Then he worked through the Nez homicide again. He fished the Gallup Independent out of the wastebasket where it had landed in this paroxysm of housecleaning. He reread the story of Ashie Pinto’s confession and his indictment of alcohol. Leaphorn agreed with every word of it. Death in a bottle, Pinto had called it. Exactly. Death, sorrow, and misery. The story said Judge Downey had delayed his sentencing pending a medical and psychiatric examination of Pinto. The worst the law allowed under the circumstances would be life in prison. Downey would probably give him something less. But it wouldn’t matter, life or ten years. The story said he was “about eighty.”
Satisfaction from the clean desk waned. Leaphorn considered Officer Jim Chee. A screwup, but an interesting young man. Intelligent, the way he had made the connections to tie everything in. But he’d never make a good administrator. Never. Nor a team player, and law enforcement often required that. Maybe he would work better in criminal investigations. Like Leaphorn. He smiled at the thought. Where screwing up didn’t matter much if you had a creative thought now and then. He would talk to Captain Largo about it. Largo knew Chee better than he did.
He considered everything about the affair of Delbert Nez.
His mother would have said Coyote was waiting for Nez. Bad luck. For that matter for Redd as well. All he seemed to have wanted was some decent pay for his skills as a linguist. And he ended his game killing the wrong person for the wrong reason.
Anyway, Coyote ate Redd. They’d found the old Bronco in a ditch and got him to the hospital, another Dead on Arrival.
He turned to his map and pulled out the few pins this business had inspired. They hadn’t helped much this time.
Even a pin for Professor Bourebonette. The question of her motive. He smiled to himself, thinking of that. Emma had always accused him of being too cynical. She was right this time, as she often was. He had checked on Bourebonette. He’d called an old friend in the anthropology department at Arizona State. Did he know someone at Northern Arizona who would know Bourebonette, the mythologist in American Studies there? Could this person determine how she was coming on her new book? She could. The manuscript was off to the publishers. It should be out early next year. So much for that. He would get a copy. He’d like to read it.
They’d talked of mythology on their way back from Short Mountain Trading Post that night. She had talked a little, and slept a bit, and when she awoke she was full of conversation. She’d questioned him about his own knowledge of Navajo myth and where he had learned it. And then they had covered the nature of imagination. How the human intelligence works. The difference between mind and brain. It had been a pleasant ride. She had talked, too, of the time she’d spent in Cambodia and Thailand collecting animism myths and working with the shamans who select the exact place where the bones of one’s crucial ancestor must be kept to ensure good family fortune.
From his window, Leaphorn could see four cattle semitrailers in a convoy rolling to a stop at the tribal barns across Navajo Route 3. That would be rodeo livestock for the Tribal Fair. He made a face. The fair was an annual problem for every cop on the Reservation. Then, too, it meant winter was coming. This year he dreaded winter.
He would go to lunch. Alone. He picked up his cap, put it on. Took it off again. Picked up the telephone. Dialed information.
She answered the telephone on the second ring.
“Hello.”
“This is Joe Leaphorn,” he said. “How are you?”
“Very well,” she said. “Are you here in Flag?”
“Window Rock,” he said. “My office.”
“Oh? By the way, I found out you did some checking up on me. About my book.”
“I was skeptical about your motives,” Leaphorn said. “It’s one of my flaws. Cynicism. Emma used to fuss at me about it.”
“Well, I guess that’s reasonable. For a policeman.”
“Professor Bourebonette, I think I’m going to China,” Leaphorn said. “Would you like to go along?”
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TONY HlLLERMAN is past president of the Mystery Writers of America and has received their Edgar and Grand Master Awards. Among his other honors are the Center for the American Indian’s Ambassador Award, the Silver Spur Award for best novel set in the West, and the Navajo Tribe’s Special Friend Award. His many novels include Finding Moon, Sacred Clowns, Coyote Waits, Talking God, A Thief of Time, and Dance Hall of the Dead. He is also the author of The Great Taos Bank Robbery. He lives with his wife, Marie, in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
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