Part 3 (1/2)

”This is Jim Chee of the Navajo Tribal Police. I have a note to call B. J. Vines.”

”Oh, good,” the voice said. ”I'm Vines. I'd like to talk to you about that little theft we had. Could you come out?”

”When?”

”Well,” the voice said, ”the sooner the better. I understand my wife talked to you about it and...” The voice paused and interjected a nervous laugh. ”Well, there's some misunderstandings that need to be cleared up.” The tone was ironic now. ”There tends to be when Rosemary gets involved.”

”Okay,” Chee said. ”I'll be out there after lunch.”

”Good,” Vines said. ”Thanks.”

Chee marked the Th.o.r.eau a.s.signment off Dodge's a.s.signment sheet. It was on his way. He'd handle it himself.

7.

The Pueblo woman answered the doorbell and showed Chee into the predator room without a sign she'd ever seen him before. There was a man behind the gla.s.s-topped desk now-a small man with a round face made rounder by the great bush of irongray beard that surrounded it. The man pulled himself to his feet. ”Ben Vines,” he said, offering a small, hard hand. ”Have a seat.” Chee sat. So did Vines. The room was brighter now than it had been when he had seen it with Mrs. Vines. Autumn sunlight streamed in, reflecting from the gla.s.s eyeb.a.l.l.s and ivory teeth of the cats. The sunlight made the room less hostile. The lioness above Vines' left shoulder seemed to be smiling. So did Vines.

”I understand my wife told you we had a break-in, and she hired you to solve the crime,” Vines said.

”She asked me,” Chee said.

”This is embarra.s.sing,” Vines said. What Chee could see of his face through its frame of hair didn't look embarra.s.sed. His alert black eyes were studying Chee. ”I have a feeling there really isn't a crime to be solved.”

”No?”

”No,” Vines said. He laughed. ”My wife is not a very predictable woman at times. She's a very nervous woman. Sometimes things get confused.”

”Having someone break into your wall safe can make you nervous,” Chee said.

”How nervous it makes you depends on who broke into it,” Vines said. He s.h.i.+fted his weight, glanced out the window and then back at Chee. ”Do you know where the safe is?”

”It's behind that head,” Chee said, nodding to the appropriate cat.

Vines got to his feet again and maneuvered himself laboriously to the wall. He balanced carefully and lifted the mounted head off its hook, dumping it on the carpet. The safe door eased itself open on well-oiled hinges. The s.p.a.ce behind it was dark and empty. Vines looked at it, his expression thoughtful. He extracted a pack of cigarets from the side pocket of his jacket, shook one out and lit it. At his feet, the cat's head smiled benignly at the ceiling.

”Rosemary and I weren't young when we married,” Vines said. ”We'd enjoyed lives of our own and we were going to continue to be private persons as well as man and wife. We kept our old friends and our old memories. Both of us. Separate.”

Vines had been talking to the safe. Now he glanced around at Chee. A trickle of tobacco smoke leaked through his lips. It made its way through his mustache like gray fog. Chee could see now that the left side of Vines' face was affected. The corner of his mouth and the muscles around his left eye drooped. ”This safe operates with a key and a combination. Rosemary doesn't have either one of them. I have a toolbox in the stables. There's a prying bar in it.” Vines pushed the safe door closed. ”You'll notice that this wall safe is like a lot of wall safes. It has a limited purpose and it's not built like a bank vault. It's not designed to do more than slow down a safe-cracker. You can take a pry bar and jam it in the door fitting, and it gives you enough leverage to spring the lock. Take a look.”

Chee looked. He noticed, as he'd noticed the first time he'd examined it, that the safe door did seem to have been pried open. Whatever had been used had left marks, and the door had been slightly bent. Once again, that seemed odd. The door was heavy. Unless it was poor metal, it would take tremendous strength to bend it even with the leverage of a wrecking bar. Chee looked for a trademark and found none.

”I think you should get your money back on that door,” he said.

Vines laughed. ”I'm afraid the warranty's run out. As a matter of fact, I had the safe made and installed, and I guess they didn't use the most expensive material.”

”Who did it for you?”

”I don't remember,” Vines said. ”Some outfit in Albuquerque. I had it done when I built this place, and that was thirty years ago.” He pushed the door shut. ”The point I was making was that Rosemary doesn't have a key to the wall safe, but she does have a key to the tool locker. The pry bar was gone. I found it in her closet.”

”Oh,” Chee said.

Vines shrugged. He produced a wry face. ”So I want to apologize for all this. And I'd like to pay you for your trouble.” He produced a check. ”You made two trips out here. Would two hundred dollars be fair?”

Chee glanced from Vines to the sly smile of the tiger. He thought of the bent metal of the door and the empty s.p.a.ce behind the door, and of what Mrs. Vines had told him. Among other things, she had told him that B. J. Vines was away at a hospital. But two hundred dollars was too much to be offered. Vines was watching him. Vines had told him, in effect, that the crime was family business, and thus no crime at all, and no concern of Chee's. To ask a question now would be impertinent.

”Did Mrs. Vines have the box?” Chee asked.

Vines considered this impertinence, his mild eyes on Chee's face. He sighed. ”I don't know,” he said. ”Maybe she had it. Maybe she disposed of it. The point is it doesn't matter. I think she told you there wasn't much in it. There wasn't. Mementos. Things that reminded me of the past. Nothing of value. Not even to me any longer.”

Vines held the check toward Chee, dangling it between his fingers.

”I understand you reported it to the sheriff,” he said. ”Of course you'd have to do that. Old Gordo came out yesterday to ask about it. I wondered how much you told him.”

”Just what Mrs. Vines told me.”

Vines took three careful steps toward Chee and put the check in Chee's s.h.i.+rt pocket.

”This isn't necessary,” Chee said. ”I'm not even sure it's allowed.”

”Take it,” Vines said. ”Rosemary and I will both feel better. If it's against policy, tear it up. I wonder if you noticed that our sheriff is very interested in my business?” Vines made his laborious way back to his chair.

”I noticed,” Chee said.

”Did he ask a lot of questions?”

”Yep,” Chee said. Vines waited for more. He realized gradually that it wouldn't be forthcoming.

”Gordo asked me a lot of questions about the People of Darkness,” Vines said. ”I got the impression that you'd told him Rosemary thought one of the Charley boys had taken the box.”

”That's right,” Chee said.

Vines waited again. He sighed. ”I've had a lot of trouble with Gordo Sena,” he said. ”Years ago. I thought it was over with.” Vines put out his cigaret and walked to the window. Past him, Chee could see an expanse of Mount Taylor's east slope. At this alt.i.tude it was the zone of transition from ponderosa pine into fir, spruce, and aspen. The ground under the aspens was yellow with fallen leaves. The slanting sunlight created a golden glow a little like fire.

”It was early in the 1950s,” Vines said. ”I'd found that uranium deposit that the Red Deuce is mining now, and I was building this place, and I hired a Navajo named Dillon Charley as a sort of foreman to look after things. I didn't know it, but Gordo had a thing about Charley, and about a bunch of other Indians in a church old Dillon was running.” Vines glanced back at Chee, the window light giving his gray beard a translucent frosting. ”It was the peyote church. It was against tribal law in those days.”

”I know about it,” Chee said.

”Well, Sena was d.o.g.g.i.ng them. He was picking them up, and beating them up. I got involved in it. Hired a lawyer over in Grants to take care of bonding them out and to b.i.t.c.h to the Justice Department about rights violations, and finally I put up some money behind a candidate and we got Sena beat for reelection for one term. For several years there, it was hairy between Sena and me. Things had settled down for the last few years. I'm wondering if he wants to stir it up again. That's why I wanted to know what kind of questions he was asking you.”

”He asked why your wife wanted to hire me,” Chee said. He gave Vines a quick resume of Sena's questions.

”What do you think of that oil well business?” Vines asked. ”Did Sena tell you about that? About why he hated old Dillon Charley?”

”He didn't talk about it,” Chee said, ”But I understand he thinks it's funny Dillon Charley got that advance warning.”