The Shape Shifter by Tony Hillerman Read Free Book Online Page B

Some people really, really, really hated Shewnack. And I have to admit he did give ’em a damn good reason to want to burn him THE SHAPE SHIFTER
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    to death.” He laughed. “Burn him now. Sort of get a jump on the devil.”
    Although Leaphorn’s Navajo culture hardly allowed even good reasons for hatred, he had to admit Shewnack had given Benny Begay, Tomas Delonie, and Ellie McFee some unusually strong causes for resentment. Ellie, as Garcia explained it, had been the clerk and cashier at the Big Handy’s service station/grocery store/trading post at the Chinli junction.
    She had been, so she had told police, Shewnack’s girlfriend and soon to be his bride. But that would be after the robbery. Leading up to that she was the way Shewnack knew that Mr. Handy kept his accumulated sales collections in a backroom safe and made his deposits in a Gallup bank just once a month. So Shewnack had assigned Ellie her job in the robbery and told her that when it was over she should wait at a roadside turnout for him to pick her up and take her away to be married. She stayed there with her suitcase and waited until two Coconino County deputies came looking for her.
    “She seemed like a nice young woman,” Garcia said.
    “Not a real good looker, and too chunky for the taste of some, but nice eyes, nice smile.” He shook his head. “Not that she was doing much smiling when I was talking to her. She told me it had taken her a long time to believe that Shewnack was the one who had tipped off the cops about where to find her. And she still didn’t seem to really believe he’d done that to her.”
    “I guess it was quite a contrast to the honeymoon trip he’d had her expecting,” Leaphorn said.
    “How about that for a reason for some hatred?” Garcia asked. “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, they say.” 56
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    He glanced at Leaphorn. “Scorned and betrayed. And she was out and about when Shewnack got burned up. She’d gone to prison, done her years, earned some time off for good behavior, and then got a quick parole.”
    “So she’s your suspect?” Leaphorn asked, and grinned. “I mean if the feds hadn’t taken over and ruled it was an accidental death.”
    “Well, maybe,” Garcia said. “Delonie was still in stir when it happened. Benny Begay was just out on parole, but Benny didn’t seem like a killer to me. Or to anyone else. The judge agreed. He gave him just five to seven and he got that shortened with nothing but good conduct reports. Besides, he hadn’t had much to do with the crime.”
    Begay, Garcia explained, had been sort of a stock boy, cleanup man, and gasoline pumper at Handy’s place.
    His role in the crime was disconnecting the telephone to delay the call for police help. Tomas Delonie was the outside man—assigned to be there, armed with pistol and shotgun to make sure no one came along and interrupted the action. After that, Shewnack had instructed him to collect Benny and drive them both down that unim-proved road that leads from Chinli down through Beautiful Valley. There they waited on a trail down into Bis-E
    ah Wash for Shewnack, to come by and deliver their half of the loot. They did exactly what he’d told them to do.
    The story he told them to give to the police was that they hadn’t actually seen the robbery. They were to say they saw Shewnack drive away, suspected something bad had happened, tried to follow him in Delonie’s pickup, but had lost him. They were to wait by the road about three hours, then return to the store and report what hap-THE SHAPE SHIFTER
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    pened to the police who, Shewnack explained to them, would surely be there by then.
    “Of course it didn’t work that way,” Garcia said.
    “Here’s the way it actually went. Shewnack drove up to Handy’s place in his pickup truck, walked in, pointed his pistol at Mr. Handy, and demanded all the cash. Handy started to argue. Shewnack shot him three times. Then Mrs. Handy came running in to see