The Witch's Tongue (12 page)

Hunched forward in an uncomfortable swivel chair, Charlie Moon looked across Scott Parris’s desk at the Granite Creek chief of police. “I went to the hospital to see Ralph. He’s still in intensive care. Surgeon took the slug out, but he’s got a collapsed lung and a couple of blood vessels severed. Floor nurse says he’s in critical condition.”

“Yeah, I know.” Parris pressed the Hold All Calls button on his desktop telephone console. “He’s been in a coma since the surgery.”

Moon clasped his hands together, making a massive fist. “So what’ve we got on the shooting?”

Parris waved his arms in a gesture of futility. “I could talk for hours about what we
haven’t
got.” The sandy-haired man turned his head to look out a second-story window at the rocky creek whence the silver-mining settlement had taken its name in the early 1870s. “We haven’t got a suspect. Despite Ralph telling you that he got a call from an unknown person who
claimed
to have the Cassidy Museum loot, I don’t have a motive I can hang my hat on. And between you and Miss James, we don’t have a witness who saw enough of the shooter to tell me whether the suspect is fat or thin, tall or short, male or…” He picked up a massive glass paperweight, turned it in his hands, stared at the object without seeing his distorted reflection on the curved surface. “Nobody even saw the perp drive away.”

Charlie Moon stared at his scuffed boots. “Which would suggest that he was on foot. Or maybe he had his wheels parked a couple of hundred yards away—probably in that grove of pines down by the highway.”

“Yeah,” Parris said. “He could’ve cranked the engine, drove off without turning his lights on.”

This wasn’t going anywhere. “What about the weapon?”

Parris reached into a desk drawer, laid a transparent plastic bag on the polished oak surface. Hermetically sealed and tagged—along with the flattened slug recovered from Ralph Briggs’s chest—this was the only significant piece of physical evidence in the shooting of the antiquarian.

Moon got up from the chair, leaned to study the deadly instrument. It was a .22-caliber Smith & Wesson revolver. Blued steel, custom rosewood grips. Two-inch barrel. Small enough for a man to drop into his hip pocket.

The chief of police smiled at the sidearm. “Pretty little thing, ain’t it?”

“I guess it’d be too much to hope for some prints.”

“There were some smudges. Nothing useful.”

Moon grasped at another straw: “Any chance of tracing the owner?”

“State crime lab’s working on it. FBI forensics also has a complete set of photographic data, serial number, and some sample slugs we shot into a barrel of water.” Turning again to the window, the chief of police watched a small boy dangle a fishing line into Granite Creek. The ardent angler wished he were down there on the bank, casting one of his handmade mayfly lures onto the rolling waters. “This six-shooter was manufactured about sixty-five years ago. There have probably been at least a half-dozen owners over the years.” He sighed. “But sooner or later, we’ll turn up something.”
And sooner or later, the Cubs will win the World Series
.

The tribal investigator reached out to touch the plastic bag, feel the steel surface of the precision machine beneath the 3-mil polyethylene film. “It’s hard to believe this shooting was premeditated.”

Parris replied, without taking his gaze off the stream, “Yeah, I know what you mean. If I was going somewhere intending to pop lead at a fella I wanted dead—this little peashooter would not be my weapon of choice. Not even if I could stick the barrel in the guy’s ear.” He swiveled his chair to face the Ute. “So what does that suggest?”

Moon thought about it. “Try this on for size. What we’re dealing with is a break-and-enter artist, like the guy who carted off the Cassidy valuables. The .22 is the burglar’s pocket gun. It’s not intended for any serious shooting—he packs it because it gives him a feeling of security. He shows up at Ralph Briggs’s antique store after dark, hoping to conduct some business. The small windows on the porch are open. He comes close, hears Ralph telling me all about how some lowlife had called him about unloading the loot from the Cassidy burglary, how Ralph wants me to set up an ambush, put the arm on the felon when the stolen goods are exchanged for cash. The burglar took a dim view of this.”

The chief of police propped his elbows on the desk, stared at his hands, made a peaked roof with his fingers. “But this shooter only plugged Ralph.” He looked up at the Ute. “He never even takes a pop at you.”

Moon wondered what was bothering his moody friend. “Bad guy knows Ralph can ID him, so Ralph is naturally his first priority. Burglar’s first shot gets Ralph in the chest. I would’ve been his second target, but my sweetheart is screaming bloody murder, so he decides to call it a day.”

The lawman allowed himself a thin smile. “I can imagine when you came crashing though that plate-glass window like a mountain gorilla on steroids, it must’ve unnerved the shooter some little bit. So he scrams without firing a second shot.” Parris allowed his finger tent to collapse. “But aren’t we lucky that he drops his piece.”

“Fits with the burglar personality,” the tribal investigator said. “The guy’s a sneak thief—not a professional assassin. He panics, drops his pistol when things get out of hand.” Moon frowned at the chief of police. “Scott, would you feel better if he’d shot me, then carried the gun away with him?”

Parris considered the last half of the question with some care.

The Ute assumed a hurt look. “I was hoping you’d speak up right away and say, ‘No, pardner—why, I’d feel real bad if things had turned out that way.’”

“How’s Miss James doing?” The chief of police played with a ballpoint pen. “She remember anything yet?”

“There’s nothing to remember,” Moon said. “I figure she heard the shot, yelled, got out of the car to come help me.”

“Right. How is she holding up?”

“Under the circumstances, pretty good, I guess.”

I guess?
Parris grabbed this little thread, pulled on it. “You haven’t seen her lately?”

Being of the firm opinion that this was no one’s business but his own, the tribal investigator avoided a direct answer. “I’m having dinner with her tonight.”

“Where? Sugar Bowl? Blue Light?”

Moon grinned. “None of your business.”

“Well, I was only asking as a matter of—”

“Last thing I want is for the local chief of police to just happen to drop by our table, invite himself to a seat, start telling my lady long-winded lies about his many harrowing adventures as a Chicago cop in the pursuit of preserving law and order.”

Parris snorted. “I can understand how a bumpus like you would not want any competition from a class-A ladies’ man like myself.”

“That’s right. Not even when that ladies’ man is old enough to be my father.”

“Father is a little much.” Parris seemed genuinely hurt by this remark. “I always thought of myself more like…well, an older brother.”

Moon put on his hat. “Well, older brother, I’d like to hang around all day and keep you from getting any useful work done. But I got places to go and stuff to do.”

The Granite Creek chief of police watched the tribal investigator depart. When the click of Ute’s boots down the stairwell was but an echo in his memory, Scott Parris picked up the bagged firearm. He examined the Smith & Wesson .22 for the ninety-ninth time. And wondered whether Charlie Moon had noticed that this revolver was one of that special line manufactured for and marketed to a particular gender. It was, in point of fact—a LadySmith.

The restaurant door was made from two layers of aged spruce planks. These were fastened together with corroded one-inch brass bolts salvaged from steam engines and pumps abandoned eleven decades ago at the Orphaned Burro silver mine. Charlie Moon pushed the heavy door open for the lady. “You didn’t need to drive. I could have picked you up.”

“That’s very sweet of you.” Miss James gave him a quick, brittle smile. “But I’ll be needing my car. I have an errand to run later.”

In the center of the dining room, bathed in the soft glow of a honey-colored lamp, a bald, hawk-nosed pianist fingered the ivories on a massive Steinway. The twilight atmosphere vibrated with Chopin’s Prelude in D flat major. Musical raindrops fell sweetly upon the few patrons.

An hour later, Charlie Moon was slicing succulent chunks off a twenty-ounce prime rib. The rancher silently computed the cost per pound at Phillipe’s Streamside Restaurant—wished he could get 10 percent of that for his prime Columbine beef.

Having hardly touched her trout amandine, Miss James patted her lips with an embroidered cotton napkin. “It is an absolutely lovely place.” She glanced at her date. “But terribly expensive.”

Charlie Moon shrugged in a manful attempt to convey the impression that money meant nothing to him. In truth, the wallet he sat on felt tissue thin.

The pretty woman sipped at her iced tea. “Do you come here often?”

“Oh, sure. Me’n the boys from the Columbine drop in here most Saturday afternoons to whoop it up during happy hour.” There was a smile in his eyes. “That’s when Moon Pies and RC Colas go for half price. And best of all,” he nodded to indicate the pianist, “the ivory tickler dinks out the good stuff. Like ‘Orange Blossom Special.’ And ‘She Don’t Hear a Word That I Say.’”

“Yes,” she said absently. “That sounds nice.” The woman was looking past him. At a ghostly something only she could see.

A waiter in razor-creased black slacks, a pink silk shirt, and an immaculate white jacket materialized at Moon’s elbow. Luis gave the couple dessert menus, promised to return in a moment, and vanished as magically as he had appeared.

Miss James made it known that she had no interest in dessert.

Charlie Moon took her hand in his, made it known that he had no interest in any woman but her.

Her hand was like ice.

The Ute had not been so scared since the ninth grade, when he asked Rachel Lopez to go to the movies with him. His throat was as dry as the high-plains dust blowing past the window. Moon put his free hand in his jacket pocket. “There’s something I need to say.”

The lady looked at her plate. “Charlie—please don’t.”

Moon tried to smile. “Don’t what?”

She almost managed to meet his eyes. “I know what you’re going to ask me.”

He blinked. “You do?”

She nodded. “I would rather you did not.” A single tear traced its way down her face.

He pulled his hand from his pocket. It was empty. He was empty.

She wiped the tear away, cleared her throat. “May I tell you a story?”

“Yeah,” he croaked. “But make it a funny one. Right now I could use a good laugh.”

“I’m afraid I cannot oblige you.” She took a deep breath. “This is a very, very sad story.” Ever so slowly, ever so gently, she withdrew her hand from his. “Once upon a happy time, I had a wonderful man. Christopher. He was a police detective. We were very happy, and engaged to be married on the first day of June. It happened on the twenty-ninth of May. Chris went into a pawn shop to pick up something…something very special for me. But he—” She could not go on.

The tribal investigator nodded. “I believe I know the rest of the story.” He’d heard it too many times.

Miss James forced the words from her mouth: “It was all so absurd. So…so needless.” She put a hand over her eyes. “One minute he was alive and happy; the next moment he was dead.” Her lips twisted into a bitter smile. “It was insane.”

Moon didn’t have to ask what this had to do with him. He knew.

But she told him. “The other night, when I thought you were going to be—” She shook her head as if to dispel the hateful memory. “It all came back to me.” She gave him a pleading look. “Charlie, I could not go through that again. When Chris was shot and killed, I…I almost lost my mind.”

Enough had been said. They dispensed with words.

After a six-minute eternity, Luis returned. Hands clasped behind his back, the waiter glanced meaningfully at the dessert menus on the table. Inquired what the lady wished.

Miss James’s whisper, directed to no one in particular, was barely audible. The lady wished to go home.

Charlie Moon wished to be in another century. One with a smaller number. He asked for the check.

After he closed her car door, Moon leaned on the white Mercedes. “I’ll call you in a couple of days. Or,” he added in a hopeful tone, “maybe I’ll drop by.”

Her white-knuckled hands gripped the ivory steering wheel as if it were a life preserver. Miss James looked straight ahead. Toward a long, lonely road. The destination was hidden in darkness. “No.”

Moon felt a numbness creeping along his limbs.

She raised her chin in a pathetic gesture of defiance. “I will not be there.”

He tried to smile; it felt like his face might break. “Where’ll you be?”

“Far, far away.” She inserted the ignition key, cranked the engine.

He stared at her delicate profile. “When’ll you be coming back?”

Miss James mouthed the words like an automaton: “I will not.” She stepped on the gas pedal.

The tires kicked up gravel, pelting the Ute like a hail of bullets.

The wounded man watched the sleek automobile slip away. The taillights stared back at him until they disappeared over a distant rise in the prairie.

Morning’s warm breath sighed with the weeping willows. Ripples skimmed across the face of the glacial lake, glittering reddish copper in the rising sun. The Columbine hound was curled up on the sandy bank, sleeping his life away. Charlie Moon sat on a cottonwood log, his gaze fastened on the water. He had achieved that state of being in which he was barely aware of his own existence.

Sidewinder awoke suddenly, raised his head in a jerking motion. The old dog blinked bloodshot eyes, rumbled a low growl.

Charlie heard the distant footsteps in the dry grass, recognized the measured gait. He did not turn to look.

The dog got to his feet, stretched a hind leg, yawned.

Scott Parris stopped at the shoreline, stared at a redwood sign. “Lake Jesse, is it?”

The silent Ute watched a ruffled-looking raven land on the charred limb of a lightning-killed ponderosa.

The Granite Creek chief of police seated himself on the log beside his friend. “Mild day for this time of year.”

No response.

“Kinda makes a man want to just go somewhere and sit beside a lake.”

“Yeah,” the rancher muttered.
Where he don’t have to put up with pointless conversation
.

Parris picked a smooth gray stone from the sandy beach, rolled it in his hand. “I sense that you’re in a tetchy mood.”

“I’m in tiptop temperament, thank you.”

“No you ain’t, Charlie. You just think you are.”

“Thank you for setting me straight.”

“You’re welcome. And not only do I see that you have got the bluest kind of blues—I know
why
your guts are all tied in knots. Why you can’t sleep a wink. Why you don’t have any appetite. Why you—”

“If I was to suffer from any of those maladies, it might be because certain folks come around from time to time and annoy me half to death.”

Distracted by a fat rainbow trout breaking the surface of Lake Jesse, Parris frowned at empty space. “Where was I?”

“You were about to tell me you can’t stay but a minute because—”

“Oh yeah, I remember now. You want to hear why your guts are all tied in knots?”

“I would rather eat a cactus sandwich.”

“Okay, if you twist my arm.” Parris put on a satisfied expression. “You’re all messed up because your woman left you.”

Moon gave him a hard look. “Left me?”

“Aha—then you admit it!”

“I don’t admit nothing.”

Parris patted his best friend on the back. “Let it all out, pard.”

“Okay. Here it comes—you are beginning to get on my nerves.”

“Now that’s the ticket. Heap abuse on your best buddy. Hey, I don’t mind bein’ bad-mouthed if it’ll help my suffering friend. That’s what I’m here for.”

The Ute rolled his eyes.

Parris threw the stone, skipping it six times across the water. “When you was with her at Phillipe’s overpriced hash house—did you pop the big question?”

“How’d you know we were at Phillipe’s?”

Sidewinder came to sniff at Parris’s knee, was rewarded with a pat on the head. “I am the chief of police—I’ve got spies everywhere. But you didn’t respond to my inquiry. Did you pop the question, or did you not?”

“That is none of your business.”

“Everything in this county is my business.” Parris gave the tribal investigator a sly look, tried to sound like he was making small talk. “You know where she’s gone?”

“Ask one of your spies.”

I bet you don’t know
. “It’s just as well she dumped you. It would’ve never worked out between you and her.”

“How do you figure that?”

“I’m a world-class expert on woman problems.”

“Right.”

“And I’m just the guy to tell you—you must not mope about.” Scott Parris waved his hand to indicate the vast panorama before them. “There are plenty more women out there.”

The Ute shaded his eyes from the sun and gazed at the empty prairie. “Amazing. I do not see a single one.”

“Don’t be a smart Aleck. You know what I mean—you can’t afford to get depressed about one solitary example of womanhood.”

“She was one in a million.”

Parris snapped his fingers. “That just goes to prove my point.”

“Is this where you make a futile attempt to explain what you’re talking about?”

“Of course—now listen close. You know well as I do that there’s no use playing against a pat hand. So grit your teeth and look the odds straight in the eye. You said so yourself—Miss James is one in a million. But it is a known fact that not one woman in
eleven
million ends up married to a man who is seven feet tall in his bare feet.”

Moon attempted to skip a flat pebble across the lake. He was shooting for at least a seven count. The stone sank after three feeble hops, did not rise again. “You are certain of this statistic?”

“Certainly. I looked it up in a book.”

The hound scratched enthusiastically at his neck.

Charlie Moon had to say it: “I have to admit it—I was feeling fairly bad before you showed up.”

“Thank you.”

“Now I feel five hundred percent worse.”

“Charlie, you are always jumping to conclusions. Like right now—you are wrong to assume that my work here is done. Fact is, I have not even got started.”

“Somehow, this news does not encourage me.”

Parris continued with an air of unshakable confidence. “Describing what your problem is—that’s just the diagnosis. Me, I’m not one to point out a big ugly boil on my pardner’s neck without being prepared to
lance
it.” He reached into his pocket.

Moon cast a wary eye on the unpredictable white man. “If you pull a sharp-pointed knife outta your britches—”

“Try to remain calm.” Parris produced an object strung on a steel ring. “Do you know what this is?”

Moon squinted at the display. “A car key?”

Parris shook his head.

“No?”

“Nay and negatory, my lovesick friend. This is Dr. Parris’s prescription for what ails you.” The chief of police got up from the log with a grunt, grinned down at his reluctant patient. “Let’s ooze on back toward your big house. I got something to show you.”

Knowing where they were going, the dog trotted along in front of the men.

IT WAS
fire-engine red, streaked with glistening chrome, sitting confidently on big knobby tires. And it was parked right next to Charlie Moon’s tired old F-150.
For the added advantage of contrast
, the Ute thought.
The way a pretty girl likes to sit beside a homely one
. He stared.

A satisfied grin split the white man’s face. “You know what that is?”

The rancher frowned with intense concentration. “A pickup truck?”

Disappointed by his friend’s lack of imagination, Parris shook his head. “That is not even close.”

Moon shrugged. “Well, if I’m wrong I’ll be the first to admit it.” He pointed at the vehicle. “But you have to admit—it sure
looks
a lot like a pickup truck.”

Parris threw his hands up in an eloquent gesture of frustration. “Charlie, this is not a pickup truck—this is
the
pickup truck. There ain’t a four-wheel-drive buggy in the whole state of Colorado like this one.”

This claim piqued the Ute’s interest. “There ain’t?”

“Or for that matter, in the whole United States of America. And I’m not just talking lower forty-eight.” Parris tapped a blunt finger on the fender. “This here F-350 is a
bad
machine.”

Moon reached out to touch the massive chrome bumper. “It does look like a woolly-booger all right. But I already got me a pickup.”

Parris shook his head sadly at the beat-up F-150. “That thirty-year-old box on wheels was all right in its day. But the era of carburetors and manual chokes is long gone.” The white man patted the bright red fender. “This is the twenty-first century.”

“Don’t remind me.” The Ute was longing for an earlier, simpler time.

“Charlie, you just don’t get it. This ain’t just another beefed-up pickup—what we have here is practically the same thing as a Ford
concept
vehicle.”

The rancher rested his boot on the bumper-mounted winch. “So what’s the concept?”

“Bigger is better. More is macho. Traction is where the action is.” He flashed a toothy smile at his friend. “Horsepower is what makes a man happy.”

“Right at the moment, I’m not in the mood to be happy.”

“Now there’s the crux of your problem. This latest woman has left you like all the others. Sooner or later, you’ll be prowling coffee shops, trying to pick up some cheap floozy who lives on green tea and organic prunes. But by and by, it’ll all come to nothing. Like as not, you’ll end up an old, lonely, cranky bachelor—with no friends at all except me.” Parris glanced at Sidewinder. “And your dog will die.”

Moon seemed untroubled. “Before or after you do?”

“You should take care not to hurt my feelings.” Parris beamed at the pickup. “I brought this fine machine out here from the Happy Dan’s Custom Trucks and Vans just for you. If you like it, Happy Dan will set you up with a killer deal. No money down, no payments for several months, zero percent interest.”

“What’s the gas mileage?”

Parris shook his head. “You know what’s wrong with you, Chuck?”

“Is that what they call a rhetorical question?”

“What’s wrong with you is you got a
attitude
problem.”

“Maybe so. But I also got a bank account problem.”

“Piffle.”

“What?”

“
Piffle
is one of them fancy French words. It means you should not worrify yourself about the financial aspects of acquiring a vehicle of this singular nature.”

“Do you intend to explain that remark?”

“Charlie, you are a rancher. A bona fide businessman who
needs
a truck like this to run his cattle operation.” Parris knitted his brows into a frown. “In five words or less—you can write it off.”

“Well, I depreciate that—but it’d still cost me a barrel of bank notes to—”

“Ol’ buddy, you keep coming at this from the wrong direction. You should not think about the money. You should think about
accessories
.”

For the first time since Miss James had left him, Moon grinned. “Loaded, huh?”

“Consider that winch you got your big muddy boot on. It’s got two hundred feet of five-sixteenths-inch-diameter steel cable. And you know what else?”

Moon waited to hear what else.

“It’s got remote control.” He noted a flicker of interest on the Ute’s face. “And I don’t mean hardwired thirty feet from the dashboard. I’m talking radio control.” Parris reached into the cab for a small plastic box. “You know what this is?”

Charlie Moon nodded. “I expect that’s the remote-control unit.”

“You are smarter than you look.” Parris pressed a green button. “Watch this.” The winch began to turn, unwinding a yard of shining cable. He pressed a red button to rewind the steel braid. “And that’s just for starters.” He pointed the small box at the pickup. “It’s got GPS navigation system, with a nine-color map display.”

“I thought four colors was enough.”

Parris snorted. “A real red-white-and-blue American consumer don’t settle for
enough
.”

Unable to resist, Moon kicked the toe of his boot against a massive all-terrain tire.

“And don’t forget the all-wheel ABS. A remote starter for those below-zero mornings—while you’re sitting in your warm kitchen eating flapjacks and bacon, you press the button, fire up your supertruck. It’ll be warm as toast before you finish your first cup of coffee. And the windows’ll be defrosted.”

“Bacon is okay, but I’d rather have pork sausage with my flapjacks.”

“Then go ahead, that’ll work just as well.” Having been infected by the Ute’s bad example, Parris also kicked a tire. “This baby is snowplow ready. It’s completely set up for towing a ninety-foot trailer. And it’s got plenty of gawr. Not to mention—”

“Wait a minute—what the heck’s
gawr
?”

“Dang it all, Charlie, I don’t know—but it’s important.” He had lost his place in the list of truckly virtues. “Did I mention heavy-duty air conditioning for those sizzling summer days?”

“I don’t think you did. But here at the Columbine we only have about six days of summer, so—”

“And a tilt steering wheel with speed control. Six-point-eight-liter Triton engine with three hundred and ten horsepower, four hundred and twenty-five pound-feet of torque at thirty-two hundred and fifty RPMs.”

“Impressive numbers.”

“You better believe it. Do you want me to tell you more about creature comforts?”

“Could I stop you?”

“Not unless you stuff a rag in my mouth. You got leather everywhere, heated front-seat cushions. You not only got standard AM-FM, you got high-tech satellite radio with one hundred and sixty-two channels. A ten-deck CD with wraparound sound like you never heard in a work truck before. Just imagine Johnny Cash rattling the windshield.”

The Ute imagined it, and it was good.

“And on top of all that, an under-the-dash scanner that’ll pick up police chatter a hundred miles away, even on a rainy day.”

Moon nodded his approval.

“And besides all that, Betty Lou is—” Parris clamped his mouth shut.