“Yeah,” Chee said. “Wouldn’t that have simplified things?”
“Then the presumption that went with his disappearance would have been foul play. A homicide to prevent the inheritance.”
“Right,” Chee said.
Leaphorn rose, recovered his Cubs cap from Chee’s table.
“Do you think you can get Largo to make Ship Rock off limits to climbers for a few days?”
“Do I tell him why?” Chee asked.
64 of 102
15/03/2008 19:57
TheFallenMan
file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/Floop/Local%20Settings/Te...
“Tell him that mountain climbers have this tradition of leaving a record behind when they reach a difficult peak. Ship Rock is one of those. On top of it, there’s a metal box—one of those canisters the army uses to hold belted machine gun ammunition. It’s waterproof, of course, and there’s a book in it that climbers sign. They jot down the time and the date and any note they’d like to leave to those who come later.”
“Shaw told you that?”
“No. I’ve been asking around. But Shaw would certainly know it.”
“You want to keep Shaw from going up and getting it,” Chee said. “Didn’t you tell me you were working for him?”
“He retained me to find out everything I could about what happened to Hal Breedlove,” Leaphorn said. “How can I learn anything I can depend on from that book if Mr. Shaw gets it first?”
“Oh,” Chee said.
“I want to know who was in that party of three who made the climb before Hal disappeared. Was one of them Hal, or Shaw, or Demott, or maybe even Castro? Three men, Hosteen Sam said. But how could he be sure of gender through a spotting scope miles away? Climbers wear helmets and they don’t wear skirts. Was one of the three Mrs. Breedlove? If Hal was one of them and he got to the top, his name will be in the book. If it isn’t, that might help explain why he went back after he vanished from Canyon de Chelly: to try again. If he got to the top that time, his name and the date will be there. I want to know when he made the climb that killed him.”
“It wasn’t in the first forty-three days after he disappeared,” Chee said.
“What?” Leaphorn said, startled. “How do you know that?”
Chee described Hosteen Sam’s ledger, his habit of rolling his wheelchair to the window each day after his dawn prayers and looking at the mountain. He described Sam’s meticulous entry system. “But there was no mention of a climbing party from September eighteenth, when he watched the three climb it and then complained to Maryboy about it, through the first week of November. So if Hal climbed it in that period he had to somehow sneak in without old Sam seeing him. I doubt if that’s possible, even if he knew Sam would be watching—which he wouldn’t—or had some reason to be sneaky. I’m told that that’s the starting point for the only way up.”
“I think we need to keep that ledger somewhere safe,” Leaphorn said. “It seems to be telling us that Breedlove was alive a lot longer than I’d been thinking.”
“I’ll call Largo and get him to stall off climbing for a while,” Chee said. “And I’ll call my office. Manuelito knows Lucy Sam. She can go out and take custody of that ledger for a little while.”
“You take care of yourself,” Leaphorn said, and headed for the door.
“Wait a second. If we get the climbing stopped, how are you going to get someone up there to look at the register?”
“I’m going to rent a helicopter,” Leaphorn said. “I know a lawyer in Gallup. A rock climber who’s been up Ship Rock himself. I think he’d be willing to go up with me and the pilot, and we put him down on the top, and he takes a look.”
“And brings down the book.”
“I didn’t want to do that. I’m a civilian now. I don’t want to tamper with evidence. We’ll take along a camera.”
“And make some photocopies?”
“Exactly.”
“That’s going to cost a lot of money, isn’t it?”
“The Breedlove Corporation is paying for it,” Leaphorn said. “I’ve got their twenty thousand dollars in the bank.” 22
THE KOAT-TV WEATHER MAP
the previous night had shown a massive curve of bitterly cold air bulging down the Rocky Mountains out of Canada, sliding southward. The morning news reported snow across Idaho and northern Utah, with livestock warnings out. The weather lady called it a “blue norther” and told the Four Corners to brace for it tomorrow. But at the moment it was a beautiful morning for a helicopter ride, if you enjoyed such things, which Leaphorn didn’t.
The last time he’d ridden in one of these ugly beasts he was being rushed to a hospital to have a variety of injuries treated. It was better to go when one was healthy, he thought, but not much.
However, Bob Rosebrough seemed to be enjoying it, which was good because Rosebrough had volunteered to climb down the 65 of 102
15/03/2008 19:57
TheFallenMan
