The name of the postal inspector that had eluded Leaphorn popped into his head when he awoke, early as usual, on Saturday. Jim Bean, that was it, and recalling it made him smile. His memory was a little slower than at his prime, but still working. It was a good way to start the day.
He rose, greeted by that familiar, wonderful scent that told him Louisa had started the coffee. He dressed quickly and headed into his office to get the address book, where he knew he had Bean’s information. He found an office number in San Diego and realized that his dealings with Bean dated back to the day when not everyone and his grandchild had a cell phone. He jotted it down along with some other notes and headed to the kitchen.
After the first sip of coffee, he asked Louisa for the favor.
“Sure, Joe. But we may just get an answering machine. It is Saturday, you know.”
“Try.”
She called, and he watched her punch in another number, probably Bean’s extension. He heard her explain that she was calling on behalf of Joe Leaphorn. She left a message with their home number and his cell. He could tell by the unbroken cadence of her voice that she spoke to a machine. As he listened to her speak, he thought of something else.
“One mo?”
“Of course. But let’s eat first. The oatmeal is ready.”
Oatmeal was Louisa’s go-to breakfast. He made the best of it, sometimes imagining he was chomping on bacon or fried Spam. He’d complained once, and she had explained the value of whole grains as an antidote to the evils of a modern lifestyle, and then suggested that if he didn’t want oatmeal he could visit the restaurant of his choice and enjoy the heart attack special. He thought he might come to enjoy oatmeal, and he had evolved enough to find it tolerable. And he’d learned not to whine about a housemate who fixed a hot breakfast for him.
As they were finishing, he heard the chime of the doorbell, probably someone wanting to convert them politically or spiritually, he thought. Louisa, both gracious and curious, rose to check on it. He recognized the second woman’s voice, finished the last bite in his bowl, and headed into the living room.
If her very presence in his house wasn’t enough of a clue, he knew as soon as he saw Mrs. Pinto’s face as she stood there, shoulders slumped, that something was wrong.
“Lieutenant, I’m sorry to intrude on your morning, but I didn’t want to talk about this over the phone.”
Louisa said, “If this is business, perhaps I should—”
“No, no. Please stay here. You need to know what happened, too.” She swallowed. “Tiffany died last night.”
“Tiffany?” Louisa’s voice asked the question.
Mrs. Pinto pressed her hands together. “My assistant. She’s the woman who collapsed outside when the Lieutenant came to see me yesterday. The one who fell near the skate park.”
He was glad Mrs. Pinto stayed with English for Louisa’s benefit. He had no trouble understanding.
“Please sit down.” Louisa motioned toward the couch. “I’ll bring you some water. Or would you rather have coffee?”
Mrs. Pinto moved to the sofa and waved off the offerings. “Louisa, stay here and listen.”
Leaphorn sat across from Mrs. Pinto with Louisa next to him. Louisa said what he was thinking: “Did she die from the fall?”
“I’m not sure what happened. I’ll tell you all I know.” Mrs. Pinto exhaled. “I went to see Tiffany at her house last night.”
Leaphorn wanted Mrs. Pinto to tell the story at her own pace so she could better focus on the details, but Louisa rushed in with her questions.
“She was home? They didn’t admit her to the hospital after that fall?”
“She told the ambulance people she felt better . . . that the heat made her weak, and that she’d been sick. I heard the ambulance man advise her to rest, keep cool, drink plenty of water, and to get someone to drive her to the hospital if she had a bad headache, felt nauseous, confused, dizzy, a whole list of things. They wanted to take her to get checked out, but she refused to go. I stayed with her until the medics left, and I made her go home for the rest of the day.”
Mrs. Pinto paced three steps toward the kitchen, then came back and sat on the sofa across from them. “I should have persuaded her to go in the ambulance. She’d been getting sicker for about two weeks. She had grown so weak she asked me to reduce her hours to half-time until she felt better, and I did. That’s why the project I talked to you about is so far behind. Her older sister hit a rough spot and moved in, so I knew that if something happened, Collette could help. I could kick myself for not making her go to the hospital.”
“I know you did all you could.” Louisa leaned toward her friend.
“Tiffany called me about eleven last night. I could tell she’d been crying. She said she got sick because she had been disrespectful of the past.” Mrs. Pinto looked down at the table. “I asked her what that meant, disrespectful of the past, and she said she couldn’t talk about it, but that she was having trouble catching her breath. She said she was going to ask her father to arrange a healing ceremony. She thanked me for helping her yesterday and hung up.” Tears filled Mrs. Pinto’s eyes.
“I didn’t like any of it, so I dressed and drove over there. When I got to the house, I thought Tiffany was dead, but she was still breathing. She looked terrible, pale, really sick. Her little pills were there, lined up in a box close to her bed. I called the ambulance, and then her sister Collette showed up, but it was too late to help her.” Mrs. Pinto shook her head once. “Tiffany was my friend as well as my assistant. I let her down.”
Louisa reached for a box of tissues on the lamp table, took one, and passed them to Mrs. Pinto. The woman took one and wiped her eyes. Louisa said, “Were you with her when she died?”
“No, no. Not exactly. Collette told me to go out with a flashlight so the ambulance could find the place more easily. I was anxious and I thought the fresh air would calm me down and I could tell that Collette wanted time alone with her sister to say good-bye. She passed while I was outside.”
Louisa shook her head. “I’m going to bring us all some tea.”
The cat, which had been lurking in the doorway, paraded past them as though it had been anticipating a pause in the conversation to make an entrance. It followed Louisa into the kitchen.
Leaphorn waited for Mrs. Pinto’s emotions to settle, then spoke to her in Navajo. “What did Tiffany mean when she said she had been disrespectful of the past?”
“I asked her. She didn’t answer.” Mrs. Pinto clasped her hands. “If she had trouble with the job, she should have told me. When the museum receives anything that could be sacred, dangerous, connected with the dead, or contaminated, it goes to a separate place to be prayed over. The medicine men handle it because we don’t want to take any of those risks. That’s how we dealt with the box I told you about.”
“Did Tiffany say anything else that seemed unusual?”
Mrs. Pinto seemed to have been waiting for the question. “She told me she needed to talk to a hand trembler to get a diagnosis of what was really wrong with her, that the medicine her white doctor had given her that used to help wasn’t helping. She told me she knew her illness was linked to all the sadness that came in that box, even though the doctor said it was stress that had compounded her breathing problem.”
Leaphorn was a skeptic when it came to hand tremblers, those who sit with a troubled person and arrive at a diagnosis of what taboo they broke so the proper traditional healing ceremony can be requested. “Sadness? Why would she say that?”
“I didn’t ask her.” The teakettle whistled, and she waited until the sound stopped. “You probably think I’m superstitious for even mentioning this. I don’t believe in chindiis, in ghosts, in supernatural evil. I’m not on the Jesus road or the peyote trail either. But something is not right here. I counted on her to help us get that donation issue resolved.”
“What medical issues did Tiffany have?”
Mrs. Pinto pressed her lips together, then exhaled. “After I hired her, she told me that she had a rare genetic respiratory disease, but not to worry, she had talked to a specialist and it was under control. She was well when the box arrived last month, but after that she seemed to get sicker and sicker, leaving early or skipping work altogether. If I wasn’t so close to retiring, I would have found an intern or a volunteer to help, but I didn’t have time to train someone new. The department will be reorganized when I leave. If I can leave as planned now, with this complication.”
They listened to Louisa puttering in the kitchen for a moment.
“Joe, we didn’t get off on the right foot yesterday. I regret that. I sincerely hope you will agree to work with me.”
Leaphorn nodded. “I’d like to see the items and the list that came with them. I need to know what is missing besides the bracelet and why it has to be a secret.”
“And then you’ll sign the contract?” Mrs. Pinto gave him the hint of a smile. “Come to my office this afternoon. I’ll be there from two until six or even later.”
Louisa entered with a tray loaded with iced tea, honey, napkins, and some cookies.
Mrs. Pinto switched to English. “It will be nice to be inside with the coolness. It’s already hot, and too early. I’ve been blaming the heat for making us irritable. I’ll be glad when the rains come. They are later than usual this year.”
Louisa put the tray on the table. “I always liked teaching summer sessions because of the air-conditioning. The heat gets to everyone, makes us impatient.”
She handed the visitor a glass of tea.
“Thank you.” Mrs. Pinto took the glass, but she looked at Leaphorn when she said it.
Around three p.m. Leaphorn arrived at the museum. Unlike his earlier visit, this time the place was quiet. As they had arranged, he followed the signs to her office. The door stood open. Mrs. Pinto motioned him in when he rapped on the frame and then turned back to her computer. “I will be done here in a minute, and then I will show you the donations. Have a seat, Lieutenant.”
She had arranged her paperwork on her desk in several stacks in plastic trays, the pages lined up with the edges straight. A manila folder with “Joe Leaphorn” printed in block letters sat in the center. On the wall Leaphorn saw a painting by Ernest Franklin, a picture of a hogan in the snow with Church Rock in the background.
She shut down her computer and rose. “Thank you for coming.” She took the folder with his name on it with her as she headed to the hallway. He followed toward the back of the building, past a silent parade of closed doors. Although she was decades younger than he, she was shorter and many pounds heavier. She waddled down the hall, and he matched her pace easily, even without his cane.
Finally, Mrs. Pinto unlocked the last door on the left. “Here it is.” She flicked on the light and crossed her arms over her ample belly.
Leaphorn walked toward the long table in the center of the windowless room. Someone had arranged the items all by category. The jewelry caught his eye—rings, bracelets, old ketohs (or bow guards), necklaces, earrings, and brooches. Most of it looked to be Navajo or Navajo imitation, and many of the pieces included blue stones in various hues. Turquoise, he thought, the gift that tradition said came from the sky itself, and the talisman that helped ensure the fertility of a shepherd’s flock. The three small pots looked as though they had been made by Pueblo Indians. Next to them sat two simple, classic brown Navajo ceramics. The piñon-sap coating made their smooth surfaces shine. He saw a small folk art wagon, a little male and a female character on the driver’s bench, pulled by a draft horse. A nice assortment, he thought.
Two folding chairs waited at the end of the table. Mrs. Pinto placed the folder with his name in front of one of them on the table. “When you are done looking, I thought you might like to examine the paperwork that came in the donation.”
He stepped toward her. “Who opened the box?”
“First the medicine people, and then it came to Tiffany to unpack. She handled many valuable shipments and there was never a problem before.”
“Tell me what’s missing.”
Mrs. Pinto sat down and rubbed her hands over her face.
He waited.
“It’s a dress, a biil, that the collector says Asdzáá Tlogi made sometime around 1864.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t recognize—”
“Asdzáá Tlogi.” She said it louder this time. “Juanita. The wife of Chief Manuelito.”
Leaphorn sat down. “Hwéeldi. It came from there.”
“Yes, from that period in history where not much survived.”
No one who knew the Lieutenant would describe him as overly emotional, but Leaphorn felt his chest grow tighter. The warrior Manuelito, with Juanita at his side, was among those leaders who brought the People back to Dinetah, their homeland, after the Long Walk of 1864 and years of suffering at the Bosque Redondo prison camp. Along with others, he signed the treaty that officially gave the Navajo people the right, in the eyes of the US government, to live on a portion of the sacred land the Holy People had assigned them. Over the ensuing years, the size of the Navajo Nation had grown as tribal officials managed to gain titles to other land that had always been theirs. Without Manuelito and the others’ ability to make peace, the story might have ended differently. And Juanita stood by the leader’s side.
Mrs. Pinto interrupted his contemplation. “If the gift is what the collector states, then it needs to be here. I don’t mean just the museum. It needs to be in Navajo land.”
He opened the folder she’d offered. The yellow notebook paper, the kind that comes on legal pads, had cursive handwriting, all of it with a black pen. He glanced at the date—four weeks ago. The salutation read, “To Whom It May Concern.”
After owning and enjoying these items for many years, I have decided they deserve a larger viewership and a new home, so I am donating them to the Navajo Nation. My gift comes with no restrictions, but I urge the museum to treasure my treasures.
On the next page, on the same notebook paper, he saw a numbered list with handwritten descriptions of the items, 1 to 15. Some of the descriptions involved several sentences, others just a word or two. The small script drifted down the page at an ever-increasing slope. The list had a randomness to it, with a man’s ring listed between two wedding baskets.
The list continued onto a second page. Leaphorn skimmed to the final notation:
Leaphorn studied the items on the table again. “I don’t see the baskets or the saddle blanket.”
“That’s right. We removed them because they might be contaminated by preservatives or infested with insects. We stored them elsewhere until we know what we are dealing with. Anything with feathers, leather, or other organic material gets that treatment. It’s common museum practice today. I’ll show them to you when we finish here if you wish.”
“What did Tiffany say when you asked her about the missing dress and the bracelet?”
“She swore she never saw the biil, and that no woven dress of any sort was included in this shipment. There were bracelets, and we didn’t know which was missing until we matched what we got with the descriptions on the donor’s inventory sheet. None of the items had numbers.”
“The silver bracelet, anything else about that I should know?”
“It was part of a set.” Mrs. Pinto tapped the list. “The earrings and necklace that went with it arrived.”
“I am wondering how implicitly you trust your assistant. Had there been any prior issues with valuable items?”
Leaphorn noticed the exhaustion on the woman’s face. “No. I know she was loyal to me. I have never had reason to question her.” Mrs. Pinto tapped the folder again. “Any more questions before you say yes and start helping me?”
“Why did you come to me instead of alerting the police? If the dress was stolen, this should be their job.”
Mrs. Pinto looked at him over the rim of her glasses. “I didn’t call the police because I don’t know for sure if a crime was committed. I don’t know if the dress came in the box. And if it did, I don’t know for sure that it was Juanita’s. I need more proof than a handwritten note to confirm that it was Juanita’s. We museum people like to have what we call provenance, a paper trail that explains how the person who owns an object acquired it, as well as when and from whom.”
Leaphorn nodded. He knew Navajo law enforcement was understaffed and focused on crimes that hurt people first, not the possibility of a missing museum donation. If he had been in her position, he would have hired a PI, too.
Mrs. Pinto continued. “Secondly, I know you worked with that museum in Santa Fe, so you have some experience with this. And you live right here in Window Rock and I like working with people I can meet face-to-face.
“Finally, after Louisa told me about you doing investigations, I remembered that when you were with the police department, you found a poor woman who had been locked in one of those bunkers out by Fort Wingate. You didn’t give up and I admired you for that. This case is totally different, but it might take some persistence. I hope you can resolve it in a day or two, but if not, you’ll need to figure it out in the next two weeks.”
Mrs. Pinto folded her hands. “And there’s one more thing. When you drove away yesterday, I heard a grinding sound. That led me to assume that, besides appealing to your curiosity and your sense of honor as a Navajo when it came to an important piece of our heritage, you might need a part for that truck of yours. Could be expensive.”
Leaphorn smiled. “That’s a good explanation.” The woman might be demanding, but she was smart. He appreciated the way her brain worked.
He stood and walked slowly to the end of the table and back again, doing a brief survey of the material. “This is a nice collection. Some lovely and interesting things here.”
“I agree, of course. But the star of the show is the piece that we can’t find.” She stood. “Before you ask, we searched for the return address on the box in our donor file. Nothing. Then I had my assistant do a reverse address check on the computer—you know, those programs that fill in the name of who lives where. That address is bogus. I put Tiffany’s work in the folder for you.”
“How was the box shipped?”
“The old standby. US mail.”
Leaphorn signed two copies of the letter of agreement. Mrs. Pinto put one in his folder and showed him a smaller brown envelope. “Tiffany took some photos of what you see here as well as the baskets and saddle blanket.” She closed the folder and handed it to him. “How long before you will know something?”
He recognized the urgency. “I will check in with you midweek.”
“Or sooner. My retirement clock is ticking.”
The sun had heated his truck’s door handle almost to the point of pain. Leaphorn climbed in. The steering wheel was hot to the touch. He turned the key, noticing the grinding again.
Louisa, as he had come to expect, greeted him with a question.
“So, what do you think of Daisy’s proposal? Will you try to help her?”
He nodded yes.
“I’m glad.”
He put the folder and the brown envelope on the kitchen table and motioned her to join him. He removed the photos and thumbed through them; then he examined the list. Whoever sent the box had assembled the items with care and, as the letter implied, seemed to have personally collected them over a number of years.
He handed the list to Louisa.
She made little humming sounds as she reviewed it. “Look at this.” She tapped her index finger on a line in the inventory and read: “‘Earrings, necklace, and sterling silver storyteller bracelet set with bears, trees, et cetera.’ Is there more information on these?”
He pushed the pictures to her and watched as she quickly sorted out the bracelet photos. She rose and returned with the magnifier they kept in the kitchen drawer and used it to examine two pictures more closely.
“It’s not here. The storyteller bracelet is not in the photos.”
Leaphorn looked at the number again, 30, and nodded. “Rye. Missin.” He meant “right,” but he could tell that she understood.
“I think this could be the same jeweler who made a bracelet I bought years ago when I first came to the Southwest. A gentleman named Peshlakai. I’ll get mine; maybe it has that mark the inventory describes, and that could help track it.”
“Go head.”
“You’re humoring me, Joe, but you never know.”
She left him to search for her bracelet, planting the seed of an idea. If Louisa clearly remembered where and when she’d purchased her jewelry, artists might remember, too, or might have kept records of their customers. He filed the thought away.
Louisa returned before Giddi had an opportunity to jump onto her chair. She had a silver bracelet and a grin on her face. She showed him the artist’s stamp. “It looks like a P. Peshlakai. And this one is a storyteller, the same as the donor describes. What do you think? It must be the same artist.”
He looked at the description again and then at Louisa’s bracelet and its images of a hogan, a woman weaving, and sheep grazing. He studied the small P inside the band. She could be right.
She slipped the bracelet onto her wrist. “You know, I spent a lot for this way back then. I remember I almost missed my car payment because of it. I imagine this person’s work is worth even more now. Maybe that’s why it’s missing.”
He thought about that. A stolen bracelet would be easy to sell. An old textile would have a smaller market—and anyone who knew its story would also understand that it should never have been for sale. An odd combination.
He refocused on his idea of contacting the artists, first the jeweler whose work was missing and then, perhaps, the others. The people who had made the major pieces, he speculated, would be more likely to remember who bought them. The photos would help. He wondered how many of the artists still lived.
Leaphorn picked out a photograph of a basket, a complicated design that looked modern. He handed the picture to Louisa.
“It’s an interesting piece.” She looked at the typed list. “If this is number 12, the basket maker is listed as Holiday.”
He handed her a pencil. “Mark?”
She nodded and put a check mark on the list.
He thumbed through the pictures and selected a few more for a pile he mentally labeled as “unique and valuable.” The task didn’t take long.
Leaphorn stood, noticing that his back objected. Louisa rose, too. “This is fascinating, Joe. I’d like to help. Maybe I could call some of those Pueblo artists whose work you pulled and ask them who owns it now. I figure they’ll speak English. I’ll leave the Navajos to you.”
He nodded. She kept encouraging him to resume his work with his speech therapist, but he found it frustrating. In circumstances where he really needed to speak English, he asked someone like Louisa to help. If he had to communicate complicated information, he used his laptop and typed in English. Slow and not spontaneous, but it did the job.
“Oh, while you were at the museum, the phone rang. It was Jim Bean. He asked me to tell you that he’s coming through Window Rock tomorrow and would like to see you. He gave me his cell number.” Louisa paused. “He invited me, too, but I’d feel like a third wheel. You guys will want to talk about the old times.”
“Wade a mint.” Leaphorn took his phone out of his pocket and found the right screen. Then he nodded.
She gave him Bean’s number and he added it to his contacts, then sent Bean a text.
His old associate’s response was almost instant.
CU tomorrow 10 @ Navajo Inn.
After years of resisting technology, Leaphorn now realized it was a useful research tool. He didn’t see the need to learn Twitter, Instagram, and the many other applications young people couldn’t live without. But for quick, simple communication and research, the internet served a fine purpose.
He went to his office. Giddi padded in to check on him, and he gave the cat a few pats before it calmly strolled away.
He typed in “Juanita and Manuelito Navajo” and got 73,000 results before he could take the next breath. He scanned the list and quickly found one that had Juanita’s name first. He clicked on it to find a picture of her in a biil, with a necklace and high moccasin boots, a belt of large silver concho discs at her waist. She looked peaceful and strong.
He clicked on several other pages and at the end of half an hour had learned little except that doing research like this himself would take time. The library at Northern Arizona University had a fine collection of articles and photos relating to Navajo history and especially old weavings. He called up the library website and typed in his request. He knew it was Saturday, but someone could be working at the reference desk. If not, they’d see his question first thing Monday.