Coffin Man

by James D. Doss

  The chief of police stopped biting his lip long enough to make a helpful suggestion: “You ought to hire yourself a temp, George.”

  “A what?”

  “A temporary employee. All it takes is filling out a form C-122.”

  Hopper blinked. “That’s all?”

  “Practically. All you need is the mayor’s signature on the bottom and you’re good to go.”

  “Really?”

  “Sure. And you can work a temp for up to eighteen months, only not full-time. Twenty hours a week, tops.” Parris jerked a thumb at Moon. “That’s how I got my first-rate deputy. And Charlie’s hourly rate is so low it’s downright embarrassing.”

  The Ute nodded to verify that this was so.

  “Well … that does sound like a possible solution to my problem.” George Hopper frowned. “But where would I find a person with even minimal skills who would be willing to work half-time for absurdly low wages?”

  Scott Parris aimed his trusty forefinger at Freddy Whitsun.

  The cemetery manager made no effort to conceal his doubts about this suspect recommendation.

  The handyman took a long look at the custodian’s cozy quarters. “Would I get to stay in Morris’s little house?”

  “If I should decide to hire you.” Hopper looked the shabbily dressed man up and down. Down and up. Made a snap decision. “When could you move in?”

  “Oh, I don’t know.…” Whitsun shrugged like one having second thoughts.

  Hopper pressed. “Soon as Doc Simpson hauls the body away?”

  “It’ll take a little longer than that.” Parris’s lip was sore from biting. “For a couple of days, Morris Meusser’s former residence will be treated as an official crime scene.”

  “That’s not a problem.” Mr. Fixit nodded at his van. “I’m used to bunking in my truck.”

  A native of Iowa, Hopper appreciated a man who had even a smidgen of get up and go. “Very well. Pending the mayor’s signature on form so-and-so, you may consider the job yours.”

  Leaving Freddy Whitsun and George Hopper to shake hands on the deal, Parris took Moon into the custodian’s quarters. No matter how many dead bodies a lawman gets a gander at, it never gets any easier. This was a grim business.

  Barely three minutes later, the Ute emerged from the modest bungalow, strode purposefully to his Expedition, got in, and eased his way through the collection of parked vehicles. Within a dozen of Sarah Frank’s heartbeats and eight of Charlie Moon’s, they were out of the cemetery.

  The young lady held her silence. When Charlie wants me to know he’ll tell me. But who knew when that might be?

  Moon knew that his companion was just aching to ask, and he appreciated the Ute-Papago orphan’s fortitude. And for that matter, her quiet initiative. It had not escaped the tribal investigator’s attention that the clever girl had shut off the heater and engine. She had also lowered the passenger-side window just enough to overhear Freddy Whitsun’s account of discovering his friend’s corpse. As he aimed the big Ford Motor Company vehicle toward the Sugar Bowl, Scott Parris’s poorly paid, part-time deputy rewarded Sarah’s patience and resourcefulness by providing a summary of what she already knew, and a few things she did not. And that about sums up their Sunday morning.

  For breakfast?

  A poached egg on toast for the slender girl. And freshly squeezed orange juice.

  For Charlie Moon, the Sugar Bowl’s fabled Lumberjack Special—three fried eggs, a thick slab of maple-sugar-cured ham, a heaping helping of home-fried potatoes, and four hot-from-the-oven made-from-scratch biscuits, with sure-enough churned butter and homemade raspberry jam on the side. For the Sugar Bowl’s favorite customer, a whole pot of New Mexico Piñon Coffee. And that wasn’t all. From the Ute rancher’s private stock, which was kept under lock and key in the chef’s special pantry, a twenty-four-ounce jar of Tule Creek honey to sweeten the rich, dark brew.

  No, of course he did not use all twenty-four ounces. Only a meager three tablespoons. Or … perhaps four.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  MISS DAISY SEIZES THE DAY

  SUNDAY, 12:10 P.M.

  But not before doing some serious thinking. I can’t just call up the ranch and say, “I want somebody to take me to the Granite Creek Cemetery so I can find out if I can see any dead people there.” That was likely to raise some eyebrows and quash the shaman’s critical experiment. What Daisy Perika needed was a more mundane excuse to go cruising the tombstones, vaults, crypts, burial plots, and whatnot. But try as she might, the crafty old soul couldn’t come up with a plan that didn’t stink like last week’s roadkill skunk. After staring at the cordless telephone in her hand until she was about to go cross-eyed, the woman who had lost her ability to see the haunts in Spirit Canyon finally placed a call to the Columbine. One ring. I hope that Ute-Papago orphan answers. Two rings. If it’s Charlie I’ll say, “I want to talk to Sarah.” Three rings. But then what’ll I say to the girl? Four rings. I’ll just play it by ear. Five rings. They must not be home from church yet. A sigh. Six rings. I’ll hang up an’ call back—

  “Hello!”

  She sounds all out of breath. “Sarah—is that you?”

  “Yes. Charlie and I just walked in the door and I heard the phone ringing so I ran across the parlor and picked it up and—”

  “This is a long-distance call and silver dollars don’t grow on cottonwood trees so let me do the talking.” To emphasize her annoyance, Daisy scowled.

  Sarah smiled sweetly. “Okay.”

  “When you have time, maybe you could drive your little red pickup truck down here and haul my old carcass back to the Columbine.”

  “I could leave right away and be there in about—”

  “There’s no big hurry.” The pessimistic old soul was not expecting a happy outcome to the experiment suggested by the pitukupf. “You can come in a few days—whenever you’re not too busy with schoolwork.”

  Sarah Frank closed her eyes to consult her mental calendar. “How about Tuesday morning?”

  “Day after tomorrow’ll be fine.” I’ll wait till then to mention a visit to the cemetery.

  “Oh, I almost forgot—you’ll never guess what happened this morning right after me and Charlie left church.”

  Charlie Moon’s aunt chuckled. “The big gourd-head finally pop the big question?”

  “No!” Sarah’s face burned like fire. “Charlie got a phone call from Mr. Parris, then took me over to Granite Creek Cemetery.”

  Cemetery? Such coincidences as this fairly made Daisy’s skin crawl. “Why’d he take you there?”

  The girl lowered her voice to a whisper. “A man got killed there last night!”

  “Who was he?”

  Sarah proceeded to tell the tribal elder all about Morris Meusser’s murder, terminating her narrative with, “It’ll probably be on the TV news this evening.”

  Daisy nodded. “I expect it will.” The old woman had no doubt that this development was another case of Fate at work; whether on her behalf or not remained to be seen. But at the very least … This might help me come up with a good excuse to get a ride to the Granite Creek boneyard. And then, as it so often did, the answer came to her. “When we’re passing through Granite Creek on Tuesday, let’s stop and do a little shopping.”

  “Sure. That’d be nice.”

  Daisy took a deep breath, and expelled it with, “And if we have a little time left over, maybe we could drop by the cemetery.”

  Sarah Frank was not naturally distrustful, but the innocent had been lured into several of the unpredictable old woman’s bizarre adventures. The girl’s wary tone betrayed her suspicions. “The cemetery—what for?”

  Daisy Perika told her what for.

  After Sarah had listened intently to the blatant fabrication, there was an interlude of dead silence on the line. Then: “Could you really do that, Aunt Daisy—I mean figure out who killed Mr. Meusser by just visiting the scene of the crime?”

  “Sure I could.” The ac
complished storyteller was beginning to believe her own work of fiction. “Why, you see it all the time on TV shows. Somebody gets shot four or five times right between the eyes and the cops can’t figure out who pulled the trigger. Then, one of those blue-eyed matukach psychics goes into a trance and sees the whole crime happen, just like it was a scary picture-show. Miss Sees It All tells the police exactly where the shooter’s hiding out. They go look in the ratty little shack in the cypress swamp behind the Do-Wa-Diddy Walmart and sure enough, there’s the crazed killer with the big, black six-gun still smoking in his hand!”

  Having seen several such startling documentaries on television, Sarah was nodding and holding her breath at the same time.

  Certain that she had made the sell, Daisy smirked. “You can take it from me, young lady—anything a silly white person can do, a clever Ute elder can do twice as good!”

  Like measles, mumps, and miscellaneous other maladies, the old woman’s confidence was contagious.

  “All right.” Sarah’s heart was racing with excitement. “I’ll take you to the cemetery.”

  “You won’t regret it—we’ll have ourselves a fine old time.” And they would. So far, so good. Now I’ll have to convince Sarah to keep mum about this so Charlie Moon don’t find out about it and mess up all my plans. Daisy took a deep breath, and was about to make her pitch, when—

  Sarah said, “But I don’t think we should tell Charlie what you intend to do—he might think it was kind of … weird.”

  “Well, I don’t know … that seems a little bit sneaky.” A sly smile creased the aged conniver’s wrinkled face. “But you’re doing the driving, so I’ll go along with whatever you say.”

  “Okay, Aunt Daisy.” Sarah made a kissing sound. “See you on Tuesday.”

  * * *

  As it turned out, quite a lot would happen between now and then, when Sarah and Daisy’s excellent adventure began. Monday would be a remarkably eventful day.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  THE EARLY BIRD

  MONDAY, 7:58 A.M.

  Though he was arriving a few minutes ahead of schedule, the avian reference does not apply to Dr. Stuart Whyte and getting the worm was not at the top of his to-do list. That priority was to place a call to his wife. According to plan, the psychologist telephoned his missus as he passed the Granite Creek City Limits sign. “Hello, dear—how are you?”

  “I could be better, Stuart.”

  This was not the upbeat greeting he had hoped for. It’ll be another bout of melancholy or one of Lorna’s migraines … or both. The hard-pressed husband barely suppressed a sigh. “What’s the matter?”

  “You had a Friday afternoon telephone message from Mrs. Naranjo.”

  The relaxed left hand on the steering wheel clenched into white-knuckle mode. “Betty’s mother?”

  “The very same.” A significant pause. “The lady was worried because her teenager was late getting home.”

  He hesitated before asking the obvious question: “So why’d Mrs. Naranjo call me?”

  “The woman was under the impression that her pregnant daughter had an eleven A.M. appointment with you.”

  “Really?” The psychologist slowed his pickup for a fat black cat that was crossing the street like a fuzzy bag of Bad Luck that owned the right-of-way. “Did you tell her that my office is closed on second Fridays?”

  “I did not speak to the lady, but that information is provided by the answering machine.” Having set the mood, Lorna Whyte proceeded to unload the second installment of ill tidings: “Later on Friday, a man who identified himself as the local chief of police called. His name is Scott Parris.”

  Damn! “What’d he want?”

  “All the tight-lipped constable divulged was that it concerned one of your patients—who was late in returning home. But given the telephone message from Mrs. Naranjo, it is apparent that the policeman wants to talk to you about Betty Naranjo.” Having elicited no response from her husband, she continued. “I haven’t seen anything about this matter in the newspaper, but if the girl had been found … that is to say, if she had returned home—I rather think that Mr. Parris would’ve called to let me know.”

  “Yes. I suppose so.” What with all his attention focused on these unwelcome revelations, Dr. Whyte’s big pickup might as well have been on autopilot.

  Having laid the groundwork for imminent disaster, his wife dropped the bomb: “I hate to say this, Stu—but we mustn’t entirely discount the possibility that you might be a suspect in the girl’s disappearance.”

  “Well I hope you told the cop that I was away—”

  “Well of course I did!” Discomfited by this minor outburst, the lady managed to calm herself. “I also told him that you’d return late this morning. Mr. Parris said he’d drop by at about noontime today.” She paused to let that sink in.

  It did. “Which gives us plenty of time to get our stories straight.”

  “Of course. But despite the circumstances, you needn’t fret—”

  “Brrraaaap!”

  “Yikes!”

  This rude interruption was very off-putting. “If I have told you once, Stuart, I have told you a dozen times—burping is an infantile habit, and particularly unseemly for one of your profession.” He can be so annoying. “And I do resent your yelping in my ear.”

  “I yelped because I was startled, dear.” Dr. Whyte explained further: “And that burp was a siren.”

  “A siren?”

  “That’s what I said. A police car is right behind me.”

  “A police car?” When Lorna was flustered, she tended to repeat what her husband had said.

  “Most certainly. The colored lights on its roof are flashing.”

  “Colored lights?”

  “Red and blue. I believe the police-person wants to pull me over.”

  “Pull you over?” She waited for a response, which was not forthcoming. “It is probably about a minor traffic infraction.” But Lorna had tons of womanly intuition and a city girl’s natural suspicions. “If it’s that nosy cop, don’t say a word about the missing girl. If he probes, remind him about doctor-patient confidentiality and—”

  “I need both hands to drive so I’d best hang up and—”

  “Don’t disconnect, Stuart!” She closed her eyes. “Where are you?”

  “About two blocks from our house.”

  “I want you to drive all the way home.”

  “But the cop wants me to stop.”

  “Pretend not to notice the police car.”

  “What?” Whyte’s forehead wrinkled into a scowl. “How do I not notice blinking lights and a damn siren you could hear miles away?”

  “Now listen carefully, Stu—and do exactly as I say. If the policeman gets belligerent, pull over—and tell me precisely where you are. But don’t disconnect—right this instant, lay the telephone on the passenger seat so that I can hear every word you say to the officer!”

  Stuart Whyte, Ph.D. and certified henpeckee, made no argument. But to demonstrate his manly independence, he did not put the communication device on the passenger seat. Very deliberately, he placed his mobile telephone in a cup holder on the console between the bucket seats. Following this flagrant act of rebellion—and another abbreviated burp from the GCPD black-and-white’s siren—the psychologist pulled his truck over to the curb.

  * * *

  To maximize tension for the citizen, Scott Parris followed the standard procedure that applied to any pullover, ranging from (a) a sweet little old lady running a Stop sign at seven A.M. on a Sunday to (b) apprehending a prime suspect in a drive-by shooting at a nunnery. The chief of police remained in his unit while the GCPD dispatcher keyed the pickup’s license plate number into her terminal, ran a background check on the registered owner for prior arrests and outstanding warrants—the whole ball of bureaucratic beeswax. Clara Tavishuts eventually reported what Parris already knew—that the license plate had been issued to a Dr. Stuart Whyte for installation on a two-year-old Ford F-25
0 pickup. She was advising him that the owner had two parking and three speeding violations over the past fifteen years (all out of state) when—“Oh, darn! The terminal has crashed again.”

  “Thanks, Clara—that’s all I need to know.” (It wasn’t.) “It’s a routine stop.” (It wouldn’t be.) Parris returned the microphone to its snug chrome cradle.

  * * *

  White-collar workers are loath to drip sweat, but Dr. Stuart Whyte was permitted to perspire and he did so. Thousands of salty little beads of perspiration erupted from an equal number of pores on his forehead, not to mention from his hairy armpits and at various other locations that need not be enumerated. The shrink kept his steely gaze fixed on the Ford pickup’s door-mounted mirror. Every few seconds, he would update his spouse, who would respond with terse instructions (“Just sit tight.”) and encouraging comments (“It won’t be anything important—probably a faulty taillight.”).

  When the black-and-white’s driver’s door finally opened and the brawny man dressed in tan emerged, Mrs. Whyte’s husband clenched his jaw and addressed the expectant mobile phone from the right side of his mouth. “Here he comes, Lorna.” He surprised his wife by adding with manly authority, “Keep quiet.”

  “Very well,” the mobile phone replied. “Remain calm, and all will be well.”

  Good advice. To compose himself, Dr. Whyte inhaled a deep helping of fresh air and expelled his carbon-dioxide-tainted breath with this whispered assurance: “Everything is fine as frog’s hair. I’m cool as a frosty root beer, sharp as a brass carpet tack.” He had a tad too much humility to add (aloud) what he was thinking: And I have an IQ of 211.