Louisa gave her name. “I’m a professor from Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, Mr. Rafferty. I would have contacted you through the gallery, but I see that it’s closed. I have a question about a piece in your collection. Or at least something you used to have.”
She’s already improvising, Leaphorn thought. In his years as a cop, he’d seen too many operations fail when a team member went off on a tangent.
They heard the latch release and felt the wave of air-conditioning as it moved from the cool home toward the warm porch.
A slim man with a head of thick white hair and brilliant blue eyes studied them. Louisa had the lanyard with her NAU ID card around her neck and showed it to him. “NAU? What do you teach?”
“Nothing at the moment, but cultural anthropology is my field. I’m doing research now. I just finished consulting with a summer program. This shouldn’t take long. I appreciate your help.”
“Who’s that gentleman with you?”
“My friend Joe Leaphorn. He offered to drive since I’ve never been to Winslow.”
He turned to Leaphorn. “Yá’át’ééh.”
“Yá’át’ééh.” Leaphorn asked, in Navajo, if the man spoke Navajo.
“No. I understand a few phrases, like that one we said, but no, sorry. Wish I did.”
Louisa took charge again. “I’m here to thank you. My friend Daisy Pinto is the director of the Navajo Museum.”
“Never heard of her.” Leaphorn noticed Rafferty stiffen.
“She told me she wished she could find who had sent that wonderful box so she could extend her gratitude and find out more about the items.”
“That’s interesting, but it doesn’t concern me, Professor. You both need to leave.”
Leaphorn had expected the man to deny his involvement. “We hab questions abow a missin biil.”
Rafferty sucked in his breath. “Missing? What do you mean?”
Leaphorn spoke slowly, in Navajo, hoping that Rafferty could understand. “This is about Juanita’s dress. The Hwéeldi dress, the great treasure you want the Navajo people to have. It was not in the box.”
The old man took a step away from them. “How did you find me?”
Leaphorn switched to English. “Navajo detective.”
Rafferty looked at him. “That’s you, right?”
“Rye.”
When Rafferty smiled, his teeth had a glint of gold. “I thought you had more business here than a friend and a driver. Let’s get this over with before my wife returns.”
Rafferty turned from them and headed down the hall, the heels of his polished dress shoes clicking against the tile floor marking each purposeful step. They followed to a large living room decorated with paintings of the desert and stone sculptures. A coat-like garment with ornate, Plains Indian–style beadwork hung under glass on the wall between two large windows. Rafferty motioned them to the couch. “What do you mean the dress is missing?”
Louisa answered. “When Mrs. Pinto looked at the inventory list you sent with the gift, she noticed a reference to a weaving from around the time of the Long Walk. But when she examined the contents of the box, that piece was not there.”
Leaphorn noted that Louisa didn’t speculate or cast any blame.
“The lady must have overlooked it. I packed it first. There’s some mistake.”
Leaphorn shook his head. Louisa spoke. “No, sir. We wish that were the case.”
Rafferty paced to the window and studied the view, then turned toward them. “That old dress didn’t look like much, but it reflects an important part of Navajo history. I was amazingly fortunate to acquire it—that’s a story in itself—and I treasured it. But I always felt that it didn’t belong to me, that it belonged to history and especially to the Navajo Nation. I could have sold it ten times over to other collectors or museums. It was in the box.” He underlined the verb with his tone of voice.
“You know, I used to greet all my students by name after two classes. Now it takes me half a semester. We all get more forgetful as we age.” Louisa’s tone kept the remark conversational.
“You’ve noticed I’m what I call seasoned, but I’m not so far gone that I’d neglect to add the very heart of the donation to the shipment.” Rafferty stepped toward them. “Come this way. I’ll show you something.”
They followed through another hallway, this one decorated with paintings of deer and rabbits and Pueblo Indian dancers, art that Leaphorn recognized from reading he had done about Dorothy Dunn. In the early twentieth century, the woman led a fine arts program at the Santa Fe Indian School that taught many Native artists a salable, distinctive style that collectors came to love. Walt Disney invited some of the artists to Hollywood to work in his production studio. They declined.
Rafferty opened a door and flicked on the lights, motioning them in ahead of him.
Leaphorn felt the dry, chilled air of the storage room and recognized the museum-quality sliding drawers and movable shelves. What treasures did they contain? On the top of a repair table, an alabaster carving of an eagle lay on its side. The lower third of one wing had broken, and the piece sat nearby awaiting reattachment.
Rafferty stopped in front of a storage cabinet. “When I was in the business, I spent every summer going to Indian shows and art fairs in New Mexico and Arizona. Barbara and I don’t have children to argue over these things, so I’m finding homes for them while I can. I’m donating them anonymously.”
He tapped the label on the drawer as he read aloud: “‘1860s Navajo textile. Juanita Manuelito.’” The drawer slid out smoothly with his touch. Except for a large brown envelope, it was empty.
“If, as the professor so tactfully suggested, I’ve grown senile, the piece would be here. Clearly it is not.”
Leaphorn looked at the drawer. “You sure iz Juanita’s?”
“Well, Detective, I’m sure Juanita wore it because I have a photograph of her wearing it. And because of the times, I’m almost positive she wove it herself.” He picked up the envelope, opened the flap, and slipped out a piece of paper, a photocopy of a portrait, a second color photo, and a typed sheet.
“Here she is.” The black-and-white reproduction showed a young Juanita, fiercely beautiful, dressed in a biil. Unlike the dress she wore in the famous portrait with her husband, this garment was simpler.
The second photo was a color shot of the dress itself in what looked like a plastic bag.
Leaphorn pulled out his phone and moved his index finger up and down, as though it were on a camera’s shutter. “A pitcher?”
Rafferty shrugged. “Go ahead as long as you promise not to tell anyone where you took it.”
Leaphorn snapped a few shots.
Louisa said, “Why is the biil in that bag?”
“Textiles are prone to insect infestation. The same is true with artifacts that have leather, feathers, anything that a moth or a silverfish might consider edible. It was stored with pesticides to keep it safe.”
Leaphorn frowned.
“Don’t worry, Mr. Detective. I made sure the toxins were removed before I shipped it.” Rafferty replaced the papers, closed the drawer, and led them back through the house.