“Well, now,” Chandler said. “Do you know why?”
“We are told that she claims she has received a psychic message from young Clarke from beyond the grave. In this dream she claims this Clarke ghost tells her his missing arm is hurting him. He tells her she’s his daughter and she must find that arm of his and get it buried with the rest of him.”
Chandler noticed he was smiling.
“That’s her story,” Plymale said. “Trouble is most of those bodies were so torn up that they couldn’t be collected and put back together. Some burned to ashes, some eaten by the coyotes before they were found, a lot of the bits and pieces buried together in common graves. How would you like to go into court with that sort of evidence?”
Chandler grinned. “So we dig us up another set of left-arm bones and collect the reward. But I bet you already thought of that.”
“Of course,” Plymale said. “You’re not as slow as you’ve been acting. Of course, it wouldn’t work. According to the ad she ran, he had a fracture of that forearm set a few years earlier. X-rays and so forth. Had to be pinned together. You couldn’t get away with it.”
“Oh, well,” Chandler said, thinking of the diamonds again. “Just tell me what you’re after. And what you want me to do. And what’s in it for Bradford Chandler.”
“Were you paying attention when I mentioned that civil law suit? Well, pay attention now. This gets complicated. Old Man Clarke was a widower. No near kin except his son, John. In the suit Joanna’s mother filed way back then, she claimed this Joanna was the baby John Clarke got her pregnant with. That makes Joanna Craig a granddaughter of John Clarke’s daddy. That makes her the ‘direct descendant’ who inherits the family fortune.”
Chandler looked at Plymale, said, “Light begins to dawn. Need I ask who has all that Clarke fortune now?”
“The way the will was written, if there weren’t any of those direct descendants, then the money went to this nonprofit charity foundation we helped him set up. I think I explained that.”
“Ah,” Chandler said. “And you were the executor of his estate?”
Plymale ignored the question. “Joanna Craig’s mother-to-be got herself a lawyer, but the only evidence she had was a bundle of old letters. It was too weak to back up a court claim. We tried to make a settlement with her. She turned that down and that looked like the end of it.”
“She sounds crazy,” Chandler said.
“She was crazy. Old Man Clarke said she was schizophrenic-paranoid. Seemed sane enough when she was taking whatever medicine the shrinks give ’em for that. But crazy, anyway.”
Plymale paused, signaled for another drink. Waited. Chandler looked out across the beach at the surf coming in, at the girl in the string bikini, who was coming back now, accompanied by another bikini-clad girl. They were looking his way, laughing.
The drink arrived. Plymale took a sip. Poked Chandler’s arm. “Pay attention now,” he said. “Here’s why we give a damn about finding that arm. Those damned scientists now claim they can recover DNA evidence from old bones. Even awful old bones, like in the Egyptian pyramids. You know what that means?”
Chandler nodded, but Plymale told him anyway. It meant that John Clarke’s lost left-arm bones with the old fracture x-rays and maybe even with the diamond case still handcuffed to the wrist could prove that Joanna Craig actually was the man’s daughter.
And, Chandler was thinking, that would mean that old man Plymale would lose control of a huge amount of money. Maybe there would be an outcome even worse than that for Plymale. The court might order Plymale to account for what his “nonprofit charity” had been doing with that mountain of money all the years he had controlled it.
Chandler was staring at the two girls in the bikinis, but his mind was focused on that mountain of wealth.
5
Within minutes after getting home from his meeting with Pinto, Leaphorn knew this worrying about diamonds wouldn’t just go away. The light on his answering machine was blinking and the second call was from Deputy Sheriff Cowboy Dashee. With a diamond on his mind.
The first one was from Professor Louisa Bourbonette, sounding happy. The old woman she’d gone to see at Bitter Springs had been a treasury of Havasupai legendary stuff. Tomorrow the old lady would take Louisa to see an even more elderly uncle who was full of lore about the Paiute people.
“I’m going to stay down here tonight. Tomorrow I’ll find this fellow and see what I can get on tape. I’ll call you again tomorrow and let you know when to expect me. I think it’s going to link the Havasupai origin story with the Hopi’s. Wish you were down here with me. You’d be interested in these legends. And don’t forget tomorrow is garbage pickup day on your street.”
Joe hadn’t forgotten. He’d already wheeled the can out to the curb for the Window Rock Trash Co. truck.
The second call was the sort that retired people learn to expect.
“Lieutenant,” Dashee said, “two of your former hired hands have set themselves a getting-married date. It’s going to be two weeks from Monday, at Bernie Manuelito’s mother’s place, south of Shiprock. You’re invited. I get to be best man. In case you haven’t guessed, Bernie’s chosen one is finally, at long last, Jim Chee.”
Then came Cowboy Dashee’s chuckle, followed by a short pause, and then it was time for what retired people know follows friendly introductory statements:
“And, Lieutenant, I’ve got a problem. Like to talk to you about it. Maybe get some advice. This man they’re holding in that Zuni robbery-homicide thing, well, he’s my cousin. That diamond he was trying to pawn, well, he says he’s had that thing for years. He didn’t do that robbery. I’d like to get your help on that.”
