'Harrison Houk,' McGee said. 'I imagine you know him?'
Leaphorn nodded again, his mind processing this. Who would kill Houk? Why? He could see an answer to the second question. And in general terms to the first one. The same person who had killed Etcitty, and Nails, and for the same reason. But what was that?
'What was the message?'
McGee looked at Major Nez, who looked back, expression neutral. Then at Leaphorn. This conversation was not going as McGee had intended. He extracted a leather folder from his hip pocket, took a business card from it, and handed it to Leaphorn.
BLANDING PUMPS
Well Drilling, Casing, Pulling
General Water System Maintenance
(We also fix your Septic Tanks)
The card was bent, dirty. Leaphorn guessed it had been damp. He turned it over.
The message there was scrawled in ballpoint ink.
It said:
Tell Leaphorn shes still alive up
Leaphorn handed it to Nez, without comment.
'I saw it,' Nez said, and handed it back to McGee, who put it back in the folder, and the folder back in his pocket.
'What do you think?' he said. 'You got any idea who the `she' is?'
'A good idea,' Leaphorn said. 'But tell me about Houk. I saw him just the other day.'
'Wednesday,' McGee said. 'To be exact.' He looked at Leaphorn, expression quizzical. 'That's what the woman who works for him told us. Navajo named Irene Musket.'
'Wednesday sounds right,' Leaphorn said. 'Who killed Houk?'
McGee made a wry face. 'This woman he wrote you about, maybe. Anyway, it looks like Houk quit trying to find a place to hide to tell you about her. Sounds like you two thought she was dead. Suddenly he sees her alive. He tries to tell you. She kills him.'
Leaphorn was thinking that his terminal leave had five more days to run. Actually, only about four and two- thirds. He hadn't been in a mood to screw around like this for at least three months. Not since Emma got bad. He was in no mood for it today. In fact, he had never been tolerant of it. Nor for being polite to this belagana, who wanted to act as if Leaphorn was some sort of suspect. But he'd make one more effort to be polite.
'I've been away,' he said. 'Back east. Just got in last night. You're going to have to skip way back and tell me about it.'
McGee told him. Irene Musket had come to work Friday morning and found a note on the screen door telling her that Houk was in the barn. She said she found his body in the barn and called the Garfield County Sheriffs Office, who notified Utah State Police. Both agencies investigated. Houk had been shot twice with a small-caliber weapon, in the center of the chest and in the lower back of the skull. There were signs that Houk had been rearranging bales of hay, apparently into a hiding place. Two empty .25 caliber cartridge casings were found in the hay near the body. The medical examiner said either of the bullets might have caused death. No witnesses. No physical evidence found in the barn except the shell casings. The housekeeper said she found the back screen door lock had been broken and Houk's office was in disarray. As far as she could tell, nothing had been stolen.
'But then, who knows?' McGee added. 'Stuff could be gone from his office and she wouldn't know about it.' He stopped, looking at Leaphorn.
'Where was the note?'
'In Houk's shorts,' McGee said. 'We didn't turn it up. The medical examiner found it when they undressed him.'
Leaphorn found he was feeling a little better about McGee. It wasn't McGee's attitude. It was his own.
'I went Wednesday to see him about a woman named Eleanor Friedman-Bernal ,' Leaphorn said. He explained the situation. Who the woman was, her connection with Houk, what Houk had told him. 'So I presume he was telling me she was still alive.'
'You thought she was dead?' McGee asked.
'Missing two, three weeks. Leaves her clothes. Leaves a big dinner waiting to be cooked in her fridge. Misses important appointments. I don't know whether she's dead or not.'
'Pretty fair bet she is,' Nez said. 'Or it was.'
'You and Houk friends?' McGee asked.
'No,' Leaphorn said. 'I met him twice. Last Wednesday and about twenty years ago. One of his boys wiped out most of the family. I worked a little on that.'
'I remember it. Hard one to forget.' McGee was staring at him.
'I'm just as surprised as you are,' Leaphorn said. 'That he left me the note.' He paused, thinking. 'Do you know why he left the note in the screen door? About being in the barn?'
'Musket said she'd gone off and left some stuff--some squash--she was going to take home. He'd put it in the refrigerator and left the note. It said, `squash in the icebox, I'm in the barn.' She figured he thought she'd come back for it.'
Leaphorn was remembering the setting--the long, weedy drive, the porch, the barn well up the slope behind the
