Part 10 (1/2)
”How about you? You satisfied?”
Rostic peered at him. Sighed. ”Well, h.e.l.l,” he said. ”I don't know what it is, exactly, but when a guy is as slick as Shewnack seemed to be...Well, you always feel sort of uneasy about it. Not quite as confident as you'd like to be.”
”That's my problem, too,” Leaphorn said. ”You have time for another cup?”
”I'm retired,” Rostic said. ”I can either sit here and exchange war-against-crime stories with you or go on home and play Free Cell games on my computer. And by the way, you never told me what got you interested in this old case.”
Leaphorn waved at the waiter, ordered coffee refills. ”Then I'll tell you about Grandma Peshlakai, the theft of two five-gallon lard cans full of pinyon sap from the work shed behind her hogan, how she came to recover the empty cans at Totter's Trading Post, and how she discovered that Totter had died before he could be brought to justice and-”
”Wait at minute,” Rostic said. He stopped sugaring his coffee and was looking very interested. ”Back up. You're telling me Totter stole the old woman's pinyon sap? What the devil for? And he's dead? I want to hear more of this.”
And so Leaphorn told him, and before the tale was finished so was a third cup of coffee and two more doughnuts. When it was finished, Rostic considered what he'd heard for a long silent moment.
”Couple of questions,” he said. ”Tell me why Totter stole the pinyon sap. And tell me why you're so interested in him now if he's dead and gone.”
”If he stole the sap, and the only real evidence supporting that is empty buckets at the trading post, then it might have been something like this,” Leaphorn said, ”and I warn you, it is based on guesswork.” With that, Leaphorn recounted the discussion he and Garcia had had speculating that Shewnack had planned to rob Totter, had tried it, had been killed by Totter, and Totter had decided that instead of dealing with a homicide trial he would use the sap to rush the fire along, convert both body and gallery to ashes, thereby disposing of homicide evidence and cas.h.i.+ng in on his fire insurance without leaving behind the sort of evidence arson investigators look for.
”You mean the sap?” Rostic said, looking quizzical.
Leaphorn nodded. ”Everybody burns pinyon. And that sap burns very, very hot.”
”So how about the profit from the fire. You think Totter took the valuable stuff out first?”
”Now we come to this d.a.m.ned rug, the photograph of which sucked me into this business. Somebody seems to have taken that rug out. I'll bet it was the most valuable item Totter had. I saw it in Totter's gallery before the fire, and there it was on the wall of a mansion outside of Flagstaff after the fire. Unless somebody made a copy of it. Which seems to be very doubtful.”
Rostic was chewing on his lower lip, face full of thought, frowning at Leaphorn, then producing a rueful grin. ”That would make the bureau look sort of foolish, wouldn't it? But maybe it's right. It seems to make a certain amount of sense.” He shook his head. ”But now I want you to tell me how you'd like it if you had to go to a judge and try to get him to sign an arrest warrant for Totter. Of course you don't have to worry about that now, with him dead. But think about what you have. If you could get a judge to go even that far, how about trying to get him indicted? You think you could?”
Leaphorn laughed. ”Not unless he was willing to confess.”
”Tell me about Totter being dead,” Rostic said. ”How did that happen?”
”All I know is the Gallup Independent Gallup Independent printed a little obituary notice, just saying he died of complications after a heart attack. Brief illness, I think it said. Died in an Oklahoma City hospital. Said he was buried in the VA cemetery at Oklahoma City, born in Ada, Oklahoma, never married, no survivors listed, any contributions for flowers should go to some charity.” printed a little obituary notice, just saying he died of complications after a heart attack. Brief illness, I think it said. Died in an Oklahoma City hospital. Said he was buried in the VA cemetery at Oklahoma City, born in Ada, Oklahoma, never married, no survivors listed, any contributions for flowers should go to some charity.”
Rostic looked skeptical.
”Who brought it in?”
”U.S. mail, with some money attached to pay the publication fee.”
”Sent by whom?”
”Come on,” Leaphorn said, sounding defensive, remembering how he had felt as a rookie cop being grilled by his boss. ”All I know is what a secretary at the paper remembered about it. Bernie Manuelito went in there to get me a copy of it. I have the obit at home, and I remember it ran just two years or so after the fire.”
”Okay, then,” Rostic said. ”I am getting more and more interested. The obit mentioned burial in the Veterans Administration cemetery in Oklahoma City. You sure they have one there?”
”No,” Leaphorn said.
Rostic thought. ”You know,” he said. ”I think I'll check on this.”
”It would be easy for you,” Leaphorn said. ”Just call the FBI official there.”
”Hah!” Rostic said. ”First they'd refer me to the agent in charge, and he'd want to know my name, identification details, whether I was still in the bureau, and was this my case, and the violation of which federal law was involved, and what was the bureau's interest in it. Then, after about fifteen minutes of that, he'd tell me to send him a written report specifying the crime being investigated, and-” Rostic noticed Leaphorn's expression and stopped.
”You see what I mean? I used to work out of that Oklahoma City office. It always went strictly by the book. I'll bet it still does.”
”I can understand that,” Leaphorn said. ”I was thinking I might go back there myself. Or maybe get Bernie to go.”
”Investigating a crime in Navajo jurisdiction? How do you explain that?”
”To tell the truth, Bernie's sort of on administrative leave now, and she's now Mrs. Jim Chee.”
”Sergeant Chee? Your a.s.sistant in the criminal investigation office?”
”Yes. They just got married. I'd ask her to do it sort of semi-unofficially, as a favor. Pay her travel expenses, and so forth.”
”I've got a better idea,” Rostic said. ”I have an old friend back there, a longtime reporter. Guy named Carter Bradley. He was manager of United Press operations in Oklahoma when I was with the bureau there. Sort of famous for knowing everybody who knew anything. Not just knowing who knew. That's usually easy for reporters. But Carter knew who would be willing to talk about it. I think he'd do it for me.”
”But if you knew him way back then, he's probably retired by now.”
Rostic laughed. ”Exactly. Just like us. Retired. Bored stiff. Wanting something interesting to do. Give me that obituary and I'll call him, give him the situation, and tell him what we need to know.”
”I haven't got it with me here,” Leaphorn said. ”But I remember it. Which wasn't much.”
”We'll find out who paid his hospital bill. Who arranged to get him buried, if he had any criminal record back there in his home state, everything useful. Do it right now.”
Rostic had reached into his jacket pocket and extracted a cell phone, punched some b.u.t.tons, said: ”Yep. Here he is. What do I ask him?”
”What I'd be happy to know,” Leaphorn said, ”is whether Mr. Totter is actually dead.”
”Consider it done,” Rostic said, and began punching in numbers.
Leaphorn watched, rea.s.sessing his opinion of cell phones. But probably this wouldn't work. He waited.
”h.e.l.lo,” Rostic said. ”Mrs. Bradley? Well, how are you? This is Ted Rostic. Remember? Special agent with the bureau way back when. Is Carter available?”
Rostic nodded, grinned at Leaphorn, signaled the waiter for another coffee refill. So did Leaphorn. This would probably take a while.
It didn't take very long. A few moments of exchanging memories of screwups and mistakes, a few comments of the travails of becoming elderly and the boredom of retirement, and then Rostic was explaining what he needed to know about the Totter death, giving Bradley his telephone number and asking Leaphorn for his.
”Ah, you mean my cell phone number?” Leaphorn asked. What was that number? Louisa, conscious of his att.i.tude, had written it on a bit of tape and stuck it on the phone, but the phone was in the glove box of his truck. Leaphorn pondered a moment, came up with the number.
Rostic relayed it. ”Okay,” he said. ”Thanks, Carter. No, it's nothing terribly pressing, but the sooner the better. Lieutenant Leaphorn and I are digging back into an old cold case. Very cold. Fine. Thanks again.” He clicked off, shut the telephone.
”Well, thank you for that,” Leaphorn said.
”Take my number,” Rostic said. ”And, d.a.m.n it, if he calls you first, don't forget to call me. I'm getting interested in this thing, too.”
Leaphorn was pulling away from his parking spot at the diner before the unusual look of the Crownpoint school parking lot down the street caught his attention. Unusual because it was crowded with vehicles. Unlike most school lots in urban areas of the West, most Navajo students got to school by school bus or on foot and therefore did not jam school lots with student-owned vehicles. The lot content was also remarkable because relatively few of the vehicles in it were pickup trucks. Mostly newish sedans and sports utility vehicles, and many of them wearing non-New Mexico license plates. Leaphorn had solved this minor mystery even before he'd noticed this. Today was the second Friday of the month, which meant the Crownpoint weavers cooperative was holding its monthly rug auction in the school gymnasium. Which meant tourists and weaving collectors and tourist shop owners from all over had swarmed in looking for bargains.
He pulled into the lot, found a spot by the fence, fished out his cell phone, and called his home number. Maybe Louisa would be back from her University of Northern Arizona Ute history project earlier than she'd expected. She wasn't, but the answering machine informed him he had a message waiting. He punched in the proper code to retrieve it.