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and it’s life in prison, so I’m going to take the quick way out of it and set an all-time record getting down that 800-foot cliff into Canyon del Muerto.
Remember I love you. I just got crazy.
Your big brother, Eldon
Leaphorn read it again, refolded it carefully, replaced it on the seat. He took out his handkerchief, pushed down the lock lever, wiped off the leather seat where he might have touched it, and slammed the door.
He drove a little faster than was smart down the track, anxious to get out before somebody spotted Demott’s body. He didn’t want to meet a police car coming in, and if he didn’t, the dry snow now being carried by the wind would quickly eliminate any clue that Demott had had company. He was almost back to Window Rock before a call on his police monitor let him know that the body of a man had been found up Canyon del Muerto.
He turned up the thermostat beside his front door, heard the floor furnace roar into action, put on the coffeepot, and washed his face and hands. That done, he checked his telephone answering machine, punched the button and listened to the first words of an insurance agent’s sales pitch, and hit the erase button. Then he took his coffee mug off the hook, got out the sugar and cream, poured himself a cup, and sat beside the telephone.
He sipped now, and dialed Jim Chee’s number in Ship Rock.
“Jim Chee.”
“This is Joe Leaphorn,” he said. “Thanks for the message you sent me. I hope I’m not calling at a bad time.”
“No. No,” Chee said. “I’ve been wondering. And I’ve been wanting to tell you about an arrest we made today in our cattle-rustling case. But by the way, have you heard they found a man’s body in Canyon del Muerto? Deke said it was near the Nez place. He said it’s Demott.”
“Heard a little on my scanner,” Leaphorn said.
Brief silence. Chee cleared his throat. “Where are you calling from? Was it Demott? Were you there?”
“I’m at home,” Leaphorn said. “Are you off duty?”
“What do you mean? Oh. Well, yes. I guess so.”
“Better be sure,” Leaphorn said.
“Okay,” Chee said. “I’m sure. I’m just having a friendly talk with an unidentified civilian.”
“Tomorrow, you’re going to get the word that Demott killed himself. He jumped off the cliff above the Nez place. About like diving off a sixty-story building. And he left a suicide note to his sister. In it he said he got into a quarrel with Mr. Maryboy over some cattle and shot him. Shot you while escaping. He told Elisa that he didn’t kill Hal. He said Hal had called him from Farmington a week after vanishing from his birthday party, offered to delay signing the mining lease he had cooking for a year if Demott would climb Ship Rock with him the next day. Demott agreed. They climbed. Hal fell off. Demott said he kept it a secret because he was ashamed to tell her.”
Silence. Then Chee said, “Wow!”
Leaphorn waited for the implications to sink in.
“I’m not supposed to ask you how you know all this?”
“That is correct.”
“What did he say about Nez?”
“Who?”
“Amos Nez,” Chee repeated. “Oh, I guess I see.”
“Saves you a lot of work, doesn’t it?”
“Sure does,” Chee said. “Except for when they find the rifle. Body near the Nez place, rifle nearby I guess. Nez recently shot. Two and two make four and the ballistics test raises a problem. Even the FBI won’t be able to shrug that off.” 86 of 102
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“I think the rifle doesn’t exist,” Leaphorn said.
“Oh?”
“It’s my impression that Demott didn’t want to involve his sister. So he didn’t want the Nez thing connected to the Maryboy thing because with Nez, you have his sister indicted as an accessory.”
“I see,” Chee said, a little hesitantly. “But how about Nez? Won’t he be talking about it?”
“Nez isn’t much for talking. And he’s going to think I pushed Demott off the cliff to keep Demott from shooting him.”
“Yeah. I see that.”
“I think Demott did this partly to keep the Breedlove Corporation from strip-mining the ranch. Ruining his creek. So he left the world a suicide letter certifying that he was on Ship Rock with Hal a week after the famous birthday. Add that to Hal signing the register a week after the same birthday.”
“One’s as phony as the other,” Chee said.
“Is that right?” Leaphorn said. “I would like to sit there and listen while you try to persuade the agent in charge that he should reopen his Maryboy homicide, throw away a written point-of-death confession on grounds that Demott was lying about his motive. I can just see that. ‘And what was his real motive, Mr. Chee?’ His real motive was trying to prove that accidental death that happened eleven years ago actually happened on a different weekend, and then—” Chee was laughing. Leaphorn stopped.
“All right,” Chee said. “I get your point. All it would do is waste a lot of work, maybe get Mrs. Breedlove indicted for something or other, and give the ranch back to the Breedlove Corporation.”
“And get a big commission to the attorney,” Leaphorn added.
“Yeah,” Chee said.
“Tomorrow, when the news is out, I’ll send Shaw details about the suicide note. And give him back what’s left of his money. Now, what were you going to tell me about cattle rustling?”
“It sounds trivial after this,” Chee said, “but Officer Manuelito arrested Dick Finch today. He was loading Maryboy heifers into his camper.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
In writing fiction involving Navajo Tribal Police, I lean upon the professionals for help. In this book, it was provided by personnel of both the N.T.P. and the Navajo Rangers, and especially by old friend Captain Bill Hillgartner. My thanks also to Chief Leonard G. Butler, Lieutenants Raymond Smith and Clarence Hawthorne, and Sergeants McConnel Wood and Wilfred Tahy. If any technical details are wrong, it wasn’t because they didn’t try to teach me. Robert Rosebrough, author of The San Juan Mountains, loaned me his journal of a Ship Rock climb and gave me other help.
PerfectBound e-Book Exclusive Extras
Leaphorn, Chee,
and the Navajo Way
I
thought you might like to know the roots of my two favorite characters — Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn (now retired) and Sgt. Jim Chee, both of the Navajo Tribal Police.
Leaphorn emerged from a young Hutchinson County, Texas, sheriff who I met and came to admire in 1948 when I was a very green
“crime and violence” reporter for a paper in the high plains of the Panhandle. He was smart, he was honest, he was wise and humane in his use of police powers — my idealistic young idea of what every cop should be but sometimes isn’t.
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When I needed such a cop for what I intended to be a very minor character in The Blessing Way (1970), this sheriff came to mind. I added on Navajo cultural and religious characteristics, and he became Leaphorn in fledgling form. Luckily for me and Leaphorn and all of us, the late Joan Kahn, then mystery editor of what was then Harper & Row, required some substantial rewriting of that manuscript to bring it up to standards and I — having begun to see the possibilities of Leaphorn — gave him a much better role in the rewrite and made him more Navajo.