Mr. Delonie.”
Two pickup trucks and an aged Chevy sedan were parked at the Torreon Chapter House, but the owner of one truck was leaving. No, he hadn’t seen Delonie today and wasn’t sure where he would be. The other truck, on closer inspection, proved to have been left there with a blown rear tire, and no one was inside the building except Mrs. Sandra Nezbah, a sturdily built, middle-aged woman who greeted them with a warm smile. But no, she wasn’t sure where Delonie might be found now. She looked at her watch. Probably at home. And where was that? She took them to a side door and pointed eastward, toward the slopes of Torreon ridge. His was the little house with the flat roof and the big barn behind it, and that vehicle by the barn looked like it might be his. “That great big Dodge Ram truck,” she said admiringly. “Has diesel power, fou
r-wheel drive. Quite a truck.”
17
The truck was still there when Leaphorn pulled up by the driveway, turned off the ignition, and waited the polite Navajo moment for the residents to recognize his presence. Short wait, because Delonie had heard them and stood by the barn door looking out at them.
“Ya eeh teh,” Leaphorn shouted as he got out. “Mr. Delonie. We are happy we found you at home.”
“Well,” said, Delonie, still standing at the barn door and looking uneasy. “Is it Lieutenant Leaphorn? What brings you out here? You working for my parole officer these days?”
“I want you to meet Tommy Vang,” Leaphorn said, gesturing to Tommy, who was climbing out of the truck. “We want to provide you with some information, and see what you think about it.”
Delonie considered that. Produced a skeptical-looking grin. “I’ll bet you’re not about to tell me you found all the loot Shewnack took from the Handy’s robbery. Did you dig that up?”
“More important than that,” Leaphorn said. “We want to tell you some things and see if you will agree with us that this fellow we’ve been calling Shewnack is still alive. In fact, still in operation.”
Delonie took a deep breath. “Still alive? Shewnack? You telling me that son of a bitch didn’t burn up at Totter’s? Who was it then? What do you mean?”
“It’s going to take a few minutes to explain what we’re talking about. You have some time?”
“I’ve got the rest of my life for this,” Delonie said. He ushered them into his house, gestured around the front room, said, “Make yourselves comfortable.” Then he disappeared into what seemed to be the kitchen. “Got about half a pot of coffee in here, and I’ll warm it up a little and see how it tastes.”
A glance around the room showed Leaphorn that Delonie was not better than most in bachelor housekeeping. For seating it offered a massive old sofa, its sagging cushions partly hidden by an army blanket; a recliner chair upholstered in cracked black plastic; a rocking chair with a well-worn square cushion; three straight-backed wooden dining room chairs, two waiting at a cluttered table and the third leaned against the wall. The floor surface was a linoleum sheet patterned with blue-green tiles, but the effect was marred by too many years of hard wear. Beyond all this, a double-width sliding glass door looked out into a walled patio.
“Take a seat in there,” Delonie said. “This java is a little stale but drinkable and I’ll have it hot in a minute.”
Leaphorn was looking at Tommy Vang, hoping to use that available minute to plan how they’d communicate with Delonie. But Vang’s eyes—and his attention—were focused on the view out the window, where a busy squadron of hummingbirds was zipping, drinking, pushing, and waiting around a cluster of feeders hanging from the patio rafters. Maybe a dozen of them, Leaphorn estimated, but they were moving too fast for an accurate count. But he thought he recognized at least three species.
In the little yard beyond the dangling feeders, a larger gaggle of birds were at work. Delonie, or whoever was responsible, had converted the patio into a disorganized forest of fence posts, each topped by grain feeders. These were augmented by a variety of others, some hanging from the limbs of pinyon trees, some attached to the yard wall, and the largest one—a log partially hollowed to hold more bulky bird food and fitted with a birdbath of cast concrete shaped to look like someone’s version of an oversized clam shell. At the moment, two doves were drinking from it. Above and behind and all around the air was aflutter with avian activity.
Tommy Vang was grinning at Leaphorn, pointing at the aerial show.
Delonie emerged from the kitchen. On his right hand he was balancing a tray that held a can of condensed milk, a sugar sack from which a spoon handle emerged, and three cups. His left hand held a steaming coffeepot. He put the tray on the table and poured the coffee.
“Grab one and doctor it up the way you like, and then I want you to tell me how this son of a bitch Shewnack has raised himself from the dead.”
Delonie chose the recliner as his spot for this conversation, but he sat on the chair’s edge, making no attempt to get comfortable. He had poured a bit of condensed milk and a dollop of sugar into his cup, and now he swirled it around. He glanced at Vang now and then, but mostly kept his eyes on Leaphorn.
Leaphorn was drinking his coffee black. He took a sip, suppressed a startled reaction, and smiled at Delonie over the rim. It was stale, but it was hot. And it was the first coffee he’d had for a while.
“First, I want to tell you about Tommy Vang here,” he said. “He’s a part of this story, and he brought you a present. He’ll give you that later, after we do some explaining. Tommy has got to tell you about his part, and that goes all the way back to the Vietnam War.”
Delonie nodded at Vang, took a sip of his coffee, and waited—still on the very edge of the chair. “Yes,” he said.
“Go ahead, Tommy,” Leaphorn said. “Tell Mr. Delonie about the CIA agent, and how he was working with your family in the mountains, and about his taking you out of the refugee camp. All that.”
Tommy Vang did as he was told. Hesitantly at first, and in a low voice that grew louder as he began to see that Delonie was interested—even in hearing about his cooking lessons and his valet duties. When he reached the times when he was often left alone and his boss was away week after week, he hesitated, glanced at Leaphorn for instructions.
“Now we are getting to the time when you are about to be involved. About now this fellow has disappeared from San Francisco and a fellow who calls himself Ray Shewnack has showed up out here. You remember?”
Delonie’s expression had changed as Leaphorn was saying that. He bent forward, eyes intent.
“Damn right,” Delonie said. “I remember that day. Cold day. Ellie and me had been over to the Sky City Casino. Having some lunch, talking to some people, and Bennie Begay saw us, and Bennie brought this Shewnack over. They’d been playing seven card stud in the poker room, as I remember it, and Begay introduced us. Said Shewnack was from California, was a detective with the Santa Monica Police Department. Out here on vacation. Just looking around.”
Delonie nodded to Leaphorn. “How about that? A policeman on vacation.”
“I guess it sort of fits into what we’re going to be telling you. Changed names, changed places, never the same twice.”
“Evil son of a bitch,” Delonie said. “Like those worst kind of witches you Navajos have. The shape shifters.”
“To tell the truth, I’d thought of that myself,” Leaphorn said.
“I could tell he was interested in Ellie right from the start. Sat down, talked about how much he admired our part of the country, said he was going to move out here, wanted to know where we lived. Where we worked. You couldn’t imagine anybody being any friendlier.” Delonie took a drink of his coffee, slammed the cup down on the table. “If I’d just been smart enough to see what was coming. If I just had a gun with me and been that smart, I’d a killed the bastard. Would’ve been a lot better off.”
The sound of rage in this produced a moment of silence. Leaphorn noticed that Tommy Vang’s expression went from startled to nervous.
“But how can anyone read the future?” Leaphorn asked. “Here you are, being friendly to a stranger.”
“Yeah,” Delonie said, and laughed. A bitter sound.
“So what happened next?”
“He keeps showing up at the Handys’ place. Driving a pale blue Cadillac four door. Bought gasoline the first time and got out and checked his tire pressure and his oil.” Delonie produced a wry smile. “Remember when people did that? I mean ask the gasoline pumper to do it for them? Well, he did it himself. That’s how friendly he was. And then he went in, got himself some cigarettes, talked to Ellie and Handy. Did a lot of smiling, being friendly. That kept on happening for a while.”
Delonie stopped. Stared out the window. Shook his head. “Pretty soon, dumb as I am, I could see Ellie was a hell of a lot more interested in Shewnack than she was in me. And pre
tty soon he’d be coming about quitting time, and we’d go down the road a ways, or maybe back over to the Acoma tribes casino, and eat something and socialize. Sometime play a little poker. And Shewnack was filling us in on his career as a policeman, mostly talking about how really dumb criminals made the job so easy for the cops. He was full of stories about that. Then he would tell us how easy it would be out here in the wide open country to get a lot of money by pulling stuff off. Not so many cops out here. Not well trained. Not all that smart, either. Said the secret was knowing how to not leave any evidence behind. So on, so forth. Full of good yarns about how it happened, and how cops really weren’t all that interested in doing the work to catch people. Underpaid, underappreciated, and overworked. We heard that a lot from Shewnack. Just let nature take its course and the dumb criminals will catch themselves. Anyway, I admit it was kind of interesting, and Ellie got real caught up in it. One day she asked him how he would organize one if he wanted to rob a place, and he said, you mean like where you guys work, and she said yeah, how would you do that? And he said, well the real pros we run into now and then in California do a lot of planning. First, will there be enough profit involved for it to be worth the time. And he said Handy’s store wouldn’t be a prospect, because the day’s take would just be a few hundred bucks.”
Delonie stopped, drank coffee, stared out the window at the bird activity.
“Knowing what I know now, I’m sure he knew better even when he said that, but Ellie fell for it. She told him that Handy never takes his money into the bank more than once a week, and sometimes it’s a whole month before he drives it into the bank in Gallup. Told him he keeps the money in a hidden safe. So forth. Anyway, sweet Ellie wasn’t deceptive at all. Any question Shewnack had, she answered. And then, when the time came, what does he do to her?”
Delonie left that question hang, staring out the glass door into the patio.
“Those birds get even livelier than that in the spring,” he said. “Birds get to thinking about nesting, pairing up. Even the Gambel quails are coming in, laying their eggs under the heavy brush out there. And after the hatch, they bring the young ones into the patio sometimes. Daddy quail sits on the wall and keeps an eye out for cats or hawks or anything he thinks looks dangerous. And the mama quail sort of herds them around. Teaches ’em to run into the bushes or hide under things when she gives ’em the danger warning.”
The Shape Shifter Page 16