"I take it you don't recognize me," the weathered old Native American said. His peppered grey hair was thick and bristle-short.
"Should I?" she asked, examining his face for any such recognition.
"Joe Leaphorn, retired from the Navajo Tribal Police," he replied.
She closed one eye, wrinkling her face in suspicion. "What...? But...?" she sputtered. "Oh. Very funny, Jim," she squinted at him.
"Your prints weren't on file in the national database because you were a juvenile at the time they were taken — when you ran away from home," Brass started to explain.
She interrupted, "Ran away? What are you talking about?"
Ignoring her questions as rhetorical memory lapses, he continued. "But when I enquired with the Navajo Tribal Police, especially with Sergeant Chee and his retired colleague here, they remembered you. And the prints they took back when you ran away from home were still on file. Positive match: Madeleine Moorlyn."
Joe Leaphorn took his turn. "After your parents died in the train crash, Children's Services decided to allow your college student nanny keep you at home one last night before you entered foster care, but you decided to ride off on your bicycle, from Montana down through Salt Lake City and finally onto Route 666 until you reached Four Corners. Where I found you sleeping on the side of the road near a murder scene. That was 24 years ago — so I'm curious: where did you go after you escaped custody? It's bothered me since then, hoping you were OK."
"What...? How did you...? No one read that story of mine," she protested, confusion written plainly across her face. "I wrote that twenty-four years ago. My parents never even saw it."
"Your parents died in a train crash twenty-four years ago. What story are you talking about?"
"That's impossible. I threw it out. Ohmygod..." she whispered, wide-eyed. "That must be why my memory is so fuzzy, but how...?" She squinted painfully, but shook her head. "No way. I don't believe..."
"What?" prompted Brass. Normally he would be annoyed to with a witness who wasn't making any sense. Yet his aching leg reminded him how this woman had saved his life and been kind to him — the least he could do is be kind in return. And there was something else, too, that he hadn't felt in a long time. He suspected himself of falling in love with her. No use telling himself it was ridiculous. He had to admit it — at least, internally. Cupid's stupid arrows, and he was a victim. He'd have to be careful not to let it get to his head. He was long used to ignoring his heart.
"I don't know," she shook her head again in disbelief. "I can't understand."
Leaphorn stared at this woman. Chee's uncle might have said her spirit was troubled by a chindi, the lingering ghost that could threaten those who were present when someone died. Leaphorn did not believe in such superstition himself, but he knew from experience that such beliefs still affected people nonetheless.
Grissom entered the lobby, waiting for his staff who were trickling in behind him; Brass had asked them to meet him there a few hours before shift started. Grissom had grilled him on the reason behind such an unusual invitation, but he just shrugged and said the near-brush with death inspired him to treat his friends and colleagues to dinner as a small gesture of gratitude for their long friendship. No biggie, really.
"Gil!" Brass called. "Dr. Gil Grissom," he said to the ex-officer and then turned to his colleague. "This is Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn, retired from the Navajo Tribal Police. He drove here from Window Rock when he heard about our inquiry. You've already met Leinney Moorlyn, of course, whose quick action saved me some time in the hospital..."
She was visibly embarrassed by the dour captain's uncharacteristic gushing gratitude.
"Nothing you wouldn't have done yourself," she muttered.
"I couldn't have hit that snake with a rock..." he said.
"No, you'd have used a gun instead," she countered. "Probably more accurate, too."
Brass snorted. "Didn't need to be any more accurate than you were — how'd a writer get so good at throwing rocks?" he mused.
Just then, Greg Sanders, the youthful DNA lab specialist, entered the lobby holding a clipboard with a fairly new legal pad attached to it.
"Actually, I think I can answer that, embarrassing as it might be."
Her wry smile made piqued Brass' curiosity.
She turned to Greg. "You got a scrap of paper I could have?"
Greg had been concentrating so hard on catching Grissom's attention off to the side that he was momentarily uncertain as to how to respond. With a prompting nod from Brass, he tore a clean sheet from the back of the pad. Leinney took it with a smile of thanks, crumpled it up, presented it to Brass as if for a magic trick, and without taking her eyes off his face, she tossed the tight ball sideways about fifteen feet. It bounced neatly off the wall and into the mouth of a trash receptacle. "I'm not a very good writer," she explained with a shrug. "Maybe should've played ball instead..." Her lips twisted in a wry smile.
"Perhaps I should be glad of that," replied Brass, matching her expression.
Brass then introduced Leaphorn and Leinney to the rest of Grissom's team assembled there: Greg, Sara Sidle, Warrick Brown, Catherine Willows and Nick Stokes. While Leinney shook hands, politely repeating each name in full, her face gradually paled and her hand trembled.
"Are you all right?" asked Catherine, the mother hen of the CSI brood.
"Mmm," she mumbled. Under her breath, she chanted, "Las Vegas. We're in Las Vegas. Las Vegas is in Clark County. Clark County Homicide."
Brass guided her to a seat in the lobby, confirming her simple orientation statements, "Yes, and this is the lobby of the Las Vegas Crime Lab, serving Clark County. Are you OK?" Worriedly, he looked up at the team and suggested, "We should call an ambulance."
"No," said Leinney, recovering. "I'll be fine. It's just the headache. I guess I need to eat something. Hospital food isn't very appetizing."
"Yeah, shall we catch some dinner across the street?" invited Brass. The upscale diner was mostly patronized by law enforcement personnel, so conveniently was it placed. As they crossed the street, several pairs of concerned eyes kept watch over the Montana native. Brass kept a gentle but firm hold on her elbow.
Leinney remained quiet until halfway through the meal, listening politely to the general conversation, most of which concerned Leaphorn's unusual experiences enforcing law on tribal lands, where white man's laws had different connotations in tribal philosophies. After a discussion cropped up about reconciling native spiritual beliefs with criminal investigations, Leinney suddenly asked, "What do you think about the scientific investigation of psychic phenomena?"
"Waste of time," opined Grissom.
"I agree; psychics are just card sharks in a different setting." Warrick Brown dismissed.
"Oh, I don't know," drawled Nick Stokes. "I've read a few studies that show statistical anomalies between pure chance and certain psychic talents."
Brass added "What about that psychic who had details on one of our cases a few years ago? We sure arrested the perpetrator based on his help..." he reminded.
"Could have done it without him," Sara Sidle said. "And you can't use psychic evidence in a courtroom. You still need hardcore scientific proof to put them away."
"What if..." Leinney asked cautiously, "psychic phenomena could be explained as if life was just a piece of literature, or a collection of literature, and psychics were just people who can read different pages than the ones in which their own lives were contained?"
"Interesting metaphor," Catherine said to fill the silence.
Noticing the stares broken by Catherine's comment, Leinney quickly explained, "Er, I was just considering the metaphor for a new story I'm working on."
Leaphorn regarded her thoughtfully.
Brass put the bill on his tab. While the CSI's waited to thank him before wandering back across the street to start their shift, Warrick caught Leinney staring at him intensely. Almost manically.
"What?" he challenged, preferring to confront people who stared at his bi-cultural looks. He was mulatto, with soft latté-colored skin, blue-green eyes and blondish afro. In high school he was teased, but nowadays women were drawn to his exotic coloring.
"You don't look like Gary Dourdan, but as she said, you do have this Lenny Kravitz thing going on."
Warrick meant to ask who Gary was, but was startled by the almost direct quote from Ellie Brass when he'd had the misfortune to interview her on a drug-trafficking/murder case. Thinking back on that case, he recalled his discomfort at having to investigate the homicide detective's daughter. Both father and daughter shared a streak of intense personality, even if they weren't biologically related (something only he and Brass knew and he feared the older man's wrath if it ever came to light — he'd even kept it a secret from Grissom, who knew everything...). Shaking his head, Warrick retreated into his taciturn self, trailing after Sara, Nick and Catherine who were trading customary jibes.
Brass, Leaphorn and Leinney returned back to the station more slowly, stopping in the courtyard outside the lobby.
Leaphorn repeated his earlier question, "So, I'm still curious: what happened to you twenty-four years ago?"
She looked down, contemplating the tips of her shoes before replying. "I can't honestly say. I'm not sure of anything right now."
"She's still recovering from amnesia," Brass reiterated to Leaphorn.
"My driver's license says my middle name is Nena. The name Nena Blo... No, Bismaquer..."
"Bismaquer?" Brass repeated. "The Bozeman police listed your employer as Bismaquer Memorial Foundation. Same name?"
She squinted in thought. "Nena Bismaquer seems familiar — connected. I think she lived in Texas. Aunt Nena? A few snippets of newspaper my mother collected — was I named for her? It's all very fuzzy like it happened to someone else, like a story I was writing long ago..." Troubled eyes avoided Brass.
"Bismaquer, you say?" asked Leaphorn. "Yes, the enormous Bismaquer estate in Texas. Near Amarillo, as I recall."
The woman's eyes widened with surprise at this confirmation.
"There was a big scandal there," he continued, "several weeks after you left Four Corners. It was in the papers. Something about her killing her husband in self-defense and then disappearing. The FBI was involved."
"CIA. It was international. Felix Leiter," she said, nodding. "Nena," she shook her head. "She wasn't nice. Pure malice, not self-defense. Irony got her though, via her pet snake." Leinney scrunched her face as if she was struggling not lose her dinner.
"Is that how you knew how to handle the rattlesnake?" Brass prompted.
She shook her head. "Python. She trained it to...prey on... people. Only it didn't recognize its mistress..." Leaphorn could almost hear the bones crunching as Leinney flinched from the memory; she'd obviously witnessed her aunt being eaten by the constrictor.
"Bismaquer was nice. He knew, I think. Made sure everyone was taken care of before... Felix, the CIA guy, he helped, too. And the British guy, James... He stopped and offered a lift into town when the bike tire blew. Took the train with him to the Bismaquer estate." Leinney squinted and rubbed her forehead.
Clearly difficult memories, Brass thought. She's not making any real sentences, and leaving herself out of the descriptions. Distancing mechanism. "That's OK," he said.
"No, somehow I don't think it is." She mumbled, "It's all related — but how?"
"Let us help you."
She shook her head sadly. "Don't think you can. Not hardly. Not if my half-memory is accurate."
"Try me. I know a lot of people who can help, especially finding related details."
"Do you know who Tony Hillerman or Jerry Bruckheimer are?" Her face took on the pinched look of a dog expecting to be kicked.
"Tony Hillerman?" Leaphorn perked up his head. "Now how would you know my neighbor? He moved into the area several years after you were there."
"The writer?" she asked, eyebrows raised.
Leaphorn thought he detected suspicion that he wasn't telling her the truth. Odd. "He's retired. He worked as a crime reporter in Oklahoma in the 50's and 60's. In the 70's and early 80's he taught journalism at the University of New Mexico before getting interested in preserving Navajo stories and culture. How would you know him?"
"I don't. I just read a...something that he wrote in which your name was mentioned." She shook her head. "No, perhaps he cannot help."
"Bruckheimer...Bruckheimer. Sounds familiar," said Brass. He snapped his fingers. "That Hollywood has-been who was bugging our department for case files a few years back, trying to resurrect his career. Said he wanted to do some crime show glamorizing the world of forensic science. That's all we need — more star-struck recruits who bail out at the first sign of tedious work and disgusting crime scenes. No thanks! The PR department sent him packing in a hurry."
Leinney stared at him peculiarly.
"What?" Brass answered her stare.
"Not who I thought he was," she said, now studying the darkening skyline. "I should find a place to stay. Got any recommendations off the Strip?"
"Yeah," said Brass. "I know some quiet but clean places. Give me a few minutes and I'll give you a ride." He left them in the courtyard as he went inside to talk with the receptionist about messages and where he could be reached.
Leaphorn leaned over to talk to Leinney. "So, how do you know who Jim Chee is?"
"What?" she replied. After a pause her eyes widened. "Oh..."
"You never met him at Window Rock."
"But Jim said — Captain Brass said — that he recognized me. I guess I filled in the blanks and just assumed..."
With Navajo patience, Leaphorn let the comment fade into a long silence before forming his reply. "And Captain Brass specifically asked for Jim Chee before mentioning my name. Said you used his name."
For a moment it seemed as if she might deny it, but instead she turned the questions on him. "Then how is it he recognized me?"
Leaphorn had no problem revealing, "He remembered what I'd said about you. We had another 15 year old disappear from custody a few years later."
"Delmar," she whispered, before thinking better of it.
"Now why would you know his name?" Leaphorn kept his face impassive, but he was startled.
She regarded him another long moment, clearly struggling whether to remain silent or tell him the truth. "You wouldn't believe it."
"Try me. I've seen quite a lot of things in my career." And his long experience told him that her expression was exactly that of someone wanting desperately to confide an awful secret. It was likely his patience would be rewarded.
Finally she said, "I don't even believe it and it's my own experience. Except that you convinced me by telling me something you couldn't possibly know otherwise. But," and she paused, eyes concerned, "if I am to convince you in return, I don't know of any way to do so without hurting you. I don't want to do that."
"How would you hurt me?" he asked, thinking that a little pain could be endured, quickly forgotten. Especially as he had already endured the greatest pain of his life: losing his beloved wife.
"What I would say..." Shaking her head, she said, "No. I don't have the wisdom to know what to do."
"Hurtful words? Isn't there a saying: sticks and stones may break my bones but words can never hurt me?" he smiled gently, encouraging her to share the troubling thoughts. Perhaps it might restore her spirit to hozro — harmony, as his Dinee culture taught.
With pain in her eyes she said, "She bought those pajamas for you for your birthday two weeks after your marriage. In deference to her modesty you wore them until she passed on to that last great adventure..." she drifted off, eyes pleading desperately.
"Emma," he confirmed hoarsely.
"And the sound of your footsteps in the empty kitchen reminds you of the guilt you endure for having left the four-day mourning ceremony of her clan — because you couldn't bear to think of her as a chindi, a malevolent ghost..." she faltered as he turned away from her, his face darkened with a mix of emotions. And then, even more softly she continued, "she gifted you with new ones as the old ones became threadbare. You stopped wearing them after she passed, but have kept the last pair in the back of your drawer, neatly folded. Until you brought them out to pack for the trip to China, to wear in the hotel room shared with Louisa. But then you were suspended because Chee was overheard using your tape recorder. And your trip was cancelled. You refolded them and put them back in the drawer." She stopped.
Leaphorn finally turned around. "The story metaphor you're working on — life as literature with psychics reading different pages. And you see not only your own life but other peoples' lives as literature. Makes sense for a writer, I suppose."
She nodded sideways, shrugging. Leaphorn could tell she deeply regretted saying anything, but he knew he was not capable of helping her with this type of problem. "A spirit gift is powerful," he said. "It can be used to harm as well as help. I think you're right. You may need to find an elder to help you with that wisdom you seek." Leaphorn excused himself to find his truck. He did not look back.
Jim returned. "Where's Leaphorn?" He wasn't sure whether to be relieved or annoyed. He wanted to be alone with this woman, but the old Navajo had been positively rude to leave her there.
"He went home," she said sadly.
"Just like that?"
"Yeah."
Brass dropped the subject in favor of a happier one. While he was checking his messages, it occurred to him he ought to offer her the guest room in his apartment — save some money. It was the least he could do for someone who saved his life. She accepted and his heart leapt with unaccustomed delight.