think of Emma sleeping in her hospital room. Instead he let the links offered in Chee's message click into place. Onesalt's motivation? Malice, of course. Leaphorn thought about it. It was unproductive thought, but it was better than thinking of Emma. Better than thinking about what he would learn tomorrow when the tests were finished.
The telephone rang.
'I've got Captain Largo,' the operator said, with Largo's voice behind him saying something about quitting time.
'This is Leaphorn,' Leaphorn said. 'Do you know where Jim Chee was going today?'
'Chee?' Largo laughed. 'I do. Son-of-a-bitch finally got himself a sing. He was going out to see about it. All excited.'
'I need to talk to him,' Leaphorn said. 'Is he working tomorrow? Could you call in and check for me?'
'I am in,' Largo said. 'I don't have any better luck getting away from the office than you do. Just a minute.'
Leaphorn waited, hearing Largo's breathing and the sounds of papers shuffling. 'It raining down there yet?' Largo asked. 'Looks like we might finally get some up here.'
'Just starting,' Leaphorn said. He drummed his fingertips against the desktop. Through the rain-streaked window he saw a triple-flash lightning.
'Tomorrow,' Largo said. 'No, Chee's off.'
'Well, hell,' Leaphorn said.
'But let's see now. He was supposed to keep in touch. Because of somebody trying to shoot him. I told him, and sometimes Chee does what he's told. Let's see if there's a note on that.'
More rustling of papers. Leaphorn waited.
'Be damned. He did it for once.' Largo's tone changed from man talking to man reading. ' 'Will go today to the place of Hildegarde Goldtooth out near Dinebito Wash to meet with her and Alice Yazzie about doing a sing for a patient.'' Largo's voice switched back to normal. 'He got invited to do that sing last week. Real proud of it. Going around showing everybody the letter.'
'Nothing about when he'll be back?'
'With Chee, that'd be asking too much,' Largo said.
'I haven't been out there since I worked out of Tuba City,' Leaphorn said. 'Wouldn't he have to go past Pinon?'
'Unless he's walking,' Largo said. 'That's the only road.'
'Well, thanks,' Leaphorn said. 'I'll call our man there and get him to catch him going in or out.'
The policeman assigned to work out of the Pinon Chapter House was a Sleep Rock Dinee named Leonard Skeet. Leaphorn had worked with him in his younger days at Tuba City and remembered him as reliable if you weren't in a hurry. The voice that said 'Hello' was feminine—Mrs. Skeet. Leaphorn identified himself.
'He's gone over to Rough Rock,' the woman said.
'When you expect him?'
'I don't know.' She laughed, but the storm, or the distance, or the way the telephone line was tied to miles of fence posts to reach this outpost, made it difficult to tell whether the sound was amused or ironic. 'He's a policeman, you know.'
'I'd like to leave a message for him,' Leaphorn said. 'Would you tell him Officer Jim Chee will be driving through there. I need your husband to stop Chee and tell him to call me.' He supplied his home telephone number. It would be better to wait there until it was time to go back to Gallup.
'About when you think he'll come by? Lenny's going to ask me that.'
'It's just a guess,' Leaphorn said. 'He's gone out somewhere around Dinebito Wash. Out to see Hildegarde Goldtooth. I don't know how far that is.'
There was something as close to silence as the crackling of the poorly insulated line allowed.
'You there?' Leaphorn asked.
'That was my father's sister,' Mrs. Skeet said. 'She's dead. Died last month.'
And now it was Leaphorn's turn to produce the long silence. 'Who lives out there now?'
'Nobody,' Mrs. Skeet said. 'The water was bad, anyway. Alkaline. And when she died, there was nobody left but her daughter and her son-in-law. They just moved away.'
'The place is empty, then.'
'That's right. If anybody moved in, I'd know it.'
'Can you tell me exactly how to get there from Pinon?'
Mrs. Skeet could. As Leaphorn sketched out her instructions on his notepad, his mind was checking off other Navajo Police subagency offices that might be able to get someone to Pinon quicker than he could get there himself from Window Rock. Many Farms would be closer. Kayenta would be closer. But who would be working at this hour? And he could think of nothing he could tell them—nothing specific—that would instill in them the terrible sense of urgency that he felt himself.
He could be there in two hours, he thought. Perhaps a little less. And find Chee, and be back here in time to get to Gallup by midnight or so. Emma would be asleep, anyway. He had no choice.
'You taking off for home?' the desk officer asked him when he came down the stairs.
