“Which exit?”
’Twelfth Street.“
“Nobody checked you out?”
“Nobody was there.”
Surprise again registered on Rodney’s face.
“Ah,” he said. “No guard? No security person? How did you get out?”
“I just walked out.”
“The door wasn’t locked.”
Chee shook his head. “Closed, but unlocked.”
“You see anything? Anybody?”
“I was surprised no one was there. I looked around. Empty.”
“You didn’t see a young woman in a museum guard’s uniform? A black woman? The guard who was supposed to be keeping an eye on that Twelfth Street entrance?”
Chee shook his head again. “Nobody was around,” he said. “Nobody. What’s the deal?” But even as he asked the question, he knew the deal. Highhawk was dead. Chee was just about the last person who’d seen him alive.
“The deal is”—Rodney was looking at Leaphorn now—“that I get a call from my old friend Joe here to check on whether there’s any kind of report on a man named Henry Highhawk and I find out this Highhawk is on a list of people Homicide would like to talk to.” Rodney shifted his gaze back to Chee. “So I come down here to talk to my old friend Joe, and he introduces me to you and, what do ya know, you happen to be another guy on Homicide’s wish list. That’s what the deal is.”
“Your homicide people want to talk to Highhawk,” Chee said. “That means he’s alive?”
“You have some reason to think otherwise?” Rodney asked.
“When you said you had a homicide I figured he was the one,” Chee said. He explained to Rodney what had happened last night at the Smithsonian. “Back in just a minute, he said. But he never came back. I went out and wandered around the halls looking for him. Then finally I went home. I called him at home this morning. No soap. I called his office. The woman he works for was looking for him too. She was worried about him.”
Rodney had been intent on every word.
“Went home when?”
“I told you,” Chee said. “I must have left the Twelfth Street entrance a little before ten thirty. Very close to that. I walked right back to my hotel.”
“And when did Highhawk receive this telephone call? The call just before he left?”
Chee told him.
“Who was the caller?”
“No idea. It was a short call.”
“What about? Did you hear it?”
“I heard Highhawk’s end. Apparently he had been trying to tell Highhawk how to fix something. Highhawk had tried and it hadn’t worked. I remember he said it’didn’t turn on,’ and Highhawk said since he was coming down anyway the caller could fix it. And then they set the nine-thirty time and Highhawk told him to remember it was the Twelfth Street entrance.“
“Him?” Rodney said. “Was the caller a man?”
“I should have said him or her. I couldn’t hear the other voice.”
“I’m going to make a call of my own,” Rodney said. He rose, gracefully for a man of his bulk. “Pass all this along to the detective handling this one. I’ll be right back.” He grinned at Chee. “Quicker than Highhawk, anyway.”
“Who’s the victim?” Leaphorn asked.
Rodney paused, looking down on them. “It was the night-shift guard at the Twelfth Street entrance.”
“Stabbed?” Leaphorn asked.
“Why do you say stabbed?”
Now Leaphorn’s voice had an impatient edge in it. “I told you about what brought me here,” he said. “Remember? Santillanes was stabbed. Very professionally, in the back of the neck.”
“Oh, yeah,” Rodney said. “No. Not stabbed this time. It was skull fracture.” He made another move toward the telephone.
“Where did they find the body?” Chee asked. “And when?”
“A couple of hours ago. Whoever hit her on the head found the perfect place to hide her.” Rodney looked down at them, the tale teller pausing to underline his point. “They laid her out on, the grass there between the shrubbery and the sidewalk, and got some old newspapers out of the trash bin there and threw them over her.”
Chee understood perfectly the sardonic tone in Rodney’s voice, but Leaphorn said: “Right by the sidewalk and nobody checked all morning?”
“This is Friday,” Rodney said. “In Washington, the Good Samaritan comes by only on the seventh Tuesday of the month.” And he walked away to make his telephone call.
