“End of story,” Sherman said. “You ready to have me hurry through the other one?”
“You have the name of the Navajo cop who checked into this? Or the trading post owner? Or whether this diamond swap was in the same part of the canyon? That damned Grand Canyon is two hundred and seventy-seven miles long and more than ten miles wide.”
“It couldn’t be as long as that,” Sherman said. “And I don’t know where he got the diamond. Don’t know the names, either. But I guess I can get them.”
“I’ll want them,” Chandler said. “Now, what’s the other story?”
“Exactly what you’d expect. The widow of the guy killed in that curio store robbery claims Tuve lied in his story about where he got that stone. She said her husband had that big diamond for years and she wanted to make damn sure the law took good care of it and gave it back to her when the trial was over.”
Chandler laughed.
Sherman grinned at him. “I didn’t really think that would surprise you.”
“It doesn’t,” Chandler said. “I think I may have gotten myself involved in a situation in which diamonds have punched the avarice button on two greedy women.”
“Two? Who’s the other one? You mean that Craig woman? How does she fit in?”
Sherman was leaning back against the passenger-side door, studying Chandler, watching a driver who had hoped to use the turnout lane creeping cautiously past.
Chandler ignored the question.
“I think you need to tell me what this is all about,” Sherman said. “Otherwise I might run across something useful and not even know it.”
“Like what?”
“Well, hell. Like who we’re trying to find. He might walk right past me.”
Chandler laughed. “I don’t think that’s likely. This guy who is being looked for is dead.”
“Dead?”
“And we’re not trying to find him. Or if we do, we’ll never admit it. We’ll just hide him again.”
Sherman, not enjoying this, said, “I don’t like playing children’s guessing games. What are you paying me to do?”
Chandler took a folded envelope out of his shirt pocket.
“There’s a list of stuff in here. Where you can find me, phone number, all that. And a list of instructions. Information I need. Names. All that. Then I want you to locate Tuve, find that woman who posted bond for him. If she went back to where she came from, find her address and what she does there. If she stayed out here, find out where and what she’s doing. Who she’s talking to, all that.”
Sherman took the envelope, extracted the note inside, read it, stared at Chandler.
“I’ll still say I could be a lot more useful, and quicker, if I know what our goal is in all this.”
Chandler nodded. He gave Sherman a quick summary starting with the airlines colliding, then moving on to the diamond case padlocked to the arm. But how much of this did he want Sherman to know?
“It was a man named Clarke,” he continued. “Like most of the victims, his body was never recovered.”
Sherman was frowning. “You going to tell me we’re looking for this Clarke bird? Dead for how many years?”
“No. I was going to tell you that a daughter of his old girlfriend got a psychic message through some spiritualist that Clarke had his arm torn off in the crash, and he sent her psychic orders to find it and bury it properly with the rest of his corpse so it would quit hurting him in the spirit world.”
“Come on,” Sherman said. “Get serious.” He laughed.
“The one she wants is the arm that had the case of diamonds handcuffed to it.”
Sherman considered that for a moment, said, “Oh, I guess I get the picture.”
“I’m not quite certain I get it myself. But it seems like the interests you and me are representing here are the foundation which inherited all that Clarke fortune. And probably the insurance, which paid out its hundred thousand dollars maximum airline flight fee for the jewels, and somebody interested in patching Clarke’s body back together.”
“And you figure that burial sentiment is actually based on trying to get those diamonds, right?”
“Well, a civil suit is now hung up in court. A woman is claiming to be an out-of-wedlock granddaughter of Old Man Clarke and therefore the valid heiress to the Clarke billions. And that lawsuit was months after the news that even old bones can yield DNA evidence to prove family lineage.”
“I’ve heard about that crash, I think,” Sherman said. “Long, long time ago, wasn’t it? And we’re trying to find the bones of that guy carrying the diamonds.” He shook his head, laughed. “You serious?”
“Well, actually it’s not that simple. Here we have one side of a two-sided game. People on the other side are trying to find those bones and use them to capture the Clarke fortune,” Chandler said. “Our job is to make sure that poor fellow’s bones stay lost and never get dragged into a courtroom.”
Sherman considered that, face solemn. Then he smiled. “Yeah,” he said. “That sounds like a worthy cause with righteous purposes. And I can see how that would be a lot easier.”
Chandler nodded.
“Finding old bones down in that canyon is worse than hunting the needle in the haystack. It’s like hunting the needle in a whole farm full of haystacks. And not even knowing which farm it’s on. So maybe we could just be happy with keeping anyone else from finding them.”
“Yes,” Chandler said. “Easier to find the hunter than the needle.”
“You sound like maybe you have a plan,” Sherman said. “I’d like to hear it. You know, it helps me if I understand what you’re trying to do.”
“You’re getting the idea now,” Chandler said. “First, we understand our goal. Our goal is not—underline that, not—not to find the bones. Our goal is to keep somebody else from finding them. We want to find ’em, that’s good, but only because then we can make sure the other folks don’t get their hands on them. You understand that?”
“Sure,” Sherman said, looking slightly resentful. “I already said I understood it.”
“That’s the first thing to understand. Now, the second thing is this. We know that case full of diamonds was handcuffed to the owner’s arm. To the bones in question. We have to presume that the Tuve diamond, and that trading post burglary diamond, came from that package. Thus they are the only clues to where those bones might be. The other side, the bad guys, know as much about that as we do. Maybe more. So our goal is to get there first. Got it?”
“Of course,” he said, and then thought about it awhile. “Then do what? My impression is that your paycheck depends on the other side never getting hold of those bones. At least not long enough to get them into court. Right? So what do we do if the other side gets there first?”
“I guess that would depend on how much you wanted to earn that big bonus,” Chandler said. “I guess you’d do whatever the situation demanded. You know. To get those bones away from the bad guys.”
Sherman spent another moment thinking.
“Arizona is a death penalty state,” he said. “For murder done in commission of a felony, anyway. But I’ll bet you already knew that.”
“I did,” Chandler agreed. “I also know the bottom of that canyon is loaded with dangerous places. Falling rocks. Folks swept away in the river rapids. Drowning. People slipping and tumbling down the cliffs.”
Sherman nodded. Grinned at Chandler. “Wouldn’t you hate to be the district attorney trying to prove somebody was pushed instead of just slipped? I mean, when nobody saw what happened?”
“Sounds like a case of reasonable doubt to me,” Chandler said. “Okay, then. Here’s what I want you to do. And the very first thing, right now, today, is locate Billy Tuve.”
“Any idea where?”
“He lives on Second Mesa. You heard his uncle saying he’d come to take him home. He lives with his mama in a little village. Kykotsmovi, however you pronounce it. Shouldn’t be hard to find it.”