remember a couple of other signs that pointed to that conclusion.
All things considered, he liked her, too. She was really smart, she was sweet to everybody around the office, and she was always using her days off to take care of an apparently inexhaustible supply of ailing and indigent kinfolks, which gave her a high score on the Navajo value scale. When the time came he would have to give her a good efficiency rating. He gave her a sidewise glance, saw her staring unblinkingly through the windshield at the worn pavement of infamous U.S. Highway 666. A very slight smile curved the corner of her lip, making her look happy, as she usually was. No doubt about it, she really was an awfully pretty young woman.
That wasn’t the way he should be thinking about Officer Bernadette Manuelito. Not only was he her superior officer and supervisor, he was more or less engaged to marry another woman. And he was thinking that way, most likely, because he was having a very confusing problem with that other woman. He was beginning to suspect that she didn’t really want to marry him. Or, at least, he wasn’t sure she was willing to marry Jim Chee as he currently existed—a just-plain cop and a genuine sheep-camp Navajo as opposed to the more romantic and politically correct Indigenous Person. Making it worse, he didn’t know what the hell to do about it. Or whether he should do anything. It was a sad, sad situation.
Chee sighed, decided the ribs would feel better if he shifted his weight. He did it, sucked in his breath, and grimaced.
“You all right?” Bernie asked, giving him a worried look.
“Okay,” Chee said.
“I have some aspirin in my stuff.”
“No problem,” Chee said.
Bernie drove in silence for a while.
“Lieutenant,” she said. “Do you remember telling us how Lieutenant Leaphorn was always trying to get you to look for patterns? I mean when you had something going on that was hard to figure out.”
“Yeah,” Chee said.
“And that’s what you wanted me to try to find in this cattle-stealing business?” Chee grunted, trying to remember if he had made any such suggestion.
“Well, I got Lucy Sam to let me take that ledger to that Quik-Copy place in Farmington and I got copies made of the pages back for several years so I’d have them. And then I went through our complaint records and copied down the dates of all the cattle-theft reports for the same years.”
“Good Lord,” Chee said, visualizing the time that would take. “Who was doing your regular work for you?”
“Just the multiple-head thefts,” Officer Manuelito said, defensively. “The ones which look sort of professional. And I did it in the evenings.”
“Oh,” Chee said, embarrassed.
“Anyway, I started comparing the dates. You know, when Mr. Sam would write down something about a certain sort of truck, and when there would be a cattle theft reported in our part of the reservation.” Officer Manuelito had been reciting this very carefully, as if she had rehearsed it. Now she stopped.
“What’d you notice?”
She produced a deprecatory laugh. “I think this is probably really silly,” she said.
“I doubt it,” Chee said, thinking he would like to get his mind off of Janet Pete and quit trying to find a way to turn back the clock and make things the way they used to be. “Why don’t you just go ahead and tell me about it.”
“There was a correlation between multiple-theft reports and Mr. Sam seeing a big banged-up dirty white camper truck in the neighborhood,” Manuelito said, looking fixedly at the highway center stripe. “Not all the time,” she added. “But often enough so it made you begin to wonder about it.”
Chee digested this. “The trailer like Mr. Finch’s rig?” he said. “The New Mexico brand inspector’s camper?”
“Yes, sir.” She laughed again. “I said it was probably silly.”
“Well, I guess our theft reports would be passed along to him. Then he’d come out here to see about it.” Officer Manuelito kept her eyes on the road, her lips opened as if she were about to say something. But she didn’t. She simply looked disappointed.
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15/03/2008 19:57
TheFallenMan
file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/Floop/Local%20Settings/Te...
“Wait a minute,” Chee said, as understanding belatedly dawned. “Was Hosteen Sam seeing Finch’s trailer after the thefts were reported? Or—”
“Usually before,” Bernie said. “Sometimes both, but usually before. But you know how that is. Sometimes the cattle are gone for a while before the owner notices they’re missing.”
Bernie drove, looking very tense. Chee digested what she’d told him. Suddenly he slammed his right hand against his leg. “How about that?” he said. “That wily old devil.”
Officer Manuelito relaxed, grinned. “You think so? You think that might be right?”
“I’d bet on it,” Chee said. “He’d have everything going for him. All the proper legal forms for moving cattle. All the brand information. All the reasons for being where the cattle are. And all cops would know him as one of them. Perfect.” Bernie was grinning even wider, delighted. “Yes,” she said. “That’s sort of what I was thinking.”
“Now we need to find out how he markets them. And how he gets them from the pasture to the feedlots.”
“I think it’s in the trailer,” Bernie said.
“The trailer? You mean he hauls cattle in his house trailer?”
