Leaphorn laughed. “Not unless he was willing to confess.”
“Tell me about Totter being dead,” Rostic said. “How did that happen?”
“All I know is the Gallup Independent printed a little obituary notice, just saying he died of complications after a heart attack. Brief illness, I think it said. Died in an Oklahoma City hospital. Said he was buried in the VA cemetery at Oklahoma City, born in Ada, Oklahoma, never married, no survivors listed, any contributions for flowers should go to some charity.”
Rostic looked skeptical.
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“Who brought it in?”
“U.S. mail, with some money attached to pay the publication fee.”
“Sent by whom?”
“Come on,” Leaphorn said, sounding defensive, remembering how he had felt as a rookie cop being grilled by his boss. “All I know is what a secretary at the paper remembered about it. Bernie Manuelito went in there to get me a copy of it. I have the obit at home, and I remember it ran just two years or so after the fire.”
“Okay, then,” Rostic said. “I am getting more and more interested. The obit mentioned burial in the Veterans Administration cemetery in Oklahoma City. You sure they have one there?”
“No,” Leaphorn said.
Rostic thought. “You know,” he said. “I think I’ll check on this.”
“It would be easy for you,” Leaphorn said. “Just call the FBI official there.”
“Hah!” Rostic said. “First they’d refer me to the agent in charge, and he’d want to know my name, identification details, whether I was still in the bureau, and was this my case, and the violation of which federal law was involved, and what was the bureau’s interest in it. Then, after about fifteen minutes of that, he’d tell me to send him a written report specifying the crime being investigated, and—” Rostic noticed Leaphorn’s expression and stopped.
“You see what I mean? I used to work out of that Oklahoma City office. It always went strictly by the book.
I’ll bet it still does.”
“I can understand that,” Leaphorn said. “I was thinking I might go back there myself. Or maybe get Bernie to go.” THE SHAPE SHIFTER
147
“Investigating a crime in Navajo jurisdiction? How do you explain that?”
“To tell the truth, Bernie’s sort of on administrative leave now, and she’s now Mrs. Jim Chee.”
“Sergeant Chee? Your assistant in the criminal investigation office?”
“Yes. They just got married. I’d ask her to do it sort of semi-unofficially, as a favor. Pay her travel expenses, and so forth.”
“I’ve got a better idea,” Rostic said. “I have an old friend back there, a longtime reporter. Guy named Carter Bradley. He was manager of United Press operations in Oklahoma when I was with the bureau there. Sort of famous for knowing everybody who knew anything. Not just knowing who knew. That’s usually easy for reporters.
But Carter knew who would be willing to talk about it. I think he’d do it for me.”
“But if you knew him way back then, he’s probably retired by now.”
Rostic laughed. “Exactly. Just like us. Retired. Bored stiff. Wanting something interesting to do. Give me that obituary and I’ll call him, give him the situation, and tell him what we need to know.”
“I haven’t got it with me here,” Leaphorn said. “But I remember it. Which wasn’t much.”
“We’ll find out who paid his hospital bill. Who arranged to get him buried, if he had any criminal record back there in his home state, everything useful. Do it right now.”
Rostic had reached into his jacket pocket and extracted a cell phone, punched some buttons, said: “Yep.
Here he is. What do I ask him?”
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“What I’d be happy to know,” Leaphorn said, “is whether Mr. Totter is actually dead.”
“Consider it done,” Rostic said, and began punching in numbers.
Leaphorn watched, reassessing his opinion of cell phones. But probably this wouldn’t work. He waited.
“Hello,” Rostic said. “Mrs. Bradley? Well, how are you? This is Ted Rostic. Remember? Special agent with the bureau way back when. Is Carter available?” Rostic nodded, grinned at Leaphorn, signaled the waiter for another coffee refill. So did Leaphorn. This would probably take a while.
It didn’t take very long. A few moments of exchanging memories of screwups and mistakes, a few comments of the travails of becoming elderly and the boredom of retirement, and then Rostic was explaining what he needed to know about the Totter death, giving Bradley his telephone number and asking Leaphorn for his.
“Ah, you mean my cell phone number?” Leaphorn asked. What was that number? Louisa, conscious of his attitude, had written it on a bit of tape and stuck it on the phone, but the phone was in the glove box of his truck. Leaphorn pondered a moment, came up with the number.
Rostic relayed it. “Okay,” he said. “Thanks, Carter.
No, it’s nothing terribly pressing, but the sooner the better.
Lieutenant Leaphorn and I are digging back into an old cold case. Very cold. Fine. Thanks again.” He clicked off, shut the telephone.
“Well, thank you for that,” Leaphorn said.
“Take my number,” Rostic said. “And, damn it, if he calls you first, don’t forget to call me. I’m getting interested in this thing, too.”
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Leaphorn was pulling away from his parking spot at the diner before the unusual look of the Crownpoint school parking lot down the street caught his attention.
Unusual because it was crowded with vehicles. Unlike most school lots in urban areas of the West, most Navajo students got to school by school bus or on foot and there-fore did not jam school lots with student-owned vehicles.
The lot content was also remarkable because relatively few of the vehicles in it were pickup trucks. Mostly newish sedans and sports utility vehicles, and many of them wearing non-New Mexico license plates. Leaphorn had solved this minor mystery even before he’d noticed this. Today was the second Friday of the month, which meant the Crownpoint weavers cooperative was holding its monthly rug auction in the school gymnasium.
Which meant tourists and weaving collectors and tourist shop owners from all over had swarmed in looking for bargains.
He pulled into the lot, found a spot by the fence, fished out his cell phone, and called his home number. Maybe Louisa would be back from her University of Northern Arizona Ute history project earlier than she’d expected.
She wasn’t, but the answering machine informed him he had a message waiting. He punched in the proper code to retrieve it.
It was Louisa’s voice. “I don’t know if this is worth bothering you with,” she said. “But after I headed up toward the southern Ute country, I remembered I’d forgotten the new batteries I’d bought for my tape recorder so I went back to get them. There was a car parked in front of your house and when I pulled into the driveway, a man came out from behind the garage and said he was 150
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looking for you. He said his name was Tommy Vang, and that he lived in Flagstaff, and he wanted to talk to you.
Wouldn’t exactly say about what, but it seemed to have something to do with Mel Bork and that old rug you’re interested in. I think he works for the man who now owns the rug. Anyway, I told him I wasn’t sure where he could find you, but you had talked about going to Crownpoint to see a man named Rostic. Maybe he could find you there.
And he thanked me and left. He was maybe five feet six and slender. Probably in his thirties or early forties, well dressed. Looked like he might be from one of the Pueblo tribes, or maybe Vietnamese. Very polite. Anyway, this getting a late start means I probably won’t be back in Shiprock as soon as I’d hoped. And by the way, it sort of looked like he might have been poking around in the garage before he heard me driving up, but after he left I checked and there didn’t seem to be anything missing.