At Ease with the Dead

by Walter Satterthwait

“Hello,” I said. “May I speak to Lamont Brewster, please?”

  “Just a sec. I’ll get him.”

  I waited. Lamont. A great name. The Shadow’s first name. Who knows what evil lurks within the heart of man?

  Me. I do.

  “Hello?” An old man’s voice, raspy with age.

  “Mr. Brewster?”

  “Hold on a minute now. Ears aren’t what they used to be. Gotta adjust this thing. Picked it up at Radio Shack, greatest little gadget ever made. Hello? You still there?”

  “Mr. Brewster?”

  “Yes, sir. Speaking.”

  “You can hear me all right?”

  “Clear as a bell. What can I do for you?”

  “Mr. Brewster, my name is Joshua Croft.” This was long-distance—I might as well be impressive. “I’m an investigator licensed by the State of New Mexico, and I’m trying to obtain information about the death of Dennis Lessing in Nineteen twenty-five. I understand that when you were a student, you went on one of Professor Lessing’s field trips to the Navajo Reservation?”

  “Uh-huh.” The voice neutral, giving away nothing.

  “Mr. Brewster, I have information that while Lessing was on these trips, he was seeing a young woman who lived somewhere on the Reservation. Did you know anything about that?”

  “Okay now,” said the voice, “let’s just backtrack a little here. You’re calling from New Mexico?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Licensed by the state, you said. That doesn’t mean you actually work for the state, now does it?”

  As Chief Dan George once said, sometimes the magic works, sometimes it doesn’t. “No,” I admitted. “It doesn’t actually mean that. I’m a private investigator.”

  A smoky chuckle came over the line. “Oughtta be ashamed of yourself, trying to fool an old man.”

  “I am, Mr. Brewster.”

  Another chuckle. “Now tell me this—why would anyone want to know what happened to Dennis Lessing sixty years ago?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  “Time is one thing I’ve got plenty of, my friend. And we’re talking on your nickel.”

  “A client of mine is trying to locate the remains of a Navajo Indian that Lessing disinterred in Nineteen twenty-five, in Canyon de Chelly. Those remains vanished the night Lessing was killed. His murder was never solved. Early yesterday morning, Lessing’s daughter was murdered. I think the two deaths are connected, and that both of them may be connected to the woman Lessing was seeing on the Reservation back in Nineteen twenty-five.”

  “Alice Wright?” said the voice. “The anthropologist? She’s dead?”

  “Yes.”

  “Damn. Read her books. Smart lady. Murdered, huh? That’s a damn shame. What’s the world coming to, you wonder.”

  An end, if Alice Wright was right. “Mr. Brewster—”

  “This client. Why’s he want those remains?”

  “For religious reasons.”

  “He’ll be a Navajo then.”

  “Yes. Mr. Brewster, did you know about the woman Lessing was seeing?”

  “I never did feel right about taking those bones back to El Paso.”

  “You were there? On the last field trip?”

  “Sure was. I was with Lessing when he found the body. Laid out in a kind of hollow there, in the rocks. Wrapped in cotton, but that was mostly rotted away by then, naturally. There was still some skin on the bones, all dried out, like parchment. And some hair on the scalp. Made my own hair stand up, I don’t mind telling you. Didn’t bother Lessing any, though. Wanted it for his daughter. Alice. Crazy, huh? The archaeologist working the dig, David Bedford, he screamed bloody murder, but Lessing just scooped everything up and stuck it in a big cardboard box. Carried it all the way back to El Paso in the back seat of the Ford. Sat next to it myself, half the time. Heard it rattling around in there, all the way to the Rio Grande.

  “Like I say, I never felt right about it. Stealing a body that way. I remember thinking, nothing good’s going to come of this. And nothing did, either. A week later Lessing was dead.”

  “Did you give any thought, at the time, to who might’ve killed him?”

  “Burglars, they said.”

  “You don’t know of anyone who might’ve had a reason to kill him?”

  “Nope. And if I did, no offense, but I wouldn’t say so to a stranger on the telephone.”

  “Mr. Brewster, what about this woman on the Reservation? Do you know who she was?”

  “What makes you think she’s got anything to do with this?”

  “I don’t know that she does. I’m trying to learn as much about Lessing and what went on back then as I can. If she’s still alive, I just want to talk to her. If she’s not, I’d like to talk to someone who knew her.”

  “I can tell you straight off she didn’t have anything to do with him dying. She was crazy about him.”

  “I understand that she was a married woman.”

  “Be an awfully short life if we had to live it without making any mistakes, don’t you think?”

  “All I need is a name, Mr. Brewster. I know her first name was Elena. What was her last name?”

  I could hear him breathing at the other end of the line.

  “Mr. Brewster?”

  “Hold on, hold on. I’m trying to remember. Damn. Well, look, shouldn’t be all that hard for you to find out. Her husband owned a trading post out there, and it had the same name he did.”

  “Ardmore?” I said. “Was it Ardmore?”

  “That’s the one.”

  16

  She was petite and blonde and with her white skin and her red lips she had looked, Lamont Brewster told me, like a china doll. For his defensiveness when he spoke of her marriage, and from the hush in his voice when he described her, he had probably been more than a little in love with her himself.

  The students and Lessing were camped near Piñon, and Lessing had asked Brewster to come along with him for supplies. In one of the field trip’s two Fords they had rattled over dusty roads for forty miles to the Ardmore Trading Post. She had been behind the counter, a trim tiny figure in a blue gingham dress. A young woman, early twenties. When she looked up and saw Lessing, Brewster told me, “I’ve just never seen so much happiness on a human face in my whole life. Almost hurt you to look at it, a happiness like that. Didn’t seem possible that a human being could be that happy and stay alive.”

  She had rushed around the counter and greeted Lessing with an embrace, and then, blushing, stammering, acknowledged the introduction to Brewster. Afterward, she had run to get her husband from the back room.

  According to Brewster, Carl Ardmore had been a big, bluff, blond man who walked with a limp. He had greeted Lessing enthusiastically, shaking his hand, clapping his back.

  I asked Brewster, “Do you think he suspected the relationship between Lessing and his wife?”

  Brewster’s smoky chuckle came down the line. “Suspected? He’s the one introduced them. The whole thing was his idea.”

  “He knew they were having an affair?”

  “Sure he did. He couldn’t have kids, see, and he wanted them. Physical problem—wounded during the war. That’s the First World War, in France. Anyway, he liked Lessing. And he could tell, straight off, that his wife did too. He told her he understood. Told her he approved. Made her promise two things, though—that she wouldn’t leave him and that if she had a child, they’d raise it together. He told Lessing the same thing, asked him to honor the promise.”

  “How do you know all this, Mr. Brewster?”

  “Professor Lessing told me. About a week later. The day after she came to our camp. Came on horseback. Rode forty miles to see him.”

  She had shown up at sunset, fifty yards away, a small figure atop a large dapple gray mare standing against a background of pink mountain. Without a word Lessing had left his students and walked off toward her. The two of them had disappeared, Lessing not returning till just before dawn.

 
“I was awake by then,” Brewster said, “tending the fire. The rest were still asleep. Professor Lessing comes up to the fire, squats down, warms his hands for a minute. Then he turns to me and he smiles, this sad little smile, never forget it, and he says to me, ‘I love her, Brew.’ That’s what they used to call me. Brew for Brewster.” The chuckle again. “Also I had what you might call a fondness for beer back in those days.”

  “And he told you about the arrangement?”

  “Shoot. Arrangement? You make it sound like a real-estate deal. Those two folks loved each other. And love’s got all kinds of ways to work itself, my friend. Not just the ways the preachers and the politicians say is right.”

  “What did the other students think about this?”

  “Don’t know. Didn’t ask, and they never said, not to me.”

  “Why didn’t Lessing leave his wife? Why didn’t Mrs. Ardmore leave her husband?”

  “They gave their word to Ardmore, didn’t they. Both of them. And back then, people put stock in their word.”

  “Did Lessing see her again before he left the Reservation?”

  “Expect so. I never asked. Wasn’t my business. But there were a few times he was gone all day. Then, of course, we all saw her when we were leaving, after Lessing found the body in the Canyon. We stopped by the trading post for him to say goodbye. I remember she was standing on the porch as we drove off. She had on the blue gingham dress again, and she was waving a white handkerchief.”

  He cleared his throat. “Pretty as a picture,” he said, his voice farther away than Michigan. “I watched her till I couldn’t see her through the dust. Waving that handkerchief back and forth.”

  “Mr. Brewster, do you think it’s possible that Carl Ardmore killed Dennis Lessing?”

  Irritably: “Now, why in hell would he do a thing like that? I told you, he knew what was going on. He encouraged it. He liked Lessing, he respected him.”

  “All right. Another question. What about Mrs. Lessing, Dennis’s wife?”

  “What about her?” Grumpy still.

  “Do you think she knew about the relationship?”

  “Don’t know. Wouldn’t think she cared if she did. Don’t mean to speak ill of the dead, but she was a cold woman.”

  He hadn’t been a member, evidently, of the group of students who felt otherwise. “All right, Mr. Brewster. Thank you for the help. I’m grateful.”

  “You’re welcome. Listen—what’s your name again?”

  “Croft. Joshua Croft.”

  “Well, Joshua Croft, you’re going to try to find her, that right?”

  “If she’s alive, I’ll find her.”

  “Well, if she is, you say hello for me, all right? You tell her Brew says hello.”

  “I’ll do that.”

  He was silent for a moment.

  I thought I knew what he was thinking—that probably she was dead. I said, “I’ll let you know what I find out, Mr. Brewster.”

  “Appreciate it,” he said. “Appreciate it.”

  It was eleven—over an hour on the phone—when I ended the call to Brewster.

  I dialed Peter Yazzie’s number. Still no answer.

  I dialed the Ardmore number. Still busy. I rang the operator, asked for a verification check. She got back to me after a few moments and told me that there was trouble on the line. Out in the desert, where the trading post sat, this could mean almost anything, from a phone left off the hook to a pole left across the road. I didn’t really think twice about it.

  I should have. Things might’ve turned out differently, might have turned out better, with less pain, if I had thought twice about it.

  I called Rita. She said that Daniel Begay had been there and gone, and that he expected to see me at noon. I asked her if she’d told him what had happened in El Paso. She said the subject hadn’t come up. I didn’t ask her which subjects had. Not right away.

  I told her what I’d learned from Lamont Brewster.

  When I finished, she said, “I like the idea of her riding forty miles on horseback just to see him.”

  “Probably not a lot else to do out there, that time of year. Punch cattle. Yodel.”

  “Joshua.” Mildly reproving. “I like this Elena Ardmore. I think it’s a nice, romantic story.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Terrific.”

  “It couldn’t possibly affect a realist like yourself, of course.”

  “Nah. We mountain men got hearts of stone.”

  “Brains, too.”

  I smiled. “Sounds like you’re feeling better today.”

  “I am.”

  “So what did you and Daniel Begay talk about?” Casual, chatty, just shooting the breeze.

  “This and that. Do you think Brewster was telling the truth?”

  Still tricky. “Well, he hasn’t been answering the phone for a couple of days. I suppose he could’ve been down in El Paso killing Alice Wright for reasons we don’t know anything about.”

  Patiently: “Do you think he was telling the truth?”

  “Far as he knew it,” I said.

  “Lessing could’ve been lying to him, you mean. He could’ve invented that arrangement with Carl Ardmore.”

  “Yeah. I’d like to know where Elena and Carl Ardmore were on the night Lessing was killed.”

  “I think you’re stretching, Joshua. And what about Alice Wright? If the Ardmores are still alive, they’re both in their eighties. Like everyone else involved in this. You don’t really think they dashed down to El Paso to deal with her?”

  “Someone dealt with her. And the cops, remember, found a piece of paper with the name Ardmore on it.”

  “From what you told me, she had to write that note sometime between the time you left her house and the time she was killed. You said she was killed around one in the morning. When did you leave?”

  “Around nine.”

  “Suppose, for whatever reason, she got in touch with someone at the trading post after you left. There’s no way anyone could’ve gotten from the trading post to El Paso in time to kill her.”

  “They could’ve called someone who was already in El Paso. Had him do it.”

  “Who? Why?”

  “Beats me. But it’s a possibility.”

  “Before we leap to any conclusions, let’s wait until Grober gets the record of outgoing calls from her phone. Let’s see if she did call the trading post.”

  “Maybe she recognized the killer, and wrote down Ardmore to point us in the right direction.”

  “Like in the Charlie Chan movies? Very good, Joshua. When did she write it down? While he was beating her to death?”

  “Well,” I began.

  “And if she recognized him, why didn’t she write down his name?”

  “He might’ve seen it, and then taken the note with him.” Warner Oland would’ve delivered this with a lot more conviction. Hasty man drink soup with fork.

  She said, “And if there were a connection between him and the Ardmores, he wouldn’t take a note with Ardmore on it?”

  Infuriating woman. “You just don’t like the idea,” I said, “that Elena Ardmore could be involved.”

  “And you’re just grumpy because I won’t tell you what Daniel and I talked about.”

  “I? Grumpy? Surely you jest.”

  “I promise you that I’ll tell you about it sometime, Joshua. All right?”

  “Come on, Rita. You really don’t think that I’m silly enough to get grumpy just because—”

  “Yes. Do you have your gun?”

  “I have my gun. Would you like me to shoot myself?”

  “I’d like you to be careful when you’re out there on the Reservation asking questions.”

  “Yes, dear.”

  “I’m serious, Joshua.”

  “I said okay. You can’t take yes for an answer?”

  “Call me when you get there.”

  “Right. Rita?”

  “Yes?”

  “Are you really okay?”

  Her
voice softened. “I’m fine, Joshua. Really. You take care, all right?”

  “You too.”

  After I hung up, I swiveled the chair around, hooked my feet on the windowsill, and stared up at the snow in the mountains, blue-white against the clear blue sky. I sat there thinking about Carl Ardmore. Wondering just exactly how you went about telling someone it was okay to sleep with your wife.

  Daniel Begay showed up at quarter after twelve, his cane silently swinging, silently tapping along the office carpet. No suit today; he was back in jeans and the gray wool coat. We shook hands and he placed his black Navajo hat carefully in one chair and sat down carefully in the other. He held the cane upright between his legs, hands resting atop its knob.

  I didn’t ask him anything about Rita. That impenetrable calm of his made personal questions seem like simple nosiness. Which of course they were.

  I told him what I’d learned, and he listened without any expression on his face.

  Finishing up, I said, “Carl and Elena Ardmore. At the trading post. Do you know them?”

  “Used to,” he said. “Good people. They died.”

  “When?”

  “Carl Ardmore, he died in the fifties. His wife died ’sixty-three or ’sixty-four.”

  So much for their rushing down to El Paso to dispatch Alice Wright.

  I asked him, “Did you ever hear any stories about Elena Ardmore having a relationship with Dennis Lessing?”

  He frowned slightly, shook his head. “I don’t listen to stories like that.”

  And so much for stories like that.

  “Who owns the trading post now?” I asked.

  “John Ardmore.”

  “Who’s he?”

  “Their nephew, I heard. Carl and Elena, they couldn’t have kids. John’s parents died when he was a baby, and Carl and Elena adopted him.”

  “Anyone else there?”

  “He’s got a son. The son helps him out at the store. John’s getting to be an old man now.”

  I nodded. Had Alice Wright called John Ardmore on Thursday night? And, if so, why?

  Daniel Begay asked me, “You think the body of Ganado is gone? For good?”

  “Finding it doesn’t seem very likely. I’m sorry, Daniel.

  He nodded. “The woman down in El Paso. Mrs. Wright. You think maybe she got killed because you asked those questions?”