Free At Ease with the Dead by Walter Satterthwait

it.”
    â€œSo what are your plans?”
    â€œI got a couple of names from Alice Wright. First off, there’s a guy named Peter Yazzie, a Navajo. The only address she had for him was a trading post on the Reservation, and that was fifty years ago. But maybe we can locate him. I tried calling Daniel Begay, in Gallup, but there was no answer.”
    â€œGive me the number,” she said, “and I’ll see if I can reach him tomorrow.”
    I gave it to her.
    â€œAnd why are we trying to find Peter Yazzie?” she asked me.
    â€œHe was the son of Lessing’s Navajo guide, and he went along with Lessing and his father on those field trips. If he’s still alive, he may know who this woman was, the one Lessing was seeing.”
    â€œYou’re thinking that jealousy, if it actually were the motive, could work just as well from someone on her end.”
    â€œDid I ever tell you how much I admire clever women, Rita?”
    â€œBut this woman’s husband, or boyfriend, or whatever, why would he steal the remains?”
    â€œIf he was a Navajo,” I said, “he might’ve known what they were. Maybe he wanted to bring them back to the Res.”
    â€œWouldn’t someone on the Reservation have known about it if he had?”
    â€œMaybe he didn’t tell anybody. Maybe he was afraid he’d get busted for killing Lessing.”
    â€œIf the remains have been back there all this time, then that woman’s dreams are meaningless.”
    â€œMeaningless dreams happen all the time. You should see mine sometime.”
    â€œI’ll pass, thanks.”
    â€œI’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”
    â€œYou said a couple of names. Who else?”
    â€œA man named Martin Halbert. The head of Halbert Oil. His father was the guy who sponsored Lessing’s field trips, and Lessing sent him regular reports. Maybe I can pick up something there. Alice knows him, he used to be one of her students. She called him up and arranged for him to meet me tomorrow morning.” Lisa had left by then, off to some cocktail party.
    â€œAnything else?” Rita asked.
    â€œI’m going over to the university tomorrow to see if I can find addresses for any of Lessing’s former students. The ones who went with him on the field trips.”
    â€œJoshua, if any of them are still alive, they’ll be in their eighties now.”
    â€œI know.”
    Another pause. “And is that it?”
    â€œPretty much. I’m having dinner tomorrow with Alice Wright, at her house. Maybe she’ll remember something else by then.”
    â€œAnd maybe you’ll remember to ask her a question you seem to’ve forgotten.”
    â€œWhich is?”
    â€œHow did her mother learn about her father’s adultery?”
    â€œAh. Right. Good point there, Rita.”
    â€œBut none of this sounds terribly promising, does it?”
    â€œNot really, no. I’ll probably be heading back to Santa Fe on Friday morning. So, tell me. Did you get anything interesting off the computer?”
    â€œNothing helpful about Bedford or Randolph. And nothing about Lessing that you don’t already know, evidently. But I called up Jack Hogarth at the American School of Research here in town.” The ASR was a kind of heavy-duty anthropology think-tank specializing in Native American cultures.
    â€œWho’s Jack Hogarth?”
    â€œAn archaeologist. William and I did some work for him once.” William being her late husband.
    â€œAnd what did old Jack have to say?”
    â€œHe told me an interesting story about your friend Alice. Did you know that she lived for a while with the Jivaro Indians in South America?”
    â€œYeah. The headhunters. Nice fellas, according to her.”
    â€œYes, well, according to Jack, for years there’s been a rumor going around that while she was with them, the family she lived with was attacked by a neighboring tribe