"Sounds like a poison," Leaphorn said. "It damn sure is," Krause said. "We used to use it to clean out infected burrows. You blow that dust down it and it wipes out everything. Pack rats, rattlesnakes, burrowing owls, earthworms, spiders, fleas, anything alive. But it's dangerous to handle. Now we use the pill. It's phostoxin, and we just put it in the ground at the mouth of a burrow and it gets the job done."
"So where would she get this cyanide stuff?"
"We still have a supply of it. It's on a shelf back in our supply closet."
"She'd have access to it?"
"Sure," Krause said. "And look at this." He pointed to the next entry: "'Air tank with hose and nozzle.' That's what we used to use to blow the cyanide dust back into the burrow. It was in the storeroom, too."
"What do you think it means—her having that in the Jeep?"
"First, it means she was breaking the rules. She doesn't take that stuff out without checking with me and explaining what she wants it for, and why she's not using the phostoxin instead. And second, she wouldn't be using it unless she wanted to really sterilize burrows. Zap 'em. Something big like prairie dogs. Not just to kill fleas." He returned the list to Leaphorn. "Anything else on there you'd wonder about?"
"No, but there's something that should be on that list that isn't. Her PAPR."
"You always have that with you?"
"No, but you'd damn sure have it if you were going ; to use that calcium cyanide dust." Krause made a wry face. "They say the warning is you smell almonds, but the trouble is, by the time you smell it, it's already too late."
"Not something you'd use casually then." Krause laughed. "Hardly. And before I forget it, I found that note Cathy left me. Made a copy for you." He fished out his wallet, extracted a much-folded sheet of paper, and handed it to Leaphorn. "I don't see anything helpful on it, though." The note was written in Pollard's familiar semi-legible scrawclass="underline"
"Boss—Heard stuff about Nez infection at Flag. Think we've been lied to. Going to Yells Back, collect fleas and find out—Will fill you in on it when I get back. Pollard."
Leaphorn looked up from the note at Krause, who was watching his reaction, looking penitent.
"Knowing what I know now, I can see I should have got worried quicker when she didn't get back. But, hell, she was always doing things and then explaining later. If at all. For example, I didn't know where she was the day before. She didn't tell me she was driving down to Flag. Or why." He shrugged, shook his head. "So I just thought she'd gone tearing off somewhere else."
"I wonder why she didn't tell you she was quitting," Leaphorn said.
Krause stared at him. "I don't think she was. Did she tell her aunt why?"
"I gather it was something about you."
Krause had spent too many summers in the sun to look pale. But he did look tense.
"What about me?"
"I don't know," Leaphorn said. "She didn't get specific."
"Well, we never did get along very well," Krause said, and began putting his equipment in the truck. The legend on his sweat-soaked T-shirt said, SUPPORT SCIENCE:
HUG A HERPETOLOGIST.
Chapter Twenty-six
TWO TELEPHONE NOTES were stuck on his spindle when Chee got to his office. One was from Leaphorn, asking Chee to call him at his motel. The second was from Janet Pete. It said: "The eagle's being tested today. Please call me."
Chee wasn't quite ready for that. He dialed Leaphorn's number first. Yesterday the Legendary Lieutenant had wanted to show Krause the list of stuff found in the Jeep. Maybe that had developed into something.
"You had breakfast?" Leaphorn asked.
"I'm not much for eating breakfast," Chee said. "What's on your mind?"
"How about joining me for coffee then at the motel diner? I want to go back out to Yells Back Butte. Can you get away? I think I should have an officer along."
An officer along! "Oh," Chee said. He felt elation, quickly tinged with a little disappointment. The Legendary Lieutenant had done it again. Had unraveled the puzzle of who had abandoned the Jeep. Had maintained the legend. Had again outthought Jim Chee. "Sure. I'll be there in ten minutes."
Leaphorn was sitting at a window table, putting butter on a stack of pancakes. He put the note on the table in front of Chee and smoothed it out.
"I showed the list to Krause," he said. "There were a couple or three surprises."
"Oh," Chee said, feeling slightly defensive. He hadn't noticed anything amiss.
"Mostly technical stuff way over our heads," Leaphorn said. "This blower here, for example, and the container of calcium cyanide. I figured that was just one of their flea killers. Turns out they don't use it these days except in some sort of unusual circumstances." He looked up at Chee. "Like, let's say they needed to wipe out a whole colony of prairie dogs."
Chee leaned back in his chair, understanding again why he admired Leaphorn instead of resenting him. The man was giving him a chance to figure it out for himself. And of course he had.
"Like, let's say, the colony Dr. Woody is working with."
Leaphorn was grinning. "That occurred to me, too." he said. "I don't think Woody would have wanted that to happen."
Chee nodded. And waited. He could tell from Leaphorn's expression that more was coming.
"And then there's this," Leaphorn said. "I asked Krause why there would be two of these long-handled shovels in that Jeep. He said everybody carried one because of the digging they do, besides getting stuck in the sand. But just one."
Chee leaned back again, considering that. "Be useful to have one if you wanted to dig a grave."
Leaphorn nodded. "That also occurred to me. Maybe toss it in, not knowing there was already one in the Jeep."
"So somewhere between Yells Back Butte and where the Jeep was left we might be checking on easy places to dig and looking for freshly dug dirt."
"I'd suggest that," Leaphorn said.
"I'm also asking people to check for bicycle tracks along the Goldtooth road. But there's not much chance they'll find any. Too dry."
This caused Leaphorn's eyebrows to rise. "Bicycle?"
"I noticed Woody had a bicycle rack bolted to the back of that mobile lab truck," Chee said. "There wasn't a bike on it."
Leaphorn slammed his hand on the tabletop, rattling his plate. "I must be getting old," he said. "Why didn't I think of that?"
"It wouldn't be a hard bike ride," Chee said, "from where the Jeep was left back to Yells Back. He could have stepped out of the Jeep onto rocks, lifted the bike out, and carried it back to the road."
"Sure," Leaphorn said. "Sure he could. But it would have been clumsy to carry the shovel, too. I've had my brain turned off."
Chee doubted that. It reminded Chee of watching the Easter egg hunt on the White House lawn on television. Seeing the big brother overlook an egg so the little kid could find it.
The waitress arrived and offered refills. But now both of them were in a hurry.
They took Chee's patrol car, roared down Arizona 264, turned right onto the road to Goldtooth, jolted over the washboard bumps.
"Seems like old times," Leaphorn said. "Us working together."
"You miss it? I mean, being a cop?"
"I miss this part of it. And the people I worked with. I don't miss the paperwork. I'll bet you wouldn't, either."
"I hate that part of it," Chee said. "I'm not good at it, either."
"You're acting now," Leaphorn said. "Usually after you've done that awhile, they offer you the permanent position. Would you take it?"
Chee drove for a while without answering. Clouds were building up already, fleets of great white ships against the dark blue sky. By late evening yesterday they had towered high enough to produce a few drops of rain here and there. By this afternoon the monsoon rains might actually begin. Long overdue.
"No," Chee said. "I guess not."
"When I heard you'd applied for the promotion, I sort of wondered why," Leaphorn said. Chee glanced at him, saw only a profile. Leaphorn was staring at the clouds. "I imagine you could make a pretty good guess. Part prestige, mostly the money's better."