Coyote Waits
First edition cover
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| Author | Tony Hillerman |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Peter Thorpe |
| Country | USA |
| Language | English |
| Series | Joe Leaphorn/Jim Chee Navajo Tribal Police Series |
| Genre | Detective fiction |
| Published | 1990 Harper & Row |
| Media type | Print & Audio Book |
| Pages | 292 |
| Awards | Nero Award 1991 |
| ISBN | |
| OCLC | 21337349 |
| Preceded by | Talking God (1989) |
| Followed by | Sacred Clowns (1993) |
Coyote Waits is the tenth crime fiction novel in the Joe Leaphorn / Jim Chee Navajo Tribal Police series by Tony Hillerman published in 1990.
It was adapted for television by PBS in 2003.
Chee is slow to go to the aid of another officer, Nez, who radios that he has found the person doing spray-paint vandalism on rock formations. Chee gets burned pulling Nez from his burning police vehicle. Leaphorn is brought into the case by two women, one the niece of and the other a professor who interviews Ashie Pinto, the main suspect. Ambitious historians and a Vietnamese family resettled in the US after the Vietnam War are intertwined in the crimes committed, as Chee and Leaphorn work together, sometimes going to places considered taboo by Navajo culture.
Officers Chee and Nez agree to meet at Red Rock trading post for a break from patrol. Chee hears Nez laughing on the radio about seeing the person who has been defacing local rock formations with paint, so takes his break. Chee realizes he should be with Nez. He passes one vehicle en route to finding Nez in his burning patrol car. Chee uses the fire extinguisher and then pulls Nez out of the still-burning car. Chee is severely burned and Nez is dead from a gunshot, as well as burned. Chee finds Hosteen Ashie Pinto walking on the road, holding an expensive bottle of brandy, and a gun recently shot; he is drunk and says he is ashamed, in Navajo. Chee arrests him.
Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn is pulled into this case by two women: Mrs. Keeyani, the niece of Ashie Pinto and a clan relative to Leaphorn, and Professor Louisa Bourebonette, who works with Pinto for her scholarly research and an upcoming book. Pinto is a crystal gazer and recalls stories in detail. They are sure Ashie Pinto is not guilty. Mrs. Keeyani describes her uncle’s struggle with whiskey, which long ago led him to murder a man and a vow to stop drinking. Leaphorn learns that money-short Pinto got a letter from history professor Tagert at McGinnis's trading post, unknown to his niece. McGinnis read it and sent Pinto’s reply agreeing to work. From Agent Kennedy, Leaphorn learns that the FBI investigation avoided talking to the owner of the vehicle that passed Jim Chee, because Huan Ji came to the US under the protection of the CIA. Arriving to talk with Ji, Leaphorn learns Ji was murdered. Ji left two messages on his wall: save Taka, and Lied to Chee. Leaphorn and Bourebonette find the place in the photographs in the darkroom at the Ji home. Going to the vantage point of the photos, they see that the paint vandalism was the teenage son Taka's message to the girl he loves: ‘I love Jen’ is visible from her home.
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