The Wailing Wind

Leaphorn digested that a moment.

'Didn't try to kill her,' Leaphorn said. 'Did he deny he tried to scare her away?'

'I didn't ask him that,' Chee said.

Leaphorn drank what was left of his coffee, looking at Chee over the cup. 'What are you thinking?'

Chee shrugged. 'Not much mystery there. Peshlakai says a place up the canyon is a unique source of some of the minerals and herbs hataali need for some ceremonies. Like the Yeibichai. He performs that one. I think he's trying to keep belagaani from destroying the sacred place. Bernie heard the interview. She agrees.'

Chee provided some of the mythical and theological details of Peshlakai's statement, which were discussed. Bernie mentioned the artificial owl guarding the canyon from a tree. Louisa added a bit of her anthropological/sociological information about the role of owls as harbingers of death and disaster among southwestern tribes. Their orders arrived.

Over the coffee refills, Leaphorn got to the questions he'd come to ask.

'I may be getting myself in a sort of funny position,' he said. 'I mean, if I do some really serious digging for Denton while I'm hunting his wife, I'm going to need to know if the fbi decides he's a primary suspect in the Doherty homicide. I don't want to get in the way. Mess anything up. What do you think?'

'They don't tell me everything,' Chee said. 'They'd have to be interested. Doherty had Denton's telephone number with him. He'd taken that tin can out of the evidence file in the McKay case, and from what I hear, he seemed to be following McKay's tracks. Interested in the same old mine legend. But as far as I know they have absolutely nothing except some circumstantial evidence.'

'Would you mind if I call you now and then and ask you if anything criminal is brewing about Denton?'

'Lieutenant,' said Chee, 'you didn't need to ask me that. Of course I won't mind. If I know anything, I'll tell you. Trouble is, I may not know. How about reversing it. If you learn something, you tell me.'

'One more question. Do you think that Golden Calf dig, or whatever it was, is up Coyote Canyon?'

'I don't believe in these legendary mines,' Chee said. 'When I was a kid I used to think I'd go out someday and find the Lost Adams diggings, or maybe the Lost Dutchman's Mine, and when I was poking around on arroyo bottoms, sometimes I'd dig in the wet sand and pretend I was looking for placer gold. But no. I grew up. Peshlakai said there's some quartzite deposits up there somewhere, probably a little gold dust washes downstream if we ever have a wet summer. One wet year, maybe enough washed down to start the legend.'

'So you're not out looking for it?'

Chee laughed. 'Gold causes trouble. I don't look for that.'

Chapter Seventeen

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Unfortunately for Joe Leaphorn, Denton had spent a lot of money on his telephone taping system. It was modern stuff, installed by a technician, and thus it had all the high-tech bells and whistles and a twenty-four-page instruction book written in the opaque language that the specialists use to exclude laymen from their science. Leaphorn had stacked the accumulated answering machine tapes in neat reverse chronological order, wasted fifteen minutes trying to get the first one to play, and finally called in Mrs. Mendoza. She showed him how to get the tape properly located in the proper slot, which buttons to push to reverse, repeat, adjust sound, and so forth. With that, Leaphorn put on the earphones and immersed himself in the weird world of those who read the personal ads: of the lost, lonely, lovelorn, the angry, the wanna-be-helpfuls, and the predators. The first caller to speak into his ear was one of the latter.

'I read your advertisment in the Arizona Republic,' the man said. 'I think I know where your woman is. I was eating lunch at Denny's, and there was this woman at the next table. Pretty girl but looking, you know, really strung out and stressed, talking to someone on a cellphone. Crying now and then. She mentioned running away from a man named Wiley. Whoever she was talking to, she told them she wanted to go back but was afraid this Wiley wouldn't want her, and she mentioned where she was staying. A place here in Phoenix. Using another name, she said. I got that written down, that address, along with the last name she was using along with Linda. I'd just tell it to you now, but I'm tapped out for cash, and I need a little financial help for this. I'll give you this number to call me at. Call right at three any day this week.'

He followed that with a number, and hung up.

Leaphorn checked the first item in the ledger Denton kept beside the telephone.

Call 1. Haley finds number of phone booth at the Phoenix Convention Center. Answered right at three on second ring. Told me he knew exactly where Linda was. Said if I would mail thousand to his P.O. box, he'll call me back, provide her address, keep eye on her until I arrive. Description not Linda. Haley says a man showed up ten minutes before I called. Waited, took call, left. Followed him to trailer park on the highway south. Haley checked Phoenix PD sources. Parolee.

Leaphorn laid aside the headphones and went looking for Wiley Denton. Instead he found Mrs. Mendoza mixing something in the kitchen. She thought Denton was 'off somewhere.' He'd left a few minutes ago in his car. Did Mrs. Mendoza know anything about the tape machine and Denton's call ledger? Not much, Mrs. Mendoza said, but she rinsed her hands, dried them, and followed him into the empty bedroom where the listening equipment was installed.

'He started this when he was in the prison,' she explained. 'He got us to take the tapes in to the prison. He had a player there, and he'd make these notes and tell George what he wanted done about them.'

'Who is this Haley he mentions in the first entry?'

'Mr. Denton's lawyer made some sort of arrangement with a security company. Haley Security and Investigations. Whoever the company had checking for him, Mr. Denton calls 'em Haley.'

'Must have cost him a ton of money,' Leaphorn said.

'Money.' She made a sound of contempt, shook her head, and skipped through the ledger, explaining Denton's dating system, code, and shorthand. Leaphorn thanked her and went back to work.

The next call was a complaint that the reward offered in the Boston Herald was too