Why was it, he wondered, that situations that seemed simple on the surface grew more complex and convoluted as he searched for an answer? Not only his relationship with Louisa, he thought, but the case itself.
Giddi met him at the door, meowing loudly. He assumed that she’d finished her food or lapped up the water in her bowl, but no, she had what she needed. He had done his duty as cat wrangler, and she, of course, ignored both offerings and kept up the racket.
The message light on the landline was blinking, and he checked it after he put water for instant coffee in the microwave. It was a male voice. “Lieutenant Leaphorn, this is Jake. Hope you’re doing well. I’ve been missing you at our speech therapy sessions. You can schedule more appointments by giving me a call. I look forward to hearing from you, sir.” He deleted the reminder, grabbed his coffee mug, went to his office, and typed notes from his morning meeting with Councilor Walker.
Reviewing the conversation brought him back to Tiffany, the missing dress, and her unexpected death. In the old days, museums treated textiles with strong pesticides to preserve them. When these materials came home, repatriated to tribal museums or perhaps to families of the original owners, they sometimes brought sickness from the poison used to keep them safe. But the Navajo Nation Museum was a modern facility. Mrs. Pinto and her staff isolated items that might have been treated with toxic chemicals until they could be tested and cleaned. If Tiffany had stolen the textile before it was checked, could pesticides have made her sick, or worsened the illness she suffered from already?
The interlocked questions all revolved around the box. He now knew the name of the sender, Mary Nestor, and how to contact her. The link between Peshlakai, Fat Boy, and the reemergence of the long-lost jewelry added a new avenue to explore. If Rita Begaye had the name of the person who had purchased the bracelet from her dead husband, and if that person was Mary Nestor or a Mr. Nestor, the case moved closer to solution. Mary Nestor held the key.
He pictured meeting Mary, envisioning a frail elderly white woman. In the fantasy he heard her say, Oh my goodness, I guess I forgot to mail those things. She would hobble into the back room of a tiny house cluttered with a lifetime of collecting. Out she would come with the precious dress and the bracelet as a bonus. He’d present them to Mrs. Pinto, and she’d retire happy knowing that her dead assistant had nothing to do with the items’ disappearance. Louisa would thank him for helping her friend. And he’d get a check to fix his truck.
Two immediate problems shattered his scenario. First, Mary Nestor wanted her gift to be anonymous. She could deny any association with the gifts and hang up on him. Or reject the call in the first place. Second, if she agreed to see him, how would he talk to her? He could be forceful, persuasive, and even charming in Navajo. But his spoken English crippled him.
He noticed the empty hummingbird feeders on the porch. Louisa put something in them from a mason jar in the refrigerator, a recipe she cooked up in the microwave. He found the jar and used what was left as a refill. He left the empty jar on the counter so she’d realize she needed to make more.
He sipped the coffee, lukewarm now, and pondered the obvious, logical solution to the Mary Nestor problem. Winslow was about an hour’s drive from Flagstaff. Time to talk to Louisa about the case and see if she was still angry with him. If she could persuade Mary Nestor to meet him, they could drive to Winslow together.
He composed the note to Louisa in his head and was on his way back to the office to email her when the cell phone rang.
“Hey, Lieutenant, it’s Manygoats. I got your message. The autopsy report’s not ready, but I was able to get a little information from an inside source. Tiffany’s body showed no signs of trauma, no bruising, bleeding, anything like that. But it looks like she might have been smothered.”
“Smothered? You sure?”
“I’m not sure of much these days, but that’s what the guy said. He told me the skin around her nose and mouth was white, and they found fibers in her nose, like maybe someone pressed a pillow over her face.”
“How long for the toxicology results?”
“I’ll ask.”
“When you do, mention that Tiffany worked at a museum and may have been unintentionally exposed to pesticides or other chemicals. And that she was taking medication. Did you learn anything else?”
The officer’s tone changed. “My source said that the examiner, a specialist named John Trestrail, called this an interesting case because of Tiffany’s rare lung disease. Evidently, most people treated for it with the drug she was taking get better. They will add that drug to the tox screen. Maybe an overdose or something. It’s all up for grabs at this point.”
Leaphorn went back to pondering what to say to Louisa when his cell phone chimed with a text. A message from Rita Begaye. Two little words: Found it.
He sent back, See you this afternoon.
He emailed Louisa an update on the case and the news that he was coming to Flagstaff and wanted to talk to her and that he hoped she would help him make a call on the Pinto case. Then he added, Quiet here without you.
Rita Begaye lived in Oak Springs, Arizona, a settlement on the way to Flagstaff if one took Indian Route 12 south toward I-40. He enjoyed the drive into the high country of ponderosa pines and rock cliffs, and he found her place with a minimum of difficulty.
A woman was sitting outside, evidently waiting for him. She looked older than she’d sounded on the phone, like a person who had squeezed more than her share of living into the allotted years. When she smiled, he saw a glint of mischief in her eyes.
“Welcome. It’s cooler out here than in the house.” She motioned to a chair with a flowery print pad. “Can I offer you some water?”
“Thanks.”
She returned to the porch carrying a tray with napkins, two big green plastic cups, and a plate of round cookies covered with powdered sugar. She set it on the table and then handed him the water. “Help yourself to a treat. I baked them last night. I was too excited to sleep.”
He saw a spiral notebook on the bench beside her and she noticed him noticing.
“After the accident, I put my husband’s carvings and that notebook away. I don’t know how much help this will be, but I was glad it turned up. I marked the pages he wrote while we were in Santa Fe.” She picked up a cookie and set it gently on a napkin. “It’s interesting to see his handwriting again. Sure stirs up memories.”
Leaphorn took a cookie out of politeness and discovered it was good. He took another when she passed the tray to him.
She reached for the notebook and removed a paperclip she had used to mark a place. She extended it toward him. “This is what he wrote about our trip. You can see the date at the top. The writing in black is for his own work.”
Alvin “Fat Boy” Begaye had been an excellent record keeper, an exception to the dual stereotypes that artists can’t manage money and that Indians are poor businesspeople. In clear penmanship, Begaye had described the item, its price, and when it sold. More often than not, he captured the name and even the address of the buyer. He left a space for comments. By several of his carvings he’d written “discount” and by one name “wanted red but took blue.” Leaphorn showed the note to Rita.
“I remember that. The man liked the horse but wanted one with a red saddle blanket. My husband told him blue was more authentic, talked him into it. He told me that next time he’d make some red and black ones, you know, like a rug design. But there was no next time.” She glanced away, out toward the road. “This August it will be twenty years since he died. It feels like yesterday, and it feels like a lifetime ago.”