Coffin Man

by James D. Doss

  “To shoot at Kauffmann,” Crowder murmured.

  “I expect so.” Moon took a look at the pistol in the corpse’s hand. “Probably because he’d just taken a shot at her.”

  “Two shots,” Parris said.

  “I might be way off base here,” Moon admitted. “But I figure Mrs. Naranjo fired several times at Kauffmann—and got off one lucky shot that happened to hit the target.”

  Crowder’s practiced eye measured the distance to the spot from where Wanda Naranjo had presumably dueled with her ex-boyfriend. That’s a good ninety-five yards. “At this range, it’d take a world-class marksman to drop a skinny man with a single shot.”

  “I don’t believe the lady knew she’d put Kauffmann out of action. I think she figured he’d be chasing her.” Seeing the curiosity in the sheriff’s eyes, Moon explained, “From the looks of her footprints, after returning fire she ran all the way back to her car.” The expert tracker glanced toward the spot where Wanda Naranjo had concealed her Toyota. “And she kicked up lots of rocks and sod driving away.”

  Ben Crowder pulled a leather pouch and a corncob pipe from his jacket pocket. He put a pinch of aromatic homemade tobacco in the charred bowl and lighted it with a kitchen match. After a half-dozen restorative puffs, he paused. “Sounds like we got us a prime suspect.”

  “Lotta good that’ll do us,” Scott Parris grumped. “By now Wanda Naranjo could be anywhere.”

  The sheriff spat on the ground, not far from Kauffmann’s left boot. “Even if we locate the suspect, there’s no one left to testify against her. Despite Charlie’s tracking skills, I doubt we could put her here when Kauffmann got killed—not so’s it’d hold up in a court of law.”

  Parris knew where this was going, and helped it along. “Only chance for a conviction would be to get our hands on the pistol Mrs. Naranjo shot Kauffmann with, and then prove it’d fired the bullet that stopped his clock.”

  Ben Crowder pointed his pipe stem at the wound in the corpse’s abdomen. “Assuming we find the slug that bored a hole through him.”

  Scott Parris nodded. “And hope that it ain’t so bent out of shape that it can’t be compared to a test-fire from the suspect weapon—which we don’t have yet.”

  The Todd County sheriff sighed. “And even if we proved that the lethal bullet was fired from the suspect’s weapon, it’s likely that she fired it after she was shot at—like Charlie figures.” The world-weary lawman shook his head. “My momma told me I ought to find some other line of work, like delivering the mail or cuttin’ hair—but I didn’t listen.”

  Parris kicked at a sandstone pebble. “So what do you figure we should do, Ben?”

  “I don’t know about you fellas. Me, I’ve got about thirty-one vacation days in the bank.” Crowder tapped his spent pipe against a lodgepole pine. “I’ll go visit my brother in Dalhart. Harold was a U.S. Marshal till he got shot in the knee.”

  The chief of police could not suppress his envy. “I’d swap my new ostrich-hide boots for a whole month of vacation.”

  Charlie Moon hadn’t had a week to himself in years. “Thirty-one days is a lot of time off.”

  “Oh, it’ll pass fast enough for me’n my brother.” Ben Crowder reflected the tall Indian’s bright smile. “We’ll sit on Harold’s big front porch and sip at Irish coffee.”

  Scott Parris produced his usual snort. “That’s all?”

  The old lawman shook his head. “We’ll watch the pretty girls stroll by and recollect good times gone by when the man behind the badge congratulated a woman who’d fired in self-defense, and…” He stuffed the corncob pipe into his jacket pocket. “And by hook or crook—he made damn sure the worst of the bad hombres never made it to a jury trial.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  A PRIME SUSPECT’S ALIBI

  At about the time when Sarah and Daisy were perusing tantalizing lunch menus at the Sunburst Pizza Restaurant, Charlie Moon and Scott Parris took their leave of Ben Crowder, leaving the Todd County sheriff in the unsavory company of Michael Kauffmann’s earthly remains.

  As the lawmen ambled down the rocky ridge, a semblance of serenity was returning to the neighborhood. In about the time it takes Judy Collins to sing “Amazing Grace,” the pedestrians arrived at their destination, which was Scott Parris’s sleek, supercharged Chevrolet. The faithful copmobile waited coolly in a lone aspen’s soft shadows. Ripples of golden sunshine dappled the ground under and around the ivory-barked tree. Concealed on a lofty branch, an operatic mockingbird trilled away, flaunting her repertoire of a half-dozen popular songs. The flower-scented easterly breeze gently caressed thousands of tiny aspen leaves, each of which quivered with effervescent delight. Isn’t that nice? And topping off all these blessings, the good friends were conveniently upwind of the mutilated corpse that was rotting on yonder rocky ridge like a determined finalist in the Stinker of the Year competition.

  All things considered, it was one of those fine-and-dandy interludes when silence is preferable to either amiable conversation or carefree song. Evidently sensing this, the songbird ceased her chirruping. Upon such occasions, sensible souls take a break to contemplate the joys of life. In no hurry to say goodbye to Teddy Truman’s isolated island, the beefy chief of police and his long, lean deputy leaned against the low-slung GCPD black-and-white.

  Perfectly content in the quietude of this solitude, Charlie Moon entertained himself by watching a company of persistent buzzards who had returned to circle. The expectant diners were riding a thermal above the kill site.

  Accustomed to constant activity, the more tightly wound lawman had a hard time doing nothing. Scott Parris fished around in various pockets until he found a filthy toothpick. He slipped the wooden sliver between his teeth and commenced to chew on it.

  This peaceful interval continued for almost a half minute, when it was suddenly and rudely interrupted by the sound of bridge timbers rattling in the distance. This woody clatter was promptly followed by the pleasing hum of a well-tuned gasoline engine.

  Moon cocked an ear and estimated eight cylinders. “That’ll be the ME, come to collect the corpse.” The hopeful gambler waited for his buddy to take the bait.

  Parris nibbled promptly. “Just as likely to be the state police, here to provide whatever assistance they can to Sheriff Crowder.”

  “You might be right.” Moon prepared to set the hook. “But I’ll betcha two bits it’s Todd County’s version of our Doc Simpson.”

  “You’re on, high roller.”

  Within a minute, the lawmen watched the Todd County medical examiner’s black van turn off the lane onto a dusty cow path and approach the base of the pine-studded ridge where Ben Crowder was waving his cowboy hat.

  The Caucasian cop flipped a Colorado quarter-dollar to his Indian friend.

  Making the catch, Moon slipped the shiny disk into his watch pocket.

  The town cop inhaled enough air to swell his barrel chest and released it with a sigh. “You figure we’ll ever see Wanda Naranjo again—or her daughter?”

  “I doubt it.” The Ute’s dark face was concealed in a darker shadow under the brim of his flat-black John B. Stetson hat. “When Mrs. Naranjo hears that her ex-boyfriend is dead, she’ll slip on her silver high-heel slippers, grab some castanets, and do a happy fandango right down the middle of the avenue.”

  Scott Parris could see the performance plain as day. “With fire aflashin’ in her pretty dark eyes and a long-stemmed red rose clamped between her pearly-white teeth.”

  “That’s the lady, all right. But she’s not dancing down Copper Street in Granite Creek—we’ll never see her in these parts again.”

  “Which makes it unlikely we’ll ever find out what happened to her daughter.” Parris paused for a thoughtful moment. “Betty’s probably with her momma.”

  “You might be right.” But Charlie Moon didn’t think so.

  “That about wraps it up, then.” Parris waited for a few heartbeats before dangling his own bait. “I guess we might as well sc
ratch Dr. Whyte off our list of suspects.”

  “You sound pretty sure that the psychologist had nothing to do with Betty Naranjo’s vanishing act.”

  “Sure enough to bet on it.”

  The tribal investigator’s teeth flashed in the hat-brim shadow. “Can you afford to lose another twenty-five cents?”

  “I just drew my paycheck—two bits is chipmunk food.” Parris nibbled off a chunk of toothpick. “As they used to say in olden days, ‘Name your poison, slicker.’”

  The man who could not resist a wager eyed his friend with a hint of suspicion.

  Scott Parris had put on his best poker face, which, if not in the same class as Mr. Moon’s chiseled-from-granite mask, was a couple of notches above what your typical Reno cardsharp can manage. Charlie read it like a roadside billboard, and took pity on his companion. I guess he deserves to win every once in a while. “I got a crisp two-dollar bill that says you’re blowin’ smoke outta both ears.”

  A sudden attack of avarice will stagger the best of Adam’s descendants. Parris’s semiblank expression fell off like the last apple on the tree. “Lemme see the color of your money.”

  The deputy removed the donation from his wallet and showed his buddy the green. “Sure you can cover this?”

  The chief of police searched his pockets until he found four half-dollars. “Do you prefer to suffer in ignorance until this nasty business is eventually settled, or should I tell you right this minute why Dr. Whyte couldn’t have had anything to do with Betty Naranjo going missing?”

  “Prolonged misery ain’t one of my favorite pastimes, pard—lay the bad news on me and get it over with.”

  “Okay, but brace yourself. On the same Friday morning when Betty Naranjo walked away from home, the psychologist was over two hundred miles away. Not as the crow flies, but as the pickup truck rolls.”

  “Would you mind fleshing that out some?”

  “If it’ll make you happy, I’ll fatten it up like a Christmas turkey. Right about the time the girl headed down the dirt lane to catch the little shuttle bus into town, Dr. Whyte was in Denver.” Parris chewed on the remnants of the toothpick. “On the third floor of the Federal Building.”

  “Government business, huh?”

  Parris nodded his daddy’s 1940s’ felt hat. “The unfortunate fellow was engaged in an earnest conversation with a stern-faced suit who has a Harvard Law degree hanging on the oak-paneled wall behind his desk.” Having embroidered the imagined scene to his liking, the lawman effected a dramatic pause. “We’re talking Department of Justice.”

  “Sounds serious.”

  “Gimme the two bucks and I’ll tell you how serious.”

  “Dr. Whyte’s got an ironclad alibi; that’s all I need to know.” Moon tendered the debt of honor.

  “Thank you kindly.” Parris stuffed Moon’s two-dollar bill and his own half-dollars into his jacket pocket. “But when a man’s all primed and ready to tell a good story, you shouldn’t ought to discourage him.”

  “It’s a matter of professional ethics, pard—I don’t want to hear another word about the psychologist’s problems with the fed.”

  “Okay, I’ll give you a bodacious big hint.” Parris spat the used-up toothpick at the aspen trunk. Missed it by a whisker. “Dr. Whyte is obliged to visit the DOJ attorney once a month—always on the second Friday.”

  Moon frowned. “You surely don’t mean—”

  “’Deed I do.” Parris looked over his shoulder, then this way and that—as if a curious squirrel or fox might be cocking a fuzzy ear to pick up a juicy tidbit of cop gossip. “Our highly esteemed high-school counselor has already served six months of a three-to-five-year sentence in a respectable federal resort in Maryland—for tax evasion. Nowadays, Dr. Whyte can live in any of the fifty states he chooses, but he is required to meet monthly with his federal probation officer. After his mandatory meeting with the fed on Friday, the doc spent the weekend doing public-service work in the Denver metropolitan area.” He vainly searched his pockets for another toothpick. “So even if Whyte’s the father of Betty Naranjo’s unborn child, he couldn’t have had anything to do with her disappearance last Friday.”

  “No, I suppose not.” Moon counted off six seconds. “Not directly.”

  Parris arched an eyebrow. “What does that mean?”

  Charlie Moon shrugged. “Oh … nothing important.”

  “You’re just trying to take my fun out of winning your two bucks, Charlie.” He added, “Nobody likes a mean-spirited loser.”

  “Like I said—”

  “Dr. Whyte is clean as a shiny tin whistle.”

  Moon feigned a hesitation. Then … “Whatever you say.”

  The town cop’s blue eyes glared under his bushy brows. Charlie sure knows how to give me heartburn. This was literally true: Parris’s stomach was about to produce a bumper crop of acid. “You’re just dying to tell me what’s on your mind.”

  “No I’m not. It’s hardly worth mentioning.”

  Parris snorted. “Don’t give me that, Mr. Modest. You’ve come up with another one of your slick-as-snail-spit theories.”

  “It’s not exactly a theory.” Moon blinked at an empty sky. Evidently recognizing the competition, the buzzards had dispersed with the arrival of the ME’s van. How do they know?

  “A working hypothesis, then?”

  “Not even a respectable supposition. I wouldn’t go so far as to call it an educated guess.” His dark eyes sparkled. “Let’s just say a hunch.”

  “I don’t care if it’s a wild-eyed speculation—I don’t want to hear a word of it.” Parris’s fingers fumbled in his pocket and found the ever-present package of Tums. “But go ahead, wise guy—ruin my day.”

  “Okay.” Charlie Moon drew in a deep breath. “Well … I might’ve been thinking about Mrs. Whyte.”

  “What’s the psychologist’s missus got to do with the price of new potatoes?” Parris tore a spiral ring of wrapper off the antacid package.

  “Not a thing.”

  “You don’t fool me for a minute, Charlie—I know what you’re thinking.”

  “So tell me.”

  “Okay, here goes: Mrs. Whyte is her husband’s secretary, and she sets up all his appointments. You figure she could’ve arranged for Betty Naranjo to be on her way to Dr. Whyte’s office on that Friday morning when he was in Denver, talking to the probation officer.”

  This is almost too easy. Moon gave his buddy a little push. “What would the lady’s motive be?”

  “Well that’s simple as two plus two. Mrs. Whyte was worried that the pregnant girl was going to accuse Dr. Whyte of fathering her child. Even if he was innocent, the scandal would’ve ruined them. It would’ve seemed like a fine opportunity at the time—doing away with Betty while the doc was out of town.” Despite himself, the chief of police was warming to the notion. “You’re suggesting that Mrs. Whyte murdered the pregnant girl to protect her husband’s reputation.” He shot a worried glance at Moon. “That’s what you’re gettin’ at, ain’t it?’”

  “Not me.”

  “Don’t try to kid me, Charlie.” Parris tried to assure himself that this time, Moon’s innuendo was way over the top. But when an upsurge of searing acid burned in his throat the dyspeptic chief of police popped three Tums into his mouth and crunched them noisily between his molars. How noisily? As his Arkansas uncle would have put it, Like a razorback hog chompin’ on hard corn.

  Charlie Moon regarded his friend with genuine compassion. “You okay, pard?”

  “I’m fine as frog hair and—” Parris’s response was momentarily interrupted by a strangling cough. Recovering, he waved his hand. “Go ahead, convince me that Mrs. Whyte has committed a serious felony.”

  “I never said she did—that was entirely your notion” Moon assumed a righteous expression. “But since you’re my best buddy and I don’t want to embarrass you, I’ll forget all about your wild-eyed speculations.”

  The town cop eyed the enigmatic Indian, his expre
ssion suggesting a mixture of frustration and confusion. “Then you don’t suspect the psychologist’s wife?”

  Charlie Moon’s shrug was annoyingly vague.

  Well, it’s my own fault—I asked him to ruin my day. Scott Parris set his jaw. “We’re burning daylight. Let’s head back to town.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  CHARLIE MOON’S CONJECTURE

  As Scott Parris’s GCPD black-and-white rumbled over the Sulpher Creek bridge, the chief of police was determined to ignore Charlie Moon’s hints that something was amiss—but he could not help wondering what his enigmatic deputy was thinking about. Charlie is aching for me to ask him, but I won’t do it. Not if he begs me. Not in a hundred thousand years! But about four eye blinks later: “I know you’re just bustin’ a gut to tell me about this latest hunch you’ve got.”

  Moon’s face assumed a puzzled expression. “Hunch … about what?”

  Big smart aleck. “About who’s responsible for Betty Naranjo being missing.”

  “Oh, that.” The taciturn Ute was silent while they passed two mile markers. “I ought to warn you, it’ll sound a lot more like fiction than fact.”

  Parris watched the speedometer jitter around sixty. “As long as it moves along at a pretty good clip, almost any kind of story works for me.”

  “You’re easy to please, pardner.” Moon smiled. “How about that popular genre known as True Crime?”

  “I read ’em all the time.” The driver shot his passenger a sideways glance. “So what’s the felony—kidnapping?”

  “Might be.” In a strictly technical sense. “But for now, let’s just call it a fanciful mystery about a disappearing teenager who happens to be pregnant.” The passenger settled in for the ride. “Since I’m disinclined to mention a Mrs. You-Know-Who who’s married to a local psychologist, I’ll need a suitable name for my main character.”