Captain Largo was leaning back in his swivel chair. He had let his bifocals slide down his nose and was staring at Chee over them (and over three or four stacks of paperwork). Waiting patiently for Chee to come up with a response.
“Well,” Chee said. “It could be that ...”
Largo waited again, pushed his glasses back into proper position, shifted in his chair.
“Why not just walk in here and say something like, ah, like, ‘Captain, I’ve got a bunch of leave time coming and things are sort of quiet around here now, why don’t I take a few days and go down south and see how Bernie Manuelito is doing.’ Why not try that approach?”
Largo was grinning when he said it, but Chee didn’t see the humor in it.
“Because I’m uneasy about the situation. We have this peculiar homicide up here. Looks professional. Big federal cover-up, and all that. And then we find out there’s some sort of connection down where Officer Manuelito is working.”
“It’s Customs Officer Manuelito now,” Captain Largo said. “We lost her. And whatever is going on down there, if anything at all, it’s going to be a Customs case and not ours.”
“Not unless it connects with our homicide up here,” Chee said. “Not unless it gives us a way to—”
Captain Largo made a dismissive gesture. “A way to what? Solve an FBI felony case? Way to get Sergeant Chee back on the Bureau’s Bad Boy list? Why don’t you just call that young woman. Call her and give her a report on the situation on the telephone?”
“I did that,” Chee said.
Largo sighed, shook his head. “Oh, hell with it,” he said. “Give Officer Yazzie a rundown on anything pressing while you’re gone. And don’t drive one of our vehicles down there.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And tell Bernie we miss her,” Largo said.
Four hours later, Jim Chee was driving through Nutt, New Mexico, on Highway 26, taking advantage of the shortcut that took one from Interstate 25 to Interstate 10 without the long dogleg to Las Cruces, taking advantage of that five-mile-over-the-speed-limit State Police usually allowed. He was in such a hurry that he barely noticed how the slanting light of the setting sun changed the colors of the Good Sight Mountains to his right, and lit the very tips of Massacre Peak to his left, and because he still hadn’t figured out how to deal with Bernadette Manuelito. Actually, he had figured it out five or six different ways. None of them seemed satisfactory. And now with the little town of Nutt miles behind him he was almost to Deming. Customs Agent Manuelito had said she would meet him at the coffee shop attached to the Giant Station just off the intersection. He had rehearsed how he would greet her, what he would say, all that. And then he had modified his plan because his memory of how she had sounded when he called her from Shiprock had changed a little. He’d been kidding himself when he thought she sounded so friendly.
Actually it had been all very formal except right at first. Bernie had said: “Would you believe I really miss you, Jim. Imagine! Missing your boss.” And he knew that polite pause between the ‘Jim’ and the ‘Imagine’ was there to give him time to say: “Bernie, I miss you too.” He’d wasted it by trying to think of exactly the right way to say it. Something to let Bernie know that he woke up every morning thinking about her, and how empty life seemed with her out of it. And while he was trying to think of how to say that, he said something like, “Ah,” or “Well,” and before he could get it together, Bernie was talking again. She’d said: “But we drive better vehicles down here, and this new boss is nice. He has a mustache.” And thus the call had ended with none of the things said he wanted to say and Chee feeling thoroughly stupid and forlorn.
Chee spotted a new-model Ford 150 such as Bernie had described among the rows of huge eighteen-wheelers the coffee shop had lured off Interstate 10. He left his older and dirtier pickup near it, walked into the shop. It was crowded. Mostly men. Mostly truckers Chee guessed. Bernie was in a booth, her back to the door, listening to an older woman sitting opposite her. An Indian woman, but not a Navajo. Sort of resembled a Zuñi. Probably an O’odham. That tribe had its reservation on the Mexican border, lapping over into Arizona. The woman noticed him, smiled, said something to Bernie. Probably telling Bernie the Navajo cop had arrived. Then she was gathering her things together, and Bernie was sliding out of the booth, coming toward him, smiling.
Chee sucked in a deep breath. “Hello, Bernie.”
“Hello, Jim,” she said. “This is my friend, Customs Officer Eleanda Garza. She lets me share her house down in Rodeo and she’s helping teach me to be a Customs agent.”
Chee took his eyes off of Bernie, saw Customs Officer Garza was holding out her hand, saying, “How do you do.”
Chee took it, said, “Pleased to meet you.”
“Have to be going,” Garza said. “I’ll leave you the booth.”
“You think we could find a quieter place?” Chee asked.
“I doubt it,” Bernie said. “It’s Friday night. Night for eating out in Deming. We’d probably have to wait an hour for a table.”
They took the booth, with Chee trying not to show his disappointment. She ordered iced tea. He ordered coffee, wound too tight for food. Then he worked through the standard delivery of news about mutual friends and lapsed into silence.
“Your turn now,” Chee said. “Anything new with you before we get into what I want to tell you about. Are you having any problems?
She considered that a moment, smiled. “Well, to tell the truth, I managed to get lost and I never thought I could do that anywhere. But, you know, different landscape, different set of mountains, even worse roads than we were dealing with. In fact, that’s how I got to that Tuttle Ranch.” She laughed. “I was trying to follow the truck that was going there. Figured he was heading back to Interstate 10.”
“That’s the rich guy’s place? The one who’s raising exotic animals for his friends to hunt?”
Bernie nodded.
“Close to here? I want to see that some day.”
Bernie extracted a paper napkin from its holder and a pen from her purse. “Here we are,” she said, and sketched a map—a line going east representing I-10, an intersection identified with a state road number, another intersection with a county road number, and dotted lines for dirt roads. That done, she explained the landmarks. “Trouble is, when you get here”—she tapped the end of the last line with the pen point—“you come to a No Trespassing sign and a locked gate.”
“And where’s the watering station they were making?”
“About four miles in from the gate. You can’t see because it’s beyond a ridge. Anyway, they keep the gate locked. So first you have to persuade someone to let you in.”
Chee picked up the map and studied it. Typical of Bernie, it was neatly done. He noticed Bernie was studying him, looking expectant. And looking beautiful, which made him even more nervous than he had been.
“You talk now,” she said. “You said you wanted to tell me something.”
Chee picked up his coffee cup, took a sip, cleared his throat. “Maybe we should get your supervisor in on that,” he said. “Mr. Henry, isn’t it?”
Bernie looked down at her hands for a moment, and then looked up at him. Expression strained. “Tell me first,” she said.
“Well, I pretty well already have,” Chee said.
“You just wanted to tell me about the name of the welding company being the same? That made you worry, I mean? Was there anything you didn’t want to say on a telephone line?”
What did that mean, Chee wondered. He laughed, shook his head, looked embarrassed. “That and some odds and ends.”
“You thought the line might be tapped?”
“I think that’s unlikely,” Chee said. “But then a few days ago I would have thought it highly unlikely that a fellow on the Jicarilla Reservation could find a credit card in a garbage can, use it to buy gas, and within three days somebody in Washington knows where he used the card.”