“Oh, why not?” she said. She picked up the chart at the foot of his bed and scanned it. She frowned, made a disapproving clicking sound with her tongue.
“I don’t like the sound of that,” Chee said. “They’re not going to decide I’m too banged up to be worth repairing?”
“We’ve got two misspelled words in this,” she said. “They quit teaching doctors how to spell. But, no, I just wish I was as healthy as you are,” she said. “I guess a body shop estimator would rate you as a moderately serious fender bender. Not bad enough to total you out, and just barely bad enough to cause the insurance company to send in its inspector and raise your premium rates.”
“How about the eye?” Chee said. “It has a bandage over it.”
“Because of”—she glanced down at the chart and read—“’multiple superficial lacerations caused by glass fragments.’ But from the looks of this, no damage was done where it might affect your vision. Maybe you’ll have some bumpy shaving on that cheek for a while, and need to grow yourself about an inch of new eyebrow. But apparently no sight impairment.”
“That’s good to hear,” Chee said. “How about the rest of me?”
She looked down at him sternly. “Now when the doctor comes in, you’ve got to act surprised. All right? Everything he tells you is news to you. And for God’s sake don’t argue with him. Don’t be saying: ‘That ain’t what Florence Nightingale told me.’ You understand?”
Chee understood. He listened. Two bullets involved. One apparently had struck the thick bone at the back of the skull a glancing blow, causing a scalp wound, heavy bleeding, and concussion. The other, apparently fired after he had fallen forward, came through the door. While the left side of his face was sprayed with debris, the slug was deflected into his left side, where it penetrated the muscles and cracked two ribs.
“I’d say you were pretty lucky,” the nurse said, looking at him over the chart. “Except maybe in your choice of friends.”
“Yeah,” Chee said, wincing. “Does that chart show who sent me those flowers?” There were two bunches of them, one a dazzling pot of some sort of fancy chrysanthemum and the other a bouquet of mixed blossoms.
The nurse extracted the card from the bouquet. “Want me to read it to you?”
“Please,” Chee said.
“It says, ‘Learn to duck,’ and it’s signed, ‘Your Shiprock Rat Terriers.’”
“Be damned,” Chee said, and felt himself flushing with pleasure.
“Friends of yours?”
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“Yes, indeed,” Chee said. “They really are.”
“And the other card reads ‘Get well quick, be more careful and we have to talk,’ and it’s signed ‘Love, Janet.’” With that Nurse Sanchez left him to think about what it might mean.
The next visitor was a well-dressed young man named Elliott Lewis, whose tidy business suit and necktie proclaimed him a special agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Nevertheless, he displayed his identification to Chee. His interest was in the wrongful death of Austin Maryboy, such felonious events on a federal reservation being under the jurisdiction of the Bureau. Chee told him what he knew, but not what he guessed. Lewis, in the best FBI tradition, told Chee absolutely nothing.
“This thing must have made some sort of splash in the papers,” Chee said. “Am I right about that?” Lewis was restoring his notebook and tape recorder to his briefcase. “Why you say that?”
“Because the FBI got here early.”
Lewis looked up from the housekeeping duties in his briefcase. He suppressed a grin and nodded. “It made the front page in the Phoenix Gazette, and the Albuquerque Journal, and the Deseret News,” he said. “And I guess you could add the Gallup Independent, Navajo Times, Farmington Times, and the rest of ’em.”
“How long you been assigned out here?” Chee asked.
“This is week three,” Lewis said. “I’m fresh out of the academy but I’ve heard about our reputation for chasing the headlines. And you’ll notice I’ve already got the names of the pertinent papers memorized.” Which left Chee regretting the barb. What was Lewis but another young cop trying to get along? Maybe the Bureau would teach him its famous arrogance. But it hadn’t yet, and maybe with the old J. Edgar Hoover gang fading away, it was dropping the superman pose. Chee had worked with both kinds.
Lewis was also efficient. He asked the pertinent questions, which made it apparent that the theory of the crime appealing to the Bureau was a motive involving cattle theft—of which Maryboy was known to be a victim. Chee considered introducing mountain climbing into the conversation but decided against it. His head ached. Life was already too complicated. And how the devil could he explain it anyway? Lewis closed his notebook, switched off his tape recorder, and departed.
Chee turned his thoughts to the note Janet had signed. Remembering earlier notes, it sounded cool, considering the circumstances.
Or was that his imagination? And there she was now, standing in the doorway, smiling at him, looking beautiful.
“You want a visitor?” she said. “They gave the fed first priority. I had to wait.”
“Come in,” he said, “and sit and talk to me.”
She did. But en route to the chair, she bent over, found an unbandaged place, and kissed him thoroughly.
“Now I have two reasons to be mad at you,” she said.
He waited.
“You almost got yourself killed,” she said. “That’s the worst thing. Lieutenants are supposed to send their troops out to get shot at.
They’re not supposed to get shot themselves.”
“I know,” he said. “I’ve got to work on it.”
“And you insulted me,” she added. “Are you recovered enough to talk about that?” No more banter now. The smile was gone.
“Did I?” Chee said.
“Don’t you think so? You implied that I had tricked you. You pretty well said that I had used you to get information to pass along to John.”
Chee didn’t respond to that. “John,” he was thinking. Not “McDermott,” or “Mr. McDermott,” but “John.” He shrugged. “I apologize, then,” he said. “I think I misunderstood things. I had the impression the son of a bitch was your enemy.
Everything I know about the man is what you told me. About how he had used you, taken advantage of his position. You the student and the hired hand. Him the famous professor and the boss. That made him your enemy, and anyone who treats you like that is my enemy.”
She sat very still, hands folded in her lap, while he said all that. “Jim,” she began, and then stopped, her lower lip between her teeth.
“I guess it shocked me,” he said. “There I was, the naive romantic, thinking of myself as Sir Galahad saving the damsel from the dragon, and I find out the damsel is out partying with the dragon.” Janet Pete’s complexion had become slightly pink.
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“I agree with some of that,” she said. “The part about you being naive. But I think we’d better talk about this later. When you’re better. I shouldn’t have brought it up now. I wasn’t thinking. I’m sorry. I want you to hurry up and get well, and this isn’t good for you.”
“Okay,” Chee said. “I’m sorry I hurt your feelings.”
She stopped at the door. “I hope one really good thing will come out of this,” she said. “I hope this being almost killed will cure you of being a policeman.”
“What do you mean?” Chee said, knowing full well what she meant.
“I mean you could stay in law enforcement without carrying that damned gun, and doing that sort of work. You could take your pick of half a dozen jobs in—”