The Shape Shifter Read online

  That, of course, was the theme of the famous old rug. And that theme made it a sort of bitter violation of the Navajo tradition. The Dineh taught its people to live in the peace and harmony of hozho, they must learn to forgive—a variation of the policy that belagaana Christians preached in their Lord’s Prayer but all too often didn’t seem to practice. And the rug certainly didn’t practice forgetting old transgressions. It memorialized the worst cruelty ever imposed on the Navajo. The Long Walk—the captivity, misery, and the terrible death toll imposed on the Navajo by the white culture’s fierce hunger for gold and silver—and the final solution they tried to apply to get the Dineh out of the way.

  But could this picture torn from the magazine be of that same rug? It looked like it. But it didn’t seem likely. Leaphorn remembered standing there examining the rug framed on the gallery wall behind its dusty glass. Remembered someone there telling him of its antiquity and its historical value. If this was a pre-fire photo, then how had it gone from the wall of this lavish house at the edge of Flagstaff to Totter’s gallery. The other possibility was that it had been taken from the gallery before the fire. Furniture and other items in the room suggested the photo was recent. So did a distinctly modern painting on another wall.

  Leaphorn put the magazine page back on the car seat, and considered another old and unpleasant memory the photo provoked from the day after the fire. The angry face of Grandma Peshlakai glowering at him through the window of his patrol car while he tried to explain why he had to leave—had to drive over to meet Captain Desbah, who had called him from Totter’s place.

  “It’s a federal case,” he’d told her. “They had a fire over at Totter’s Trading Post Saturday. Burned up a man, and now the FBI thinks the dead man is a murderer they’ve been after for years. Very dangerous man. The federals are all excited.”

  “He’s dead?”

  Leaphorn agreed.

  “He can’t run then,” Grandma said, scowling at him. “This man I want you to catch is running away with my buckets of pinyon sap.”

  Leaphorn had tried to explain. But Grandma Peshlakai was one of the important old women in her Kin Litsonii (Yellow House) clan. She felt her family was being slighted. Leaphorn had been young then, and he’d agreed that the problem of live Navajos should be just as important as learning the name of a dead belagaana. Remembering it now, much older, he still agreed with her.

  Her case involved the theft of two economy-sized lard buckets filled with pinyon sap. They had been stolen from the weaving shed beside her hogan. She’d explained that the loss was much more significant than it might sound to a young policeman who had never endured the weary days of onerous labor collecting that sap.

  “And now it’s gone, so how do we waterproof our baskets? How do we make them so they hold water and have that pretty color so tourists will buy them? And now, it is too late for sap to drip. We can’t get more. Not until next summer.”

  Grandma had bitten back her anger and listened, with traditional Navajo courtesy, while he tried to explain that this dead fellow was probably one of the top people on the FBI’s most wanted list. A very bad and dangerous man. When he’d finished, rather lamely as he remembered, Grandma nodded.

  “But he’s dead. Can’t hurt nobody now. Our thief is alive. He has our sap. Two full buckets. Elandra there”—she nodded to her granddaughter, who was standing behind her, smiling at Leaphorn—“Elandra saw him driving away. Big blue car. Drove that direction—back toward the highway. You policemen get paid to catch thieves. You could find him, I think, and get our sap back. But if you mess around with the dead man, maybe his chindi will get after you. And if he was as bad as you say, it would be very, very bad chindi.”

  Leaphorn sighed. Grandma was right, of course. And the sort of mass murderer that was high on the FBI’s Most Wanted list would, based on Leaphorn’s memory of his maternal grandfather’s hogan stories, be a formidable chindi. Since that version of ghost represented all of the unharmonious and evil characteristics that couldn’t follow the dead person into his last great adventure, they were the sort any traditional Navajo would prefer to avoid. But, chindi or not, duty had called. He drove away, leaving Grandma staring resentfully after him. Remembering, too, the last theory she had offered. When he’d asked Grandma Peshlakai if she had any idea who would want to steal her pinyon sap, she stood silent a long moment, hesitating, looking around, making sure Elandra was out of hearing range.

  “They say that sometimes witches need it for something. That sometimes a skinwalker might want it,” Grandma had said. That was a version of the witchcraft legend he had never heard before. Leaphorn remembered telling Grandma Peshlakai that he doubted if this very worst tribal version of witchcraft evil would be driving a car. She had frowned at him a moment, shook her head, and said: “Why you think that?”

  It was a question he couldn’t think of any answer for. And now, all these years later, he still couldn’t.

  He sighed, picked up the letter:

  Dear Joe,

  If I remember you correctly, by now you’ve stared at that picture and examined the rug and you’re trying to figure out when the photo was taken. Well, old Jason Delos didn’t buy that mansion of his on that mountain slope outside of Flagstaff until just a few years ago. As I remember your story, that famous old “cursed” rug you told me about was reduced to ashes in that trading-post fire long before that. Yet there it is, good as new, posing for the camera. You remember we agreed there was more going on in that crime, and that maybe it really was a crime, and not just a careless drunk accident and a lot of witchcraft talk.

  Anyway, I thought you’d be interested in seeing this. I’m going to look into it myself. See if I can find out where old man Delos got the rug, etc. If you’re interested, give me a call and I’ll let you know if I learn anything. And if you ever get as far south and west as Flagstaff, I’ll buy you lunch, and we can tell each other how we survived that FBI Academy stuff.

  Meanwhile, stay well,

  Mel

  Below the signature was an address in Flagstaff, and a telephone number.

  Oh, well, Leaphorn thought. Why not?

  3

  Leaphorn parked in the driveway of his Window Rock house, turned off the ignition, took the cell phone from the glove box, and began punching in Mel Bork’s number. Five numbers into that project he stopped, thought a moment, put the cell phone back where he kept it. He had an odd feeling that this call might be important. He’d always tried to avoid making calls of any significance on the little toy telephones, explaining this quirk to his housemate, Professor Louisa Bourbonette, on grounds that cell phones were intended to communicate teenage chatter and that adults didn’t take anything heard on one seriously. Louisa had scoffed at this, bought him one anyway, and insisted he keep it in his truck.

  Now he put his old telephone on the kitchen table, poured himself a cup of leftover breakfast coffee, and dialed. The number had a Flagstaff prefix, which by mountain west standards was relatively just down the road from him, but the call would be a long, blind leap into the past. That old case had nagged at him too long. Maybe Bork had hit on something. Maybe learning what happened to the famous old weaving would remove that tickling burr under his saddle, if that figure of speech worked in this case. Maybe it would somehow tie into his hunch that the fire that erased the “Big Handy’s Bandit” from the FBI’s most-wanted list had been more complicated than anyone had wanted to admit. Bork, he remembered, had thought so, too.

  Remembering that, he thought of grouchy old Grandma Peshlakai again and her righteous indignation. If he actually took a little journey down to Flagstaff to talk to Bork and reconnect with his past, it wouldn’t take much of a detour to get him into her part of the country. Maybe he’d stop at her hogan to see if she was still alive. Find out if anyone had ever found the thief who ran off with her two big buckets of pinyon sap. See if she was willing to forgive him and the belagaana ideas about enforcing the law.

  He put Bork�
�s letter and the magazine page on the table beside the telephone and stared at the photo while listening to Bork’s phone ring, trying to remember the name of Bork’s wife. Grace, he thought it was. Considered the photograph. Most likely his eyes had fooled him. But it certainly resembled the old rug as he recalled it. He shook his head, sighed. Be reasonable, he told himself. Famous as that old weaving had become, someone probably tried to copy it. This would be the photo of an effort to duplicate it. Still, he wanted to find out.

  Then, just after Bork’s answering machine cut in, a woman’s voice took over. She sounded excited. And nervous.

  “Yes,” she said. “Yes? Mel? Where are you calling…”

  Leaphorn gave her a moment to complete the question. She didn’t.

  “This is Joe Leaphorn,” he said. “I am calling for Mr. Bork.”

  Silence. Then: “Mel’s not here. I’m Mrs. Bork. What’s this about?”

  “I have a letter from him,” Leaphorn said. “We knew each other years ago when we were in Washington. Both of us were students at the FBI Academy. He sent me a photograph and asked me to call him about it.”

  “Photograph! Of that damned weaving. Was that it?” she asked. “He said he was going to send that to someone. The picture he cut out of that magazine?”

  “Yes,” Leaphorn said. “He said he was going to check into it and—”

  “You’re the policeman,” she said. “The Navajo cop. I remember now.”

  “Well, actually I’m—”

  “I need to talk to a policeman,” she said. “There’s been a threatening telephone call. And, well…I don’t know what to do.”

  Leaphorn considered this, sucked in a deep breath. Waited for a question. None came.

  “Was the call about the picture?” he asked. “Threatening Mel about that weaving? Who was it? What did he say?”

  “I don’t know,” Grace Bork said. “He didn’t say who he was. It was on the answering machine. A man’s voice, but I didn’t recognize it.”

  “Don’t erase the tape,” Leaphorn said.

  “I’ll let you hear it,” she said. “Hold on.”

  Leaphorn heard the sound of the telephone mouthpiece bumping against wood, then a sound remembered from the past: Bork’s recorded answering machine voice: “Can’t come to the phone now. Leave a message.”

  Then a pause, a sigh, and another deeper male voice: “Mr. Bork, I have some very serious advice for you. You need to get back to minding your own business. Stop trying to dig up old bones. Let those old bones rest in peace. You keep poking at ’em and they’ll jump out and bite you.” Silence. Then a chuckle. “You’ll be just a set of new bones.” The tape clicked off.

  Mrs. Bork said, “What should I do?”

  “That call came when?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Has Mel heard it?”

  “No. I guess it either came in after he left, or maybe he didn’t notice it on his answering machine. I think he would have said something about it if he’d heard it. And now I don’t know where he is. He’s been gone since the day before yesterday. I haven’t heard from him.” Grace Bork was beginning to sound distraught.

  “He didn’t say where he was going?”

  “Not specifically, he didn’t. He just told me he was going to find out where that rug in that picture came from. He had made a call to somebody—in an art gallery or museum, I think. I think he was going to meet the man he called. Or have lunch with him. I expected him back in time for dinner, and I’ve worried ever since. He just doesn’t do things like this. Just rush off and…and not call, or anything.” Mrs. Bork added that Mel had explained that this business with the carpet in that photograph reminded him of what he’d seen in an arson fire in which a man had been burned, and Leaphorn had talked to him about it when they were both at the FBI Academy.

  “He seemed excited about that,” she said. “I’m worried. I’m really worried. He has a cell phone. Why doesn’t he call me?”

  Leaphorn found himself remembering Louisa’s plea that he always keep a cell phone in his truck.

  “Mrs. Bork,” he said, “first, take that tape out of the answering machine and put it somewhere safe. Take care of it. Does Mel always carry that cell phone with him?”

  “He keeps one in his car. I’ve been calling it and calling it, but he doesn’t answer.”

  “I presume your company has some contact with the Flagstaff police, or the sheriff’s people. Does Mel have anyone working with him in his investigative service who could help you?”

  “Just a woman who keeps his books. She comes in to answer the phone when he’s away.”

  “If you have a friend in law enforcement, I think you should call him and discuss this situation.”

  “I called Sergeant Garcia last night. He said he didn’t think I should worry.”

  Leaphorn checked his mental inventory of cops in the high, dry, mostly empty Four Corners Country.

  “Is that the Garcia with the sheriff’s department there? Kelly Garcia, I think it is. Is he a friend?”

  “Of Mel’s? I think so. Sort of anyway. Sometimes they more or less work together on cases, I think.”

  “I’d call him back, then. Tell him Mel is still away and doesn’t answer his cell phone. Tell him you talked to me. Tell him I thought he should listen to that tape you played for me.”

  “Yes,” Mrs. Bork said.

  “And please let me know if you learn anything. Or if I can do anything.” He recited his home phone number. Thought a moment, shrugged. “And here’s my number, in case I’m not home.”

  She read back the numbers to him.

  “One more thing,” Leaphorn said. “Did he mention any names? I mean names of anyone he might be seeing. Or which museum he was going to?”

  “Oh, my,” she said. “Well, he might have said Tarkington. He’s at one of the Indian arts and craft places in Flagstaff. Gerald Tarkington, I think it is.”

  “I think I know his place,” Leaphorn said. “Anyone else?”

  “Probably the Heard Museum in Phoenix,” she said, hesitantly. “But that’s just a guess. He worked for them once, a long time ago. And, Mr. Leaphorn, please let me know.”

  “I will,” Leaphorn said, with a vague feeling that it would be a promise that would find him bringing her bad news. It was a message he’d had to deliver far too often in his career.

  4

  Leaphorn, being elderly, knew the wisdom of learning all you can about the one you intend to interview before you ask the first question. Thus, before calling Tarkington’s gallery in Flagstaff, he dialed a number a few blocks away in Shiprock and talked to Ellen Klah at the Navajo Museum.

  “Tarkington? Tarkington,” Mrs. Klah said. “Oh, yeah. Well, now. What in the world would you be doing with that man?”

  “I need to get some information from him,” Leaphorn said. “See if he knows anything about an old rug.”

  “Something sneaky? Something criminal?”

  “I don’t know,” Leaphorn said, sounding glum. “It’s just this rug has turned up. And it looks a lot like one that was supposed to be burned up in a fire at a gallery years ago.”

  “I bet this involves insurance fraud,” Mrs. Klah said.

  “I hope not,” Leaphorn said. “It was the fire that burned that little gallery at Totter’s Trading Post. You remember that?”

  “Of course I remember it,” Mrs. Klah said. “Wasn’t the rug that burned there an old, old tale-teller weaving? The one people called Woven Sorrow. Or maybe it was Sorrow Woven In? Something like that, anyway.” She laughed. “That would fit the story people tell about it, you know. The weaving came out of that Long Walk sorrow, and everywhere it goes it takes troubles with it. I’ll bet it’s insurance fraud now. Is Tarkington a suspect, or coconspirator, or what?”

  “You’re way ahead of me, Ellen,” Leaphorn said. “No crime alleged, or anything. I just want to talk to Tarkington about what might have happened to that rug if it didn’t actually burn.”
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  “I’ve been reading in the Albuquerque Journal about that grand jury investigation involving Navajo rugs. Three of ’em. Very old. Supposed to be worth about two hundred thousand dollars if you add them all together. Is that what you’re into?”

  “No, no,” Leaphorn said. “Nothing that exciting. I just want to ask you if Tarkington would be the guy to talk to about…well, let’s say if a famous old rug had been destroyed and you had pictures of it, and wanted to hire a weaver to make you a copy. What would you do? Who could do it? Things like that.”

  “Well, Tarkington’s an old-timer. I’d say he’d be as good as anyone to ask. If ethics are involved, from what I’ve heard I doubt he’d be worried about them. But are we talking about that Woven Sorrow rug? The one that woman wove after she got back from Bosque Redondo, full of things to remind you of all the death and misery that came out of that business. Was that the rug you’re talking about?”

  “I think that must be the one. That sounds like it.”

  “The rugs mentioned in that lawsuit all had names,” Ellen said, sounding slightly disgruntled.

  “I don’t know its name. Don’t know if it even had one,” Leaphorn said. “I just remember a great big, complicated, old rug. I saw it framed behind glass and hanging in Totter’s gallery near Tohatchi years ago. And I remember there was a story that went with it. It was supposed to have been cursed by a hand trembler, or some other medicine person.”

  “Ah,” Mrs. Klah said. “Behind glass in a frame, wasn’t it? I remember that. That was it. That was Woven Sorrow. Wow!”

  “Anyway, you think Tarkington could tell me something. Right?”

  She laughed. “If you promise him it won’t get him in any trouble. Or cost him any money.”

  So Leaphorn dialed the Tarkington number, got an answering machine that advised him to either leave a message or, if business was involved, call the number at the “downtown gallery.”

  He called that one. He did the “wait just a moment” duty required by the secretary who took his name, and then: “Joe Leaphorn?” a deep, rusty male voice said. “There used to be a Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn with the Navajo Tribal Police. Is that you?”