White Shell Woman

by James D. Doss

  “Oh, I’d have to look at them to be sure. But there were some on Native American rock art. Petroglyphs. Pictographs.” She gave Moon the big eye. “Could I check out what she has on the shelf?”

  Parris intervened. “I’m afraid not, Miss Castro. After the investigation is far enough along, your property will be returned to you. In the meantime, I suggest you make a list of the items you loaned to the deceased. You could drop it by the station.”

  Her eyes sparked fire at this annoying man who was her father’s age. “If I could remember everything April borrowed from me, I wouldn’t have to look.”

  Parris shook his head.

  Melina looked to the Ute for support. And found a hint of sympathy there.

  Parris’s discomfort at playing the heavy showed on his honest face. “Sorry, young lady—I’ll have to ask you to leave.”

  Melina flushed crimson with anger, but turned to go. And met a pair of men in neatly pressed gray suits. They were standing in the doorway. Blocking her path. No introductions were necessary. She was by now well acquainted with Special Agents Stanley Newman and George Whitmer. The latter escorted her into the hallway.

  Newman closed the door behind him. “Well,” the federal lawman said with an air of disapproval. He waited for a response. Something in the way of an apology for what was a trespass on a Bureau investigation. Ignoring Moon, Newman stared at the chief of police. “So what’re you guys doing here?”

  Scott Parris met the stare without blinking. “The murdered girl’s apartment is in my jurisdiction. I’m conducting an official police investigation. You have a problem with that?”

  “Hey, let’s not get our tail tied in a hard knot.” Newman tried to smile, but didn’t quite bring it off.

  Parris maintained the stare.

  Eager to retreat from the confrontation, Newman turned to the Ute. “So, Charlie—what’re you looking for?”

  Charlie Moon looked over the man’s head. “Nothing.” Already found it.

  Newman tried hard to appear amiable. “Look, I didn’t mean to rattle your cages. But I wish you guys hadn’t let that college girl into the apartment. She might’ve messed around with something that’ll turn out to be important evidence.”

  The flimsy sketch in Moon’s jacket pocket suddenly felt like a brick. It was a good time to change the topic of conversation. “What brings you and George here?”

  The special agent hesitated. “We’ve come to see the girl.”

  Parris frowned at this news. “Miss Castro?”

  “Yeah. She lives right down the hall.”

  Moon felt like having a little fun with the fed. “She a suspect?”

  “In case you forgot, Miss Castro is our only witness in the Tavishuts homicide.”

  “You arrested anybody for her to ID?” Moon knew the answer.

  “We’ll make an arrest.” Newman held a stubby finger near his thumb, making a crablike pincer. “We’re this close.”

  “Glad to hear it,” Parris said. And grinned.

  Newman glanced toward the door. “Well, I’d like to hang around and beat my gums with you guys, but I got some police work to do for Uncle Sam.”

  They watched the door close behind the federal agent.

  “I’m done here if you are,” the Ute said.

  Parris frowned at his partner. “So soon?”

  Moon nodded. “Let’s get outta this place.”

  They did.

  Once they were in the parking lot, Scott Parris glanced back at the ugly apartment complex, then at his Ute friend. “Stan Newman is a by-the-book cop. I hope you didn’t do anything up there that will come back to haunt me.”

  Innocence fairly oozed from Moon’s pores. “Like what?”

  “Like mess around with official evidence.”

  The Ute investigator removed the flimsy slip of paper from his pocket. “You mean like this?”

  The chief of police stared in disbelief at the sketch of the Twin War Gods. “Please don’t tell me you took that from the dead girl’s apartment.”

  “Don’t fret, pardner. After I get a copy made, I’ll put it back. And if the feds don’t find it, I could always drop ’em a little hint about where to look on her bookshelf—”

  Parris slapped his palms over his ears. “I meant it—don’t tell me.”

  “Okay.” He paused. “But it’s kind of interesting, these lines April drew by the Twin War Gods—”

  “Damn it all, Charlie—why do you do these crazy things!”

  The Ute thought about it. “That’s exactly what my momma used to say.”

  Melina Castro seated the FBI agents at a spotless kitchen table. Her pretty face was calm enough. The student’s clasped hands rested on the red oilcloth. Her fingers wriggled like an entwining of small white snakes.

  George Whitmer, the more fatherly of the pair, smiled to expose a squarish-looking set of dentures. The effect was not particularly soothing to the young woman, who imagined a lunatic hippo breaking water to crush a canoe loaded with hapless Africans. Not that she had ever witnessed such a tragic event.

  “Miss Castro,” Whitmer said, “we very much appreciate your cooperation in this investigation.”

  Her fingers relaxed. “I’ve already told you everything I know about April’s death. Why are you here?”

  “A universal question,” Whitmer mused. “Why are any of us here? What is the purpose of it all?”

  Annoyed by his partner’s lapse into whimsy, Newman assumed the role of interrogator. “Since we last talked, Miss Castro, I’m wondering whether you may have recalled anything about that night—when you encountered the man burying April Tavishuts’s corpse.”

  “Like what?”

  His sharp eyes surveyed the small kitchen. “Could be anything. Something you may’ve seen—or heard.” This was generally a waste of time. But you never knew.

  She felt a chill in the room. Hugged herself. “No.”

  “Okay. How about Miss Tavishuts? Anything you know about the victim might be helpful to our investigation. Like, were there any men in her life?”

  She started to speak, then clamped her mouth shut.

  “Miss Castro?”

  “Well—there was this one thing.” The white snakes began to wriggle again. “But it can’t have anything to do with her death.”

  “Let me be the judge of that.”

  She rubbed her palms together briskly, as if to warm them. “April—she may have been…you know.”

  Newman shook his head. “No, ma’am. I do not know.”

  Staring at her doughy hands, she spat the word out. “Pregnant.”

  George Whitmer leaned forward. “You said ‘may have been.’ Do you have any direct knowledge that Miss Tavishuts was pregnant?”

  Melina shook her head; the heavy yellow braid brushed her back. “But sometimes she was sick in the mornings.”

  “So’m I,” Newman muttered, “but I am not with child.”

  Whitmer ignored his partner. “Did Miss Tavishuts tell you that she was expecting?”

  “Not exactly.” Now she met Whitmer’s honest eyes. “But there was some campus gossip.”

  “She have a boyfriend?”

  Melina half-shrugged the question away. “Maybe.”

  “You got a name for us?”

  “No.”

  “That’s not much help.”

  She rubbed her eyes. “I wish I hadn’t mentioned it.”

  “On the contrary, you were quite right to bring it up,” Whitmer said. “Anything else you’d like to tell us about?”

  “No.” She looked hopefully at the younger of the two federal agents. “Is that all?”

  “Not quite, miss.” Newman unzipped a leather briefcase. He removed a thick manila envelope that was secured with rubber bands. From this was disgorged an assortment of photographs. The federal agent pressed the Rec button on a microcassette recorder. He stated the location, date, and time to the minute. He named all those present. “Let the record show that Special Agen
t Whitmer will show Miss Melina Castro an exhibit of photographs, numbered one through thirty-four.” The small reel spun slowly, converting compressions of air into complex magnetic patterns on the tape.

  George Whitmer assumed his task. “Miss Castro, please inspect each of these photographs. If the person in the photo does not resemble the person you saw standing over April Tavishuts’s grave, place the photo on your left. But if you see a face that looks like the suspect, place that photo on your right.”

  She stared blankly at each palm in turn. “I can never remember—oh yeah. The one with my wristwatch is the left.” Melina smiled triumphantly at the other palm. “Then this must be my right.”

  Newman closed his eyes and imagined taking this taped evidence to court. A witness who doesn’t know her left hand from her right. Why me, Lord?

  Melina began with photo number one and proceeded without haste. The graduate student squinted at the images in turn, placed the photos on her left.

  Newman was holding his breath.

  At number nine, she paused. “That’s Terry—Professor Perkins.”

  Whitmer nodded. “Does he bear any resemblance to the man you saw standing over the partially buried corpse of April Tavishuts?”

  She shook her head quickly. “Oh no—of course not.” Melina looked to Newman for support. “I mean, that’s crazy…”

  Whitmer reminded her of the protocol. “Then place Dr. Perkins’s photograph on your left.”

  She did.

  They watched her.

  She frowned at the next photo. “Hmmm,” she said. And placed number ten on her right.

  Neither federal investigator showed any sign of interest. It was a matter of professional pride.

  And so, as if nothing special had happened, Melina continued. And placed number thirteen on her right.

  This brought an exchange of glances between the federal policemen.

  The graduate student frowned at number seventeen and also placed it on the right-hand suspect pile. Then repeated this with number eighteen. And twenty-two. And so it went.

  Newman exhaled his breath until he was completely deflated.

  Melina continued the process until she had studied the last image and placed it on her left. “That’s it.”

  Whitmer said nothing aside from a brief comment to the microphone. “Miss Castro has placed twenty-seven photos on the ‘does not resemble’ pile to her left, and”—his voice cracked—“seven on her right, which stipulates that they bear some resemblance to the suspect seen at the grave of Miss April Tavishuts.”

  Special Agent Newman was making a valiant attempt to contain his annoyance. He almost succeeded.

  Whitmer spoke in a disinterested monotone, as if nothing untoward had occurred. “Miss Castro, just for the record, are we to understand that all seven of these images on your right resemble the murder suspect you saw that night?”

  She nodded. “Sure. Well, sorta. You know.”

  “What is it about these individuals that reminds you of…ahh…the suspect?”

  She riffled through the deck of seven faces. “Well, they’re all really old.”

  Newman’s voice croaked like a bullfrog’s. “Old?”

  “Well, yeah. I mean look at these geezers. They must all be at least in their forties. Some even older than that.” She frowned with childish concentration. “Like I told you the first time we talked, the guy I saw that night was, like, really old.”

  Whitmer, who was fifty-seven, smiled benignly. “Could you estimate the suspect’s age?”

  Her head bobbed in an eager nod. “Fifty. Maybe even sixty.”

  Newman rolled his eyes at the ceiling. “And all seven of the individuals in the photos resemble the suspect?”

  Another nod.

  Newman aimed his finger at the bulbous device mounted on the tripod. “Please respond for the microphone.”

  “Yeah. Well, kinda. Like, I’m not saying one of these seven guys was actually the one I saw that night at the pit-house ruin—just that they sort of looked like him.”

  Newman ground his teeth. What a dim bulb.

  Whitmer held the microphone close to his lips, stated the time of day and the fact that the interview was being terminated. He pressed the Stop button on the microcassette recorder and rewound it, played back a random section of tape to make certain they had a technically acceptable recording. Presently, they heard her voice again. “Sure. Well, sorta. You know…”

  “Shut it off,” Newman said through clenched teeth. There was a brittle edge of hysteria in his voice. With as much patience as his nature afforded, he explained the facts of life. The witness was sternly advised not to tell anyone that she had been asked to ID April Tavishuts’s killer for the FBI. Not her mother. Not her priest or rabbi or psychiatrist. Not her closest friend. If the perp thought she had picked him out of the photo lineup, it might seriously jeopardize the Bureau’s investigation. Maybe cause the killer to leave the country. Worse still—and he added this observation with a touch of malice—there was just the tiniest chance that the perp might decide to pay their supposed witness a visit.

  She asked the obvious question: How big a chance?

  Newman shrugged. “Who knows?”

  Melina solemnly agreed to keep this interview a secret.

  Whitmer assured the witness that she need not worry one hair on her head about the perpetrator of the crime harming her. Witnesses to crimes got rubbed out on TV dramas. But never in real life.

  “Well, almost never,” Newman added with a hint of a smile.

  Almost? Her eyes grew large.

  Whitmer urged her to relax. The FBI was hot on the perp’s trail. Would probably have him in the jug within a couple of days. A week at the outside. He shot his partner a dark look.

  Stanley Newman was repentant. “Even if it takes a bit longer to pick him up,” he assured the witness, “the Bureau would see that you are protected.”

  Melina Castro reminded the federal policemen that her address was in the telephone book. Would the FBI hide her someplace until the killer was found?

  Indeed they would, Newman assured her. The very moment the Bureau determined that her life was in the slightest danger.

  The young woman closed the door behind them, listened to their footsteps recede down the hallway. “Well,” she whispered, “I think I handled that pretty well.”

  A BAD IDEA

  George Whitmer made himself a bet. It won’t take Stan six steps.

  Special Agent Stanley Newman was precisely four paces from Melina’s apartment door when the grumbling erupted. “Crap! What a waste of time.”

  Whitmer smiled. “Oh, I don’t know. She picked out seven possible suspects.”

  “Right,” Newman snorted. “Including the special agent in charge of the Denver field office.”

  The older agent snickered. “The boss does have a sort of criminal look about him. Sloping forehead. Beady little bloodshot eyes, set awfully close together.”

  Newman frowned at a set of graffiti-splashed elevator doors. “I don’t like being shut up in a stinky little box—let’s take the stairs.”

  “As long as we’re going down.” Whitmer closed the stairwell door behind them and paused to lean on an unpainted cinder-block wall. “Stan?”

  “Yeah?”

  “There’s something on my mind.”

  There always is. “What’s that?”

  “Even though this young lady didn’t recognize the perp, he’s bound to have seen her and Dr. Silk. And by now, everybody in the state knows about the pair of women who stumbled on the murderous pothunter. Including their names. And where they live.”

  “The media,” Newman said with a shake of his head. “I hate ’em.”

  “Dr. Silk didn’t see anybody at the grave site. Her statement to that effect has been in the newspapers, on the radio and TV. So she’s safe enough. But at our request, the grad student hasn’t made a public statement about what or who she might have seen that night. Which could make th
e perp believe that she got a good enough look at his face to ID him.”

  Stanley Newman’s stomach was churning bile. Whitmer had a nasty way of cutting right to the heart of bad news. “You really think he’d try to off this grad student?”

  “You willing to bet her life he won’t?”

  Newman considered this a mean-spirited question. He did not reply.

  “It’d be a long time—if ever—before we could get the paperwork approved to stash Miss Castro in a safe location. Especially since she’s currently a useless witness. In the meantime, this murderous bastard could show up and slip a knife between her ribs.”

  “You got to stop worrying me so much.”

  Whitmer’s silence boomed in his partner’s ears.

  “Go ahead, George. Say it.”

  George Whitmer said it. “You got to stop making promises we can’t keep. Like telling Miss Castro the Bureau would protect her.”

  “Hey, what can I say—I work for the government.”

  Whitmer was about to rebuke his partner when he noticed Newman getting that cartoon look, as if a lightbulb had suddenly appeared above his head. With wiggly little lines radiating from it. He waited for the Eureka moment.

  Newman banged fist against palm. “George—I got a really brilliant idea.”

  Whitmer sighed. God help us.

  A SMALL FAVOR

  Charlie Moon had just said good-bye to Scott Parris, who was heading away in his rusty red Volvo. The Ute was of the opinion that a man who was chief of police ought to drive a better-looking set of wheels. But the Volvo had sentimental value. The boxy sedan had been almost new when Parris and his bride spotted it on a Chicago auto lot. Helen was long dead. The man treasured her memory. And their automobile.

  The Ute was sliding into his Ford pickup when he noticed the determined approach of the FBI agents. George Whitmer slowed his pace, then stopped a couple of yards behind his partner.

  Stanley Newman took a long breath. “Charlie—”

  “Yeah?”

  “I need to have a word with you.”

  He’s on to me. I should’ve put April’s sketch back in the book. “Talk? About what?”

  “Nothing much. A small favor.”

  The Ute’s relief was masked by a fair-to-middling poker face. “From me?”