"Well, that would help," said Osborne. "Your officer didn't leave us much to work on around the truck."
With that mild reminder of Navajo Tribal Police failure out of the way, Osborne gave Chee a brief and, Chee suspected, probably edited recitation of what was known so far.
Osborne was a slender young man, curly reddish hair, gray eyes, and a pale complexion sprinkled with those freckles that Chee had found strange when he moved into a dorm at the University of New Mexico and was immersed in a pale-skinned, freckled society. Osborne sat tilted a bit back in his chair with his chin down, looking up at Chee under eyebrows as red as his hair, and recounting, in carefully phrased sentences, what the Bureau wanted the Navajo Tribal Police to know about the life and death of Mr. Doherty.
Age thirty-one, divorced single male, employed by the U.S. Forest Service. Nephew of Sheriff Bart Hegarty, deceased. Flagstaff resident. Bachelor of science in geology, Arizona State U., then graduate student, also ASU. Worked summer seasons in Forest Service fire crew program, maintained checking account at Bank of America branch in Flag, no recent large deposits or withdrawals, held library cards for both ASU and Flag-city libraries where withdrawals showed interest in mineralogy, mining, lost gold mine legends. Reference librarian at Flag said he had asked her to help him locate microfiche files of Gallup, Farmington, and Flagstaff papers of the dates that reported the McKay homicide.
Osborne droned through more biographical details, raised his chin, and confronted Chee with a direct stare, inviting questions.
Chee shrugged.
Osborne dropped his chin again. "Slug not recovered," he continued. "Probably thirty-aught-six or thirty-thirty, rifle fired from undeterminable range, probably more than twenty yards, less than a hundred, bullet entering back between ribs four centimeters left of spinal column, exiting through sternum, causing lethal heart damage. Death almost instantaneous, and estimated twenty to thirty hours before body found. Abrasions on left side of face suggest he might have fallen against rocks." Osborne stopped again, made that hand motion suggesting end of account.
"Rocks," Chee said. "What kind?"
Osborne looked puzzled.
"Sandstone, shale, granite, schist," Chee said. "The coroner might have been able to tell from fragments in the abrasions."
Osborne shrugged. "The autopsy didn't say."
Chee grinned. "It's said the Inuits up on the Arctic Circle have nine words for snow. I guess, living in our stony world, we're that way with our rocks. I heard you're from Indiana. Not so rocky there."
"Indianapolis," Osborne said. "And you're right. You have us bested for rocks."
For the first time Osborne's expression had turned friendly and Chee found himself looking at the man as a fellow human instead of as an uncooperative competitor. Osborne had been sent down from Denver. Chee would have considered that a move in the right direction but he doubted if a young fbi agent could consider the Gallup office a promotion. In fact, he heard it was officially listed as a "hardship assignment" with a guaranteed reassignment after three years. And then, having no friends here, probably leaving his wife (if he had one) behind while he hunted housing, he'd have to be lonely. Chee felt sympathy. Osborne needed someone to talk to. He returned Osborne's smile.
"I think it'd be tough to learn a new territory," Chee said. "I'd be lost trying to work a city."
Osborne laughed. "My very first case here," he said, "involved a fatal stabbing. No billfold. No identification. But he was missing some molars so we checked all the dentists for dental charts." Osborne made a wry face. "When we finally got him identified, it turned out he'd never been to a dentist in his life. Pulled his own molars. Now how do you do that?"
"It's a different world," Chee said, deciding not to explain to Osborne how his grandmother had done it. It involved numbing the gum with a concoction made of boiled roots and berries and using a little wire noose, etc., and was too complicated to get into here. Instead he got the conversation back to Doherty.
What could Osborne tell him about how the theory of the crime was developing? What, for example, was the motive? And was it true, as the grapevine had it, that Doherty might have been trying to work a lost gold-mine scam on Wiley Denton?
Osborne considered that a moment, decided, said: "I hadn't heard that one yet."
"It seemed pretty unlikely to me," Chee said. "His uncle being the sheriff who arrested Denton, he'd know what happened to McKay."
Osborne grinned. "Nephew or not, I think anybody curious could have known anything they wanted to about that case. The sheriff's department doesn't seem too careful about its files."
"So we hear," Chee said, also grinning. "What was it this time?"
"Well, he had a bunch of stuff copied out of that McKay homicide in the car with him."
"Sensitive stuff?"
"I guess there wasn't anything very sensitive about that one," Osborne said. "My files show it was open and shut. Denton shot McKay, admitted it, claimed self-defense in a scam that turned into an attempted robbery, pleaded, and did his time." Osborne shrugged. "Closed case."
"We need more like that," Chee said. "What in the world would Doherty want to make copies of?"
"Some of the stuff from McKay's briefcase. Maps, sketches, notes on gold assays, copies of stuff from the records out at Fort Wingate." He laughed. "He even made a copy of a State Farm Insurance business card, front and back. That seemed odd, right? So we checked out the agent. A local guy, and all we found out was that McKay didn't buy a policy. And some numbers were jotted on the back."
"Telephone numbers? An address?"
"No idea. Started with a 'D' and then three or four numbers. I guess they must have meant something to McKay."
Chee nodded. "I guess there's nothing wrong with that. Not if he just made copies." He waited a moment, and added: "Be a different matter if they let him walk off with the original stuff."
"Yes, indeed," said Osborne.
"Ah, well," Chee said. "I guess the property clerk would be a family friend. And what would it matter? Closed case, after all." Chee laughed. "What did he get off with? Anything valuable?"
"Not very," Osborne said. "Unless somebody collects old Prince Albert pipe tobacco cans. You remember those?"
"Just barely," Chee said. "I never smoked a pipe. Why would he take something like that?"
"The theory is that maybe he wanted the sand in it, for the same reason McKay had it."
Osborne was grinning, enjoying this. Chee rewarded him with a quizzical look and wasted a few moments pondering.
"Like maybe McKay was pretending it was placer gold sand," Chee said. "Using it to persuade Denton he'd found the gold mine he was trying to sell him? Is that it?"
"All I know is the can had some sand in it and according to the case records, a little of what they called 'placer gold dust' mixed in," said Osborne, "and Doherty had it with him in his truck. We found it out on the ground. As you know the ambulance crew got there before the crime scene people. Things got knocked around." Osborne's expression said that was all he intended to say about this subject.
"One more thing that might help me. Could you tell anything from the stuff in his truck, on his boots, clothes. Anything that would give you a hint at where he'd been between leaving Gallup and getting shot?"
"Not much," Osborne said. He looked at his watch, frowned, and glanced at Chee. "You're going to ask me what kind of rocks he was walking on, and I can't help you about that." He pushed back from the table. "I can tell you he walked through somebody's camp fire, or ash heap, or something. He had soot all over his shoes. And there's something I'd like to ask you about."
Chee nodded.
Osborne studied him. About to tell Chee something. Or ask him something. Then he picked up his notebook and paged through it. "Maybe those numbers will mean something to you," he said.
"Numbers?"
"On that insurance card of McKay's that Doherty copied. I remembered I copied them down. D2187. That ring any bells with you? It didn't with us, and it didn't with the insurance agent."