He pulled his truck out of the lot, stopping to let the northbound traffic pass. The third car looked like Leaphorn’s. And Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn was driving it.
Chapter 25
WHEN JOE LEAPHORN realized that the dirty pickup truck tagging behind him belonged to Jim Chee and saw, through the mud-speckled windshield, that Chee was driving it, his instinctive reaction was to pull off on the shoulder and start asking questions immediately. But he resisted that impulse. He wanted more privacy. He turned down his own street, pulled into his driveway, and turned off the ignition. By the time Chee had parked on the street, Leaphorn was standing beside his truck.
“Where have you been?” Leaphorn asked, pleased that he’d kept the emotion out of his voice.
“I thought you’d gone to China,” Chee said. It was the wrong thing to say. Chee realized that instantly from Leaphorn’s expression. “I had some days off,” he added.
“You’ve been out of communication for two days,” Leaphorn said. “You know the rule about that.”
“Yes sir,” Chee said.
Leaphorn stared at him. “Are you telling me that since I was supposed to be in China you could take off without going through the procedure?”
“No sir,” Chee said. “I forgot. I had other things on my mind.”
“Like what?”
Like Janet Pete, Chee thought. Like not being able to be with her. Like hurting her by telling her she was taboo. But to hell with Leaphorn. That was none of his business. “Like I think I may have solved that Todachene hit-and-run case,” he said. And as soon as he said it, he regretted it. “And like what to do about Ed Zeck and Councilman Chester,” he added, hoping that would change the subject.
“Ed Zeck and Councilman Chester,” Leaphorn said, with a question in his voice.
“Yeah,” Chee said. “What did you think of that tape? The one I left in your tape player?”
Through years of police work, of questioning people to whom he didn’t want to show his reaction to their answers, Joe Leaphorn had learned to control his expression. He could hear the best news, or the worst, behind the same bland and neutral face. But not now. His cheeks flushed, blood rushed to his forehead, the lines around his mouth tightened.
Jim Chee was looking at an enraged Leaphorn.
But it only lasted a moment. Relief replaced fury. The veils of mystery had fallen away. He wasn’t the victim of some unknown malice, the target of a shrewd and secret enemy. He was a victim of simpleminded boneheadedness. No more suspension, or risk of dismissal, or hiring a lawyer to defend against a charge of conspiracy to suppress evidence. All of that could be fixed tomorrow morning. Leaphorn felt weak with relief. He leaned a hand against Chee’s truck. And then he remembered what this boneheadedness had cost him.
“Why did you leave that tape in my player?” His expression was neutral again, but the voice was cold.
Chee hastily explained how that had happened, and why the call telling him the Todachene suspect had confessed over KNDN up in Farmington had caused him to rush away without an explanation. “I wanted to get right on that before it got cold,” Chee concluded, and looked at Leaphorn to see if the explanation had created the mollifying effect desired. If it had, he couldn’t read it in Leaphorn’s expression.
Leaphorn stood there studying Chee, saying nothing.
“About the Chester tape,” Chee said. “You were asking me if I knew of any evidence of bribery. I know it can’t be used – the tape, I mean. It must have come from an illegal telephone tap. But maybe it will persuade the federals to so something.”
“What do you know about how it came to be broadcast?”
“Just what was in the police report,” Chee said. “The standard ‘middle-aged, middle-sized’ man walked into the Navajo Tractor Sales office. The radio station has an open mike there for announcements. He got in line with the other people and when his turn came he held the tape player up to the mike and broadcast it and then he just walked out.”
“You had nothing to do with it?”
“No sir,” Chee said, loudly. “Nothing. Absolutely nothing.”
“Know anything more about it?”
“No sir.” Chee paused. “Except I guess Roger Applebee did it. The lawyer lobbying against that toxic waste dump.” He told Leaphorn how he’d met Applebee while having lunch with Janet Pete and what Applebee had said about getting some concrete evidence. “It can’t be used in court, of course. But maybe he thought it would cause the FBI to get interested. Maybe to set up a sting. Something like that.”
“I doubt it,” Leaphorn said.
Chee was surprised. “Well,” he said. “They’re into that sort of thing now, the federals are. Running stings. They’ve been nailing politicians here and there for accepting bribes. And twenty-something thousand dollars is a lot of money.”
Leaphorn studied Chee a moment, sighed, and made a decision. Under the circumstances, when he was Chee’s age he might have done what Chee had done.
“Councilman Chester and Ed Zeck have been in the cattle business for about twenty years,” he said. “They run bred heifers on Chester’s grazing lease and a Bureau of Land Management lease that Zeck holds. The twenty- something thousand dollars is exactly what it takes to pay off a Farmington Bank of New Mexico loan Chester signed to buy the heifers. Zeck sold them to the feed lot people, but he hadn’t deposited the check.”
“Oh,” Chee said.
“Only thing wrong about the deal was the price of beef went down and they lost a little money on the project,” Leaphorn said. “But Dilly Streib is going to want to talk to you about an illegal wiretap, and maybe about that radio broadcast.”
“Sure,” Chee said. He wanted to ask Leaphorn why he was wearing civilian clothing on a workday. Maybe he’d misunderstood. Maybe it was tomorrow that Leaphorn was leaving for China.
“Call Streib and tell him,” said Leaphorn. “And call Captain Dodge and explain the tape business to him. And let’s get back to business.”
“Yes sir,” Chee said.
“The Todachene thing. Have you found him?”
“Well,” Chee said. “I think I have the driver spotted. But I need to find the truck before we have any evidence. I haven’t located it yet.” He stopped, hoping Leaphorn wouldn’t press him for details. Leaphorn didn’t.
“Let that go for a while. We want to pick up that Kanitewa boy and find out if he saw anything that day at Eric Dorsey’s shop.” He told Chee what he had learned about the Tano Lincoln Cane and the Pojoaque Lincoln Cane and about collectors of historic rarities, and his conclusions about Asher Davis.
“It’s like your Todachene suspect, though,” Leaphorn said. “We don’t have any concrete evidence. Just circumstantial stuff. Unless the Kanitewa kid saw something helpful.”
Chee cleared his throat. “You mean,” he said, “Asher Davis killed Eric Dorsey?”
“Except we don’t have any evidence.”
“Lieutenant,” Chee said. “Asher Davis was out on the Hopi Reservation when Dorsey was killed. He was out there with Cowboy Dashee, buying stuff from Dashee’s relatives. About the time Dorsey was killed they were eating lunch with Dashee’s uncle at the Hopi Cultural Center.”
Leaphorn lost his neutral expression again. But only for a moment.
“Well, now,” he said. “That’s interesting.”
Chee cleared his throat again.
“Lieutenant, was I wrong about you taking leave and going to China? Did I get the date wrong?”
“No,” Leaphorn said. “I had to call it off. I got suspended and I had to stay for the investigation.”
“My God!” Chee said. “Suspended! Why would you get suspended?”
Leaphorn told him.
