Snake Dreams (17 page)

This essential task accomplished, he returned to the kids’ room, turned off the lights, and ascended the stairs to a spacious kitchen that was provided with stainless steel appliances and polished granite countertops. But, like Miss Muntz, the bearish fellow was not in the mood for food. What he required was liquid refreshment, and he found what he longed for in the tastefully appointed parlor, which was equipped with a well-stocked bar. Within half an hour, Jake Harper had drunk himself into a stupor. He stumbled over to a downy-soft couch, flopped onto it, and drifted off to a deep, dreamless sleep.

If he’d had the least inkling of how the local authorities were attempting to close the net around him, Mr. Harper might not have slept at all.

For just one example:

A steely-eyed forest official was motoring along the mountain road, looking for Hermann Wetzel’s murderer. His spiffy green pickup was fitted with an umpteen-candlepower searchlight, which he was using to good effect. But when he slowed to illuminate Rogers’ Roost, the man under the Smokey Bear hat did not notice the broken glass on the lower level.

Jake’s good luck was almost uncanny.

The Witness

As he entered the elderly lady’s immaculate parlor, Scott Parris was glad that he had remembered to wipe his boots on the doormat. He removed his venerable felt hat. “Mrs. Muntz, I realize you’ve—”

“
Miss
Muntz, if you please.” She took the hat, placed it on a maple end table.

“Uh . . . right.” The chief of police grinned, restarted his speech. “I realize you’ve had a very stressful experience and I imagine you’d rather not be bothered right now. But after just an hour or two, witnesses tend to forget a lot of what they’ve seen and heard, so I’d like to ask you a few questions about what happened across the street this evening.” He produced a small notebook and ballpoint pen. “First of all, did Mr. Wetzel live alone?”

“No. His stepdaughter shared the house with him. Which reminds me—” Miss Muntz glanced at a brass clock on the mantelpiece. “Oh my goodness!” She raised both palms, as if to push him away. “I’m sorry, but your inquiry will have to wait.”

Parris cocked his head. “Wait for what?”

“I have an urgent errand to run.” She smiled at the policeman’s bemused expression. “You see, I promised to pick up Mr. Wetzel’s stepdaughter at nine forty-five
P.M
., and”—she consulted her archaic Lady Elgin wristwatch—“it is now nine twenty-eight. I shall barely have time to get there.” Her expression
was suddenly very sober. “Which means that I must prepare myself to tell her what has happened.”
And it will be extremely difficult.

The cop shook his head. “No you won’t. I’ll see that the young lady is notified.” But this was a new wrinkle. “How old is this stepdaughter?”

“Seventeen. Very close to eighteen, I believe.”

He wrote this down. “Her name?”

“Nancy. Nancy
Yazzi.
” She spelled the surname.

After he jotted this information in his notebook, Parris looked through the front window at a gay display of flashing red-and-blue lights. “Just Mr. Wetzel and his stepdaughter occupied your rental property?”

“That is correct. I understand that the girl’s mother left some time ago.” Miss Muntz had heard rumors about Chiquita Yazzi running off with
another man,
but she would not repeat such distasteful gossip.

“Where are you supposed to pick up Miss Yazzi?”

“The Silver Mountain Hotel.” The landlady glanced at her watch. “She’s attending a dance.”

Holy smoke.
“Is she at Sarah Frank’s birthday party?”

“Why, yes.”
However did he know that?
“Nancy was invited about a week ago, by the gentleman who was organizing the event.”

“Charlie Moon?”

“I believe that was the name Nancy mentioned.” An amused smile. “You are certainly well-informed.”

“Yes ma’am.” Basking in the compliment, Parris returned the smile. “Hold on while I make a quick call.” He fumbled for the phone in his jacket pocket, selected the programmed number for his Ute friend.

Charlie Moon answered after two rings, his deep voice almost drowned out by the happy pandemonium. “What’s up, pard?”

“Uh, you know a guest of Sarah’s—” Parris squinted at the scrawl in his notebook.
I got to learn to write so I can read what I wrote.
“Nancy . . . uh . . . Yoxxi?”

“You mean Nancy Yazzi?”

“Right. I understand you invited the young lady to the birthday party.”

“Sure. She’s a friend of Sarah’s.”
And the kid don’t have many friends.
“What’s up?”

Parris turned his back on Miss Muntz, lowered his voice. “Her stepfather’s been shot and killed.”

The Southern Ute tribal investigator digested this unpalatable piece of information. “Sorry to hear it.”

“The dead guy’s Hermann Wetzel. The two of ’em lived alone.” The chief of police cleared his throat. “This is going to be a big shock for Miss Yazzi, and she’s going to need someplace to stay for a few days. Maybe with a friend. Somewhere out of town would be nice. But not too far away.” He let the heavy hint hang in the air.

Charlie Moon understood what was expected of him. “You want me to put Nancy up at the Hotel Columbine?”

Parris chuckled. “Now that you mention it, that sounds like a great notion.”

Moon’s close call with the ladies who were expecting an invitation to dance was still fresh in his mind.
If I take that pretty young girl out to the Columbine with me—and leave Lila Mae here at the hotel—that might not go down too well.
Which dilemma, it seemed, contained the seeds of a solution. “I’ll see what I can work out.”

“Great.”

“But for tonight, I’ll book Miss Yazzi a room at the Silver Mountain. Lila Mae’s staying here, so she can help look after her.”

“I really appreciate it. Otherwise, I’d have to refer the kid to social services.”

“Consider it done.”

“Thanks, buddy. Catch you later.” Parris folded and pocketed the instrument. “Charlie Moon’ll look after the stepdaughter,” he told Miss Muntz.

“I am pleased to hear it.” She seated herself in a rocking chair, closed her eyes and sighed. “To be perfectly frank, after all the excitement, I was not looking forward to driving into town—much less breaking the tragic news to poor Nancy.”

“Don’t worry your head about that, ma’am.” Parris squared his big, brawny shoulders, set his prominent jaw. “When stuff like this happens, breaking bad news is my job.”
But this time, good ol’ Charlie will end up doing it for me.

News of the shooting had already spread from the Granite Creek Police Department to the Silver Mountain Hotel, dashed in a flash from the front desk into the main ballroom. Within a few minutes of Parris’s call to Moon, most of the attendees of the birthday party were privy to the information. One of the notable exceptions was FBI Special Agent Lila Mae McTeague. The aloof woman was not the sort of stranger to whom one sauntered up and passed on local gossip.

When Charlie Moon jingled the bell on the registration desk, a helpful clerk appeared instantly. Over the party hullabaloo, he managed to reserve a room for Nancy Yazzi. As soon as this was accomplished, he found the dead man’s stepdaughter in the ballroom, caught her eye, and gave her a barely discernible “come with me” nod.

Feeling oddly numb, Nancy followed the tribal investigator into the hotel lobby.

Only two persons at the birthday party noticed the subtle signal that had passed between Charlie Moon and Miss Yazzi and watched the pretty girl depart.

Sarah Frank was wide-eyed with curiosity.
Charlie looked awfully worried; something must be wrong.

The other keen-eyed observer was FBI Special Agent Lila Mae McTeague, who arched a finely penciled brow.
What is this all about?
Her fertile imagination conjured up several possibilities. Including one that embarrassed her.
Oh, but that’s so silly—I know Charlie better than that.
Her mouth, which apparently disagreed, went thin.
Or do I?
It took a distinct effort to suppress this uncharitable thought and substitute a generous impulse:
If there is some kind of trouble, perhaps I can be of assistance.

As Moon and Nancy Yazzi withdrew to a far corner of the hotel lobby, the drums and gourd rattles in the ballroom suddenly stopped.

This unexpected silence was ominous to Hermann Wetzel’s stepdaughter. She clutched a cheap plastic purse to her chest. “What is it?”

“Some bad news, I’m afraid.”

She stared at him.

Moon was alarmed by the glazed look in her eyes.
She’s gonna faint.
“Why don’t you sit down.”

“No. Just tell me.” The girl felt her hands go ice-cold, her knees buckle. She also felt Moon’s arms catch her.

LILA MAE
McTeague arrived at the ballroom door just in time to see the
embrace.
Stunned, she turned away, returned to her place at the table.

MOON EASED
the girl onto a leather couch.

“I’m okay.” Nancy sat up straight as a steel fence post and looked him straight in the eye. “Please—just tell me.”

“There’s been a shooting at your home.” He hesitated. “I’m sorry. It’s your stepfather.”

“Oh,” she murmured. “Hermann . . . is he
dead
?”

“Yes.” Charlie Moon was about to tell the young woman that he had made arrangements for her to stay at the hotel for the night, when Sarah, who had picked up the news that something terrible had happened to Nancy’s stepfather, showed up. The brand-new sixteen-year-old grabbed Nancy in a hug and invited her to stay at Charlie Moon’s ranch for a few days.

Nancy Yazzi accepted the invitation.

So much for a prudent man’s plans.

The Interview

Now that the police had assumed responsibility for Nancy Yazzi’s welfare, Miss Muntz was sufficiently composed to submit to the official interrogation. “Please sit down, Mr. Parris.” Being particular about such matters, she showed him where.

The chief of police eased himself into the spindly-looking armchair, hoped it would not collapse under his weight. It did not. Like the woman who owned it, the piece was more sturdy than appearances would suggest.

She seated herself opposite him, on a couch. “I’ve already told those two policemen what happened.”

“I know, and I appreciate it. But I haven’t had much time to talk to Officers Knox or Slocum, and anyway I thought it’d be better to hear it right from the horse’s mouth.” He blushed. “Uh—so to speak.”

“Very well.”
He is rather an amusing young man.
To better recall the unnerving events of the evening, Miss Muntz closed her eyes. “I was upstairs in my sewing room, attempting to knit a sweater. There is an excellent view of my rental property from the east window. I saw a shadowy form approach the Wetzel residence and enter the front door.”

“What did this person look like?”

“I would prefer not to attempt a description—there wasn’t all that much light.”

The former Chicago cop pressed: “Tall or short? Fat or thin?”

“Oh . . . I’m not entirely sure.”

He suppressed a grin. “Was it a man or a woman?”

“I’m sorry that I can’t be of more help.” Miss Muntz clasped her pale hands as if concealing something precious and averted her bright blue eyes from his steady gaze. “The sun had gone down and it was very hard to see.”

She must’ve only seen a shadow.
Then, there was the other possibility:
Or she’s holding out on me.
He scribbled a question mark on the pad, circled it. “So what happened next?”

“I telephoned Mr. Wetzel to alert him, but I had barely gotten a few words out of my mouth when he said that he heard someone upstairs, and hung up. I assumed that he intended to find out who had entered his home. I went downstairs. When I heard the gunshots, I immediately dialed 911 and reported the incident.”

Scott Parris smiled at the witness, who reminded him of his mother. “What happened after that?”

She hesitated, almost blushed. “I know it will seem extraordinarily silly of me, but I slipped on my raincoat and hurried across the street to find out what had happened.”