court to order it.'
Long silence. 'Who caught the eagle? How many people know it's caught?'
'I caught it,' Chee said. 'Claire Dineyahze has it sitting beside her desk right now. That's it.'
'Was there dried blood on the feathers? Anywhere else?'
'Not that I could be sure of,' Chee said. 'Something dried on its feathers. Tell the bastard if he won't order the lab work you'll get it done yourself.'
'Jim, it's not that simple.'
'Why not?'
'A lot of reasons. In the first place, I won't even know about the eagle until Reynald tells me. If he doesn't think it has any importance, he won't.'
'But there's the evidence disclosure rule. Mickey has to tell the defense attorney what evidence he has.'
'Not if it's not important enough for him to use. Mickey will say he didn't even intend to mention the eagle in connection with the blood on Kinsman. The defense can use it if it likes. He'll say he considers it too foolish to require any response.'
'All that's probably right. So you tell him that you know the eagle was caught, tell him—'
'And he says, How do you know this? Who told you?'
'And you say a confidential informant.'
'Come on, Jim,' Janet said impatiently. 'Don't sound naive. The federal criminal justice world is small and the acoustics are good. How long do you think it took me to know that Mickey had been warning you about leaking stuff to me? My confidential informant said she got it third-hand, but she said Mickey called it 'pillow talk.' Did he?'
'That's what he called it. But do it anyway.'
Chee listened while Janet outlined the sort of trouble this would cause for Acting Lieutenant Jim Chee. True, he wasn't a federal employee, but the links between the U.S. justice system and the Tribal Justice operations were strong, close and often personal. And it meant a headache for her, too. She badly wanted to win this case, at the very least to save Jano from the death penalty. It was her first in this new job and she wanted it to be clean, neat and tidy, not a messy affair with her looking like an inept loose cannon who didn't understand the system. And so forth. And while he listened, Chee knew what he had to do. And how to do it. And that the effects might change the direction of his life.
'Tell you what,' he said. 'You tell Mickey that you have access to a tape recording, with two credible witnesses to certify it's genuine. Tell him that on this tape, the FBI agent whom Mr. Mickey put in charge of the Jano case can be clearly heard ordering a policeman to get rid of evidence that might be beneficial to the defense.'
'My God!' Janet said. 'That's not true, is it?'
'It's true.'
'Did you tape a telephone call with Reynald? When you told him you had the eagle? Surely he didn't give you permission to tape something like that. If he didn't, that's a federal offense.'
'I didn't ask him,' Chee said. 'I just taped it, with a witness listening in.'
'That's against the law. You could go to jail. You'll surely lose your job.'
'You're being naive now, Janet. You know how the FBI feels about bad publicity.'
'I won't have anything to do with this,' Janet said.
'That's fair enough,' Chee said. 'And I want to be fair with you, too. Here's what I'll have to do now. I'll get on the telephone and find out how I can get the necessary laboratory work done. Maybe at the lab at Northern Arizona University or Arizona State. I have to be here at the office until noon tomorrow. I'll check with you then—or you can call me here—so I'll know what's going on. Then I'll take the bird on to the lab and I'll have them send you a copy of their report.'
'No, Jim. No. They'll charge you with evidence tampering. They'll think of something. You're being crazy.'
'Or maybe just stubborn,' Chee said. 'Anyway, give me a call tomorrow.'
Then he sat back and thought about it. Had he been bluffing? No, he'd do it if he had to. Leaphorn's lady friend would know someone on the NAU biology faculty who could run the tests—and do it right so it would hold water in court. And if they found it wasn't Jano's blood, then maybe Jano was just a damn liar.
But Chee wasn't kidding himself about his motivation. One of the reasons he'd told Janet about the tape was to give her a weapon if she needed it. But part of that was purely selfish—the kind of reason Frank Sam Nakai had always warned him against. He wanted to find out how Janet would use this weapon he'd handed her.
For that, he'd have to wait until tomorrow. Maybe a few days more, but he thought tomorrow would tell him.
Chapter Twenty-four
CHEE SLEPT FITFULLY, the darkness in his little trailer full of bad dreams. He got to his office early, thinking he would get a stack of paperwork out of the way. But the telephone was at his elbow and concentration was hard.
It first rang at eighteen minutes after eight. Joe Leaphorn wanted to know if he could get a copy of the list of items found in Miss Pollard's Jeep.
'Sure,' Chee said. 'We'll Xerox it. You want it mailed?'
'I'm in Tuba,' Leaphorn said. 'I'll pick it up.'
'You on to something I should know about?'
