“Yes. The police think Santero killed him,” Chee said. “It seems fairly obvious that it must have been Santero.”
“Henry was a sweet man,” Janet said. “He was a kind man.” She paused. “He was, wasn’t he, Jim? But if he was, how did they talk him into being a part of this—of this horrible bomb thing?”
“I don’t think they did,” Chee said. “We’ll never know for sure, I guess. But I think they conned him, and used him. Probably they saw the story in the
“But that doesn’t explain why he would help them.”
“I think Highhawk thought Santero was sympathetic to what Henry was trying to do. In fact, I’d be willing to bet that planting the tape recorded message in the mask was dreamed up by the Santillanes bunch. Maybe they knew he’d need technical help with the timer on the tape recorder and all that.”
“I’d like to think you’re right,” Janet said. “I’d like to think I wasn’t a complete fool. Wanting to help him when he was helping to murder a lot of innocent people.” But her tone was full of doubt.
“If I wasn’t right—If you weren’t they wouldn’t have had to kill him,” Chee said. “But they did kill him. Maybe he noticed something and caught on. Maybe they just couldn’t leave him around to tell all to the police.”
“Sure,” Janet said. “I didn’t think of that. I feel better. I guess I needed to keep believing Henry just wanted to do good.”
“I think that’s right,” Chee said. “It took me a while, but I’ve decided that, too.”
“What are you going to do now?”
“I have a flight this afternoon back to Albuquerque. Then I catch the Mesa Airlines flight to Farmington, and pick up my car and drive back to Shiprock,” Chee said.
Janet Pete correctly read the tone of that.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I had no idea what I was getting you into. I never would have—”
Chee, a believer in the Navajo custom of never interrupting anyone, interrupted her.
“I wanted to come,” he said. “I wanted to see you.”
“Do you still want to see me? I’ll come over and take you to the airport.” A long pause. “If you really do have to go. You’re on vacation, aren’t you?”
“I’d like that,” Chee said. “A ride to the airport.” So now he waited again. He was able now to think about what had happened yesterday. The D.C. police would probably catch Santero sooner or later. He found he had no interest in that. But he wondered what Leaphorn had done to keep Santero from pushing the button. Chee retraced it all in his memory. Handing the museum guard the ball of plastic explosive. (“Here. Be careful with this. It was a bomb. Give it to the cops.”) He'd walked back to the STAFF ONLY elevator carrying Talking God's mask. He had pushed his way through the uproar of scurrying and shouting. He’d gotten off at the sixth floor and walked back to Highhawk’s office. He’d emptied an assortment of leather, feathers, and bones out of a box beside Highhawk’s chair. He placed the mask gently in the box and closed it. Then he searched the office, quickly and thoroughly, without finding what he wanted. That left two places to look.
He picked up the replica mask Highhawk had made, laid it atop the box, and carried it down the elevator to the exhibit hall.
By then the spectators were gone and two B.C. policemen were guarding the corridor. He saw Rodney, and Rodney let him through. Rodney was holding the plastic explosive.
“What the hell happened?” Rodney had asked. “Joe tells me this bomb was under the mask and you pulled it off. That right?”
“Yes,” Chee said. He handed the replica to Rodney. “Here,” he said. “Whoever did it sort of molded the plastic into the mask. Jammed it in.”
Leaphorn was standing there, his face gray. “You all right?” he asked.
“I’m fine,” Chee said. “But you don’t look so hot.”
On the floor between the Yeibichai exhibit and the Incan display three men were sprawled in that totally careless attitude that only the dead can manage. One of them matched Leaphorn’s description of the little redhead with the shape of a weightlifter. Sooner or later he would wonder about what the redhead was doing here, and what had happened. When he did, he’d ask Leaphorn. Now it didn’t seem to matter. And then the morgue crew began arriving. And more plainclothes cops, and men who had to be, by their costume, the feds.
Chee had not been in the mood for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He walked out of the Tenth Street entrance and around the building. He checked parked cars. A wrecker was hauling an old Chevy sedan away from the towaway fire zone, but Chee was looking for Highhawk’s Ford Mustang. He finally found it in a staff parking lot.
It was locked. What he was looking for wasn’t visible inside, and it was too large to fit under the seat and out of sight. If it wasn’t in the car, he’d have to take a cab out to Highhawk’s place and look for it there. But first he’d check the trunk. Locked, of course. Chee found a slab of broken concrete near the sidewalk. He slammed it down on the trunk lid, springing it open. There was a box inside, wrapped in an old pair of coveralls. Chee took off the lid and looked in. The fetish representing the Tano War Twin smiled its sinister, malicious smile up at him. He took Talking God's mask out of the box from Highhawk's office, packed it carefully in with the fetish, put the empty box in the trunk, and closed it.
Two young men, each holding a briefcase, were standing beside a nearby car watching him break into the Mustang. Chee nodded to them. “Had to get this fetish out,” he said, and walked back to the Natural History Museum. He had left the box in the checkroom and went back to the exhibit.
There the FBI had taken over. Chee had unchecked his box and walked to his hotel.
Now, in his room, he was coming to terms with yesterday when the telephone rang again.
“Jim?”
