Tony Hillerman - Leaphorn & Chee 12 - The Fallen Man

by The Fallen Man(lit)

  "I guess that's what they call an airtight alibi," Chee said. "So how long did it take her to get old Hal declared legally dead so she could marry her coconspirator? And would I be wrong if I guessed that would be George Shaw?"

  "She's still a widow, last I heard," Leaphorn said. "She offered a ten-thousand-dollar reward and after a while upped it to twenty thousand and didn't petition to get her husband declared legally dead until five years later. She lives up near Mancos, Colorado. She and her brother run the Lazy B now."

  "You know what?" Chee said. "I think I know those people. Is the brother Eldon Demott?"

  "That's him."

  "He's one of our customers," Chee said. "The ranch still has those public land leases you mentioned on the Checkerboard Reservation and they've been losing Angus calves. He thinks maybe some of us Navajos might be stealing them."

  "Eldon is Elisa Breedlove's older brother," Leaphorn said. "Their daddy was old man Breedlove's foreman, and when their daddy died, I think Eldon just sort of inherited the job. Anyway, the Demott family lived on the ranch. I guess that's how Elisa and the Breedlove boy got together."

  Chee stifled a yawn. It had been a long and tiring day and this session with Leaphorn, helpful as it had been, didn't qualify as relaxation. He had accumulated too many memories of tense times trying to live up to the man's high expectations. It would be a while before he could relax in Leaphorn's presence. Maybe another twenty years would do it.

  "Well," Chee said. "I guess that takes care of the fallen man. I've got a probable identification of our skeleton. You've located your missing Hal Breedlove. I'll call you when we get it confirmed."

  Leaphorn drained his cup, got up, adjusted his hat.

  "I thank you for the help," he said.

  "And you for yours."

  Leaphorn opened the door, admitting a rush of cold air, the rich perfume of autumn, and a reminder that winter was out there somewhere, like the coyote, just waiting.

  "All we need to do now-" he said, and stopped, looking embarrassed. "All that needs to be done," he amended, "is find out if your bones really are my Breedlove, and then find out how the hell he got from that abandoned Land Rover about a hundred fifty miles west, and way up there to where he could fall off of Ship Rock."

  "And why," Chee said. "And how he did it all by himself."

  "If he did," Leaphorn said.

  4

  THE STRANGE TRUCK PARKED in one of the Official Visitor slots at the Shiprock headquarters of the Navajo Tribal Police wore a New Jersey license and looked to Jim Chee anything but official. It had dual back wheels and carried a cumbersome camper, its windows covered by decals that certified visitation at tourist traps from Key West to Vancouver Island. Other stickers plastered across the rear announced that A BAD DAY FISHING IS BETTER THAN A GOOD DAY AT WORK, and declared the camper-truck to be OUR CHILDREN'S INHERITANCE. Bumper decals exhorted viewers to VISUALIZE WHIRLED PEAS and to TRY RANDOM ACTS OF KINDNESS, and endorsed the National Rifle Association. A broad band of silver duct tape circled the camper's rear panel, sealing the dust out of the joint and giving the camper a ramshackle, homemade look.

  Chee stuck his head into Alice Notabah's dispatcher office and indicated the truck with a nod: "Who's the Official Visitor?"

  Notabah nodded toward Largo's office. "In with the captain," she said. "And he wants to see you."

  The man who drove the truck was sitting in the comfortable chair Captain Largo kept for important visitors. He held a battered black hat with a silver concha band in his lap and looked relaxed and comfortable.

  "I'll catch you later," Chee said, but Largo waved him in.

  "I want you to meet Dick Finch," Largo said. "He's the New Mexico brand inspector working the Four Corners, and he's been getting some complaints."

  Chee and Finch shook hands. "Complaints?" Chee said. "Like what?"

  "'Bout what you'd expect for a brand inspector to get," Finch said, "People missing their cattle. Thinking maybe somebody's stealing 'em."

  Finch grinned when he said it, eliminating some of the sting from the sarcasm.

  "Yeah," Chee said, "we've been hearing some of that, too."

  Finch shrugged. "Folks always say that nobody likes to eat his own beef. But it's got a little beyond that, I think. With bred heifers going at sixty dollars a hundred pounds, it just takes three of 'em to make you a grand larceny."

  Captain Largo was looking sour. "Sixty dollars a hundred, like hell," he said. "More like a thousand dollars a head for me. I've been trying to raise purebred stock." He nodded in Chee's direction. "Jim here is running our criminal investigation division. He's been working on it."

  Largo waited. So did Finch.

  "I'm here on something else now," Chee said finally. "I think we may have an identification on that skeleton that was found up on Ship Rock."

  "Well, now," Largo said. "Where'd that come from?"

  "Joe Leaphorn remembered a missing person case he had eleven years ago. The man disappeared from Canyon de Chelly but he was a mountain climber."

  "Leaphorn," Largo said. "I thought old Joe was supposed to be retired."

  "He is," Chee said.

  "Eleven years is a hell of a long time to remember a missing person case," Largo said. "How many of those do we get in an average month?"

  "Several," Chee said. "But most of 'em don't stay missing long."

  Largo nodded. "So who's the man?"

  "Harold Breedlove was the missing man. He used to own the Lazy B ranch south of Mancos. Or his family owned it."

  "Fella named Eldon Demott owns it now," Finch said. "Runs a lot of Herefords down in San Juan County. Has some deeded land and some BLM leases and a big home place up in Colorado."

  "What have you got beyond this Breedlove fella's been missing long enough to become a skeleton and him being a climber?" Largo asked.

  Chee explained what Leaphorn had told him.

  "Just that?" Largo asked, and thought a moment. "Well, it could be right. It sounds like it is and Joe Leaphorn never was much for being wrong. Did Joe have any notion why this guy left his wife at the canyon? Or why he'd be climbing Ship Rock all by himself?"

  "He didn't say, but I think he figures maybe Breedlove wasn't alone up there. And maybe the widow knew more than she was telling him at the time."

  "And what's that about Amos Nez getting shot last week down at Canyon de Chelly? You lost me on that connection."

  "It was sort of thin," Chee said. "Nez happened to be one of the witnesses in the disappearance case. Leaphorn said he was the last person known to have seen Breedlove alive. Except for the widow."

  Largo considered. Grinned. "And she was Joe's suspect, of course," he said. And shook his head. "Joe never could believe in coincidences."

  "They still had that mountain climbing gear in the evidence room at Window Rock and I had them send it up," Chee said. "It looks to me a lot like the gear they found on our Fallen Man, so I called Mrs. Breedlove up at Mancos."

  "What'd she say?"

  "She'd gone into town for something. The housekeeper said she'd be back in a couple of hours. I left word that I was coming up this afternoon to show her some stuff that might bear on her missing husband."

  Finch cleared his throat, glanced up at Chee. "While you're there why not just kind of keep your eyes open? Tell 'em you've heard good things about the way they run their place. Look around. You know?"

  Finch looked to Chee to be about fifty. He had a hollowed scar high on his right cheek (resulting, Chee guessed, from some sort of surgery), small, bright blue eyes, and a complexion burned and cracked by the Four Corners weather. He was waiting now for Chee's response to this suggestion.

  "You think Demott's sort of augmenting his herd with some strangers?" Chee asked.

  "Well, not exactly," Finch said, and shrugged. "But who knows? People losing their cattle. Maybe the coyotes are getting 'em. Maybe Demott's got fifteen or twenty head he's shipping off to the feedlot and he thinks it would be nice to round
it off at twenty or twenty-five. No harm in looking. Seeing what you can see."

  "I'll do that," Chee said. "But were you telling me you don't have anything specific against Demott?"

  Finch was studying Chee, looking quizzical. He's trying to decide, Chee thought, how stupid I am.

  "Nothing I could take in to a judge and get a search warrant with. But you hear things." With that, Finch broke into a chuckle. "Hell, you hear things about everybody." He jerked a thumb at Largo. "I've even been told that your captain here has some peculiar-looking brands on some of his stock. That right, Captain?"

  "I've heard that myself," Largo said, grinning. "We have a barbecue over at the place, all the neighbors want to go out and take a look at the cowhides."

  "Well, it's a lot cheaper than buying beef at the butcher shop. So maybe somebody's eating Demott's sirloin and the Demotts are eating theirs."

  "Or mutton," added Largo, who was missing some ewes as well as a calf or two.

  "How about me going along for the ride?" Finch said. "I mean up to the Lazy B?"

  "Why not?" Chee said.

  "You wouldn't have to introduce me, you know. I'll just sort of get out and stretch my legs. Look around a little bit. You never know what you might see."

  5

  THEY CAME INTO VIEW OF THE HEADQUARTERS of the Lazy B with the autumn sun low over Mesa Verde, producing shadow patterns on Bridge Timber Mountain. Chee had been thinking more of home sites lately and he thought now that this little valley would be a beautiful place for Janet and him. The house in the cluster of cottonwoods below them would be far, far too large for him to feel comfortable in. But Janet would love it.

  Finch had been doing the talking on the drive up from Shiprock. After the first fifty miles of that, Chee began listening just enough to nod or grunt at the proper intervals. Mostly he was thinking about Janet Pete and the differences between what they liked and what they didn't. This house, for example. Women usually had most to say about living places, but if he retained veto power, theirs certainly wouldn't be anything as huge as the fieldstone, timber, and slate mansion the Breedlove family had built for itself. Even if they could afford it, which they certainly never would.

  That reminded Chee of the white Porsche that had zipped past him yesterday. Why did he connect it to Janet? Because it had class, as did she. And was beautiful. And, sure, she'd like it. Who wouldn't? So why did he resent it? Was it because it was a part of the world she came from in which he would never be comfortable? Or understand? Maybe.

  But now he was about to walk in and see if he could get a widow to identify a bunch of stuff that would tell her that her husband was truly dead. Tell her, that is, unless she already knew-having killed him herself. Or arranged it. He'd worry about the Porsche later. The Breedlove mansion was now just across the fence.

  According to Finch, old Edgar Breedlove had built it as a second home-his first one being in Denver, from which he ran his mining operations. But he'd never lived in it. He'd bought the ranch because his prospectors had found a molybdenum deposit on the high end of the property. But the ore price fell after the war and somehow or other the place got left to a grandson, Harold. Hal had adopted his granddad's policy of overgrazing it and letting it run down.

  "That ain't happening now," Finch had told him. "This place ain't going to go to hell while Demott's running it. He's sort of a tree-hugger. That's what people say. Say he never got married 'cause he's in love with this place."

  Chee parked under a tree a polite distance from the front entrance, turned off the ignition, and sat, killing the time needed by hosts to get decent before welcoming guests. Finch, another empty-country man, seemed to understand that. He yawned, stretched, and examined the half dozen cows in the feedlot beside the barn with a professional eye.

  "How do you know all this about the Breedlove ranch, and Demott and everything?" Chee asked. "This is Colorado. It's not your territory."

  "Ranching-and stealing cows off of ranches-don't pay much attention to state lines," Finch said, not taking his eyes off the cows. "The Lazy B has leases in New Mexico. Makes 'em my business."

  Finch extracted a twenty-stick pack of chewing gum from his jacket pocket, offered it to Chee, extracted two sticks for himself, and started chewing them. "Besides," he said, "you got to have something going to make the job interesting. I got one particular guy I keep looking for. Most of these cow thieves are `hungries.' Folks run out of eating money, or got a payment due, and they go out and get themselves a cow or two to sell. Or, on the reservation, maybe they got somebody sick in the family, and they're having a sing for the patient, and they need a steer to feed all the kinfolks coming in. I never worried too much about them. If they keep doing it, they get careless and they get caught and the neighbors talk to them about it. Get it straightened out. But then there's some others who are in it for business. It's easy money and it beats working."

  "Who's this one you're specially after?"

  Finch laughed. "If I knew that, we wouldn't be talking about it, now would we?"

  "I guess not," Chee said, impressed with how insulting Finch could be even when he was acting friendly.

  "We'd just go out and get him then, wouldn't we?" Finch concluded. "But all I know about him is the way he operates. Modus operandi, if you know your Latin. He always picks the spread-out ranches where a few head won't be missed for a while. He always takes something that he can sell quick. No little calves that you have to wean, no big, expensive, easy-to-trace breeding bulls. Never messes with horses, 'cause some people get attached to a nag and go out looking for it. Has some other tricks, too. Like he finds a good place beside a back road where there wouldn't be any traffic to bother him and he'll put out feed. Usually good alfalfa hay. Do it several times so the cattle get in the habit of coming up and looking for it when they see his truck parking."

  Finch stopped, looked at Chee, waited for a comment.

  "Pretty smart," Chee said.

  "Yes, sir," Finch agreed. "So far, he's been smarter than me."

  Chee had no comment on that. He glanced at his watch. Another three minutes and he'd go ring the doorbell and get this job over with.

  "Then I've found a place or two where he fixed up the fence so he could get 'em through it fast." He paused again, seeing if Chee understood this. Chee did, but to hell with Finch.

  "You could cut the wire, of course," Finch explained, "but then the herd gets out on the road and somebody notices it right away and they do a head count and know some are missing."

  Chee said, "Really?"

  "Yeah," Finch said. "Anyway, I've been after this son of a bitch for years now. Every time I take off from home to come out this way, he's the one I'm thinking of."

  Chee didn't comment.

  "Zorro," Finch said. "That's what I call him. And this time I think I'll finally get him."

  "How?"

  Silence, unusual for Finch, followed. Then he said, "Well, now, that's sort of complicated."

  "You think it might be Demott?"

  "Why you say that?"

  "Well, you wanted to come up here. And you've collected all that information about him."

  "If you're a brand inspector you learn to pick up on all the gossip you can hear if you want to get your job done. And there was some talk that Demott paid off a mortgage by selling a bunch of calves nobody knew he owned."

  "So what's the gossip about the widow Breedlove?" Chee asked. "Who was the lover who helped her kill her husband? What do the neighbors say about that?"

  Finch was wearing a broad smile. "People I know up in Mancos have her down as the brokenhearted, wronged, abandoned bride. The majority of them, that is. They figured Hal ran off with some bimbo."

  "How about the minority?"

  "They think she had herself a local boyfriend. Somebody to keep her happy when Hal was off in New York, or climbing his mountains or playing his games."

  "They have a name for him?"

  "Not that I ever heard," Finch said.


  "Which bunch you think is right?"

  "About her? I never thought about it," Finch said. "None of my business, that part of it wasn't. Talk like that just means that folks around here didn't like Hal."

  "What'd he do?"

  "Well, for starters he got born in the East," Finch said. "That's two strikes on you right there. And he was raised there. Citified. Preppy type. Papa's boy. Ivy Leaguer. He didn't get any bones broke falling off horses, lose a finger in a hay baler. Didn't pay his dues, you know. You don't have to actually do anything to have folks down on you."

  "How about the widow? You hear anything specific about her?"