“Do you see what I’m getting at?”
Tuve was silent a moment. Then: “No.”
“The man who you got the diamond from must have found that arm, and that case locked to it.”
“Yeah,” Tuve said, smiling. “You want me to help you find that man so you can find the diamonds. The ones that would make you rich.”
“I want to find the man so I can find the arm,” Joanna said. “I want to give it back to my father. Bury it where he is buried at the Shrine of the Ages. But if we find the arm, we will also find the diamonds, and that will prove you told the truth to the police and you didn’t steal it.”
That provoked another thoughtful silence. “Yes,” he said. “But about what you told me about burying that arm bone. Do you think that would make a difference?”
“I have dreams about it,” Joanna said. “I don’t see my father in them. I have never seen him. But I hear him. And he is crying for that arm. So it will quit hurting. So the pain will go away. So he can sleep in peace.”
Tuve considered. “You dream that a lot?”
“All the time,” Joanna said.
“Yes,” Tuve said. “Sometimes I am afraid to go to sleep. The dreams scare me.”
“I know. I woke up once just cold and shaking. In the dream I had been sleeping under a bridge, and I couldn’t find my purse, and I didn’t know anyplace to go where I could wash, or get warm.” She looked up at Tuve.
He seemed fascinated.
“And the rats were all around me,” she said.
“Sometimes it’s terrible,” Tuve said. “Once I dreamed I was under the horse and I couldn’t get out, and my head, well, it was almost flat, like a plate. And my eyeballs were out and there was no place I could put them.”
Joanna shuddered at that. “That’s worse than any I can remember. I think you understand why I think you and I should help each other.”
Someone was tapping on the door. Room service, Joanna thought. She glanced at Tuve. “Should I let them in?”
“It’s all right,” Tuve said. “I understand.”
8
The thunderstorm that had been moving steadily toward Gallup from the southwest produced a dazzling flash of lightning just as Navajo County Deputy Sheriff Cowboy Dashee and Sergeant Jim Chee of the Navajo Tribal Police climbed out of Chee’s car in the parking lot. A sharp clap of thunder came two seconds later, the characteristic ozone scent generated by electrically charged air, and then a gust of dusty wind that made the jail door hard to open and blew Chee’s hat into the room ahead of him.
“Well, now,” said the woman behind the desk. “Look what the wind blew in. I was hoping we’d finally get some rain.”
Dashee said, “It’s coming. Today’s the day the Zunis are having their rodeo. They did their rain dance last night.”
Chee rescued his cap, said, “Hello, Mrs. Sosi.”
Mrs. Sosi was laughing. “I asked one of them about that last year when they got rained out again. Told him they should do the dance after the rodeo. He said the rain-outs kept the cowboys from getting hurt. Cut down the medical bills. Did you two come in to get out of the weather?”
“I want to talk to one of your tenants,” Dashee said. “Billy Tuve. He’s my cousin.”
“Tuve?” Sosi said, frowning. She checked the roster on the desk in front of her. “Mr. Tuve is a popular man today. But you’re too late. He bonded out about an hour ago.”
“He what?! Wasn’t that bond set at fifty thousand dollars? Was it lowered? Tuve couldn’t have come up with any property valuable enough to cover that. And I guarantee he didn’t have the five thousand he’d have needed to cover the bond company fee.”
Mrs. Sosi looked down at her records, then looked up with an expression that registered amazed disbelief. “And it was a cash bond,” she said.
“Cash? Fifty thousand in cash?”
“Same as cash. Registered, certified cashier’s check,” Mrs. Sosi said. “Bank of America.”
Dashee’s reaction to all this was shock.
“Who did it?” Chee asked.
“A woman. Just about middle-aged. Nice looking. I never saw her before.” She glanced at the record book. “Ms. Joanna Craig. That mean anything to you?”
“Not to me,” Dashee said.
“She wasn’t local? Where was she from?”
“Well, she used a New York City bank account. She said she was representing Mr. Tuve, and I think maybe
