The Shape Shifter (17 page)

He spotted two such men. One, a tall, slender man
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wearing a black turtleneck sweater and a neatly trimmed goatee, was heavily engaged in discussing a very large and ornate New Lands rug with an elderly woman. Probably not helpful because Leaphorn had once testified on the other side of a legal action involving sale of Navajo artifacts in his Santa Fe shop. The other man was exactly the person Leaphorn had hoped to see—the operator of Desert Country Arts and Crafts in Albuquerque’s Old Town district. He was short, substantially over the recommended weight for his height, and was bent over a Two Grey Hills carpet, examining it with a magnifying glass.

Burlander was his name, Leaphorn remembered. Octa-vius Burlander.

Leaphorn stopped beside him, waiting. Burlander glanced at him. His eyebrows raised.

“Mr. Burlander,” Leaphorn said, “if you have a little time, I have a question for you?”

Burlander straightened to his full five feet five inches, smiled at Leaphorn, stuck his magnifying glass in his jacket pocket. “Officer,” he said. “The answer is, I am not guilty. Not this time anyway. And, yes, this rug is a genuine Two Grey Hills weaving, unimpaired by any chemical dyes or other indecencies.”

Leaphorn nodded. “And my question is whether you could tell me anything about an old, old rug supposedly woven about a hundred and fifty years ago. It was apparently a tale-teller rug, full of sorrowful memories of the Navajo Long Walk, and was supposed to have been destroyed in a trading post fire a long time—”

“At Totter’s place,” Burlander said, grinning at Leaphorn. “But us people in the business always figured the bastard looted his place himself before he burned it down, THE SHAPE SHIFTER

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and that famous Woven Sorrow rug was the first thing he stole.”

“You have time to tell me about it?”

“Sure,” Burlander said. “If you’ll tell me what you’re doing here. Which one of us in this crowd—” Burlander used both of his short, burly arms in an all-encompassing gesture—“is being investigated by the legendary lieutenant of the Navajo Tribal Police.”

“Nobody,” Leaphorn said. “I’m a civilian now.”

“Heard you’d retired,” Burlander said. “Didn’t believe it. But what about that rug? I never did believe Totter let it burn.”

“Did you know him?”

Burlander grinned. “Just by reputation. He was a relative newcomer out here. Supposed to have come in from California. Bought that old half-abandoned trading post, put in the art gallery. Had a reputation for faking stuff. You know they say bad news travels fast and far. But I hadn’t heard anything about him since the fire.”

“Obituary notice in the
Gallup Independent
reported he died in Oklahoma City, a few years after that fire. It said he was a veteran, was buried in the VA cemetery.”

“I never heard about that. Guess I shouldn’t have been talking ill about the dead. But what do you want to know about that old rug?”

“First of all,” Leaphorn said, “do you think it survived that fire? If it did, do you think it could be copied? Do you think what I heard about it being sold at the Santa Fe Indian market after the fire could be true? And anything else you know.”

Burlander was laughing. “Be damned,” he said. “I haven’t heard that old rug mentioned for years until this
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very morning. Then old George Jessup over there—” Burlander nodded toward the Santa Fe dealer whom Leaphorn had noticed checking New Lands rugs “—well, he asked me if I’d heard it was going to be for sale. Going to be auctioned—e-Bayed, maybe, or maybe Sotheby’s, or some other auction company like that. He asked me if I’d heard about it. I hadn’t. He said all he knew was what a fellow he knows in Phoenix had told him about it. Wanted to know what I thought it would be worth. And if I would bid on it.”

“Would you? And how much would it be worth?”

“No,” Burlander said. “Well, I don’t think so. But if there could be any sort of documentation of all those tales that are told about it, it would bring big money from some collectors.” Burlander made a wry face. “There’s some real freaks out there.”

“A man in Flagstaff owns it now,” Leaphorn said.

“That, or a copy of it. He told me he was thinking about getting rid of it. Which brings me to my other question.

He said he had bought it a long time ago at that market under the porch of the Palace of Governors in Santa Fe.

Where the Pueblo Indians hold their market. What do you think of that story?”

“Well,” Burlander said, frowning, “it sounds sort of wild to me. You don’t see the really old, really expensive things being dealt with there.”

“That occurred to me,” Leaphorn said.

“But, hell, anything’s possible in this business. That would seem to mean that Totter had sneaked it out of his gallery before he burned the place. Got somebody to sell it for him. Who did this Flagstaff owner buy it from? And who is he?”

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“His name’s Jason Delos,” Leaphorn said. “Elderly fellow. Wealthy. Does a lot of big-game hunting. Came from the West Coast, so I hear, and bought a big house up in the San Francisco Peaks just outside Flagstaff.”

“Don’t know him. Did he say why he wants to sell it?” Leaphorn considered how to answer that. Shook his head. “It’s sort of complicated,” he said. “A picture of his living room was printed in a fancy magazine. Somebody who knew it was supposed to have been burned came to see it and ask about it. And on his way back to Flagstaff his car skidded off that mountain road.” Burlander waited, gave Leaphorn a moment to finish the paragraph. When Leaphorn did not continue, he said,

“Fatal accident? Killed the man?”

“They found his body in the car two days later,” Leaphorn said.

Burlander grunted. “Well, that would sure fit into the stories I’ve heard about that rug. You know. About it being cursed by your shaman, and causing misfortune and di-saster to whoever gets involved with it. Well, maybe that’s why this Delos wants to dump it.”

He produced a wry laugh. “And maybe it’s the reason I doubt if I’ll bid on it if it really is up for sale. I’ve got enough problems already.”

The bell signaling resumption of the auction put a stop to their conversation. Leaphorn was handed a bidding paddle (number 87), found himself a seat, and began scanning the row of weavers along the walls, hoping to spot a woman who looked old enough to add something to his collection of information about the Totter rug. Many of them were elderly, several were ancient, and relatively few were young—a glum sign, Leaphorn thought, for the
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prospects of maintaining Dineh culture when his generation was gone. But that conclusion caused Leaphorn, being Leaphorn, to consider the other side of the issue.

Maybe that just meant the younger generation was smart enough to notice that the pay scale for working half the winter to weave a rug—such as the one the auctioneer was now offering—that would sell for maybe $200 was not only unwise by
belagaana
standards but way below the legal minimum wage.

It was a pretty rug, in Leaphorn’s judgment, about six feet by four feet, with a pattern of diamond shapes in muted reds and browns. The auctioneer had noted its good features and, as rules of the association required, noted that some of its yarn was not quite up to collector standards and that some of the color might be “chemical.” But the weave was wonderfully skillful, tight and firm, and it was worth far more than the minimum bid of $125 the weaver had applied to it. Far more, too, he said, than the current bid of $140.

“You look at this in a shop in Santa Fe or Phoenix or even in Gallup, and they’ll charge you at least five hundred dollars for it, and then put seven percent sales tax on top of it,” he said. “Who’s going to offer one-fifty.” Someone did, and then a woman in the row ahead of Leaphorn waved her paddle and jumped it to $155.

The auctioneer finally closed it off at $160. The assistants brought out the next rug, held it up for the audience to admire, and the auctioneer began his description.

Leaphorn reached a sensible conclusion. He was wasting his time in here. Even if some of the waiting weavers were ancient enough to know something useful about the Totter rug, they would almost certainly be traditionalists.

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Therefore, they would not want to talk to a stranger about anything so enveloped in evil. Anyway, what possible good was knowing more about that damned rug going to do. Besides, it made more sense to move around through the crowd, in the auditorium and out of it, to see if Tommy Vang had come here looking for him. Why would Vang do that? Because Mr. Delos had told him to. And why would that be? A question worth getting an answer for.

Leaphorn walked out into the parking lot, stretched, enjoyed the warm sun and the cold, clear air, looked around. He heard someone shouting, “Hey, Joe.” That would not be Tommy Vang; he would never shout and would never call him anything less dignified than Mr.

Leaphorn.

It was Nelson Badonie, who about half a lifetime ago had been a sergeant in the Tuba City Tribal Police office.

He was trotting toward Leaphorn, grinning broadly. “I saw you in there,” Badonie said. “How come you didn’t bid on that rug my wife wove? I was counting on you to run it up to about four hundred dollars.”

“Good to see you, Nelson,” Leaphorn said. “Looks like you’ve been eating well since your Tuba City days.” Badonie patted an expansive belly, still grinning.

“Just got back to my natural weight,” he said. “How about you, though? You slimmed down to mostly bones and gris-tle. And I heard you’ve been thinking about retiring.”

“I have,” Leaphorn said.

“Have thought about it? Or have quit?”

“Both,” Leaphorn said. “I am now unemployed.” Badonie was looking back toward the entrance at a woman standing there. “I’m not,” Badonie said. “That’s
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my boss calling me right now.” He waved to her. “By the way, Joe, you remember that Arizona deputy who used to work around Lukachukai, and Teec Nos Pos, and around the west side of the Chuska range? Back when we were younger? Deputy Sheriff Bork, it was then.”

“Yes,” Leaphorn said. “I remember him.”

“Did you hear he got killed the other day over near Flagstaff. They thought it was just a car accident, but I just heard on the noon news it wasn’t. It turns out he was poisoned.”

“Poisoned?” Leaphorn said. “Poisoned how?” He had a sick feeling that he already knew the answer.

“The radio said the fellow at the sheriff’s office reported they had an autopsy done. Didn’t say the reason for doing that in a car wreck. But it seemed to show some poison had killed our Mr. Mel Bork before his car went off the road.” Badonie shrugged. “Thought it might be some sort of violent food poisoning.” Badonie chuckled.

“Too much of that good, hot Hatch green chile, maybe,” he said. “But it does seem funny, doesn’t it? I mean, how something like that could happen.”

“Did they say anything else about it? Have any suspects? Anything like that? Like any other reason why they didn’t think he just skidded, or passed out and ran off the road?”

“All the newscaster said was they were investigating the case as a homicide,” Badonie said. “Poison in the blood, I guess.” Now Badonie was looking over his shoulder again, at his wife summoning him.

“See you later,” he said, grinning, and trotted off wifeward.

Leaphorn didn’t look after him. He extracted the cell THE SHAPE SHIFTER

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phone from his jacket, stared at it, remembered he had loaded a long list of Four Corners area police telephone numbers into it, then worked his way down to Sergeant Garcia’s and punched it in.

A woman’s voice responded to the ring. Yes, she said, he’s here. Just a minute.

In about three minutes Garcia’s voice was saying

“Sergeant Garcia” in his ear, and he was asking Leaphorn what he needed.

“I need to know more about that autopsy report on Mel Bork,” Leaphorn said.

“All I know is what I heard on the radio,” Garcia said.

“They think Bork was poisoned. Probably had that wreck because of that.”

“Do you have the number for the coroner who did the autopsy? I think you said the pathologist was still old Dr.

Saunders. That right?”

“Yeah. It’s Roger Saunders,” Garcia said. “Just a minute and I’ll dig out his number for you.” Leaphorn dialed it, identified himself to a secretary, was put on hold, was told by another older-sounding woman that Dr. Saunders wanted to talk to him and could he hold another minute or two? He held. He switched the phone from right ear to left to allow his aching arm to dangle for a while. He looked around for a shady place to stand out of the warm autumn sun, found one that also allowed him the comfort of leaning on a car fender. He heard a voice saying hello and shifted the phone back to his better ear.

“Dr. Saunders,” he said, “this is Joe Leaphorn. I wondered—”

“Great,” Saunders said. “Aren’t you the cop Garcia
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told me about? The one who had suspicions about that Bork death? I’ve got some questions for you.”

“It’s mutual then,” Leaphorn said. “You want to go first?”

“What made you suspicious? That’s the big question.

It sure as hell looked like just another guy driving too fast, skidding down into the ditch. The crash would have killed him even if he hadn’t been poisoned.”

“Mel was investigating an arson fire. Well, it had been ruled not arson, but it was suspicious-looking, a man burned in it, and just a bit before this wreck happened, a death threat turned up on his answering machine.”

“Death threat,” said Saunders, sounding both pleased and sort of excited. “Really? Tell me about that. Who was doing the threatening? I know he had been up in the San Francisco Peaks area talking with somebody up there just before it happened. Was that who was making the death threats?”

Leaphorn sighed. “A lot of this we don’t know yet,” he said. “When we find out, I’ll fill you in. But what I need to know is how the poison got into him, and how fast it might have worked. Things like that.”