“Yes, sir.” She laughed again. “I said it was probably silly.”
“Well, I guess our theft reports would be passed along to him. Then he’d come out here to see about it.” Officer Manuelito kept her eyes on the road, her lips opened as if she were about to say something. But she didn’t. She simply looked disappointed.
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“Wait a minute,” Chee said, as understanding belatedly dawned. “Was Hosteen Sam seeing Finch’s trailer after the thefts were reported? Or—”
“Usually before,” Bernie said. “Sometimes both, but usually before. But you know how that is. Sometimes the cattle are gone for a while before the owner notices they’re missing.”
Bernie drove, looking very tense. Chee digested what she’d told him. Suddenly he slammed his right hand against his leg. “How about that?” he said. “That wily old devil.”
Officer Manuelito relaxed, grinned. “You think so? You think that might be right?”
“I’d bet on it,” Chee said. “He’d have everything going for him. All the proper legal forms for moving cattle. All the brand information. All the reasons for being where the cattle are. And all cops would know him as one of them. Perfect.” Bernie was grinning even wider, delighted. “Yes,” she said. “That’s sort of what I was thinking.”
“Now we need to find out how he markets them. And how he gets them from the pasture to the feedlots.”
“I think it’s in the trailer,” Bernie said.
“The trailer? You mean he hauls cattle in his house trailer?”
Chee’s incredulous tone caused Bernie to flush slightly. “I think so,” she said. “I couldn’t prove it.” A few moments ago Acting Lieutenant Chee might have scoffed at this remarkable idea. But not now. “Tell me,” he said. “How does he get them through the door?”
“It took me a long time to get the idea,” she said. “I think it was noticing that now and then I’d see that trailer parked at the Anasazi Inn at Farmington, and I’d think it was funny that you’d drive that big clumsy camper trailer around if you didn’t want to sleep in it.
I thought, you know, well, maybe he just wants a hot bath, or something like that. But it stuck in my mind.” She laughed. “I’m always trying to understand white people.”
“Yeah,” Chee said. “Me too.”
“So the other day when he parked the trailer in the lot at the station, when I walked past it I noticed how it smelled.”
“A little whiff of cow manure,” said Chee, who had walked behind it, too. “I just thought, you know, he’s around feedlots all the time. Stepping in the stuff. Probably gets used to it. Doesn’t clean his boots.”
“That occurred to me, too,” Bernie said. “But it was pretty strong. Maybe women are more sensitive to smells.” Or smarter, Chee thought. “Did you look inside?”
“He’s got all the windows all stuck full of those tourist stickers, and they’re high windows. I tried to take a peek but I didn’t want him to see me snooping.”
“I guess we could get a search warrant,” Chee said. “What would you put on the petition? Something about the brand inspector’s camper smelling like cow manure, to which the judge would say ‘Naturally,’ and about Finch not liking to sleep in it, which would cause the judge to say ‘Not if it smells like cow manure.’”
“I thought about the search warrant,” Bernie said. “Of course there’s no law against hauling cows in your camper if you want to.”
“True,” Chee said. “Might be able to get him committed for being crazy.”
“Anyway,” Bernie said. “I called his office and I—”
“You what!”
“I just wanted to know where he was. If he answered I was going to hang up. If he didn’t, I’d ask ’em where I could find him. He wasn’t there, and the secretary said he’d called in from the Davis and Sons cattle-auction place over by Iyanbito. So I drove over there and his camper truck was parked by the barn and he was out in back with some people loading up steers. So I got a closer look.”
“You didn’t break in?” Chee asked, thinking she’d probably say she had. Nothing this woman did was going to surprise him anymore.
She glanced at him, looking hurt, and ignored the question.
“Maybe you noticed that camper has just a straight-up flat back. There’s no door in it and no window. Well, all around that back panel it’s sealed up with silvery duct tape. Like you’d maybe put on to keep the dust out. But when you get down and look under you can see a row of big, heavy-duty hinges.”
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Chee was into this now. “So you back your trailer up to the fence, pull off the duct tape, lower the back down, and that makes a loading ramp out of it. He probably has it rigged up with stalls to keep ’em from moving around.”
“I guessed it would handle about six,” Bernie said. “Two rows of cows, three abreast.”
“Bernie,” Chee said. “If my ribs weren’t so sore, and it wasn’t going to get me charged with sexual harassment and cause us to run off the road, I would reach over there and give you a huge congratulatory hug.” Bernie looked both pleased and embarrassed.
“You put a lot of work into this,” he said. “And a lot of thought, too. Way beyond the call of duty.”
“Well, I’m trying to learn to be a detective. And it got sort of personal, too,” she said. “I don’t like that man.”
“I don’t much either,” Chee said. “He’s arrogant.”
“He sort of made a move on me,” she said. “Maybe not. Not exactly.”
“Like what?”
“Well, he gives you that ‘doll’ and ‘cute’ stuff, you know. Then he said how would I like to get assigned to work with him. But of course he said ‘under’ him. He said I could be Tonto to his Lone Ranger.”
“Tonto?” Chee said. “Well, now. Here’s what we do. We keep an eye on him. And when he’s on the road with a load, we nail him.
And when we do, you’re the one who gets to put the handcuffs on him.” 25
WHEN OFFICER BERNADETTE MANUELITO
parked Chee’s patrol car at the Lazy B ranch Elisa Breedlove was standing in the doorway awaiting them—hugging herself against the cold wind. Or was it, Chee thought, against the news he might be bringing?
“Four Corners weather,” she said. “Yesterday it was sunny, mild autumn. Today it’s winter.” She ushered them into the living room, exchanged introductions gracefully with Bernie, expressed the proper dismay at Chee’s condition, wished him a quick recovery, and invited them to be seated.
“I saw the story about you being shot on television,” she said. “Bad as you look, they made it sound even worse.”
“Just some cracked ribs,” Chee said.
“And old Mr. Maryboy being killed. I only met him once, but he was very nice to us. He invited us in and offered to make coffee.”
“When was that?”
“Way back in the dark ages,” she said. “When Hal and George would come out for the summer and Eldon and I would go climbing with them.”
“Is your brother here now?” Chee asked. “I was hoping to talk to you both.”
“He was here earlier, but one of the mares got herself tangled up in a fence. He went out to see about her. There’s supposed to be a snowstorm moving in and he wanted to get her into the barn.”
“Do you expect him back soon?”
“She’s up in the north pasture,” Elisa said. “But he shouldn’t be long unless she’s cut so badly he had to go into Mancos and get the vet. Would you two care for something to drink? It’s a long drive up here from Shiprock.” She served them both coffee but poured none for herself. Chee sipped and watched her over the rim, twisting her hands. If she had been one of the three climbers that day, if she had reached the top, she should know what was coming now. He took out the folder of photographs and handed Elisa the one signed with her husband’s name.