Lieutenant had done it again. Had unraveled the puzzle of who had abandoned the Jeep. Had maintained the legend. Had again outthought Jim Chee. 'Sure. I'll be there in ten minutes.'
Leaphorn was sitting at a window table, putting butter on a stack of pancakes. He put the note on the table in front of Chee and smoothed it out.
'I showed the list to Krause,' he said. 'There were a couple or three surprises.'
'Oh,' Chee said, feeling slightly defensive. He hadn't noticed anything amiss.
'Mostly technical stuff way over our heads,' Leaphorn said. 'This blower here, for example, and the container of calcium cyanide. I figured that was just one of their flea killers. Turns out they don't use it these days except in some sort of unusual circumstances.' He looked up at Chee. 'Like, let's say they needed to wipe out a whole colony of prairie dogs.'
Chee leaned back in his chair, understanding again why he admired Leaphorn instead of resenting him. The man was giving him a chance to figure it out for himself. And of course he had.
'Like, let's say, the colony Dr. Woody is working with.'
Leaphorn was grinning. 'That occurred to me, too.' he said. 'I don't think Woody would have wanted that to happen.'
Chee nodded. And waited. He could tell from Leaphorn's expression that more was coming.
'And then there's this,' Leaphorn said. 'I asked Krause why there would be two of these long-handled shovels in that Jeep. He said everybody carried one because of the digging they do, besides getting stuck in the sand. But just one.'
Chee leaned back again, considering that. 'Be useful to have one if you wanted to dig a grave.'
Leaphorn nodded. 'That also occurred to me. Maybe toss it in, not knowing there was already one in the Jeep.'
'So somewhere between Yells Back Butte and where the Jeep was left we might be checking on easy places to dig and looking for freshly dug dirt.'
'I'd suggest that,' Leaphorn said.
'I'm also asking people to check for bicycle tracks along the Goldtooth road. But there's not much chance they'll find any. Too dry.'
This caused Leaphorn's eyebrows to rise. 'Bicycle?'
'I noticed Woody had a bicycle rack bolted to the back of that mobile lab truck,' Chee said. 'There wasn't a bike on it.'
Leaphorn slammed his hand on the tabletop, rattling his plate. 'I must be getting old,' he said. 'Why didn't I think of that?'
'It wouldn't be a hard bike ride,' Chee said, 'from where the Jeep was left back to Yells Back. He could have stepped out of the Jeep onto rocks, lifted the bike out, and carried it back to the road.'
'Sure,' Leaphorn said. 'Sure he could. But it would have been clumsy to carry the shovel, too. I've had my brain turned off.'
Chee doubted that. It reminded Chee of watching the Easter egg hunt on the White House lawn on television. Seeing the big brother overlook an egg so the little kid could find it.
The waitress arrived and offered refills. But now both of them were in a hurry.
They took Chee's patrol car, roared down Arizona 264, turned right onto the road to Goldtooth, jolted over the washboard bumps.
'Seems like old times,' Leaphorn said. 'Us working together.'
'You miss it? I mean, being a cop?'
'I miss this part of it. And the people I worked with. I don't miss the paperwork. I'll bet you wouldn't, either.'
'I hate that part of it,' Chee said. 'I'm not good at it, either.'
'You're acting now,' Leaphorn said. 'Usually after you've done that awhile, they offer you the permanent position. Would you take it?'
Chee drove for a while without answering. Clouds were building up already, fleets of great white ships against the dark blue sky. By late evening yesterday they had towered high enough to produce a few drops of rain here and there. By this afternoon the monsoon rains might actually begin. Long overdue.
'No,' Chee said. 'I guess not.'
'When I heard you'd applied for the promotion, I sort of wondered why,' Leaphorn said. Chee glanced at him, saw only a profile. Leaphorn was staring at the clouds. 'I imagine you could make a pretty good guess. Part prestige, mostly the money's better.'
'What do you need it for? You still live in that rusty old trailer, don't you?'
Chee decided to turn the cross-examination around.
'You think they'll offer me the job?'
Long silence. 'Probably not.'
'Why's that?'
'I suspect the powers that be will get the impression that you would not be a proper team player. You wouldn't cooperate well with other law enforcement agencies,' Leaphorn said.
