The Shape Shifter (16 page)

He wasn’t the kind of man who would trust Mr. Totter, or anyone else, not to steal his money.”

Rostic finished his hamburger. Shook his head. “I guess we could credit him pretty positively with most of those suspicious cases. That would get him up close to the record for a serial killer.”

Leaphorn drained his cup. Put it down without comment.

“You have any more questions? About the fire or anything?” Rostic asked.

“Well, you didn’t answer my question about the prints on that cognac bottle. Did they match?”

“Of course not,” Rostic said. “Any more questions?”

“How about you? You satisfied?”

Rostic peered at him. Sighed. “Well, hell,” 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
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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 cashing 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.”

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“So how about the profit from the fire. You think Totter took the valuable stuff out first?”

“Now we come to this damned 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
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.

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“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.” THE SHAPE SHIFTER

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“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 assistant 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 buttons, said: “Yep.

Here he is. What do I ask him?”

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“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, reassessing his opinion of cell phones. But probably this wouldn’t work. He waited.

“Hello,” 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 attitude, 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, damn it, if he calls you first, don’t forget to call me. I’m getting interested in this thing, too.”

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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 there-fore 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.

It was Louisa’s voice. “I don’t know if this is worth bothering you with,” she said. “But after I headed up toward the southern Ute country, I remembered I’d forgotten the new batteries I’d bought for my tape recorder so I went back to get them. There was a car parked in front of your house and when I pulled into the driveway, a man came out from behind the garage and said he was
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looking for you. He said his name was Tommy Vang, and that he lived in Flagstaff, and he wanted to talk to you.

Wouldn’t exactly say about what, but it seemed to have something to do with Mel Bork and that old rug you’re interested in. I think he works for the man who now owns the rug. Anyway, I told him I wasn’t sure where he could find you, but you had talked about going to Crownpoint to see a man named Rostic. Maybe he could find you there.

And he thanked me and left. He was maybe five feet six and slender. Probably in his thirties or early forties, well dressed. Looked like he might be from one of the Pueblo tribes, or maybe Vietnamese. Very polite. Anyway, this getting a late start means I probably won’t be back in Shiprock as soon as I’d hoped. And by the way, it sort of looked like he might have been poking around in the garage before he heard me driving up, but after he left I checked and there didn’t seem to be anything missing.

Anyway, old friend, take care of yourself. See you soon, I hope. Will exchange progress reports with you.” Leaphorn clicked off the phone and sat looking at it, considering Louisa’s tone when she said “Anyway, old friend.” And thinking maybe she was right about cell phones. It was handy to have one with you. He slipped it into his jacket pocket. Unless he was kidding himself, Louisa’s tone had sounded very affectionate, sort of sen-timental, which was good. What was bad was that she wouldn’t be at the house when he got home. It would be empty, silent, cold. He sighed. No reason to hurry home.

Maybe he would find someone at this collection of tribal weavers and the buyers of their work who could tell him something additional about the tale-teller rug. Or maybe he’d meet some old timers to talk to. Maybe, for exam-THE SHAPE SHIFTER

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ple, the auctioneer who always handled this might know something useful.

Leaphorn entered the auditorium and saw that conversation would have to wait. On the stage the auctioneer was a lanky, raw-boned middle-ager wearing the same oversized reservation hat with the same silver-decorated hatband Leaphorn remembered seeing him with at earlier auctions. He was instructing two teenagers who were helping him sort out weavings on the table beside his podium. Leaphorn stood just inside the rear entrance door of the auditorium and inspected the crowd.

As was customary, both sides were lined with chairs, mostly occupied by women—about half were the weavers who had come to watch the rugs, saddle blankets, scarves, and wall hangings, on which they had spent untold hours creating, have their value measured in
belagaana
dollars. And, as was usual, the other half of the audience was composed of potential customers holding the white paddles marked with the big black numbers that would be recorded with their bids. Leaphorn gave that group only a cursory scanning, and focused on the tables by the entrance. There potential bidders were inspecting scores of weavings that would be moved to the stage for auction-ing a little later. And there would be the old-time dealers of such items in the tourist shops of Albuquerque, Santa Fe, Scottsdale, Flagstaff, and all such places where tourists stopped in to find themselves a relic of Native Ameri-cana. Among those old timers, Leaphorn hoped to locate someone he knew, and someone who might know something about what he had come to think of as “that damned rug.”