And thus it would go, with Delbert’s creaky old voice stripping off the layers of the Colorado Plateau from the core of a newly formed planet to the last volcanic age, hardly a millennium past. It was the only class that Chandler had really enjoyed. The only class that had seriously interrupted his preoccupation with the seduction of the daughters of the super-rich. They were always there, all around him, nodding and giggling through these lectures. He thought now he should have become a geologist.
He was considering that when another cloud formation made its way across the canyon, changing the light pattern, reminding him that time was passing, that Sherman still hadn’t called. Why not?
Chandler dug his cell phone out of its belt holster and punched in the number Sherman had given him. It rang, and rang, and rang, and rang. He checked the number. It was correct and it was still ringing. Suddenly a voice.
“Yes.”
“Sherman?”
No answer. Then: “Who is this calling?”
Odd, Chandler thought, but it sounded like Sherman. Sort of. Had that no-nonsense “cop talking” ring to it.
“It’s Chandler, dammit. Who were you expecting? And where the hell are you? We’re wasting too much time. Is Tuve cooperating?”
“What is your business with Mr. Sherman?” the voice said. “Identify yourself.”
“Just a moment,” Chandler said. “Can you hear me all right? I can barely hear you.” He rechecked the number he’d punched. It was Sherman’s. But he was, almost certainly, talking to a cop. Which meant something had gone very wrong.
“Can you hear me now?” Chandler asked.
“Perfectly,” the voice said.
“Well, I’m very curious about this. You seem to have Sherman’s phone. Where’s Sherman?”
“You were going to tell me who you are. And where you’re calling from.”
“Oh, yes,” Chandler said. “I’m Jim Belshaw. And I’m calling from the Best Western at Flagstaff. Sherman was supposed to come and meet me here. How come you have his telephone?”
“How come you have his number?”
Chandler thought for a moment about how to make his voice sound angry. “Well, you just better ask him that. But let me talk to him. What the hell’s going on? He was supposed to be here an hour ago. Is he all right?”
“You a friend?”
“Yes. Yes I am. Has something happened to him?”
“I’m Officer J. D. Moya, Arizona State Police. And Mr. Belshaw, I want you to stay right where you are until I can get someone there to talk to you.”
“Sure. I’ll be here at the Best Western. Did something happen to him? Can I do something to help?”
“I hate to tell you this,” Officer Moya said, “but the man in the car is in critical condition.”
“Critical condition?” Chandler said. “Car accident? Or what?”
“Shot,” Moya said. “Do you know why he carried a gun?”
That left Chandler speechless. But only for a moment.
“Somebody shot him? Carjacking, was it? Or maybe an accident. But I didn’t even know he had a gun.”
Moya didn’t respond to that. He said, “What was he doing parked out by the rim of the Grand Canyon?”
“I have no idea,” Chandler said. “Was he alone? Have you caught whoever shot him? I’d be surprised if he’d be picking up a hitchhiker. Or does it look like he shot himself?”
“This investigation has just started, Mr. Belshaw. I’m not in a position to release any information.”
Chandler considered this for a moment. How long would it take Arizona State Police to discover there was no Jim Belshaw at the Flagstaff Best Western? Probably just a few minutes. Moya would radio the state cop office in Flagstaff, tell them to send someone over. Then what? When the crime scene crew arrived, and a regular criminal investigator got there, they’d be looking at that little notebook Sherman carried. Would they find Brad Chandler’s name written in it? Would they find Chandler’s cell phone number? An awfully good chance of that. And maybe the Grand Hotel number.
“Officer Moya,” Chandler said. “If somebody shot Sherman, I want to see him punished. I probably don’t know anything that would help, but if I knew more about what you found, maybe that would trigger a memory. For example, I think he was planning to take a hike down into the canyon. Was there any hiking stuff in his vehicle? For example, he told me once he knew an Indian who he was going to hire as a guide if he went. So if he was doing that, maybe there would be two sets of camping stuff, or hiking stuff, in the car.”
This caused a moment of silence on the Moya end of the conversation.
“Well, thank you for the offer, Mr. Belshaw. But you were wrong about that. I saw what seemed to be just one backpack in the car. But then we don’t mess around with the scene of a violent crime like this until the crime scene crew gets here with all its stuff. I just reached in to get a look at his billfold for an identification, and noticed the blood and that big pistol down on the floor. That’s about all. Hold on just a minute.”
Chandler held on, nervously, hearing the sounds of Moya using his radio.
“Mr. Belshaw, you sure you gave me that Flagstaff hotel right? We radioed in. Our Flagstaff office said Best Western doesn’t have any Belshaw registered.”
Chandler managed a laugh. “That because I just pulled into the front entrance here, decided to call Sherman before I checked in, and got all this bad news. I’ll go in now and see if they’re still holding my reservation. I’ll check in and wait. But with Sherman in bad shape, I may not want to stay here in Flagstaff.”
“Hey,” Moya said. “Stay there. We need to talk to you.”
“We’re breaking up on this damn cell phone now,” Chandler said. “I can’t hear you. Just static. Can you read me? Hello? Hello? Officer Moya. Hello? Well, if you can still hear me, I’ll check in here. I want to find out what happened to Sherman.”
With that, Chandler just listened. Heard Moya yelling at him. Heard Moya cursing. Finally heard Moya give up and break the connection. Then he shut off his own cell phone, shook his head, and started working on the problems this had left him.
The worst one was that notebook Sherman carried in his jacket pocket. There might be some chance Sherman hadn’t jotted his name in his book. An awfully good chance he’d noted his telephone number at the Grand Hotel. It wouldn’t take much detective work to send them after the man who had called Sherman’s cell phone number. But there was nothing he could do about that now.
What he had to do now was find out what happened to Billy Tuve. Had Tuve shot Sherman? Maybe, but it didn’t seem likely. If not, who had? Probably one of those other people Plymale had warned him were trying to find the diamonds. Or, as Plymale wanted him to believe, to find the bones. And his job for Plymale was just to keep that from happening. He could probably have accomplished that simply and easily by erasing Tuve from the game. But he had never trusted Plymale. Killing Tuve would have wiped out his chance for his big payoff—a satchel full of prime diamonds.
And now where was Billy Tuve? The competitive team Plymale had described seemed to have eliminated Sherman. From what little he had learned from that damned Arizona state cop, Tuve’s stuff hadn’t been left behind in Sherman’s car. From that, Chandler’s logical mind developed the only logical conclusion. The bad guys had come for Tuve. Sherman had resisted. They shot Sherman. They took Tuve away with them, and the only possible use they had for him was identical to Chandler’s own. They’d take him to the canyon bottom and use him to find the diamonds. But where? Somewhere very close to the termination of the Hopi Salt Trail, near where the Hopis harvested their ceremonial salt. The jeep-driver guide he had hired to take him to the bottom tomorrow had been full of information about sacred places in the canyon, and the Salt Shrine was near the point where the Little Colorado Canyon dumped its water into the Colorado River. No jeep trail would take them anywhere near that, the driver said, but he could drop them at the head of a trail he’d noticed in his Hiking the Grand Canyon book that ended at the river, just an easy walk upstream to the shrine.