turned on his machine, called up game 1192, and was planning his first move when the telephone rang.
“Dan Mundy, Joe,” the voice said. “How’s retirement treating you? You keeping busy?”
Mundy, Joe thought. Yes. Prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Old-timer. Retired years ago.
“Can’t complain,” Leaphorn said. “How about you?”
“I’m bored with it,” Mundy said. “You doing anything important today?”
“Working on a puzzle on my computer.”
“How about me coming by? I want to introduce you to a fellow.”
Leaphorn had been retired long enough to know that when such casual semifriends called it was always to ask a favor. But why not? Perhaps it would offer some variety. Anyway, what could he say?
Joe said: “OK. I’ll have some coffee made.”
Mundy looked exactly as Leaphorn had remembered him. White hair, sharp blue eyes, precisely clipped goatee. “Joe,” he said. “This is Jason Ackerman. Known him since we both cribbed our way through law school. But he’s still practicing. Big office in Washington. Jase, this is Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn, retired. Out here they call him the ‘Legendary Lieutenant.’ I’ve told you about him.”
Jason shifted the briefcase he’d been holding to his left hand and offered Leaphorn the right one. With the hand shaking done, Leaphorn motioned his visitors to sit and brought in Louisa’s tray with its array of saucered cups, sugar bowl, creamer, spoons, and napkins. Coffee was poured, pleasantries exchanged.
“And now,” Leaphorn said. “What brings you to Window Rock?”
This produced a moment of hesitation, a sipping of coffee by Mundy. Ackerman was waiting for him to answer.
“I guess officially and formally, it’s none of our business. We’re just being nosey,” Mundy said. “But we’re sort of curious about that murder case. That fellow shot up there just off the southwest edge of the Jicarilla Reservation.”
“Which murder case?”
Mundy laughed, shook his head. “Come on, Joe. You don’t have that many.”
“You mean the recent one? Victim unidentified?”
“And why wasn’t he identified?” Mundy asked. “I heard he got there in a rental car. They don’t let those cars go without knowing who they’re renting them to. That should be easy to track.”
“So I’d think,” Leaphorn said. He sampled his own coffee. “You know I’m retired now. It’s not my business.”
Ackerman shifted his briefcase in his lap. “We’d like to make it your business,” he said, smiling at Leaphorn.
“Now I’m curious,” Leaphorn said. “Why would you want to do that?”
“We need to know more about that case,” Mundy said.
Leaphorn was beginning to enjoy this sparring. “Like what? Why would that be?”
“Two different reasons,” Mundy said. “You’re familiar with the trouble the Interior Department is in now. With both the Federal Appeals Court and the House Investigations folks getting interested in what happened to that Tribal Trust Fund royalty money.”
“Sure,” Leaphorn said. “The four-billion-dollar question. Or was it forty billion?”
“The Congressional Accounting Office says it’s closer to forty,” Mundy said, “and the new suit the tribal attorneys just filed says the government owes ’em a hundred and thirty-seven million dollars. That was starting to emerge when I was retiring and it got to be a serious thing with me. Somebody must have been making off with that royalty money. Or more likely, the oil and gas companies, or the pipeline people, just weren’t paying it at all. I wanted to know who, and how the cheating was handled. I still do.”
“Me too,” Leaphorn said. “I wish I could tell you.”
“We think you could help.”
“I’ll try by giving you my opinion. I think if you’re going to find the answer you’ll find it by sorting through about fifty years of paperwork in Interior Department and Bureau of Indian Affairs offices back in Washington. And then you hire about a hundred more auditors and do the same thing with the books of a bunch of coal companies, copper companies, oil companies, pipeline companies, natural gas outfits, and ... Who am I leaving out?”
Ackerman was looking impatient. He cleared his throat.
“Mr. Leaphorn is right about that, of course,” Acker-man said. “But we think something connected with that problem must have been going on out here. Maybe part of the puzzle is here. Maybe not. But we’d like to know what.”
Leaphorn felt another increase in his interest in this visit, this one sharp.
“Connected? This sounds like you think this homicide fits into that. How could that be?”
“We’re hoping you could find out some things that would tell us that,” Ackerman said. “We think maybe somebody has a lot to gain, probably politically, by finding out what happened to that royalty money, and who got it, and so forth. And they were checking into that, and somebody who didn’t want the secret out shot the fellow they had looking into it for them.”
“Let’s see now,” Leaphorn said. “First thing you’d need to know is the identity of the victim. The FBI has his fingerprints, of course, and the prints on the rental vehicle. I’d say the Bureau has him named. Apparently the Bureau is not releasing that. Could I find out why not? I can’t see how I could out here at Window Rock. It suggests our victim was well connected—one way or another. Can you get all that?”
Mundy said, “You mean find out this dead guy’s identity. And who he was working for?” He looked at Ackerman. Ackerman shrugged, nodded.
Mundy said, “Probably. I’m sure we can find out his identity. Who he was. But who he was working for? That wouldn’t be so easy.”
“So what do you think I can do?”
“Find out what he was doing here. What he was looking for. Was he finding anything. Who he was talking to. What sort of questions he was asking them.”
Ackerman cleared his throat. “Everything he was asking about.”
Leaphorn considered this. “I’ll get you a refill,” he said. He went into the kitchen, emerged with the coffeepot, and poured.
“Now it’s time for you to tell the name of this murder victim and those little details that would make it possible to do anything for you. Start with the identification.”
Ackerman looked at Mundy.
“We don’t have the name yet,” said Mundy. “But I can get it for you in a day or two.”
Leaphorn gestured toward his telephone. “You can call from here.”
Mundy laughed. “Joe. I have to do this very quietly. You know how the Bureau can be out here. Well, in Washington it’s a lot worse. Somebody pretty big seems to be sitting on this homicide case. That’s one of the things we’re trying to learn. Who is the Bureau covering for.”
“Who do you think?”
Mundy glanced at Ackerman, who managed an almost imperceptible nod.
“Three possibilities on our list. One is a very senior U.S. senator who sits on a crucial subcommittee. Another is also a VIP heavy hitter on the Republican side of the aisle. Another is a distinguished and well-advertised corporation that has had huge holdings in the energy industry. Oil. Gas. Pipelines. Coal. Electricity.”
Leaphorn considered that a moment.
“If somebody hired our murder victim to dig up evidence for them, what would be their motive? Evidence of what?”
Ackerman sighed. “Maybe evidence to use in an election campaign. Proving the incumbent was a crook. Maybe evidence, to blackmail a chief executive officer. Maybe ... all sorts of uses for knowledge.” Ackerman laughed. “As is said in Washington, ‘Knowledge is power.’ ”
“I’ll tell you what,” Leaphorn said. “Get me the identity and everything else you can learn about our homicide victim and I’ll see if I can learn anything. But don’t count on it.”
8
Professor Louisa Bourbonette got involved more or less by accident. Chee had called the home of retired
