Coffin Man

by James D. Doss

  The old woman cringed at the embrace. I knew she’d do that.

  Patsy backed off to beam upon this unlikely client. “What brings you to the library?”

  “Oh, I was in the neighborhood so I thought I’d just walk around and take a gander at things.”

  The reference librarian reacted instinctively. “Is there anything I can help you with?”

  “Oh, I don’t think so.” Daisy feigned an afterthought. “Well … maybe. If you’re not too busy.”

  “Wonderful!” Patsy clapped her hands. “What kind of information are you looking for?”

  The tribal elder considered this question for a moment, then said, “Well, I guess it’s what you might call historical.”

  “Something about the Southern Ute tribe?”

  “No.” Daisy shook her head. “I’d like to learn more about this nice little town.”

  Patsy’s big eyes got bigger. “Granite Creek?”

  No, Toots—Muddy Gap, Wyoming. Daisy faked a smile. “That’s right.”

  “So what do you want to know?”

  Daisy’s counterfeit smile was transformed into a sly smirk that was the genuine article. “Oh, nothing in particular.” This was a bald-faced lie. “Do you have some maps of Granite Creek?”

  “Oh my, yes—drawers full.” Patsy Poynter pointed her pretty nose in the direction of the map files. “Most are fairly recent, but some of the early survey charts go back to the 1840s.”

  “Why, I was just a kid then.” Cackling a raspy laugh, Daisy Perika raised her walking stick in an enthusiastic gesture. “Let’s go have a look at ’em.”

  * * *

  Sarah had not moved from her lookout post; the girl was still peeking through the slot where she’d removed the hefty books. As the Ute-Papago spy peeked, she whispered, “So what’s Aunt Daisy up to this time?”

  Not an unreasonable query to pose. Particularly by a victim who had, on several prior occasions, suffered the disastrous consequences of Daisy’s zany plots.

  * * *

  About half an hour later, Daisy Perika’s research was completed and her effort had proved entirely successful. Indeed … This turned out a lot better than I’d hoped for. She said thank you and goodbye to the shapely matukach research librarian whom (Daisy assumed) her nephew lusted after. These obligatory social formalities completed, the Ute woman began to peg her way toward the library exit. There was no need, she knew, to look for Sarah Frank. That silly girl will still be watching every move I make from behind that shelf of books, and she’ll catch up with me before I get to the door.

  Which Sarah Frank was, of course—and did.

  A MINOR CHANGE OF SCHEDULE

  Despite Sarah’s desire to bring the F-150 closer to the library entrance, Daisy insisted on walking to the pickup with her youthful chauffer. After she had assisted the aged woman into the cab, the girl hurried around to the driver’s side, slipped under the steering wheel, and helped Daisy fasten her shoulder strap. “We’ll be back to the ranch in time for an early-afternoon lunch.”

  “No we won’t.”

  Sarah snapped Daisy’s buckle shut. “We won’t?”

  Daisy shook her head. “We’ll get us a big, greasy pork-sausage pizza.” As she was settling into the seat, she advised her driver that … “After lunch, we’ll stop at the park that’s named after that thirsty Yankee general who drank buckets of rotgut whiskey like it was spring water.” The soldier’s critic helped herself to the dregs of coffee in the thermos. “Ugh—that tastes like goat—(vulgar expletive deleted).”

  “Why do you want to go to the U.S. Grant Park?”

  That’s for me to know and you to find out. “It’ll be a nice place to relax after our big lunch.”

  “I’ll be going to the park tomorrow to do some work on my school project. Why don’t we wait until then? You could come along with me and—”

  “At my age, I can’t afford to put things off.” Daisy burped up brackish coffee fumes. “Tomorrow morning, I might wake up dead as an outhouse doornail.” The expectant corpse waved her hand in an impatient gesture. “Now get this old box of bolts a-rolling toward the pizza joint!”

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  A MINOR PROBLEM ASSOCIATED WITH CHRONOLOGY

  It would be helpful if the major movers and shakers in this carefully documented account of their comings and goings would refrain from conducting important business in a simultaneous fashion. But they will not. Therefore, in the interest of maintaining some semblance of clarity, it is necessary to stipulate that at about the time that Daisy Perika entered Miss Emily Boyle’s private room at the Pine Ridge Nursing Home, Charlie Moon and Scott Parris were about halfway between Granite Creek and the location where Mr. Truman (long since withdrawn from the grisly scene) had discovered the corpse, chased off the hungry coyotes and buzzards, and called the sheriff, who—in light of the disputed jurisdiction and as a gesture of professional courtesy—had in turn called Scott Parris. It is tempting to skip over this on-the-road interlude, but the lawmen are in a gabby mood and it appears that one of them is about to say something of importance.

  A PROBABLE HOMICIDE

  That was the way Todd County sheriff Ben Crowder had described the situation to Scott Parris, who had not yet shared Crowder’s observation with Charlie Moon. As the GCPD black-and-white sped along south out of Granite Creek, the chief of police addressed his part-time deputy: “D’you know a rancher by the name of Theodore Truman?”

  The Ute stockman nodded. “Teddy’s a sure-enough old-timer.”

  Ol’ Charlie Moon knows just about everybody around here. After all the years he had spent in Colorado, the ex-Chicago cop had never gotten over the impression that he was still an out-of-towner. “From what Ben Crowder told me on the phone, Mr. Truman found the corpse this morning on a section of land between the north and south forks of Sulpher Creek.” I can’t remember what they call that place. His brow furrowed. Something like Gilligan’s Island?

  “Truman’s Island,” Moon said.

  The driver shot a sideways glance at the man who seemed to read his mind. “You know that chunk of land?”

  “Like the back of my right hand.” Moon drifted off to enjoy a happy childhood memory. “Dad used to take me to the island on fishing trips. We’d camp out for a week to ten days.”

  Scott Parris hadn’t thought about his own daddy for at least an hour. “Sounds like you and your old man had some fine times.”

  “We’d eat all the rainbow trout we could catch along with canned baked beans and corn bread Dad made over an open fire.” Moon could almost smell the fragrant juniper smoke and taste the simple food that was so delicious under the sky. “Once in a while, Teddy Truman would drop by and spin yarns about those good old days, when rustlers and bank robbers and other bad outlaws used to hide out on the island. Back when he was knee-high to a donkey, locals called the place No-Man’s-Land.”

  Nostalgia tends to be contagious when like-minded souls start swapping stories, and Scott Parris was beginning to feel a little bit feverish. “Back in Indiana when I was about seven or eight, my dad took me camping on Pigeon Creek. We caught a string of little bluegill and jughead catfish.” He treated himself to a manly sigh. “That’s where I drank my first cuppa coffee.” The grown-up boy chuckled. “Momma wasn’t there to make me walk the line.” Parris was about to tell about the time they got chased by a coal-black bull, but he remembered what the county was paying him for. The lawman cleared his throat of the temptation and got back to the business at hand. “Early this morning, when Mr. Truman showed up to check on his cattle, he saw buzzards circling. That was how he come to find the body.” Parris waited for Moon to inquire about the significant details. Was the deceased male or female? What was the apparent cause of death—accident, suicide, or homicide? And what was Sheriff Crowder’s educated guess about the approximate time of death?

  Charlie Moon pushed his black Stetson back a notch. “So—Mike Kauffmann got himself shot dead last Monday.”
>
  The black-and-white’s tires hit the grassy shoulder; the startled driver recovered quickly. “Dammit—I wish you wouldn’t do that!”

  The Ute was the picture of wide-eyed innocence. “Do what, pardner?”

  “Show off when I’m doing seventy-five on a narrow two-lane with soft shoulders and deep ditches on both sides.”

  “Sorry.”

  “I don’t see how you could know so damn much.” Parris smirked. “Unless you popped Kauffmann yourself.”

  After considering this allegation for a while or maybe a mile (whichever came first), Moon offered his professional opinion: “It don’t seem all that likely, pardner. But I suppose it’s a possibility we can’t absolutely rule out.”

  “Ha-ha!” Ol’ Charlie always makes me laugh! “Tell me a more likely possibility.”

  “Give me a minute or two to think about it.”

  “I’ll give you six seconds flat.”

  Satisfied with that, Charlie Moon counted off a half-dozen heartbeats. “I’ve come up with something, but it’s gonna be pretty danged thin.”

  “Go ahead anyway.”

  “Alright, try this on for size. We already know that Mrs. Wanda Naranjo called 911 late on Monday and told the dispatcher she had to see the chief of police right away. But by the time you showed up, the edgy lady wasn’t at home. And far as I know, she hasn’t been seen hereabouts since then. First the pregnant daughter vanishes—now the mother disappears. Okay if I go way out on a limb and make a completely unjustifiable conjecture?”

  “Sure.” Parris’s sour stomach was beginning to churn.

  “I figure something really bad had happened on Monday afternoon—and Mrs. Naranjo called you because she was scared.”

  Parris blinked several times, like a sailor trying to see through a fog. “You figure Wanda Naranjo shot Mike Kauffmann?”

  “Well, now that you mention it—I wouldn’t be inclined to argue against it.”

  Five long miles of blacktop passed under the Chevy without a word being spoken.

  It was inevitable that Parris’s gruff voice would shatter the silence. “If Wanda killed her ex-boyfriend, then why would she call the police station and ask to talk to me?”

  “You pose a good question.” The Ute took a deep breath. “I can’t imagine the lady making a voluntary confession to a homicide.”

  “Me neither.” Parris eased up on the gas.

  Moon let another mile and minute pass. “So Mrs. Naranjo must’ve had some other reason for wanting to bend your ear.”

  Charlie’s reaching. But he got a good grip on the steering wheel. “Such as?”

  “Such as she didn’t know her boyfriend was dead—or even wounded. She’d taken a shot, but didn’t see him fall—and figured he might come gunning for her.” Feeling good about his game, Moon went for the home run. “Which would explain why a gun was found with Mr. Kauffmann’s corpse.”

  Dammit! This time, Parris kept his unit off the grassy shoulder. But just barely. “You want to describe the firearm?”

  “I’ll speculate that it was a handgun. If Kauffmann had’ve taken a shot at her with a rifle or carbine, Mrs. Naranjo probably wouldn’t have lived to come home and make the 911 call.” The happy Indian could not suppress a smile. “You want me to guess the caliber, make, and serial number of the shooting iron Sheriff Crowder found in Kauffmann’s hand?”

  “No!” Parris snapped. “You tell me any more, there won’t be anything worth knowing to find out when we get there—we might as well turn around right now and go home.” The gruff chief of police was, of course, as happy as his best buddy. How many other lawmen could boast a sidekick the likes of Charlie Moon?

  You really want to know? Subtract three deputies from the cube root of twenty-seven second-bananas—that’s how many.

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  THE CORPSE

  The Todd County sheriff was on the ridge with the dead man’s remains, but Ben Crowder had his gaze focused on the hollow below. The lawman watched the GCPD black-and-white park in the dirt lane behind his own official vehicle. The smile that split his face when Scott Parris emerged from the driver’s side morphed into a frown as it became apparent that Granite Creek’s senior lawman was alone. Well, shucks—I sure was looking forward to seeing Ol’ Charlie Moon again.

  Parris huffed and puffed his overweight frame to the crest of the pine-studded hogback ridge. Shaking Crowder’s rock-hard hand, he gasped, “I ain’t as young as I’d like to be—or as spry.”

  “Neither am I.” The older man laughed. “And we’ve both got too much belly to carry around.” Following Parris’s gaze, Crowder nodded at Exhibit A. “This is a nasty business, Scott.”

  As he got a look of the residue of the late Michael Kauffmann, and caught a whiff of days-old decaying human flesh, Scott Parris was not inclined to disagree. And since there wasn’t a hint of a breeze, there was no way to get downwind of the stench. Ben Crowder seemed oblivious to the odor, so Parris felt obliged to suffer the stink without complaint. But it was not only his olfactory senses that were assaulted. The chief of police had seen more than his fair share of corpses, but what was left of this one after rancher Teddy Truman had chased the coyotes away was sufficient to ruin even a hardened lawman’s day.

  “Predators sure have made an awful mess of him—there ain’t a lot left for the medical examiner to work with.” Sheriff Crowder pointed a gnarled finger at the dead man’s abdomen. “But if you look close, you can see there’s bullet wound in his belly.”

  The gunshot wound wasn’t as plain as the bulbous nose on Ben Crowder’s face, but it was obvious that the little round hole had not been made by a natural predator. And the dead man’s hand grasped a pistol. The weapon was a detail that Crowder had not mentioned during their telephone conversation. Parris shook his head. Ol’ Charlie Moon’s done it again.

  The Todd County lawman knelt and aimed his forefinger at the .32 caliber Colt revolver. “There’s two empty chambers, so it’s likely he took a couple of shots at somebody or other.”

  “And it looks like somebody or other shot back.” Score one more for Charlie.

  “It was a shootout, all right. And it looks like it happened some time ago.” The arthritic old cop grunted himself back to an erect position and brushed dry pine needles off his knees. “But I suppose I shouldn’t go jumping to too many conclusions before the medical examiner gets a look at the remains.” Several minutes passed with the help of small-town cop small talk before Crowder cocked his head at Granite Creek’s top cop. “I thought you was gonna bring Charlie Moon along with you.”

  “I did.” Parris waved his muscular arm in a vague gesture. “He got out of the car back at the bridge. Said he’d walk in.”

  Ben Crowder chuckled. “Charlie likes to get a look at the lay of the land.” He shook his gray head at something he’d heard about the Ute tribal investigator years ago. “They say that Indian can track a field mouse across a mile of solid rock.”

  “Only if the rodent was wearing hobnailed hiking boots and dropped a trail of shiny dimes.” Scott Parris had not provided this response, and Mr. Kauffmann was way beyond talking.

  The startled lawmen turned to see the seven-foot-tall subject of their conversation, who seemed to have materialized right on the spot.

  Crowder laughed. “Hey, Charlie—you sure know how to sneak up on a fella!”

  Moon shook the extended hand. “Nice to see you again, Ben.”

  After the Ute and the Todd County lawman had exchanged a few pleasantries, Moon—who had brought an erratic east wind with him—edged around to the sunrise side of the corpse, where the breeze would be at his back. Squatting, the Indian took a long, thoughtful look at what was left of Michael Kauffmann.

  The two older men also positioned themselves so that the refreshing gusts of air would carry the odor away from their nostrils.

  Pushing back his sweat-stained rawhide cowboy hat, Crowder grimaced at the coyote-mutilated corpse. “I’m no expert, fell
as—but it looks to me like this poor bastard’s been dead for several days.”

  “Since Monday,” Scott Parris said.

  The sheriff turned a questioning look on the town cop. “Sounds like you know something I don’t.”

  “Not me.” The chief of police aimed a thumb at his buddy. “Charlie had it all figured out before we got here.”

  Crowder turned his wide-eyed look on the Indian. “Is that a fact?”

  “I’ve made a few guesses.” Moon eased himself up from the squat. “A couple that might pan out.”

  “Don’t be so damned modest, Charlie.” Parris grinned at the sheriff. “Unless my deputy is wrong—and I wouldn’t want to bet a greenback dollar against him—Mr. Kauffmann was shot to death on Monday by his ex-girlfriend.”

  Ben Crowder didn’t blink. “I guess you’d better fill me in.”

  Parris provided the elder lawman with a summary of what he knew about Wanda Naranjo, her missing pregnant daughter, Betty—and Michael Kauffmann the Coffin Man. He summed up like this: “Charlie figures that Wanda showed up here on Monday looking for Kauffmann. When her ex took a shot at her, the lady fired back—but probably didn’t know she’d killed him. She drove back to town and—this is what we know for sure—she put in a 911 call asking for me to come see her. But by the time I got to her house Wanda was gone—and we ain’t seen hide nor hair of her since.”

  Sheriff Crowder thought about this for a while. “I guess it could’ve happened like that.” He frowned at the Indian. “But it’d be nice to have some hard evidence to support Mr. Moon’s interesting speculations.”

  Both of the older lawmen waited for a response from the self-assured young whippersnapper.

  Charlie Moon jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “I found some flattened grass back by the north fork.” He told his fellow lawmen how to find the location. “Somebody parked a car there a few days ago.”

  Parris was not surprised. “Wanda’s Toyota?”

  “Could’ve been.” Moon jutted his chin at the dirt lane below. “Somebody with small feet walked from the car park to the trailer—and then back.” He pointed his gloved finger at a bushy little tree not far from the Todd County sheriff’s car. “On the return hike, the walker stopped down there by that lone piñon, then turned to face this direction.”