Read Online Coyote Waits by Tony Hillerman - Free Book Online

some stew but there’s plenty of it.”
    Professor Bourebonette was smiling broadly. “Mr. McGinnis,” she said, “I hope you got my letter, thanking you for your help.” She held out her hand.
    McGinnis took it, awkwardly, his face expressing an emotion Leaphorn had never seen there before. Shyness? Embarrassment? “I got it,” McGinnis said. “Wasn’t necessary. But much appreciated.”
    He ushered them through the gloomy dimness of his store toward his living quarters in the back. Not much stock, Leaphorn noticed. Some shelves were bare. The case where McGinnis had always kept his pawn goods locked behind glass held only a scattering of concha belts, rugs, and the turquoise and silver jewelry by which the Navajos traditionally measured and preserved their meager surplus. There was a sense of winding down in the store. Leaphorn felt the same sensation when he stepped through the doorway into the big stone-walled room where McGinnis lived.
    “You want to talk about Hosteen Pinto,” McGinnis said. “What I know about him.” McGinnis had removed a pile of
National Geographic
s from a faded red plush chair for Bourebonette, motioned Leaphorn toward his plastic-covered sofa, and lowered himself into his rocking chair. “Well, I don’t know why he killed that policeman of yours. Funny thing for him to do.” McGinnis shook his head at the thought of it. “They say he was drunk, and I’ve seen him drunk a time or two. He was a mean drunk. Cranky. But no meaner than most. And he told me he’d quit that drinking. Wonder what he had to burn up that officer for. What did he say about that?”
    Leaphorn noticed that Professor Bourebonette looked surprised and impressed. He was neither. McGinnis was shrewd. And why else would Leaphorn be coming here to talk to him? Now McGinnis was pouring water from a five-gallon can into his coffeepot. He struck a match to light his butane stove and put the pot on it.
    “I understand he won’t talk about it,” Leaphorn said.
    McGinnis stopped adjusting the flame. He straightened and looked at Leaphorn. He looked surprised. “Won’t say why he did it?”
    “Or whether he did it. Or didn’t do it. He just won’t talk about it at all.”
    “Well, now,” McGinnis said. “That makes it interesting.” He sorted through the odds and ends stacked on a shelf above the stove, extracted two cups and dusted them. “Won’t talk,” McGinnis said. “And old Ashie was always a forthcoming man.”
    “That’s what the FBI report says. He won’t admit it, won’t deny it, won’t discuss it,” Leaphorn said. Professor Bourebonette stirred in her chair.
    “What was he doing way over there anyhow?” asked McGinnis. “Didn’t his folks know? Mary Keeyani keeps a close eye, on him. He don’t get away with much that she don’t know about.”
    “Mary doesn’t know,” Bourebonette said. “Somebody came and got him. Must have been that.”
    “But Mary don’t know who?” McGinnis chuckled. “I know who then. Or, I’ll bet I do.”
    “Who?” Leaphorn said. He tried to make it sound casual, resisted the impulse to lean forward. He remembered how McGinnis loved to drag things out and the more you wanted it, the longer he made you wait.
    “If it was somebody he was working for, that is,” McGinnis said. “He’d been working for Professor Bourebonette here—” he nodded toward her “ — and for somebody from the University of New Mexico. I think his name was Tagert. And for a couple of others off and on. People who wanted his folk tales like the professor, or wanted to put down some of his memories.”
    McGinnis stopped, tested the side of the coffeepot for temperature with the back of his finger and looked at Leaphorn. Waiting.
    “Which one was it?”
    McGinnis ignored Leaphorn’s question. “You sure Mary didn’t know?” he asked Bourebonette.
    “Absolutely sure.”
    “Had to be Tagert then.” He waited again.
    “Why Tagert?” Leaphorn asked.
    “Tagert used to