Talking God Part 8

Since Joe Leaphorn and Dockery had arrived a little early, and the Amtrak train had arrived a little late, Leaphorn had been given the opportunity to answer a lot of Dockery's questions. He'd presumed that Dockery had volunteered to come down to Union Station on his day off because Dockery was interested in murder. And clearly Dockery was interested in that. And he was interested in what Perez might have seen in the roomette of his doomed pa.s.senger. But Dockery seemed even more interested in Indians.

"Sort of a fascination with me ever since I was a kid," Dockery began. "I guess it was all those cowboy and Indian movies. Indians always interested me. But I never did know any. Never had the opportunity." And Leaphorn, not knowing exactly what to say to this, said: "I never knew any railroad people, either."

"They have this commercial on TV. Shows an Indian looking at all this trash scattered around the landscape. There's a tear running down his cheek. You seen that one?"

Leaphorn nodded. He had seen it.

"Are Indians really into that wors.h.i.+ping Mother Earth business?"

Leaphorn considered that. "It depends on the Indian. The Catholic bishop at Gallup, he's an Indian."

"But in general," Dockery said. "You know what I mean."

"There are all kinds of Indians," Leaphorn said. "What religion are you?"

"Well, now," Dockery said. He thought about it. "I don't go to church much. I guess you'd have to say I'm a Christian. Maybe a Methodist."

"Then your religion is closer to some Indians' than mine is," Leaphorn said.

Dockery looked skeptical.

"Take the Zunis or the Hopis or the Taos Indians for example," said Leaphorn, who was thinking as he spoke that this sort of conversation always made him feel like a complete hypocrite. His own metaphysics had evolved from the Navajo Way into a belief in a sort of universal harmony of cause and effect caused by G.o.d when He started it all. Inside of that, the human intelligence was somehow intricately involved with G.o.d. By some definitions, he didn't have much religion. Obviously, neither did Dockery, for that matter. And the subject needed changing. Leaphorn dug out his notebook, opened it, and turned to the page on which he'd reproduced the list from the folded paper. He asked Dockery if he'd noticed that the handwriting on that paper was different from the fine, careful script in the pa.s.senger's notebook.

"I didn't take a really close look at it," Dockery said.

About what Leaphorn had expected. But it was better than talking religion. He turned another page and came to the place he had copied "AURANOFIN Wl 128023" from the pa.s.senger's notebook. That had puzzled him. The man apparently spoke Spanish, but it didn't seem to be a Spanish word. Aura Aura meant something more or less invisible surrounding something. Like a vapor. meant something more or less invisible surrounding something. Like a vapor. No fin No fin in Spanish, if it held such a phrase, would mean something like "without end." No sense in that. The number looked like a license or code designation. Perhaps that would lead him to something useful. in Spanish, if it held such a phrase, would mean something like "without end." No sense in that. The number looked like a license or code designation. Perhaps that would lead him to something useful.

He showed it to Dockery. "Can you make any sense out of that?"

Dockery looked at it. He shook his head. "Looks like the number off an insurance policy, or something like that. What's the word mean?"

"I don't know," Leaphorn said.

"Sounds like a medicine my wife used to take. Former wife, that is. Expensive as h.e.l.l. I think it cost about ninety cents a capsule."

The sound of the train arriving came through the wall. Leaphorn was thinking that in a very few minutes he would be talking to a conductor named Perez, and that there was very little reason to believe Perez could tell him anything helpful. This was the final dead end. After this he would go back to Farmington and forget the man who had kept his worn old shoes so neatly polished.

Or try to forget him. Leaphorn knew himself well enough to recognize his weakness in that respect. He had always had difficulty leaving questions unanswered. And it had become no better with the age that, in his case, hadn't seemed to have brought any wisdom. All he had gotten out of Dockery was more evidence of how careful the killer of Pointed Shoes had been. That catalog of things on the folded paper must have been intended as a checklist, things to be checked off to avoid leaving behind any identification. The dentures were gone. So were the gla.s.ses, and their case, which might have contained a name and address, and prescription bottles which would certainly have a name on them. Prescription bottles were specifically mentioned on the checklist. And judging from the autopsy report the man must have taken medications. But no prescription bottles were in the luggage. He didn't need more evidence of the killer's cleverness. What he needed was some clue to the victim's ident.i.ty. He would talk to Perez but it would be more out of courtesy-since he had wasted everyone's time to arrange this meeting-than out of hope.

Perez didn't think he'd be much help.

"I just got one look at him," the attendant said, after Dockery had introduced them and led them back to a cold, almost unfurnished room, where the pa.s.senger's luggage sat on a long, wooden table. "I'd noticed this pa.s.senger wasn't feeling all that great so I went by his compartment to see if he needed any help. I heard somebody moving in there but when I tapped on the door, n.o.body answered. I thought that was funny."

Perez pushed his uniform cap back to the top of his head and looked at them to see if that needed explanation. It didn't seem to.

"So, I unlocked it. There's this man in there, standing over a suitcase. I told him I'd come by to see if my pa.s.senger needed a hand and he said something negative. Something like he'd take care of it, or something like that. I remember he looked sort of hostile."

Perez stopped, looking at them. "Now when I think about that I think I was talking to the guy who had already knifed my pa.s.senger to death. And what he was probably thinking about right at that moment was whether he should do it to me, too."

"What'd you do then?" Dockery asked.

"Nothing. I said, Okay. Or let me know if he needs a hand, or something like that. And then I got out." Perez looked slightly resentful. "What was I supposed to do? I didn't know anything was wrong. Far as I know this guy really is just a friend."

"What did he look like?" Leaphorn asked. He had remembered now why the name Henry Highhawk scribbled in the notebook struck a chord. It was the name of the man who had written Agnes Tsosie about coming to the Yeib.i.+.c.hai. The man who had sent his photograph. He felt that odd sort of relief he had come to expect when unconnected things that troubled him suddenly clicked together. Perez would describe a blond man with braided hair and a thin, solemn face-the picture Agnes Tsosie had shown him. Then he'd have another lead away from this dead end.

"I just got a glance at him," Perez said. "I'd say sort of small. I think he had on a suit coat, or maybe a sports coat. And he had short hair. Red hair. Curly and close to his head. And a freckled face, like a lot of redheads have. Sort of a round face, I think. But he wasn't fat. I'd say sort of stocky. Burly. Like he had a lot of muscles. But small. Maybe hundred and thirty pounds, or less."

The good feeling left Leaphorn.

"Any other details? Scars? Limp? Anything like that? Anything that would help identify him?"

"I just got a glance at him," Perez said. He made a wry face. "Just one look."

"When did you check the room again?"

"When I didn't see the pa.s.senger get off at Gallup. I sort of was watching for him, you know, because Gallup was his destination. And I didn't see him. So I thought, well, he got off at another door. But it seemed funny, so when we was ready to pull out west, I took a look." He shrugged. "The roomette was empty. n.o.body home. Just the luggage. So I looked for him. Checked the observation car, and the bar. I walked up and back through all the cars. And then I went back and looked in the room again. Seemed strange to me. But I thought maybe he had got sick and just got off and left everything behind."

"Everything was unpacked."

"Unpacked," Perez agreed. "Stuff scattered around." He pointed to the bags. "I took it and put it in the bags and closed them."

"Everything?"

Perez looked surprised, then offended.

"Sure, everything. What'd ya think?"

"Newspapers, magazines, empty candy wrappers, paper cups, everything?" Leaphorn asked.

"Well, no," Perez said. "Not the trash."

"How about some magazine that might have been worth saving?" Leaphorn phrased the question carefully. Perez was obviously touchy about the question of him taking anything out of the pa.s.senger's room. "Some magazine, maybe, that might have something interesting in it and shouldn't be thrown away. If it was something he had subscribed to, then it would have an address label on it."

"Oh," Perez said, understanding. "No. There wasn't anything like that. I remember dumping some newspapers in the waste container. I left the trash for the cleaners."

"Did you leave an empty prescription bottle, or box, or vial, or anything?"

Perez shook his head. "I would have remembered that," he said. He shook his head again. "Like I'm going to remember that red-headed guy. Standing there looking at me and he had just killed my pa.s.senger a few minutes before that."

In the taxi heading back for his hotel, Leaphorn sorted it out. He listed it, put it in categories, tried to make what little he knew as neat as he could make it. The final summation. Because this was where it finished. No more leads. None. Pointed Shoes would lie in his anonymous grave, forever lost to those who cared about him. If such humans existed, they would go to their own graves wondering how he had vanished. And why he had vanished. As for Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn of the Navajo Tribal Police, who had no legitimate interest in any of this anyway, he would make a return flight reservation from the hotel. He would return the call of Rodney, who had missed him returning Leaphorn's call, and take Rodney out to dinner tonight if that was possible. Then he would pack. He would get to the airport tomorrow, fly to Albuquerque, and make the long drive back home to Window Rock. There would be no Emma there waiting for him. No Emma to whom he would report this failure. And be forgiven for it.

The cab stopped at a red light. The rain had stopped now. Leaphorn dug out his notebook, flipped through it, stared again at "AURANOFIN" and the number which followed it. He glanced at the license of the cab driver posted on the back of the front seat. Susy Mackinnon.

"Miss Mackinnon," he said. "Do you know where there's a pharmacy?"

"Pharmacy? I think there's one in that shopping center up in the next block. You feeling okay?"

"I'm feeling hopeful," Leaphorn said. "All of a sudden."

She glanced back at him, on her face the expression of a woman who is long past being surprised at eccentric pa.s.sengers. "I've found that's better than despair," she said.

The pharmacy in the next block was a Merit Drug. The pharmacist was elderly, gray-haired, and good-natured. "That looks like a prescription number all right," he said. "But it's not one of ours."

"Is there any way to tell from this whose prescription it is? Name, address, so forth?"

"Sure. If you tell me where it was filled. If it was ours, see-any Merit Drug anywhere-then we'd have it on the computer. Find it that way."

Leaphorn put the notebook back in his jacket pocket. He made a wry face. "So," he said. "I can start checking all the Was.h.i.+ngton, D.C., drugstores."

"Or maybe the suburbs. Do you know if it was filled in the city?"

"No way of guessing," Leaphorn said. "It was just an idea. Looks like a bad one."

"If I were you, I'd start with Walgreen's. There was a W W at the start of the numbers, and that looks like their code." at the start of the numbers, and that looks like their code."

"You know where the nearest Walgreen's might be?"

"No. But we'll look that sucker up," the pharmacist said. He reached for the telephone book. It proved to be just eleven blocks away.

The pharmacist at Walgreen's was a young man. He decided Leaphorn's request was odd and that he should wait for his supervisor, now busy with another customer. Leaphorn waited, conscious that his cab was also waiting, with its meter running. The supervisor was a plump, middle-aged black woman, who inspected Leaphorn's Navajo Tribal Police credentials and then the number written in his notebook.

She punched at the keyboard of the computer, looking at Leaphorn over her gla.s.ses.

"Just trying to get an identification? That right? Not a refill or anything?"

"Right," Leaphorn said. "The pharmacist at another drugstore told me he thought this was your number."

"It looks like it," the woman said. She examined whatever had appeared on the screen. Shook her head. Punched again at the keyboard.

Leaphorn waited. The woman waited. She pursed her lips. Punched a single key.

"Elogio Santillanes," she said. "Is that how you p.r.o.nounce it? Elogio Santillanes." She recited a street address and a telephone number, then glanced at the computer screen again. "And that's apartment three," she added. She wrote it all on a sheet of note paper and handed it to Leaphorn. "You're welcome," she said.

Back in the cab Leaphorn read the address to Miss Susy Mackinnon.

"No more going to the hotel?" she asked.

"First this address," Leaphorn said. "Then the hotel."

"Your humor has sure improved," Miss Mackinnon said. "They selling something in Wal-green's that you couldn't get in that other drugstore?"

"The solution to my problem," Leaphorn said. "And it was absolutely free."

"I need to remember that place," Miss Mackinnon said.

The rain had begun again-as much drizzle as rain-and she had the wipers turned to that now-and-then sequence. The blades flashed across the gla.s.s and clicked out of sight, leaving brief clarity behind. "You know," she said, "you're going to have a h.e.l.l of a tab. Waiting time and now this trip. I hope you're good for about thirty-five or forty dollars when you finally get where you're going. I wouldn't want to totally tap you out. My intention is to leave you enough for a substantial tip."

"Um," Leaphorn said, not really hearing the question. He was thinking of what he would find at apartment number three. A woman. He took that for granted. And what he would say to her? How much would he tell her? Everything, he thought, except the grisly details. Leaphorn's good mood had been erased by the thought of what lay ahead. But in the long run it would be better for her to know everything. He remembered the endless weeks which led to Emma's death. The uncertainty. The highs of hope destroyed by reality and followed by despair. He would be the destroyer of this woman's hope. But then the wound could finally close. She could heal.

Miss Mackinnon seemed to have sensed he no longer wanted conversation. She drove in silence. Leaphorn rolled a window down an inch in defiance of the rain, letting in the late-autumn smell of the city. What would he do next, after the awful interview ahead? He would notify the FBI. Better to call Kennedy in Gallup, he thought, and let him initiate the action. Then he would call the McKinley County Sheriffs office and give them the identification. Not much the sheriff could do with such information but professional courtesy required it. And then he would go and call Rodney. It would be good to have some company this evening.

"Here you are," Miss Mackinnon said. She slowed the cab to avoid an old Chevy sedan which was backing into a parking s.p.a.ce, and then stopped the cab in front of a two-story brick building with porches, built in a U shape around a landscaped central patio. "You want me to wait? It's expensive."

"Please wait," Leaphorn said. When he had broken the news here, he didn't want to wait around.

He walked down the pathway, following the man who had disembarked from the Chevy. Apartment one seemed to be vacant. The driver of the Chevy unlocked the door of apartment two and disappeared inside after a backward glance at Leaphorn. At apartment three, Leaphorn looked at the doorbell b.u.t.ton. What would he say? I am looking for the widow of Elogio Santillanes. I am looking for a relative of Elogio Santillanes. Is this the residence of Elogio Santillanes?

From inside the apartment Leaphorn heard voices, faintly. Male and then female. Then he heard the sound of music. He rang the bell.

Now he heard only music. Abruptly that stopped. Leaphorn removed his hat. He stared at the door, s.h.i.+fting his weight. From the eaves of the porch behind him there came the sound of water dripping. On the street in front of the apartment a car went by. Leaphorn s.h.i.+fted his feet again. He pushed the doorbell b.u.t.ton again, heard the ringing break the silence inside. He waited.

Behind him, he heard the door of apartment two opening. The man who had parked the Chevy stood in the doorway peering out at him. He was a small man and on this dim, rainy afternoon his form was backlit by the lamps in his apartment, making him no more than a shape.

Leaphorn pushed the b.u.t.ton again and listened to the ring. He reached into his coat and got out the folder which held his police credentials. He sensed that behind him the man was still watching. Then he heard the sound of a lock being released. The door opened about a foot. A woman looked out at him, a middle-aged woman, slender, a thin face with gla.s.ses, black hair pulled severely back.

"Yes," she said.

"My name is Leaphorn," he said. He held out the folder, letting it drop open to reveal his badge. "I am looking for the residence of Elogio Santillanes."

The woman closed her eyes. Her head bent slightly forward. Her shoulders slumped. Behind her, from some part of the room beyond Leaphorn's vision, came the sound of a sharp intake of breath.

"Are there relatives of Mr. Santillanes living here?" Leaphorn asked.

"Yo soy," the woman said, her eyes still closed. And then, in English: "Yes." She was pale. She reached out, felt for the door, clutched it.

Leaphorn thought, the news I am bringing her is not news. It is something she antic.i.p.ated. Something her instincts told her was inevitable. He knew the feeling. He had lived with it for months, knowing that Emma was dying. It was a fate already faced. But that didn't matter. There was still no humane way to tell her even though her heart had already given her the warning.

"Mrs. Santillanes?" he said. "Is there someone here with you? Some friend or relative?"

The woman opened her eyes. "What do you want?"

"I want to tell you about your husband." He shook his head. "It's bad news."

A man wearing a loose blue sweater appeared beside the woman. He was as old as Leaphorn, gray and stocky. He stood rigidly erect and peered at Leaphorn through the thick lenses of dark-rimmed gla.s.ses. A soldier, Leaphorn thought. "Sir," he said, in a loud, stern voice. "What can I do for you?"

The woman put her hand on the man's arm. She spoke in Spanish. Leaphorn didn't catch her words. The man said "Collate!" sharply, and then, more gently, something that Leaphorn didn't understand. The woman looked at Leaphorn as if remembering his face would be terribly important to her. Then she nodded, bit her lip, bowed, and disappeared from the room.

"You asked about a man named Santillanes," the man said. "He does not live here."

"I came looking for his relatives," Leaphorn said. "I'm afraid I bring bad news."

"We do not know him," the man said. "No one of that name lives here."

"This was the address he gave," Leaphorn said.

The man's expression became totally blank-a poker player staring at his cards. "He gave an address to you?" he asked. "And when was that?"

Leaphorn didn't hurry to answer that. The man was lying, of course. But why would he be lying?