Three Sisters

by James D. Doss

  “What did your mom want you to be?”

  “Indian chief.”

  “No, Charlie—I’m serious.”

  “So’m I. Momma wanted me to grow up and get elected tribal chairman.”

  Parris chuckled. “And you didn’t do neither one.”

  This exchange was interrupted by the appearance of a vehicle coming up the mountain, a snowy cloud boiling in its wake.

  The chief of police focused slitted eyes on the blue-and-white Bronco with heavy-tread snow tires. “That’ll be Moxon.”

  All Charlie Moon heard above the wind was a single word, and that one incorrectly. “Moccasin?”

  “Moxon,” Parris said. Louder this time.

  At the mention of the name, the wind fell to a breeze, which quickly diminished to those murmuring whispers that convince imaginative little girls and lonely old men that there are ghosts afoot.

  Being unaware of the deeper meanings of these movements of air, Charlie Moon asked, “Who’s Moxon?”

  Scott Parris’s face hardened as the Bronco slowed. “Mr. Nicholas Moxon is Cassandra Spencer’s business manager. He also pinch-hits as her publicity agent.”

  As Moxon braked to a halt and lowered the window, his shiny head reflected a glint of early-morning sunlight. “Good morning.”

  Moon returned the greeting.

  Parris mumbled something about how this particular morning wasn’t all that good.

  The hairless man cocked his conspicuous cranium to indicate the wrecker truck. “Any late-breaking news about the accident?”

  The chief of police assumed his official tone. “I’ve got some geckos down in the Devil’s Mouth. They’re trying to locate the Corvette.” He shot a glance at the tow truck. “If and when they do, they’ll help Mr. Ortega get a cable onto it.”

  The new arrival glanced over his shoulder, then back at the surly cop. “Any idea what caused Andrew to run off the driveway last night?”

  “The fact that the road was slick as snail spit might’ve had something to do with it.” Parris bared his teeth to grin at Cassandra’s muscle-bound friend. “But if you have any interesting notions, I’ll be more’n glad to hear about ’em.”

  Moxon regarded the cop with dead, black-button eyes. “What’re the chances of finding him alive?”

  “It’s a long shot. But stranger things have happened.” Parris returned the icy gaze.

  Moon made himself a bet. Three-to-one, my buddy stares him down.

  Indeed, after a few uneasy seconds, during which something unseemly might have happened—a muttered curse, even a thrown punch—it was Moxon who blinked. “I’ve been out of town for a couple of days. I heard about Andrew’s accident and that Cassie was up here with her sister, so I’m on my way to see her.” Under the glare of the policeman’s unflinching gaze, he blinked again. “And Bea, of course.”

  Parris put his hands on the Bronco, leaned until the tip of his nose was a finger’s length from the driver’s face. “I’m sure they’ll be glad to see you.”

  Before raising the window and plowing the Bronco through an immaculate white dune, Moxon managed a smile of sorts. The sort of smile that says, Later, bud. And means every word of it.

  “Well,” Moon said.

  Parris barked at his friend, “Well, what?”

  “I was about to make an observation regarding the relationship between you and Mr. Moccasin.” He waited for the inevitable correction.

  “It’s Moxon.” Parris spelled it out.

  “Thanks, pard. I’ll try to remember that.”

  “So what’s this observation you were about to make?”

  “Oh, nothing worth writing home about.” He watched Parris’s face redden, added, “Only that you don’t seem overly fond of Mr. Moccasin.”

  “If Moccasin—Moxon—was to run for any elected office you care to mention, I would be happy to vote for his opponent.”

  “Even if the other politician was a mangy coyote?”

  “Even if he was a mangy, yellow-bellied, two-headed coyote. With bad breath from both mouths.”

  “Well, that’s understandable, as far as it goes. But what if this Mr. Two-Headed Coyote wore a pair of green derby hats and two pairs of lady’s high-heel shoes and promised to outlaw Coors beer and John Wayne picture shows and raise taxes nineteen-hundred percent?”

  Parris jutted the formidable chin. “Wouldn’t make no difference. He’d still get my vote.”

  Moon blinked at a welcome glint of unfiltered sunlight. “There must be some awfully good reason for you to dislike a man as much as that.” The expert angler baited his hook: “But it’d probably involve malicious gossip and bald-faced lies and make you look bad, so I’d just as soon not know what it was.”

  Parris eyed his Indian friend and grinned. “Charlie, I don’t necessarily need a reason not to like a man. I’m what you call old-fashioned—if there’s even the least little something about a fella that rubs me the wrong way, or something that don’t smell just right, then right off the bat, I make up my mind to—” The moral philosopher’s remarks were interrupted by a shout from the edge of the Devil’s Mouth.

  They turned to see the climbers, who were clad in neon-green coveralls and attached to a red-and-white candy-striped nylon rope, appear one by one over the lip of the snow-swept slope. After a brief conversation with the leader of the team, GCPD Officer Alicia Martin approached, flashed the Indian a smile, directed her remarks to the chief of police. “The mountaineers haven’t found a trace of Mr. Turner’s automobile, so it must be pretty far under the snow. When conditions are better, they’re willing to come back and have another go at it.”

  Parris glared at the climbers. “They are, huh?”

  The shapely cop nodded. “But before they do, they recommend that we get a copter with instruments to make a sweep. It’d help if they had a target with coordinates.”

  Parris watched the EMTs get into their warm ambulance. “We won’t find what’s left of that Corvette until ten to fifteen feet of snow melts in the Devil’s Mouth.” Which might not happen for the next ten summers. He cast an apprehensive glance in the direction of the Spencer residence. “Guess I’ll have to go break the latest bad news to the widow.” He fixed a hopeful gaze on the female officer, put on a doomed-martyr expression. “When she finds out there’s no hope of finding Andrew alive, Bea’ll probably go all to pieces—cry all over me.” Okay, Martin. Time to step up to the plate.

  The pinch-hitter took the hint. “Shall I tell her?”

  “Well…” He traded in the slightly used doomed-martyr expression for a concerned-supervisor face. “If you’re sure you’re up to it.”

  “I think I can manage.” As she headed back to her unit, Officer Martin was grinning. What a big sissy.

  Moon murmured, “That was mighty smooth, pard.”

  Already bolstered by those heady virtues of selflessness and compassion, Parris had a go at modesty: “Ah, nothin’ to it.” He watched Martin’s black-and-white Chevrolet head up the driveway, taking advantage of the deep tracks Moxon’s Bronco had left behind. “Well, I guess we’re about done here.”

  Pleased at the prospect of withdrawing to a lower, warmer altitude, Moon made a proposal: “Tell you what—let’s roll on down to town and over to Lulabelle’s Dixie Restaurant, have us a king-size helping of hot breakfast.”

  A stiff breeze was sweeping down the mountain slope, threatening to add frostbite to Scott Parris’s other woes. Lifting his jacket collar, he cast his vote for the hungry Ute’s proposal. “I can practically taste Lulabelle’s scrambled eggs and peppered grits.”

  “Me too.” Moon barely restrained himself from licking his lips. “And waffles soaked in butter and hot maple syrup.”

  “Let’s don’t forget a couple dozen strips of crispy bacon.”

  “I can practically smell it frying in the pan.” I really can. The tall, sinewy man sniffed, caught another whiff. He marveled at the remarkable power of suggestion, which was helped along by the thin, c
hill air and his sharp appetite.

  The lawmen were about to depart when a figure in a tattered black overcoat materialized from behind a curtain of blowing snow. The man, who leaned on a spindly aspen staff, was endowed with a bent back and a homely, monkeyish little face that was not enhanced by a toothless mouth. His rheumy, whiskey-smelling breaths came in short, asthmatic gasps. “You guys coppers?”

  The chief of police nodded.

  “Whacher names?”

  Parris introduced himself and Charlie Moon.

  “Pleased ta meecha.” The shabby personage removed a brown cotton glove that was missing three fingers, offered his hand. “I’m Clevis Parsley. Like the vegetable.”

  Parris accepted the grimy paw. “Back in Pigeon Creek, my dear old aunt Nell always raised two rows of clevis, right between the butter beans and Big Boy tomatoes.”

  Mr. Parsley shook his shaggy head. “No, I mean my last name—”

  “Don’t pay my buddy any mind.” Charlie Moon tapped a finger on his temple. “He’s ain’t been quite right since he got kicked in the head by a mule he was tryin’ to milk.” The Ute leaned to mutter in the startled man’s ear, just loud enough that Parris could hear. “He thinks he’s the chief of police and I’m his deputy. Whatever he says, you’d best humor him—he’s edgy and he’s got a .38 tucked under his jacket.”

  The newcomer glanced uneasily at the presumed madman.

  “Clevis Parsley. Sounds like a made-up name to me.” Parris conferred with his deputy. “What d’you think, Charlie—is this slicker hidin’ behind some kinda patched-up anagram?”

  The Ute cocked his head. “Well, now that you mention it, pardner, I see what you mean. Throw away the C, swap the a for an extra e, sort things out some, what you’ve got is—”

  “Elvis Presley.” Parris regarded his victim with frank disapproval. “So you ain’t dead—all these years, you been pulling a big hoax!”

  The unsettled man was backing up. “Uh—I guess you fellas is plenty busy, so I’ll be gettin’ along home.”

  “Oh no you won’t.” Under Parris’s left eye, a sinister twitch. “Not till you’ve told us ever’thing you know.”

  About to bolt, Clevis Parsley froze at a look from Moon.

  Parris spoke in a dangerous monotone: “Start talking.”

  Words spilled out of the witness’s mouth. “Well, I’ll get right to the nub of it. Las’ night, I seed it.”

  “Oh you did, did you?” The chief of police produced another twitch. “What was it you seed?”

  “Why, I seed that motorcar go down into the Devil’s Mouth.”

  Parris bunched a pair of bushy eyebrows. “You actually witnessed the accident?”

  Mr. Parsley shook his head, which was covered by a tight-fitting wool ski cap he had removed from the head of one even less fortunate than himself, who had been dead at the time. “You can call it that if you want to—but it wasn’t no ord’nary accident.”

  Parris asked what he meant by that.

  “Them witches caused it.”

  “Witches, huh?” The lawman vainly tried to revive the twitch.

  The odd character lowered his voice, rolled the rheumy eyes upward. “They was up there—above the lane. I didn’t notice ’em till that fancy car come ’round the curve, then there they was in the headlights. The both of ’em. Plain as the nose on your face.”

  Parris and Moon shifted their gaze to the pine-studded mountainside above the Spencer driveway. Then back to Parsley. The chief of police looked down his nose at this unlikely witness. “You saw a couple a women up there?”

  “Them wasn’t no reg’lar women—they was sure-enough witches!” Clevis Parsley attempted to spit on the snow, didn’t notice that he had soiled his shoe.

  Parris pressed: “So how do you tell the difference between a reg’lar woman and sure-enough witches?” He thought of a witty response, managed not to grin.

  C. Parsley explained. “Well for one thing, reg’lar women wouldn’t be a-hoverin’ above the lane.” He raised a half-gloved hand, wriggled the dirty, naked fingers. “I’m not lyin’—their feets was about a yard off the ground. They was a-floatin’ in the air.”

  “Floatin’, huh.” You smell like you’ve been floatin’ in Jim Beam.

  Parsley nodded. “I just wanted you badge toters to know what happened, so you won’t waste the taxpayer’s dime fiddle-faddlin’ around tryin’ to figger out why that car ran off the road. But don’t think you’ll ever put the cuffs on them witches.” He coughed up a wheezy “hee-hee,” wiped his nose on a coat sleeve. “Brujos like those comes and goes as they please, like any ghost you ever saw!” He interrupted the narrative to stick a finger into his ear, twist it, thoughtfully inspect a glob of amber waxlike substance. Smacked his lips.

  The Ute grinned. If he eats it, Scott’ll freak out.

  Scott Parris cringed. Please—don’t put it in your mouth.

  The glob was evidently not that appetizing. The odd little man wiped the finger on his coat, addressed the alleged chief of police: “Anythin’ else you want to know?”

  “Yeah. Just in case we need a signed statement, what’s your address?” Parris smiled. Down at the end of Loony Street—Fruitcake Hotel.

  Parsley aimed a filthy finger. “My place is over yonder on the mesa, ’cross the Devil’s Mouth. I got me a nice little lean-to, and a Coleman stove and a previously owned sleepin’ bag.” He whined, “Now can I go home?”

  “All right.” Parris shook his finger at the eccentric. “But from now on, don’t you be goin’ around impersonating the King.”

  Half convinced that he was guilty of something or other, Clevis Parsley nodded his solemn promise. As the breeze stirred wisps of gray hair protruding from under the woolen cap, he turned, stalked away.

  When the unfortunate character was out of earshot, Moon eyed his friend. “Well, imagine that—a reliable eyewitness who walks right up and tells you how it happened. Ain’t you the lucky one.”

  The man who was supposedly suffering from a mule kick on his noggin presented a wounded expression. “I’m glad you’re able to have some fun at my expense.”

  “Me too.” Moon looked down at the six-footer. “Pardner, I try to never let a day go by without finding something to enjoy.”

  Which reminded Scott Parris of a subject Charlie would probably get a big haw-haw out of. In the cold, bright light of day, and particularly after Clevis Parsley’s report of witches floating over the Spencer driveway, the mere thought of describing what he thought he had seen last night was embarrassing. But it might have something to do with the auto accident. Parris shot a look at the inquisitive uniforms. While straining to catch a word, they were looking anywhere but at the boss and his Ute friend. “Charlie, we need to talk. But not here.”

  Moon understood. “Tell me about it over scrambled eggs and bacon.” Again there was that whiff of bacon frying. My nose is so good I can smell things that ain’t even there.

  The two best friends got into their vehicles, cranked up V-8 engines, shifted to low, headed slowly down the narrow, winding driveway off Spencer Mountain, and through the iron gate, which was—by official order of the Granite Creek chief of police—not to be closed until the investigation of Andrew Turner’s auto accident was complete.

  Twenty-Nine

  The Silver Lining

  While Clevis Parsley regaled Charlie Moon and Scott Parris with his tale about how witches floating above the Spencer driveway had caused Andrew Turner’s auto accident, Nicholas Moxon parked his Bronco under a naked, shivering aspen, jammed a classic, custom-made black felt cowboy hat onto his remarkably spherical skull, buttoned a lined gray trench coat from knee to neck, and stalked along the snowy flagstone walkway to the pillared porch of the Spencer residence. While cleaning his boots on a bristly mat that did not have WELCOME printed on it, he removed the spiffy hat with one hand, banged the brass knocker with the other. Cassandra Spencer’s business manager was definitely a multitasker; he could simultaneously
walk, chew gum, and plot devilishly clever new ways to increase his client’s share of the television audience.

  Mr. Moxon had memorized a brief but tasteful speech with which to greet the recently bereaved Beatrice Spencer. His remarks would be salted with such phrases as “I was shocked to hear—” “This must be a terrible time for you” “I thought I should drop by” and “If there is anything I can do—anything at all,” and so on. But it was not Beatrice Spencer who opened the door.

  It was Sister Cassandra’s black-clad form and haunted face that confronted him. “Oh, Nicky!”

  Though disappointed at not seeing the widow, Nicholas Moxon adapted quickly to unexpected situations. “Cassie, darling.” He reached out, engulfed the slender woman in a great, suffocating bear hug.

  Once released, she quickly got her breath back. “Oh, Nicky!” The lady tended to repeat herself, which was a source of irritation to her business manager.

  But today, Nicholas Moxon was prepared to make allowances. Following the elder of the Spencer sisters inside, he was also prepared to make use of such comforting phrases as were ready in his quiver: “Poor Cassie—this must be a terrible time for you. I thought I should drop by and see if there was anything I could do.”

  “Dear Nicky—that is so thoughtful of you.”

  Having dispensed with the necessary formalities, he looked over his shoulder, said from the side of his mouth, “I got word from Gerald Sax that you actually fainted during the show!”

  “I suppose all of the stress of work finally caught up with me.” The pale woman, who was still a bit wobbly at the knees, added, “Fortunately, my plucky little Native American guest was able to carry the rest of the program.”

  “I wasn’t able to watch the show live last evening, but I recorded it on a DVD and reviewed it this morning. That old Apache gal is really a hoot!”

  “She’s a Ute.”

  “Okay, so she’s a Ute hoot.” Moxon frowned at the nit-picker. “Are you feeling better today? I mean you’re not likely to—” The muscle-bound man made a face to display his distaste with anything related to swooning. “Uh—you know what I mean.”