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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 pres-ence. 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 204
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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 cush-ions 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 THE SHAPE SHIFTER
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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 squad-ron 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 206
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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.
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“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.” 208
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“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 pretty 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 so-cialize. 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 THE SHAPE SHIFTER
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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.”
Delonie’s lips had curved into a sad smile now, remembering this.
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“I used to get Ellie to come out here sometimes and watch them with me.” He shook his head. “Very good company, Ellie was. She should have married me like I asked her. I think she would have if Shewnack hadn’t come along.”
“I talked to the police who handled that case,” Leaphorn said. “They told me how nice they thought she was.”
“Prison changed her, I guess,” Delonie said. “Did me, too. When I finally got out, I tried to find her, but she didn’t want to see me anymore. I finally gave up. Then, just a while back, I heard she was dead.”
“You knew Bennie Begay is dead, too?”
“So I’ve heard.”
“That means you are a very important person to this man who calls himself Shewnack. The only one left who could identify him with that double murder.”
“If he wasn’t already burned up,” Delonie said.
“You believe that?”
“Well, should I believe you or the famous old Federal Bureau of Investigation?”
“We’ll give you a choice,” Leaphorn said, and began connecting the dots of time and place between a man calling himself Shewnack leaving Handy’s store with the loot, and a man who called himself Totter appearing back in the high, dry Four Corners Country and buying himself an old trading post and gallery. Then the fire destroying a man Totter had hired, who the FBI decided was Shewnack. Then Totter cashing in, disappearing.
“Then,” Leaphorn continued, but Delonie held up his hand.
“And then we learn that Mr. Totter is dead, too,” he said. “How does that work in this blueprint of yours?” THE SHAPE SHIFTER
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“It didn’t, but then we checked on the obituary notice, turns out it was false. The man who called himself Totter didn’t die.”
“Still alive? Where?”
“Just outside Flagstaff now, if we’re right. We think he’s a man who used to be a CIA agent in Vietnam. Mr.
Vang here knew him when he was calling himself George Perkins. The way this funny trail leads, he got caught stealing CIA bribery money, got bumped out of the CIA, took Tommy Vang here out of a Hmong refugee camp, settled—if we can call it that—in San Francisco. As Tommy told you, he was gone a lot on trips. He was gone, for example, in the long period before the Handys were killed, and he was gone again for a long time when Totter was taking over that trading post and doing his business from there. Then—”
Delonie held up his hand again.
“Let me finish that for you. Then, when those of us doing time for the Handys started getting out on parole, he decided we’d see him and turn him in. So he hired himself a helper, burned him up, left evidence to persuade the FBI this was Shewnack, thereby eliminating that problem. That it?”
“Just about,” Leaphorn said.
“Pretty weak connection, seems to me. You want me to think this Jason Delos is Shewnack?” Leaphorn nodded.
“You left out that rug,” Tommy Vang said. “And you left out how Totter stole that pinyon sap so the fire wouldn’t look like arson.”
“Pinyon sap?” Delonie said. “And a rug?” He was grinning. “I know this Shewnack sort of proved I’m stupid, 212
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but I’ve learned some from that. What are you trying to sell me here?”
Leaphorn explained the rug, explained—rather lamely—the sap, the lard buckets, the very hot fire without any sign of those fire-spreading chemicals the arson investigators are trained to look for.
Delonie thought about it, nodded. “If I was the grand jury, I’d guess maybe I’d be interested in all this. But I think I’d be asking for more evidence. Isn’t this all pretty much just circumstantial?” He laughed. “Notice that language I’m using. We learn that doing time in prison. Lots of guard-house lawyers in there. But I think I’d be wondering what you are trying to accomplish with all this.” Leaphorn was wondering, too. Wondering what he was doing here. He was tired. His back hurt. He was supposed to be retired. Delonie was right. If they had Delonie on the witness stand ready to swear Jason Delos was actually Ray Shewnack, the defense attorney would note Delonie was a paroled convict and repeatedly note the total, absolute, utter lack of any concrete evidence.
To hell with it, Leaphorn thought.
“I guess you’d have to say we’re trying to save your life, Mr. Delonie. To keep this ‘raised from the ashes’ Ray Shewnack from erasing you as the only threat left.” He pulled the little gift box from his jacket pocket.
Handed it to Delonie. “Here’s the present he sent you.”
“What do you mean, save my life?” Delonie asked.
He took the little box, held it gingerly, turned it over, read the note on it, tapped it with his finger.
“Who wrote this?”
“I wrote it,” Tommy said. “Mr. Delos spoke it to me and told me to write it down.”
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“Who is it supposed to be from? From this Delos man?”
“I don’t know,” Tommy said. “It’s a little bottle of cherries. The
big ones he uses in the bourbon drinks he likes to make.”
Delonie tore open the wrapping, pulled the box apart, extracted the bottle, examined it carefully.
“Nice thing to send somebody,” Delonie said. “If I thought this Delos was actually that Ray Shewnack, I’d be very surprised. I never did think he had any use for me.
He smiled at everybody, and slapped your back, but you could tell.”
“It won’t have any Delos fingerprints on it,” Leaphorn said. “Neither that slick paper wrapping nor the bottle, nor the bottle top. Nobody handled it, except Mr. Vang here. Delos even had Tommy press his thumb down on the bottle cap. Perfect place for a thumbprint.” Delonie twisted the cap open, laid it aside, looked into the bottle, sniffed it.
“Smells fine,” he said.
Tommy Vang was looking extremely nervous, leaning forward, reaching toward Mr. Delonie. “Don’t eat it.”
“We think it’s poison,” Leaphorn said.
Delonie frowned. “These cherries?”
He reached into his pocket, took out a jackknife, opened it, pried out a cherry, and let it roll onto the table.
He stared at it, said, “Looks good.”
“I think if you take a real close look at it, you’re going to find a little puncture hole in it someplace. Where a needle gave it a shot of something like strychnine. Something you wouldn’t want in your stomach.” Delonie used the knife to roll the cherry onto a piece 214
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of paper, picked it up, studied it. Put it down, frowned at Leaphorn. “Little bitty hole,” he said.
“A Flagstaff private investigator, former cop named Bork, went to see Mr. Delos about this rug we told you about. Asked a bunch of questions about how Delos got it when it was one of the art things supposed to be burned up in Totter’s fire. Delos gave him a little lunch to take home with him. It had a slice of fruitcake with it, and Mr.
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