Snake Dreams (18 page)

The policeman assumed a stern scowl and shook his head. “That was very dangerous, Miss Muntz. The killer might’ve taken a shot at you.”

She raised her chin defiantly. “I had a perfect right to check on my tenant.”

Silly old woman.
“I understand you saw the guy who crossed the road in front of the lady’s car.”

“Oh my yes—he was illuminated by Mrs. Burch’s headlights. He was a big, husky fellow. And he wore a hat.”

Parris nodded at his fedora on the end table. “Like mine?”

She gave the sixty-year-old hat an appraising look. “No. The man crossing the road wore a broad-brimmed hat. Like the ones cowboys wear.”

“Anything else that might help us ID him?”

She took a deep breath. Held it for a few heartbeats. “I cannot
be absolutely certain on this point, but he appeared to have a beard.”

“Uh-huh.”
That description matches what we got from Mrs. Burch.

The lady also had a question to ask: “Do you believe that the big man who crossed the street is the same person who entered Mr. Wetzel’s home—and shot him?”

“We’ll have to wait and see how things play out, but it’s pretty likely.” Parris doodled a cartoon of a fat, bearded man in a cowboy hat onto his notebook. “Ten to one, he was a burglar who got caught in the act.”
A burglar who was packing.

“This is beginning to sound like what the police detectives on the TV shows call an ‘open and shut’ case.”

“Most of ’em are, Miss Muntz. We’ve already got a bulletin out for a bearded guy who’s about six-four, two hundred and fifty pounds. Chances are pretty good that we’ll pick him up before daylight.”
But if we don’t, he’ll likely be long gone.
Scott Parris snapped his notebook shut and got up from the armchair with a grunt. “I appreciate your help, ma’am.” The chief of police gave the witness a business card that included his GCPD direct telephone line. “If you think of anything else I oughta know, give me call.” He returned the hat to its customary, comfortable spot atop his balding head.

As she escorted the big, brawny cop to her front door, he stopped. “Oh, there’s one more thing.”

She blinked. “Yes?”

“Do you know whether your tenant owned a gun?”

“He certainly did—and more than one!” Miss Muntz clasped her hands and sighed. “I would not be surprised if you found a dozen firearms on the premises.” After a thoughtful frown, she whispered, “Mr. Wetzel always had a pistol close at hand.”

Now that’s interesting.
“What about the outside doors—did Wetzel keep ’em locked?”

“Oh my yes.” She shook her head at the irony. “I believe he had a concern about intruders.”

Parris thanked the helpful lady, tipped his hat, and departed.

As she watched the lawman take heavy, purposeful strides down the driveway to his sleek black-and-white Chevrolet, Miss Muntz drifted off into a reflective mood.
It would be so nice if life could be simple and straightforward. Why does everything have to be so complicated—so terribly messy!

Across the street from Miss Muntz’s residence, a certain Lady in Blue had done her work extremely well.

Scott Parris was absolutely
beaming
upon Officer Alicia Martin. Had he not been restrained by (a) being somewhat shy and (b) the Official Copper’s Rule Book of Professional Conduct, the happy fellow would have hugged her breathless. Kissed her on both cheeks.

What, one might ask, has engendered such passion in the heart of the grumpy, middle-aged chief of police? Here is the straight scoop. It was not only because Ms. Martin was one of his most competent officers. And not simply because she was a cute little blonde with eyes as blue as a summer sky, though that did help. His beam was particularly bright tonight because Officer Martin, while searching the grounds of the Wetzel residence with the aid of her five-cell thug-thumper flashlight, had discovered something of interest in a prickly huckleberry bush.

A Smith & Wesson .38 Special revolver, model 10.

This pistol was, almost without a doubt, the murder weapon—and if Fortune was displaying a toothy smile upon Officer Martin with half the candlepower emitted by her delighted supervisor, there would be fingerprints on the pistol. Nice clean prints that would identify someone of ill repute whose grubby fingertips had, at some previous date, been inked and rolled on the white cardboard, and were now among those millions of records residing in the FBI files.

What Is It About Girls and Their Pickup Trucks?

Sarah Frank (bless her innocent heart!) was determined to step in and help her friend. After hugging a dry-eyed Nancy Yazzi and assuring her that things would be all right, the Ute-Papago orphan commenced to do everything in her power to distract the late Hermann Wetzel’s stepdaughter from the evening’s grim events. In her enthusiasm, the guest of honor had quite forgotten about the roomful of guests who had come to celebrate her birthday, and the huge pile of presents that must be loaded up and carted away to the Columbine—except for one. The spiffy red pickup truck.

Clutching Mr. Zig-Zag under her arm, Sarah used her free hand to grasp Nancy Yazzi’s wrist and practically dragged her out of the hotel, where the F-150 waited by the curb.

A bemused Moon remained in the lobby, arms crossed, watching them go. The gratified gift giver presumed that Sarah’s intent was to show off the best present of all.

Which was what she did.

The girls got into the cab with Sarah yammering at about three hundred syllables a minute, which was faster than Nancy could listen. She repeated practically every word the Wyoming Kyd had said about the recently rejuvenated truck, from the overhauled engine to the new brakes and rebuilt transmission, several coats of paint, brand-new AM-FM radio, oversized chrome bumpers, halogen headlights, even the cute little
mirror on the driver’s sun visor that lit up when you slid the cover off it.

As Nancy Yazzi offered the occasional mumble and nod, she stared unblinkingly through the windshield. She was attempting to penetrate the darkness that enveloped her, conjure up answers to the questions that bedeviled her.
I wonder where Jake is right now. Probably someplace as far away as he can get from Granite Creek.
She felt her lower lip tremble.
When he can, Jake will come back for me.
Tears glistened in her eyes.
And no matter how long it takes, I’ll be waiting.

But in the meantime, which might be a long time, Nancy realized that she must not utter the least hint about her connection with Jake Harper, or how her stepfather had abused her.
With a little bit of luck, the cops won’t ever know who killed that filthy rotten bastard.
This hopeful thought was disturbed by a query from Sarah Frank, who had pushed a key into the ignition switch. Nancy turned to the driver. “Uh, what did you say?”

Sarah repeated the question: “Do you want to go right now?”

“Go where?”

“To the Columbine.”

Nancy shrugged. “Why not?”

There was a very good reason why not. Sarah Frank was not allowed to drive without a licensed driver in the motor vehicle whose name was on her learner’s permit. But it would be unreasonable, particularly at the end of such an exciting day, to expect her to remember such niggling little details as this. And she did not. With all the expertise one would expect of a student who had come in next to first in her driver’s-ed class, she put her foot on the brake pedal, made sure the gear shift was in Park, cranked the engine to life, glanced at the rearview mirror, consulted similar reflectors mounted on each door, pulled the small lever down to signal a left turn, shifted to Drive, gave the steering wheel a twist, and let ’er rip.
Vrrrooom!

At the instant he saw the turn signal, Mr. Moon made a
dash for the street. As Sarah was pulling away, he had one boot on the sidewalk.

Good try, Charlie.

Jerome Kydmann had seen the boss sprint out of the lobby and, as they say in this neck of the woods,
took out after him.

As Moon headed for his Expedition, he yelled at his employee, “I’m gonna follow those kids, Jerome. You take care of things here—look after Aunt Daisy!”

ASIDE FROM
a couple of amateurish slips (running a pesky red light that she thought should have stayed yellow
just a teensy-weensy bit longer,
doing thirty-nine in a twenty-five miles per hour zone, missing a right turn at the main intersection, driving over the curb when she made a wide U-turn, and turning right on red back at the intersection when the green arrow was permitting only left turns (which was why she came
this close
to colliding with a VW bug), Sarah Frank figured she was not doing all that bad. For a beginner. By the time she got back on track, Charlie Moon was
ahead
of the birthday pickup and already at the edge of town. He slowed down when he couldn’t see a single taillight on the straight-as-an-arrow highway that stretched off yonder toward the Columbine.
They’ve probably stopped at some ice cream or burger joint.
Knowing the location of every such establishment, the cowboy gourmand did a nice, tight U-turn and headed back into town. Immediately, he saw the red pickup coming right at him. Moon flashed his lights, which got Sarah’s attention. As the they passed in the night he saw her flash a smile and wave.

“That was Charlie,” Sarah told her passenger. “He’s probably out looking for us.”
He is such a sweetie.

As he made another nice, tight U-turn, Mr. Sweetie was muttering something about teenage drivers that was just a tad on the critical side. As he pulled within sight of Sarah’s pickup, he remembered something that he should not have forgotten in
the first place. Make that some
one
he should not have forgotten in the first place.

Lila Mae.

I guess I should’ve said something to her before I took off.
But, he reasoned, there had not been time.
She probably don’t even know I’m gone.
Perhaps. But in an instance such as this, the volatile combination of guessing and reasoning and wishful thinking might just explode in his face.

On the other hand, he had left the Kyd in charge, and Mr. Jerome Kydmann was not only Moon’s right-hand man; it was the general consensus of the Columbine employees (and everyone knows what keen judgment cowboys have) that the Wyoming Kyd was the smartest hand on the ranch. Now it’s true that the Kyd was sharp as a tack when it came to things like dosing a horse suffering from the dreaded yellow-eye colic or mowing hay that was just a mite too wet, and he could set a line of fence posts so straight you could shoot your Winchester rifle from one end post to the other and the slug would pass dead center over every post in between. But, as we already know, he was a bit slow when it came to communicating with women. Which is no doubt why, when Miss McTeague (accompanied by Daisy Perika) entered the hotel lobby, spotted Moon’s brightest employee, and inquired, “Where is Charlie?” he responded much as he had when Sarah Frank had posed the same question: “Some important business came up the boss had to attend to.”

Now anyone who knows her will tell you that Miss McTeague has an imperious way of arching her left eyebrow that beggars description. But one must have a go at it. That dainty little line of hairs over her big, beautiful eyeball absolutely bristled, and as much as said, in rapid succession,
You’re lying through your teeth, Buckwheat!
and
What kind of important business?
Now any woman you might come across would have understood that straightaway, but the Kyd (aka Buckwheat) didn’t get it, so Lila Mae was obliged to repeat the second remark out loud. “What kind of important business?”

He flashed the disarming smile. “Oh, with ol’ Charlie you
never know—but whatever it is, I expect he’ll be back before first light.” By way of punctuation, he added a “ha-ha!” Mr. Kydmann, bless his happy soul, figured that any girlfriend of Charlie Moon’s would be bound to have a sense of humor.

Which assumption was somewhat presumptuous. To quote the FBI agent’s father, a quite jolly fellow, “Lila Mae’s just like her mother. When senses of humor was being doled out, the both of ’em was elsewhere, probably tossing rotten tomatoes at Jack Benny or Red Skelton.”

A little harsh. But McTeague’s eyes went flat, like a well-fed rattlesnake about to fang a mouse just for the hell of it. “Indeed.” That was all she said. It was sufficient.

Having just about shot his wad, the Kyd took to licking his lips. A sure sign he was bumfuzzled.

Daisy took this opportunity to insert herself into the conversation. “So what am I supposed to do, stand around here all night waiting for my nephew to drive me to his ranch?”

Hoping for better results with the tribal elder, Kydmann shook his head. “Oh no, ma’am.” He tipped the white John B. Stetson hat. “I’ll take you to the Columbine.”

Always ready to start a fire, the Ute woman struck flint to steel. Nodding to indicate Charlie Moon’s sweetheart, she said, as sweetly as honey dripping from the comb, “What about her?”

Now the Kyd was unaware that Moon had reserved a hotel room for Lila Mae, but, always ready to assist a lady, he found a faint remnant of the grin. “Oh, I’m sure Charlie would want me to take you wherever you want to go, ma’am.”