The Sinister Pig - 15 by Tony Hillerman Page B

Tuttle Ranch gate. He was feeling increasingly uneasy about that. He was suspecting what Bernie had photographed had nothing to do with anything as innocent as watering exotic animals.
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    Former Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn was making a hurried effort to tidy up his living room. Someone named Mary Goddard was coming over to interview him. Not a visit he expected. He knew almost nothing about this woman except she worked for U.S. News and World Report, formerly with the Baltimore Sun, and that she wanted to ask him about that peculiar homicide up on the border of the Jicarilla Reservation.
    “Why me?” Leaphorn had asked. “Didn’t you tell her I’m just a civilian. That it’s an FBI case anyway, and—”
    Georgia Billie was the senior secretary in the NTP administration office, but she had never quite come to think of Lieutenant Leaphorn as legendary.
    “Joe. Joe,” she said. “Of course I did. I told her you’d gotten old and grumpy and didn’t like to be bothered and you wouldn’t know anything about it anyway but she just grinned at me and said you were still the Legendary Lieutenant and she’d like to meet you anyway.”
    [106] That produced a moment of silence.
    “You didn’t give her my number did you? Or my address?”
    “She already had your address.”
    Leaphorn sighed. Said: “Oh, well.”
    “In fact, she’s on her way out there now. Instead of acting like you’re mad at me, you should be thanking me for the warning.” She laughed. “I’m giving you some time to sneak out the back door and hide.”
    But he didn’t. His curiosity had kicked in. What was it about this homicide that had brought a reporter from the best of the national newsmagazines all the way to Window Rock? Maybe she knew something that would cast some light on this affair.
    The Mary Goddard who introduced herself at his door did not resemble the smooth-faced, glossy women reporters television had taught Leaphorn to expect. She was short, sturdy, and obviously middle-aged. The heavy layers of makeup with which white women so often coated their faces were missing. Her smile, which looked to Leaphorn warm and friendly, revealed natural-looking teeth and not the chalk-white caps displayed by TV celebrities.
    “I’m Mary Goddard,” she said, handing him a business card. “I’m a reporter, and I came here hoping you’ll have time to talk to me.”
    “Come on in,” Leaphorn said, and pointed her to a chair. “If you like coffee, I have a pot brewed in the kitchen.”
    “Please,” Ms. Goddard said. “Black.”
    He remembered to put the cups on saucers as Emma would have done had she not left him a widower, or [107] Professor Bourbonette would have had she not been up on the Southern Ute Reservation collecting oral history tales. He also brought in napkins and then seated himself across the coffee table from Goddard.
    She sipped, made an approving face. Leaphorn sipped, trying to decide what Goddard’s first question would be. It would concern what progress was being made on the homicide investigation, and his answer would be that the FBI was handling it and he didn’t know anything about it.
    She restored her cup to its saucer.
    “Mr. Leaphorn,” she began, “I wonder how you managed to get an official of the Bank of America to ask questions in the bank’s credit card administration about a credit card issued to Carl Mankin. Could you tell me that?”
    Far from what he’d expected. He looked at Ms. Goddard with sharply increased interest. He was dealing with a professional here.
    “Did that happen?”
    “It did,” she said. And waited.
    Leaphorn chuckled, already enjoying this. “My turn now. How do you know? And what brought you to me?”
    “You’re retired, aren’t you. Technically not involved in any way in any of this. But a sergeant who used to be your assistant had jurisdiction, or did, more or less, until the FBI took over. Is that right?”
    “Right.”
    “As I understand from my sources in