Timeline

ITC."

"And they told you what?"

"They said he was depressed, because his wife had died."

"Figures."

"I don't know," Wauneka said. "Because I called the apartment building where Traub lived. I talked to the building manager. The wife died a year ago."

"So this happened close to the anniversary of her death, right? That's when it usually happens, Jimmy."

"I think I ought to go over and talk to some folks at ITC Research."

"Why? They're two hundred and fifty miles from where this guy was found."

"I know, but-"

"But what? How many times we get some tourist stranded out in the reservations? Three, four times a year? And half the time they're dead, right? Or they die afterward, right?"

"Yes…"

"And it's always one of two reasons. Either they're New Age flakes from Sedona who come to commune with the eagle god and got stuck, their car broke down. Or they're depressed. One or the other. And this guy was depressed."

"So they say…"

"Because his wife died. Hey, I believe it." Carlos sighed. "Some guys are depressed, some guys are overjoyed."

"But there's unanswered questions," Wauneka said. "There's some kind of diagram, and a ceramic chip-"

"Jimmy. There's always unanswered questions." Chavez squinted at him. "What's going on? Are you trying to impress that cute little doctor?"

"What little doctor?"

"You know who I mean."

"Hell no. She thinks there's nothing to all this."

"She's right. Drop it."

"But-"

"Jimmy." Carlos Chavez shook his head. "Listen to me. Drop it."

"Okay."

"I'm serious."

"Okay," Wauneka said. "Okay, I'll drop it."

The next day, the police in Shiprock picked up a bunch of thirteen-year-old kids joyriding in a car with New Mexico plates. The registration in the glove compartment was in the name of Joseph Traub. The kids said they had found the car on the side of the road past Corazón Canyon, with the keys still in it. The kids had been drinking, and the inside of the car was a mess, sticky with spilled beer.

Wauneka didn't bother to drive over and see it.

A day after that, Father Grogan called him back. "I've been checking for you," he said, "and there is no Monastery of Sainte-Mère, anywhere in the world."

"Okay," Wauneka said. "Thanks." It was what he'd been expecting, anyway. Another dead end.

"At one time, there was a monastery of that name in France, but it was burned to the ground in the fourteenth century. It's just a ruin now. In fact, it's being excavated by archaeologists from Yale and the University of Toulouse. But I gather there's not much there."

"Uh-huh…" But then he remembered some of the things the old guy had said, before he died. Some of the nonsense rhymes. "Yale in France, has no chance." Something like that.

"Where is it?" he said.

"Somewhere in southwest France, near the Dordogne River."

"Dordogne? How do you spell that?" Wauneka said.