“Just a second,” Kennedy said. “ ‘One large suitcase and one briefcase,’ ” he read.“ ‘Suitcase contained the expected articles of underwear, shirts, socks, one pair trousers, ceramic pottery, toilet articles. Briefcase contained magazines and newspapers in Spanish, books, small notebook, stationery, envelopes, stamps, fountain pen, package Tums, incidentals. Nothing in notebook appeared helpful in establishing identity.’ ” Kennedy paused. “That’s it. That’s all she wrote.”
Leaphorn thought about it. “Well,” he said, “I don’t know what to think.”
“I’m waiting for you to say ’Thank you, Mr. Kennedy,’” Kennedy said.
“Do you know the agent who checked?” Leaphorn asked.
“You mean personally? Or what was his name? No to both. It could have been anybody.”
“You think it would have been somebody who knew what he was doing?”
“I wouldn’t think so,” Kennedy said. “Some rookie you’d want to get out of the office. A deal like this one wouldn’t be high priority.” Kennedy laughed. “Neither am I.”
“What’s the chance of getting the Bureau to run down the train crew, find out who picked up the luggage, cleaned up the roomette, that sort of thing?”
“I don’t know. Probably about the same as you pitching the opening game of the World Series next year.”
“I’m told that train crew works out of Washington.”
“So what?” Kennedy said. “Before they put a man on something like that, they have to have a reason.”
“I guess so,” Leaphorn said. He was thinking that he knew a man in Washington who might do it for him. Out of friendship. If Leaphorn was willing to impose on the friendship. He said, “Well, thank you Mr. Kennedy,” and hung up, still thinking about it. P. J. Rodney would do it out of friendship, but it would be a lot of work for him—or at least it might be. And maybe Rodney was retired by now. Leaphorn tried to remember what year it had been when Rodney left the Duluth Police Department and signed on at Washington. He must have enough years in to qualify for retirement, but when Leaphorn had written Rodney to tell him about Emma, he had still been on the District of Columbia force.
Leaphorn glanced at his watch. Time for the news. He walked into the living room, turned on the television, flicked it to channel seven, turned off the sound to avoid the hysterical screaming of the Frontier Ford commercial, then turned it up to hear the newscast. Nothing much interesting seemed to be happening and he found his thoughts returning to Rodney. A good man. They had become friends when they were both country-cousin outsiders attending the FBI Academy. One of those all-too-rare cases when you know almost at first glance that you’re going to like someone, and the liking is mutual. And when Rodney had stopped off at Window Rock to visit them on his way to California, he’d had the same effect on Emma. “You make good friends,” Emma had told him.
Rodney was a good friend. Leaphorn watched Howard Morgan warning about a winter storm moving across southern Utah toward northeastern Arizona and New Mexico. “Watch out for blowing snow,” Morgan said.
Leaphorn thought it would be good to see Rodney again. He knew what he would do with his vacation time.
Chapter Nine
« ^ »
Janet Pete met him at the Continental gate at National Airport, looking trim, efficient, tense, and happy to see him. She hugged him and shepherded him through the mob to the taxi stands.
“Wow,” Chee said. “Is it always this crowded?”
“Anthill East,” Janet said. She’s tired, he thought. But pretty. And very sophisticated. The suit she wore was pale gray and might have been made out of silk. Whatever it was made of it reminded Chee that Janet Pete had a very nice shape. It also reminded him that his town jeans, leather jacket, and bolo tie did not put him in the mainstream of fashion in Washington, D.C., as they did in Farmington or Flagstaff. Here every male above the age of puberty wore a dark three-piece suit, a white shirt, and a dark tie. To Chee, the suits seemed to be identical
His eyes shifted back to Janet, studying her. “Nobody ever looks at anyone,” Chee said, who had been caught by Janet staring at her. “You notice that?”
“Avoid eye contact,” Janet said. “That’s the first rule of survival in an urban society. I hear it’s even worse in Tokyo and Hong Kong and places like that. And for the same reason. Too damn many people crowded together.” She gave the driver the address of Chee’s hotel. “It was nice of you to come,” she said, and her tone told Chee she meant it.
It was a gray, chilly, drizzling day, a “female rain” in Chee’s Navajo vocabulary. Janet asked about the reservation, about tribal politics, about their very few mutual acquaintances. Chee answered, wondering now why he had come, wondering if he should have gone to Wisconsin despite Mary’s letter. He’d told the travel agency at Farmington to get him a hotel in the “moderate to economical” range. The one where the cab stopped looked economical at best. He checked in. The price was seventy-six dollars per day—approximately triple a good room in the Four Corners country. This room was tiny, with a small double bed, a single chair, a TV set mounted on a wall bracket with one of the control knobs missing, a single narrow window looking out at the windows of a building across the street. Chee motioned Janet to the chair and sat on the bed.
“Here I am,” Chee said. “What can I do?”
Janet made a wry face. “The trouble is I don’t know what’s going on. Or even if anything is going on.”
“You said someone was following you. Tell me about that.”
“That doesn’t take long,” Janet said. “The first time I went to see Henry Highhawk, I couldn’t find his place at first. I walked right past it, and then back again. There was a car parked up the block a ways with a man sitting in it. He was staring at me, so I noticed him. Medium to small apparently. Maybe forty-five or so. Red hair, a lot of freckles, sort of a red face.” She paused and glanced at Chee with an attempt at a smile. “Do you ever wonder why they call us redskins?” she asked.
“Go on,” Chee said. “I’m interested.”
“Highhawk lives out on Capitol Hill, in a neighborhood they call Eastern Market. It’s easy to get there on the Metro. That’s the subway. So I took the Metro and walked to his house. About seven or eight blocks, maybe. I happened to walk past this guy twice sitting in his parked car, so I noticed him. Then when—”
“Hold it,” Chee said. “You mean he’d moved the car after you passed him the first time? He moved it up ahead of you?”
“Apparently. And then, when I left Highhawk’s place, he was still there. Still sitting in that car. Again, I noticed him twice more while I was walking back to the subway. He was walking the second time. Like he wanted to know where I was going and he left his car parked and followed me on foot. But he didn’t get on the subway. Or if he did, I didn’t see him.”
She paused, looked at him for reaction.
“Hmm,” Chee said, trying to sound thoughtful. He was thinking there were plenty of non-sinister reasons a man might follow Janet Pete.
“Since then, three or four times, I’ve seen him,” she added.
Chee apparently didn’t looked sufficiently impressed by this. Janet flushed.
“This isn’t Shiprock,” she said. “You don’t just keep seeing a stranger in Washington. Not unless you work in the same place. Or eat in the same place. Millions of people. But I saw this man outside the building where we have our law offices. Once in the parking lot and once outside the lobby. And not counting the Eastern Market Metro business, I saw him out at the Museum of Natural History. Too much to be a coincidence.”
“The very first time was at Highhawk’s place.“ Chee said. “Is that right? And again out in his neighborhood. Maybe he’s interested in Highhawk. And you’re Highhawk’s lawyer. Maybe he’s interested in you because of that.”