Now that he was closer, Leaphorn could read the faded little sign posted over the box on the door: lock door. Bad news. He checked the small box on the door, which he now saw was like those used in prisons as containers for coded locking devices. But, good news, this box was empty.
Then he noticed at his feet a section of thick wire. He picked it up. It had been cut. Still on the wire was a circular metal tab. Leaphorn found the place where the wire had been run through a flange on the door and a matching flange on the doorjamb. This tab had been the official seal.
"Okay, Leaphorn," Denton said. "Enough of this screwing around. I think this is a sort of setup. You're killing time. Waiting for somebody to come."
It was just then that Leaphorn remembered both the pliers and the crowbar. McKay had used the pliers to cut the wire. As he looked at the metal locking bar in place across the door, he understood why McKay had bought the crowbar. He needed it as a "cheat bar," to apply leverage to push the blocking bar up out of the slots that held it. But what had McKay done with it? He'd found the pliers in McKay's car. Once the wire was cut, he had no more need for them here. But if he'd left Linda Denton locked in this bunker, he'd need the crowbar to get her out.
Denton was standing right behind Leaphorn now, and he pressed the pistol against Leaphorn's spine.
"Back in the truck," he said. "Now, or I kill you here."
As he heard that, Leaphorn saw the crowbar, lying in the weeds against the concrete wall.
He pointed to it.
"Marvin McKay bought that bar at a Gallup hardware store the day you killed him," Leaphorn said. "Put that damned pistol back in your pocket, and we'll pick up the crowbar and use it to find out what happened to your wife."
Again, the pressure of the pistol against Leaphorn's back disappeared.
"What are you talking about?" Denton said.
"I'm getting the crowbar. I'll show you."
Leaphorn picked up the heavy steel bar and examined the locking arrangement a moment. Using the flange as a fulcrum, he put the bar end under the locking bar and pulled down with his full weight. The locking bar slid upward.
"Now, pull the door open."
Denton did.
They stood engulfed in a rush of warm, stale air, and peered into a vast, empty darkness. Nothing but a clutter of cartons against the left wall, and two black barrel-like containers that once had probably held some sort of explosive. Denton was holding the pistol down by his side now.
"You think she's in there?"
The only light in the bunker followed them through the doorway. It dimly illuminated a gray concrete floor, which stretched sixty empty feet to the great half circle of gray concrete that formed the back wall.
Leaphorn walked in just a few steps before he noticed Denton wasn't following. He was still standing, slumped, staring at the door post.
"What'd you find?" Leaphorn said, and walked back toward the door.
Denton pointed, but his eyes were closed.
Words were scrawled on the concrete. Leaphorn turned on his flashlight and illuminated: bump i am so sorry.
"You know who this 'Bump' is?"
"I'm Bump," Denton said. "Because of my nose." He touched a finger to the disfigurement.
"Oh," Leaphorn said.
"She said she loved that bump on my nose. That it reminded her of the kind of man I was." Denton tried to laugh at that, but couldn't manage it. "Had to be Linda who wrote it," he said. "Nobody else called me that."
Leaphorn touched the scrawl. "I think she must have written this with her lipstick," he said.
"I'll go find her," Denton said. "Linda," he shouted, and rushed off into the gloom with the shout echoing and echoing in the huge empty tomb.
They found Mrs. Linda Denton, née Linda Verbiscar,lying primly on a sheet of heavy corrugated cardboard behind the empty drums.
She was facedown, with her head turned sideways. The cool, utterly dry, almost airless climate of the sealed bunker had converted her into a mummy.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
« ^
What hostiin peshlakai had told Chee, he had recited in the presence of Ms. Knoblock, his court-appointed attorney, and Mr. Harjo, who seemed to be serving as her interpreter as well as Agent Osborne's. And Peshlakai spoke, as seemed to be his habit, in general and ambiguous terms.
"But what it all boiled down to, Bernie, when you read between the lines, and you went ahead and completed a few sentences for him, was that Wiley Denton murdered Doherty with our friend Peshlakai aiding and abetting—if not actually pulling the trigger."
Bernie looked very sad when she heard that. "Putting that old man in prison," she said. "That would be awful. That would kill him."
"Probably," Chee said. "But I don't think Harjo actually understood a lot of it. Not from the way he was translating it to Ms. Knoblock."
Bernie gave him a sidelong glance. "And you didn't butt in and explain things to them. Right? You seem to be implying something, well, something sneaky."
"I don't know what I'm implying," Chee said. "But I know for sure that Peshlakai had no idea he was getting himself involved in a murder."
"How did he get tied up with Denton anyway?"
"Just by living where he did. He'd see Denton coming up the canyon, nosing around, digging out sand samples and that sort of thing. And he must have warned Denton that he shouldn't go up to the headwaters area of Coyote Canyon because of the holy places there. He would be violating taboos, and that would make him sick. And so Denton was sympathetic, or seemed to be, and said he'd help Peshlakai guard the place. Denton gave Peshlakai a cellphone, showed him how to use it, and told him when he saw anyone prowling around up the canyon, he should call."
"So he called him when Doherty showed up at the placer site?"
"Exactly," Chee said. "And Denton carne. Whereupon one of them shot Doherty."
"With Peshlakai's rifle?"
"Unfortunately. Peshlakai didn't say so, but Osborne's crime scene crew finally recovered the slug with their metal detectors. It matched that old thirty-thirty, just like the bullet he fired to scare you away."
Bernie shuddered, remembering that. "And they put Doherty's body back in his truck," Bernie said. "And then one of them drove it up to where I found it, and the other one came along in Denton's car, and then everybody went home. Everybody except Thomas Doherty."
"Peshlakai didn't get into explaining that, or say who actually fired the shot."
Bernie sighed. "I don't guess it matters much. Whether he's killer or conspirator. He's way too old to last long in prison."
"He wouldn't want to," Chee said.
Bernie rubbed her hand across her face. "I hate this," she said. "Just hate it. So many people get hurt."
"I know," Chee said. A long silence followed. Chee broke it with what sounded a little like a laugh.
"What?" Bernie said.
"I sounded like I was agreeing with you, but I really wasn't. You were feeling pity for the victims, and sometimes the ones we arrest are the worst victims of all. I wasn't thinking that. I was thinking about us."
"What do you mean?"
"You might have been killed in Coyote Canyon," Chee said. "That's been a nightmare ever since you told me."
"No one would have blamed you for it," Bernie said.
"I didn't mean that," Chee said.
They turned into the fort entrance, showed their police credentials at the security gate, were assured that Leaphorn and another man had driven through a bit earlier, and were given some general instructions about how to find the D block of bunkers and bunker D2187.