The Fallen Man jlajc-12

by Tony Hillerman

  The night dispatcher responded almost instantly. “Have a homicide at the Maryboy place,” Chee said, “with the perpetrator still in the area. I need—”

  The dispatcher remembered hearing the sound of two shots, closely spaced, and of breaking glass, and something she described as

  “scratching, squeaking, and thumping.” That was the end of the message from Acting Lieutenant Jim Chee.

  20

  AT FIRST CHEE WAS CONSCIOUS

  only of something uncomfortable covering much of his head and his left eye. Then the general numbness of the left side of his face registered on his consciousness and finally some fairly serious discomfort involving his left ribs. Then he heard two voices, both female, one belonging to Janet Pete. He managed to get his right eye in focus and there she was, holding his hand and saying something he couldn’t understand. Thinking about it later, he thought it might have been “I told you so,” or something to that effect.

  When he awoke again, the only one in the room was Captain Largo, who was looking at him with a puzzled expression.

  “What the hell happened out there?” Largo said. “What was going on?” And then, as if touched by some rare sentiment, he said,

  “How you feeling, Jim? The doctor tells us he thinks you’re going to be all right.” Chee was awake enough to doubt that Largo expected an answer and gave himself a few moments to get oriented. He was in a hospital, obviously. Probably the Indian Health Service hospital at Gallup, but maybe Farmington. Obviously something bad had happened to him, but he didn’t know what. Obviously again, it had something to do with his ribs, which were hurting now, and his face, which would be hurting when the numbness wore off. The captain could bring him up to date. And what day was it, anyway?

  “What the hell happened?” Chee asked. “Car wreck?”

  “Somebody shot you, goddammit,” Largo said. “Do you know who it was?”

  “Shot me? Why would somebody do that?” But even before he finished the sentence he began to remember. Hosteen Maryboy dead on the floor. Getting back into the patrol car. But it was very vague and dreamlike.

  “They shot you twice through the door of the patrol car,” Largo said. “It looked to Teddy Begayaye like you were driving away from the Maryboy place and the perpetrator fired two shots through the driver’s-side door. Teddy found the empties. Thirty-eights by the looks of them, and of what they took out of you. But you had the window rolled down, so the slugs had to get through that 59 of 102

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  shatterproof glass after they punched through the metal. The doc said that probably saved you.” Chee was more or less awake now and didn’t feel like anything had saved him. He felt terrible. He said, “Oh, yeah. I remember some of it now.”

  “You remember enough to tell me who shot you? And what the hell you were doing out at the Maryboy place in the middle of the night? And who shot Maryboy? And why they shot him? Could you give us a descri ption? Let us know what the hell we’re looking for—man, woman, or child?”

  Chee got most of the way through answering most of those questions before whatever painkillers they had shot into him in the ambulance, and the emergency room, and the operating room, and since then cut in again and he started fading away. The nurse came in and was trying to shoo Largo out. But Chee was just awake enough to interrupt their argument. “Captain,” he said, hearing his voice come out soft and slurry and about a half mile away. “I think this Maryboy homicide goes all the way back to that Hal Breedlove case Joe Leaphorn was working on eleven years ago. That Fallen Man business. That skeleton up on Ship Rock. I need to talk to Leaphorn about . . . “

  The next time he rejoined the world of the living he did so more or less completely. The pain was real, but tolerable. A nurse was doing something with the flexible tubing to which he was connected. A handsome, middle-aged woman whose name tag said SANCHEZ, she smiled at him, asked him how he was doing and if there was anything she could do for him.

  “How about a damage assessment?” Chee said. “A prognosis. A condition report. The captain said he thought I might live, but how about this left eye? And what’s with the ribs?”

  “The doctor will be in to see you pretty soon,” the nurse said. “He’s supposed to be the one to give the patient that sort of information.”

  “Why don’t you do it?” Chee said. “I’m very, very interested.”

  “Oh, why not?” she said. She picked up the chart at the foot of his bed and scanned it. She frowned, made a disapproving clicking sound with her tongue.

  “I don’t like the sound of that,” Chee said. “They’re not going to decide I’m too banged up to be worth repairing?”

  “We’ve got two misspelled words in this,” she said. “They quit teaching doctors how to spell. But, no, I just wish I was as healthy as you are,” she said. “I guess a body shop estimator would rate you as a moderately serious fender bender. Not bad enough to total you out, and just barely bad enough to cause the insurance company to send in its inspector and raise your premium rates.”

  “How about the eye?” Chee said. “It has a bandage over it.”

  “Because of”—she glanced down at the chart and read—“’multiple superficial lacerations caused by glass fragments.’ But from the looks of this, no damage was done where it might affect your vision. Maybe you’ll have some bumpy shaving on that cheek for a while, and need to grow yourself about an inch of new eyebrow. But apparently no sight impairment.”

  “That’s good to hear,” Chee said. “How about the rest of me?”

  She looked down at him sternly. “Now when the doctor comes in, you’ve got to act surprised. All right? Everything he tells you is news to you. And for God’s sake don’t argue with him. Don’t be saying: ‘That ain’t what Florence Nightingale told me.’ You understand?”

  Chee understood. He listened. Two bullets involved. One apparently had struck the thick bone at the back of the skull a glancing blow, causing a scalp wound, heavy bleeding, and concussion. The other, apparently fired after he had fallen forward, came through the door. While the left side of his face was sprayed with debris, the slug was deflected into his left side, where it penetrated the muscles and cracked two ribs.

  “I’d say you were pretty lucky,” the nurse said, looking at him over the chart. “Except maybe in your choice of friends.”

  “Yeah,” Chee said, wincing. “Does that chart show who sent me those flowers?” There were two bunches of them, one a dazzling pot of some sort of fancy chrysanthemum and the other a bouquet of mixed blossoms.

  The nurse extracted the card from the bouquet. “Want me to read it to you?”

  “Please,” Chee said.

  “It says, ‘Learn to duck,’ and it’s signed, ‘Your Shiprock Rat Terriers.’”

  “Be damned,” Chee said, and felt himself flushing with pleasure.

  “Friends of yours?”

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  “Yes, indeed,” Chee said. “They really are.”

  “And the other card reads ‘Get well quick, be more careful and we have to talk,’ and it’s signed ‘Love, Janet.’” With that Nurse Sanchez left him to think about what it might mean.

  The next visitor was a well-dressed young man named Elliott Lewis, whose tidy business suit and necktie proclaimed him a special agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Nevertheless, he displayed his identification to Chee. His interest was in the wrongful death of Austin Maryboy, such felonious events on a federal reservation being under the jurisdiction of the Bureau. Chee told him what he knew, but not what he guessed. Lewis, in the best FBI tradition, told Chee absolutely nothing.

  “This thing must have made some sort of splash in the papers,” Chee said. “Am I right about that?” Lewis
was restoring his notebook and tape recorder to his briefcase. “Why you say that?”

  “Because the FBI got here early.”

  Lewis looked up from the housekeeping duties in his briefcase. He suppressed a grin and nodded. “It made the front page in the Phoenix Gazette, and the Albuquerque Journal, and the Deseret News,” he said. “And I guess you could add the Gallup Independent, Navajo Times, Farmington Times, and the rest of ’em.”

  “How long you been assigned out here?” Chee asked.

  “This is week three,” Lewis said. “I’m fresh out of the academy but I’ve heard about our reputation for chasing the headlines. And you’ll notice I’ve already got the names of the pertinent papers memorized.” Which left Chee regretting the barb. What was Lewis but another young cop trying to get along? Maybe the Bureau would teach him its famous arrogance. But it hadn’t yet, and maybe with the old J. Edgar Hoover gang fading away, it was dropping the superman pose. Chee had worked with both kinds.

  Lewis was also efficient. He asked the pertinent questions, which made it apparent that the theory of the crime appealing to the Bureau was a motive involving cattle theft—of which Maryboy was known to be a victim. Chee considered introducing mountain climbing into the conversation but decided against it. His head ached. Life was already too complicated. And how the devil could he explain it anyway? Lewis closed his notebook, switched off his tape recorder, and departed.

  Chee turned his thoughts to the note Janet had signed. Remembering earlier notes, it sounded cool, considering the circumstances.

  Or was that his imagination? And there she was now, standing in the doorway, smiling at him, looking beautiful.

  “You want a visitor?” she said. “They gave the fed first priority. I had to wait.”

  “Come in,” he said, “and sit and talk to me.”

  She did. But en route to the chair, she bent over, found an unbandaged place, and kissed him thoroughly.

  “Now I have two reasons to be mad at you,” she said.

  He waited.

  “You almost got yourself killed,” she said. “That’s the worst thing. Lieutenants are supposed to send their troops out to get shot at.

  They’re not supposed to get shot themselves.”

  “I know,” he said. “I’ve got to work on it.”

  “And you insulted me,” she added. “Are you recovered enough to talk about that?” No more banter now. The smile was gone.

  “Did I?” Chee said.

  “Don’t you think so? You implied that I had tricked you. You pretty well said that I had used you to get information to pass along to John.”

  Chee didn’t respond to that. “John,” he was thinking. Not “McDermott,” or “Mr. McDermott,” but “John.” He shrugged. “I apologize, then,” he said. “I think I misunderstood things. I had the impression the son of a bitch was your enemy.

  Everything I know about the man is what you told me. About how he had used you, taken advantage of his position. You the student and the hired hand. Him the famous professor and the boss. That made him your enemy, and anyone who treats you like that is my enemy.”

  She sat very still, hands folded in her lap, while he said all that. “Jim,” she began, and then stopped, her lower lip between her teeth.

  “I guess it shocked me,” he said. “There I was, the naive romantic, thinking of myself as Sir Galahad saving the damsel from the dragon, and I find out the damsel is out partying with the dragon.” Janet Pete’s complexion had become slightly pink.

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  “I agree with some of that,” she said. “The part about you being naive. But I think we’d better talk about this later. When you’re better. I shouldn’t have brought it up now. I wasn’t thinking. I’m sorry. I want you to hurry up and get well, and this isn’t good for you.”

  “Okay,” Chee said. “I’m sorry I hurt your feelings.”

  She stopped at the door. “I hope one really good thing will come out of this,” she said. “I hope this being almost killed will cure you of being a policeman.”

  “What do you mean?” Chee said, knowing full well what she meant.

  “I mean you could stay in law enforcement without carrying that damned gun, and doing that sort of work. You could take your pick of half a dozen jobs in—”

  “In Washington,” Chee said.

  “Or elsewhere. There are dozens of offices. Dozens of agencies. In the BIA, the Justice Department. I heard of a wonderful opening in Miami. Something involving the Seminole agency.”

  Chee’s head ached. He didn’t feel well. He said, “Thanks for coming, Janet. Thanks for the flowers.” And then she was gone.

  Chee drifted into a shallow sleep punctuated by uneasy dreams. He was awakened to take antibiotics and to have his temperature and vital signs checked. He dozed again, and was aroused to eat a bowl of lukewarm cream of mushroom soup, a portion of cherry Jell-O, and some banana-flavored yogurt. He was reminded that he was supposed to rise from his bed now and walk around the room for a while to get everything working properly. While dutifully doing that, he sensed a presence behind him.

  Joe Leaphorn was standing in the doorway, his face wearing that expression of disapproval that Chee had learned to dread when he was the Legendary Lieutenant’s assistant and gofer.

  21

  “AREN’T YOU SUPPOSED TO BE IN BED?” Leaphorn asked. He was wearing a plaid shirt and a Chicago Cubs baseball cap, but even that didn’t minimize the effect. He still looked to Chee like the Legendary Lieutenant.

  “I’m just doing what the doc told me to do,” Chee said. “I’m getting used to walking so these ribs don’t hurt.” He was also getting used to looking at the image of himself in the mirror with one eye bandaged and the other one hideously black. But he wasn’t admitting that to Leaphorn. In fact, he was disgusted with himself for explaining his conduct to Leaphorn. He should have told him to bug off. But he didn’t. Instead he said, “Yes, sir. I’m being the model patient so they’ll give me time off for good behavior.”

  “Well, I’m glad it’s not as bad as I first heard it was,” Leaphorn said, and helped himself to a chair. “I’d heard he almost killed you.” They dealt with all the facts of the incident then, quickly and efficiently—became two professionals talking about a crime. Chee eased himself back onto the bed. Leaphorn sat, holding his cap. His bristly short haircut was even grayer now than Chee had remembered.

  “I’m not going to stay long,” Leaphorn said. “They told me you’re supposed to be resting. But I have something I wanted to tell you.”

  “I’m listening,” Chee said, thinking, You also have something you want to ask me. But so what? That was the tried-and-true Leaphorn strategy. There was nothing underhanded about it.

  Leaphorn cleared his throat. “You sure you don’t want to get some rest?”

  “To hell with resting,” Chee said. “I want out of here and I think they may let me go this evening. The doc wants to change the bandages again and check everything.”

  “The quicker the better,” Leaphorn said. “Hospitals are dangerous places.” Chee cut off his laugh just as it started. Leaphorn’s wife had died in this very hospital, he remembered. A brain tumor removed.

  Everything went perfectly. The tumor was benign. But the staph infection that followed was lethal.

  “Yes,” he said. “I want to go home.”

  “I’ve done a little checking,” Leaphorn said. He made an abashed gesture. “When you’ve been in the NTP as long as I was—and out of it just a little bit—then it seems people have trouble remembering you’re just a civilian. That you’re no longer official.”

  “Lieutenant,” Chee said, and laughed. “I’m afraid you’re always going to seem official to a lot of people. Including me.” Leaphorn looked vaguely embarrassed by that. “Well, anyway, things are going about the way you’d expect. It wa
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  news, and the papers made a pretty big thing out of it. That brings the feds hurrying right in. You’ve seen the newspapers, I guess?”

  “No,” Chee said, and pointed to his left eye. “I haven’t been in very sharp focus until today. But I’ve seen the fed.”

  “Well, you can’t be surprised they’re on it. Big headlines. Slayer shoots policeman at the scene of the murder. No suspect. No motive. Big mystery. Big headlines. So the Bureau moves in right away without requiring the usual prodding. They found out that Maryboy had been having some livestock stolen. They found out you’d gone out there to check on rustling. So they’re working that angle some . . .” Leaphorn paused, gave Chee a wry grin. “You know what I mean?” Chee laughed. “Unless they’ve reformed since day before yesterday it means they’re having my friends in the NTP at Shiprock working on it, and the Arizona Highway Patrol, and the New Mexico State Police, and the San Juan and McKinley County sheriff’s deputies.”

  Leaphorn didn’t object to that analysis. “And then they think maybe there might be a drug angle, or a gang angle. All those good things,” he added.

  “No other theories?”

  “Not from what I’m hearing.”

  “You’re telling me something right now,” Chee said, unable to suppress a grin, even though it hurt. “I think you’re telling me that neither the feds nor anyone else has shown any interest in trying to tie an eleven-year-old runaway-husband case into this felony homicide. Am I right?”

  Leaphorn was never very much a man for laughing, but his amusement showed. “That is correct,” he said.

  “I’ve been trying to visualize that,” Chee said. “You’ve known Captain Largo longer than I have. But can you visualize him trying to explain to some special agent that I had actually gone out to interview Maryboy to see if he could identify who had climbed Ship Rock eleven years ago, because we were still working on a 1985 missing person case? Can you imagine Largo doing it? Trying to get the guy’s attention, especially when Largo doesn’t understand it himself.” The amusement had left Leaphorn’s face.