Read Hillerman, Tony - [Leaphorn & Chee 04] for Free Online Page B

he had seen it with Mrs. Vines. Autumn sunlight streamed in, reflecting from the glass eyeballs and ivory teeth of the cats. The sunlight made the room less hostile. The lioness above Vines' left shoulder seemed to be smiling. So did Vines.
    "I understand my wife told you we had a break-in, and she hired you to solve the crime," Vines said.
    "She asked me," Chee said.
    "This is embarrassing," Vines said. What Chee could see of his face through its frame of hair didn't look embarrassed. His alert black eyes were studying Chee. "I have a feeling there really isn't a crime to be solved."
    "No?"
    "No," Vines said. He laughed. "My wife is not a very predictable woman at times. She's a very nervous woman. Sometimes things get confused."
    "Having someone break into your wall safe can make you nervous," Chee said.
    "How nervous it makes you depends on who broke into it."
    Vines said. He shifted his weight, glanced out the window and then back at Chee. "Do you know where the safe is?"
    "It's behind that head," Chee said, nodding to the appropriate cat.
    Vines got to his feet again and maneuvered himself laboriously to the wall. He balanced carefully and lifted the mounted head off its hook, dumping it on the carpet. The safe door eased itself open on well-oiled hinges. The space behind it was dark and empty. Vines looked at it, his expression thoughtful. He extracted a pack of cigarets from the side pocket of his jacket, shook one out and lit it. At his feet, the cat's head smiled benignly at the ceiling.
    "Rosemary and I weren't young when we married," Vines said. "We'd enjoyed lives of our own and we were going to continue to be private persons as well as man and wife. We kept our old friends and our old memories. Both of us. Separate."
    Vines had been talking to the safe. Now he glanced around at Chee. A trickle of tobacco smoke leaked through his lips. It made its way through his mustache like gray fog. Chee could see now that the left side of Vines' face was affected. The corner of his mouth and the muscles around his left eye drooped. "This safe operates with a key and a combination. Rosemary doesn't have either one of them. I have a toolbox in the stables. There's a prying bar in it." Vines pushed the safe door closed. "You'll notice that this wall safe is like a lot of wall safes. It has a limited purpose and it's not built like a bank vault. It's not designed to do more than slow down a safe-cracker. You can take a pry bar and jam it in the door fitting, and it gives you enough leverage to spring the lock. Take a look."
    Chee looked. He noticed, as he'd noticed the first time he'd examined it, that the safe door did seem to have been pried open. Whatever had been used had left marks, and the door had been slightly bent. Once again, that seemed odd. The door was heavy. Unless it was poor metal, it would take tremendous strength to bend it even with the leverage of a wrecking bar. Chee looked for a trademark and found none.
    "I think you should get your money back on that door," he said.
    Vines laughed. "I'm afraid the warranty's run out. As a matter of fact, I had the safe made and installed, and I guess they didn't use the most expensive material."
    "Who did it for you?"
    "I don't remember," Vines said. "Some outfit in Albuquerque. I had it done when I built this place, and that was thirty years ago." He pushed the door shut. "The point I was making was that Rosemary doesn't have a key to the wall safe, but she does have a key to the tool locker. The pry bar was gone. I found it in her closet."
    "Oh," Chee said.
    Vines shrugged. He produced a wry face. "So I want to apologize for all this. And I'd like to pay you for your trouble." He produced a check. "You made two trips out here. Would two hundred dollars be fair?"
    Chee glanced from Vines to the sly smile of the tiger. He thought of the bent metal of the door and the empty space behind the door, and of what Mrs. Vines had told him. Among other things, she had told him that