So, of course, McGinnis had been courtly, charming, full of smiles and compliments, showing Emma the best of his pawn goods and his collection of lance points, pots, and assorted artifacts?perverse as always. Emma had been charmed.
“I don’t see why you say those bad things about him,” she’d said. “He’s a good man.”
As always when it came to judging people, Emma was correct. In his prickly, eccentric way, John McGinnis was a good man.
Leaphorn was aware that Professor Bourebonette had glanced at him and glanced away. He supposed she was wondering why he was just sitting here. But she said nothing, and made no move to open her door. Willing to wait, sensing the value of this moment to him. He found himself favorably impressed with the woman. But then this sort of sensitivity would be something one in her profession would polish?part of their technique for establishing rapport with those they need to use. How long would her formula cause her to wait?
Cold evening air settling into Short Mountain Wash pushed a breeze across the yard, moving a tumbleweed languidly toward the porch. A water barrel stopped it. The buildings here had looked tired and decrepit the first time he’d seen the place. In the red light of the sunset they looked worse. A plaster-and-stone building behind the main post had been partially burned and left unrepaired, the shed where hay was stored leaned to the left. Even the porch seemed to have sagged under the weight of age and loneliness.
Coyote Walts
Now a naked light bulb hanging over the trading post door went on, a feeble yellow glow in the twilight.
“Well,” Leaphorn said. “He’s ready to receive a customer. Let’s go talk to him.”
“I only met him once,” Bourebonette said. “He helped me find some people. I remember he seemed fairly old.”
“He knew my grandfather,” Leaphorn said. “Or so he claims.”
Bourebonette looked at him. “You sound skeptical.”
Leaphorn laughed, shook his head. “Oh, I guess he really did know him. But with McGinnis?” He laughed again.
The front door opened and McGinnis stood in it, looking out at them.
“After closing time,” he said. “What you want?”
He was smaller than Leaphorn remembered?a white-haired, bent old man in faded blue overalls. But he identified Leaphorn as soon as he climbed out of the car.
“Be damned,” McGinnis said. “Here comes the Sherlock Holmes of the Navajo Tribal Police. And I betcha I can guess what brought him out here to the poor side of the Reservation.”
“Yaa eh t’eeh,” Leaphorn said, “I think you know Dr. Bourebonette here.”
“Why, yes indeed I do,” McGinnis said. To Leaphorn’s amazement, he made something like a bow. “And it’s good to see you back again, Ma’am. Can you come on in and have something to drink? Or maybe join me at my supper. It’s only some stew but there’s plenty of it.”
Professor Bourebonette was smiling broadly. “Mr. McGinnis,” she said, “I hope you got my letter, thanking you for your help.” She held out her hand.
McGinnis took it, awkwardly, his face expressing an emotion Leaphorn had never seen there before. Shyness? Embarrassment? “I got it,” McGinnis said. “Wasn’t necessary. But much appreciated.”
He ushered them through the gloomy dimness of his store toward his living quarters in the back. Not much stock, Leaphorn noticed. Some shelves were bare. The case where McGinnis had always kept his pawn goods locked behind glass held only a scattering of concha belts, rugs, and the turquoise and silver jewelry by which the Navajos traditionally measured and preserved their meager surplus. There was a sense of winding down in the store. Leaphorn felt the same sensation when he stepped through the doorway into the big stone-walled room where McGinnis lived.
“You want to talk about Hosteen Pinto,” McGinnis said. “What I know about him.” McGinnis had removed a pile of National Geographies from a faded red plush chair for Bourebonette, motioned Leaphorn toward his plastic- covered sofa, and lowered himself into his rocking chair. “Well, I don’t know why he killed that policeman of yours. Funny thing for him to do.” McGinnis shook his head at the thought of it. “They say he was drunk, and I’ve seen him drunk a time or two. He was a mean drunk. Cranky. But no meaner than most. And he told me he’d quit that drinking. Wonder what he had to burn up that officer for. What did he say about that?”
Leaphorn noticed that Professor Bourebonette looked surprised and impressed. He was neither. McGinnis was shrewd. And why else would Leaphorn be coming here to talk to him? Now McGinnis was pouring water from a five-gallon can into his coffeepot. He struck a match to light his butane stove and put the pot on it.
“I understand he won’t talk about it,” Leaphorn said.
McGinnis stopped adjusting the flame. He straightened and looked at Leaphorn. He looked surprised. “Won’t say why he did it?”
“Or whether he did it. Or didn’t do it. He just won’t talk about it at all.”
“Well, now,” McGinnis said. “That makes it interesting.” He sorted through the odds and ends stacked on a shelf above the stove, extracted two cups and dusted them. “Won’t talk,” McGinnis said. “And old Ashie was always a forthcoming man.”
“That’s what the FBI report says. He won’t admit it, won’t deny it, won’t discuss it,” Leaphorn said. Professor Bourebonette stirred in her chair.
“What was he doing way over there anyhow?” asked McGinnis. “Didn’t his folks know? Mary Keeyani keeps a close eye on him. He don’t get away with much that she don’t know about.”
“Mary doesn’t know,” Bourebonette said. “Somebody came and got him. Must have been that.”
“But Mary don’t know who?” McGinnis chuckled. “I know who then. Or, I’ll bet I do.”
