Time to subdue panic. Time to rest. Time to think. Time to make a plan.
Thinking came first. Remembering everything she had heard from Chee about the genesis of this crazy business. Then remembering (now she could hardly believe this) her voluntarily tagging along uninvited and unwanted.
Why? Out of a sense of adventure? Out of a yen to get a close look at the botanical/geological magic of this incredible canyon? Well, that was her excuse and it was partly true. But mostly it was to be with Jim Chee. She loved Jim Chee. Or thought she did. But where was Sergeant Chee now, when she really needed him?
Bernie slid a little deeper under the slab, trying to get more comfortable, realizing this line of thought was utterly unproductive. She had to remember what else she knew, things that might tell her something about this couple she was hiding from. Everything she knew about that might bear on what she must do now. Just what Chee had heard from Lieutenant Leaphorn, who had harvested it from his lifelong and nationwide Cop Good Old Boy Network.
The FBI was interested in a Gallup pawnshop arrest, which had to mean somebody big in the Washington bureaucracy was interested, which according to the inter-cop psychic vibration connected it to an old legal battle over a plutocrat’s estate, the outcome of which had left a nonprofit foundation with the money and a woman who thought she should have inherited it determined to get it back. A great pile of money was involved and—as she had overheard the man telling the woman—you have to connect piles of money with dangerous people trying to get it.
Probably true in the white man’s world, Bernie thought, and in this canyon, too. Both of them had arrived with guns, which made them fit Bernie’s notion of dangerous people. And now the man had the woman’s gun, and the woman wanted it back, and he wouldn’t give it to her. That, and the tone of the conversation, suggested they were not really partners in whatever they were doing here. She guessed the woman was the one who thought she had been cheated out of her inheritance. The one who had put up the money to bail Tuve out of jail. Because he had one of the diamonds. If she remembered what she’d heard from Chee, this woman believed the man carrying the case of diamonds was her father and that the foundation’s lawyer had cheated her out of her inheritance.
Bernie groaned. Not enough data to figure out anything useful in this situation. Wishing she had really paid attention to what Chee had been saying. At the time it had seemed like another fairy tale. Sort of like the Havasupai version of how a shaman had forced the Grand Canyon cliffs to stop clapping themselves together to kill people by walking across the river with a tree log on his head.
The man? Was he someone she had brought along to help her until their deal went sour? Or maybe someone representing the foundation, here to protect its interests?
Bernie had no way to decide that, but she knew that if she stayed half hidden here, they would find her if they wanted to. She had to have a plan.
A flash of lightning erased the gloom down the slot below where she sat, giving her a momentary glimpse of the place the diamond dispenser had lived and died, and of a small woman and a big man standing near it. The following crash of thunder started echoes bouncing around the slot. Another flash illuminated the scene. The man, she now saw, was holding a white stick in his hand, waving it. Probably the arm bone of the skeleton man.
She had to stop wasting time. She had to have a plan.
25
“Put it down,” Joanna Craig said.
Chandler laughed. “I’m just enjoying the thought of walking up to Mr. Plymale and waving this in the old bastard’s face,” he said. “I’d say, ‘Okay, you old bastard, here it is. How much will you offer me for it?’”
“Give it to me,” Joanna said. “It’s mine. It’s my father’s arm.”
“Possession is nine-tenths of the law,” Chandler said. “So let’s talk business. You can take custody of your daddy’s bone. I’ll take the diamonds.”
Joanna nodded.
“I mean all the diamonds. Each and every one.”
“I don’t care about the damned diamonds,” Joanna said. “Give me my father’s bone.”
Chandler stared at her. Looked thoughtful. Nodded.
“Why not?” he said. “But how about that woman we followed in here. She must have known about this place. I’m sort of uneasy about her. I want you to go on up there and see if you can find her.”
Joanna considered this, held out her hand.
“Okay,” she said. “You said she was dangerous. Give me my pistol.”
Chandler laughed. “If you have that pistol, then you might be dangerous. I don’t think you’ll need it, anyway. Those little footprints said either a little woman or a small boy. Right? And the Park Service doesn’t allow people to carry guns down here.”
He got out his own pistol, grinned, pointed it at Joanna.
“Get along now. Find that woman and bring her down here.” He looked at his watch. “I’ll give you ten minutes and then I’ll come after you.”
Joanna started up the sloping floor. Stopped. Turned to look back at Chandler.
“What now?” Chandler said. “Get going.”
Joanna pointed at a figure walking down the slope toward her out of the gloom. “This must be her,” she said.
Chandler swung his flashlight around. “How about that,” he said. “I guess we have company.”
26
The flashlight blinded Bernie.
“Turn it off,” she said, snapping on her own flashlight. “Turn it off.” She shaded her eyes, turned her own light on Chandler.
“I said turn it off now.”
Chandler lowered the light. “Who are you?” he asked.
“What are you people doing in here?” Bernie asked. “And did I hear something about a pistol? This is a National Park with no firearms permitted. If you have one, hand it over.”
Joanna nodded toward Chandler, said, “He has—” Then stopped.
“And I’ll need to see your visitors’ permits,” Bernie said. “The form they gave you when you checked in and got permission to come down here without an authorized Park Service guide.”
Chandler had been studying Bernie, motionless and wordless. Now he shook his head, laughed. “I’ll have to see your credentials.”
“First I’ll take the pistol,” Bernie said. “I heard this lady say you had it.”
“You don’t look like a Park Service ranger to me,” Chandler said. “Where’s the uniform? Where’s the official Park Service shoulder patch? All I see is a little woman in dusty blue jeans and a torn shirt and one of those New York Giants ball caps.”
“Turn over the pistol,” Bernie said. “Just having a firearm down here is a federal offense. You add a citation of refusing to obey a federal officer to that charge, and you’re going to be facing a federal felony indictment.”
“Oh well,” Chandler said. “Why argue about it.”
He extracted a pistol from a jacket pocket, extended it toward Bernie, muzzle forward. And not, she noticed, extended far enough so she could take it without getting within his easy reach. It looked like one of the Glock automatic models used by a lot of police forces.
“Turn it around butt first and toss it to me,” Bernie ordered.
“All right,” Chandler said.
He raised the pistol, pointed it at Bernie.
“Now,” he said, “let’s quit wasting time. Get out your Park Service credentials and show me. Or your badge, or whatever you carry. And if you’ve got a gun on you, which I don’t see, we’ll want that, too.”