hadn't. Was the Legendary Lieutenant volunteering to do this himself?
Leaphorn was smiling, mostly to himself.
'Well then, I've got a legitimate reason to go out there and take a look,' he said. 'I still get kidded now and then about being obsessed with that McKay killing. I'll be looking for a connection. Worst they can do is tell me to go away.'
'Connection? Isn't that going to sound pretty weak?'
'Awful weak,' Leaphorn said. 'Maybe I'll just tell 'em I'm a bored old ex-cop looking for a way to kill time. Maybe they'll be finished at the scene and nobody will even ask.'
'I've always wondered why you were so interested in that case,' Chee said. 'Hell, Denton laid it all out. Admitted he shot McKay, claimed it was self-defense, and worked out a plea bargain. You've had doubts about that?'
'He got a year, served part of it with time off for behaving,' Leaphorn said. 'I had some doubts about the self- defense, but mostly I've always wondered what happened to Linda Denton.'
'Linda Denton? What do you mean?' Leaphorn was surprising him again. Chee checked his memory. The way it came to him, the young Mrs. Denton had set her wealthy old hubby up for McKay's swindle and then ran when the plan didn't work out. 'Now I'm wondering why you've been wondering.'
Leaphorn smiled, consumed a bit more of his lunch. Shook his head.
'You're going to think I'm an old-fashioned romantic,' he said. 'That's what Louisa—what Professor Bourbonette says. Tells me to get real.'
Chee finally took the first bite from his hamburger, studying Leaphorn. The Legendary Lieutenant actually looked slightly abashed. Or was he imagining it?
'You really want to hear all this?' Leaphorn asked. 'It takes time.'
'I do,' Chee said.
'Well, of course it was a McKinley County case because Denton built his house outside Gallup city limits. Lorenzo Perez was undersheriff then and handling major crime investigations. Good man, Lorenzo. He had himself a clear-cut uncomplicated case with the shooter admitting it. Only question was how much self-defense was involved. Where'd the gun come from the con man had? You remember the story Denton told? McKay had told him he'd located the Golden Calf diggings and needed money to file claims and begin development. He'd let Denton in for fifty grand. In cash. So Denton drew the money out of his bank, had it in a briefcase at his house. McKay shows him a bunch of stuff, a little bit of placer gold, part of a map, some other stuff. Denton spots it as bogus, tells McKay to get out. McKay says he'll take the money with him. He pulls a gun and Denton shoots him.'
Leaphorn stopped. 'McKay was an ex-con with a record of trying to run con games. That didn't seem to leave much to investigate.'
'Yeah,' Chee said. 'That's the way I remember it. But how does this bring us to Linda Denton? The story was she wasn't home when it happened.'
'Denton said she'd gone to have lunch with some friends and wasn't there when it happened and never did come back. He said he was worried. Couldn't imagine what had happened to her.' Leaphorn made a wry face. 'It seemed pretty easy to guess if you remember the circumstances. Turned out Linda had introduced McKay to her husband. Denton said she'd met McKay before she married him. Met him at that bar-grill where she used to wait tables.'
Their waiter came and refilled their cups. Leaphorn picked his up, looked at it, returned it to the saucer. 'And she never did come back. Ever. Not a word. Not a trace.'
It sounded sad, the way he said it, and Chee asked: 'Didn't that seem natural? Young gal working in a bar meets a rich guy about thirty years older, bags him, then decides he's too boring for her taste so she locks onto a slick-talking young con man to get the old bird's money. It turns into a homicide with her maybe facing some sort of conspiracy charge. So she runs.'
'That's the way I read it at first,' Leaphorn said. 'Lorenzo wanted to find her. See what she had to say. I started on it. Went out to see her folks at Thoreau. Couple named Verbiscar. They were frantic. Said she would never leave Denton. Loved him. Something had to have happened to her.'
Chee nodded. It seemed to him about the sort of response you'd expect from the woman's parents. And he noticed Leaphorn had sensed his attitude.
'They sat me down and told me her story,' Leaphorn said. 'Great kid. Went to the St. Bonaventure School there. Real bookish girl and very much into music. Not much for boyfriends. Good grades. Scholarship offers from University of Arizona, couple of other places. But her dad had a heart problem. So Linda Verbiscar turned the scholarship down and enrolled at the u.n.m. branch at Gallup. She got herself that restaurant waitress job. She and another girl from Thoreau rented themselves a little place out on Railroad Avenue. Brought home a boyfriend once for them to look over but decided he was sort of stupid. Then she brought Wiley Denton out to meet them.'
Leaphorn paused, the polite Navajo gesture to give the listener a chance to comment.
Chee tried to think of something sensible to say, and came up with: 'Linda doesn't sound like the kind of woman I had in mind.'
Leaphorn nodded.
'They said it scared 'em to death when she showed up with Wiley Denton. She was twenty then and he was early fifties. Older than her dad, in fact. Big, homely, rich old guy.' Leaphorn chuckled. 'Verbiscar said they knew he hadn't been born rich because he had the kind of broken nose that can't be overlooked and is easy to fix if you can pay the surgeon. All they really knew about him was he had been in the Green Berets in the Vietnam War, made a ton of money off oil and gas leases out around the Jicarilla Reservation and built himself that huge house on the slope outside Gallup. That, and everybody said he was an eccentric sort of loner.'
Leaphorn stopped again, drank coffee. Looked over the cup at Chee. 'Did you ever meet him?'
'Denton? No. I just saw him on television a time or two. At the sentencing, I guess. I just remember thinking if they had charged him with being ugly he was guilty.'
'Well, Mrs. Verbiscar said they got invited to a meal at his house and the big impression he made on her was
