flew that old L-19 down there to do some work, and then a fella offered me a ride home and I went off and left it and then we were hearing about the robbery on the radio and when I got home and saw the barn open and my airplane gone I just thought -'
Timms stopped. He stared at Leaphorn. So did Bernie. So did Chee.
“More than that?” Timms asked.
Leaphorn stood silent, eyes on Timms.
“What more?” Timms asked. He slumped down into an overstuffed armchair, looking up at Leaphorn.
“You remember that fellow who was doing the shooting when you flew over his place? Everett Jorie.”
“He quit doing that after you talked to him.' Timms tried a smile, which didn’t come off. “I appreciated that. Now he’s turned into a bandit. Robbed that casino. Killed himself.”
“It looked like that for a while,” Leaphorn said.
Timms shrank into the chair. Raised his right hand to his forehead. He said, “You saying somebody killed him?”
Leaphorn let the question hang for a moment. Said: 'How well do you know Roy Gershwin?”
Timms opened his mouth, closed it, and looked up at Leaphorn. Chee found himself feeling sorry for the man. He looked terrified.
“Mr Timms,” Leaphorn said, 'you are in a position right now to help yourself a lot. The FBI isn’t happy with you. Hiding that airplane, reporting it stolen, that slowed down the hunt for those killers a lot. It’s not the sort of thing law enforcement forgets. Unless it has a reason to want to overlook it. If you’re helpful, then the police tend to say 'Well, Mr Timms was just forgetful.' If you’re not helpful, then things like that tend to go to the grand jury to let the jury decide whether you were what they call an accessory after the fact. And that’s not insurance fraud. That’s in a murder case.”
“Murder case. You mean Jorie?”
“Mr Timms,” Leaphorn said, 'tell me about Roy Gershwin.”
“He was by here today,” Timms said. “You just missed him.”
Now it was Leaphorn’s turn to look startled. And Chee’s.
“What did he want? What did he say?”
“Not much. He wanted directions to that old Latter-Day-Saints mine. The place those Mormons used to dig their coal. And I told him, and he run right out of here. In a big hurry.”
“I think we’d better go,” Leaphorn said, and started for the door.
Timms looked sick. He made a move to rise, sank back.
“You telling me Gershwin killed that Everett Jorie? Don’t tell me that.”
Leaphorn and Bernie were already out the door, and as Chee limped after them he heard Timms saying, “Oh, God. I was afraid of that.”
Chapter Twenty- eight
It was easy enough to notice where Gershwin’s pickup had turned off the track, easy to see the path it had left through the crusted blowsand and broken clusters of snakeweed. Following the tracks was a different matter. Gershwin’s truck had better traction and much higher clearance than Bernie’s Unit 11 patrol car, which, under its official paint, was still a worn-out Chevy sedan.
It lost traction on the side of one of those great humps that wind erosion drifts around Mormon tea in desert climates. It slid sideways, rear wheels down the slope. Leaphorn checked Bernie’s instinct to gun the engine by a sharply whispered 'No!”
“I think we’re about as close as we want to drive,” he said. “I’ll take a look.”
He took the unit’s binoculars out of the glove box, opened the door, slid out, walked up the hummock, stood for a minute looking and then walked back.
“The mine structure is maybe a quarter mile,” he said, pointing. “Over by the rimrock. Gershwin’s truck is about two hundred yards ahead of us. It looks empty. It also looks like he left it where it couldn’t be seen from the mine.”
“So now what?” Chee said. “Do we radio in and ask for some backup?” Even as he asked, he was wondering how that call would sound. Imagining the exchange. An area rancher had driven his pickup over to an old mine site. Why do you need backup? Because we think the casino perps are hiding there. Which mine? One the FBI has already checked out and certified as empty.
Leaphorn was looking at him, quizzically.
