robbers in prison helped no one, she’d say. They should be cured of the disharmony that was causing this bad behavior. Prison didn’t accomplish that. A Mountain Way ceremony, with all their friends and relatives gathered to support them, would drive the dark wind out of them and restore them to
A clatter in the kitchen interrupted that thought. Leaphorn jumped out of bed and put on his bathrobe. He found Louisa standing at the stove, fully dressed and cooking pancakes.
“I’m using your mix,” she said. “They’d be a lot better if you had some buttermilk.”
Leaphorn rescued his mug from the sink, rinsed it, poured himself a cup, and sat by the table watching Louisa, remembering the ten thousand mornings he had watched Emma from the same chair. Emma was shorter, slimmer, and always wore skirts. Louisa had on jeans and a flannel shirt. Her hair was short and gray. Emma’s was long and a luminous black. That hair was her only source of vanity. Emma had hated to have it cut even for the brain surgery that killed her.
“You’re up early,” Leaphorn said.
“Blame it on your culture,” Louisa said. “These old-timers I need to talk to have been up an hour already. They’ll be in bed by sundown.”
“How about your translator? Did you ever manage to get hold of him?”
“I’ll try again after breakfast,” Louisa said. “Young people have more normal sleeping habits.”
They ate pancakes.
“Something’s on your mind,” Louisa said. “Right?”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because it’s true,” Louisa said. “I could tell last night when we were having dinner down at the Inn. Couple of times you started to say something, but you didn’t.”
True enough. And why hadn’t he? Because it would have taken him too close to his relationship with Emma—this hashing over of something he was working on. But now in the light of morning he saw nothing wrong with it. He told Louisa about Gershwin, the three names and his promise — ambiguous and vague.
“Did you shake hands on it? Any of that male-chivalry stuff?”
Leaphorn grinned. Louisa’s way of striking right to the heart of matters was something he liked about her.
“Well, we shook hands, but it was sort of a 'goodbye, glad to see you again,' handshake. No cutting our wrists and mixing blood,” he said. “He had the identification information written on a piece of paper, and he just left that on the table. With sort of an unspoken understanding that if I took it, I could do whatever I wanted with it. But promising him confidentiality was implied no matter what I did.”
“And you took the paper?”
“Not exactly. I read it, then wadded it up and dropped it in the wastebasket.”
She was smiling at him, shaking her head.
“You’re right,” he said. “Throwing it away didn’t work. I’m still stuck with the promise.”
She nodded, cleared her throat, sat very straight. “Mr Leaphorn,” she said, “I remind you that you are under oath to tell this grand jury the truth and the whole truth. How did you obtain this information?” Louisa stared over her glasses at him, her stern look. “Then you say you read it off a piece of paper left on a restaurant table, and the lawyer asks if you know who left the paper, and…'
Leaphorn raised his hand. “I know,” he said.
“Two choices, really. After all, that Gershwin jerk was just trying to use you. You could just forget it. Or you could figure out some sneaky way to get the names to the FBI. How about an anonymous letter? In fact, don’t you wonder why he didn’t write one himself?”
“I guess it was timing. A couple of days pass before the letter gets delivered. Then if it’s anonymous, it goes right to the bottom of the pile,” Leaphorn said. “I guess he knew that. I think he’s afraid these days. That the bandits know that he knows, and they don’t trust him, and if they aren’t caught, they’ll be coming after him.”
Louisa laughed. “I’d say they have pretty good reason not to trust him. You shouldn’t either.”
“I thought about faxing it in from some commercial place where nobody knows me, or sending an e-mail. But just about everything is traceable these days. And now there’s a reward out, so they’ll be getting dozens of tips by now. Probably hundreds.”
“I guess so,” Louisa said. “Why don’t you call one of your old FBI buddies? Do the same thing to them Gershwin’s doing to you?”
