“I intend to marry you,” she said, rewarding him with a weary smile. “You keep forgetting that. But all you do is keep making more work for me. Arresting these poor innocent people.”
“That sounds to me like you won today,” Chee said. “Charmed the jury again?”
“It didn’t take any charm. This time it wouldn’t have been reasonable to have even a reasonable doubt. His brother-in-law did it and the state cops totally screwed up the investigation.”
“Do you have to go right back to Window Rock tomorrow? Why not take a day oft? Tell ’em you are doing the post-trial paperwork. Maybe preparing a false arrest suit or something.”
“Ah, Jim,” she said. “I have to drive down there tonight.”
“Tonight! That’s crazy. That’s more than two hours on a dangerous road,” he said. “You’re tired. Get some sleep. What’s the hurry?”
She looked apologetic. Shrugged. “No choice, Jim. I’d love to stay over. Can’t do it. Duty calls.”
“Ah, come on,” Chee said. “Duty can wait.”
Janet squeezed his hand. “Really,” she said. “I have to go to Washington. On a bunch of legal stuff with Justice and the Bureau of Indian Affairs. I have to be there day after tomorrow ready to argue.” She shrugged, made a wry face. “So I have to pack tonight and drive to Albuquerque tomorrow to catch my plane.”
Chee picked up the menu, said, “Like I’ve been telling you, you work way too hard.” He tried to keep it out, but the disappointment again showed in his voice.
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“And as I told you, it’s the fault of you policemen,” she said, smiling her tired smile. “Arresting too many innocent people.”
“I haven’t had much luck at arresting people lately,” he said. “I can’t even catch any guilty ones.” The Carriage Inn had printed a handsome menu on which nothing changed but the prices. Variety was provided by the cooks, who came and went. Chee decided to presume that the current one was adept at preparing Mexican foods.
“Why not try the chile rellenos?”
Janet grimaced. “That’s what you said last time. This time I’m trying the fish.”
“Too far from the ocean for fish,” Chee said. But now he remembered that his last time here the cook had converted the rellenos to something like leather. Maybe he’d order the chicken-fried steak.
“It’s trout,” Janet said. “A local fish. The waiter told me they steal ’em out of the fish hatchery ponds.”
“Okay then,” Chee said. “Trout for me, too.”
“You look totally worn-out,” she said. “Is Captain Largo getting to be too much for you?”
“I spent the day with a redneck New Mexico brand inspector,” Chee said. “We drove all the way up to Mancos with him talking every inch of the way. Then back again, him still talking.”
“About what? Cows?”
“People. Mr. Finch works on the theory that you catch cattle rustlers by knowing everything about everybody who owns cattle. I guess it’s a pretty good system, but then he passed all that information along to me. You want to know anything about anybody who raises cows in the Four Corners area? Or hauls them? Or runs feedlots? Just ask me.”
“Finch?” she said. “I’ve run into him twice in court.” She shook her head, smiling.
“Who won?”
“He did. Both times.”
“Oh, well,” Chee said. “It’s too bad, but sometimes justice triumphs over you public defenders. Were your clients guilty?”
“Probably. They said they weren’t. But this Finch guy is smart.” Chee did not want to talk about Finch.
“You know, Janet,” he said. “Sometime we need to talk about . . . “ She put down the menu and looked at him over her glasses. “Sometime, but not tonight. What took you and Mr. Finch to Mancos?” No. Not tonight, Chee thought. They would just go over the same ground. She’d say that if the police were doing their jobs properly there really wasn’t a conflict of interest if a public defender was the wife of a cop. And he’d say, yeah, but what if the cop had arrested the very guy she was defending and was a witness? What if she were cross-examining her own husband as a hostile witness? And she’d fall back on her Stanford Law School lecture notes and tell him that all she wanted to extract from anyone was the exact truth. And he’d say, but sometimes the lawyer isn’t after quite 100 percent of the truth, and she’d say that some evidence can’t be admitted, and he’d say, as an attorney it would be easy for her to get a job with a private firm, and she’d remind him he’d turned down an offer from the Arizona Department of Public Safety and was a cinch for a job with the Bureau of Indian Affairs law-and-order division if he would take it. And he’d say, that would mean leaving the reservation, and she’d say, why not? Did he want to spend his life here? And that would open a new can of worms. No. Tonight he’d let her change the subject.
The waiter came. Janet ordered a glass of white wine. Chee had coffee.
“I went to Mancos to tell a widow that we’d found her husband’s skeleton,” Chee said. “Mr. Finch went along because it gave him an excuse to contemplate the cows in the lady’s feedlot.”
“All you found were dry bones? Her husband must have been away a lot. I’ll bet he was a policeman,” she said, and laughed.
Chee let that pass.
“Was it the skeleton they spotted up on Ship Rock about Halloween?” she asked, sounding mildly repentant.
