Free The Shape Shifter by Tony Hillerman Page B

together and clasped with two hairpins. She grinned at Leaphorn and handed it to him.
    On it was printed in pencil: TO THAT BOY POLICEMAN.
    “That wasn’t my idea,” Elandra said. “She was mad at you. What she wanted to write was worse than that.”
    “I guess I should read it?” Leaphorn said.
    Elandra nodded.
    Inside was the neatly penciled message: Young policeman.
    Get my sap back here before it spoils. If not, get back $10 for each bucketful, and $5 for each bucket. Rather have sap. Otherwise $30.
    Garcia had been watching all this, his expression amused.
    “What does it say?” he asked. “That is, if it’s not secret.”
    Leaphorn read it to him.
    Garcia nodded. “You know how much time and labor goes into collecting that damned pinyon sap,” he said.
    “Did you ever try to get sticky stuff off of you? I’d say that thirty dollars would be a very fair price.” Leaphorn put the note in his shirt pocket.
    Elandra looked slightly abashed. “Grandma is usually very polite. But she thought you were practicing THE SHAPE SHIFTER
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    racial discrimination against us Indians. Remember? Or maybe she just wanted somebody to blame.”
    “Well, I could see her point.”
    “You want to know if we got our pinyon sap back?”
    “Anything at all you can tell me about that.” Elandra laughed. “We didn’t recover any sap, but Grandma Peshlakai did get our buckets back. So I guess you should cut ten dollars off that bill.” Garcia’s eyebrows rose. “Got the buckets back? Well, now,” he said.
    Leaphorn drew in a breath. “She recovered the buckets?” he said. “Tell me how she managed to do that.”
    “Well, after that fire at Totter’s place, Grandma had been asking around everywhere. Right from the start she had the notion that Totter might have gotten that sap.” She laughed. “She thought he was going to start making his own baskets. Compete with us. Anyway, she noticed people were going over there after Mr. Totter moved with what was left of his stuff. And they were picking up things. Walking away with it. Just taking things away.” She paused.
    “Like stealing stuff ?” Garcia said.
    Elandra nodded. “So Grandma rode over there and looked around, and she came back with our buckets.” Leaphorn leaned forward. “Where were they?”
    “I don’t know exactly. She said they were laying out by the porch. Or maybe out by the back door. I don’t really remember.”
    “Empty buckets?” Leaphorn said.
    Elandra nodded. “And dented up some, too,” she said. “But they still hold water.”
    Leaphorn noticed that Garcia was grinning. That turned into a chuckle.

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    “I guess we could make a burglary-theft case against Totter now, Joe. If we knew where he moved to when he left here. You want to try?”
    Leaphorn was embarrassed. In no mood to be joshed.
    “I think it would be a good idea to find out where he went,” he said. “Remember, one of his hired hands burned to death in that fire.”
    “Okay, okay,” Garcia said. “I didn’t mean that to sound like I was joking.”
    “Well, then—” Leaphorn began, but Elandra violated the “never interrupt” rule of her tribe.
    “You don’t know where he is?” she said. She shook her head. “You don’t know about Mr. Totter? You don’t know he’s dead?”
    “Dead?” Garcia said.
    “How do you know that?” Leaphorn asked.
    “It was in the newspaper,” she said. “After Grandma found the buckets, and knew for sure Mr. Totter had stolen our pinyon sap, she had a real angry spell. Really mad about it. So everywhere she went she would tell people about what he’d done and ask about him. And quite a while later somebody in a store where she was buying something told her Totter had died. He told her he’d seen it in the newspaper. That’s how we knew.”
    “What newspaper?” Leaphorn asked.
    “She was in Gallup, I think. I guess it was the Gallup paper.”
    “The Gallup Independent,” Garcia said.
    “Was it a