9
“We’ve got a new lead on the shooting,” Chee said. “One of the prints in the car traced to a guy with a record and a motive. Garrison Tsosie. He’s been arrested for fighting, DWI, disturbing the peace.”
“Like a lot of young guys,” Bernie said. “Some of my clan brothers.”
“Let me finish. Garrison has a brother serving time in the penitentiary because of Leaphorn. Now, all I have to do is track him down at his place in Crownpoint, get him to confess to shooting the lieutenant, and explain how Jackson Benally is involved in all this. Case closed.”
Bernie smiled. “You know—”
“Don’t say it,” Chee said. “It’s never that easy.”
“But it’s something,” she said. “What about Nez?”
“No luck finding him,” Chee said. “But other than the prints in the car that might be his, no motive, no connection to Leaphorn, no criminal record. He’s the invisible man and just became a low priority thanks to the Tsosie link.”
“We must have Garrison’s brother in the files. I’ll look for Tsosies.”
“That’ll help. But first, my wonderful homemade dessert,” he said. “An old family recipe. Jell-O with fruit cocktail.”
“And cookies?”
“Tomorrow,” he said. “I’ll make some to go with the ice cream.”
Bernie put bowls and spoons on the table. Chee dished the Jell-O, squirted on the whipped topping direct from the red spray can. The cat came to attention and strolled into the kitchen. Chee gave her some, too.
Bernie’s list organized Leaphorn’s police files into two groups. The first featured suspects whom Leaphorn had sent to prison for violent crimes, with those convicted of violence involving a law enforcement officer topping the list. The other group were those incarcerated for drugs sales, burglary, and the like. In the second batch, among several Tsosies, they found a Notah Tsosie with the same Crownpoint, New Mexico, address as Garrison.
“Lieutenant Leaphorn arrested Notah for stealing cars,” she said. “One of the last cases he worked before he retired. Not much special here, as far as I can tell. You think he could be the ghost from the past Leaphorn mentioned to Louisa?”
Chee said, “The whole idea of Leaphorn talking about ghosts doesn’t sit right with me. I remember him telling me more than once that people get into enough trouble on their own, without any supernatural help. Maybe Louisa wasn’t remembering correctly.”
Bernie said, “Hey, she’s a researcher, always collecting stories for that book she’s working on. She couldn’t do her job if she didn’t know how to listen.”
“I’m sure she uses a tape recorder,” Chee said. “And a notebook. Did Leaphorn’s notebook have the info on relatives you needed?”
“Maybe,” she said. “He wrote everything in funny codes, but I got a hit on a guy in Farmington. Could you take a look?”
She went into the bedroom and got the notebook out of her backpack. The cat, she noticed, had not only decided to sleep on the bed, she’d curled up on Chee’s pillow. She scooped up the cat—no resistance this time—and took it back with her to the living room. She put the cat on the couch and handed Chee the little book.
“Turn to the back, where he glued in that page,” she said.
Chee glanced at it. Bernie told him her theory about the addresses.
“I called Austin Lee, left a message. So far, no word.”
“I can have someone follow up, since it is part of the investigation,” Chee said. “If this Tsosie guy doesn’t pan out, we might need these alleged relatives as suspects or as information sources.”
He sighed. “This is the point in the investigation where I would pick up the phone and make that call I dreaded making. I’d talk to him. He’d help me realize how blind I was for not seeing what was right in front of me.”
“You’re doing fine,” Bernie said. “If I’d run a little faster, I could have gotten a better description of the shooter. Maybe gotten a shot off. Saved us all a bunch of grief.”
“Don’t go there,” Chee said.
“You either.”
Chee thumbed through the notebook. “Did you get some ideas from anything else in here? Any references to ghosts wanting to take him to lunch?”
She shook her head. “I glanced at his calendar. Some of those appointments might be worth following up on if we can figure out the who and where.”
Chee turned to the calendar. “EFB, twelve-thirty. The Friday before the shooting.”
“I should have made the connection,” Bernie said.
Chee thumbed toward the front of the book and stopped. “Did you see this?” He held up the page of Leaphorn’s sketches. “I like these. They look like linked triangles, upside-down mountains. I never knew he was an artist.”
She said, “I wonder why he made those?”
“He might have just been doodling,” Chee said. “Did you see anything else like this in the notebook?”
The phone rang again. “I’m sure it’s for you,” she said.
“Let it go,” Chee said. “If it’s important they’ll leave a message.”
“Maybe it’s Louisa,” Bernie said. “Calling to confess.”
Chee looked at the ID screen. Picked it up.
“Agent Cordova, you’re working late,” he said. A pause, then Chee said, “The number we gave you for Louisa’s cell is the only one we have.”
Chee smiled as he listened. He said into the phone, “No, I didn’t ask Benally if he knew her. I didn’t explore that murder-for-hire angle.”
Bernie glanced at him, and he winked. She remembered their wager about the feds suspecting Louisa of hatching up a scheme with Jackson and Lizard as hit men. She hadn’t believed the feds would be that dense, but now she owed Chee a steak dinner.
“Hold on,” Chee said. He handed Bernie the phone.
She listened, shifting the receiver to her other ear, used her right hand to take a bite of Jell-O. “Of course, whatever I can do. Tomorrow? Where? Okay, then. See you there.”
She gave Cordova her cell phone number, then she hung up.
Chee looked at her.
“Cordova wants a hypnotist to debrief me about the shooting. Figure out if I saw more than I’m remembering.”
Chee said, “You seem pretty happy about that.”
“I’ve never been hypnotized before. It might be interesting.”
Chee frowned.
“What’s wrong?”
“He already said you were a good witness. Why bother with this? Are they coming out here?”
“No. I need to meet him and the hypnotist at the FBI headquarters in Santa Fe,” Bernie said.
“He wants you to drive all that way? That’s crazy.”
“He wants to solve the case. That’s why they’re looking into Louisa and the murder-for-hire aspect.”
Chee said, “I think he likes you.”
“What’s not to like?”
“He’s flirting with you.”
“Cordova? He’s married. I saw the ring.”
“That doesn’t matter to some guys,” Chee said.
“If you’re worried, come with me tomorrow,” she said. “You can see Leaphorn. Make sure his doctor isn’t flirting with me, too.”
“You know I’ve got to find Garrison Tsosie.”
“Maybe I could put the trip off a day,” she said. “Would that make you feel better?”
Chee said nothing.
“You know this is business. Just business,” she said. “You should use Cordova as a resource instead of wasting energy like this.”
“So now you’re an expert on crime solving?”
“Don’t be so touchy,” Bernie said. “So what if he is flirting with me?”
He sighed and rose from the couch. “I’m going to take a shower. I have to g
o in early.”
She washed the dishes and tried not to let Chee’s mini tantrum bother her. She hadn’t talked to her mother that day, she realized, and then her thoughts shifted to Louisa, with no daughters to care about her. Louisa alone now, so it seemed. She had never mentioned her family to Bernie and obviously didn’t know much about the lieutenant’s. Bernie considered Leaphorn’s missing AIRC report. Maybe Louisa had seen it, mailed it, or seen Leaphorn mail it. Then she thought about Jerry Cordova, his nice smile, his well-tended hands, the hint of spicy aftershave. She reviewed how she’d answered his questions. What if she’d remembered wrong?
When she climbed into bed Chee was asleep, or pretending to be. She snuggled next to him in the darkness. When she awoke it was past dawn. Chee’s side of the bed was empty, and the phone was ringing.
10
By the time she bounced out of bed and answered the phone, the ringing had stopped. She noticed that the driveway was empty except for her Toyota.
The message was from Cordova, asking her to get back to him ASAP.
He answered on the first ring.
“Have you left for Santa Fe yet?”
“No,” she said. “I was going to call you. I was hoping we could reschedule.”
“Great minds think alike,” he said. “The hypnotist has a sick kid. She can’t come in today, and her backup is in Phoenix at a trial. Could you do it tomorrow?”
Bernie said, “Tomorrow is better. That way Chee might come, too, give me some company on the drive.”
“I hear Chee is working with this Tsosie lead,” Cordova said. “Depending on how things go with him today, maybe we won’t even need the hypnosis. I thought you aced all the details, but sometimes this procedure excavates a few more tidbits.”
Bernie said, “You have a good interview technique. Very professional. I might steal some ideas from you.”
“Stealing, huh? I might have to take you out to lunch as a punishment and give you a lecture about that.”
Bernie didn’t know what to say.
Cordova didn’t miss a beat. “Tomorrow at nine? I’ll call you if there’s any change. Thanks for being flexible.”
Bernie put on her sweatpants and running shoes—the new green ones she loved. She brushed her hair and went outside into the glorious morning. Along the banks of the San Juan the air smelled fresh, alive. The day’s heat hadn’t settled in yet, and birds flitted in the brush. The old songs her mother had taught her rang in her head, gentle greetings for the day to ask blessings for the world and all the creatures it contained. She thought about Chee, wondered if he still had the grumps. She thought about Leaphorn and told herself that worry would do no good. She thought about her mother and Darleen and Louisa. Her thoughts drifted toward Jerry Cordova, wondering what had brought him to the FBI, if he was a southwesterner, if he flirted with every woman he met.
Then as her body found the rhythm, she just ran, feeling the breeze on her skin, listening to the serenade of the river, relishing the sturdiness of the cottonwoods and the soft gray leaves of the Russian olives. She let the new day enfold her.
When she got home, she noticed that Chee had fed the cat and emptied the cat box before he left that morning. She picked up the phone to call him, and heard the rapid tone that signaled a waiting voice mail.
“Hi. This is a guy who rents the house from Austin Lee, you know, the one you left a message for yesterday? I called him, and he said to tell you he already knows about what happened.”
End of message. She’d been a cop long enough to understand why “a guy” didn’t tell her his name.
She called Chee’s cell. Before she could say hello, he started apologizing. “It’s hard to be married to the most beautiful girl in the world. I acted like a jerk.”
“Don’t worry about it,” she said. “I’ve been edgy ever since the shooting.”
“I think you’re perfect,” he said.
“I’m even better now.” She told him about the Austin Lee call.
“And Cordova called,” she said. “The hypnotist couldn’t make it today. We rescheduled for tomorrow, and I told him you’d come, too. Was that true?”
“Yeah, if you’ll still have me,” he said. “I’d like to see Leaphorn. I think I can wrap up the Tsosie lead today.”
“What’s up with that?”
“I’m on the road now, heading to Crownpoint to talk to him. Could you take a look at Leaphorn’s notebook again, see if you find anything that could be a reference to Tsosie, initials GT, NT, anything like that?”
“Sure,” Bernie said. “That will take a minute. I’ll call you back. Maybe something in that little book can help us, I mean you, solve this.”
“Us is right.” She heard him exhale. “I worry about you pushing yourself too hard, honey. Seeing somebody you respect shot down in cold blood is a big deal.”
“I’m fine,” she said. “I was thinking this morning about those triangles in Leaphorn’s notebook. Some of my old college texts are at Mama’s house. I’m going over there to see if there’s anything in them about sacred symbols. Maybe that’s why Leaphorn made the sketches.”
“That reminds me,” he said. “Something funny happened yesterday with Darleen. She called to tell me your mom had been kidnapped.”
“What?”
He relayed the story.
“There they were, the two grandmothers, happily playing cards in Mrs. Darkwater’s kitchen while your sister was having a breakdown,” he said. “I never heard anybody sound so relieved.”
Bernie had finished her shower when the phone rang again. The ID read “AIRC,” so she picked it up. It was Maxie Davis, calling on behalf of Dr. Collingsworth, asking if Bernie had news about the missing report.
“We searched his truck and his house for it,” Bernie said. “Nothing.” She didn’t mention the copy that might be on his computer. No reason to raise Collingsworth’s hope with speculation.
“I’ll check with the woman who sorts the mail here to see if it could have been misplaced,” Davis said. “It’s hard to find good help.”
“I noticed some sketches Leaphorn made of geometric designs,” Bernie said. “They look to me like what you’d see on old Pueblo pottery. I was wondering if they might have been sensitive images.”
“As far as I know, no sacred symbols are involved in the McManus pots. I doubt that those doodles have anything to do with us.”
“When the report shows up, it will probably explain all this,” Bernie said.
“It might,” Davis said. “Collingsworth is giving us all grief about it.”
After she hung up, Bernie called Largo’s office and left a message about potential relative Austin Lee, thereby completing her assignment. If only the rest of the case would fall into place, she thought, before Chee started to beat himself up over it.
She welcomed the lack of company in her car, the wordless world of scenery and motion, the hour of driving that gave her time to switch from Officer Manuelito who promised to solve Leaphorn’s shooting to Sister and Daughter. Thirty-two miles of paved highway with a steady parade of big trucks heading from Colorado to Gallup through the little berg of Shiprock. The Rock-with-Wings that gave the town its American name to the west, magnificent in its rugged beauty. Blessed landscape. Navajo homeland. How lucky she was, she knew, to be part of this world. To know where she belonged.
She passed Little Water and then Bennett Peak to the west. She thought about what she’d say to Darleen, how to start the conversation. How to tell her baby sister that she worried about her drinking, worried that she was becoming an alcoholic, worried that she didn’t take care of their mother as well as she should, worried that her friend, boyfriend or not, was a bad influence. How to tell her that without also saying, “You are a failure”?
Bernie planned to go right at the convenience store at the junction of US 491 and Nava
jo Route 18. She noticed the police car at the store’s entrance. If she’d been driving a police car herself, she would have radioed to see if there was a problem. But she wasn’t on duty, didn’t have a radio, and it was none of her business.
She pulled into the parking lot and went inside.
Officer Harold Bigman was listening to the store owner, Leo Crowder, a white man with a belly that hung over his belt. Bernie walked up behind Crowder, not interrupting but letting Bigman know she was there. He acknowledged her with a glance. She picked up a bag of nuts, a bottle of Coke, and a copy of Woman’s Day, her mother’s favorite, from the magazine rack. The cashier, a middle-aged woman, took her money without a word and didn’t offer her a bag.
“You having a hard day?” Bernie asked.
The woman glanced toward Bigman.
“Kids. Tried to break in. Probably high on meth or something. Damaged the back door. Someone happened to be driving home past here, noticed the truck, pulled in to see if everything was okay. That musta scared them off. Makes me nervous. One of them lost some sunglasses. Maybe they’ll come back for them. Kids are dumb like that. And then that old one, the policeman, getting shot in Window Rock. Too much bad news.”
“I know what you mean,” Bernie said. “The policeman is in a hospital in Santa Fe where they have special doctors for people with head injuries.”
“Good. That makes me feel better.”
Bigman had finished his interview. “Yá’át’ééh,” he said. “You off to see Mama?”
“Yes,” she said. “She likes to look at this.”
Bigman picked up the magazine and recited the cover headlines. “ ‘Update Your Kitchen for One Hundred Dollars.’ ‘Fifty Foods to Boost Your Immune System.’ ‘Too-Tired-to-Cook Recipes.’ I like this one, ‘Dance Moves for Shimmery Summer Sex Appeal.’ ” He handed the magazine back to her. “These sound more like you than your mama.”
“Yeah, especially that last one,” Bernie said.
“I heard on the scanner that Chee has a potential suspect in Crownpoint,” he said. “Hope that pans out. How’s the cat doing?”
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