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They say he’s married to Mary Ann Kayete. Daughter of Old Lady Notah. Streams Comes Together people, and I think her daddy was a Towering House man.”
“Oh,” Leaphorn said. “What else do you know about him?”
“Well, they say he’s a retired FBI special agent. Guess he lives on his pension. Drives a Dodge Ram King Cab pickup. They say his wife used to teach at Crownpoint High School, and they tell me Rostic is sometimes called in to talk to students about the law.” Bydonie’s face, which was narrow, weathered, and decorated with a dry, gray ragged mustache, produced a wry smile. “These kids we’re raising today, they could use a lot of that kind of talk. Somebody telling them about getting locked up in jail.”
“Pretty mean around here?” Leaphorn asked.
“Pretty mean everywhere,” Bydonie said. “Nobody’s got any respect for anything anymore.”
“I’ve got to go see him to ask him about an old, old case he worked on. Anything else you could tell me about him that might be useful to know?”
“I don’t think so,” Bydonie said.
Though that proved to be correct, it didn’t prevent him from talking through a second cup of coffee. Thus, Leaphorn arrived at his luncheon meeting with Rostic almost seven minutes late.
He saw Rostic sitting at a table next to the window, menu in front of him, short, stocky, wire-rimmed glasses, looking exactly like an older version of the FBI special agent Leaphorn remembered.
“Sorry I’m late,” Leaphorn said. “Good of you to have some time for this.”
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Ted Rostic slid back his chair, stood, held out his hand, grinning.
“Lieutenant Leaphorn,” he said. “It’s been many a year since I’ve seen you. By the way, you don’t need to worry yourself any about my having time. As I said, I’m retired.”
Leaphorn was grinning, too, thinking how long and boring this retirement scheme could be if you took it seriously. “I’ve just started this retirement thing. I hope you’re going to tell me it gets to be fun once you get the hang of it.”
“Not for me, it isn’t,” Rostic said. He reseated himself, handed Leaphorn a menu. “I’d recommend either the hamburger or the hot dog,” Rostic said. “I’d steer clear of the pizza or the meat loaf dinner.”
“I’m thinking about maybe just a cup of coffee and a doughnut. Something sweet.”
“I presume from that you didn’t drive all the way out here just for a fancy Crownpoint luncheon then,” Rostic said. “And I am very eager to learn what aroused your interest, after all these years, into the cremation of ole Ray Shewnack.”
A waiter had arrived, a Navajo boy in his teens, who brought them each a glass of water, and took Rostic’s hamburger order. “Hamburger for me, too,” Leaphorn said. “And a doughnut.”
“Doughnut for me, too. What kind?”
“The fattest one,” Leaphorn said, “with frosting on it.”
“What aroused our interest in that fire, as I remember, was a call from the New Mexico State Police, who had a call from the McKinley County sheriff’s office, that someone had called from Totter’s Trading Post, said they THE SHAPE SHIFTER
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had a man burned to death out there, and that this dead fellow might be someone on our Most-Wanted list. So I, being the newest man in the New Mexico side of our Gallup office, got sent out to look into it.” Leaphorn sipped his water, waiting for Rostic to add to that. But Rostic was awaiting a Leaphorn question. He occupied himself staring at Leaphorn.
“Well,” Leaphorn said. “Did the caller explain why he thought the dead man was a noted fugitive?”
“It was a woman. The first caller, I mean. Time it got to me the story was thirdhand. Actually fourth. Woman told sheriff’s office, who called state police, who called Gallup FBI office, from which I get the message. But apparently this burned man had a bunch of those Wanted posters in a folder on the seat of his car, or somewhere.
Collected from here and there.”
Leaphorn nodded, considering this. “Just Shewnack posters, I presume?”
Rostic laughed. “I know what you’re thinking. Some creepy people might just collect Wanted posters. But who, who but Shewnack himself, would just collect Shewnack posters? They didn’t even have the usual photograph on them.”
“Oh?”
“Because we never got a photograph of the slippery bastard. He was never arrested, at least not under that name. As a matter of fact, I don’t know anybody in the bureau who ever actually identified the bastard. Always seemed to pick places without surveillance video or many people around to do his robbing. Crime scene people would collect all sorts of fingerprints. Most of them would be people who worked there, others would be unidentifi- 136
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able. Maybe Shewnack, maybe a customer. After it began looking like this guy was a genuine serial bandit, the lab went back and tried to do comparisons on the various crime scene sets.” Rostic laughed, made a dismissing gesture.
“In fact,” he said, “got to be sort of a hobby for some of the old timers who had time on their hands. Compar-
