The Shape Shifter

by Tony Hillerman

  “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.”

  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.

  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 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 sentimental, 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 example, 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 auctioning 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 Americana. 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.”

  He spotted two such men. One, a tall, slender man 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. Octavius 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, 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 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?”

  “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 disaster 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 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. 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 gristle. 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 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 C
huska 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 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.