They stood beside the body for a while, with nothing to say. Bernie focused her flash on a little black plastic case partly obscured by Linda Denton's skirt and glanced at Leaphorn—a questioning look.
'That's some sort of miniature disk player,' Leaphorn said. 'She loved music, and Denton had just given it to her. Birthday present, I think he said.'
'I guess that was the source of the music those kids heard. If it hadn't been for the wind wailing that night—' With that Bernie found a tissue in her pocket and wiped her eyes. 'Hadn't been for the wind they would have known they were hearing Linda and not a ghost.'
Leaphorn nodded. 'We have that story of our own, you know, about the Hard Flint boys twisting the good air into evil.'
'Right now I'm thinking my mother was right,' she said. 'There's just too much evil in this business for me. Too much sorrow.'
'You wouldn't have any trouble getting another job,' Leaphorn said. 'Something where you help people instead of arresting them.'
'I know,' Bernie said. 'I'm thinking about it. I'm going to quit this. I'd like to make people happy.'
Leaphorn pointed toward the bunker door. Through it, they could see Sergeant Jim Chee putting Wiley Denton in his patrol car. 'You know, Bernie, you could start that 'making people happy' career right now. Tell that young man out there what you've just told me.'
Bernie looked out into the sunlight, at Chee talking to Denton through the car window. She looked back at Leaphorn, shrugged, spread her hands in that gesture of defeated frustration.
Leaphorn nodded. 'I know,' he said. 'When I was a lot younger, an old Zuni told me their legend about that. Two of their young hunters rescued a dragonfly stuck in the mud. It gave them the usual wishes you get in these stories. One wished to be the smartest man in the world. The dragonfly said, 'So you shall be.' But the second hunter wanted to be smarter than the smartest man in the world.'
On this Leaphorn paused, partly for effect, partly to see if Bernie had already heard a version of this, and partly to see if she had cheered up enough to be listening. She was listening.
'So the dragonfly converted the second hunter into a woman,' Bernie said, laughing and nodding at Leaphorn.
'I'm retired from the Navajo Tribal Police, but I'm still commissioned as a McKinley County deputy sheriff,' he said. 'I can stay here with the body.'
Then he watched her walk toward the open door. Toward the dazzling sunlight. Toward Jim Chee.
