“What did she have to say?”
“She wasn’t there,” Chee said.
Dashee quit grimacing long enough to look surprised. And then alarmed. “She wasn’t? What happened?”
“She left a note on that big flat rock there. She told Tuve she was going to walk up the river awhile, and if he showed up before she got back, then wait for her. And if we showed up, the same for us. Our turn to wait.”
Dashee managed a grin. “Sounds like Bernie,” he said.
“Yeah,” Chee said, looking less happy about it. “Anyway, I waited awhile. Looked around. Found some other tracks there, too. Made by new men’s hiking boots. About size eleven or twelve, I’d say. But no sign of anyone there. Then I thought maybe you’d found the diamond man’s cave and come back to get her and she’d left with you for a look at it. So I headed up this way and heard you hollering.”
Dashee considered that, didn’t like the sound of it.
“Hey,” he said. “I wonder what happened to her.”
“I thought she’d be here with you. Now I’m getting a little worried.”
“Maybe another broken ankle,” Dashee said. “Hope it’s nothing worse. Hope she wasn’t hauled away by the size-twelve hiking boots.”
“I checked on that. They seemed to be a lot fresher than her tracks. And when her tracks went upriver, they didn’t follow.”
“Still, it makes you uneasy,” Dashee said.
“Let’s get you down to the river,” Chee said. “I think we can get a call out from there for the National Park rescue people to come and get you. I want to go find her.”
20
Successful skip tracers develop through endless practice the craft of concealment. One does not capture the wanted man nor repossess the overdue auto if the culprit sees you first. Almost anywhere in its meandering official 277 miles, the Grand Canyon offers a fine assortment of hiding places. The bottom end of the Hopi Salt Trail was no exception. Bradford Chandler selected a niche in the nearby cliff. It offered shade, a comfortable place to sit, the cover of a growth of tamarisk bushes, and a good view of the final hundred yards of the trail down which Joanna Craig would be coming. While he sat there waiting, he developed and refined his tactics for dealing with the woman.
Since she probably had shot Sherman, she probably had a pistol, and seemed to have no hesitation about shooting it. If she was carrying it in her hand, which he thought unlikely, he would simply shoot her. Why take the risk? More likely it would be tucked away. Perhaps even disposed of, since she would logically expect the police to be looking for her. Anyway, if the pistol was not displayed, he would assume the role of a businessman proposing a deal, which should, if his lies were well told, seem persuasive.
He stretched his legs, took another drink from his water bottle, and went over it again. He’d hardly started that when she appeared, alone, trudging wearily down the final rough segment of the trail, looking dusty, disheveled, and exhausted.
He stood. She stopped at the trail end, studied the area for a minute, then walked past him, not more than a dozen yards beyond the bush he was behind. Then Chandler stepped out behind her.
“Ms. Craig,” he said, in a voice just loud enough for her to hear. “I’d like to introduce myself and talk to you for a few minutes.”
Joanna Craig issued a sort of semi-shriek and spun around staring at Chandler, face white, eyes wide, looking terrified.
“Oh,” she said. “Oh. Who—” She took a deep breath. “You startled me.”
“I’m sorry,” Chandler said. “I beg your pardon. You look tired. And it’s so hot down here. You should sit down for a moment. Get a little rest. Could I offer you a drink of water?”
“But who are you? How did you know my—” She cut off that question, which told Chandler that she might already know the answer.
“I’m Jim Belshaw,” he said. “A sort of private investigator by trade. And I think we have something in common. I’d like to explain myself to you and see if we can work out some sort of partnership.”
“Oh,” Joanna said. She wiped her hand across her forehead. Studied him.
Chandler pulled back a limb of the bush and pointed to the shady shelf where he’d been sitting.
“No cushions. But it’s comfortable.” He extracted his water bottle from its pocket and handed it her. “It’s warm and I’m afraid I can’t offer you a glass.”
Joanna held up a hand, rejecting it, studying him. “What are you doing down here? And…and…who did you say you were?”
“I’m Jim Belshaw. I work for Corporate Investigations in Los Angeles.” He smiled at her, then chuckled. Awaited a response, and added, “But here in the Grand Canyon today, I’m on my own time. And I’ll bet you can guess what I’m doing here.”
“Well,” Joanna said. She sat on the shelf, closed her eyes, and sighed. “Why don’t you just tell me.”
“Actually, I was here waiting for a Hopi named Billy Tuve to show up. I watched the two of you coming down the Salt Trail, or whatever they call it. Now you’re here but I’m still waiting for Tuve. Is he coming along?”
“Why? What do you want?”
“Why? Because I am looking for a bunch of diamonds,” Chandler said. “I think you are, too.”
Joanna took a moment to respond to that. The only reason this big, athletic-looking man would know her name, would know about the diamonds connected with it, would be that he was working for Plymale. And if he was working for Plymale, there was a good chance he could accomplish the job the lawyer must have given him by killing her. He was big enough to do it barehanded. And her little pistol was tucked away in her backpack. She looked up at him, trying to read something in the face smiling down at her.
“What makes you think that I’m looking for diamonds?”
“Because they used to belong to your father,” Chandler said.
“Oh,” Joanna said. No doubt now he was working for Plymale, but then why were they having this conversation? She rubbed her hands down her legs, so tired the muscles were cramping. She looked up again, saw this big young man still staring down at her, awaiting an answer. Let him wait. She needed time to think about this.
“And also because if justice was done, they would be your diamonds now.”
He waited again.
“That’s correct, isn’t it?”
“I think it is,” Joanna said. “And I also think you’re working for the man who cheated my mother. Took everything away from her. How else could you know all this about me? About my business?”
“I don’t know it for sure. It’s what Old Man Plymale told me. What do you think? Should I trust him? He seemed to me to be a pretty slippery fellow. And I’m in a profession that has to learn how to spot the unreliable types.”
“I think he’s a thief. A crook. A totally unscrupulous man,” Joanna said. “So why are you working for him? And what is he paying you to do?”
Chandler chuckled. “I think you already know that. He wants me to make sure you don’t get the evidence you need to prove you are the direct descendant of Old Man Clarke, thereby recovering for you the estate your father would have inherited, and thereby depriving Mr. Plymale of his ill-gotten charity scam and, much, much worse, thereby subjecting him to a court-ordered audit of what he’s done with all that tax-exempt cash. That would probably land him in a federal prison.”
Again Chandler waited for a response. Got none.
“It would be a comfy white-collar prison, of course, but he wouldn’t like it,” he added.
Joanna got up, took a few steps, sat down again, and massaged her leg muscles.
“They say walking downhill, steep ones anyway, is harder on your leg muscles than going up,” she said. “Now I believe them.”