Coyote Waits Read Online Free Page B

old friend. He’d told Leaphorn about it.
    “He didn’t just offer to resign,” Largo had told Leaphorn. “He insisted on it. He gave me his badge. Said he’d screwed up. That he should have gone to assist Nez when he knew Nez was in pursuit. And of course he should have gone.”
    “Why the devil didn’t he go?” Leaphorn had asked. “The silly son-of-a-bitch. What was his excuse?”
    “He didn’t offer any excuses,” Largo had said, his voice resenting Leaphorn’s judgmental tone. “But I reminded him that his report showed Nez had been laughing. From what little he heard on the radio Nez wasn’t taking it seriously. Like it was a joke. And I told him he couldn’t resign anyway. He can’t resign until we get Pinto tried.”
    Thinking of that conversation now as he turned the page in the report, Leaphorn remembered that Largo had some sort of vague clan kinship link with Officer Chee. At least he’d heard that. Navajo Tribal Police regulations prohibited nepotism in the chain of command. But the rules were just picked up from
biligaana
personnel regulations. The white rules didn’t recognize clan connections.
    The next sheet was the report of Sergeant Eldon George. When George arrived he had found Chee sprawled in the front seat of his vehicle, half-unconscious from shock. Pinto was asleep on the back seat, handcuffed. George had attempted to treat Chee’s burns with his first aid kit. Another Navajo Police unit had arrived, and a San Juan County Sheriff’s car, and a New Mexico State Police patrolman and then the ambulance that Chee had called to pick up Nez. Instead, it had taken Officer Chee. Pinto had been transported to the county jail at Aztec and booked on an assault charge — the toughest rap possible for a crime committed on federal trust land until the federals got involved and filed their felony homicide complaint.
    Leaphorn glanced up at Mrs. Keeyani. She sat with her hands clenched in her lap, lower lip caught between her teeth, watching him.
    “I must refresh my memory before I can tell you anything,” he said.
    Mrs. Keeyani nodded.
    The next page reminded Leaphorn that Ashie Pinto had not made a statement. When apprehended, he had said, according to the report:
    “Officer, I have done something shameful.”
    Sounded stilted. Leaphorn considered it. Pinto would have spoken to Chee in Navajo, probably. Chee, probably no better than half-conscious, would have passed along a translation to George. George had jotted it into his notebook, retyped it into his report. What had Pinto actually said?
    According to the report, nothing else. He had admitted nothing, denied nothing, remained absolutely silent, refusing to answer any question except to confirm his identity with a nod, declining to call a lawyer, to name anyone who he might wish to be informed of his arrest. When asked to submit to the taking of a blood sample, “Subject Pinto was seen to nod in the affirmative.”
    The test showed a blood alcohol level of 0.211. The percentage of alcohol in the blood that made one formally and legally drunk in New Mexico was 0.10.
    There followed the Federal Bureau of Investigation report dated eleven days following the arrest. Leaphorn scanned it. Ballistics confirmed that the bullet fired into the chest of Nez had come from the pistol confiscated from Pinto, a .38 caliber revolver. It confirmed that holes in Pinto’s trousers were caused by burns. There was more, including the autopsy. Leaphorn knew what it said. Nez had been alive when the fire suffocated him. Probably unconscious, but alive. Leaphorn sighed, turned to the next page. It summarized a statement taken from Chee at the hospital. He scanned it quickly. Familiar stuff. But wait. He lingered on a paragraph. Reread it.
    “Officer Chee said that for several weeks Nez had been interested in apprehending an unidentified subject who had been vandalizing and defacing a basaltic outcrop east of Red Rock and south of Ship Rock. Chee said he