knocks out the operator and drives off in a previously stolen pickup truck. The FBI presumes the man was one of the casino bandits. The newscaster said a Navajo Tribal Policeman was at the station buying gas when it happened, but the robber escaped. Is that about it?”
A moment of silence. “Well, I was the one buying the gas,” Chee said, sounding somewhat defensive, “but I wasn’t there until it had already happened. The perp was driving off as I drove up. But what’s interesting is that all the man wanted was a newspaper. He took one from the rack, and when the operator got there and found him digging through the trash barrel, he said he was just hunting a newspaper.”
Now it was Leaphorn’s turn for a moment of silence.
“Just a newspaper,” he said. “Just that. And he hadn’t taken anything from inside the station. Food, cigarettes, anything like that?”
“The station was still locked up. I thought maybe the guy had taken the operator’s keys after he hit him. Got in, looted the place, and then relocked it - silly as that sounds - but apparently not.”
“Well now,” Leaphorn said, sounding thoughtful. “He just wanted a newspaper out of the rack.”
“Or maybe another one. From what he’d scattered around out of the trash can, he was hunting something there, and he told the operator he was after a newspaper. I was guessing he wanted an older edition. One reporting earlier stuff about the manhunt.”
“Sounds reasonable. Where are you calling from?”
“My place in Shiprock. I hurt my ankle yesterday hunting the newspaper bandit. I took a fall, and I’m homebound until I get the swelling down. I called your place in Window Rock and got another of those messages you leave on your answering machine. That’s a good idea.”
“Just a minute,” Leaphorn said. He put his hand over the telephone and looked at Louisa, who was standing in the doorway, tape-recorder case over her shoulder, purse in hand, waiting and looking interested.
“It’s Jim Chee at Shiprock,” Leaphorn said. “You know that Chevron station robbery we were talking about. Chee said the only thing the man wanted was newspapers. Remember what I was saying about that broken radio -'
“That sounds strange,” Louisa said. “And look, unless you really want to come along and listen to this mythology cross-examination, why don’t you drive over to Shiprock and talk to Chee? I’ll ride with Mr Becenti.”
That was exactly the way Emma would have reacted, Leaphorn thought. And he noticed with a sort of joy that he could make such a comparison now without feeling guilty about it.
The door of Chee’s little house trailer was standing open as Leaphorn drove up, and he heard his ‘come on in’ shout as he closed the door of his pickup. Chee was sitting beside the table, his left foot propped on a pillow on his bunk. As they exchanged the required greetings, the words of sympathy, the required disclaimer and disclaimer response, Leaphorn noticed the table was bare except for a copy of the Indian Country Map, unfolded to the Four Corners canyon country.
“I see you’re ready for work,” he said, tapping the map.
“My uncle used to tell me to use my head to save my heels,” Chee said. “Since I have to save my ankle today, I’ll have to think instead.”
Leaphorn sat. “What have you come up with?”
“Nothing but confusion,” Chee said. “I was hoping you could explain it all to me.”
“It’s as if we have a jigsaw puzzle with a couple of the central pieces missing,” Leaphorn said. “But driving over from Farmington I began thinking how two of the pieces fit.”
“The broken radio producing the need to get a paper to find out what the devil has been going on,” Chee said. “Right?”
“Right. And that can tell us something.”
Chee frowned. “Like they don’t have another radio? Or any other access to news? Or something more than that?”
Leaphorn smiled. “I have an advantage in this situation, being able to sit by a telephone and tap into the retired-cops circuit while you’re out working.”
Chee leaned forward and readjusted his ice pack, engulfed in deja vu — a sort of numb feeling of intellectual inadequacy. He’d heard this sort of preamble from Leaphorn often enough before to know where it led. It was the Legendary Lieutenant’s way of leading into some disclosure without making Chee, the green kid who’d been assigned to be his gofer, feel more stupid than necessary. “To tell the truth, all this tells me is that these guys, without their radio, got desperate to find out what the devil was going on. They had to find out whether or not it was time to run.”
