be paid in return for the map and the evidence. A little after 6:00 McKay had called in from the driveway gate, Denton had pushed the opener button, and Mrs. Mendoza had answered the front door and brought McKay to the office. McKay had laid a briefcase on the table and asked to see the money. Denton had got his own case, opened it, and showed McKay the bundles of bills he had gotten at the bank. McKay dumped them out, inspected the bundles, and put them back into the case. Then he opened the padlock on his own case and took out a map and other papers.
Denton stopped, shook his head. 'Bunch of damned trash,' he said. 'I don't know what had gotten into me to have believed that bastard. I guess it was too many years wanting so bad to find that mine I was ready to believe anything. I just felt sick when I looked at the stuff.' He shook his head again. 'Sick to my stomach.'
Leaphorn hadn't been there when Denton had gone before the judge to plead and receive his sentence. But he'd heard about it from a half dozen friends who had. This seemed to be the same story Denton had told the court when his lawyer was urging clemency. It had the rehearsed sound Leaphorn had listened to at all too many criminal trials.
'Bad map?' Leaphorn asked.
'It was a section of one of those U.S. Geological Survey quadrangle maps. It covered a piece of the south and east side of the Zuni Mountains. He just drew his own set of marks on that.'
'You think that's not a likely place to look for gold? But isn't that about where that half-Zuni told you the placer gold came from?'
'Same general area, I'd guess. But hell, you can find gold anywhere. Even in ocean water. It just happens that I personally know that little corner of the Zuni Mountains. Most of the land he had marked out is BLM or Forest Service. Public land. Years ago, I did a lot of seismograph work right where that map covered, thinking I might want to lease it for oil and gas. I've been up and down every little creek and arroyo in that whole quadrant. I didn't get any seismograph results that made me want to drill, and I didn't see any of the quartzite formations you're trying to find when you're prospecting for gold.'
'You didn't trip over any nuggets,' Leaphorn said, and immediately wished he hadn't. It came out sounding sarcastic, and he didn't want Denton to think he wasn't taking this account seriously.
Denton hadn't noticed.
'Wrong kind of deposit for nuggets,' he said. 'Some big chunks were brought in and assayed from the Lost Adams dig and the Dutchman mine, too, but from what we know about the Golden Calf, the source there must have been just quartzite with a fantastically rich mix of gold veins through it. When quartz breaks up and weathers away, the gold just comes off in teeny little flakes.' Denton made a dismissive gesture. 'So soon as I saw McKay's map, I knew damn well it was a phony.'
The memory of this disappointment stopped Denton. He drank his cold coffee. Put down the cup, gave Leaphorn a wry look.
'The rest of his so-called evidence was photocopies. Looked like he'd had some letterheads printed to make stuff look authentic, and the name right. I've been studying this stuff for years, and I know all those names. But, hell, I could have put together a better package myself. Anybody could have done it.'
He looked at Leaphorn, at his hands, and at Leaphorn again, and then just sat, saying nothing, looking old, defeated, and exhausted.
'What next? You tell him no deal?'
'I told him to go to hell. Get out of my house and take his garbage with him. And he accused me of being a welcher. Said he'd given me his location of the Golden Calf and he wasn't leaving without me signing his contract and him walking off with the fifty grand. Well, we exchanged a word or two, and he pulled that pistol out of his jacket pocket and was going to shoot me. So I said to hell with it. I'd sign the paper, he should just take the money and get out. I reached in my desk drawer like I was getting my pen, and got my pistol out and shot him. I don't usually keep a gun in here, but with all that cash in the house, it seemed like a pretty good idea.'
Another long pause with Denton either remembering the moment or, Leaphorn thought, perhaps deciding what else to tell and what to leave out. Denton shook his head.
'I yelled for Mrs. Mendoza to come, but she'd heard the shot and was already on her way. I checked to see if McKay was dead. She called nine one one and reported it. The ambulance came, and the sheriff's deputies. And that was pretty well it.'
Denton stood, looking down at Leaphorn. 'Well, what do you think? You going to give me some help?'
'We need to fill in some blanks before I decide. I want you to answer some questions.'
'Like what?'
'Like where was your wife while all this was happening? She said she was coming home after lunch.'
'I don't know where she was. I thought she might have stopped off to do some shopping, but usually she told me if she was doing that.'
'Did she take anything with her? A big handbag, anything that would hold stuff if she was going to be gone for, ah, say, overnight?'
Denton drew in a long breath. 'That was the last time I saw Linda,' he said, 'and I've been over it many a time. It was a sort of chilly, breezy day, and she had on a tweed-looking skirt, and a jacket, and was carrying her little purse and one of those little radio tape players. I gave it to her for her birthday. What do they call them? They have headphones so you can listen to music or whatever while you're walking.'
'Just carrying a regular purse?'
'That's all.'
'She was driving herself?'
'Yeah. She had a little Honda. Same one she was driving when we got married. When they had me in jail waiting the court hearing, I called Mrs. Mendoza or George Billie every day to see if they'd heard from Linda, and George said her Honda had turned up in the parking lot at the mall. He got someone to drive it back to the house.'
'Nothing in it?'
