curiosity, he’ll do it.”
“Tell him we think Bork might have been poisoned by a slice of fruitcake. That should get him interested.” Garcia laughed. “I don’t think so. I think he’d refer me to a psychiatrist. I’m dead certain he’d ask me why we think that. Why do we?”
Leaphorn described the urging he’d received to eat the special cake made by Mr. Delos’s cook and help-mate, a man named Tommy Vang, and how Bork had THE SHAPE SHIFTER
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been given a slice of same as a snack just before he drove away from the Delos place, and how the timing made it just about right for Bork to be feeling its effects and losing control of his car about where he did.
Leaphorn added a few details to his explanation and awaited a response.
It was a skeptical-sounding snort.
“You’re not happy with that?”
“Well, it explains what you mean when you said you were guessing,” Garcia said. “About a dozen guesses to reach that conclusion. You guess that Bork ate the cake, and when he ate it, it took however long for whatever poison to work, that Mr. Delos has a motive, and so forth.”
“I plead guilty to that.”
“Well, I’ll go anyway. You have anything else we could tell Saunders to get him interested?”
“That’s it,” Leaphorn said.
“That’s it then. Come on,” Garcia said, his tone somewhere between scornful and incredulous. “But you still want me to push for the autopsy?”
“Well, there’s also the fact that Bork, a longtime law officer, is a very experienced driver in our mountain-ous country. He is extremely unlikely to have that sort of accident. Don’t you agree? And we can also argue that Delos probably thought Bork was poking into some sort of insurance fraud involving that tale-teller rug. Maybe that would satisfy the need for a motive. And then maybe you could get him to listen to that threatening telephone tape.”
More silence from Garcia. Then a sigh.
“Well, it might appeal to Dr. Saunders. He always 128
TONY HILLERMAN
seems to get a kick out of discovering different kinds of homicide weapons anyway. Breaks the monotony. Maybe that notion of a fruitcake as the murder weapon would appeal to him.”
“And Sergeant, would you please let me know what he finds out? Delos gave me a slice of that fruitcake, too.
I have it in a sack in my truck cooler box.” Garcia laughed. “Playing it safe, are you? Well, keep it there a while, and remind me of your cell phone number.”
Leaphorn provided the number. “And one more thing,” he said. “Do you remember the names of the FBI people who were there at Totter’s Trading Post? Working on it after the fire.”
“Well, let me think about that a minute,” Garcia said.
“That was a long time ago.”
“Yeah,” Leaphorn said, and waited.
“Well, let’s see.” He chuckled. “One of them was Special Agent John O’Malley. I’ll bet you remember him.”
“Unfortunately,” Leaphorn said. “I had some trouble with him down through the years.”
“Me, too,” Garcia said. “And I remember Ted Rostic was there, too. Out of the Gallup office then, I think. Nice guy, he was. And then Sharkey. Remember him? Don’t recall his first name.”
“Jay, I think it was. Or Jason. Another hard man to work with. Anyone else?”
“Probably. They sort of swarmed in when it turned out the burned man was Shewnack. But I don’t remember who.”
“All retired by now, I guess.”
“Probably. I heard O’Malley had died back in Wash-THE SHAPE SHIFTER
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ington. Don’t know about Sharkey. I know Rostic is retired. I heard he lives in Gallup.”
“Good,” Leaphorn said.
“For what?” Garcia said. “What are you after?”
“I can’t seem to let this thing go,” Leaphorn said. “I mean that Totter fire. The whole thing. If I can get hold of Rostic, I’ll see what he remembers about it.” The information operator found no number for Ted Rostic in the Gallup directory.
“But, there’s a Ted in Crownpoint. Could that be him?”
“I’ll bet it is.”
“Want me to ring him for you? For seventy-five cents?”
“I’m on Social Security,” Leaphorn said. “I’ll dial it myself.” He did, and Rostic answered on the fourth ring.
“Leaphorn. Leaphorn,” Rostic said. “That sounds familiar. Sounds like a young fellow I knew once with the
