Hillerman, Tony - [Leaphorn & Chee 07] (11 page)

Chee rolled onto his side, seeking comfort and sleep. Tomorrow he would go to the Farmington jail, where Roosevelt Bistie was being held until the federals could decide what to do with him. He would try to get Bistie to talk about witchcraft.

i think you're too late
," the officer on the jail information desk telephone said. "I think his lawyer's coming to get him."

"Lawyer?" Chee asked. "Who?"

"Somebody from DNA," the deputy said. "Some woman. She's driving over from Shiprock."

"So am I," Chee said, checking his memory for the name to go with the deputy's voice, and finding it. "Listen, Fritz, if she gets there first, maybe you could stall around a little. Take some time getting him checked out."

"Maybe so, Jim," Fritz said. "Sometimes people say we're slow. Can you be here by nine?"

Chee glanced at his watch. "Sure," he said.

From the police station in Shiprock to the jail in Farmington is about thirty miles. While he drove it, Chee considered how he would deal with the lawyer, or try to deal with her. DNA was the popular acronym for Dinebeiina Nahiilna be Agaditahe, which translates roughly into "People Who Talk Fast and Help the People Out," and which was the Navajo Nation's version of Legal Aid Society/public defender organization. Earlier in its career it had attracted mostly young militant social activists whose relationship with the Navajo Tribal Police had ranged from icy to hostile. Things had improved gradually. Now, generally, the iciness had modified to coolness, and the hostility to suspicion. Chee expected no trouble.

However…

The young woman in the white silk shirt sitting against the wall in the D Center reception room was looking at him with something stronger than suspicion. She was small, skinny, a Navajo, with short black hair and large angry black eyes. Her expression, if not hostile, showed active distaste.

"You're Chee," she said, "the arresting officer?"

"Jim Chee," Chee said, checking his reflex offer of a handshake in midmotion. "Not the arresting officer, technically. The federal—"

"I know that," said Silk Shirt, getting to her feet with a graceful motion. "Did Agent Kennedy explain to you… did Agent Kennedy explain to Mr. Bistie… that a citizen, even a Navajo citizen, has a right to consult with an attorney before he undergoes a cross-examination?"

"We read him—"

"And do you know," Silk Shirt asked, forming each word with icy precision, "that you have absolutely no legal right to hold Mr. Bistie here in this jail with no charge against him whatsoever, and knowing that he didn't commit the homicide you arrested him for, just because you 'want to talk to him'?"

"He's being held for investigation," Chee said, aware that his face was flushed, aware that Officer Fritz Langer of the Farmington Police Department was standing there behind the reception desk, watching all this. Chee shifted his position. From the corner of his eye he could see Langer was not only listening, he was grinning. "He admitted taking a shot—"

"Without advice of counsel," Silk Shirt said. "And now, just at your request and without any legal grounds at all, Mr. Bistie is being held here by the police while you take your time driving over from Shiprock so you can talk to him. Just a favor from one good old boy to another."

The grin disappeared from Langer's face. "The paperwork," he said. "It takes time when the federals are involved."

"Paperwork, my butt," Silk Shirt snapped. "It's the good old boy network at work." She pointed a thumb in Chee's direction, something one polite Navajo did not do to another. "Your buddy here calls you and says keep him locked up until I can get around to talking to him. Stall around all day if you have to."

"Naw," Langer said. "Nothing like that. You know how the Federal Bureau of Investigation is about crossing all the
t's
and dotting the
i's
."

"Well, Mr. Chee is here now. Can you get the
i
dotted and release Mr. Bistie?"

Langer made a wry face at Chee, lifted the telephone, and talked to someone. "He'll be out in a minute," he said. He reached under the counter, extracted a brown paper grocery bag, and put it on the countertop. It bore the legend R. BISTIE, WEST WING in red Magic Marker. Chee felt a yearning to explore that paper sack. He should have thought of it earlier. Much earlier. Before Silk Shirt arrived. He smiled at Silk Shirt.

"All I need is just a few minutes. Just some information."

"About what?"

"Well," Chee said, "if we knew why Bistie wanted to kill Endocheeney—and he says he wanted to kill him," he inserted hastily, "then maybe we'd know more about why someone else did kill Endocheeney. Stabbed Endocheeney. Later."

"Make an appointment," Silk Shirt said. "Maybe he'll want to talk to you." She paused, looking at Chee. "And maybe he won't."

"I guess we could pick him up again," Chee said. "As a material witness. Something like that."

"I guess you could," she said. "But it better be legal this time. Now he'll be represented by someone who understands that even a Navajo has some constitutional rights."

Roosevelt Bistie came through the door, trailed by an elderly jailer. The jailer patted him on the shoulder. "Come see us," he said, and disappeared back through the doorway.

"Mr. Bistie," Silk Shirt said. "I am Janet Pete. We were told you needed legal counsel and the DNA sent me over to represent you. To be your lawyer."

Bistie nodded to her. "
Ya-tah-hey
," he said. He looked at Chee. Nodded. Smiled. "I don't need no lawyer," he said. "They told me somebody else killed the son-of-a-bitch. I missed him." Bistie chuckled when he said it, but to Chee he still looked sick.

"You need a lawyer to tell you to be careful what you say," Janet Pete said, glancing at Chee. And then, to Langer: "And we need a place where my client and I can talk. In private."

"Sure," Langer said. He handed Bistie the sack and pointed. "Down the hall. First door to the left."

"Miss Pete," Chee said. "When you're talking to your client, would you ask him if I can talk to him for a minute or two? Otherwise…"

"Otherwise what?"

"Otherwise I'll have to drive all the way up into the Lukachukais to his place and talk to him there," Chee said meekly. "And just to ask three or four questions I forgot to ask him earlier."

"I'll see," Janet Pete said, and disappeared down the hall after Bistie.

Chee looked out the window. The lawn needed water. What was it about white men that caused them to plant grass in places where grass couldn't possibly grow without them fiddling with it all the time? Chee had thought about that a lot, and talked to Mary Landon about it. He'd told Mary he thought it represented a subconscious need to remind themselves that they could defy nature. Mary said no, it wasn't need for remembered beauty. Chee looked at the lawn, and at the desert country visible across the San Juan beyond it. He preferred the desert. Today even the fringe of tumbleweeds along the sidewalk looked wilted. Dry heat everywhere and the sky almost cloudless.

"I didn't tell her you'd asked me to stall," Langer said, apologetically. "She figured that out for herself."

"Oh, well," Chee said. "I don't think she likes cops, anyway." A thought materialized abruptly. "You remember what was in Bistie's sack?"

Langer looked surprised at the question. He shrugged. "Usual stuff. Billfold. Keys to his truck. Pocket knife. One of those little deerskin sacks some of you guys carry. Handkerchief. Nothing unusual."

"Did you look in the billfold?"

"We have to inventory the money," Langer said. He sorted through papers on a clipboard. "Had a ten and three ones and seventy-three cents in change. Driver's license. So forth."

"Anything else you remember?"

"I didn't check him in," Langer said. "Al did. On the evening shift. Says here: 'Nothing else of value.'"

Chee nodded.

"What you looking for?"

"Just fishing," Chee said.

"Speaking of which," Langer said, "can you get a permit for fishing up there at Wheatfields Lake? Free, I mean."

"Well," Chee said. "I guess you know—"

Janet Pete appeared at the hall door. "He says he'll talk to you."

"I thank you," Chee said.

The room held a bare wooden table and two chairs. Roosevelt Bistie sat in one of them, eyes half closed, face sagging. But he returned Chee's salutation. Chee put his hand on the back of the other chair, glanced at Janet Pete. She was leaning against the wall behind Bistie, watching Chee. The paper sack was under Bistie's chair.

"Could we talk in private?" Chee asked her.

"I'm Mr. Bistie's legal counsel," she said. "I'll stay."

Chee sat down, feeling defeated. It had never been likely that Bistie would talk. He hadn't, after all, in the past. It was even less likely that he would talk about the subject Chee intended to raise, which was witchcraft. There was a simple enough reason for that. Witches hated to be talked about—to even have their evil business discussed. Therefore the prudent Navajo discussed witchcraft, if at all, only with those known and trusted. Not with a stranger. Certainly not with two strangers. However, there was no harm in trying.

"I have heard something which I think you would like to know," Chee said. "I will tell you what I heard. And then I will ask you a question. I hope you will give me an answer. But if you won't, you won't."

Bistie looked interested. So did Janet Pete.

"First," Chee said, speaking slowly, intent on Bistie's expression, "I will tell you what the people over at the Badwater Wash Trading Post hear. They hear that a little piece of bone was found in the body of that man you took a shot at."

There was a lag of a second or two. Then Bistie smiled a very slight smile. He nodded at Chee.

Chee glanced at Janet Pete. She looked puzzled. "Understand that I do not know if this is true," Chee said. "I will go to the hospital where the body of that man was taken and I will try to find out if it was true. Should I tell you what I find out?"

No smile now. Bistie was studying Chee's face. But he nodded.

"Now I have a question for you to answer. Do you have a little piece of bone?"

Bistie stared at Chee, face blank.

"Don't answer that," Janet Pete said. "Not until I find out what's going on here." She frowned at Chee. "What's this all about? It sounds like an attempt to get Mr. Bistie to incriminate himself. What are you driving at?"

"We know Mr. Bistie didn't kill Endocheeney," Chee said. "Somebody else killed him. We don't know who. We aren't likely to find out who until we know why. Mr. Bistie here seems to have had a good reason to kill Endocheeney, because he tried to do it. Maybe it was the same reason. Maybe it was because Endocheeney was a skinwalker. Maybe he witched Mr. Bistie. Put the witch bone into him. Maybe Endocheeney witched somebody else. If what I heard at Bad-water Wash isn't just gossip, maybe Mr. Endocheeney had a bone put in him because that other person, the one who knifed Endocheeney, put it in him when he stabbed Endocheeney to turn the witching around." Chee was talking directly to Janet Pete, but he was watching Bistie from the corner of his eye. If Bistie's face revealed any emotion, it was satisfaction.

"It sounds like nonsense to me," Janet Pete said.

"Would you recommend to your client that he answer my question, then?" Chee asked. "Did he believe Mr. Endocheeney was a witch?"

"I'll talk to him about this," she said. "There are no charges against him. None. He's not accused of anything. You're just holding him to satisfy your curiosity."

"About a murder," Chee said. "And there may be a charge filed by now. Attempted homicide."

"Based on what?" Janet Pete asked. "On what he told you and Kennedy before consulting with his attorney? That's absolutely all you have."

"That, and some other stuff," Chee said. "Witnesses who put him where it happened. His license number. The ejected shell from his rifle." Which, as far as Chee knew, hadn't been found and wasn't being looked for. Why look for a shell casing from a shot that missed when they had a butcher knife, which didn't miss? But Janet Pete wouldn't know they hadn't found it.

"I don't think there's any basis for charges," Janet Pete said.

Chee shrugged. "It's not up to me. I think Kennedy—"

"I think I will call Kennedy," Janet Pete said. "Because I don't believe you." She walked to the door, stopped with her hand on the knob, smiled at Chee. "Are you coming?"

"I'll just wait," Chee said.

"Then my client is coming," she said. She motioned to Bistie. He got up, steadied himself with a hand on the tabletop.

"This interview is over," Janet Pete said, and she closed the door behind them.

Chee waited. Then he went to the door and glanced down the hall. Janet Pete was using the telephone in the pay booth. Chee closed the door again, picked up Bistie's sack, sorted quickly through it. Nothing interesting. He extracted Bistie's billfold.

In it, in the corner of the currency pocket that held a ten and three ones, Chee found a bead. He turned it over between thumb and first finger, examining it. Then he put it back where he had found it, put the wallet back in the sack, and the sack back on the floor under Bistie's chair. The bead seemed to be made of bone. In fact, it looked exactly like the one he'd found on the floor of his trailer.

the turbulence caused by the thunderhead
was sweeping across the valley floor toward them. It kicked up an opaque gray-white wall of dust which obscured the distant shape of Black Mesa and spawned dust devils in the caliche flats south of them. They were standing, Officer Al Gorman and Joe Leaphorn, beside Gorman's patrol car on the track that led across the sagebrush flats below Sege Butte toward Chilchinbito Canyon.

"Right here," Gorman said. "Here's where he parked his car, or pickup, or whatever."

Leaphorn nodded. Gorman was sweating. A trickle of it ran down his neck and under his shirt collar. It was partly the heat, and partly that Gorman should lose a few pounds, and partly, Leaphorn knew, because he made Gorman nervous.