Sacred Clowns

“Yeah,” Chee said. He’d heard of Leaphorn’s pin-littered map ever since he’d joined the force. Captain Largo, his boss when he worked the Tuba City district, told him Leaphorn used them to work out mathematical solutions to crimes that puzzled him. Largo couldn’t explain how that worked. Neither could Chee.

“I don’t know myself, exactly,” Leaphorn said. “I got into the habit years ago. It seems like sometimes it helps me think. It puts things in perspective.” He tapped the pin at Tano with a finger. “For example, we seem to have a co

“It does to me. I’d bet a year’s pay on it,” Chee said.

Leaphorn made a tent of his hands and looked at Chee over it. “Why?” he asked. “Why are you so certain?”

“Because-”

The telephone on Leaphorn’s desk interrupted him. Leaphorn picked it up, said, “Call me back in ten minutes,” and hung up.

He looked at Chee, motioned for him to continue.

“Because of the package, mostly,” Chee said. “Because of the chronology.”

Leaphorn nodded. “Yes. I think so too. But what was in that package?” He was asking both of them the question. He looked at Chee. “Any ideas?”

“None,” Chee said. “Except Kanitewa must have thought it was in some way co

Leaphorn swiveled in his chair, looked at the map a moment and then back at Chee.

“The way your report reads, Kanitewa’s dad was driving in to Gallup. The boy had his dad drop him off at Thoreau because Bluehorse had been making a silver bracelet in Dorsey’s class. Bluehorse wanted to give it to his girlfriend that night and he’d asked Kanitewa to pick it up for him. We don’t know when his dad dropped him off. Probably midmorning and probably it doesn’t matter. The next thing we have an approximate time on is when Kanitewa called Bluehorse and asked him to come and get him. That was late in the noon hour because Bluehorse remembers he’d just finished eating lunch. Am I getting this right?”

“So far,” Chee said.

“Kanitewa told Bluehorse he was calling from the pay phone out in front of the mission. He said he had Bluehorse’s bracelet, he couldn’t wait for his dad to come back from Gallup, and could Bluehorse come and get him. Pick him up, but not at the mission but at that little place by the highway where they rent videotapes. Kanitewa was very excited. It was very important. Don’t let me down, friend. That sort of thing. So Bluehorse borrowed his mother’s pickup truck and drove over to Thoreau and pulled up at the video place. But Kanitewa wasn’t just sitting there waiting for him. So Bluehorse went inside to look for him, and when he came out, Kanitewa was sitting in the cab of his pickup.”

Leaphorn paused, studying Chee.

“You remember what I was saying the other day about putting in the details? Your report reads: ‘When Bluehorse came out Kanitewa was sitting in his pickup.’ But was he crouched down out of sight, or sitting up? That’s an example. If we knew that it would tell us something about how scared the boy was at that point.”

Chee allowed himself to make a minuscule nod. He was not in the mood for a lesson in report writing.

“Kanitewa gives Bluehorse the bracelet,” Leaphorn continued. “That seems to mean that he had to have seen Dorsey. He must have given Dorsey the note from Bluehorse – the receipt for the bracelet. Otherwise Dorsey wouldn’t have turned it loose. Right?”

“I’d think so. As far as we know, Dorsey had never met Kanitewa.”

“Now you need to know some things,” Leaphorn said. “That bracelet was probably in a cabinet in a little storeroom between the shop and Dorsey’s office. That’s where Dorsey kept his supply of silver ingots, and turquoise, and the more valuable stuff the kids were working on. To get it for Kanitewa he’d have to leave the shop, or his office if the boy had found him in his office.”

Leaphorn paused, checked Chee’s expression to determine if he understood the implication of this. Chee understood. It meant Kanitewa would have had an opportunity to steal something. Perhaps something to be taken away, wrapped in a newspaper, and delivered to his uncle, the koshare.

“The cabinet was unlocked when they found Dorsey’s body?” Chee asked. “Is that right?”

“Unlocked,” Leaphorn said, looking thoughtful. “And a lot of stuff that had been in it was missing. The silver and the other stuff found in the box under Ahkeah’s place, all of that came out of the cabinet.”

“All of it?” Chee asked.

“That’s a good question,” Leaphorn said. “I think Toddy was jumping to that conclusion. But I don’t know for sure.”

“It probably doesn’t matter,” Chee said.

“No. But how do we know whether it does or not?”

They thought about that for a moment. For the first time, Chee found himself feeling comfortable with the lieutenant. Leaphorn had swiveled again and seemed to be looking at the map. Now he made a dismissive gesture, and turned back.

“Bluehorse told Kanitewa he didn’t have enough gas to take him all the way to Tano, but he could take him down to the Giant Truck Stop on Interstate 40 and he could get a ride there,” Leaphorn said. “That correct? And Bluehorse didn’t see the package until Kanitewa got out?”

“Right.”

“But it was already wrapped in the newspaper? Whatever it was?”

Chee nodded. “And Bluehorse asked what it was and Kanitewa said he couldn’t tell him. It was religious.”

“Something from Dorsey’s office?” Leaphorn said.

“Probably.”

They thought about that.

The telephone rang. Leaphorn lifted one end of the receiver with a finger to break the co

“He could have,” Chee said. “But I think somehow that whatever it was, it was the object that caused all the excitement. The big excited call to Bluehorse. That ‘can’t wait for dad’ business. All the game playing.”

Leaphorn considered that. The telephone rang again. He picked up the receiver, broke the co

“I’d say yes.”

“Yeah,” Leaphorn said, nodding. “But when Kanitewa was leaving, he saw somebody coming in. I’m guessing now, but am I right? Maybe Ahkeah. Maybe somebody else.”

“I think you’re right. And they saw him. And he knew it,” Chee said.

Leaphorn considered that, nodded. “So when the boy heard the radio broadcast, when he heard Dorsey had been killed, then everything clicked. He rushed off to warn his uncle about it.”

“Maybe,” Chee said. “At least I can’t think of anything better.”

“So what did the koshare do then? As far as we know, he ignored the warning. Did nothing.”

Chee was remembering the kachina dance, the koshare performance. “He did his duty,” Chee said. “From what little I heard at Tano, and mostly from what Blizzard picked up and passed along, I think he was that kind of a man. Blizzard said everybody he interviewed liked him. He said it was more than just ‘don’t speak bad of the dead,’ more than just the usual everybody being nice you get when somebody gets killed. Blizzard said they really respected him. Admired him. He must have been a good man.”

“The kind they’d call a ‘valuable man,’” Leaphorn said. He stood up, put the telephone receiver back on the hook, looked at the map again. “You know,” he said. “Maybe we’ve got another co