equipment, and stuff, and not paying attention to the mike. It’s just a public service gimmick with the station. Probably they get a trade-out on their radio advertising or something.”

“That description doesn’t narrow it down much,” Chee said. It didn’t need to be narrowed down for him. The man would be Roger Applebee. Applebee had found a way to use an illegal tape that couldn’t be used in court.

He hung up and stood with his hand still on the telephone, considering his next step. Applebee’s broadcast would stir up a lot of trouble, he had no doubt of that. But it wasn’t his trouble. Not unless the lieutenant changed his mind and let him investigate what was going on with the toxic-waste-dump business. That wasn’t likely. His trouble was the Todachene hit-and-run. Chee’s thoughts turned to the six twenties, two tens, and one five, and to the voice of a man promising to send money every two weeks.

“Thanks for the telephone,” he said to the clerk. “Could I ask you something sort of semi-personal?”

The clerk looked doubtful.

“Do you people working here get paid once a month, or once a week, or every two weeks, or what?”

“Once a week,” the clerk said.

That took care of that.

The bins beside him were stacked with fruit. Oranges, then three varieties of apples, then pears, then bananas, then grapes. Bins along the wall held a mountain of potatoes, then yams, then lettuce, then cabbage, then carrots, then onions, then -

The clerk was counting out change for a customer.

“Where do you get your onions?” Chee asked.

“Onions?” the clerk asked.

Chee pointed. “Onions,” he repeated.

“I think they’re local,” the clerk said. “Yeah, we get them from NAI.”

“From Navajo Agricultural Industries?” Chee said. “Right over across the river?”

“That’s right,” the clerk said, but Chee was already heading for the door. Why hadn’t he thought of that?

Chapter 17

EVEN BEFORE he had finished reading Chee’s memo, Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn had come to a couple of conclusions. The first was that he had guessed right about Chee. He was young, and he still had the crazy idea that he could be both a hataalii and a tribal cop simultaneously, and he had a tendency to do things his own way. But he was smart. And in this job, being smart was something you needed to be a lot. The second conclusion was that he should clear up this question of the link between Eric Dorsey and Francis Sayesva now, and the place to start was exactly in the unlikely place that Chee’s memo had suggested.

He picked up the cap he’d just taken off and headed for the door. The first step was to talk to Dilly Streib. Streib would probably still be lingering over his breakfast at the Navajo Nation Inn, where Leaphorn had just left him. He’d get Dilly to make the proper calls to assure that no jurisdictional toes were bruised. Then he’d make the long drive to Tano. Perhaps Dilly would like to go along.

Dilly wouldn’t. He called the Albuquerque FBI office, and got the proper people at the BIA Law and Order Division to set things up across the jurisdictional boundaries. But as far as making the trip was concerned, he told Leaphorn, “Sorry, I got other sheep to shear.

“Maybe you’ve got the time to solve problems for people over in the Albuquerque office. Not me,” Streib said. “Besides, my tailbone’s hurting from all the driving we’ve been doing.”

So, a little before noon, Leaphorn arrived at Tano, stopped at the pueblo administrative office, asked appropriate questions, and got directions to the house of Teddy Sayesva.

Teddy Sayesva showed no enthusiasm for giving a Navajo policeman the fifth repetition, as he put it, “of what damn little I know about how my brother got killed.” But the Tano culture’s demand for hospitality quickly overpowered his irritation. He prepared coffee in the pot on the cookstove, and then perched stiffly on the edge of a kitchen chair – a small, thin man with a burr haircut and wire-rimmed glasses that looked too youthful for a face that was lined and tired. No, he hadn’t been at home when his nephew had come to see his brother Francis. He was a member of a kachina society and had duties to take care of at the kiva society. Except for the boy’s visit, which he hadn’t been home to witness, he could think of nothing unusual happening that evening.

He recited what had happened as if he’d memorized it. Francis had driven in from his home in Albuquerque early in the afternoon. As always during ceremonials, he used Teddy’s place as his home base. At supper he’d seemed preoccupied, maybe worried, but Teddy presumed that was because he had to go the next week to testify before a federal grand jury. Teddy paused after mentioning that and glanced at Leaphorn to see if it needed explanation. It didn’t. Leaphorn had read of that in the FBI report. It seemed to involve an auditing technicality in a banking case with no connection to this homicide.

Leaphorn nodded. Teddy resumed his recitation.

Teddy had left for the preceremonial meeting at his kiva. When he got home, Francis was in bed, sound asleep. He was still asleep when Teddy had left the next morning before dawn for prayers at the kiva.

“I didn’t have any more chance to talk to him,” Teddy said, looking down at his hands as he said it. “The last time I saw Francis he was sleeping.” He pointed into the next room. “Sleeping in that bed there. Where we both used to sleep when we were boys.”

“That would be a hard loss,” Leaphorn said. He thought of telling the man of Emma’s death, comparing the loss of the wife of your lifetime to the loss of a brother. But he could see no consolation in that. For either of them. Instead he said:

“The FBI agent’s report indicates that you had no idea what your nephew brought over here that night to give to Francis. Is that correct?”

“No idea,” Teddy Sayesva said. “The man told me it was supposed to be something long and narrow and wrapped in a newspaper. Like I said, I wasn’t here when Delmar came with it. And I didn’t see anything like that when I got back from the kiva. In fact, I didn’t see anything different at all.”

He gestured, taking in the small, cluttered room. “Where would you put something in here where I wouldn’t notice it? Right here in my own house. Anyplace he might have put it, we’ve looked. We didn’t find anything.”

“We think it might have been something made of wood. Of a heavy dark wood,” Leaphorn said.

“Oh,” Teddy Sayesva said. His tone indicated that this interested him.

“Your nephew said this object, whatever it was, had religious significance,” Leaphorn added. “That it had something to do with the ceremonial.”

“Delmar told you that?” Sayesva’s expression showed his shock. “He shouldn’t-” He let the sentence hang.

Leaphorn cleared his throat. “Actually, he told the officer that he couldn’t talk about what was in the package. He said he couldn’t talk about it at all because he was not supposed to talk about anything involving his religion to anyone not initiated into his kiva.”

“Oh,” Teddy Sayesva said. He looked relieved. “That’s right. He couldn’t talk about it if it concerned his religious duties.”

“And he didn’t talk about it,” Leaphorn said. “When the BIA officer told him he would have to take him in to Albuquerque to be questioned by the FBI if he didn’t tell them what it was, then Delmar ran away.”

Sayesva nodded, approving both Delmar’s action and this Navajo’s understanding of it. He got up, walked quickly to the door, opened it, and stood for a moment looking out into the cold autumn sunlight. A pickup truck rolled down the alley past the porch. Teddy Sayesva waved, and shouted something unintelligible to those who don’t speak the language of Tano. Then he looked up and down the street again, shut the door, and sat down.

“You’re Navajo,” he said. “Do you have a wife from any of the pueblos? Are any of your family married into our people?”

Leaphorn said no.

“I will have to tell you a little bit about our religion then,” Sayesva said. “Nothing secret.” He produced a wry smile. “Just former secrets – things that the anthropologists have already written about.”

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