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“You don’t think he made the climb alone?”
“Of course not. He couldn’t have,” Shaw said. “I couldn’t do it, and I was a grade or two better at rock climbing than Hal. Nobody could.”
Leaphorn recommended the chicken enchilada, and they all ordered it. McDermott inquired whether Leaphorn had considered their offer. Leaphorn said he had. Would he accept, then? They’d like to get moving on it right away. Leaphorn said he needed some more information. Their orders arrived. Delicious, thought Leaphorn, who had been dining mostly on his own cooking. McDermott ate thoughtfully. Shaw took a large bite, rich with green chile, and frowned at his fork.
“What sort of information?” McDermott asked.
“What am I looking for?” Leaphorn said.
“As I told you,” McDermott said, “we can’t be too specific. We just want to know that we have every bit of information that’s available. We’d like to know why Harold Breedlove left Canyon de Chelly, and precisely when, and who he met and where they went. Anything that might concern his widow and her affairs at that time. We want to know everything that might cast light on this business.” McDermott gave Leaphorn a small, deprecatory smile. “Everything,” he said.
“My first question was what I would be looking for,” Leaphorn said. “My second one is why? This must be expensive, if Mr. Shaw here is willing to pay me a thousand a week through your law firm, you will be charging him, what? The rate for an Albuquerque lawyer I know about used to be a hundred and ten dollars an hour. But that was long ago, and that was Albuquerque. Double it for a Washington firm? Would that be about right?”
“It isn’t cheap,” McDermott said.
“And maybe I find nothing useful at all. Probably you learn nothing. Tracks are cold after eleven years. But let us say that you learn the widow conspired to do away with her husband. I don’t know for sure but I’d guess then she couldn’t inherit. So the family gets the ranch back. What’s it worth? Wonderful house, I hear, if someone rich wants to live in it way out there. Maybe a hundred head of cattle. I’m told there’s still an old mortgage Harold’s widow took out six years ago to pay off her husband’s debts. How much could you get for that ranch?”
“It’s a matter of justice,” McDermott said. “I am not privy to the family’s motives, but I presume they want some equity for Harold’s death.”
Leaphorn smiled.
Shaw had been sipping his coffee. He drained the cup and slammed it into the saucer with a clatter.
“We want to see Harold’s killer hanged,” he said. “Isn’t that what they do out here? Hang ’em?”
“Not lately,” Leaphorn said. “The mountain is on the New Mexico side of the reservation and New Mexico uses the gas chamber.
But it would probably be federal jurisdiction. We Navajos don’t have a death penalty and the federal government doesn’t hang people.” He signaled the waiter, had their coffee replenished, sipped his own, and put down the cup.
“If I take this job I don’t want to be wasting my time,” he said. “I would look for motives. An obvious one is inheritance of the ranch. That gives you two obvious suspects—the widow and her brother. But neither of them could have done it—at least not in the period right after Harold disappeared. The next possibility would be the widow’s boyfriend, if she had one. So I would examine all that. Premeditated murder usually involves a lot of trouble and risk. I never knew of one that didn’t grow out of a strong motivation.”
Neither Shaw nor Breedlove responded to that.
“Usually greed,” Leaphorn said.
“Love,” said Shaw. “Or lust.”
“Which does not seem to have been consummated, from what I know now,” Leaphorn said. “The widow remained single. When I was investigating the disappearance years ago I snooped around a little looking for a boyfriend. I couldn’t pick up any gossip that suggested a love triangle was involved.”
“Easy enough to keep that quiet,” Shaw said.
“Not out here it isn’t,” Leaphorn said. “I would be more interested in an economic motive.” He looked at Shaw. “If this is a crime it’s a white man’s crime. No Navajo would kill anyone on that sacred mountain. I doubt if a Navajo would be disrespectful enough even to climb it. Among my people, murder tends to be motivated by whiskey or sexual jealousy. Among white people, I’ve noticed crime is more likely to be motivated by money. So if I take the job, I’d be turning on my computer and tapping into the metal market statistics and price trends.”
Shaw gave McDermott a sidewise glance, which McDermott didn’t notice. He was staring at Leaphorn.
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TheFallenMan
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“Why?”
“Because the gossipers around Mancos say Edgar Breedlove bought the ranch more because his prospectors had found molybdenum deposits on it than for its grazing. They say the price of moly ore rose enough about ten or fifteen years ago to make development profitable. They say Harold, or the Breedlove family, or somebody, was negotiating for a mineral lease and the Mancos Chamber of Commerce had high hopes of a big mining payroll. But then Harold disappeared and before you know it the price was down again.
I’d want to find out if any of that was true.”
“I see,” McDermott said. “Yes, it would have made the ranch more valuable and made the motive stronger.”
“What the hell,” Shaw said. “We were keeping quiet about it because news like that leaks out, it causes problems. With local politicians, with the tree-huggers, with everybody else.”
