"Yeah," Leaphorn said, and started the engine.
"You're not very talkative," Louisa said. "Did that answer any questions for you?"
"Well, now we know for sure who Miss Pollard thought had been lying to her," Leaphorn said. "And of course that raises the next question."
"Which is why would Woody lie to her? And for that matter, he must have lied to us, too."
"Exactly," Leaphorn said.
"We should go up there again and confront him with it. See what he says."
"Not yet," Leaphorn said. "I think he'd just insist he wasn't lying. He'd come up with some sort of explanation. Or he'd tell me to bug off. Quit wasting his time."
"I guess he could, couldn't he."
"We're just two nosy civilians," Leaphorn said, wondering if that sounded as sad as it felt.
"So what are you going to do?"
"I'm going to call Chee in the morning. See if anything new has turned up on Pollard or her Jeep. And then I'll return Mrs. Vanders's call and tell her what little ^e know. And then I want to go see Krause."
"And see if he knows more than he's told you?"
"I didn't know what questions to ask," Leaphorn said. "And I'd like to get a look at that note Pollard left for him."
Louisa's expression asked him why.
Leaphorn laughed. "Because I spent too many years being a cop, and I can't get over it. I ask him to see the note, so what happens? Possibility A. He finds a reason not to show it to me. That makes me wonder why not."
"Oh," Louisa said. "You think he might, ah, be involved?"
"I don't think that now, but I might if he refused to let me see the note. But on to possibility B. He shows me the note. The handwriting obviously doesn't match her script in the journal. That raises all sorts of possibilities. Or C. He hands me the note, and it has information on it that he didn't think was important enough to mention. Possibility C is the best bet. Even that's unlikely, but it doesn't cost anything to try."
"Are you going to invite me along again?"
"I'm counting on it, Louisa. Instead of the job just being a grind, you make it fun."
She sighed. "I can't go tomorrow. I'm chairing a committee meeting, and it's my project and my committee."
"I'll miss you," Leaphorn said. And he knew he would.
Chapter Nineteen
CHEE HAD STARED AT the telephone with distaste, dreading this call. Then he picked it up, took a deep breath and dialed Janet Pete's office at the federal building in Phoenix. Ms. Pete was not in. Did he want her voice mail? He didn't. Where could he reach her? Was this matter urgent?
"Yes," Chee said. Janet might not agree, but it was urgent for him. He couldn't focus on anything else until the genie that Cowboy's "Pollard did it" theory had released was securely back in the bottle. Chee's "yes" earned him a number in Flagstaff, which proved to be the telephone on a desk in a multiple-users' office assigned to public defenders in the courthouse at Flagstaff.
The very familiar voice of many happy memories said: "Hello, Janet Pete."
"Jim Chee," he said. "Do you have some time to talk, or should I call you back?"
Brief silence. "I have time." The voice was even softer now, or was it his imagination? "Is this about business?"
"Alas, it's business," Chee said. "I've heard Cowboy Dashee's theory of what happened to Kinsman and we've been checking on it. I need to talk to your client. Is he still being held there at Flag? And would you be willing to get me in to talk to him?"
"Yes, on the first one," Janet said. "He's still there because I couldn't get bail for him. Mickey opposed it and I think that's stupid. Where could Jano hide?"
"It is stupid," Chee agreed. "But Mickey wants to go for the death penalty, I guess. If he didn't fight bond, even for a Hopi who sure as hell isn't going to run, then you could use it to prove even the U.S. attorney didn't really believe Jano is dangerous."
Even as he was finishing the sentence, Chee was wondering why he always seemed to begin conversations with Janet like this—as if he were trying to start a fight. The silence at the other end of the line suggested she was having the same thought.
"What do you want to talk to Mr. Jano about?"
"I understand he saw the Jeep Ms. Pollard was driving."
"He saw a Jeep. Have you picked her up yet?" More adversarial than "Have you found her?" Chee closed his eyes, remembering how it had been once. "We haven't located her," he said. "It may not be easy," Janet said. "She's had a long time to hide, and I understand she has plenty of money to make that easy."
"We didn't make the connection until—" He stopped. He wasn't going to apologize. None was needed. Janet had worked as a defense attorney long enough to know how the police operated. How they couldn't possibly investigate every time someone drove off without telling anyone where they were going. Why explain what she already knew?
"Look, Jim," she said. "I'm the man's defense attorney. Unless you can let me see how he—how justice would benefit by letting you cross-examine him, then I can't do it. Tell me what good it would do him."
Chee sighed. "We found the Jeep," he said. "The passenger-side seat was smeared with dried blood. There's evidence it was abandoned within an hour or so after Jano—after Kinsman was hit on the head."
Silence. Then Janet said; "Blood. Whose was it? But you haven't had time for any lab work yet, I guess. Is •Jano a suspect in this, too?"
"I don't see how he could be. I know exactly where he was when the Jeep was being abandoned."
"Where was it?"
"About twenty miles southwest. Down an arroyo."
"You think Jano might have seen something, or heard something, that would help you find Catherine Pollard?"
"I think he might have. Slim chance, but we don't have anything else to go on. Not now, anyway. Maybe we will when the crime scene crew and the lab people finish with the Jeep."
"Okay then," Janet said. "You know the rules. I'm there, and if I cut off the questions, that ends it. You want to do it today?"
"Fair enough," Chee said. "And the sooner the better. I'll leave Tuba City as soon as I hang up."
"I'll meet you at the jail," she said. "And, Jim, let's try not to make each other mad all the time." She didn't wait for a response.
Janet was waiting in the interrogation room—a small dingy space with two barred windows looking out at nothing. She was sitting across a battered wooden table from Robert Jano. She talked quietly. Jano listened intently. Glanced up as Chee appeared in the doorway. Examined Chee with mild, polite curiosity. Chee nodded to him, suddenly aware that when he had caught Jano with his hands still red with Kinsman's blood he hadn't—in his shock and rage—really studied the man. He studied him now. This handsome, polite young killer whom Chee was trying to give a place in history. The first man strapped into a gas chamber under the new federal reservation death sentence law.
He nodded to Janet, said: "Thanks."
"You two have met," Janet said, with no sign that she appreciated the irony of that. They nodded. Jano smiled, then seemed embarrassed that he had. "Have a seat," Janet said, "and I'll go over the rules. Mr. Chee here will ask a question. And, Robert, you won't answer it until I say it's okay. All right?"
Jano nodded. Chee looked at Janet, who returned the look with no trace of warmth. She'd learned a lot, he thought, since he'd first met her in the interrogation room at the San Juan County Jail in Aztec. Many happy times ago. "Okay," Chee said. He looked at Jano. "That morning I arrested you, did you see a young woman anywhere around there?"
"I saw—" he began, but Janet interrupted.
"Just a moment," she said, and took a tape recorder from her purse, put it on the table, set up a microphone and switched it on. "Okay," she said.
"I saw a black Jeep," Jano said. "I didn't see who was driving it."
"When did you see it, and where were you?" Jano looked at Janet. She nodded. "I had climbed the butte and was walking along the rim to where I have a blind for catching eagles. I looked down and saw a black Jeep parked on that rise near the abandoned hogan."