“No, I don’t.”
The man hesitated and glanced toward the open door of Mrs. Pinto’s office. His voice fell to a whisper. “What happened is that woman’s fault. Adilgashii.”
Suddenly, the air-conditioned hallway seemed too cool. Adilgashii. Leaphorn knew the word. Witchcraft. A dark explanation for unexplainable evil.
Leaphorn waited for Peshlakai in the July warmth outside the building. As he stood there, he recalled Tiffany’s emergency and noticed that a promise of summer rain hung in the dusty air. He watched the clouds begin to build.
Robert Peshlakai was dressed in new jeans, pressed with a crease in front, a short-sleeved shirt with pearl buttons, and a dove-gray hat with a silver band. He had a blue plastic case in his hand. “Yá’át’ééh, Columbo.”
“Yá’át’ééh. You look like you’re going to a wedding or a Round Dance.”
“I am hoping to see some old friends again.”
Leaphorn glanced at the truck and the short woman behind the steering wheel. “Your wife is welcome to come in.”
“I said that, too. She’s going to call her mother while I’m inside, and she likes the privacy.”
Mrs. Pinto had wrangled up a third chair for her office and invited them both to sit.
As he made the introductions, Leaphorn realized he didn’t know Mrs. Pinto’s clans, so he used her name and her title at the museum and told Peshlakai that she was a friend of his housemate, Louisa.
“Oh, yes, the woman with such good taste in jewelry.”
Mrs. Pinto said, “I appreciate you helping Joe with this. It’s quite a mystery.”
“This investigator told me you got a gift, and you want to know who sent it. If the earrings and the necklace are mine, I might recognize them. I brought some notes and records.” He set his blue case on the desk. “The old man showed me the picture of them, but I had trouble making out the jeweler’s mark.”
Mrs. Pinto opened her desk drawer, took out the earrings and the necklace, and put them on the desktop across from him. “Take a look.”
The jeweler had it right, Leaphorn thought; the photograph did not do them justice. The earrings were beautiful, gracefully crafted bear-paw designs, well balanced to dangle from the ear delicately, calling attention to the face and the curve of the neck. The necklace was simple—a silver bear with an intriguing turquoise eye on a sturdy-looking silver chain.
Peshlakai reached for the necklace and held it in his right hand. He ran his finger over the shape of the bear and its blue eye. He moved it closer to his face, examined the silverwork and the stone, and then looked at the back. He gave the earrings the same close attention.
After some long minutes, he sat them down again on the desktop. Leaphorn waited for Peshlakai to collect his thoughts.
His client was less patient. “Is this your work?”
Peshlakai rubbed his thumb along the bear paw. “I made these a long time ago to go with a storyteller bracelet that had a family of bears walking in the woods. I always put my jeweler’s mark here.” Peshlakai leaned toward her and extended an earring. “Right here where the post is.”
He opened his blue case and pulled out a magnifying glass and used it to examine the back of the earring.
Leaphorn watched. Mrs. Pinto somehow managed to remain silent.
Peshlakai put down the magnifier. He smiled. “It is my mark.”
Leaphorn felt a wave of relief as part of the puzzle fell in place. “Yesterday, you indicated that you had given these and the bracelet that went with them to someone. Did you keep a record of who it was?”
Peshlakai tapped his forehead. “All stored in here, but some of the boxes are a little dusty. For the last few years, my wife has helped me. She keeps sales on the computer. She thinks I might be forgetting things.”
He reached in the bag and this time pulled out an old-fashioned three-ring binder. “This is my old inventory list. I ought to have the information in here. Well, we’ll see.”
Leaphorn noticed that the book had brief sections of script and small photos.
Peshlakai turned the pages, moving toward the back of the notebook. “Here.” He tapped a sheet with several small color photos. “I can’t see my photos too good now, but I know that’s right.” He moved the book toward Leaphorn. “Tell me what this says.”
“‘Four sets of earrings, necklaces, and bracelets, storyteller designs. Fat Boy. Indian Market.’” Leaphorn read the date and studied the picture. “Yes, this is the three-piece set.”
Peshlakai closed the book. His demeanor changed as quick as summer lightning.
Mrs. Pinto leaned toward him. “Something wrong?”
Peshlakai sat up a bit straighter. “These all disappeared a long time ago. I can’t help you after all.”
Leaphorn took a breath. “What do you mean disappeared?”
“I mean, I don’t know what happened to them.” Peshlakai brushed an imaginary speck of something from the front of his shirt. “This guy I knew from high school, Fat Boy, was traveling around to arts and crafts fairs. Selling stuff he made, wood carvings of animals and things like that, and some things for me and some of his other friends. He took what I had on the list I showed you. He drove to Santa Fe the weekend of that big Indian Market. That was the last I saw of it and of him.”
Leaphorn patted his shirt pocket and felt his little notebook and a pen. “I’d like to talk to Fat Boy on the chance he might remember something. Any idea how I can reach him?”
Peshlakai sighed. “It’s too late, man. After he picked up my stuff, Fat Boy was on the Devil’s Highway and he got in a bad wreck. A drunk wrong-way driver near Tohatchi rammed him head-on. They say my friend and the dude driving the truck that hit him died at the scene. That was a long time ago.”
The Devil’s Highway got that name for two reasons. The feds designated it as US 666 and many people lost their lives in accidents there, just like Peshlakai’s friend. After years of badgering, the powers that be changed the numbers to US 491.
Mrs. Pinto said, “Your jewelry was valuable. I’m surprised you’d just let it go.” The judgment in her voice filled the room.
“It wasn’t like that. I hadn’t heard what had happened, so I kept calling Fat Boy when the market was over. I knew the guy, and I trusted him. I figured that he’d give me my jewelry, or the money for it, next time I saw him.” Peshlakai shrugged. “Time went by, and I was getting irritated with him. In September, I ran into his brother at the fair here, the big one.”
“And?” Mrs. Pinto’s voice was level, but Leaphorn noticed her foot tapping under the table.
“I asked about Fat Boy, and the man told me about the accident. I found out he was dead, killed in a car wreck.” Peshlakai exhaled. “I felt bad about that. Then our baby was born and I got some jewelry commissions, and, well, I guess I just moved on. I had not thought about that friend for a long time. I’m sorry he died so young.”
The room fell silent. Peshlakai stood. “I can’t tell you anything else. I need to get on to Gallup.”
Leaphorn stood, too. “Thanks for helping with this. If you can give me Fat Boy’s legal name, you know, the name that he would have had on his driver’s license, I can check on what happened to the jewelry that might have been in the car.”