The way Joanna saw it, an important element of these fragmentary “hermit reports” was the mention in three of them that this strange fellow had considered himself either a priest or the guardian of a shrine. One report included his description of what happened when sunlight reached this shrine: “He said when this happened it ‘responded to the Father Sun with a dazzling light,’ but he said this occurred only late in the morning with the sun almost overhead.”
To Joanna, “dazzling light” suggested the sun striking diamonds, which perhaps decorated this odd man’s shrine. But more important was the dating of these third-hand reports. In one the person being interviewed said he had met this hermit only three years earlier. Another had placed his conversation with the man “probably about July, two years back.”
Thus it was reasonable to think he was still alive. And the man who could help her find this hermit was just ahead. The white sedan was slowing, turning down tracks that led to the rim of the mesa, led to the edge of the long, long drop down into the canyon. Probably led to the starting point of the Hopi trail that headed down to the Salt Shrine.
Joanna stopped at the turnoff point, watched and waited until the white sedan disappeared behind a screen of junipers. Then she followed slowly. Give them just enough time to get their bottom-of-the-canyon gear out of the car. Her plan was to get there just before they started their descent. What then? She would decide when she had to.
But there was the white sedan, parked. The two men still in it. The passenger-side door opened, was jerked closed again. Joanna parked, snatched up her binoculars, and stared. Some sort of struggle seemed to be going on. Then it ended. She could make out what must be Tuve’s head against the passenger-side window, and part of the driver’s face. He was talking.
Joanna got out, holding her pistol behind her. She walked slowly to the rear of the white sedan, keeping to the driver’s side, keeping out of the line of sight of the man she presumed was Sherman, glad for the silence of the hiking shoes she was wearing. She could hear his voice now through the open car window, loud and angry. She slid along against the side of the sedan now, seeing Billy Tuve huddled against the opposite door, face down.
Sherman was moving his right hand up and down, a gesture of some sort. He was staring at Tuve, still talking. The right hand held a pistol. Joanna looked down at her own pistol, smaller than the police model Sherman was waving. She cocked it, made certain the safety was off. Very quietly she took the required two more steps, stood at the open car window, thrust her pistol through it, pressed the muzzle against Sherman’s neck, said, “Mr. Sherman, drop that pistol on your lap.”
“What?” Sherman said, in a strangled voice. He tried to turn his head.
Joanna jammed her pistol under his ear, said, “Drop it. Now. Or die.”
Sherman dropped his pistol. Said, “I’m police. Who the hell are you? Let me get my badge out.”
“Take that pistol of yours by the end of the barrel with your left hand,” Joanna said, keeping the pressure of her gun against his ear. “Then reach around and hand it to me. Butt first. Otherwise I pull the trigger and you’ve got a bullet in your head.”
“Be cool,” Sherman said. “Be easy.” He reached over with his left hand, took the pistol barrel between thumb and first finger, and handed it back to her—butt first.
Joanna had reached her own left hand into her jacket pocket and extracted a dainty little handkerchief. With that she accepted Sherman’s pistol, glanced at it, noticed it wasn’t cocked.
“I know who you are,” Sherman said. “You’re that woman who’s trying to get her hands on that big Clarke estate,” he said. “Or maybe you’re someone working for her.”
“And you are a private eye named Sherman,” Joanna said. “What are you doing here?”
“He was going to kill me,” Billy Tuve said. He had turned and sat facing her, back pressed against his door. “He said if I didn’t take him down our Salt Trail, he’d shoot me and throw me over the edge and let the coyotes eat me.”
“Little bastard’s lying,” Sherman said. “He promised me. I wasn’t going to shoot him.”
“Tell me who you’re working for,” Joanna said. “I already know, but I want to confirm it. So don’t lie.”
Sherman was facing her now, looking into the muzzle of her pistol, held just too far from him to reach if he decided to try.
“His name’s Chandler,” the man said. “Bradford Chandler. Runs Skippers Agency, I think it is.” Joanna considered this. “Chandler hired you,” she said. “Who hired him? And what’s he supposed to do?”
Sherman made a face, bit his lower lip, considered. “You probably already know about the lost jewelry,” he said.
“Keep talking.”
“Chandler wants it.”
Joanna nodded. Said, “And…”
Sherman shrugged. “You think there’s more to it than that?”
“I know there’s more to it than that. You already mentioned the estate. But you haven’t told me who hired this Bradford Chandler.”
“Look,” Sherman said, his voice sounding angry now. “I’m an officer of the law. Who the hell do you—”
Joanna jammed the pistol against his left eye socket.
“All right, all right,” Sherman squeaked. “Chandler was pretty coy about it. I think it’s a law firm.”
“Name,” Joanna said.
“Probably Plymale,” Sherman said. “I think that’s it. And it’s involved with some foundation he’s running.”
The pistol muzzle was still uncomfortably in Sherman’s eye socket. She had released the pressure, but now she restored it.
“I hope you don’t want me to believe that old man is just after the diamonds,” she said.
Sherman’s head was pressed back against the car seat. “No. No,” he said. “Somebody else is after the diamonds, but mostly they’re after some bones. Want to get the bones for the DNA. For proof in some lawsuit. Hell of a lot of money involved. And some woman is after the bones, too, and this Indian here with me, he’s supposed to know where to find them. He was—”
“What’s the name of the woman?” Joanna asked.
“Craig,” Sherman said. “Joanna Craig, I think.”
Joanna removed her pistol from Sherman’s face, cocked Sherman’s pistol, carefully keeping her handkerchief over the hammer.
“Anything else you can tell me?”
“That’s it,” Sherman said. “But I can sure as hell tell you you’re not going to get away with this. Treating an officer—”
But by then Joanna had thrust Sherman’s heavy pistol through the window, jammed it against his rib cage, and pulled the trigger.
14
Bradford Chandler had done all the things he needed to do at the South Rim entrance to the Grand Canyon. He’d checked into a very comfortable suite in the Grand Hotel, made a just-in-case visit to the Grand Canyon airport to check on the availability of charter fliers, reserved a jeep for a guided tour, filled out all the required U.S. Park Service paperwork for touring down into the depths, and collected a little information about the do’s and don’ts of canyon tripping. One of the do’s was a reminder that this was the “monsoon season” in the mountain west, a season of thunderstorms, and that these tended to produce quick, brief, and dangerous flash floods sweeping down the subsidiary canyons leading down to the Colorado River.