"You're sticking to your report, then," Johnson said finally. "Anything you can add that would help us?"
"Help you what?" Chee asked. "Maybe I could help your man learn something about tracking."
Johnson let the chair legs hit the floor, unlocked his hands, and stood.
"Nice to meet you folks," he said. "And, Mr. Chee, I'll probably be talking to you again. You going to be around?"
"Most likely," Chee said.
The door closed behind Johnson. Largo was still examining the map.
"I can't tell you much about that," Largo said. "Just a little."
"You don't need to tell me much," Chee said. "I would say that the narcs don't think it was a coincidence that I was out there by the wash when the plane landed. They think I was really out there to meet the plane and that me and waffle soles and cowboy boots hauled off the drug shipment—or whatever it was. Spent the missing fifty minutes loading the stuff. That about it?"
"Just about," Largo said mildly.
"There's more?"
"Nothing much," Largo said. "Nothing they exactly told me."
"But something that makes them suspicious of me?"
"Makes 'em suspicious of somebody local," Largo said. "I get an impression that the Drug Enforcement Agency don't think that shipment got hauled very far. They think it's hidden around there someplace close."
Chee frowned. "How would they know that?"
"How does the dea know anything?" Largo asked. "I think they got about half of the drug smuggling industry on their payroll. Ratting for them."
"Seems like it," Chee said.
"And then they do a hell of a lot of guessing," Largo added.
"I noticed that, too," Chee said.
"Like about you helping haul away the shipment."
"You think that was a bad guess?"
"Most likely," Largo said.
"Thanks," Chee said. "Johnson tell you who was in the plane?"
"I gather the pilot was somebody they know. One of the regulars who flies stuff in from Mexico for one of the big outfits. Fellow named Pauling. I don't think they have an identification on the passenger yet. The guy on the ground, the guy who got shot, his name was Jerry Jansen. Lawyer from Houston. Supposed to be in the narcotics business."
"I didn't move him," Chee said. "Shot, was he?"
"In the back," Largo said.
"It looks simple enough," Chee said. "A plane's hauling in dope. Somebody comes in a vehicle to accept the delivery, right? Only the plane crashes. Two of the guys receiving the shipment decide to steal it. They shoot their partner in the back, leave a note to the owners, or maybe the buyers, to tell them how to make contact to buy their stuff back. Then they haul it away. Right? But the dea doesn't seem to think the shipment got hauled out. They think it's hidden out there somewhere. Right?"
"That's what Johnson seemed to be thinking," Largo said.
"Now why would they think that?" Chee asked.
Largo was looking out his window. He seemed not to have heard the question. But finally he said, "I'd guess the dea had this shipment wired. I think they had themselves an informer in the right place."
Chee nodded. "Yeah," he said. "But for some reason beyond the understanding of this poor Indian, the dea didn't want to move in and grab the plane and arrest everyone."
Largo was still looking out the window. He glanced back at Chee. "Hell," he said. "Who knows. The feds work in strange and mysterious ways and they don't explain things to the Navajo Tribal Police." He grinned. "Especially they don't when they think maybe a Navajo Tribal Policeman got off with the evidence."
"Makes you curious," Chee said.
"It does," Largo said. "I think I'll do some asking around."
"I'm thinking about that card," Chee said. "That could be why the feds think the shipment's still around here. Why else would the hijacker do his dealing through the Hopi motel? Why not contact 'em in Houston, or wherever they operate?"
"I wondered when that was going to occur to you," Largo said. "If Jim Chee stole the shipment, he wouldn't know how to get in touch with the owners. So Jim Chee would leave a note telling them how to contact him."
"Thinking the press would report the note? Is that what I'd think? Wouldn't it occur to me that maybe the dea would keep the note secret?"
"It might," Largo said. "But if you thought of that, you'd be smart enough to know they'd have lawyers nosing around. Whoever owned that plane has a legal, legitimate interest in that crash. They'd ask to see the investigating officer's report, and we'd show it to them. So Jim Chee would be sure to put what it said on the card in his report. Like you did."
Jim Chee, who actually hadn't thought of that at all, nodded. "Pretty slick of Jim Chee," he said.
"Got a call about forty-five minutes ago," Largo said. "From Window Rock. Your buddy did it again. To the windmill."
"Last night?" Chee's tone was incredulous. "After the crash?"
Largo shrugged. "Joint Use Office called Window Rock. All I know is somebody screwed up the machinery again and Window Rock wants it stopped."
Chee was speechless. He started for the door, then stopped. Largo was standing behind his desk, reading something in Chee's folder. He was a short man with the barrel-chested, hipless shape common among western Navajos, and his round face was placid as he read. Chee felt respect for him. He wasn't sure he would like him. Probably he wouldn't.
"Captain," he said.
Largo looked up.
"Johnson had trouble with that lost fifty minutes at the airplane. Do you?"
"I don't think so," Largo said. His expression was totally neutral. "I know something Johnson doesn't." He held up the folder. "I know how slow you work."
Chapter Six
Jake west was behind the counter explaining the ramifications of money orders to a teenaged Navajo girl who seemed to want to buy something out of the Sears catalog. West had acknowledged Chee's presence with a nod and a grin but had done nothing to hurry his dealings with his customer. Nor did Chee expect him to. He leaned against the metal of the frozen foods cabinet, and waited for West, and thought his thoughts, and listened to the three gossips who were talking about witches on the porch just outside the open door. The three were a middle-aged Navajo woman (a Gishi, Chee had deduced), an elderly Navajo woman, and an even older Navajo man, whom the younger woman had called Hosteen Yazzie. She was doing most of the talking, loudly for the benefit of a hard-of-hearing audience. The subject was witchcraft in the Black Mesa-Wepo Wash country. The witchcraft gossip sounded typical of what one expected to hear in a season of drought or hard times—and for the Joint Use Reservation Navajos this was indeed a season of hard times. The usual pattern. Somebody had been out at dusk hunting a ram and had seen a man lurking around, and the man had turned into an owl and flown away. One of the Gishi girls had heard her horses all excited and had gone out to see about it, and a dog had been bothering them, and she shot at the dog with her .22, and the dog had turned into a man and disappeared in the darkness. An old man back on the mesa had heard sounds on the roof of his hogan during the night, and had seen something coming down through the smoke hole. Maybe it was dislodged dirt. Maybe it was corpse powder dropped by the witch. Chee's attention wandered. He heard Hosteen Yazzie say, "I guess the witch got the corpse powder from that man he killed," and then Chee was listening again, intently now. The Gishi woman said, "I guess so," and the conversation drifted away, to another day and another subject. Chee shifted his weight against the refrigerator case and considered the witch who had killed a man. If he walked through the door and asked Hosteen Yazzie to explain himself, he would meet only blank silence. These Navajos didn't know him. They'd never talk of witchcraft to a person who might be the very witch who was worrying them.