The pretty clerk in the Durango flower shop beamed up at the tall, somewhat awkward figure, who shifted his weight from one foot to another and back again. "And what sort of message should I put on the card?"
"Well…" he hesitated, "just say it's from Charlie." It was the right thing to do.
The sales clerk scribbled on the card. "Very well, sir. That's one dozen long-stemmed roses." The Chicano girl beamed at the big Ute and wished she had a man like this to send her roses. "She's a very lucky lady."
"Yeah," Moon said. "I guess she is at that." Very lucky indeed.
This girl's big brown eyes were almost as pretty as Benita's eyes, but her lips were not as full. And her voice wasn't sweet music… but that, he reminded himself, was finished business. An opportunity forever lost.
She saw the shadow pass over his face, and turned to answer the telephone. He idly watched the figures on her portable television set. It was the final scene of a hilarious James Herriot tale from the Yorkshire Dales. Siegfried was, as usual, furious with his younger brother. Tristan had terrified the neighborhood by donning a cloak and appearing nightly at a ruined monastery as the tortured "ghost" of an unhappy monk. A brawny constable, who did not believe in such nonsense, had almost run him to ground. The scene was abruptly replaced with an advertisement for "veteri-nary-approved" animal foods. "Your puppy will love Peter's Perky Puppy-Chow," the announcer insisted. The counterfeit veterinarian in the white smock droned on, listing the benefits of "enhanced vitamin and mineral content." This commercial was followed by others. Ford pickup trucks with a factory rebate. Salsa, a grizzled cowboy guaranteed, that wasn't made in New York City. An astonishingly beautiful woman leaned on a stuffed leopard, extolling the virtues of a new perfume from Italy. "My Confession," she whispered huskily, "is subtle, barely touching his consciousness." Then, a seductive smile as she unfastened the top button of her silk blouse.
The clerk hung up the telephone and turned to flash a smile at the policeman who was frowning at the television set. "Now," she said, "will this be cash or credit card?"
Moon didn't hear her. The revelation had been like a sudden illumination of a dark landscape that was already there. A strike of summer lightning at midnight. The Ute policeman already knew who killed Arlo Nightbird. Now he thought he knew how Gorman's Hereford bull had met its death. But he didn't have a shred of evidence.
34
Charlie Moon looked up from his desk. Emily Sombra-Nightbird had appeared without a sound. It was not an unexpected visit.
"Hello, Charlie."
He got up and nodded toward an uncomfortable wooden chair.
"Have a seat."
"I stopped by to thank you. For the lovely roses." She had the bouquet in her hands, a question in her eyes. Why the sudden attention from this big, taciturn Ute?
Moon tried to appear relaxed, but his heart was kicking against his ribs. "Hoped you'd like 'em."
Emily moved close to him; he enjoyed the wonderful fragrance in her hair. "I can't remember the last time anyone sent me flowers."
Moon nodded dumbly. Emily would be shocked if she knew why he sent the roses. Benita Sweetwater owed her a debt; the roses were a token of that debt.
She touched his sleeve. "You know, I've always had a soft spot for… strong, decisive men."
Moon swallowed hard. "We need to talk."
"I hope it's not about Arlo's death." Her eyes went flat.
"I'd like to put that far behind me." As East is from West.
The Ute studied Emily's face, especially her eyes. "Been doing some checking." He tried to sound casual, but his pulse throbbed under his shirt collar. "On that evening Arlo was late for your anniversary date, phone company records show your daddy called you, then called the insurance agency."
Emily raised her immaculate eyebrows. Her face said So?
"Herb Ecker must have told him where to find your husband. It looks like Fidel went to the canyon, found Arlo half alive. Everybody knows Fidel hated Arlo. And," Moon added, "your old man has a nasty temper."
"My father didn't… wouldn't…" She hesitated, her lips forming a tight red line across her face.
"I've been out to Fidel's farm. We had a long talk. About a pig that wears a turquoise ear stud."
Emily's face seemed to be frozen; her normally expressive eyes were vacant.
"You'll want to hire your daddy a lawyer." Moon paused to let this sink in. "A real good lawyer." He waited.
"My father," she said finally, "did not kill my husband."
"I understand you want to protect your daddy." Moon waved his hand to indicate a stapled sheaf of papers on his desk. "But the evidence against him is pretty solid." The papers were last month's gasoline receipts.
Her gaze followed the impressive document as Moon put it into a desk drawer. And turned a key in the lock. "I can give Daddy an alibi."
"Sure." Moon did his best to sound skeptical. "You tell me he was somewhere else, I'll listen." This was it. Either she would or she wouldn't. "But I doubt it'll help Fidel."
"How do I know you won't use something I say to… to create a problem for me?"
"Whatever you say is off the record." He saw the hesitation in her eyes. "You have my word."
Emily put her face in her hands and sighed. You could trust Charlie Moon. That was one of the few constants in Ignacio. "Herb Ecker did tell my father that Arlo had gone to visit your aunt. Father and I went to look for him early the next morning. We found his car stalled on the gravel road. Daisy wasn't at home, so we drove farther up into the canyon." She closed her eyes. "We found Arlo under a scrub oak… almost naked… head bleeding…"
Moon's tone was sympathetic. "I imagine you got pretty upset."
She glared back at the policeman. "Of course I was… practically in shock."
"And angry?"
Emily squeezed a rose stem, pressing a tiny thorn into her finger. "Angry? Why would I be angry?" She sucked the drop of blood from her finger.
Moon took a deep breath. Now or never. "Because he… uh… gave you a disease?" He hadn't intended to make it sound like a question.
Emily's mouth dropped open. "How… how could you know about that?"
"Cecelia Chavez visited you that same night Arlo was late." True enough. The public health nurse had admitted to the visit, but nothing more. Now for the big guess. If he was wrong, Emily would realize how little he really knew and the game would be over. "She came to tell you that the blood you donated didn't pass the test." He watched her face. Emily's pupils dilated ever so slightly. Time to play the hand out. "I've had a talk with Doc Anderson." Moon's expression was confident, as if he knew everything. Emily's personal physician had flatly refused to discuss his visit to the Nightbird residence, had even threatened to destroy Emily's medical files at the least hint of a court order. The doctor was hiding something, but what? There was a long silence. Moon wondered if he'd gone too far. Too fast.
Finally she spoke, barely above a whisper. "So you know." She looked at a rose, rubbed her finger across the delicate petals. "HIV-positive. AIDS. That's what Cecelia said the test on my blood indicated." Emily found a lace handkerchief in her purse. "I was awake all night. First, I cried." She trembled at the memory. "I was afraid to die.
By first light, I was furious. I called my father, told him everything. When we found Arlo, he had a lump on his head but he wasn't dead. He opened his eyes." She squeezed the handkerchief into a tiny ball. "The filthy little bastard grinned at me! I must have went berserk. It was like I was outside my body… floating up above… watching someone else. Arlo's knife was on the ground beside him. I used it to…" She couldn't go on.
"So you castrated him," Unconsciously, Moon pulled his knees together.
She patted the handkerchief on her eyes, but there were no tears. "It was the surest way to make sure he wouldn't infect someone else."
The logic, he realized, was unassailable. "But… you shoved his balls down his throat." The policeman tried, without success, to swall
ow.
"He started screaming. I had to make him stop." Emily's voice trailed off. "You have to believe me, Charlie. Angry as I was, I wouldn't have done anything like that… if I'd been in my right mind."
So. She was already considering an insanity plea. Wouldn't need it. She had his word that this conversation was off the record. But that promise was academic. He hadn't read Emily her rights, so the confession wasn't admissible in any case. And no Colorado jury would convict her. Not after her husband had infected her with a deadly disease, then attempted to rape Benita Sweetwater. Moon's hands were cold; he flexed his fingers to encourage the blood to circulate. "Then," he said softly, "you… uh… cut off his ears so it'd look like whoever mutilated Gorman's bull also butchered your husband?" A pretty calculated plan for a woman who was out of her mind.
She winced at the word 'butchered.' Emily passed a delicate hand over her eyes, as if to erase the ghastly picture from her memory. "Having some kind of plan was the farthest thing from my mind. I simply dropped the knife and walked back to Daddy's truck. I don't remember much after that."
"Then it was Fidel that…"
She sighed. "Daddy took Arlo's knife. And… I didn't find out until later… he also… removed Arlo's ears." Her eyes were now blank, like a large pair of black buttons sewn on a doll's face. "You already know what he did with Arlo's turquoise ear stud." At the edge of hysteria, she began to giggle.
Moon leaned over to put his hand on her shoulder. When she became quiet, he spoke. "Emily, you can't just kill your husband because he's…"
Her delicate little face was a picture of genuine puzzlement. "Why?"
He tried to think of a reason that would sound credible to this fascinating half-Apache woman. He couldn't. "It's against the law," he said lamely.
Emily Sombra was quiet for a long time before she looked up at the Ute's face. "Charlie, I solemnly promise never to do anything like that again." She waited. "You do believe me?"
"Sure I do." Anyway, no more than a fifty-fifty chance. If a future husband trifled with her, murder would be much easier the second time. But Moon didn't want to arrest this woman. There were, after all, good reasons to leave her be. First, Arlo pretty much deserved what he got. Well, almost. Second, Emily was half Indian, even if that half was 'Pache. But something nagged at his conscience: James Hoover had pointed out that the his wife was the killer (in sixty percent of the cases?) where the murdered husband was unfaithful. Moon told himself that the distasteful prospect of proving Hoover right had nothing to do with his decision to forget about Arlo's murder. But there it was.
She inhaled the sweet fragrance of the roses. "You tricked me with that story about my father." There was no hint of accusation, only curiosity. "You knew I did it. But how?"
He couldn't tell her that it had begun when Scott Parris had received Nancy Beyal's paperback romance. Village of Shadows. Aldea del Sombras. Parris had a hunch that Daisy's vision of the shadow was related to Emily's father's name. Sombra. Shadow. But his matukach friend, who wanted to pin the murder on Fidel Sombra, had not understood the Ml meaning of Daisy's vision. There was, after all, the owl with blood on its talons. But Parris probably didn't know that Emily had taken up her maiden name after Arlo's death. Somehow, Aunt Daisy had gone to that dark place and seen it all: Shadow that was transformed into Owl and dipped its talons in the warm blood of the Nuu-ci. And then became Shadow again. The Sombra woman had married Arlo and become a Nightbird. Then, she had dipped her hands in the blood of the People. She was now, once again, a Sombra. A Shadow. He wondered whether his aunt had made the connection between her strange vision and Emily Sombra-Nightbird-Sombra.
"It wasn't really my fault," she whispered almost to herself, "it was all asilly mistake."
Moon raised an eyebrow. "Mistake?"
"Certainly. I called Dr. Anderson, reported what the public health nurse had told me about my blood donation. He came over, just before you and Scott… Mr. Parris arrived, and took another blood sample."
So that, Moon realized, had been what Scott Parris had seen when he thought Emily was getting an injection. "You said he'd given you a shot, to calm your nerves."
"Well," she said flatly, "I was nervous when you arrived early and saw the doctor in my home. I lied."
Nervous-that was almost funny. The woman had nerves of steel. Cold, hardened steel. Moon noticed the roses in her hand; they were wilting.
"Anyway," she added quickly, "the second test, performed at a laboratory in Kansas City, showed no evidence of the AIDS virus. Just to be sure, Dr. Anderson drew blood for another test, sent it to Atlanta, to the Centers for Disease Control. That one was negative too." She raised her eyebrows hopefully, like a small child explaining a report card to a parent. "So, I have a clean bill of health. The government scientists in Atlanta said the first test result was a 'statistical fluctuation.' A silly mistake. Arlo didn't give me a disease after all. I feel so silly." She paused and wiped at her eyes. Still no tears. "I hope you'll keep all this to yourself, Charlie. I'd be eternally grateful."
"What you've told me is between us. I don't plan to take any official action. Not unless some new evidence on Arlo's death turns up." Fat chance. Of course there was always the missing pig with the bejeweled ear…
"OlTho," she said with a wave of her tiny hand, "I didn't mean about how Arlo died. I know you won't mention what I told you about his death." She had his word. "What I meant is, I wouldn't want anyone to know that I ever tested positive for the AIDS virus! You know how tongues will wag."
The Ute shook his head in amazement. Emily was half 'Pache, on the female side of her family. The 'Pache women had their own special rules to live by. For giving birth and for burying. For cooking and bathing. And for dealing with faithless husbands. "You," he said, "are some kind of woman." He meant every word.
"Well, thank you, Charlie. But I do sense that you are… disappointed in me."
"Well, I don't exactly buy that story about why you shoved his-"
"Well, Charles, that's because you're a man and you don't realize how a woman reacts under such terrible stress. I was very, very upset with Arlo," she said sternly. "It isn't fair for you to judge me so harshly." She stuffed the handkerchief into her purse and snapped it shut. "You really don't understand how awful it was for me. You had to be there."
Moon's back stiffened as if he had taken a stiff jolt of electricity. "What?"
"I was just saying that…" Her voice trailed off as she puzzled over the peculiar expression on his face. Such a strange, fascinating man.
The policeman stared at the woman without really seeing her. That was it. It was like she said. You had to be there!
She pouted prettily. "Will you remain cross with me forever?"
Moon barely heard her. Now he knew for certain who had killed and mutilated Big Ouray. But there was not enough evidence for an arrest. And that killer of animals might turn out to be very dangerous. Even more dangerous than this fascinating woman.
"Charlie Moon!" She stamped her delicate little foot. "You are not listening to a word I'm saying." She moved close to him, so that her skirt brushed against his knee. "You know… it's awfully lonely in that big house after the sun goes down." She touched his sleeve, then smiled shyly. "Why don't you drop in this evening… around dinner time."
Moon had no appetite. "Thanks. I don't feel much like having dinner."
"I was thinking about something," she said, "more along the lines of… dessert."
Nancy Beyal pushed a flashing button on her telephone console. "Southern Ute Police." The dispatcher listened to the excited caller, who demanded to speak to "Charles" Moon. "No, Mr. Oakes. Charlie's on vacation." She scribbled a few words on her yellow pad as she listened to his questions. "For a week. Maybe two." Nancy nodded as if the caller could see her. "Charlie said he was going to borrow a dog, maybe go hunting." She listened again, with characteristic patience. Oakes was excited, claimed he was "on to something."
"Okay. I'll write it down. M
aybe he'll call in for his messages." She paused to hear another urgent question. "No, Scott Parris isn't here anymore… but I can give you his Granite Creek number." This seemed to satisfy the agitated man.
Scott Parris used his pocket knife to cut the masking tape on the parcel from Charlie Moon. It felt like a book. He unwrapped the heavy brown paper. It was a photocopy of Herb Ecker's journal. A note from Moon was attached:
GREETINGS TO MY FRIEND KNEW YOU WOULD WANT TO SEE THIS.
— Charlie
Parris4eafed through the stapled pages. The entries were in a meticulous hand that was easy to read. There were bits of verse, lines about the inevitability of death and decay. It ranged from the dreary to the bizarre. Except when Ecker penned romantic lines about a young woman. Benita. Embarrassed at this violation of the dead man's privacy, he skipped over these sentimental sections quickly. There were detailed accounts of the young man's expenses. Rent. Groceries. A new battery for his motorcycle, an assortment of books. And notes. Pages of notes. Some of the entries bordered on the mystic.
Interesting event approx. 12 km S.E. of Dulce. Apache's quarter horse killed and mutilated. Tongue, tail, genitals removed. But this is not the work of the Horned Beast.
There was an entry on the day after the Sweetwater bull's death had been reported to the Nightbird Insurance Agency.
Benita's father reports Big Ouray dead. Dr. Schaid says mutilation is work of coyotes. The veterinarian conceals the truth. H. B. strikes again! Benita, sweet princess, stopped to talk with me.
A few days later, Ecker had written:
Of all the inhabitants of Ignacio, only I understand the mystery of the Horned Beast! Perfect Knowledge is Perfect Power!
Parris flipped through the pages, past more strange verse, more listings of grocery bills and rent paid. Ecker's hand had been slightly shaky when he recorded the fact of Arlo Nightbird's death.
Mr. Nightbird is dead. It was to be expected. He had offended the Gods!
Then, there was the final entry:
JoJo Tonompicket arrested for poaching-says he saw 'Dancing Devil' in Snake Canyon. Police believe this man is crazy. No! J. J. has seen the Horned Beast. Tonight I use the vision-medicine. I will dance the old dance, sing the old song. I will see into the dark corners.
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