“We haven’t seen anybody,” Heinrich said. “Nobody but you.”
The woman nodded. Chee thought she looked a bit like Louisa, Joe Leaphorn’s companion. He should call Louisa and find out how the Lieutenant was progressing.
“Have you seen any vehicles tonight?”
The man rubbed his scalp. “A truck with a trailer that stirred up dust. A motorcycle. One of those touring shuttle buses, empty. It made a lot of noise, too.”
“And that little car with loud music,” Gisela added. “It was red.”
“Which way was the car headed?” Chee asked.
The woman gestured with a pale arm. “It went by about an hour ago.”
“Did you see it again after that? Or hear it?”
“We did not,” the man said. His w’s sounded like v’s.
“Where are you visiting from?”
“We live in Germany.”
“Bavaria,” the woman said.
“Germany? Ma’am, from your English, I would have assumed you were American.”
She nodded. “You’re right about that. I was born in the States, but I grew up in Germany and moved back there when I met this wonderful man. Finally I persuaded him to see the West, and now we’re in trouble.”
“We went to the camp across the highway,” the man said, “but it was full. We went to the campground in the park, but it was closed too. Where else can we go?”
The couple looked tired. They stood in silence, backlit by the glow from inside their little tent. Chee looked at their neat campsite.
“The next closest camp ground is Navajo National Monument, on the way to Tuba City. But they might be full too, and that’s a long drive. Tell you what. You can stay here tonight if you promise you will pack up and move out first thing in the morning. And no more illegal camping. You understand?”
Heinrich spoke quickly. “Yes, sir. We promise. You are kind. We will pay you the camping fee?”
Chee shook his head. “You can buy something for your wife from the next vendor you see. Help the families who live out here. Welcome to Navajoland.”
He could see Gisela relax. “My grandfather worked here back in the 1930s. He loved this place and the people.” She held out her arm. “I have this Indian bracelet he bought many years ago. He said it was made by a Navajo man.”
Chee looked at the sand-cast silver. “That is beautiful.”
“I’d like to get something like this for my daughter.”
“If you don’t find what you like out here, I have a relative who’s a jeweler, lives in Gallup. He might be able to come up with a copy for you.”
The woman pulled a wallet from her pocket and gave him a business card. “That would be wonderful. He can use this e-mail.”
Out of habit, Chee made a note of the husband’s name and the license number of their truck on the back of her card.
“I hope you find the woman,” Gisela said. “I wouldn’t want to be lost out here.”
Chee headed the direction the woman had indicated. Unless Melissa had already returned to the movie camp, he felt confident that he’d find her, help her if she were hurt, give her a lecture if she wasn’t.
He heard faint music long before he saw the red car. When he got closer, he recognized the sound as jazz, a saxophone playing something vaguely familiar. He followed the beat to a Chevy parked on the road at the top of the ridge and stopped in front of it. The music was full bore, loud enough to scare the coyotes. Getting out of his unit, he reached through the open window, pulled the key from the ignition, and put it in his pocket. The music died.
“Melissa?” he called. “Melissa Goldfarb? I’m Navajo Police. Your friends are worried about you.” If she could hear the music, he figured she could hear him.
Silence.
He shone his light on the road, noticing other tire tracks and something white. He walked over to it. A poker chip, standing on end like a wheel. He picked it up and put it in his pocket.
He went back to the red car and found footprints leading away from the driver’s side up a steep, sandy hill, and similar prints coming back to it and heading away again. The footprints were smaller than the ones he made and had a concentric circle design on the soles. He followed the tracks, calling out, “Melissa!” He listened, but there was no response.
The moon was rising, and after about fifteen minutes of slogging through the sand, he saw a figure silhouetted in its light at the top of the rise. A person and a tripod.
“Melissa!”
The figure turned toward him, tensed. “Who’s there?”
“Sergeant Jim Chee, Navajo Police.”
“I have a gun,” the voice called back. “You have ID?”
He knew from the voice he’d found a woman. “I’ll shine the flashlight on it, but you won’t be able to see it from way up there. Are you Melissa?”
“Yes.”
“Your boss called the police station, and they sent me to look for you. Are you OK?”
She laughed. “So that’s what this is about. You scared me half to death. I’m better than OK. I’m fabulous. Come up here, Sergeant Jim Chee. Look at this view. Unbelievable.”
He climbed up the sand slope, his smooth-soled boots slipping a little. He was breathing harder by the time he reached the ridge and had worked off some of his irritation at being ordered to do something by a civilian he’d come to help.
“What do you think?”
The vista across the valley, lit by the rising moon, was stunning. The moonglow subdued the colors, tamed them. The monuments looked ethereal, like enormous petrified creatures frozen in time on a landscape huge enough to accommodate them.
“I’m safer here than in LA, don’t you agree?” She didn’t wait for his answer. “I’ve got great shots of the sunset, and now the moonrise with these formations.”
“I think you’re lucky to have people concerned about you. You need to get back to them.” He sounded stricter and more official than he meant to.
“Whatever. I’m done anyway. I can’t believe they actually called the police.” She removed the camera from the tripod, stowed it in the pack on the sand next to her, and took out a water bottle.
“Want a sip?”
“No, thanks.”
“Hey, what happened to my music?”
“I turned it off.”
He would have guessed that she was a few years under thirty. She looked more like a long-distance runner than an accountant. Maybe lugging around camera equipment kept her in shape.
Melissa picked up a backpack and hoisted it onto her shoulders. She grabbed the water bottle and a walking stick, and then reached for the tripod.
“I’ll take that,” Chee said.
“Thanks.”
He led the way back, a different, more direct, and steeper route. They were about halfway to their vehicles when he heard a grunt behind him and then some swearing. He turned. Melissa lay sprawled in the sand, facedown.
He went to help. “Are you hurt?”