This produced a chuckle.
"Trouble is, the eagle didn't cooperate. There wasn't a trace of Jano's blood on it. What we'll need to get the death penalty is evidence of malice. We'll want witnesses who heard Mr. Jano talking about his previous arrest by Officer Kinsman. We need to find people who can remember hearing him talk about revenge. Talking about how badly Kinsman handled him during that first arrest. Even bad-mouthing Navajos in general. That sort of thing. Check out the bars, places like that."
"Where'd this jerk come from?" the LES woman asked Chee. "He sure doesn't know much about Hopis."
"Indiana, I think," Chee said. "But I guess he's been in Arizona long enough to establish residency for a federal office election."
Mickey was closing down the meeting, shaking hands with the proper people. He stopped Chee at the door.
"Stick around a minute," Mickey said. "I want to have a word or two with you."
Chee stuck around. So did Reynald and Special Agent Edgar Evans, who closed the door behind-the last departee.
"There're several points I want to make," Mickey said. "Point one is that the victim in this case may not have had a perfect personal record, you know what I mean, being a healthy young man and all. If there's any talk going around among his fellow officers that the defense might use to dirty his name, then I want that stopped. Going for the death penalty, you understand why."
"Sure," Chee said, and nodded. "I'll get right to the second point then," Mickey said. "The gossip has it that you're engaged to this Janet Pete. The defense attorney. Either that, or used to be."
Mickey had phrased it as a question. He and Reynald and Evans waited for an answer. Chee said: "Really?"
Mickey frowned. "In a case like this one, in a touchy business like this, culturally sensitive, the press looking over our shoulders, we have to watch out for anything that might look like a conflict of interest."
"That sounds sensible to me," Chee said. "I don't think you're understanding me," Mickey said. "Yes, sir," Chee said. "I understand you." Mickey waited. So did Chee. Mickey's face turned slightly pink.
"Well, then, goddamnit, what's with this gossip? You got something going with Ms. Pete or what?"
Chee smiled. "I had a wise old maternal grandmother who used to teach me things. Or try to teach me when I was smart enough to listen to her," Chee said. "She told me that only a damn fool pays attention to gossip."
Mickey's complexion turned redder. "All right," he said. "Let's get one thing straight. This case is about the murder of a law officer in the performance of his duty. One °f your own men. You're part of the prosecution team. Ms. Pete runs the defense team. You're no lawyer, but you've been in the enforcement business long enough to know how things work. We got the disclosure rule, so the criminal's team gets to know what we're putting into evidence." He paused, staring at Chee. "But sometimes justice requires that you don't show your hole card. Sometimes you have to keep some of your plans and your strategy in the closet. You understand what I'm telling you?"
"I think you're telling me that if this gossip is true, I shouldn't talk in my sleep," Chee said. "Is that about right?" Mickey grinned. "Exactly."
Chee nodded. He'd noticed that Reynald was following this conversation intently. Agent Evans looked bored. "And I might add," Mickey added, "that if somebody else talks in their sleep, you might just give a listen."
"My grandmother had something else to say about gossip," Chee said. "She said it doesn't have a long shelf life. Sometimes you hear the soup's on the table and it's too hot to eat, and by the time the news gets to you it's in the freezer."
Mickey's beeper began chirping as Chee was ending that observation. Whatever the call was about, it broke up the cluster without the ritual shaking of hands that convention required.
Chee hadn't lucked into a shady place to leave his car. He used his handkerchief to open the door without burning his hand, started the engine, rolled down all the windows to let the ovenlike heat escape, turned the air conditioner to maximum and then slid off the scorching upholstery to stand outside until the interior became tolerable. It gave him a little time to plan what he'd do. He'd call Joe Leaphorn from here to see if anything new had developed. He'd call his office to learn what awaited him there, and then he'd head for the north end of the Chuska Mountains, the landscape of his boyhood, and the sheep camp where Hosteen Frank Sam Nakai spent his summers.
From Phoenix, from almost anywhere, that meant a hell of a long drive. But Chee was a man of faith. He did his damnedest to maintain within himself the ultimate value of his people, the sense of peace, harmony and beauty Navajos call hozho. He badly needed Hosteen Nakai's counsel on how to deal with the death of a man and the death of an eagle.
Hosteen Nakai was Chee's maternal granduncle, which gave him special status in Navajo tradition. He had given Chee his real, or war, name, which was "Long Thinker," a name revealed only to those very close to you and used only for ceremonial purposes. Circumstances, and the early death of Chee's father, had magnified Nakai's importance to Chee—making him mentor, spiritual adviser, confessor and friend. By trade he was a rancher and a shaman whose command of the Blessing Way ceremonial and a half dozen other curing rituals was so respected that he taught them to student hataalü at Navajo Community College. If anyone could tell Chee the wise way to handle the messy business of Kinsman, Jano and Mickey, it would be Nakai.
More specifically, Nakai would advise him on how he could deal with the problem posed by the first eagle. If it existed and he caught it, it would die. He had no illusions about its fate in the laboratory. There was a chant to be sung before hunting, asking the prey to know it was respected and to understand the need for it to die. But if Jano was lying, then the eagle he would try to lure to that blind would die for nothing. Chee would be violating the moral code of the Dine, who did not take lightly the killing of anything.
No telephone line came within miles of the Nakai summer hogan, but Chee drove along Navajo Route 12 with not a doubt that his granduncle would be there. Where else would he be? It was summer. His flock would be high in the mountain pastures. The coyotes would be waiting in the fringes of the timber, as they always were. The sheep would need him. Nakai was always where he was needed. So he would be in his pasture tent near his sheep.
But Hosteen Nakai wasn't in his tent up in the high meadows.
It was late twilight when Chee pulled his truck off the entry track and onto the hard-packed earth of the Nakai place. His headlight beams swept across the cluster of trees beside the hogan. They also caught the form of a man, propped on pillows in a portable bed, the sort medical supply companies rent. Chee's heart sank. His granduncle was never sick. Having the bed outside was an ominous sign.
Blue Lady was standing in the hogan doorway, looking out at Chee as he climbed out of the truck, recognizing him, running toward him, saying: "How good. How good. He wanted you to come. I think he sent out his thoughts to you, and you heard him."
Blue Lady was Hosteen's second wife, named for the beauty of the turquoise she wore with her velvet blouse when her kinaalda ceremony initiated her into womanhood. She was the younger sister of Hosteen Nakai's first wife, who had died years before Chee was born. Since Navajo tradition is matrilineal and the man joined his bride's family, practice favored widowers marrying one of their sisters-in-law, thereby maintaining the same residence and the same mother-in-law. Nakai, being most traditional and already studying to be a shaman, had honored that tradition. Blue Lady was the only Nakai grandmother Chee had known.