Sacred Clowns (17 page)

JOE LEAPHORN hadn’t had much sleep. He had stayed up late—sitting in what they had called their guest bedroom in the days when Emma had been alive and they had entertained guests. Now it had become, slowly and with no real planning, Leaphorn’s office away from his office. The guest bed had become the flat surface on which things that needed to be spread could be spread. On it, Leaphorn had arranged airline timetables, railroad timetables, maps of China, maps of Mongolia, an assortment of the odds and ends one needs to plan a trip when you’re half-afraid of taking it. Contrary to Leaphorn’s nature, this business had become rushed and hurried—last-minute planning. In just two days he would meet Louisa at the Flagstaff airport. They would fly down to Phoenix, thence to Los Angeles, and from there it would be off to another world—to Peking.
Beijing,
Leaphorn thought.
I have
to
remember that.
Louisa had made reservations for them at the Tianlun Dynasty for the three days they would be there.
“They’re so expensive,” Louisa had said. “I thought we could share a room.” And into the silence she had added, “It has two beds in it.”
These three days were to allow him time to work his way through any bureaucratic snarls that going north into Mongolia might entail, and to allow her the time she needed in the Beijing libraries, and to meet with the folklorists with whom she had been working.
“And to allow us a little time just to be tourists.” She had reached over and squeezed his hand as she said it, looking intensely happy. As happy as a child. He had been touched, and was touched now, remembering it. “You’ve got to see Mao’s Tomb, the old Summer Palace, and the Friendship Store. The world’s wildest variety store.”
He looked at the map again. After Beijing he would head northwestward to Ürümqi and Turpan, where Louisa had written to a linguist and other scholars and made reservations for him, and she would head south to Xian, and Nanjing, and more meetings with her fellow citizens in the small world of folklorists. Then they would meet again in Shanghai for the trip home together.

He had spent almost two hours reading through the guidebooks she had loaned him, working out the best schedule he could—disgruntled because it had to be based mostly on guesswork. And then he had started packing.
“Layers,” she had advised him. “That’s the secret in China. It seems like it’s always cold outside and too hot inside. So take sweaters, and long johns, and some stuff you can peel off. And don’t take too much because it’s easy to get stuff washed. And you are the right size. You can buy Chinese clothing.” She had studied him, smiling. “In fact, I think you could pass for Chinese. Especially up in the north where you’ll be.”

He had pushed the maps aside to make room for his suitcase, folding in shorts, and undershirts, and socks, and in the process uncovering his pajamas. Emma had bought them for him. She had bought him his first set for his birthday two weeks after their marriage, looking at him shyly as he opened the package, wondering how he would take this hint. He had worn pajamas for years in deference to Emma’s modesty, and gradually had become used to them, and to receiving a gift-wrapped new pair whenever a present was appropriate and the previous pair had worn thin. But Emma had died. There had been no more new pajamas then. No more wearing the old ones. Putting them on had provoked far too many memories.

He had picked them out of the drawer, inspected them, and found them in fair condition. A little tight around the stomach, as he remembered, but he had lost a little weight eating his own cooking. One room with two beds. He’d folded them in. And then he had been overpowered by the desolation of this empty, silent house, and the knowledge of loss and loneliness. He had gone out into the darkness, and walked up the gravel street. When he became aware that his feet were hurting, he sat on a boulder where he could watch the last half of the moon rising over the ridge east of Window Rock, and the occasional car rolling down the highway toward Fort Defiance. Finally, when even the highway was silent and the moon was high and the cold had seeped up his pant legs and down the back of his jacket, he got up and walked stiffly home.

In his real office now he felt the lack of sleep. He glanced at his in-basket. It had collected a stack of notes and mail in the days he’d spent working at Thoreau and Tano. But that stack could wait. So could everything else except the Eric Dorsey homicide. He had just a day left to work on that before he left.

He picked up the telephone receiver and buzzed Chee’s number. He’d talk to Chee about what he’d learned at Tano. If nothing else, it would help him judge Chee’s intelligence. The memo Chee had left him showed good instincts. He’d sensed that the people at Tano had seen something Chee had missed. Maybe the boy would come up with something from the Lincoln Cane business.

But Chee didn’t answer his telephone. Leaphorn buzzed Virginia.

“Just a minute,” she said. “I think there’s a note in the overnight file.” The minute passed. “He called in. He said he’s been working on that Todachene vehicular homicide case. He said he has to take the rest of the week off. He’s going to charge it to his annual leave time.” Virginia’s tone had become disapproving. “I didn’t see any paperwork on that,” she said. “Did you put through the paperwork?”

“Did he leave a number where I can reach him?”

“There’s not a thing about that here,” she said. “You want me to call the Shiprock office?”

“Please,” Leaphorn said. “And let me know.” It wouldn’t do any good, but it would get Virginia off his telephone.

He hung up, feeling sleepy and disgruntled. This absence-without-permission business exactly fit Chee’s reputation. When the kid had worked out of Tuba City, Captain Largo used to complain about the trouble he had getting Chee to follow regulations. At Crownpoint it had been the same story. There his brains had gotten him acting sergeant stripes when he was still green, and his habit of doing his own thing had gotten him busted just as fast.

Ah, well, Leaphorn thought, it was worth the gamble. In this office it didn’t matter so much. Less routine and more innovative thinking required. Maybe he could get Chee saddle-broken just a little bit, just enough to keep him. But where the hell could he be? Could Chee still be trying to work as a
hataalii?
Maybe that was it. Maybe Chee had found a customer and was off doing a curing ceremonial someplace. If he was still doing the Blessing Way—the full eight days of the ceremonial—that could become a real problem.

His telephone buzzed.

“Leaphorn,” he said.

It was Virginia. “The chief wants to talk to you. Line two.”

He punched two.

“Yes sir,” he said. And then he listened, placid at first, then frowning.

“Yeah,” he said. “Yes sir. I didn’t actually hear it but I read about it. I was over at Flagstaff. There was a piece about it in the
Arizona Republic.
Hell of a funny . . .” He stopped, interrupted. The frown converted into consternation.

“In the tape player on my radio?” He looked at the radio. The tape player was empty. “Let me get this straight,” Leaphorn said. “Sergeant Yazzie was walking by my office and he heard this tape playing in my office. And that was before it was broadcast by KNDN? Is that what you’re telling me?”

Leaphorn listened. “Be damned if I know,” he said. “There’s no tape in there now. Did somebody come in here and take it?”

Listened again, the frown resolving itself into a stolid anger. “All right,” he said. “I’ll be right down.”

He trotted down the stairs. The chief’s door was open. Bernie Redhair, who served as the chief’s secretary and gofer, was sitting behind his desk looking very, very nervous. His smile at Leaphorn came out more like a grimace. Beyond him in the inner office was Councilman Jimmy Chester, wearing a black hat with a silver band, sitting across the desk from the chief. Councilman Chester glowered at Leaphorn. The chief’s expression, as he motioned Leaphorn in, was a mixture of worry and puzzlement.

“Close the door behind you,” the chief said. Leaphorn closed it.

When he came out it was almost thirty minutes later. He climbed the stairs slowly and eased himself into his swivel chair—staring at the radio. How could this have happened? The specifics were obvious—to him if not to Councilman Chester and the chief. Someone had come in, put a tape of that telephone wiretap in his radio tape player, and turned it on. And left it turned on for a while, apparently, because Yazzie’s report said he had heard parts of it at least twice. Once walking down the hall, and once on his return trip. Then, after the notorious broadcast over KNDN up in Kirtland had stirred up an uproar, Yazzie remembered what he had heard. He’d reported it. A check was made and the tape was found, still in Leaphorn’s radio.

The question, of course, was who, and why. Leaphorn hadn’t the faintest idea of how to answer either question. The councilman had no such problem. He knew the answers. Leaphorn was the who, and the why was to destroy the councilman’s reputation. Just why would Leaphorn want to do that? Because the councilman, as chairman of the Justice Committee, had opposed the idea of setting up Leaphorn’s separate Special Investigations Office. And because he suspected Leaphorn was one of the tree huggers fighting the waste dump proposal. And because way back years ago one of Leaphorn’s maternal uncles had lost a grazing-rights dispute with the councilman over in the Checkerboard Reservation. And what was to be done about this misconduct? The councilman wanted Leaphorn charged with illegally tapping his telephone, a third-degree felony. He wanted Leaphorn dismissed from the Navajo Tribal Police for using his office to interfere in the politics of the Navajo Nation.

It ended, as such affairs always seem to end, with an unhappy compromise. The chief would assign Captain Dodge to handle an investigation—to determine exactly what had happened and to collect the evidence needed to prosecute the guilty party.

“Investigation,” Councilman Chester had snorted. “That can drag on forever.”

They had thought about that for a moment, with Leaphorn thinking that Chester, having presided over many of them himself in thirty years on the council, should know.

And so it was decided that Captain Dodge would be given ten days to wrap it up and report.

“And how about him?” the councilman had asked, nodding toward Leaphorn.

The lieutenant, said the chief, would be ordered to cooperate fully with the investigators, to make himself available at all times, to provide all relevant information.

“Come on,” Councilman Chester had said. “Give me a break. He’s one of the top brass around here. What kind of cooperation is Dodge going to get in this department with him looking over everybody’s shoulders?”

“Lieutenant Leaphorn will be off duty until this investigation is completed,” the chief said.

And with that Councilman Jimmy Chester left, slamming the door behind him.

“That mean I’m suspended?” Leaphorn asked. And, of course, that had been exactly what it meant.

He sat now thinking of what this suspension would mean. For one thing, all of this meant he couldn’t follow his instinct to cross-examine everyone in the building. Surely someone would have seen somebody come up here and get into his office. And if they hadn’t, that too would tell him something. But he couldn’t do that now. Captain Dodge would be doing it. Leaphorn wished someone a little brighter had been picked. Why Dodge? He was always reliable. And come to think of it, he was also one of the Towering House Clan. And so was Councilman Chester. Which explained why Chester had seemed moderately satisfied with the deal, and why the chief had picked Dodge.

Where the hell was Chee when he needed him? Leaphorn got up and peered absentmindedly out into the parking lot. No sign of Chee’s always muddy pickup truck. What if Chee had done it? Leaphorn considered that. Chester had labeled Leaphorn a tree hugger, but it was Chee who wanted something done to stop the waste dump, and Chee who wanted this office to go on a corruption hunt. Chee was always in and out of his office, but so were Dodge, and Virginia, and Yazzie, and just about everybody else. Chee had the opportunity. How about motive? Leaphorn considered that.

The young man resented him, that was plain, but Chee also respected him. Liked him, too. And he was way too damned smart to do an illegal wiretap and then be so careless with it. It wouldn’t be Chee. How about Yazzie? Nope. Yazzie was a friend, sort of a protégé, and a member of Emma’s clan. Dodge? Maybe. But only if Councilman Chester had somehow engaged Dodge in some sort of weird conspiracy to discredit Leaphorn. He could think of no possible scenario for that.

And so he dropped it and did what he had been dreading to do. He picked up the telephone, got an outside line, gave the operator his AT&T calling card number, and dialed Professor Louisa Bourebonette.

She would understand why he couldn’t go, but she would be disappointed. “I like to travel,” she had told him. “But it can really remind you of your loneliness. When you’re tired, and you’re having trouble with the language, and you’ve gone all day with not a soul to talk to, then it really hits you.”