It was a question he couldn’t think of any answer for.
And now, all these years later, he still couldn’t.
He sighed, picked up the letter:
Dear Joe,
If I remember you correctly, by now you’ve stared at that picture and examined the rug and you’re trying to figure out when the photo was taken. Well, old Jason Delos didn’t buy that mansion of his on that mountain slope outside 16
TONY HILLERMAN
of Flagstaff until just a few years ago. As I remember your story, that famous old “cursed” rug you told me about was reduced to ashes in that trading-post fire long before that. Yet there it is, good as new, posing for the camera. You remember we agreed there was more going on in that crime, and that maybe it really was a crime, and not just a careless drunk accident and a lot of witchcraft talk.
Anyway, I thought you’d be interested in seeing this. I’m going to look into it myself. See if I can find out where old man Delos got the rug, etc. If you’re interested, give me a call and I’ll let you know if I learn anything. And if you ever get as far south and west as Flagstaff, I’ll buy you lunch, and we can tell each other how we survived that FBI Academy stuff.
Meanwhile, stay well,
Mel
Below the signature was an address in Flagstaff, and a telephone number.
Oh, well, Leaphorn thought. Why not?
3
Leaphorn parked in the driveway of his Window Rock house, turned off the ignition, took the cell phone from the glove box, and began punching in Mel Bork’s number.
Five numbers into that project he stopped, thought a moment, put the cell phone back where he kept it. He had an odd feeling that this call might be important. He’d always tried to avoid making calls of any significance on the little toy telephones, explaining this quirk to his housemate, Professor Louisa Bourbonette, on grounds that cell phones were intended to communicate teenage chatter and that adults didn’t take anything heard on one seriously. Louisa had scoffed at this, bought him one anyway, and insisted he keep it in his truck.
Now he put his old telephone on the kitchen table, poured himself a cup of leftover breakfast coffee, and dialed. The number had a Flagstaff prefix, which by mountain west standards was relatively just down the 18
TONY HILLERMAN
road from him, but the call would be a long, blind leap into the past. That old case had nagged at him too long.
Maybe Bork had hit on something. Maybe learning what happened to the famous old weaving would remove that tickling burr under his saddle, if that figure of speech worked in this case. Maybe it would somehow tie into his hunch that the fire that erased the “Big Handy’s Bandit” from the FBI’s most-wanted list had been more complicated than anyone had wanted to admit. Bork, he remembered, had thought so, too.
Remembering that, he thought of grouchy old Grandma Peshlakai again and her righteous indignation.
If he actually took a little journey down to Flagstaff to talk to Bork and reconnect with his past, it wouldn’t take much of a detour to get him into her part of the country. Maybe he’d stop at her hogan to see if she was still alive. Find out if anyone had ever found the thief who ran off with her two big buckets of pinyon sap. See if she was willing to forgive him and the belagaana ideas about enforcing the law.
He put Bork’s letter and the magazine page on the table beside the telephone and stared at the photo while listening to Bork’s phone ring, trying to remember the name of Bork’s wife. Grace, he thought it was. Considered the photograph. Most likely his eyes had fooled him. But it certainly resembled the old rug as he recalled it. He shook his head, sighed. Be reasonable, he told himself.
Famous as that old weaving had become, someone probably tried to copy it. This would be the photo of an effort to duplicate it. Still, he wanted to find out.
Then, just after Bork’s answering machine cut in, a woman’s voice took over. She sounded excited. And nervous.
THE SHAPE SHIFTER
19
“Yes,” she said. “Yes? Mel? Where are you calling . . .” Leaphorn gave her a moment to complete the question. She didn’t.
“This is Joe Leaphorn,” he said. “I am calling for Mr.
Bork.”
Silence. Then: “Mel’s not here. I’m Mrs. Bork. What’s this about?”
“I have a letter from him,” Leaphorn said. “We knew each other years ago when we were in Washington. Both of us were students at the FBI Academy. He sent me a photograph and asked me to call him about it.”
“Photograph! Of that damned weaving. Was that it?” she asked. “He said he was going to send that to someone. The picture he cut out of that magazine?”
“Yes,” Leaphorn said. “He said he was going to check into it and—”
“You’re the policeman,” she said. “The Navajo cop. I remember now.”
“Well, actually I’m—”
“I need to talk to a policeman,” she said. “There’s been a threatening telephone call. And, well . . . I don’t know what to do.”
Leaphorn considered this, sucked in a deep breath.
Waited for a question. None came.
“Was the call about the picture?” he asked. “Threatening Mel about that weaving? Who was it? What did he say?”
“I don’t know,” Grace Bork said. “He didn’t say who he was. It was on the answering machine. A man’s voice, but I didn’t recognize it.”
“Don’t erase the tape,” Leaphorn said.
“I’ll let you hear it,” she said. “Hold on.” 20
TONY HILLERMAN
Leaphorn heard the sound of the telephone mouth-piece bumping against wood, then a sound remembered from the past: Bork’s recorded answering machine voice:
“Can’t come to the phone now. Leave a message.” Then a pause, a sigh, and another deeper male voice:
“Mr. Bork, I have some very serious advice for you. You need to get back to minding your own business. Stop trying to dig up old bones. Let those old bones rest in peace. You keep poking at ’em and they’ll jump out and bite you.” Silence. Then a chuckle. “You’ll be just a set of new bones.” The tape clicked off.
Mrs. Bork said, “What should I do?”
“That call came when?”
“I don’t know.”
“Has Mel heard it?”
“No. I guess it either came in after he left, or maybe he didn’t notice it on his answering machine. I think he would have said something about it if he’d heard it. And now I don’t know where he is. He’s been gone since the day before yesterday. I haven’t heard from him.” Grace Bork was beginning to sound distraught.
“He didn’t say where he was going?”
“Not specifically, he didn’t. He just told me he was going to find out where that rug in that picture came from. He had made a call to somebody—in an art gallery or museum, I think. I think he was going to meet the man he called. Or have lunch with him. I expected him back in time for dinner, and I’ve worried ever since. He just doesn’t do things like this. Just rush off and . . . and not call, or anything.” Mrs. Bork added that Mel had explained that this business with the carpet in that photograph reminded him of what he’d seen in an arson fire in which a THE SHAPE SHIFTER