Moon considered this a plausible explanation. “And if she had her dead husband on her mind, any night-crawler’s face might’ve looked enough like Dr. Blinkoe’s to make her heart skip a few beats.”
“Sure,” Parris said. “So she calls the family attorney, unloads the story on him, tells him she’s coming to his place. She’s plenty spooked, so in her hurry to get out of the house she knocks over the kitchen chair, doesn’t bother to pick it up. Then, on her way to see the family attorney, she changes her mind, makes a snap decision to take a drive somewhere else. Like Salt Lake or Albuquerque or Casper. Anyplace where ghostly faces don’t show up in your window at night.” Parris thought about this scenario. “But that don’t account for the broken pane in the kitchen door.”
Moon pitched in to help his friend. “Rattled as she was, Mrs. Blinkoe gets outside, realizes she doesn’t have her pickup keys—and she’s locked herself out of the house. She breaks in to get her purse.”
The chief of police liked it. Far stranger things had happened. He mentioned two or three that had occurred during his days in Chicago. Like the Hindu snake-charmer who’d disappeared from a locked cell, and the hopped-up hillbilly taxi driver who drove his Checker cab into the Halstead Street Methodist Church and tried to purchase an airline ticket to Paducah.
Moon had his own examples. Like the wild-eyed Apache who got stopped at a roadblock, made a run for it, climbed a cottonwood tree, and howled like a wolf, and that time when a dead Ute woman showed up at the Sun Dance. Once you understood what was going on, these things made perfect sense. Well, except for the case of the corpse who’d come to the Sun Dance. That one still didn’t bear thinking about.
“There’s one thing that’s making me a mite uneasy,” Parris said.
“I can’t imagine what,” the Ute responded.
Aha—Charlie’s finally slipped up. “Then you haven’t noticed?”
Moon had noticed. “Oh, you mean the gray Ford sedan parked up by the road?”
The chief of police ground his teeth. “Nobody likes a show-off.”
“Don’t you believe it.” Moon patted him on the back. “I like you.”
“Okay, smart guy. But I bet you didn’t spot her yesterday.”
“Sure I did.”
“Hah!”
“What does that ‘hah’ mean?”
“It means, ‘then tell me when’—and ‘what was she driving?’”
“You won’t take my word for it?”
“Double hah!”
“Okay, if you put it that way. Agent McTeague was parked up the street from Doc Simpson’s place. Tan Chevy van. Government license plate UKL-228. There was a small crack in the left—”
“That’ll do.”
“—rear taillight.”
Parris tried hard, finally thought of the word. “I am chagrined.”
“I am visibly impressed with your vocabulary. But with whom are you chagrined, my erudite friend?”
“With youm, that’s whom—for not telling me you’d spotted that FBI tail.”
“Well, Mr. Chagrined, you sure didn’t tell me you’d seen Mc—”
“And I’m ticked off with Special Agent McTeague. If the lady is so danged curious about the Blinkoe homicide, why skulk around like some kind of two-bit spy?”
“Because that’s the way they do things at the FBI. And she’s probably enjoying playing Jane Bond.”
“What a waste of taxpayers’ money—why don’t she just walk right up and ask me what she wants to know?”
Charlie Moon had already given this quite a lot of thought. “Maybe she figures that what you know ain’t worth finding out about.”
“Thank you, Chucky. That did wonders for my self-esteem.”
“Anytime, pardner.”
Special Agent McTeague pulled away. Sooner or later, one of them will spot me. Then Scott Parris will get all…what is the colloquial expression? Oh, right. He’ll get all “bear-cat-growly”—and he’ll call me up and demand to know what I’m up to, spying on him. I’ll inform the assistant SAC that there’s no use in continuing my surveillance. The A-SAC will criticize my tradecraft, then order me to inform the chief of police about the Bureau’s interest in the Blinkoe case. I’ll hint to Parris he should insist that Charlie Moon has to be brought into the FBI loop. He’ll want to know why. And I’ll say, “Why, because the late Dr. Blinkoe has undoubtedly confided in Charlie.” Being very pleased with herself, the clever lady smiled at the road ahead. Men are so easy to manipulate.
19
Dealing with Personnel Issues
Early morning in the high country was never warm. Moon stood in front of the brick fireplace, held his palms out to the crackling pine logs. The parlor in the Big Hat headquarters was not as grand as the one in the massive log structure at the Columbine, but the fire cast a cheerful twinkle in the Ute rancher’s dark eyes. He spoke to the pair of men standing behind him. “Even though you two aren’t experienced stockmen, you can still make yourselves useful. We’ve had us some trouble lately with cattle thieves. My hope is that with a couple of armed toughs on the place, we won’t lose any more stock.”
The man who called himself Curly pulled at a cauliflower ear. “If somebody comes lookin’ for trouble, what’re the rules of the game?”
Moon continued to stare at the flames. “Call the Columbine, then give ’em as much trouble as you can spare till I can get here with a truckload of armed cowboys.” He turned to regard the men. Curly had a little brush of a mustache under his flattened nose, but not a hair on his shiny head—not even a trace of eyebrows. The older man, who was clean-shaven, stared myopically at the Ute from under the bill of a tattered Dodgers cap. “But there’s nothing on the place that’s worth getting yourselves killed for. So here’s the drill: If things start to look dicey, do whatever’s necessary to stay healthy.”
Curly turned to his companion, who had a heavy revolver holstered on his hip. “Cap, d’you think you could you shoot a man if you had to?”
Cap nodded. “I’ve killed my share of men.” He grinned. “Including a couple of Arabs.”
Having served as a mercenary in a dozen troubled countries, Curly was pleased to hear this. “You was in one of them wars in Iraq?”
The baseball cap rotated twice to indicate a negative response. “These Arabs were in Newark.”
Curly decided to let that dog lie.
Moon was about to add further instructions when the cell phone in his pocket buzzed. I got to remember to turn that danged thing off. He put the instrument under the brim of his hat. “Hello.”
Scott Parris’s voice crackled in his ear. “Hello yourself, Charlie. Where you at, ol’ buddy?”
“Here at the Big Hat. Breaking in a couple of new hands.”
“You mean cow-pie kickers?”
“I mean straight shooters.”
“Gunslingers, eh?”
“You don’t really want to know.”
“I’ve known about your rustling problem ever since the day it happened.”
“So why aren’t you out there looking for my cattle?”
“Hey, I’ll put Officers Knox and Slocum on it.” The GCPD chief of police added a “Ha-ha.”
“Don’t do me no such favors,” Moon grumped.
“Suit yourself.” Parris switched to a more serious tone. “Look, Charlie—I got to see you. Right away.”
“About what?”
“I’ll bring somebody along to explain that to you.”
“Who?”
“Your favorite federal agent.”
Moon grinned. “Lila Mae?”
“Who else? I called her this morning, demanded to know why she’d been following me around. At first, she played it real cagey—said she was busy, would have to get back to me. Which means she had to call her boss and ask him, ‘What do I tell the chief of police, Mr. Special Agent in Charge of the Entire Galaxy?’” Parris chuckled. “And she did. Get back to me, I mean. Said the Bureau would like to ‘collaborate’ with
the GCPD on the Blinkoe homicide, and his wife’s disappearance. After thinking about it some, I said she’d have to talk to the both of us. She said she couldn’t make that decision, she’d have to check with her supervisor. She called me back again, just above five minutes ago, said she had the Bureau’s permission to bring you into the loop.”
The Ute glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece. “When should I expect you?”
“Oh, a couple a hours.”
Moon said his good-bye, stowed the phone in his pocket. The new hires were staring holes in him. He smiled. “We’re going to have some visitors.”
Cap rested the heel of his hand on the revolver handle that jutted out at his side. “Who?”
The Ute shrugged. “The Granite Creek chief of police. And an FBI agent.”
The men stared in numb disbelief.
Cap finally managed to squeak out a quartet of words. “Are you kidding us?”
Moon shook his head in a gesture of one put-upon by Life. “One of the things that makes running a ranch so difficult is hiring men who don’t have something or other to hide from the law.” He eyed Cap sternly, then Curly. “The chief of police is an old buddy of mine, and has a tendency to look the other way where my hired help is concerned. But, boys, let me tell you one thing I know from long years of experience with the tribal police—it don’t ever pay to mess around with the FBI. Nothing gets past those folks. So if either of you two are wanted for counterfeiting or kidnapping or robbing banks, I’d just as soon you didn’t tell me anything about it. That way, if Agent McTeague happens to match one of your homely kissers to a Wanted poster and puts the cuffs on you—hey, it’s not like I knew anything about it.” He turned to watch the flames lick resinous bark off the pine logs. “If there’s any reason you fellas don’t want to hang around, you can always hit the road before the fed shows up.”
Lila Mae’s revelation
Scott Parris pulled his black-and-white to a rocking stop in the scanty shade of an elm that didn’t know whether it was dead or alive. The low, rambling Big Hat headquarters was not as impressive as Moon’s big log house on the Columbine, but it had a comfortable, lived-in sort of look.
Charlie Moon was standing on the porch. A pair of men flanked him.
McTeague unbuckled her shoulder restraint. “Those fellows with Charlie don’t look like cowboys to me.”
“They’re not,” Parris said. “He had some cattle stole off this place a while back. Those guys are sort of—guards.”
The FBI agent took a closer look. The bald one was cradling a .30-30 carbine in the crook of his arm. The older one in the baseball cap toted a big pistol on his hip. “Guards? Those are a couple of thugs.”
“Of course they are,” Parris said with a grin. “And if those rustlers show up here again, I imagine they’ll wish they’d gone somewhere else instead.”
Charlie Moon stepped off the porch to shake hands with Parris, tipped his black Stetson at McTeague. Moon noted the evil eye she was aiming at his new hands. He turned to make the introductions. “The shiny-headed fella is Curly.”
I might have guessed. “How do you do?” she said.
Curly didn’t tell her how he did—he merely leered at the good-looking woman.
The rancher continued. “The mean-looking hombre calls himself Cap. He claims to be a good hand with a six-gun, and not all that bad with the pots and pans. Boys,” he said, “the lady is Special Agent McTeague. She works for the FBI, so watch your step.” He nodded to indicate the man beside the fed. “This is Scott Parris, my old buddy. He’s chief of police in Granite Creek. The reason you’re looking after the Big Hat is that Scott is not interested in hunting down cattle thieves.”
Parris grinned at the Big Hat hands. “Hi, fellas.”
Cap touched his cap.
Curly was still grinning at the woman.
“Come inside,” Moon said. “While Curly finds himself a rattlesnake and bites off its head, Cap will dish us out some lunch.”
After the meal, Parris released a happy burp. Remembering the lady, he apologized.
“Forget it,” McTeague said. “I have three older brothers.” She smiled at her host. “Charlie, that was the best beef Stroganoff I’ve had west of the Mississippi. Your man Cap is a first-class chef.”
Moon glanced at the man who was the object of this extravagant compliment. “I don’t know. I thought it was lacking…a certain something.”
Cap scowled at the owner of the spread, started jerking plates off the table.
As soon as the cook was out of earshot, McTeague whispered to Moon, “I believe you have hurt his feelings.”
The Ute snorted. “Guys like Cap don’t have feelings.”
Parris nodded. “Charlie’s right. You start being nice to hardcases, it goes right to their heads. First thing you know, they start thinking they’re actual human beings.”
“Yeah,” Moon said. “Then they’ll be wanting regular wages.”
The FBI agent stared at the Ute. “You mean you don’t pay—”
“I bet all these guys get is thirty bucks a week and found.” Parris scratched at his belly.
McTeague looked at Parris, then at Moon. “Found?”
“Room and board,” Moon said. “Beans and bed.” He shot a hurt look at Parris. “And for the record, I pay ’em forty dollars every Friday night.”
She threw her napkin down. “But that’s illegal!”
“Not if I don’t get caught.” Moon nodded at Cap, who sidled over to the table. “Mister, have you or that bald-as-a-doorknob chum of yours got any complaints about your treatment here on the Big Hat?”
The cook opened his mouth as if to make a beef, hesitated.
“If you do, you can tell this lady,” Moon said. “She has got your best interests at heart.”
There was a shrug, a rotation of the Dodgers cap.
Moon grinned at his favorite FBI agent. “See?”
McTeague shot the Ute a dark look, smiled at the exploited man. “The lunch was delicious.”
This earned her a pleased grin before Cap returned to the sink.
Moon picked up his coffee mug, leaned back in his chair. “So what brings you two coppers to the hospitality of my humble table?”
“Ask her,” Parris said. “She’s only dropped me a hint or two.”
McTeague raised a perfectly arched eyebrow, looked over Moon’s shoulder at the chef.
“Hey, Cap,” Moon yelled. “You can take a break.”
The underpaid worker pitched a dishtowel aside, shuffled out the porch door.
Having rehearsed her small speech, McTeague delivered it flawlessly. “The Bureau has decided to take an interest in the Blinkoe homicide.”
Moon looked from the FBI agent to the chief of police.
Parris shrugged. “Hey, it’s no skin off my nose. If the FBI wants to help me, that’s just dandy.”
The tribal investigator blinked. “No knotty jurisdictional issues?”
“Not with me.” Parris helped himself to a homemade oatmeal-and-raisin cookie. “Over the years,” he said between satisfied chews, “a man learns to go with the flow. Live and let live. And so on and so forth.”
Moon shook his head. “Don’t take this the wrong way, pard—but I find this roll of baloney kinda hard to swallow.”
“That’s because I didn’t mean a word of what I said. If this fed starts stepping on my toes, I’ll run her out of town.”
“I am greatly relieved to hear it,” Moon said. “All of this fraternizing with the FBI could ruin your reputation for being a grumpy old lawman.”
McTeague was about to bristle. “Can it, you two.”
Moon attempted a contrite expression. “Yes ma’am.”
Feeling not the least contritious, Parris managed a second burp.
“Here’s the deal.” The FBI agent spoke barely above a whisper. “At precisely fourteen hundred hours tomorrow, the Denver Field Office will issue a news release on the Blinkoe homicide.”
Parr
is grinned. “Ain’t this perfect? The FBI has just got interested in the case, and first thing they do is plan a news release—now why didn’t I think of that?”
McTeague gave him The Look. “Shut up and listen.”
He did.
“I have been granted permission to give you guys a heads-up.” McTeague glanced at the door leading to the porch. Cap and Curly were in the yard, standing under a cottonwood tree. “For some time now, Dr. Blinkoe has been a person who was—shall we say—of interest to the Bureau.”
The lawmen waited for the other boot to drop.
It did not.
Parris snorted. “Blinkoe is a ‘person of interest’ to the Bureau—that’s it?”
“Don’t ask me for details that I am not at liberty to provide. But I am instructed to tell you this: If either of you happens across any information that might have the slightest relevance to Dr. Blinkoe’s untimely demise, you are to report to me immediately.” McTeague stared at her coffee. “I wish I could tell you more.”
Moon waved off the halfway apology. “It would probably be the kind of stuff that puts a man off his feed. Me, I wouldn’t want to hear it.”
“Well, speak for yourself, Charlie. Me, I wouldn’t mind hearing just a tad more.” Scott Parris thumped a knuckle on the table. “It just so happens that Moccasin Lake—where Dr. Blinkoe’s boat was blasted to flinders and splinters—is in my jurisdiction.”
McTeague stared at the chief of police. “So?”
Parris had no answer to this vague question.
Moon attempted to disarm her with a grin. “Is our official business done with?”
The fed said that it was.
The host beamed at his guests. “You two want some serious dessert?”
Though suffering from a belt that kept shrinking, Parris could not resist. “What’ve you got?”
Shadow Man Page 13