“Tomas Charley?”
Becenti nodded. “He’s a crazy little son of a bitch,” Becenti said. “All them Charleys was crazy and this youngest one is the worst. His mother’s a Laguna. From what I hear, he’s into one of the Laguna kiva societies, and he’s the peyote chief in the Native American Church around here, and he does some curing for the People on top of it all.”
“How’d that happen?” Chee asked.
“One of the boy’s paternal uncles is a yataalii, “Becenti said. “Pretty good old fellow. He taught Tomas the Blessing Way and the kid does it now and then. But most people would rather get someone else.”
“Why do you say he’s crazy?”
Becenti laughed and shrugged. “Chewed too goddamn many peyote buttons,” he said. “Got his brains curdled. Sees visions. Thinks he’s talking to God. Silly little bastard.” Becenti paused, searching for an illustration. “He come in the office last year and said Jesus had told him there was going to be a terrible drought and we should warn everybody to stock up on food. And then this fall he was in telling us that some witch was making his daddy sick. His daddy, that’s Emerson Charley.”
“Well, it’s been dry as hell,” Chee said, “and his daddy is dying.”
“It’s always dry,” Becenti said. “And his daddy’s got cancer. That’s what I heard. I didn’t know he was dying.” Becenti thought about it. “Anyway, he didn’t get witched. I think cancer runs in that family, like craziness. I think that’s what the grandfather died of, too.”
“Dillon Charley? Yeah. That’s what Mrs. Vines said.”
Becenti looked uneasy. He was old enough to have the traditions of the People worn deep into the grain, and one of the traditions was not to speak the name of the dead. The ghost might overhear and be summoned to the speaker.
“Did you know Vines had Dillon Charley buried up at his house?” Chee asked.
“I heard that,” Becenti said. “White men sure got some weird customs.”
Especially their burial customs, Chee thought. He’d spent years among the whites, first at boarding school, then through enough years at the University of New Mexico to win a degree in anthropology, but he still couldn’t fathom the attitude of whites toward the corpse.
“You have any idea why Vines would want to bury Dillon Charley?” Chee asked.
Becenti made a wry face. “Hell, no.”
“This Tomas Charley,” Chee said. “You said he was crazy. Would he be crazy enough to get into Vines’ house and steal a lockbox with keepsakes in it?”
Becenti extracted the cigaret from between his lips and looked at Chee. “Did something like that happen?” he asked. “Why would he want to steal something like that? Vines and his woman are both big hunters. I understand either one of them would just as soon shoot somebody as not.”
“I heard that Tomas’ grandfather thought Vines kept the luck of the Darkness People in that box,” Chee said. “Maybe Tomas heard about that.”
Becenti nodded. “Okay, then. I’d say yes. That kid would be about crazy enough to break in to steal himself some luck.”
6
THE SPIKE on his desk the next morning held three pink “While You Were Out” slips. One told him to call Captain Leaphorn at the Chinle substation. The other two, one left over from yesterday, and one received just before he’d got to work, told him to call B. J. Vines. He put those aside and called the Chinle station. Leaphorn’s business involved identifying a middle-aged Navajo killed in a truck-pedestrian accident. The captain wanted him to send someone to Thoreau to check with a family there. Chee added it to the afternoon assignment of Officer Dodge. Then he picked up the “Call B. J. Vines” slips, leaned back in his chair and considered them. Both were initialed “T.D.” Trixie Dodge was at her desk across the room. He glanced at her. She looked grim this morning. Trixie, he suspected, should have written “Call Mrs. B. J. Vines.” Vines wouldn’t be back for weeks.
“Hey, Trixie,” he said. “You put down ‘Call Vines’ here. Wasn’t the call from Mrs. Vines?”
Trixie didn’t look up. “Vines,” she said.
“Mr. Vines?” Chee insisted.
“It was a man. He said his name was B. J. Vines. He asked for you and then he asked you to call him at that number.” Trixie’s voice was patient.
Chee dialed the number. It rang once.
“Yes.” The voice was male.
“This is Jim Chee of the Navajo Tribal Police. I have a note to call B. J. Vines.”
“Oh, good,” the voice said. “I’m Vines. I’d like to talk to you about that little theft we had. Could you come out?”
“When?”
“Well,” the voice said, “the sooner the better. I understand my wife talked to you about it and…” The voice paused and interjected a nervous laugh. “Well, there’s some misunderstandings that need to be cleared up.” The tone was ironic now. “There tends to be when Rosemary gets involved.”
“Okay,” Chee said. “I’ll be out there after lunch.”
“Good,” Vines said. “Thanks.”
Chee marked the Thoreau assignment off Dodge’s assignment sheet. It was on his way. He’d handle it himself.
7
THE PUEBLO WOMAN ANSWERED the doorbell and showed Chee into the predator room without a sign she’d ever seen him before. There was a man behind the glass-topped desk now – a small man with a round face made rounder by the great bush of iron-gray beard that surrounded it. The man pulled himself to his feet. “Ben Vines,” he said, offering a small, hard hand. “Have a seat.” Chee sat. So did Vines. The room was brighter now than it had been when he had seen it with Mrs. Vines. Autumn sunlight streamed in, reflecting from the glass eyeballs and ivory teeth of the cats. The sunlight made the room less hostile. The lioness above Vines’ left shoulder seemed to be smiling. So did Vines.
“I understand my wife told you we had a break-in, and she hired you to solve the crime,” Vines said.
“She asked me,” Chee said.
“This is embarrassing,” Vines said. What Chee could see of his face through its frame of hair didn’t look embarrassed. His alert black eyes were studying Chee. “I have a feeling there really isn’t a crime to be solved.”
“No?”
“No,” Vines said. He laughed. “My wife is not a very predictable woman at times. She’s a very nervous woman. Sometimes things get confused.”
“Having someone break into your wall safe can make you nervous,” Chee said.
“How nervous it makes you depends on who broke into it,” Vines said. He shifted his weight, glanced out the window and then back at Chee. “Do you know where the safe is?”
“It’s behind that head,” Chee said, nodding to the appropriate cat.
Vines got to his feet again and maneuvered himself laboriously to the wall. He balanced carefully and lifted the mounted head off its hook, dumping it on the carpet. The safe door eased itself open on well-oiled hinges. The space behind it was dank and empty. Vines looked at it, his expression thoughtful. He extracted a pack of cigarets from the side pocket of his jacket, shook one out and lit it. At his feet, the cat’s head smiled benignly at the ceiling.
“Rosemary and I weren’t young when we married,” Vines said. “We’d enjoyed lives of our own and we were going to continue to be private persons as well as man and wife. We kept our old friends and our old memories. Both of us. Separate.”
Vines had been talking to the safe. Now he glanced around at Chee. A trickle of tobacco smoke leaked through his lips. It made its way through his mustache like gray fog. Chee could see now that the left side of Vines’ face was affected. The corner of his mouth and the muscles around his left eye drooped. “This safe operates with a key and a combination. Rosemary doesn’t have either one of them. I have a toolbox in the stables. There’s a prying bar in it.” Vines pushed the safe door closed. “You’ll notice that this wall safe is like a lot of wall safes. It has a limited purpose and it’s not built like a bank vault. It’s not designed to do more than slow down a safe-cracker. You can take a pry bar and jam it in the door fitting, and it gives you enough leverage to spring the lock. Take a look.”