The Threepersons Hunt

“Live with my folks, fifteen miles down toward Cibecue.”

“Where does Kendrick hang his hat?”

“He keeps an apartment in Showlow. He doesn’t live around here full time—matter of fact he’s a partner in a firm in Phoenix. They all specialize in Indian work.”

“But Kendrick’s been concentrating mostly on this area for several years, hasn’t he?”

“Yeah. I imagine if we ever get this water-rights mess straightened out he’ll move on to some other tribe.”

“Leaving you to pick up the baton here.”

“I’m kind of hoping it’ll turn out that way.” Victorio cleared his throat. “Jimmy Oto was nobody’s favorite character but I’d dearly love to find out who killed him. I’d like to find out quick, before everybody in the tribe starts suspecting his neighbor. We’ve never had a sneak murderer in this tribe that I know of and that’s one ancient tradition I’d just as soon keep. I want to find out who did it and I want it not to be an Apache.”

“You could help find out the answer.”

“How?”

Watchman braked at the fork and turned onto the macadam. The headlights swung across poor houses and a windmill tower. “Find out who Kendrick’s client is. The one who laid out the money for Maria.”

“Find out how?”

“You work in the same office. You’ve got keys.”

Victorio didn’t reply right away. Watchman steered into the lot between the trading post and the council house. A night-light burned in the store but the only car on the lot was Victorio’s beetle.

Victorio’s face was tipped toward his knees. “You’re asking me to rifle Dwight’s files.”

“We need that name.”

“I’m no sneak thief. Anyhow if you obtain evidence unlawfully you can’t use it.”

“You can’t use it in court. I don’t give a damn about court. I’m trying to find Joe before we start finding more corpses.”

“I still don’t understand what Jimmy Oto had to do with it.”

“He had a detail map of Florence in the truck.”

After a silence Victorio said, “Yeah, okay.”

“Of course it still could be that Joe killed him.”

“Why should he?”

“Maybe Oto knew where Joe was hiding out. Maybe Joe killed him to keep him quiet.”

“No. That wouldn’t be Joe’s style. Sawing through the steering gear? Never, man. Joe’d use his fists or maybe a gun. A gun’s farfetched enough. He’s not what you’d call a subtle thinker.”

“Then let’s find him before somebody outthinks him and Joe ends up out in the bushes with birds picking over him.”

Victorio bit a knuckle. “I don’t know. I just don’t operate that way. I’m getting the shakes just thinking about it. Suppose I get caught?”

“It’s your own office. You’re not doing anything illegal.”

“They’re not my files, they’re Dwight’s.”

“You’re splitting hairs. It’s the same law office.” Watchman got out of the car. “I’ve got a few calls to make. If you find something I’ll be over in the phone booth.”

15.

He dialed the local number first and Angelina answered on the first ring.

“Did I wake you up?”

“No, I was waiting for you. Where the hell are you?”

“Whiteriver,” he said. “Everything all right?”

“It’s boring out,” she said. “I’ve had more fun watching test patterns.”

“Well you’d better stay where you are for a while yet.”

“Why? Has something happened?”

“Jimmy Oto was killed.”

There was static on the line while she absorbed it. “It wasn’t Joe.…”

“I doubt Joe had anything to do with it. But it looks like Jimmy Oto died because he knew something.”

“Killed,” she said. “You mean really dead. It’s a little hard to believe, just like that.”

“Anything happened there?”

“Not much. I talked to Will Luxan on the phone. He said it would be all right, any time I wanted to come back to work.”

“Did he say anything about Joe?”

“He’s a cagey old man. He didn’t say anything you could pin down. But I do have a feeling. I think he knows something. Maybe he knows where Joe is.”

“Any special reason to think that?”

“I don’t know. You have to know Uncle Will. It’s nothing he said. Except maybe that he told me I shouldn’t worry my head too much about Joe. The way he said it, I took it to mean he knows Joe is all right. How would he know that if he hadn’t seen Joe or something?”

“You could have a point there.”

She said, “It’s awful late. Are you coming back tonight?”

“Maybe in a little while.”

“Be careful who shoots at you this time.” But her voice wasn’t as light as she meant it to be.

“Take care,” he said.

“Yes. You too.”

He held the cradle down with his finger and glanced across the way. Only the front of the council house was visible and he didn’t see Victorio anywhere. He rang Buck Stevens’ home number, collect.

Stevens’ groggy voice was half an octave lower than usual. “The hell time’s it?”

“About one. I couldn’t get to a phone before.”

“Uh.”

“Get a notebook.”

“Okay, wait a minute.… All right. Pencil and all. Speak.”

“We had a murder up here,” Watchman said and kept talking over Stevens’ interjections. “Young fellow name of Jimmy Oto.”

“Otto?”

“Oto. One tee. He’s got a surviving brother named Nelson Oto and there’s a friend name of Da

“Spell Sanada.”

Watchman recalled the spelling from Sanada’s driver’s license. “Now one of them’s dead and the other two are here on the Reservation but I’d like to run R-and-I checks on all three of them, see if they’ve got records. I think Jimmy Oto helped engineer that jailbreak.”

“Not according to what I got,” Stevens said. He sounded a little pleased with himself. “I went down to Florence today. Joe Threepersons had a visitor. Twice. The day before the escape and the day of the escape. Fellow signed in under the name of William Jojolla.”

“Late twenties, big as a house, driving an old grey Ford pickup?”

“They didn’t say anything about what he was driving. But they remembered him because he was big. A big big guy.”

“I don’t suppose they keep fingerprints or mug shots on visitors down there.”

“No. But they’d have a couple of samples of his handwriting from where he signed in both times.”

“I’ll get a handwriting sample,” Watchman said. “Now the next thing, try to find out if the Pinal County Engineer had any customers lately for one-to-five-thousand scale maps of the northeast quadrant of Florence. Oto had one in his truck—maybe somebody bought it for him. They couldn’t have had that many inquiries about that particular quad.”

“This guy got killed just today? How do you know it wasn’t Joe Threepersons that did it?”

“It wasn’t Joe’s modus-O. Somebody hacksawed Oto’s tie rod, it broke on a mountain bend.”

“Christ.”

“Joe stole a three-seven-five magnum last night, ’scope sight. He’s got somebody to kill but it wasn’t Oto.” He glanced up as a car rattled by. It didn’t stop. He said, “Another item. Put out an all-points on a stolen ‘Seventy-one Toyota Land Cruiser, color forest green, noncommercial plates Arthur Bravo Seven Five Niner Seven X-ray. The Agency police had it this morning so it’s probably on the stolen car list already but I’m not much interested in the hot sheet. I’d like an APB, Joe Threepersons appears to be driving it.”

“Yeah? Then he could be in Wyoming by now.”

“I doubt it. It’s a four-wheel-drive, he’s probably back in these mountains right around here. First thing in the morning I’d like you to get an audience with Lieutenant Wilder and see if the department’s willing to spring for a couple of days’ helicopter coverage up here. It probably won’t spot the Land Cruiser but it might caution Joe into keeping his head down a little while until I can get at him. Will you try that?”

“Sure. He might get Captain Custer to go for it, if people are getting murdered right and left up there.”

“Put it to him that way,” Watchman told him. “Now what’s happening at your end?”