Tony Hillerman - People Of Darkness

“I don’t know a damned thing,” Chee said. “Not about that oil well explosion. You think the Vineses had something to do with it?”

Sena shook his head. “He didn’t live here then. And she didn’t get here until his first wife died. I think Dillon Charley told Vines something. Anyway, it’s a damned cinch Mrs. Vines knows something. Why else would she connect stealing that box with that bunch of peyote freaks?”

“I don’t know,” Chee said.

The room fell silent. An ambulance turned off Lomas toward the BCMC emergency room entrance, its siren abruptly growling out.

“Nothing to tell me, then?” Sena asked.

“Not that I haven’t already told you,” Chee said.

Sena pursed his lips, glanced at his watch. “It’s a hell of a way to kill a man,” he said. “Blowing ’em to pieces like that. We didn’t hardly find enough of Robert to bury. And part of what we buried might not have been him. Had one of his legs with the boot still on it. Part of the torso we could recognize because his belt buckle was in it. Never found a lot of him. The coyotes and the buzzards and things had had a couple of days to carry it away.” Sena’s eyes were hard and bright, staring into Chee’s eyes. His jaw muscles were rigid. “My mother used to go out there and look. She’d walk around in the creosote bush looking for pieces of bone.” Sena produced a series of sounds that might have been a laugh. “I think she wanted to put Robert all back together again. What do you think of that?”

Chee could think of nothing to say. White people’s attitude toward their dead was beyond his understanding.

“Two things,” Sena said. “One I’m asking you, and one I’m telling. If you can tell me anything about that peyote bunch, or the Vineses, or anything that will help me, well, I’d appreciate that. I’d remember it. I never forget a favor. And two, I’m telling you to stay out of my jurisdiction. This whole business is mine. The burglary and the killing and everything else. It’s mine. It’s been mine for most of my life, and I don’t want you in it. I told you that once, and you didn’t pay attention to me.” Sena’s voice was shaking. He stopped talking for a moment, gaining control. “Now, I got a name for being hard,” he continued. “I’ve killed a man or two in the line of duty, and there’s some that says I’ve killed some that didn’t need to be killed. However that is, I’ll tell you this. You think you’re unlucky that blond man run into you out there on the malpais. Fact is, you’re lucky it wasn’t me.”

Sena got up and placed his chair neatly against the wall under the television set. He went through the door without a glance or a word.

On the television screen, a barrage of commercials replaced Hollywood Squares and gave way in turn to what seemed to be a soap opera. The screen was filled with the tear-wet face of a woman. Her lips moved soundlessly, and she dabbed at her eyes. Chee shifted his own eyes to the left, and stared out across the central campus of the University of New Mexico. He thought first about Gordo Sena’s hatred. And then about the pattern of his questions. It had not been a debriefing – one officer collecting information from another. It had been an interrogation – the probing of a hostile witness, skillfully done. But exactly what had Sena wanted to learn?

Part of that was obvious. Part of it wasn’t. Chee sorted it out in his mind. Three times, in three different ways, Sena had tried to learn if there had been any communication between him and the blond man. Why was that so important to Sena? Was the blond man working for the sheriff? Had Sena hired the man to get the box away from Tomas Charley? There was no way to answer that question. It would seem more logical that he had been hired by Vines.

The telephone rang. Chee groaned.

“I’m Sergeant Hunt,” the voice said, “with the Albuquerque Police Department. You feel like having a visitor?”

It was a soft voice, very polite.

“Why not?’ Chee said.

“You’re going to have to tell that nurse, then,” the voice said. “She wouldn’t let me in.”

“I’ll tell her,” Chee said.

“Be right up, then,” Hunt said, and hung up.

Chee pushed the button to summon someone from the nursing station. Why would the APD send a man to talk to him? It was an FBI case, or, as Sena insisted, the Valencia County sheriff’s. That would depend on whether you counted the abduction, which had happened in federal jurisdiction on the reservation, Or the murder, which was probably in Sena’s territory, depending on where the lines fell on the checkerboard. Either way, it would be of zero interest to the Albuquerque law.

Hunt was a small man, with pale-gray eyes and a narrow, bony face.

“Looks like you forgot to dodge,” Hunt said. “In case you wondered, the bullet broke up, but it looks like a.22. Probably a hollow point.”

“It looked like it might have been a.22 pistol with a silencer on the barrel,” Chee said. “Felt like a cannonball.”

“I’ve got the report you gave to the state police here,” Hunt said. “Sounds like you got a pretty good look at him.”

“Yeah,” Chee said. “Close enough.” He tried to remember what he had told the state policeman. It was all hazy. They had started to walk back to the highway. Mary Landon and he. It had quickly become slow and painful. Each step produced a stabbing pain in his chest. Soon he had been dizzy. He had sat beside the track. Mary had spread her coat on the ground and made him lie down, and she had gone, running, intending to flag down some driver and get help. He had dozed and awakened and dozed again. Finally, when the sun was almost directly overhead, he had awakened to see a man in the black uniform of the New Mexico State Police bending over him. He remembered talking to the policeman, and Mary’s worried face, and driving to the interstate, and being transferred to an ambulance. He remembered Mary riding with him. But that was about all he remembered. Where was Mary now?

“We’d like to get another description,” Hunt said. “Have you go over it again.”

“Medium-sized,” Chee said. “About thirty. Probably weighed about 150. Five ten, probably less. Looked to be in good shape. Hair was very blond, medium short. Sort of prominent bone structure, as I remember. Strong chin, blue eyes, tight eyebrows. No mustache. No beard. Light complexion. Pale. Ears fairly large and laid close to his skull.”

Hunt had been making notes. Chee closed his eyes, seeing the face again as he had seen it at the auction, the light-blue eyes watching him. “I can’t think of any more details. He looked smart, if you know what I mean by that.”

Hunt had opened a manila folder. “He look anything like this?’ he asked. He handed Chee a sketch done in pencil on thin white cardboard. It looked like a sketch made by a police artist. It also looked a lot like the blond man.

Chee handed it back. “Could be him,” he said. “Probably is. Who is he?”

“We don’t know for sure,” Hunt said.

Chee’s rib throbbed. He felt a sudden wave of sickness. His ears were ringing. He was not in the mood for coyness. “God damn it,” he said. “Let’s not play games. Who was the sketch supposed to took like? And how come it’s APD business? It’s a hundred miles out of your territory.”

“That takes a minute to explain,” Hunt said. “We have a file on old unsolved homicides in the detective division, and I’m the one who keeps track of it. You know, review it every six months on so to see if anything new fits in. Anyway, last summer we had a funny double killing. Two guys on a wrecker were going to tow an old pickup out of a reserved parking zone, and the thing blew up and killed ’ em both. We got lucky and found a witness who’d been sitting at a window watching the world go by. She had seen somebody who looked like this” – Hunt tapped the sketch – “put a package in the back of the pickup before it went boom.”