Chee nodded. He didn’t have to ask Bernie how she knew all this confidential stuff. Even if it wasn’t her case, she was a cop, and if she really wanted to know, she’d know who to talk to. “Sounds pretty weak to me,” he said. “Cap Stoner was shot, too. He was the security boss out there. You’d think they’d figure Stoner for the inside man.”
He rose, poured a cup of coffee, and handed it to Bernie, giving her a little time to think how she wanted to answer that.
“Everybody liked Stoner,” she said. “All the old-timers anyway. And Teddy’s been in trouble before,” she said. “When he was just a kid. He got arrested for joyriding in somebody else’s truck.”
“Well it couldn’t have been very serious,” Chee said. “At least the county was willing to hire him as a deputy.”
“It was a juvenile thing,” Bernie said.
“Awful weak then. Do they have something else on him?”
“Not really,” she said.
He waited. Bernie’s expression told him something worse was coming. Or maybe not. Maybe she wouldn’t tell him.
She sighed. “People at the casino said he’d been acting strange. They said he was nervous. Instead of watching people inside, he kept going out into the parking lot. When his shift was over, he stayed around. He told one of the cleanup crew he was waiting to be picked up.”
“OK,” Chee said. “I can see it now. I mean them thinking he was waiting for the gang to show up. In case they needed help.”
“He wasn’t, though. He was waiting for someone else.”
“No problem, then. When he gets well enough to talk, he tells the feds who he was waiting for. They check, confirm it, and there’s no reason to hold him,” Chee said, thinking there was probably something else.
“I don’t think he’ll tell,” Bernie said.
“Oh. You mean he was waiting for a woman then?” He didn’t pursue that. Didn’t ask her how she knew all this, or why she hadn’t passed it along to the FBI. Didn’t ask her why she had come here to tell him about it.
“I don’t know what to do,” Bernie said.
“Probably nothing,” he said. “If you do, they’ll want to know how you got this information. Then they’ll talk to his wife. Mess up his marriage.”
“He’s not married.”
Chee nodded, thinking there could be all sorts of reasons a guy wouldn’t want the world to know about a woman picking him up at 4 A.M. He just couldn’t think of a good one right away.
“They’ll be trying to get him to tell who the robbers were,” Bernie said. “They’ll come up with some way to hold him until he tells. And he won’t know who they are. So I’m afraid they’ll find something to charge him with so they can hold him.”
“I just got back from Alaska,” Chee said, ”so I don’t know anything about any of this. But I’ll bet they got a good idea by now who they’re looking for.”
Bernie shook her head. “No. I don’t think so,” she said. “I hear that’s a total blank. They were talking at first like it was some of the right-wingers in one of the militia groups. Something political. But now I hear they don’t have a clue.”
Chee nodded. That would explain why the FBI had been so quick to announce the aircraft business. It took the heat off the area Agent in Charge.
“You’re sure you know Bai was waiting for a woman? Do you know who?”
Bernie hesitated. “Yes.”
“Could you tell the feds?”
“I guess I could. I will if I have to.“ She put the coffee cup on the table, untasted. “You know what I was thinking? I was thinking you worked here a long time before they shifted you to Tuba City. You know a lot of people. With the FBI thinking they already have the inside man they won’t be looking for the real inside man. I thought maybe you could find out who really was their helper in the casino. If anybody can.”
Now it was Chee’s turn to hesitate. He sipped his coffee, cold now, and tried to sort out his mixture of reactions to all this. Bernie’s confidence in him was flattering, if misguided. Why did the thought that Bernie was having an affair with this rent-a-cop disappoint him? It should be a relief. Instead it gave him an empty, abandoned feeling.
“I’ll ask around,” Chee said.
Chapter Three
The only client in the dining room in Window Rock’s Navajo Inn was sitting at a table in the corner with a glass of milk in front of him. He was wearing a droopy gray-felt Stetson and reading the Gallup Independent. Joe Leaphorn stood at the entrance a moment studying him. Roy Gershwin, looking a lot older, more weather-beaten and wornout than he’d remembered him. But then he hadn’t seen him for years—not since Gershwin had helped him nail a U.S. Forest Service ranger who’d been augmenting his income by digging artifacts out of Anasazi burials on a Gershwin grazing lease. That had been at least six years ago, about the time Leaphorn had starting thinking about retirement. But they went far back beyond that—back to Leaphorn’s rookie years. Back to a summer when Leaphorn had arrested one of Gershwin’s hired hands on a rape complaint — a bad start with a happy ending. That had been the first time he’d heard Gershwin’s deep, gruff whiskey-ruined voice -an angry voice telling Leaphorn he’d arrested an innocent man. When he had answered the telephone this morning, he recognized that odd voice instantly.
“Lieutenant Leaphorn,” Gershwin had said. “I hear you’re retired now. Is that right? If it is, I guess I’m trying to impose on you.”
“Mr Gershwin,” Leaphorn had replied. “It’s Mr Leaphorn now, and it’s good to hear from you.“ He had heard himself saying that with a sort of surprise. This was what retirement was doing to him. And what lay ahead. This old rancher had never really been a friend. Just one of those thousands of people you deal with in a lifetime spent as a cop. But here he was, genuinely happy to hear his telephone ring. Happy to have someone to talk to.
But Gershwin had stopped talking. Long silence. The sound of the man clearing his throat. Then: "I guess this ain’t going to surprise you much. I mean to tell you I got myself a problem. I guess you’ve heard that from a lot of people. Being a policeman.”
“Sort of goes with the job,” Leaphorn said. Two years ago he would have grumbled about this sort of call. Today he wasn’t. Loneliness conditions.
“Well,” Gershwin said, "I got something I don’t know how to handle. I’d like to talk to you about it.”
“Let’s hear it.”
“I’m afraid it’s not something you can handle over the telephone,” Gershwin replied.
So they arranged to meet at three at the Navajo Inn. It was now three minutes short of that. Gershwin looked up, noticed Leaphorn approaching, stood and motioned him to the chair across from him.
“Damn good of you to come,” he said. “I was afraid you’d tell me you were retired now and I should worry somebody else with it.”
“Glad to help if I can,” Leaphorn said. They polished off the required social formalities faster than usual, discussing the cold, dry winter, poor grazing, risk of forest fires, agreed that last night’s weather report sounded like the monsoon season was about to start and finally got to the point.
“And what brings you all the way down here to Window Rock?”
“I heard on the radio yesterday the FBI’s got that Ute Casino robbery all screwed up. You know about that?”
“I’m out of the loop on crimes these days. Don’t know anything about it. But it wouldn’t be the first time an investigation went sour.”
“The radio said they’re looking for a damned airplane,” Gershwin said. “None of them fellas could fly anything more complicated than a kite.”
Leaphorn raised his eyebrows. This was getting interesting. The last he’d heard, those working the case had absolutely no identifications. But Gershwin had come here to tell him something. He’d let Gershwin talk.