The Witch's Tongue

by James D. Doss

  “Let’s take a look at his work report for…” When had the Cassidy Museum been burgled? “May second.”

  Whitehorse thumbed through the logbook. “Here it is.” He adjusted the spectacles perched on his big beak of a nose. “What’re we looking for?”

  “I believe Wolfe was on graveyard duty.”

  The chief of police nodded. “One o’clock to nine AM. But he ended up working some overtime later that morning. At time and a half.” He gave the tribal investigator a look. “Says here, Wolfe responded to a call from somebody who goes by the name of C. Moon.”

  “That was the morning Kicks Dogs showed up at my aunt’s home, claiming her husband had walked off and left her in Spirit Canyon. I put in a call from to the dispatcher, requesting a search. Wolfe had just got in off his night duty, but he responded.”

  “So?”

  “Can I have a look at his duty log?”

  “Sure.” Wallace Whitehorse slid the paperwork across the desk.

  Charlie Moon squinted at the white man’s neat print. There were entries every half hour or so. Mostly of routine patrol. Wolfe had been working the north central area of the res, which put him in the general area of the Cassidy property. At twenty minutes either side of two o’clock in the morning, Wolfe had made no entries. And there was nothing in the log about a visit to the Cassidy home after the museum burglary. Moon looked up at Whitehorse. “Did Wolfe request night duty?”

  The chief of police nodded slowly. “He liked working at night. And alone.” Whitehorse took a deep breath, his chest bulged under the blue cotton shirt. “Charlie, what’s this all about?”

  “I’m not entirely sure.” Moon gave an abbreviated account of what Bertram Eustace Cassidy had told him about the only white officer in the employ of the SUPD.

  Wallace Whitehorse listened without interruption until the Ute had had his say. “Okay, let me see if I understand what you’re telling me. We got an alleged witness, the rich white woman’s nephew, who claims Officer Wolfe showed up a few hours after that family museum was broke into. And Wolfe talks to the rich old lady—ah—What’s-her-name…”

  “Jane Cassidy.”

  “Right, Jane. And according to this verbal report from the nephew, Officer Wolfe hints that he has a notion about who the burglars might be—and if there was some money in it, he might be able to help the Cassidys get their stuff back. Which leads Jane to offer a twenty-thousand-dollar reward for the return of the stolen property. This is all according to the nephew, What’s-his-name?”

  “Bertram.”

  “Yeah. And this Bertram, he spills the beans to you about Wolfe.”

  “That’s about the size of it, Wallace.”

  “Why does Bertram do that?”

  “Hard to explain. You’d have to meet him.”

  Wallace Whitehorse scowled at the duty log. “Wolfe didn’t write down nothing in his report about stopping at the Cassidy place.” The top cop frowned at his mental image of the meddler who was accusing one of his officers of improper conduct. “This Cassidy guy, you think he could be mistaken?” His tone was hopeful. “Maybe it wasn’t Wolfe that knocked on his door, maybe it was some other cop.”

  Moon felt sorry for Whitehorse. “Anything’s possible. But it’ll be easy enough to find out.”

  “Right.” The chief of police snatched up a sleek black telephone, punched two buttons, barked an order. Waited. “You sure of that?” Whitehorse drummed his big fingers on the desk. “Okay. But send somebody over to his digs.” He listened for a few seconds, slammed the phone down. “Wolfe didn’t show up for work last night. Maybe he’s sick or something.”

  “Yeah,” Moon said. Or something.

  “Danny Bignight is headed for Wolfe’s apartment, so we should be able to sort this business out pretty quick.” An expression of relief spread over the chief’s face. “So I guess we’re finished till Danny gets back here with Wolfe.”

  “Not quite yet.”

  The Northern Cheyenne groaned. “Please—don’t tell me there’s more.”

  “Sorry, Wallace—there’s more.” Moon gave a brief account of Jim Wolfe’s apparent entry into Aunt Daisy’s trailer.

  “She actually see him in there?”

  “No.”

  “Was the trailer door locked?”

  “I’m not sure,” Moon said. “But probably not.”

  The chief of police grasped at this slippery straw. “If it wasn’t locked, Officer Wolfe wasn’t technically breaking and entering. He might’ve just dropped by to see the old lady. She did doctor him after he got bunged up in the rassling match with that Apache we sprung, What’s-his-name…”

  “Felix Navarone.”

  “Right.” Whitehorse scrawled the name on a pad.

  Moon tried to get him back on track. “I think you’re right. Jim Wolfe probably went out to Aunt Daisy’s place expecting her to be at home. And when he didn’t find her there, he went inside. And borrowed what he’d intended to buy from her.”

  Whitehorse was not sure he wanted to know, but it was his duty to ask: “What would Officer Wolfe borrow from your aunt?”

  Moon had to work hard to say it. “Some…uh…corpse powder.”

  The Northern Cheyenne did not have to ask what corpse powder was. “She keeps stuff like that around?”

  The embarrassed tribal investigator did not respond. For the moment, he preferred to let Wallace Whitehorse believe the old woman was dabbling in bad magic. When the time was right, he’d tell him the stuff was only cornbread mix.

  Whitehorse suddenly realized that there was a far more pertinent question: “What would Officer Wolfe want with corpse powder?”

  Moon shrugged. “As far as I know, it’s only used for one thing.”

  “Yeah. To sprinkle on a dead body—so the ghost can’t hurt you.” Whitehorse made a face. “I sure don’t like the sound of that.”

  “Me neither,” Moon said. “That’s why I followed Wolfe.”

  “Followed him where?”

  “The canyon country over by Butterfield Mesa.” The tribal investigator gave a detailed account of what had transpired.

  Wallace Whitehorse had trouble believing what he had heard. “You actually telling me that Wolfe took the corpse powder to what looked like a grave? Dug up the grave—”

  “It was just a pile of rocks,” Moon said. “He took some of the rocks away—”

  “And then he gets scared and runs like a scalded jackrabbit?”

  Those had not been Moon’s exact words, but he nodded.

  “And you go check out the rocks, and there’s no dead body there. So why does Wolfe take corpse powder where there ain’t no corpse?”

  “I’m hoping he’ll tell us,” Moon said.

  SUPD OFFICER Daniel Bignight opened the Subaru door, conducted a superficial search of Jim Wolfe’s automobile. He found nothing unusual in the glove compartment or under the seats. Bignight was not surprised that his brother officer had not bothered to lock his car. Wolfe, who was somewhat absentminded, was always worried about locking his ignition keys inside.

  THE CHIEF’S telephone rang. Whitehorse slammed it against his ear. “Yeah?” His expression became grim as he listened. “Stay there. Me’n Charlie Moon’ll be right over.” He spoke to Moon: “Danny Bignight says Wolfe’s car is in the parking lot at his apartment building. But Wolfe, he ain’t responding to repeated knocking on his door.”

  The Ute got up, donned his black Stetson. “Let’s go find out why.”

  THE APARTMENT building manager was an attractive, fortyish, Hispanic woman. She used her master key to open the door, watched across the threshold as the trio of Indian cops conducted a quick search.

  It was immediately apparent that Jim Wolfe was not at home.

  While Danny Bignight and Chief Whitehorse poked around the apartment, Moon stepped outside to speak to the manager. “Have you seen Mr. Wolfe in the past day or so?”

  The manager nodded. “Last night, I saw him pass my window going up t
he stairs. My apartment is right under his. And the stairway light is always on.”

  “About what time would that have been?”

  She replayed the previous evening in her mind. “I was watching a rerun of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and it was almost over. So it must’ve been a few minutes before the ten o’clock news.” The manager was startled by a recollection. “You know what? I think Mr. Wolfe may’ve left two or three hours later.”

  The tribal investigator felt his pulse quicken. “Why do you think that?”

  “I sleep really sound, thunder won’t wake me up.” The manager closed her eyes to concentrate. “But sometime last night, I woke up when I heard a car horn start toot-tooting out front. I thought it would never stop but then—”

  Wallace Whitehorse materialized at Moon’s side, addressed the Ute as if the woman were not present. “What’s this about a car horn blowing?”

  “Well, the lady says she—”

  The chief of police barked at the woman, “Tell me about it.”

  The manager took her time. “It was late last night when that horn started tooting; I pulled a pillow over my head and tried to go back to sleep. Pretty quick, I heard Mr. Wolfe’s door slam. A little while after that, the honking stopped.” She opened her eyes to stare at Wallace Whitehorse. “Somebody came and picked him up—some jerk who didn’t care if he woke up the whole neighborhood.”

  The SUPD police chief told the woman that he’d send someone around to take a detailed statement. She could return to her apartment now. The Manager understood that this was a polite dismissal, but chose to hang by the threshold and stare into Wolfe’s apartment.

  Wallace Whitehorse gave Charlie Moon a nod. Moon followed him into the small apartment. Whitehorse shut the door in the manager’s face.

  “Looks like all of Wolfe’s stuff is here,” Wallace Whitehorse said. “His SUPD uniform is hanging in the closet with a rack fulla his clothes. And there’s several pairs of shoes and a suitcase on the closet shelf.”

  Moon had a look at the closet. Over the years, he had learned to notice what was missing from the picture. “Did you find Wolfe’s sidearm?”

  Whitehorse had not thought of this. “Uh—I guess he must’ve took it with him.”

  Officer Daniel Bignight stomped into the small parlor. “Look what I found under Wolfe’s bed.” He held something in his gloved hand—a plastic bag half filled with a coarse yellowish substance. The Taos Pueblo man had not heard the report of Wolfe’s alleged theft of corpse powder from Daisy Perika’s trailer. Bignight shook the grainy mixture. “It looks like corn meal.”

  The chief of police was dismayed to see this physical evidence of Officer Wolfe’s burglary of the old woman’s home, but Whitehorse was a traditional Cheyenne. He had no intention of going near the least speck of corpse powder. “Danny, treat that as evidence.”

  Bignight wondered, Evidence of what?

  Moon glanced into the bedroom, noted Wolfe’s neatly made bed.

  Whitehorse followed the tribal investigator’s gaze. “He didn’t sleep here last night. I imagine he was sitting up late, waiting for somebody to come pick him up.” And I’d give two weeks’ pay to know who.

  The evidence suggested that Wolfe had left in the middle of the night with nothing but his pistol and what he wore on his back. Moon waited for the chief of police to reach the inevitable decision.

  Wallace Whitehorse’s leathery face had drooped several notches below its customary gloomy expression. The Northern Cheyenne mumbled a curse in his native language, switched back to English. “I’ll have to notify the FBI.”

  Moon watched a bemused Bignight bag and tag the stolen cornbread mix. “Is Stan Newman still the Man in the Durango office?”

  “Yeah,” Whitehorse said. “And Stan’s got a new partner.” The SUPD chief of police pressed a button on his cell phone to dial the programmed number. He exchanged the customary pleasantries with his FBI contact, then proceeded to explain the reason for his call. Wallace Whitehorse’s mumbled narrative was punctuated by brief silences that Charlie Moon knew from long experience were pointed questions from Special Agent Stanley Newman. Finally, Whitehorse said three words: “He’s right here.” He seemed relieved to pass the telephone to the tribal investigator.

  Moon held the small instrument to his ear. “Hi, Stan.”

  Newman got right to the point. “Wallace tells me he’s got a possible rogue cop who left town last night with person or persons unknown. And what’s all this nonsense about stolen corpse powder and empty graves?”

  Moon smiled into the mouthpiece. “We reservation cops aren’t smart enough to figure it out. That’s why we’re happy to call on the services of our nation’s top law-enforcement agency. We need you to come give us a hand.”

  There was a braying laugh from Stanley Newman. “Maybe there really was a body in that grave, Charlie. I bet you just didn’t dig deep enough.”

  “I would not even think about doing any digging at the scene of a potential crime where the FBI would have ultimate jurisdiction.”

  “Okay, smart guy—here’s the drill. You and Wallace saddle up and head to the spot where the grave is. Me’n my partner will fly out in the Blackbird.”

  “Stan, I don’t think you’ll find anything, but if you really want to—”

  “If there ever was a body, maybe we can find some something for a DNA ID. Hair. Blood. Saliva. Flakes of epidermis.” His tone turned caustically sarcastic. “That’s what we do, Charlie.”

  The tribal investigator was forced to admit that Newman was right. Technically. If there had ever been a body under the pile of stones.

  “I am gratified that you see it my way, Chucky. So tell me where we’re going.”

  Charlie Moon told him. “When we spot the copter, we’ll use a cell phone to talk you in.”

  “You do that.” Newman hung up.

  Moon returned the telephone to Whitehorse. “Stan is determined to check out that pile of rocks where Wolfe went to sprinkle some corpse powder.”

  The chief of police nodded. “The one where there ain’t no corpse.”

  “The very same.”

  “Charlie, I don’t like the feel of this.”

  Corpse powder? Danny Bignight cleared his throat. “Excuse me.” He pointed at the evidence bag. “Is this really…you know…what you just said?”

  Moon and Whitehorse nodded in perfect synchrony.

  The Taos Pueblo Indian stared at the doubled-bagged sample of cornbread mix with an expression of utter horror. Oh God—I hope I didn’t get any on me. Bignight hurried to Wolfe’s kitchen sink, washed his hands.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  NEWMAN’S PARTNER

  A massive black thunderhead had boiled up in the west, casting chill winds and a threatening shadow across the reservation canyon lands.

  Officer Danny Bignight sat behind the wheel of the four-wheel-drive Blazer. Like his boss, the Taos Pueblo man had a bad feeling about this outing.

  A few yards away, Charlie Moon and Wallace Whitehorse held on to their hats with both hands as the FBI pilot expertly lowered the small helicopter onto a clearing near a defunct gas well.

  ON THE aircraft, Stan Newman leaned to yell in his new partner’s ear, “See that tall guy with Wallace Whitehorse?”

  She nodded, shouted back, “Is that the man I’ve heard so much about?”

  After the engine was shut off, the props slowed to a lazy whoosh-whoosh, finally stopped with a metallic clunk. Long black petals drooped as the mechanical flower wilted under the sunless sky.

  Newman lowered his voice to accommodate the welcome silence. “Yeah. That’s Charlie Moon.”

  A faint smile touched her lips. “Is Mr. Moon half of what he’s cracked up to be?”

  “I’ll let you be the judge of that. But I can tell you this—Charlie knows more about the res than all the rest of the Ute cops put together. And he’s a lot smarter than he looks.”

  He looks smart enough to me. “He must be a useful r
esource for the Bureau.”

  “He could be if he wanted to,” Newman said. “But none of us have ever gotten much from ol’ Charlie—he holds his cards pretty close to the vest.” He watched his ambitious partner’s face, knew she was eager to stake out her claim and mine it.

  CHARLIE MOON watched Special Agent Stanley Newman emerge from the helicopter hatch, the breeze whipping at what little hair he had left. Stan was muscular, round shouldered, pushing sixty, and had a round spot shining on the top of his skull. Newman was followed by a creature of another sort entirely. Moon raised an eyebrow. The woman in the dark blue jumpsuit was tall, slim, moved with the lithe, catlike confidence of one who has never slipped on the ice or stubbed her toe on a stone. Her black hair was done in a single braid, her face was oval, her eyes large. The Ute leaned close to Wallace Whitehorse. “That’s Stan’s new partner?”

  The chief of Southern Ute police muttered something that Moon took to be an affirmation, hurried off to greet the mismatched pair of feds. Wallace Whitehorse shook hands with Newman, who immediately made a path toward Moon. Whitehorse hung behind to exchange a few words with the strikingly handsome woman.

  Newman seemed to be in excellent spirits. “Hey, Charlie—what’s going on, you Indians can’t even keep track of your cops now?”

  Ignoring the customary bluntness of the white man’s hello-now-let’s-get-down-to-business greeting, Moon pumped Newman’s knobby hand. “Good afternoon, Stan.”

  “Good afternoon yourself.” The FBI agent nodded to indicate the stunning woman. “How d’you like my new sidekick?”

  “Until I get to know her a little better, I must decline to comment.”

  “Don’t give me that malarkey.”

  Moon felt his mouth grin. “Okay. She is not hard to look at.”