Part 9 (1/2)

”No other maps there? On the desk? Anywhere where they might have been looking at them?”

”There were maps on the walls,” Price said. ”Lots of them. What's the trouble?”

”I don't know,” Leaphorn said. ”Every once in a while I find out I'm not as smart as I thought I was.”

The map unfolded on the table before him was definitely not the map Denton had told him McKay had brought. It was a copy of a U.S. Geological Survey quadrangle map, as Denton said. But this didn't depict a section of the southeastern quadrant of the Zuni Mountains. It was far north of the Zunis. There was a dot identified as ”Standing Rock T.P.” and Hosta b.u.t.te and Smith Lake-all miles northeast of Gallup, not northwest. But Leaphorn's interest focused near the map's bottom. There a ragged line represented the north slope of Mesa de los Lobos, and other such lines were identified as Hard Ground Wash and Coyote Canyon Wash. He followed that line into Mesa de los Lobos. Near its beginning was a circled X and the tiny initials ”G.C.”

Leaphorn made another quick check of the map, confirming what he had already known. It was a 1940 U.S.G.S. map. Except for the few marks McKay seemed to have added in red, it was identical to the bound volume of them he had in his desk-covering all the quadrants of the Four Corners of four states. He refolded the map, stacked it with the papers, and put it neatly back into the briefcase.

Then he went carefully through the pockets and cuffs of McKay's trousers, checked the pocket of the b.l.o.o.d.y s.h.i.+rt, the cuffs and the collar, examined the boots and the belt-finding nothing. He replaced everything in the basket, with Price watching, leaving McKay's hat. He ran his finger along the inside of the sweatband, found nothing there either, put it atop the stack.

”With a closed case like this, I was surprised when the clerk told me you still had all this stuff. I guess no relatives showed up to claim it.”

”Well, usually we'd dispose of it after the legal period is over, but we had a call from a woman. Used to be what you'd call a common-law wife, I guess. She asked about how to establish a legal right to it, and I told her I wasn't sure and she should ask her lawyer.”

”She didn't come in for it?”

”Didn't give us her name, either,” Price said. ”That was the last we heard of her. In fact, the only one who showed any interest in McKay's stuff was Doherty. He came and wanted to look through it. Said he was interested in prospecting, and he'd heard what McKay was up to. n.o.body had any problem with that, him being kin of the old sheriff and everybody knowing him.” He looked at his watch. ”You about done with this?”

”I heard he made copies of the map and some of the other stuff,” Leaphorn said.

”I let him use our machine,” Price said. ”Copied the map, bunch of letters, so forth, even copied a salesman's business card.”

”Why'd he want that?”

”He didn't say but I remember it had something written on it. It's in here somewhere. He reached into the stack and extracted a business card. An insurance agent's name and address on one side, and on the back ”D2187” was written.

”Any guesses about what that might mean?” Price asked.

Leaphorn shook his head. ”Thank you, Ozzie, for your time and your patience.”

”You're pretty thorough,” Price said.

”I read a book by Raymond Chandler a long time ago. The crime scene crew had finished searching the hotel room, the victim, gone through everything. When the police were gone, Chandler had his detective take a look under the victim's toupee.”

”Never read it,” Price said.

16.

Leaphorn had been trying to explain to Professor Louisa Bourbonette the confusing business of the maps.

”I might have known,” said Louisa, ”that if you got yourself mixed up in this it would involve maps.”

For once Louisa had no other commitments, no academic duties at Northern Arizona U., and no reason not to take a ride with Leaphorn. This one was to a coffee shop in s.h.i.+prock and an appointment with Sergeant Jim Chee.

”Aside from that,” Leaphorn said, ”can you think of a reason Denton would want to lie to me about it?”

”Maybe he didn't,” Louisa said. ”Maybe McKay had two maps in that briefcase. He showed Denton the one Denton told you about. Denton kept it. And after he shot McKay, Denton hid it away somewhere before police arrived.”

They both thought about that for a moment.

”That's possible,” Leaphorn said.

”But not likely,” she said. ”Can you think of a reason he'd bring along two maps? You might bring two maps yourself. In fact, you probably have two maps with you right now.”

Leaphorn laughed. ”Actually, I have three today.” He extracted an American Automobile a.s.sociation Indian Country map from the door pocket, and two pages copied from the U.S.G.S. quadrangle maps book from the glove compartment.

They hadn't settled the puzzle of Denton's wrong map, nor why Denton had lied about McKay's jacket, if indeed he had, or any of the several other things that had been bothering Leaphorn. But Louisa had firmly and emphatically resolved the Linda-Wiley relations.h.i.+p. Yes, Wiley was in love with Linda, and vice versa. Louisa had no doubt at all.

Sergeant Chee's patrol car was parked at the cafe, and Chee was inside holding a corner table. He stood to greet them.

”I owe you a big favor if you ever need one,” he told Leaphorn. ”Osborne didn't seem to have anything to complain about.”

Leaphorn nodded.

”Is this something I'm not supposed to know about?” Louisa asked.

”Just avoiding some bureaucratic red tape,” Leaphorn said.

”How about you, Sergeant Chee? Are you willing to tell me?”

”A piece of evidence got misplaced,” Chee said. ”I wasn't sure how to deal with it, and I asked Lieutenant Leaphorn for advice. He handled it for me.”

Louisa laughed. ”No rules broken either, not so anyone would notice it. Right?”

”Let's just say no harm was done,” Leaphorn said.

Officer Bernadette Manuelito was hurrying up to the table, looking fl.u.s.tered, saying she was sorry to be late. Leaphorn pulled back a chair for her, introduced her to Louisa, told her he was glad she could join them.

”Sergeant Chee asked me to come,” Bernie said. ”He said you were interested in the Doherty homicide.”

”I think we were just talking about that,” Louisa said. ”Something that got Joe involved in it.”

Professor Bourbonette had been around long enough, attended enough meetings with touchy faculty prima donnas, to sense instantly that she would have been better off to have restricted herself to smiles and nods.

Officer Manuelito's face expressed unnaturally intense interest. Leaphorn and Chee looked merely embarra.s.sed.

”But I gather no harm was done,” the professor added.

”I was just simplifying matters,” Sergeant Chee said.

”An item that might be useful as evidence was involved,” said Leaphorn, in an effort at damage control. ”Jim wanted to get it back in place without involving a lot of needless paperwork.”

”Oh,” said Louisa. ”Okay.” And noticed that Officer Manuelito was leaning forward, her face flushed, and that Jim Chee was looking remarkably tense, and that it was time to change the subject.

”By the way,” she said, ”one of our history professors specializes in American frontier, nineteenth century, and I made the mistake of asking him if he'd heard of the Golden Calf gold legend and that touched off a standard academic fifty-minute lecture.”