The Wailing Wind - Leaphorn & Chee 17 (17 page)

"Would you mind if I call you now and then and ask you if anything criminal is brewing about Denton?"

"Lieutenant," said Chee, "you didn't need to ask me that. Of course I won't mind. If I know anything, I'll tell you. Trouble is, I may not know. How about reversing it. If you learn something, you tell me."

"One more question. Do you think that Golden Calf dig, or whatever it was, is up Coyote Canyon?"

"I don't believe in these legendary mines," Chee said. "When I was a kid I used to think I'd go out someday and find the Lost Adams diggings, or maybe the Lost Dutchman's Mine, and when I was poking around on arroyo bottoms, sometimes I'd dig in the wet sand and pretend I was looking for placer gold. But no. I grew up. Peshlakai said there's some quartzite deposits up there somewhere, probably a little gold dust washes downstream if we ever have a wet summer. One wet year, maybe enough washed down to start the legend."

"So you're not out looking for it?"

Chee laughed. "Gold causes trouble. I don't look for that."

Chapter Seventeen

Unfortunately for Joe Leaphorn, Denton had spent a lot of money on his telephone taping system. It was modern stuff, installed by a technician, and thus it had all the high-tech bells and whistles and a twenty-four-page instruction book written in the opaque language that the specialists use to exclude laymen from their science. Leaphorn had stacked the accumulated answering machine tapes in neat reverse chronological order, wasted fifteen minutes trying to get the first one to play, and finally called in Mrs. Mendoza. She showed him how to get the tape properly located in the proper slot, which buttons to push to reverse, repeat, adjust sound, and so forth. With that, Leaphorn put on the earphones and immersed himself in the weird world of those who read the personal ads: of the lost, lonely, lovelorn, the angry, the wanna-be-helpfuls, and the predators. The first caller to speak into his ear was one of the latter.

"I read your advertisment in the
Arizona Republic
," the man said. "I think I know where your woman is. I was eating lunch at Denny's, and there was this woman at the next table. Pretty girl but looking, you know, really strung out and stressed, talking to someone on a cellphone. Crying now and then. She mentioned running away from a man named Wiley. Whoever she was talking to, she told them she wanted to go back but was afraid this Wiley wouldn't want her, and she mentioned where she was staying. A place here in Phoenix. Using another name, she said. I got that written down, that address, along with the last name she was using along with Linda. I'd just tell it to you now, but I'm tapped out for cash, and I need a little financial help for this. I'll give you this number to call me at. Call right at three any day this week."

He followed that with a number, and hung up.

Leaphorn checked the first item in the ledger
Denton
kept beside the telephone.

Call 1. Haley finds number of phone booth at the Phoenix Convention Center. Answered right at three on second ring. Told me he knew exactly where Linda was. Said if I would mail thousand to his P.O. box, he'll call me back, provide her address, keep eye on her until I arrive. Description not Linda. Haley says a man showed up ten minutes before I called. Waited, took call, left. Followed him to trailer park on the highway south. Haley checked Phoenix PD sources. Parolee.

Leaphorn laid aside the headphones and went looking for Wiley Denton. Instead he found Mrs. Mendoza mixing something in the kitchen. She thought Denton was "off somewhere." He'd left a few minutes ago in his car. Did Mrs. Mendoza know anything about the tape machine and Denton's call ledger? Not much, Mrs. Mendoza said, but she rinsed her hands, dried them, and followed him into the empty bedroom where the listening equipment was installed.

"He started this when he was in the prison," she explained. "He got us to take the tapes in to the prison. He had a player there, and he'd make these notes and tell George what he wanted done about them."

"Who is this Haley he mentions in the first entry?"

"Mr. Denton's lawyer made some sort of arrangement with a security company. Haley Security and Investigations. Whoever the company had checking for him, Mr. Denton calls 'em Haley."

"Must have cost him a ton of money," Leaphorn said.

"Money." She made a sound of contempt, shook her head, and skipped through the ledger, explaining Denton's dating system, code, and shorthand. Leaphorn thanked her and went back to work.

The next call was a complaint that the reward offered in the
Boston Herald
was too small and left a number to call if Denton would double it. That was followed by a woman motivated by hatred instead of avarice. She didn't know where Linda was, but she knew she would never come back. She had fled because her husband had abused her. Now she was free, happy at last.

Leaphorn skipped the last of that one and began listening to a fellow who was certain Linda had been whisked away by space aliens. He then adopted a time-saving policy of making a quick judgment of whether the caller had anything enlightening to say.

After about two hours of this he had concluded that the idea had been a mistake. All he was learning was the peculiar nature of that segment of the population that responds to personal advertisements. A very few expressed sympathy for a man who had somehow lost the woman he treasured. But most of the responses had been triggered by greed, some sort of fantasy delusion, whimsy, or malice.

Then came another sort of call. A woman's voice, sounding both nervous and sad:

"You must be Wiley Denton," the woman said, "and I wish I could help you find Linda, but I can't. I just wanted you not to think she did you wrong. I've heard that gossip—that she was in cahoots with Marvin—but she wasn't. Not at all. I know for sure. I used to talk with her down where she worked before she married you. Just a sweet young girl. I'm praying that you find her."

Leaphorn listened to that again. And again. And then he took off the headset. He would listen to more of the calls later. Maybe all of them. But now he wanted to find this sad-sounding woman.

Chapter Eighteen

Wiley denton was home now from wherever he'd been, but Denton was not much help.

"Who?" he asked, and when Leaphorn explained, he snorted, said: "Oh, yeah. Her. I guess she was McKay's lady friend, but she didn't know anything. Or wouldn't admit it if she did."

"You found her and talked to her?"

Denton was not in a good mood. "I was still in lockup then, remember? But I got my lawyer to go out and see her. At least he billed me for it, but all she would tell him was that Marvin was a good man at heart, just liked to get his money the easy way, and he wasn't chasing after Linda."

"You still have her address?"

"It's in the file, I guess. But, hell, if this is the most interesting thing you've found so far, I'd say you're wasting your time."

But Denton provided the address and her name. It was Peggy McKay, and the address was one of a row of very small concrete block houses built in the 1920s when Gallup was a booming railroad and coal center. "Maybe she still lives there," Denton said. "But I doubt it. Her type moves around a lot."

The woman who came to the door to answer his knock was younger than Leaphorn had expected, causing him to think Denton might be right. She smiled at him, and said: "Yes. What can I do for you?"

"My name's Joe Leaphorn," Leaphorn said. "And I am trying to find Mrs. Linda Denton."

The smile went away, and suddenly she looked every bit old enough to be Marvin McKay's widow. She moved a half step back from the doorway and said: "Oh. Oh. Linda Denton. But I don't know anything to help you about that."

"I heard what you told Mr. Denton when you called him. That was good of you to call, and he feels the same way about it that you do. That nothing was going on between her and Mr. McKay. But he can't give up the idea of somehow finding her. And he asked me to help him, and I said I'd do what I could. Now I'm trying to make sure I understand what happened that day."

She held a hand up to her face. "Oh, yes. I wish I could understand it."

"Could I ask you a few questions? Just about that day?"

She nodded, motioned him to come in, invited him to take a seat on a dusty, overstuffed chair by the television, asked him if he'd like a glass of water, and then sat herself on the sofa, hands twisting in her lap, looking at Leaphorn and waiting.

"I'm a retired policeman," Leaphorn said. "I guess I still sort of think like one. What I hope I can do is get you to remember that day and sort of re-create it for me."

Mrs. McKay looked away from Leaphorn, examined the room. "Everything is in a mess," she said. "I just got home from the hospital."

Everything was indeed a mess. Every flat surface was covered with disorderly piles. The worn places in the carpet were more or less camouflaged by discolorations that Leaphorn diagnosed as coffee stains, ground-in crumbs, and assorted bits and pieces of this and that; and the corner beside the sofa housed a deep pile of old newspapers, magazines, sales brochures, etc. "The hospital?" Leaphorn said. "Do you have someone sick?"

"I work there," she said. "I'm a medical secretary. Keep the record files, type up reports. I was working that day. I was trying…" She brushed away a strand of black hair, put her hands over her face, took a deep, shuddering breath.

"Excuse me," she said.

"I'm sorry," Leaphorn said.

"No," she said, "I was just remembering. That day I was trying to get caught up on everything because we were going to have a weekend in San Diego. Marvin was planning to close on a deal he was working on with Mr. Denton, get the money Denton was paying him, and we had reservations on Amtrak for the next afternoon. We'd go swimming, visit Sea World or whatever they call it—and I think most of all I was looking forward to the train ride."

She gave Leaphorn a shy smile. "Old as I am, I'd never been on a train. You see them go by every day here in Gallup, of course, and when we got stopped at the crossing barrier to let one pass, I'd wave at the people in the observation cars and Marvin would say, 'Peggy, when I get this deal closed, we'll take an Amtrak vacation.' The evening before when he came in, he told me he thought this would be the day. He had all the items he needed, and Mr. Denton was agreeable. So I arranged to take some of my vacation time."

With that, she paused. Remembering those plans, Leaphorn guessed, organizing her thoughts. She sighed, shook her head.

"He called me about the middle of the morning, I think it was. He said he couldn't make it into town for lunch. He said he was wrapping up some loose ends. He sounded very happy. Exuberant. He said he'd just talked to Denton, and that Denton had the payment money at his house and he was going out to get it."

"Did he say where he was calling from?"

"He didn't say. But I remember he said he had to make a run out to Fort Wingate."

"Did he say what he was going to do there?"

She shook her head.

"Did he mention having anyone with him?"

"No."

"Can you remember anything else he told you in those calls?"

She frowned, thinking. "Well, in the first one he said Denton had asked him a lot of questions. He wanted Marvin to tell him just about everything about where the gold deposit was located, and Marvin said no way. Not until they had sealed the deal. He said then Denton said he wanted to know just the general area. What direction it was from Fort Wingate. Things like that. Marvin said he told him it was north. And Denton said, 'North of Interstate Forty?' And Marvin said he told him it was. He said he told Denton when he came he'd give him all the details, even show him some photographs of the sluice for placer mining in the bottom of the canyon."

"Photographs," Leaphorn said. "Had you seen them?"

She nodded. "They weren't very good," she said. "Didn't show much. Just some old rotted logs half buried in the sand and a bunch of trees in the background. Marvin wasn't much of a photographer."

"Did your husband ever tell you just where this lost mine was located?" Leaphorn asked.

"I guess he did in a general way," she said. "Once when I asked him about it, he asked me if I remembered when we went to the Crownpoint rug auction and had driven down that road that runs east from Highway Six Sixty-Six to Crownpoint, and I said I remembered. And he said it's off in that high country to the right when you're about halfway there."

"Driving east on Navajo Route Nine?"

"Yeah, I think that's the road. If we had a map I could tell you for sure."

For once, Leaphorn didn't have a map. But he didn't need one.

"Did Mr. McKay have those pictures with him when he went to see Denton?"

"I think so. He put a whole bunch of things in his briefcase before he left that morning. And—" She stopped, looked down, rubbed her hand across her face. "And after I got the word about what happened, and the sheriff came to talk to me about it, I looked through his things and the pictures weren't there."

"What did he tell you on the second call?"

"Well, he said he might be a little late." She forced a smile for Leaphorn. "Pretty ironic, isn't that? Then he said he was a little bit troubled by those questions Denton asked. Like Denton was trying to get the information he wanted without paying for it. He said just in case Denton was going to pull a fast one—something sneaky—he was arranging something himself. He said not to hold dinner for him. If he was late, we'd go out to eat."