Sacred Clowns

And Chee was back to square one. The only thing he had that probably hadn’t been worked by the state cops, or the Farmington police, or the San Juan County Sheriff, was the smell of onions. The man must have smelled strongly – not just onion breath. And it was, as Ellie had said, too early to be eating hamburgers. She’d said it seemed like the odor came from his clothing, and it must have been powerful.

Chee drove down to the Garden Spot Produce Company on West Main, checked the vehicles parked there without scoring a green pickup with an ernie is the greatest sticker, and parked himself. He’d sca

The voice was that of a young woman, talking in halting Navajo. Chee frowned. They’d given him the wrong tape. The woman was reporting the death of her maternal aunt, obviously reading something that had been written for her in English and stumbling over the translation. The family was getting together at the home of the deceased in Mexican Water to talk about what to do with her horses, and her grazing lease, and other property, and there was going to be a funeral service at the Assembly of God Mission at Kayenta. The halting voice told Chee that the woman was born to the Streams Come Together People and born for the Towering House Clan. But, Chee thought, whatever her clans, she had gone onto the Jesus Road. Before he could ponder that and whether it would affect the incest taboo, another voice came on.

“I tell the family of Hosteen Todachene that I am sorry. I heard the truck hit something, but I was drunk. I went back and I didn’t see anything. I don’t drink hardly ever so when I did drink that night I got drunk. I would have helped him if I knew he was there. Now I am sorry. I will send money every two weeks to help make up for the help he gave you. I want you to know I am sorry.” End of tape. Chee rewound it and played it again. The words rushed out – a man tense with emotion and, understandably, in a hurry. He played it again. The speech sounded memorized, as if the man had written it out. He must have thought about it a lot. In this third time through Chee was impressed with the emotion. The man sounded as if he were holding back tears.

He switched off the tape, turned on the radio, punched the AM button. At the moment, KNDN was broadcasting a singer asking, “Why did you leave me, Lucille, with three little children and a crop in the field.” He turned the volume down a notch, and sat trying to visualize the man. Medium-sized, middle-aged, Ellie had said, wearing jeans and a jean jacket and a baseball cap with a long bill bent up in the middle like somebody had sat on it. On the tape he sounded like a childhood Navajo speaker – probably not boarding school. A lot of middle-aged Navajos had a limited vocabulary in their language because in those days the BIA wouldn’t let them speak it in school and that was the age period when you grow out of your childhood vocabulary. This man spoke it well. He knew the verbs to convert an English-language situation into fluent Navajo. Chee switched off the radio and went into the produce store. The clerk pointed him to a telephone. He called the Farmington Police number. Yes, Sergeant Bell was in.

“You know in that broadcast, the man said he was going to send money to the Todachene family,” Chee said. “Do you know if he’s done it?”

“He did,” Bell said. “At least somebody did.” He laughed. “Unfortunately, he forgot to put his return address on the envelope.”

“Was it mailed around here?”

“Farmington postmark,” Bell said. “Apparently he mailed it two days after he ran over the guy.”

“How much?”

“Six twenties, two tens, and a five,” Bell said. “Wish he’d sent a check.”

“That’d be a hundred and forty-five dollars,” Chee said. “Does that mean anything to you? The amount?”

“Not a damn thing,” Bell said. “At least he didn’t spend it getting drunk again.”

“Well,” Chee said, “thanks. If I learn anything I’ll let you know. But I haven’t got much hope.”

“Hey, by the way, did you hear it happened again? Down at your place this time?”

“What happened?”

“Somebody showed up at that open mike KNDN operates down at Kirtland. Down at the Navajo Tractor Company beside the highway. This guy walked in and broadcast a tape of one of your tribal councilmen talking about a bribe.”

Chee sucked in his breath. “Did what?”

“I didn’t hear it,” Bell said. “But we got a bunch of calls about it and somebody went down to see about it. They told him this guy walked into the dealership there and got in line with the people waiting to broadcast their a

“Be damned,” Chee said. “Who was it?”

“Who knows. People come in every day during the noon hour to make a

“Did you get a description?”

“Not much of one. White man. Maybe five-eight or -ten. Maybe forty or forty-five. Had a jacket on and a hat. Nothing on what he was driving, or how he got there. The manager said there’s always a line of Navajos coming in to use the mike during that period for making a

“That description doesn’t narrow it down much,” Chee said. It didn’t need to be narrowed down for him. The man would be Roger Applebee. Applebee had found a way to use an illegal tape that couldn’t be used in court.

He hung up and stood with his hand still on the telephone, considering his next step. Applebee’s broadcast would stir up a lot of trouble, he had no doubt of that. But it wasn’t his trouble. Not unless the lieutenant changed his mind and let him investigate what was going on with the toxic-waste-dump business. That wasn’t likely. His trouble was the Todachene hit-and-run. Chee’s thoughts turned to the six twenties, two tens, and one five, and to the voice of a man promising to send money every two weeks.

“Thanks for the telephone,” he said to the clerk. “Could I ask you something sort of semi-personal?”

The clerk looked doubtful.

“Do you people working here get paid once a month, or once a week, or every two weeks, or what?”

“Once a week,” the clerk said.

That took care of that.

The bins beside him were stacked with fruit. Oranges, then three varieties of apples, then pears, then bananas, then grapes. Bins along the wall held a mountain of potatoes, then yams, then lettuce, then cabbage, then carrots, then onions, then -

The clerk was counting out change for a customer.

“Where do you get your onions?” Chee asked.

“Onions?” the clerk asked.

Chee pointed. “Onions,” he repeated.

“I think they’re local,” the clerk said. “Yeah, we get them from NAI.”

“From Navajo Agricultural Industries?” Chee said. “Right over across the river?”

“That’s right,” the clerk said, but Chee was already heading for the door. Why hadn’t he thought of that?