“Ed Zeck and Councilman Chester,” Leaphorn said, with a question in his voice.
“Yeah,” Chee said. “What did you think of that tape? The one I left in your tape player?”
Through years of police work, of questioning people to whom he didn’t want to show his reaction to their answers, Joe Leaphorn had learned to control his expression. He could hear the best news, or the worst, behind the same bland and neutral face. But not now. His cheeks flushed, blood rushed to his forehead, the lines around his mouth tightened.
Jim Chee was looking at an enraged Leaphorn.
But it only lasted a moment. Relief replaced fury. The veils of mystery had fallen away. He wasn’t the victim of some unknown malice, the target of a shrewd and secret enemy. He was a victim of simpleminded boneheadedness. No more suspension, or risk of dismissal, or hiring a lawyer to defend against a charge of conspiracy to suppress evidence. All of that could be fixed tomorrow morning. Leaphorn felt weak with relief. He leaned a hand against Chee’s truck. And then he remembered what this boneheadedness had cost him.
“Why did you leave that tape in my player?” His expression was neutral again, but the voice was cold.
Chee hastily explained how that had happened, and why the call telling him the Todachene suspect had confessed over KNDN up in Farmington had caused him to rush away without an explanation. “I wanted to get right on that before it got cold,” Chee concluded, and looked at Leaphorn to see if the explanation had created the mollifying effect desired. If it had, he couldn’t read it in Leaphorn’s expression.
Leaphorn stood there studying Chee, saying nothing.
“About the Chester tape,” Chee said. “You were asking me if I knew of any evidence of bribery. I know it can’t be used – the tape, I mean. It must have come from an illegal telephone tap. But maybe it will persuade the federals to so something.”
“What do you know about how it came to be broadcast?”
“Just what was in the police report,” Chee said. “The standard ‘middle-aged, middle-sized’ man walked into the Navajo Tractor Sales office. The radio station has an open mike there for announcements. He got in line with the other people and when his turn came he held the tape player up to the mike and broadcast it and then he just walked out.”
“You had nothing to do with it?”
“No sir,” Chee said, loudly. “Nothing. Absolutely nothing.”
“Know anything more about it?”
“No sir.” Chee paused. “Except I guess Roger Applebee did it. The lawyer lobbying against that toxic waste dump.” He told Leaphorn how he’d met Applebee while having lunch with Janet Pete and what Applebee had said about getting some concrete evidence. “It can’t be used in court, of course. But maybe he thought it would cause the FBI to get interested. Maybe to set up a sting. Something like that.”
“I doubt it,” Leaphorn said.
Chee was surprised. “Well,” he said. “They’re into that sort of thing now, the federals are. Running stings. They’ve been nailing politicians here and there for accepting bribes. And twenty-something thousand dollars is a lot of money.”
Leaphorn studied Chee a moment, sighed, and made a decision. Under the circumstances, when he was Chee’s age he might have done what Chee had done.
“Councilman Chester and Ed Zeck have been in the cattle business for about twenty years,” he said. “They run bred heifers on Chester’s grazing lease and a Bureau of Land Management lease that Zeck holds. The twenty-something thousand dollars is exactly what it takes to pay off a Farmington Bank of New Mexico loan Chester signed to buy the heifers. Zeck sold them to the feed lot people, but he hadn’t deposited the check.”
“Oh,” Chee said.
“Only thing wrong about the deal was the price of beef went down and they lost a little money on the project,” Leaphorn said. “But Dilly Streib is going to want to talk to you about an illegal wiretap, and maybe about that radio broadcast.”
“Sure,” Chee said. He wanted to ask Leaphorn why he was wearing civilian clothing on a workday. Maybe he’d misunderstood. Maybe it was tomorrow that Leaphorn was leaving for China.
“Call Streib and tell him,” said Leaphorn. “And call Captain Dodge and explain the tape business to him. And let’s get back to business.”
“Yes sir,” Chee said.
“The Todachene thing. Have you found him?”
“Well,” Chee said. “I think I have the driver spotted. But I need to find the truck before we have any evidence. I haven’t located it yet.” He stopped, hoping Leaphorn wouldn’t press him for details. Leaphorn didn’t.
“Let that go for a while. We want to pick up that Kanitewa boy and find out if he saw anything that day at Eric Dorsey’s shop.” He told Chee what he had learned about the Tano Lincoln Cane and the Pojoaque Lincoln Cane and about collectors of historic rarities, and his conclusions about Asher Davis.
“It’s like your Todachene suspect, though,” Leaphorn said. “We don’t have any concrete evidence. Just circumstantial stuff. Unless the Kanitewa kid saw something helpful.”
Chee cleared his throat. “You mean,” he said, “Asher Davis killed Eric Dorsey?”
“Except we don’t have any evidence.”
“Lieutenant,” Chee said. “Asher Davis was out on the Hopi Reservation when Dorsey was killed. He was out there with Cowboy Dashee, buying stuff from Dashee’s relatives. About the time Dorsey was killed they were eating lunch with Dashee’s uncle at the Hopi Cultural Center.”
Leaphorn lost his neutral expression again. But only for a moment.
“Well, now,” he said. “That’s interesting.”
Chee cleared his throat again.
“Lieutenant, was I wrong about you taking leave and going to China? Did I get the date wrong?”
“No,” Leaphorn said. “I had to call it off. I got suspended and I had to stay for the investigation.”
“My God!” Chee said. “Suspended! Why would you get suspended?”
Leaphorn told him.
Chapter 26
“THE OLD BATTLE-AX did a lot of talking,” Harold Blizzard said. “She’d talk about absolutely everything except where she was hiding the kid.”
“I can see I’m going to have to go out there myself,” Chee said. “You just don’t seem to be catching on about how to interrogate people.”
“I can interrogate people all right,” Blizzard said. “Normal people, I have no problem. It’s you Navajos. You know that stereotype about us Indians being taciturn?” Blizzard raised a huge palm toward Chee and growled “Ugggh” to illustrate his point. “Well, that’s based on the rest of us Indians. Cheyennes, Cherokees, Choctaws, Comanches, Chippewas, Modocs, Kiowas, Seminoles, Potts, Hopis. Normal Indians. But whoever decided Indians were silent hadn’t run into you talkative Navajos.”
“You’re telling me she didn’t just flat-out deny she knew where Delmar could be located? Is that right? She just wasn’t willing to tell you?”
Blizzard used his big right hand to demonstrate lips flapping. “She’d just talk about what a lousy job we policemen did in protecting people, enforcing the laws and all that. And how would she know Delmar would be safe if we had him in our custody? And how she knew we wouldn’t post a guard on him, or anything like that. And on, and on.”
“Did you ask her why she thought he needed a guard?”
“Sure, I did. And she’d then just give me five more minutes about how lazy we cops were. And then I’d tell her she was judging us by the performance of you guys.” Blizzard cut off his own chuckle and Chee’s response to that by signaling the waitress and pointing to their coffee cups.