A Dead Man's Tale

by James D. Doss

  And why shouldn’t she be calm? The lady has nothing whatever to fear, save being charged with making a false emergency call.

  The Cops

  It had been a busy evening for GCPD dispatcher Clara Tavishuts. In addition to the usual complaints about barking dogs, howling drunks, and a low-flying saucer-shaped UFO whose uncouth occupants had allegedly abducted an enraged senior citizen’s favorite tomcat, three citizens—all nervous women at home alone—had called 911 to report suspicious activity. Each of them was convinced that the notorious Crowbar Burglar was prowling about her neighborhood, and one lady was certain that she had seen the malefactor skulking in her rose garden with evil intent. GCPD units were duly dispatched, but without turning up any sign of the fellow whose nighttime pastime was prying his way into residences and scaring the daylights out of those householders he encountered.

  The first and third calls had been taken by Officers Eddie Knox and E. C. “Piggy” Slocum.

  The former was in the passenger seat riding shotgun. Literally. Sawed-off Savage 20-gauge. Over-and-under double barrel. Loaded with buckshot. Officer Knox addressed the driver as follows: “Wanna know what I think, Pig?”

  The plump cop with the swinish nickname grunted.

  Being familiar with the tonal content of his partner’s abbreviated replies, Knox recognized this as an affirmative response. “I figure the odds against us taking this pry-bar guy alive to be about twenty to one.”

  Another grunt.

  “Why? Well it’s plain as the nose on your face—this Gomer’s been lucky so far, but his pocketful of four-leaf clovers is just about used up. It’s all a matter of statistics, Pig.” Knox set his jaw in that manner which signaled that he was about to educate his partner. “Did you know that four out of every five homes in Colorado contains at least one loaded firearm?”

  Recognizing a rhetorical question when he heard one, the driver did not waste a grunt.

  “This night-crawler has already broke into six homes that was occupied. It’s a wonder he ain’t been shot already by some feisty old granny with a big horse pistol.” Knox jutted his chin at Slocum. “You mark my words. Before the month is over, Mr. Crowbar will break into the wrong house and get his nasty self pumped full of Pb.” That’ll rattle his cage.

  E. C. Slocum blinked at the windshield. “Pumped fulla pub?”

  Eddie Knox spelled it out: “P-B.” He grinned at his partner. “Which, as any ten-year-old with a big forehead knows, is lead—which is used for making sinkers, toy soldiers, and bullets.”

  Slocum coughed up a derisive grunt. “I never heard of any such a thing.” Eddie’s making that up.

  “I don’t mean to be overly critical, Pig—but when you’re not busy turning the pages on Spiderman comic books or watching Donald Duck cartoons on TV, you might want to take a gander at the periodic table.”

  This reference suggested victuals to the perpetually hungry man. “Where’s that at?”

  The Fourth Call

  Officer Knox was about to tell him when the dispatcher’s voice interrupted their conversation: “Unit 242—proceed to 1200 Shadowlane Avenue. Prowler report. See the lady. Mrs. Irene Reed reports that someone is in the process of breaking into the rear entrance of her residence.”

  Eddie Knox barked into the microphone, “We’re on it, Clara.” He grinned at his partner. “Step on it, Pig—maybe we can get there before the lady stops ol’ Crowbar’s clock!”

  Slocum had already pressed the pedal to the metal.

  “But no emergency lights or siren,” Knox said. “I don’t want to scare this varmint away. Let’s go in dark and silent and nail his hide to the barn door.”

  “We can’t do that.” Slocum shook his head and quoted from The Book: “‘When a citizen is in imminent danger, standard procedure is to use emergency lights and siren in hopes of diverting a potential assailant from doing serious bodily harm.’”

  “Dammit, Pig—we’ll never catch this guy by goin’ by the stupid rules!”

  E. C. Slocum’s grunt was an eloquent and final statement. The issue was closed. He turned on the flashing red-and-blue lights and flipped the siren switch.

  All their noisy way to 1200 Shadowlane Avenue, Eddie Knox sulked.

  Officer Slocum hit the Reeds’ driveway in a sliding turn that kicked up buckets and bushels of white gravel. That, and the screaming siren and flashing emergency lights sent a lone coyote loping away like all the hounds of hell were nipping at his tail. The driver slowed enough for Knox to eject himself from their sleek black-and-white Chevrolet. Slocum sped around the circular drive and braked the GCPD unit to a lurching halt behind the Reeds’ guest house.

  After Eddie Knox circled the brick house and met Slocum in the Reeds’ backyard, he sullenly announced that there was “no sign of any burglar, as might be expected the way you came a-roarin’ in like a Texas twister on steroids. If Mr. Crowbar was in the vicinity, he’s probably in the next county by now.”

  The amiable Slocum took no offense.

  Having heard them coming from some two miles away, Mrs. Reed opened the back door of her home and waved at the cops. Slocum holstered his sidearm, and Knox propped the shotgun over his shoulder as they approached the citizen, who was already yelling at them. “You must have frightened him away, but he was here—trying to break into this door!”

  Both cops aimed black five-cell “skull crusher” flashlights at the specified door.

  Slocum grunted twice.

  Knox interpreted his partner’s observation for the civilian: “There’s no evidence that anybody was attempting a break-in, Miz Reed.” He gestured with the flashlight. “See? Not a mark on the door, or the frame.”

  “Oh.” She stared vacantly at the uniformed cops. “Maybe it was a different door.”

  “Maybe so.” Knox tipped his hat. “Don’t you worry about a thing. Me’n my partner will check out all of your doors and windows.”

  “Thank you.” She hugged herself and shuddered. “This whole business has been very unnerving.”

  “Yes, ma’am. We’ll knock on your front door before we leave and get a statement about exactly what you heard and saw—the whole ball of beeswax.”

  Irene Reed nodded and closed the door.

  Knox arched an eyebrow at his partner. “Nice-lookin’ lady, wouldn’t you say?”

  Considering his partner’s observation unprofessional, E. C. “Piggy” Slocum did not respond.

  A Lawman’s Hunch

  At ten minutes past nine the following morning, Scott Parris was seated at his desk with a cup of coffee, perusing last night’s duty reports. It was dull, tedious work, but part of what the chief of police got paid to do. When Charlie Moon’s best friend saw the caller’s name on a terse report filed by Knox and Slocum, his brow furrowed as if it had been plowed for planting corn. First, Sam Reed shows up in my office predicting his murder. A few days later his wife places a 911 call about a prowler. The cop reread the report, focusing on those phrases that practically jumped off the page:

  …caller reported sounds of someone breaking into rear entrance of residence…responding officers found no evidence of attempted forced entry on doors or windows…no evidence that a trespasser had been present outside residence prior to officers’ arrival…

  Staring unblinkingly at the routine call report, Parris forgot all about the warm coffee mug in his hand. Somewhere deep in the lawman’s instincts, a tiny alarm bell started to ring—and a plausible scenario began to take root in the fertile imagination under his freshly plowed forehead. His lurid imaginings were accompanied by a haunting suspicion. Maybe Sam Reed ain’t a nutcase after all. Which worrisome possibility called for an appropriate course of action.

  Right off, Scott Parris knew what to do.

  He left his office, got into his black-and-white, and went and did it.

  Then he placed a call to his best friend and advised Charlie Moon that he was on the way to the Columbine.

  Chapter Seventeen

  H
ow the Chief of Police Sees It

  Scott Parris did not devour the free lunch with his usual manly gusto. The Columbine victuals were first-rate as usual, but the cop picked at his medium-rare T-bone steak with the sated appetite of a gorged vulture. He showed no interest in the huge baked-and-buttered Idaho potato. Rather than eat his pinto beans, the discomfited diner preferred to line them up in neat, straight rows like little brown soldiers. The problem was, the Granite Creek chief of police had expected to have lunch with his best buddy—not the Southern Ute tribal investigator’s entire family, which included Charlie Moon’s irascible aunt Daisy and the effervescent Sarah Frank. The tribal elder’s black eyes seemed to see through him, and the enthusiastic youth was practically overflowing with an enthusiastic monologue about how much she was enjoying her freshman semester at Granite Creek’s Rocky Mountain Polytechnic University. There seemed to be no end to the scholar’s accounts of fascinating classes in American literature, American history, introductory calculus, and that perennial crowd pleaser—elementary computer science.

  After the foursome had worked their way past peach cobbler and vanilla ice cream, Parris gave Charlie a shifty-eyed look and suggested that they go upstairs to the rancher’s office and talk about a thing or two.

  Were the women offended?

  Apparently not.

  Daisy offered to percolate a fresh pot of Folgers finest, and Sarah graciously volunteered to bring the men a tray of coffee and cookies.

  Parris’s Suspicions

  As Charlie Moon closed his office door and booted his way across the oak floor, he recalled the visit from Lyle Thoms and the offer of twenty-five cents to assassinate Posey Shorthorse. Maybe I ought to ask Scott to be on the lookout for this rogue Chickasaw. But, for some reason or other, the timing didn’t seem quite right. “What’s on your mind, pardner?”

  Scott Parris perched his hefty bulk on the edge of an oak-framed leather armchair and clasped his knobby hands to make a massive double fist. “I’m beginning to think maybe Sam Reed ain’t entirely crazy.”

  The man of the house eased himself into the chair behind his desk. “I never figured he was.”

  “I mean about his wild-eyed story that somebody intends to do away with him on the fourth of June.”

  “What’s happened?” The tribal investigator frowned at the town cop. “Has somebody taken a shot at our imaginative friend?”

  “Well…no.” Not yet. “But a few minutes after ten last night—while her husband wasn’t home—Mrs. Reed placed a 911 call and told the dispatcher somebody was breaking into her house. Knox and Slocum responded to the complaint. But—” the storyteller paused for dramatic effect, “when they got there, there wasn’t no prowler.”

  During those yesteryears when Charlie Moon had served as a uniformed tribal policeman, he had answered dozens of such calls. But, knowing that his friend had probably responded to just as many mistaken reports, he figured Scott must be going somewhere.

  The chief of police was. “Not only wasn’t there no prowler—there wasn’t the least indication one had been there. Mrs. Reed had claimed somebody was prying her back door open, but there wasn’t a mark to support her story. Not on the rear entrance or any other door—or on any of the windows.”

  “So the lady was mistaken.” Moon leaned back in his chair. “She’s been reading those scary stories in the local paper about the so-called Crowbar Burglar and was nervous about being home alone. Mrs. Reed probably heard the wind blowing a tree branch against the house and jumped to the wrong conclusion.”

  “That’s pretty much what Knox and Slocum figured.”

  “But you don’t.”

  “I’m not absolutely sure, Charlie.” The dyspeptic cop felt a burning churning in his stomach. “But when you add this groundless 911 call to Sam Reed’s conviction that somebody is gonna shoot him dead—well, it’s just a little bit worrisome.”

  “You figure Reed’s wife might mistake him for a burglar?”

  “That can’t be ruled out.” Parris unclasped his double fist and examined networks of blue veins on the backs of his hands. “It might even be worse than that.”

  Charlie Moon responded with a slow, thoughtful nod. “She might have deliberately placed a false prowler call to lay the groundwork for deliberately shooting her husband when he comes home late some night—and then claim she thought it was the Crowbar Burglar come back again to break in.”

  “That’s the way I see it, Chucky.” Parris drummed the fingers of his right hand on the arm of the chair. “Shootings that’re honestly due to mistaken identity happen all the time. And when it’s cold-blooded murder, it’s damn near impossible to prove—especially in a case where the shooter has called in a previous report of a prowler. Our mealymouthed DA not only wouldn’t prosecute—he’d tell me to lay off the unfortunate widow. Pug Bullet is more concerned about political repercussions than seeing that justice is done.”

  “Maybe so. But all you have is a possibly false prowler report—and you can’t even prove that.” The tribal investigator clasped his hands behind his neck. “I hate to be the one to say it, pardner—but that’s more than a little thin.”

  Prepared for this gentle rebuff, Parris grinned. “You remember how Sam Reed said he’d get killed on his way home from the candy store? And that it’d happen about the time he heard the eleven P.M. church bells?”

  “I do.”

  “Think on this: the Copper Street Candy Shop closes at ten thirty P.M., which is when Reed claims he’ll leave with his wife’s box of birthday chocolates.” Parris paused for the expected response.

  Moon was immediately forthcoming. “Unless I disremember, the man didn’t say anything about his wife having a birthday on the fourth of June.”

  “That’s right—he didn’t. But she does.” Scott Parris was immensely pleased with himself. “I found out when I checked the info in Mrs. Reed’s driver’s license.”

  Moon mulled this over. “Seems odd he didn’t mention her birthday being June fourth.” He grinned at his friend. “So Sam Reed leaves the candy store with the chocolates—what then?”

  “The candy store’s about an eight-minute walk from Reed’s office upstairs over the Cattleman’s Bank, where he parks his car. Let’s say Reed pulls out of the bank parking lot at about ten forty P.M. I checked before I left town this morning: give or take a little, it’ll take him about fifteen minutes to drive from the bank lot to his residence in the suburbs, a couple more minutes to park in his garage.”

  “Which puts him at his back door pretty close to the eleventh hour.”

  “Right!” The cop slammed his big fist on the oak chair arm.

  The wooden-faced Indian winced inwardly. I hope he don’t splinter my chair. “So what do you intend to do?”

  “There’s not much I can do.” GCPD’s top cop scowled under bushy brows. “Before I could say a word to Sam Reed about his wife being a potential suspect, I’d need more information. Like do they keep any fire-arms in the house? Does Mrs. Reed carry a pistol in her purse?” Seeing the doubtful look on Moon’s face, he pressed on. “And there’s the question of motive; this might not be entirely about Mrs. Reed inheriting her husband’s money. When I checked her driver’s license data I found out that Irene Reed is about half Sam’s age, and even on her license snapshot she’s pretty as one of those flashy ladies you see on magazine covers. We both know Sam Reed ain’t much to look at, which naturally raises the question—does the gorgeous young married woman have herself a good-looking young boyfriend? And with that possibility in mind, where does Mrs. Reed go when her husband ain’t home?” Parris paused. “I need to know all that kind of stuff.” The chief of police blushed as he prepared to drop the heavy hint on his friend. “But you know how thin my budget is. I not only don’t have the manpower to shadow Mrs. Reed—my officers aren’t exactly what you’d call detectives.”

  The tribal investigator got the message. Scott wants me to look into this business for him. But not as his deputy—unoffi
cially. That way, if the Reeds get wind of what’s happening, it can’t be tied to GCPD. Coming from his best friend, this was not an unreasonable request. Then, there was the bet Reed had made with both of them—a ten-to-one wager that Scott Parris couldn’t keep him alive past June 4. Keeping Reed among the living was not only in Parris’s financial interests but also in Moon’s. Problem is, I just don’t have the time to take on any more work. It was hard to turn his friend down flat, so Moon settled on a noncommittal reply: “Yeah, I see what you mean.”

  Misinterpreting this vague response as an “I’ll look into it,” Parris allowed himself a half smile. I hoped you would.

  Sarah Frank, who was standing in the carpeted upstairs hallway outside Moon’s office door with a tray of coffee and homemade chocolate-chip cookies, had also gotten the message. No, the girl was not a deliberate eavesdropper cut from the same cloth as Daisy Perika. She had merely paused when she heard the men’s voices discussing a serious matter, and wondered whether she should withdraw with the refreshments until a more opportune moment or announce her presence. Choosing the latter course, the girl cleared her throat. “Excuse me.” Behind the closed door, Scott Parris’s voice stopped in midsentence. Sarah felt her face burn. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but would you like some fresh coffee and warm-from-the-oven cookies?”

  Of course they would.

  Parris opened the door, thanked the eighteen-year-old, and took the tray. After she had departed, he placed the coffee and cookies on Moon’s desk. “Sarah’s a very nice young lady.” He cocked his head at the memory of all those years gone by, and sighed. “Makes me wish I had a daughter.”

  “A man with girlfriends who aren’t old enough to drive a car don’t need any daughters.”