Chee knew now what she reminded him of. Her brother was the pilot. 'I don't think he had any suffering,' Chee said. 'It must have happened in an instant. Too quick to know what happened.'
'And what did happen?' Miss Pauling asked. She gestured toward the outcrop. 'I can't believe he would just fly right into this.'
'He didn't, exactly,' Chee said. 'His wheels touched down about fifty yards up there. He was on the ground.'
She was staring at the wreckage, her face still stunned. Chee wasn't sure she had heard him. 'Something must have happened to him,' she said, as if to herself. 'He would never have flown right into this.'
'It was in the dark,' Chee said. 'Didn't they tell you that?'
'They didn't tell me anything,' Miss Pauling said. She seemed to really see Chee for the first time. 'Just that he crashed, and he was dead, and the police think he was flying in some contraband, and that a policeman named Jim Chee was the one who saw it all.'
'I didn't see it,' Chee said. 'I heard it. It was a couple of hours before dawn. The moon was down.' Chee described what had happened. The lawyer listened intently, his moist eyes studying Chee's face. Chee didn't mention hearing the shot, or the other sounds.
The woman's face was incredulous. 'He landed in the pitch dark?' she asked. 'He used to be in the Tactical Air Force. But on an airfield. And with radar. I worried about it. But I can't believe he'd just land blind.'
'He didn't,' Chee said. He gestured up the bed of the wash. 'He'd landed at least three times before. Just a day or two earlier, the way the tracks look. Probably in the daylight. Practicing, I'd guess. And then when he made this landing, he had lights.'
'Lights?' the lawyer asked.
'It looks like battery lanterns,' Chee said. 'A row of them on the ground.'
Miss Pauling was staring up the wash, looking baffled.
'They left their marks,' Chee explained. 'I'll show you.'
He led them down the side of the wash. Was the watcher still out there somewhere? If he was, what would he think of all this? If the watcher was Johnson, or one of Johnson's dea people assigned to follow Chee, he'd never believe this meeting was not prearranged. Chee considered that. It didn't bother him.
They walked along the narrow strip of shade cast by the almost vertical wall of the wash. Beyond this shadow, the sunlight glittered from the gray-yellow surface of the arroyo bottom. Heat waves shimmered from the flatness and the only sound was boot soles on the sand.
Behind him the lawyer cleared his throat. 'Mr. Chee,' he said. 'That car you mentioned in your report, driving away—did you get a look at it?'
'You read the report?' Chee asked. He was surprised, but he didn't look around. It was exactly what Largo had predicted.
'We stopped at your police station at Tuba City,' the attorney said. 'They showed it to me.'
Of course, Chee thought. Why not? The man was the attorney of the accident victim. The attorney and the next of kin.
'It was gone,' Chee said. 'I heard the engine starting. A car or maybe a pickup truck.'
'The shot,' the attorney asked. 'Rifle? Shotgun? Pistol?'
That's an interesting question, Chee thought. 'Not a shotgun. Probably a pistol,' he said. The memory of the sound echoed in his mind. Probably a large pistol.
'Would you say a twenty-two, or something larger? A thirty-two? A thirty-eight?'
Another interesting question. 'I'd be guessing,' Chee said.
'Would you mind?'
'I'd guess a thirty-eight, or larger,' Chee said. What would the next question be? Chee's guess at who pulled the trigger, maybe.
'I've always been interested in guns,' the lawyer said.
And then they were opposite the place where the plane had first touched down. Chee moved out of the shade and walked into the glittering heat. He squatted beside the marks.
'Here,' he said. 'See? Here's where the right wheel first touched.' He pointed. 'And there the left wheel. He had the plane almost exactly level.'
Near this touchdown point, a line about two inches deep had been drawn across the sand. Chee rose and took a dozen steps down the track. 'Here the nose wheel touched,' he said. 'I think Pauling drew that line to mark the place. And over there… See the tracks?' Chee pointed toward the center of the wash. 'That's where he took off both times.'
'Or maybe he landed over there and took off here,' the lawyer said in his soft voice. He laughed a mild, soft sound. 'But what difference is it?'
'Not much,' Chee said. 'But he did land here. Deeper impression at the impact point, and the bounce marks. And if you go over there and take a close look, you notice the sand is blown back more on the tracks where he lifted off. Engine really revving up then, you know, and idling when he landed.'
The attorney's soft eyes were examining Chee. 'Yes,' he said. 'Of course. Can you still read that in the sand?'
'If you look,' Chee said.
Miss Pauling was staring down the wash toward the wreckage. 'But if he touched down here, he had plenty of time to stop. He had more room than he needed.'
