Tags:
Fiction,
General,
Mystery & Detective,
Detective and Mystery Stories,
Mystery Fiction,
Police,
Police Procedural,
Cultural Heritage,
New Mexico,
Chee; Jim (Fictitious character),
Leaphorn; Joe; Lt. (Fictitious character),
Navajo Indians,
Police - New Mexico,
Indian Reservation Police
Margo would have given a damn. But it would have given her a huge advantage if she wanted to divorce him. And Margo represented old money, and big money, and good connections. Even better than his own.
He’d miss Chrissy. But Vassar, and Bennington, and Smith, and Holyoke, and the rest of them turned a new crop out every spring. Smart, stylish, good families—everything. But he’d wait a bit before he’d adopt another one. That problem was solved. He’d concentrate on solving the others before hunting himself another congressional intern.
5
Captain Largo’s instructions on the subject of cooperation with the FBI were clear and emphatic. “When you have to work with a Fed, use his car, not ours.”
That explained why Sergeant Jim Chee was sitting in the passenger side of a dark blue Ford sedan, with Special Agent Oz Osborne of the Federal Bureau of Investigation behind the wheel. The automobile, a type favored by the Bureau since as far back as memory went, had been parked all morning amid an infinity of sage brush on the slope above the Huerfano Trading Post. It was a pleasant location with a fine view of the business establishment below, of traffic speeding along New Mexico Highway 44, of Chaco Mesa far to the west, and the sacred Turquoise Mountain rising against the sky beyond that. North. Visible through the side window were the towering walls of Huerfano Mesa.
The view was why they were there, with the focus [36] being on the trading post and the highway. Their orders were more detailed than Largo’s had been.
If an old pale blue Volkswagen camper van showed up below them—either emerging from Navajo Route 7500, which wandered through the Bisti Oil Field, or on U.S. 44, they would drive down to the highway, stop the van, and check the credit cards of everyone in it. If anyone had Visa card number 0087-4412-8703, made out to Carl Mankin, this person would be held. Osborne’s superior in Gallup would be immediately notified. The van occupants would be taken to Farmington and held for questioning. If no one had this credit card, all would be taken into the Huerfano Trading Post, and the employees there would be asked if any of them resembled the fellow who had stopped at the post in the blue van on two recent occasions buying gasoline with the Mankin card in the “pay at pump” computer, which didn’t ask for card-owner signatures.
If store employees didn’t identify anyone, Osborne would inform his boss, hold everyone, and await further instructions. Chee didn’t like that. In fact, there was a lot of this duty he didn’t like. For example, Agent Osborne’s tight-lipped attitude about it. Well, he’d try again.
“If you were a gambling man, Oz, about what would be the odds this guy shows up in his Volks?” Chee asked. “Or has that credit card, if he does show up?”
Osborne was listening to some sort of music on his tape player headset. He reduced the volume, shrugged, said: “Very slim. Highly unlikely.”
“Exactly,” Chee said. “So having us out here waiting for this bird with damn little chance of seeing him is another of those things that tells me this Carl Mankin was [37] either very important himself, or had done something very important.”
Chee paused, glanced at Osborne. Osborne was listening, but pretending not to.
“I didn’t see that name on your most-wanted list.”
Osborne shrugged.
“If somebody stole my Discover Card, and I reported it missing—or if I disappeared myself, hiding out, and was using it here and there—would the federal government drop everything and start this dragnet? I doubt it.”
Osborne chuckled. “You think one of your girlfriends would miss you?” he said. “How about that pretty Officer Bernie Manuelito you’re always talking about. Would she come back to look for you?”
Which caused Chee to change the subject of his thoughts. He resumed his fruitless speculation about Bernie, about the real reasons she’d quit the Navajo