 Recorded Books Presents An Unabridged Recording of Skeleton Man by Tony Hillermann. Narrated by George Guadel. This book is copyrighted 2004 by Tony Hillermann. This recording is copyrighted 2004 by Recorded Books. Former Navajo Tribal Police Lieutenant Joe Leiporn gets sucked into helping investigate what at first seems to be just a trading post-robbery. Sergeant Jim Chee and his fiancee Bernie are also on the case. The simple-minded kid nailed for the crime is related to a former colleague of Joe's and needs help. And now Skeleton Man. Chapter One Lieutenant Joe Leiporn, retired, had been explaining how the complicated happening below the Salt Woman Shrine illustrated his Navajo belief in universal connections. The cause leads to inevitable effect. The entire cosmos being an infinitely complicated machine all working together. His companions, taking their mid-morning coffee break at the Navajo Inn, didn't interrupt him, but they didn't seem impressed. I'll admit the half-century gap between the day all those people were killed here and Billy Tuve trying to pawn that diamond for twenty dollars is a problem, Leiporn said. But when you really think about it, trace it all back. You see how one thing kept leading to another. The change there. Captain Pinto, who now occupied Joe Leiporn's pre-retirement office in the Navajo Tribal Police headquarters, put down his cup. He signaled a refill to the waitress who was listening to this conversation and waited a polite moment for Leiporn to explain this if he wished. Leiporn had nothing to add. He just nodded, sort of agreeing with himself. Come on, Joe, Pinto said. I know how that theory works and I buy it. Hard, hot wind blowing gets the birds tired of flying. One too many birds lands on a limb, limb breaks off, falls into a stream, diverts water flow, undercuts the stream bank, causes a landslide, blocks the stream, floods the valley, changes the flora, and that changes the fauna, and the folks who are living off of hunting the deer have to migrate. When you think back, you could blame it all on that wind. Pinto stopped, got polite, attentive silence from his fellow coffee drinkers, and decided to add a footnote. However, you have to do a lot of complicated thinking to work in that Joanna Craig woman. Coming all the way out from New York just because a brain-damaged hopie tries to pawn a valuable diamond for twenty bucks? Captain Largo, who had driven down from his shiprock office to attend a conference on the drunk driving problem, entered the discussion. Trouble is, Joe, the time gap is just too big to make you a good case. You say it started when the young man with the camera on the United Airlines plane was sort of like the last bird on Pinto's fictional tree limb, so to speak. He mentioned to the stewardess he'd like to get some shots down into the Grand Canyon when they were flying over it. Isn't that the theory? The stewardess mentions that to the pilot, and so he does a little turn out of the cloud they're flying through, and cuts right through the TWA airplane. That was in August 1956. All right, I'll buy that much of it. Passenger asks a favor, pilot grants it, boom. Everybody dead, end of incident. Then this spring, about five decades later, this hopy fella, Billy Tuve, shows up in a gallop pawn shop and tries to pawn a twenty thousand dollar diamond for twenty bucks. That touches off another series of events, sort of a whole different business. I say it's not just another chapter, it's like a whole new book. Hell, Tuve hadn't even been born yet when that collision happened, right? And neither had the Craig woman. Right, said Pinto, you have a huge gap in that cause and effect chain, Joe. And we're just guessing the kid with the camera asked the pilot to turn. Nobody knows why the pilot did that. Leap horn side. You're thinking about the gap you see in one single connecting chain. I'm thinking of a bunch of different chains, which all seem to get drawn together. Largo looked skeptical. Sample complete. Ready to continue?