Hillerman, Tony - [Leaphorn & Chee 04] by jpg] People Of Darkness (v1) [html Read Free Book Online

B. J. Vines was away at a hospital. But two hundred dollars was too much to be offered. Vines was watching him. Vines had told him, in effect, that the crime was family business, and thus no crime at all, and no concern of Chee's. To ask a question now would be impertinent.
    "Did Mrs. Vines have the box?" Chee asked.
    Vines considered this impertinence, his mild eyes on Chee's face. He sighed. "I don't know," he said. "Maybe she had it. Maybe she disposed of it. The point is it doesn't matter. I think she told you there wasn't much in it. There wasn't. Mementos. Things that reminded me of the past. Nothing of value. Not even to me any longer."
    Vines held the check toward Chee, dangling it between his fingers.
    "I understand you reported it to the sheriff," he said. "Of course you'd have to do that. Old Gordo came out yesterday to ask about it. I wondered how much you told him."
    "Just what Mrs. Vines told me."
    Vines took three careful steps toward Chee and put the check in Chee's shirt pocket.
    "This isn't necessary," Chee said. "I'm not even sure it's allowed."
    "Take it," Vines said. "Rosemary and I will both feel better. If it's against policy, tear it up. I wonder if you noticed that our sheriff is very interested in my business?" Vines made his laborious way back to his chair.
    "I noticed," Chee said.
    "Did he ask a lot of questions?"
    "Yep," Chee said. Vines waited for more. He realized gradually that it wouldn't be forthcoming.
    "Gordo asked me a lot of questions about the People of Darkness," Vines said. "I got the impression that you'd told him Rosemary thought one of the Charley boys had taken the box."
    "That's right," Chee said.
    Vines waited again. He sighed. "I've had a lot of trouble with Gordo Sena," he said. "Years ago. I thought it was over with." Vines put out his cigaret and walked to the window. Past him, Chee could see an expanse of Mount Taylor's east slope. At this altitude it was the zone of transition from ponderosa pine into fir, spruce, and aspen. The ground under the aspens was yellow with fallen leaves. The slanting sunlight created a golden glow a little like fire.
    "It was early in the 1950s," Vines said. "I'd found that uranium deposit that the Red Deuce is mining now, and I was building this place, and I hired a Navajo named Dillon Charley as a sort of foreman to look after things. I didn't know it, but Gordo had a thing about Charley, and about a bunch of other Indians in a church old Dillon was running." Vines glanced back at Chee, the window light giving his gray beard a translucent frosting. "It was the peyote church. It was against tribal law in those days."
    "I know about it," Chee said.
    "Well, Sena was dogging them. He was picking them up, and beating them up. I got involved in it. Hired a lawyer over in Grants to take care of bonding them out and to bitch to the Justice Department about rights violations, and finally I put up some money behind a candidate and we got Sena beat for reelection for one term. For several years there, it was hairy between Sena and me. Things had settled down for the last few years. I'm wondering if he wants to stir it up again. That's why I wanted to know what kind of questions he was asking you."
    "He asked why your wife wanted to hire me," Chee said. He gave Vines a quick resume of Sena's questions.
    "What do you think of that oil well business?" Vines asked. "Did Sena tell you about that? About why he hated old Dillon Charley?"
    "He didn't talk about it," Chee said. "But I understand he thinks it's funny Dillon Charley got that advance warning."
    "You don't believe in visions?" Through the bristling whiskers Vines' expression seemed to be amused. Chee couldn't be sure.
    "It depends," Chee said. "But I don't believe in crimes without motives. No one can find one for this explosion, I guess."
    "Well, there are some theories."
    "Like what?"
    "You know Sena's, I guess. He doesn't seem to have any ideas about a motive, but he appears to think that Dillon