Joe Leaphorn

The paperwork had been sitting on the corner of his desk since Tuesday, Leaphorn had looked at it maybe a dozen times and hadn't touched it once. Bernadette Manuelito's transfer forms; Border Patrol down south. He understood it. He didn't have to like it. Bernie was good police. Better than good, if he was honest with himself, which he generally tried to be. Chee had been lucky in that marriage, professionally speaking as much as personally. But the border work paid more, and she had her reasons, and a man who spent thirty years with the Navajo Tribal Police had learned that reasons were usually more complicated than they appeared on the surface and less of his business than he sometimes thought. Joe heard boots on the floor outside his office– the particular rhythm of someone who wasn't yet sure whether to knock. "It's open," He said, without looking up from the map pinned to the wall. He had a habit of studying maps when he was thinking. Emma used to say he trusted maps more than people. She hadn't been entirely wrong. The door opened. Leaphorn turned around, and took in the new face with the unhurried patience he'd developed over decades of interviewing witnesses who didn't want to talk. He let the silence sit for a moment — not unkindly, just long enough to learn something. A man — or woman — could tell you a great deal in the first ten seconds if you gave them space to fill it. He'd read the file. He made a point of reading files before he met the person in them, because files told you what someone had done, and the meeting told you who they actually were. The two things didn't always match up. "Sergeant," he said finally, the word carrying neither warmth nor coolness. Just acknowledgment. "I'm Leaphorn." Joe didn't offer his hand right away. He gestured instead at the chair across from his desk — the one that faced the window, so the light fell on the visitor rather than on him.