“Well, now,” Chee said, and thought about it while Leaphorn sipped his coffee.
“Did you see the report on the shooting over at Canyon de Chelly the other day?” Leaphorn asked. “An old man named Amos Nez shot apparently by somebody up on the rim?”
“I saw it,” Chee said. It was an odd piece of business. Nez had been hit in the side. He’d fallen off his horse still holding the reins.
The next shot hit the horse in the head. It had fallen partly across Nez and then four more shots had been fired. One hit Nez in the forearm and then he had pulled himself into cover behind the animal. The last Chee’d seen on it, six empty 30.06 cartridges had been recovered among the boulders up on the rim. As far as Chee knew that’s where the trail in this case ended. No suspects. No motive. Nez was listed in fair condition at the Chinle hospital— well enough to say he had no idea why anyone would want to shoot him.
“That’s what stirred me up,” Leaphorn said. “Old Hosteen Nez was one of the last people to see this Hal Breedlove before he disappeared.”
“Quite a coincidence,” Chee said. When he’d worked for Leaphorn at Window Rock, Leaphorn had told him never to believe in coincidences. Told him that often. It was one of the man’s cardinal rules. Every effect had its cause. If it seemed to be connected and you couldn’t find the link it just meant you weren’t trying hard enough. But this sounded like an awfully strained coincidence.
“Nez was their guide in the canyon,” Leaphorn said. “When the Breedloves were staying at the lodge he was one of the crew there.
The Breedloves hired him to take them all the way up Canyon del Muerto one day, and the main canyon the next. I talked to him three times.”
That seemed to Leaphorn to require some explanation.
“You know,” he said. “Rich guy with a pretty young wife disappears for no reason. You ask questions. But Nez told me they seemed to like each other a lot. Having lots of fun. He said one time he’d been up one of the side canyons to relieve himself and when he came back it looked like she was crying and Breedlove was comforting her. So he waited a little before showing up and then everything was all right.”
Chee considered. “What do you think? It could have been anything?”
“Yep,” Leaphorn said, and sipped coffee. “Did I mention they were celebrating Breedlove’s birthday? We found out that he’d turned thirty just the previous week, and when he turned thirty he inherited. His daddy left him the ranch but he put it into a family trust. It had a provision that the trustee controlled it until Breedlove got to be thirty years old. Then it was all his.” Chee considered again. “And the widow inherited from him?”
“That’s what we found out. So she had a motive and we had the logical suspect.”
“But no evidence,” Chee guessed.
“None. Not only that. Just before Breedlove drove away, our Mr. Nez arrived to take them on another junket up the canyon. He remembered Breedlove apologized for missing out, paid him in advance, and gave him a fifty-dollar tip. Then Mrs. Breedlove and Nez took off. They spent the day sight-seeing. Nez remembered she was in a hurry when it was getting dark because she was supposed to meet Breedlove and another couple for dinner. But when they got back to the lodge, no car. That’s the last Nez saw of her.”
Leaphorn paused, looked at Chee, and added, “Or so he says.”
“Oh?” Chee said.
“Well, I didn’t mean he’d seen her again. It’s just that I always had a feeling that Nez knew something he wasn’t telling me. That’s one reason I kept going back to talk to him.”
“You think he had something to do with the disappearance. Maybe the two of them weren’t up the canyon when Breedlove was supposed to be driving away?”
“Well, no,” Leaphorn said. “People staying at the lodge saw them coming out of the canyon in Nez’s truck about seven P.M. Then a little after seven, she went over to the lodge and asked if Breedlove had called in. About seven- thirty she’s having dinner with the other couple. They remembered her being irritated about him being so late, mixed with a little bit of worry.” 8 of 102
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“I guess that’s what they call an airtight alibi,” Chee said. “So how long did it take her to get old Hal declared legally dead so she could marry her coconspirator? And would I be wrong if I guessed that would be George Shaw?”
“She’s still a widow, last I heard,” Leaphorn said. “She offered a ten-thousand-dollar reward and after a while upped it to twenty thousand and didn’t petition to get her husband declared legally dead until five years later. She lives up near Mancos, Colorado. She and her brother run the Lazy B now.”
“You know what?” Chee said. “I think I know those people. Is the brother Eldon Demott?”
“That’s him.”
“He’s one of our customers,” Chee said. “The ranch still has those public land leases you mentioned on the Checkerboard Reservation and they’ve been losing Angus calves. He thinks maybe some of us Navajos might be stealing them.”
“Eldon is Elisa Breedlove’s older brother,” Leaphorn said. “Their daddy was old man Breedlove’s foreman, and when their daddy died, I think Eldon just sort of inherited the job. Anyway, the Demott family lived on the ranch. I guess that’s how Elisa and the Breedlove boy got together.”
Chee stifled a yawn. It had been a long and tiring day and this session with Leaphorn, helpful as it had been, didn’t qualify as relaxation. He had accumulated too many memories of tense times trying to live up to the man’s high expectations. It would be a while before he could relax in Leaphorn’s presence. Maybe another twenty years would do it.
“Well,” Chee said. “I guess that takes care of the fallen man. I’ve got a probable identification of our skeleton. You’ve located your missing Hal Breedlove. I’ll call you when we get it confirmed.”
