Talking God Part 9

"He gave this address to the pharmacist where he buys his medicine," Leaphorn said.

"Ah," the man said. He produced a slight smile. "Then he has been sick. I trust this man, this Santillanes, is feeling better now."

"No," Leaphorn said. They stood there in the doorway, both of them waiting. Leaphorn had sensed some motion behind him. He shifted his weight enough to see the entrance of apartment two. The door was almost closed now. But not quite. Through it he could see the shadow of the small man, listening.

"He is not better? Then he is worse?"

"I should not be wasting your time with this," Leaphorn said. "Did Elogio Santillanes live here once and move away? Do you know where I might find any of his relatives? Or a friend?"

The gray man shook his head.

"I will go then," Leaphorn said. "Thank you very much. Please tell the lady I am sorry I disturbed her."

"Ah." The man hesitated. "You have made me curious. What happened to this fellow, this Santillanes?"

"He's dead," Leaphorn said.

"Dead." There was no surprise. "How?"

"He was stabbed," Leaphorn said.

"When did this happen?" Still there was no surprise. But Leaphorn could see the muscle along his jaw tighten. "And where did it happen?"

"Out in New Mexico. About a month ago." Leaphorn put his hand on the man's arm. "Listen," he said. "Do you know why this man Santillanes would have gone to New Mexico? What interest did he have in going to see a woman named Agnes Tsosie?"

The man pulled his arm away. He swallowed, his eyes misty with grief. He looked away from Leaphorn, toward his feet. "I don't know Elogio Santillanes," he said. And he carefully shut the door.

Leaphorn stood for a moment staring at the wood, sorting this out. The puzzle that had brought him here was solved. Clearly solved. No doubt about it. Or only the shadow of a doubt. The man with the worn, pointed shoes was Elogio Santillanes, the husband (perhaps brother) of this dark-haired woman. The brother (perhaps friend) of this gray-haired man. No more question of the ident.i.ty of Pointed Shoes. Now there was another puzzle, new and fresh.

He walked down the porch, noticing that the door to apartment two was now closed but the light still illuminated the drapery. A dark afternoon, the kind of weather Leaphorn rarely saw on the Arizona-New Mexico border, and which quickly affected his mood. His taxi was waiting at the curb. Miss Mackinnon sat with a book propped on the steering wheel, reading.

Leaphorn turned and walked back to apartment two. He pushed the doorbell b.u.t.ton. This one buzzed. He waited, thinking that people in Washington are slow to come to their doors. The door opened and the small man stood in it, looking at him.

"I need some information," Leaphorn said. "I'm looking for Elogio Santillanes."

The small man shook his head. "I don't know him."

"Do you know those people in that apartment over there?" Leaphorn nodded toward it. "I understand Santillanes lives in this building."

The man shook his head. Behind him in the apartment Leaphorn could see a folding card table with a telephone on it, a folding lawn chair, a cardboard box which seemed to contain books. A cheap small-screen television set perched on another box. The sound was turned off but the tube carried a newscast, in black and white. Otherwise the room seemed empty. A newspaper was on the floor beside the lawn chair. Perhaps the man had been reading there when the doorbell rang. Leaphorn suddenly found himself as interested in this small man as he was in the slim chance of getting information that had brought him here.

"You don't know the names of the people?" Leaphorn asked. He asked it partly to extend this conversation and see where it might lead. But there was a note of disbelief in his voice. Old as he was, Leaphorn still found it incredible that people could live side by side, see each other every day, and not be acquainted.

"Who are you?" the small man asked. "Are you an Indian?"

"I'm a Navajo," Leaphorn said. He reached for his identification. But he thought better of that.

"From where?"

"Window Rock."

"That's in-" The man hesitated, thinking. "Is it in New Mexico?"

"It's in Arizona," Leaphorn said.

"What are you doing here?"

"Looking for Elogio Santillanes."

"Why? What do you want with him?"

Leaphorn's eyes had been locked with the small man's. They were a sort of greenish blue and Leaphorn sensed in them, in the man's tone and his posture, a kind of hostile resentment.

"I just need information," Leaphorn said.

"I can't help you," the man said. He closed the door. Leaphorn heard the security chain rattle into place.

Miss Mackinnon started the motor as soon as he climbed into the backseat of the taxi. "I hope you got a lot of money," she said. "Back to the hotel now? And get your traveler's checks out of the safe-deposit box."

"Right," Leaphorn said.

He was thinking of the small man's strange, intent eyes, of his freckles, of his short, curly red hair. There must be thousands of short men in Washington who fit the Perez description of the man searching the roomette of Elogio Santillanes. But Leaphorn had never believed in coincidence. He had found the widow of Santillanes. He was sure of that. The widow or perhaps a sister. Certainly, he had found someone who had loved him.

And almost as certainly, he had found the man who had killed him. Going back to Window Rock could wait a little. He wanted to understand this better.

14.

Over lunch, the day after their visit to Highhawk's house, Chee and Janet Pete had discussed the man waiting in the sedan. "I think he was watching Highhawk, not you," Chee had said. "I think that's why he was parked out there." And Janet had finally said maybe so, but he could tell she wasn't persuaded by his logic. She was nervous. Uneasy about it. So he didn't tell her something else he had concluded-that the little man was one of the sort policemen call "freaks." At least the desert-country cops with whom Chee worked called them that-those men who have been somehow damaged beyond fear into a species that is unpredictable, and therefore dangerous. Finding a strange man tapping at his window in the darkness hadn't shaken the small man in the slightest. That was obvious. It had only aroused curiosity, and then provoked a sort of aggressive macho anger. Chee had seen that in such men before.

He had given Janet his a.n.a.lysis of Highhawk. ("He's nuts. Perfectly normal in some ways, but his sketches, they show you he's tilted about nine degrees. Slightly crazy.") And he told her of the carving of the fetish he'd seen in Highhawk's office-studio.

"He was carving it out of cottonwood root-which is what the Pueblo people like to use, at least the ones I know. The Zunis and the Hopis," Chee had said. "No reason to believe Tano would be any different. Maybe he was making a copy of the Twin War G.o.d."

And Janet, of course, was way ahead of him. "I've thought about that," she said. "That maybe John would hire him to make a copy of the thing. Maybe I guessed right about that." She looked sad as she said it, not looking at Chee, studying her hands. "Then I guess we would give it to our man in the Tano Pueblo. And he'd use it to get himself elected."

"Tell him it's the real thing?"

"Depending on how honest our Eldon Tamana is," Janet said glumly. "If he's honest, then you lie to him. If he's not, then you tell the truth and let him do the lying."

"I wonder if anyone at the Pueblo could tell the copy from the real thing," Chee said. "How long has the thing been missing?"

"Since nineteen three or four, I think John said. Anyway, a long time."

"You'd probably be safe with a subst.i.tute then," Chee said. He was thinking about Highhawk. It didn't seem within the artist's nature to use his talent in a conspiracy to cheat an Indian Pueblo. But perhaps Highhawk would be another one considered honest enough to require that he be lied to. Maybe he didn't know why he was making the replica. In fact, maybe that carving wasn't a replica at all. Maybe that cottonwood fetish in his office was something else. Or maybe it was the genuine fetish itself. Or maybe this whole theory was nonsense.

"Jim," Janet said. "What do you think? Do you think they're sort of being-that I'm getting sort of led into something?" She was looking down at her hands, gripped tightly in her lap. "What do you think?"

Jim Chee thought the way she had changed that question was interesting. He thought it was interesting that she didn't ever actually p.r.o.nounce the name of John McDermott. He wanted to say "Led by whom?" and force her at least to put some sort of name to it-if only the name of the law firm.

"I think something's going on," Chee said. "And I think we should go somewhere quiet, and eat dinner and talk it over." He glanced at her. "Maybe even hold hands. I could use a little handholding."

She had been looking down at her hands. Now she gave him a quick sidelong glance, and then turned away. "I can't tonight," she said. "I promised John I would meet him. Him and the man from Tano."

"Well, then," Chee said. "I'll ask you another question. Has Highhawk said anything more to you about this crime that hasn't been committed yet? You remember that? You mentioned it when you called me at Shiprock. I think it was sort of vague. Some reference to needing a lawyer in the future for something that hadn't yet happened. Do you remember?"

"Of course I remember," Janet said, looking at her hands again. "And tonight it's really law firm business. John arranged to have Tamana come. He said he wants to get me involved in how to handle the problem. He wants me to talk to Tamana. So I could hardly get out of it."

"Of course not," Chee said. He was disappointed. He had counted on this evening stretching on. But it was more than disappointment. There was resentment, too.

Janet sensed it. "I guess I could," she said. "I don't know how long this man's going to be in Washington. But I can try to call John and cancel it. Or leave a message for him at the restaurant."

"No, no," Chee said. "Business is business." But he didn't want to think about Janet and John McDermott having dinner and about what would happen after dinner. If I was honest with her, he thought, I would tell her that of course McDermott was using her. That he had probably used her when she was his student in law school, and ever since, and would always use her. He had never seen McDermott, but he knew professors who used their graduate students. Used them for slave labor to do their research, used them emotionally.

"Back to my question," Chee said. "Did you ever ask Highhawk what he meant by that reference to the uncommitted crime? Did he ever explain what he meant by that?"

Janet seemed happy to shift the subject. "I said something like I hoped he wasn't intending to dig up any more old bones. And he just laughed. So I said-frankly, this whole thing bothered me, so I said I didn't think it was laughable if he was planning to commit a felony. Something stuffy-sounding like that. And he laughed again and said he didn't intend to be guilty of making his attorney a co-conspirator. He said the less I knew the better."

"He seems to know something about the law."

"He knows a lot about a lot of things," Janet agreed. "Nothing wrong with the man's mind."

"Except for being crazy."

"Except for that," Janet agreed.

"Can you arrange for me to see him again?" Chee said. "And I'd like to get a look at that genuine Tano fetish figure. You think that's possible?"

"I'm sure there's no problem seeing Highhawk. About the fetish, I don't know. It's probably stored somewhere in a bas.e.m.e.nt. And the Smithsonian must be pretty selective about who has access to what."

"Maybe because I'm a cop," Chee said, wondering as he said it what in the world he could say to make anyone believe the Navajo Tribal Police had a legitimate interest in a Pueblo Indian artifact.

"More likely because you're a shaman," Janet Pete said. "You still are, aren't you?"

"Trying to be," Chee said. "But being a medicine man doesn't fit very well with being a policeman. Don't get much business." Even that was an overstatement. The curing ceremonial Chee had learned was the Blessing Way. In the four years since he had declared himself a hataalii hataalii ready to perform that most popular ceremonial he'd had only three customers. One had been a maternal cousin, whom Chee had suspected of hiring him only as an act of family kindness. One had been the blessing of a newly constructed hogan owned by the niece of a friend, and one had been for a fellow policeman, the famous Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn. "Did I tell you about singing a Blessing Way for Joe Leaphorn?" ready to perform that most popular ceremonial he'd had only three customers. One had been a maternal cousin, whom Chee had suspected of hiring him only as an act of family kindness. One had been the blessing of a newly constructed hogan owned by the niece of a friend, and one had been for a fellow policeman, the famous Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn. "Did I tell you about singing a Blessing Way for Joe Leaphorn?"

Janet looked shocked. "The famous Leaphorn? Grouchy Joe? I thought he was-" She searched for the word to define Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn. "Agnostic. Or skeptical. Or-what is it? Anyway, I didn't think he believed in curing ceremonials and things like that."

"He wasn't so bad," Chee said. "We had worked together on a case. People were digging up Anasazi graves and then there were a couple of homicides. But I think he asked me to do it because he wanted to be nice."

"Nice," Janet said. "That doesn't sound like the Joe Leaphorn I always used to hear about. Seems like I was always hearing Navajo cops b.i.t.c.hing about Leaphorn never being quite satisfied with anything."

But it had, in fact, been nice. More than nice. Beautiful. Everything had gone beautifully. Not many of Leaphorn's relatives had been there. But then the old man was a widower and he didn't think Leaphorn had much family. Leap horn was a Red Forehead Dinee and that clan was pretty much extinct. But the curing itself had gone perfectly. He had forgotten nothing. The sand paintings had been exactly correct. And when the final singing had been finished Old Man Leaphorn had, in some way difficult for Chee to define, seemed to be healed of the sickness that had been riding him. The bleakness had been gone. He had seemed back in harmony. Content.

"I think he just always wants things to be better than they naturally are," Chee said. "I got used to him after a while. And I've got a feeling that all that talk about him being a smart son of a b.i.t.c.h is pretty much true."

"I used to see him in court there at Window Rock now and then, and in the police building, but I never knew him. I heard he was a real pragmatist. Not a traditional Navajo."

And how about you, Janet Pete? Chee thought. How traditional are you? Do you believe in what Changing Woman taught our ancestors about the power we are given to heal ourselves? How about you leaving Dinetah and the Sacred Mountains because a white man wants you to keep him happy in Washington? But that was none of his G.o.dd.a.m.n business. That was clear enough. His role was to be a friend. No more. Well, why not? For that matter, he could use a friend himself.

"What did you mean about getting to see the fetish as a shaman?" he asked.

"Highhawk would be very impressed if he knew you were a Navajo hataalii hataalii," she said. "Tell him you're a singer and let him know you would like to see his work. He's setting up a mask exhibition, you know. Tell him you'd like to see the Navajo part of the show."

"And then ask to see the fetish," Chee said.

Janet looked at him, studying his expression. "Why not?" she asked, and the question sounded a little bitter. "You think I'm thinking too much like a lawyer?"

"I didn't say that."

"Well, I am a lawyer."

He nodded. "You think I could see Highhawk tonight?"

"He's working tonight," she said. "On that exhibit. I'll call him at the museum and see if I can set something up. Will you be at your hotel?"

"Where else?" Chee said, noticing as Janet glanced at him that his tone, too, sounded a little bitter.

"I'll try to hurry it up," she said. "Maybe you can do it tomorrow."

It proved to be quicker than that.

Janet had shown him the Vietnam Memorial wall, the Jefferson Memorial, and the National Air and s.p.a.ce Museum, and then dropped him off at his hotel. Chee ate a cheese omelet in the hotel coffee shop, took a shower in his bathroom tub (which, small as it was, was huge compared to the bathing compartment in Chee's trailer home), and turned on the television. The sound control was stuck somewhere between loud and extremely loud and Chee spent a futile five minutes trying to adjust the volume. Failing that, he found an old movie in which the mood music was lower-decibel and sprawled across the pillow to watch it.

The telephone rang. It was Henry Highhawk.

"Miss Pete said you wanted to see the exhibit," Highhawk said. "Are you doing anything right now?"

Chee was available.

"I'll meet you at the Twelfth Street entrance to the Museum of Natural History building," Highhawk said. "It's just about five or six blocks from your hotel. I hate to rush you but I have another appointment later on."

"I'll be there in twenty minutes," Chee said. He turned off the TV and reached for his coat.

Perhaps Janet's idea of being followed had made him edgy. He looked for the car and he saw it almost as soon as he left the hotel entrance. The old Chevy sedan with the bent antenna was parked across the street and down the block. He stood motionless studying it, trying to see if the small man was in it. Reflection from the windshield made it impossible to tell. Chee walked slowly down the sidewalk, thinking that the small man hadn't made any effort at concealment. What might that mean? Did he want Chee to know he was being watched? If so, why? Chee could think of no reason for that. Perhaps it was simply carelessness. Or arrogance. Or perhaps he wasn't watching Chee at all.

His route to the Museum of Natural History would take him the other way, but Chee detoured to walk past the sedan. It was empty. He leaned against the roof, looking in. On the front seat there was a folded copy of today's Washington Post Washington Post and a paper cup. A street map of the District of Columbia was on the dash. The backseat was empty except that an empty plastic bag with a Safeway logo was crumpled on the floor. The car was locked. and a paper cup. A street map of the District of Columbia was on the dash. The backseat was empty except that an empty plastic bag with a Safeway logo was crumpled on the floor. The car was locked.

Chee looked up the street and down it. Two teenaged black girls were walking toward him, laughing at something one had said. Otherwise, no one was in sight. The rain had stopped now but the streets and sidewalks still glistened with dampness. The air was damp, too, and chill. Chee pulled his jacket collar around his throat and walked. He listened. He heard nothing but occasional traffic sounds. He was on Tenth Street now, the gray ma.s.s of the Department of Justice building beside him, the Post Office building looming across the street. Justice seemed dark but a few of the windows in the postal offices were lit. What did post office bureaucrats do that kept them working late? He imagined someone at a drafting table designing a stamp. He stopped at the intersection of Const.i.tution Avenue waiting for the Don't Walk signal to change. Two men and a woman, all wearing the Washington uniform, were walking briskly down the sidewalk toward him. Each held a furled umbrella. Each carried a briefcase. The little man was nowhere in sight. Then, under the shrubbery landscaping the corner of the Justice building to Chee's left, he saw a body.

Chee sucked in his breath. He stared. It was a human form, drawn into the fetal position and partially covered by what seemed to be a cardboard box. Near the head was a sack. Chee made a tentative step toward it. The trio walked past the body. The man nearest glanced at it and said something unintelligible to Chee. The woman looked at the body and looked quickly away. They walked past Chee. "...at least GS 13," the woman was saying. "More likely 14, and then before you know it..." Probably a wino, Chee thought. Chee had seen a thousand or so unconscious drunks since his swearing-in as an officer of the Navajo Tribal Police, seen them sprawled in Gallup alleys, frozen in the sagebrush beside the road to Shiprock, mangled like jackrabbits on the asphalt of U.S. Highway 666. But he could see the floodlit spire of the Washington Monument just a few blocks behind him. He hadn't expected it here. He walked over the dead autumn gra.s.s, knelt beside the body. The cardboard was damp from the earlier rain. The body was a man. The familiar and expected smell of whiskey was missing.

Chee reached his hand to the side of the man's throat, feeling for a pulse.