had their immune systems modified to deal with this evolved bacteria. And some of the kangaroo rats have learned to live with the hantavirus. We have to find out how.'
Woody's discourse had restored his good temper. He grinned at Chee. 'We don't want the rodents outlasting the humans.'
Chee nodded. He slid off the stool, picked up his hat. 'I'll let you get back to work. Thanks for the time. And the information.'
'I just had a thought,' Woody said. 'The Indian Health Service has had people up here the last several weeks working through this area. Doing the vector control cleanup on that plague outbreak. You might ask them if they had anyone out there on that day.'
'They did,' Chee said. 'I was just going to get into that. One of their people was supposed to be checking on rodents around here the day Kinsman was killed. I was going to ask you if you'd seen her. And then I was going to be on my way.'
'A woman? Did she notice anything helpful?'
'Nobody even knows for sure if she got here. She's missing,' Chee said. 'So is the vehicle she was driving.'
'Missing?' Woody said, startled. 'Really? You think there could be some connection with the attack on your policeman?'
'I don't see how there could be,' Chee said. 'But I'd like to talk to her. I understand she's a sturdy-looking brunette, about thirty, named Catherine Pollard.'
'I've seen some of those Arizona public health people here and there. That sounds like one of them, Woody said. 'But I don't know her name.'
'You remember the last time you saw her? And where she was?'
'Nice-looking woman, was she?' Woody said, and glanced up at Chee, not wanting to give the wrong impression. 'I don't mean pretty, but good bone structure.' He laughed. 'Cute wouldn't be the word, but you might say handsome. Looked like she might have been an athlete.'
'She was around here?'
'I think it was over at Red Lake that I saw her. Filling the gas tank on a Health Service Jeep, if that's the right woman. She asked me about the van, if I was the man doing rodent research on the reservation. She asked me to let them know if I saw any dead rodents. Let her know if I saw anything that suggested the plague was killing the rodents.'
He pushed himself up from the cot. 'By golly, I think she gave me a card with a phone number on it.' He sorted through a box labeled OUT on his desk, said 'Ah,' and read: ''Catherine Pollard, Vector Control Specialist, Communicable Disease Division, Arizona Department of Public Health.''
He handed the card to Chee, grinned, and said: 'Bingo.'
'Thanks,' Chee said. It didn't sound like bingo to him.
'And, hey,' Woody added. 'If the time's important you can check on it. When I drove up there was a Navajo Tribal Police car there and she was talking to the driver. Another woman.' Woody grinned. 'That one you really could call cute. Had her hair in a bun and the uniform °n, but she was what we used to call a dish.'
'Thanks again,' Chee said. 'That would be Officer Manuelito. I'll ask her.'
But he wouldn't. The timing didn't matter, and if he asked Bernie Manuelito about it, he'd have to ask her why she hadn't reported that Kinsman had been hitting on her. That was a can of worms he didn't want to dig into. Claire Dineyahze, who as secretary in Chee's little division, always knew such things, had already told him. 'She doesn't want to cause you any trouble,' Claire had said. Chee had asked her why not, and Claire had given him one of those female 'you moron' looks and said: 'Don't you know?'
Chapter Fourteen
AS THEY DROVE NORTHWARD out of Cameron, Leap-horn explained to Louisa what was troubling Cowboy Dashee.
'I can see his problem,' she said, after spending a while staring out the windshield. 'Partly professional ethics, partly male pride, partly family loyalty, partly because he feels Chee is going to think he's trying to use their friendship for a personal reason. Is that about it? Have you decided what you're going to do about it?'
Leaphorn had pretty much decided, but he wanted to give it some more thought. He skipped past the question. 'It's all of that, I guess. But it's even more complicated. And why don't you pour us some coffee while we're thinking about it.'
'Didn't you just drink about two cups in there?' Louisa asked. But she reached back and extracted her thermos from the lunch sack.
'It was pretty weak,' Leaphorn said. 'Besides, I believe the caffeine helps my mind work. Didn't I read that somewhere?'
'Maybe in a comic book,' she said. But she poured a cup and handed it to him. 'What's the more complicated part that I'm missing?'
'Another friend of Cowboy Dashee's is Janet Pete. She's been assigned as Jano's public defender. Janet and Chee were engaged to be married a while back and then they had a falling-out.'
'Ouch,' Louisa said, and grimaced. 'That does complicate matters some.'
'There's more,' Leaphorn said, and sipped his coffee.
'It's starting to sound like a soap opera,' Louisa said. 'Don't tell me that the deputy sheriff was the third party in a love triangle.'
'No. It wasn't that.'
He took another sip, gestured out of the windshield at the cumulus clouds, white and puffy, drifting on the west
