Free Spider Woman's Daughter by Anne Hillerman Page B

Bernie hated hospitals.
    “What conference is it you’re going to in Houston, in case we need to reach you?” he asked.
    “Just call my cell. You’ve got the number now. Give Joe my love and stay safe out there, both of you. Gotta go.”
    Louisa hung up.
    “What do you think?” Chee asked.
    “She’s lying about something. But not about caring for the lieutenant.”
    “Did you notice that she denied shooting him before we even had a chance to ask her?”
    “That must have been some argument,” Bernie said. “Louisa is in Albuquerque, just an hour from Santa Fe and the hospital. Why would she head on to a boring conference rather than be with Leaphorn? They’ve shared a house for years. ”
    “He went with her to some of those conferences. He’d be reading in the hotel while she was at the sessions. I remembered him saying that those academic types live in their own world and how Navajos ought to plant an observer there, write a book about their unusual cultural practices.”
    Bernie started a pot of coffee while Chee called Cordova. Then he hooked up the laptop, powered on, and inserted the disc. Shiprock, unlike some places on the reservation, had fairly reliable Internet service, in part because of its government offices and the pressure they put on the powers that be to acknowledge that the twenty-first century had arrived, even in rural New Mexico.
    She pulled a chair around so she could see the computer screen. “Louisa is hiding something. Why wouldn’t she tell us what kind of a conference it was? Or where in Houston she’d be staying? If she’s even going to Houston.”
    “I bet you the FBI goes down that trail. Looks into it as a possible murder for hire,” Chee said.
    Bernie laughed. “You’ve watched too many DVDs from that bargain bin. Louisa hires Jackson Benally or Leonard Nez?”
    “Well, it’s hard to find a professional assassin in Window Rock. You might have to take what you can get, settle for college kids.”
    Bernie said, “Even the FBIs aren’t that lame.”
    “I’ll bet you a dinner.”
    “Steak?”
    “Shake.”
    He got up, poured two cups of coffee, stirred the requisite two teaspoons of sugar into Bernie’s, left his as it came from the pot.
    She took a sip. “What about the lieutenant’s mysterious cousins?”
    “Ah, now you’re the one thinking like an FBI. If Leaphorn is giving them money, they want him to live as long as possible.”
    “I meant, I need to find some relatives to let them know what happened, like Largo asked. I’ll get that notebook when I go to the hospital tomorrow.”
    Bernie saw him frown. Start to speak, probably to try to discourage her from making the four-hour one-way drive, then yield to studying the computer screen. She’d taught him that he couldn’t talk her out of anything once she’d made up her mind. No more than she could convince him that the lieutenant would have trusted Jim Chee, the same man who wasn’t always the best cop on the force, to run the Navajo end of this investigation.
    “You were going to say something?”
    “Tell the lieutenant hello for me.”
    Leaphorn, they quickly learned, had been busy until the end of his official police career and as a consultant to the force. Cases ranged from sheep and cattle rustling to domestic violence, burglary, bootlegging, and drug sales. Most of his arrests had resulted in convictions. Bernie made a second shorter list of those who had been released without charges, in case they held a grudge.
    They reviewed the cases for an hour, finding nothing interesting enough to be the motive for attempted murder. Bernie got up, poured them more coffee, switched off the pot. When she sat back down, she noticed something.
    “Here’s a case where the bad guy seems to have vanished.” She tapped the keyboard. “Looks like insurance fraud involving a rug from the Long Walk.”
    “I think you and I did some background work for the lieutenant on that one,” Chee said.
    “I recall