The Widow's Revenge

by James D. Doss

  Parris did not disappoint. “Point?”

  “Certainly.”

  “With who?”

  “The local chief of police, of course.”

  He jabbed his chest with a thumb. “Me?”

  “Who else?” McTeague plunged her verbal dagger deep into his ego. “Until the Bureau assumed jurisdiction, you represented the legally constituted authority.” She twisted it. “And while being interviewed by the news media, you referred to the Family as ‘a bunch of cowardly bums, who like to beat up on old women.’ ”

  Oblivious to this attack, Parris didn’t blink. “Well, they are—cowardly murderous bums, who ought to be strung up on the nearest cottonwood and their bodies left to rot in the sun!”

  Left with no other weapon, the fed resorted to a disdainful sniff. “A very evocative picture, and you are entitled to your point of view.”

  Evocative, indeed. The picture of hanging bodies rotting in the sun reminded Scott Parris of something. An execution he could not quite call to mind; a death sentence carried out a long time ago. Must’ve been an old photograph I saw in one of my Western-lore magazines. But it felt more like a scene from a nightmarish dream.

  McTeague’s reply was icy. “The point the Family made was simply this—that despite your best efforts, they are still in business.”

  “Not for long,” Parris said.

  This was McTeague’s setup for the cheap shot. “I agree. Now that the Bureau has jurisdiction, with almost a hundred agents on the case.”

  The local cop rolled his eyes, barely contained a derisive snort.

  The FBI agent turned her head to regard the craggy-faced Indian. A romantic of sorts, she imagined Charlie Moon living in those days before the Shining Mountains were overrun by mountain men, explorers, prospectors, soldiers, ranchers, cowboys, various categories of land-grabbers, and finally farmers, merchants, and poor families desperate for a home nearer to that far horizon where the sun went down. Charlie is quite civilized. But a hundred and fifty years ago, he’d have been a bloodthirsty savage wearing scalps on his belt and committing unspeakable atrocities against the settlers. Miss McTeague had the benefit of a fine liberal education with three degrees from two of the finest Ivy League universities—but history was not her strong suit.

  The object of her lurid imagery was lost in Lila Mae McTeague’s enormous eyes.

  He’s so sweet. Somewhere deep inside, the lady sighed. Perhaps I should consider rekindling our relationship. She recalled what had happened last year. No. I could never forgive him for that. Not even if he was innocent. Like the members of the Family, Lila Mae also had her pride. “Well, Charlie, you always manage to find trouble.”

  Mr. So Sweet felt warmed by his old flame. “I don’t go looking for it.” Trouble seems to have a way of finding me. Just like Aunt Daisy. Maybe it’s in our blood.

  As it happened, the aforesaid aunt was approaching.

  Bam! (This was Daisy kicking the office door.)

  “Open up!” (Also Moon’s irascible auntie.)

  Why did she not merely rap a knuckle lightly on the door and ask politely whether her nephew and his guests would mind being disturbed for a moment? Because Daisy did not have a free hand. Her sturdy oak staff was grasped in one, a hot pot of coffee in the other. Nevertheless, with the assistance of her walking stick, the tribal elder could stand briefly on one foot, which left the other appendage free to kick with.

  Now, the matter of her snappish command. The old war horse was winded from climbing the Columbine headquarters stairs and in no mood for wasting precious breath on superfluous words.

  When Charlie Moon opened the door, his nearest living relative pushed the stainless steel percolator at him. Spotting a hint of crimson on her nephew’s mouth, Daisy aimed a beady-eyed stare at McTeague. “That’s pretty lipstick, Toots—I hope you don’t use it all up before you leave.” With this parting shot, the crotchety woman turned and plodded away.

  Scott Parris frowned at the empty space where Daisy had been. What was that all about?

  Lila Mae, who understood Daisy’s implication, smiled at Charlie, who didn’t.

  Having long since given up any attempt to make sense of his peculiar aunt’s behavior, Mr. Moon responded with a slight shrug, closed the door, and put the coffeepot on his desk. “I’ll go down later and get us some cups.”

  As it happened, that errand would not be necessary.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  SHE DELIVERS A MESSAGE

  LIGHTLY: TAP-TAP.

  Pause.

  Softly: “Excuse me—may I come in?”

  For the second time in two minutes, Charlie Moon opened his office door.

  The seventeen-year-old had washed the tearstains from her face, brushed her jet-black hair until it glistened, and smeared enough $3.98 per stick Pink Passion on her lips to startle the object of her ardent affections. She offered a bemused Moon a heavy Nambe Ware tray bearing two man-size mugs and a dainty flowered China cup for the lady. Also three stainless steel spoons, a miniature brown crockery pitcher of half-and-half, and a silver bowl filled with snow-white sugar.

  Without a glance at Miss McTeague or Mr. Parris, Sarah turned and walked away.

  But—and this detail is significant—there was no honey on the tray.

  This deliberate omission of the obligatory bee nectar for sweetening his coffee was Sarah’s message to Moon. Strong stuff. Possibly even overkill. But the cavalier fellow who (so she thought) went around kissing every woman in sight (excepting herself) needed to be taught a stern lesson.

  Moon glanced at the tray. She forgot the Tule Creek honey.

  SPECIAL AGENT MCTEAGUE’S AFTERTHOUGHT

  After Charlie Moon had poured coffee for his guests, Miss McTeague took a sip. Whilst sipping, a thought occurred to m’lady, which led her to query the chief of police thusly: “How many GCPD officers have you assigned to guard Mrs. Jeppson?”

  Parris’s highly expressive frown asked what she meant by that. And why she thought the operation of his department was any of the $&%$# FBI’s %#$&$ business.

  Assuming that this man of late middle age was merely confused by her question, the federal cop explained. “I refer, of course, to the potential threat to Mrs. Jeppson.”

  What threat? “What threat?”

  “You didn’t read the fax?”

  “What fax?”

  She rolled her big, pretty eyes. “The urgent memorandum the Bureau forwarded to your office yesterday.”

  “I spent practically all of yesterday with you.” A blue vein worming its way across his temple started to throb. “During the past thirty-six hours, I’ve been in my office for maybe ten minutes.”

  McTeague’s haughtily lifted chin suggested that this was no excuse for not keeping up with official correspondence. Also that Scott Parris was a stereotypical incompetent yokel cop who probably got his tin star out of a box of Sugar Pops. “Then let me brief you on the essential facts contained in the facsimile message. Three years ago almost to the day, the Family staged their annual summer-vacation crime spree in Arkansas.” Though it would be an act of flagrant hyperbole to declare that the fed spat out the words like an automatic pistol belching hot bullets, there was a measured intensity in her delivery that commanded attention. “When a Little Rock pawnshop owner responded to an attempted armed robbery by firing five loads of buckshot into two of their members, the Family ended up with one man dead on the spot and another mortally wounded. They carried both of their fallen comrades away.” She inhaled an aromatic breath of Columbine air that was lightly scented with old leather and wet sage, and exhaled it with these words: “Nine days later, the Family had their revenge on the operator of the small business, who had wreaked havoc with his Browning automatic shotgun. They made him watch while they slit his twelve-year-old son’s throat and crushed his eight-year-old daughter’s skull with a crowbar.”

  Did she have their undivided attention? Yea, verily. The chief of police and the tribal investigator wer
e like men made of stone.

  And McTeague was just getting up to steam. “After committing these atrocities, a member of the Family placed one of Trout’s custom-made improvised explosive devices on a kitchen chair. The father of the slain children was forced to sit on it.”

  Parris found his tongue. “You’re gonna tell us they watched the poor guy get blown to smithereens?”

  “Nothing so vulgar.” She arched her left eyebrow. “Trout has designed a particularly insidious IED that incorporates a common aluminum pie pan. It is used to terrify the Family’s victims.” Special Agent McTeague went to the open window, lifted her gaze to admire an azure sky. “When the pie-pan assembly is compressed, a pressure switch closes to arm the detonator. If and when the victim’s weight is removed from the explosive device, the detonator fires.” She turned to her audience, the balmy breeze playing with her dark locks. “The explosive charge is not sufficient to kill instantly. The purpose is to mangle the victim, who will either bleed to a painful death within a few minutes or survive with hideous injuries. A member of the Family explained this to the bereaved father, after which they left him to endure his horrific predicament. They undoubtedly expected the pawnshop owner to panic and make an attempt to leap off the chair, but Mr. Shotgun was a tough cookie. He sat in the booby-trapped chair for almost six hours—staring at the corpses of his murdered children. He was determined to survive so that he could hunt the gang down and kill every last one of them. Eventually a neighbor showed up to borrow something or other, and called the local police, who called the state police, who contacted the Bureau, which immediately dispatched a team of explosive experts, who extricated the pawnshop owner from his precarious situation.” She paused to catch her breath.

  So that’s how those bastards play the game. Parris stared at the attractive FBI agent without seeing her. Eye for eye, tooth for tooth.

  McTeague felt uncomfortable under the cop’s hard gaze. “In light of the Family’s history of returning to avenge themselves, the Bureau’s concern is that they might send someone to murder Mrs. Jeppson, who had the audacity to activate the silent alarm in her hardware store. If you don’t have sufficient personnel to protect this local citizen until we arrest this group of killers, the Bureau would be happy provide some help.”

  “Thanks anyway.”

  I knew that’s what you’d say. “Very well, then. But if you should change your mind, the offer stands.”

  The chief of police got up and snatched a Granite Creek County telephone directory off Moon’s desk. He searched under the Js until he found Jeppson, then called the widow’s home. With every ring, Parris’s pulse rate increased. Damn! He put in a call to GCPD and barked at the dispatcher before she had time to answer, “Clara, patch me through to Unit 242 or 246—whoever’s closest to the Jeppson residence at—” he checked the phone directory, “at 3260 Juniper Loop.”

  “Yes sir.” She did.

  As luck would have it, Officer Martin and her partner Boyd Keever, on routine patrol in Unit 246, were barely four blocks from the Jeppson residence.

  Parris issued his orders to Alicia Martin, advising his favorite officer to put the pedal to the metal. The chief of police also informed Martin that he would remain on the telephone until she checked things out at Mrs. Jeppson’s home.

  Twenty-eight seconds passed like the worst twenty-eight hours of Parris’s life.

  With brief respites for essential oxygen, Charlie Moon and Lila Mae McTeague held their respective breaths until the chief of police shouted into his miniature telephone, “Well if she don’t answer, then break the damn door down!”

  He heard an enthusiastic grunt as Officer Keever, a former Kansas State fullback, made splinters of the door.

  The silence that followed was of that sort that knots the gut.

  Parris yelled loud enough to be heard several yards from the officer’s portable radio, “Hey—talk to me!”

  Officer Keever picked up, advised the chief of police that the elderly lady was on her living-room floor, apparently unconscious. Dispatch was sending an ambulance. Officer Martin was applying mouth-to-mouth and Keever (when he was not being interrupted with demands for information) was doing his best to keep up with chest compressions.

  “Okay, Boyd—good work. But please keep me posted.”

  “Yes sir. I’ll do that.”

  Additional unbearable silence.

  Parris was startled when Keever’s gruff voice spoke into his ear with an update. More specifically, a correction. The widow Jeppson was dead. “You sure?”

  “Yes sir. And for quite some time—the body’s cold.” He added, unnecessarily, that no further attempt at resuscitation was called for.

  Parris closed his eyes. “How’d the old lady die?”

  It was to be the Loyola Montoya diagnosis all over again.

  Most likely a heart attack, Keever opined. Or maybe a stroke. But it might’ve been an aneurysm, which (he informed the boss), “is what happens when one of your arteries swells up like a balloon and pops, and that’s lights-out. End of story.” The officer confided that he had a second cousin who’d died of an aneurysm. “And I was there on the spot to see it happen. Right in the middle of laughing at a joke about a monkey who brings a pet parrot into a bar for a lime daiquiri, Cousin Floyd keeled over like a felled tree—dead before he hit the floor. Damnedest thing I ever did see.”

  Parris had gritted his teeth through this fascinating family anecdote. “About Mrs. Jeppson—you’re sure there’s no sign of violence?”

  “No sir. Well . . . nothing we can see.”

  The chief of police caught a look from Special Agent McTeague. “Take a look at her ears.”

  “Sir?”

  “Her ears, Keever. You’ll find one on both sides of her head.” Parris paused to gulp in a breath. “I’m sorry. This has been a tough day. Just tell me whether you see anything—”

  “Hey, Chief—there’s a drop of blood on her left ear. Wow! How’d you know—”

  Officer Boyd Keever was talking to a dead line.

  Parris had disconnected without the courtesy of a goodbye. The grim-faced cop turned to Charlie Moon, looked the Ute directly in the eyes. “Charlie—the mean sons of bitches who did this shouldn’t be arrested, indicted, tried, convicted, and provided with free room and board for the rest of their unnatural lives. Oh no.” He wagged a big finger at the tribal investigator. “Whoever gets the chance should do exactly what you did in the hardware store. Pull the trigger—shoot ’em dead.” He turned on his boot heel and was gone.

  Charlie Moon and Special Agent McTeague stared at the office door Scott Parris had slammed. Listened to the big man stomp his way down the hallway, then the stairs.

  The fed summed up the situation succinctly: “He’s stressed out.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  THAT EVENING

  THOUGH HE HAD BEEN IN BED FOR ALMOST AN HOUR, SCOTT PARRIS WAS not quite asleep. neither was he entirely awake. The weary man was caught in that gray in-between world.

  But wait.

  His breathing has become regular; the weary man is slipping off into a welcome slumber.

  Episode Four

  A Final Resting Place

  The journey from the funeral in Granite Creek’s Tennessee Saloon had taken a full two days, and though the corpse did not mind the jarring ride on the back of the Indian’s piebald pony, the spirit, who was still more or less attached to its fleshly husk, did.

  Which was why U.S. Marshal Scott Parris was pleased when Charlie Moon, mounted on a fine black stallion, finally crossed the river and led the tethered pony to the lonely, windswept crest of Pine Knob, where it was rumored that several of the Ute’s close friends and careless enemies were buried. Before he got down to the serious business of the evening, Moon built a small campfire and laid a rustler’s branding iron in the middle of the dancing flames.

  Apparently in no great hurry to dispose of his best friend’s remains, the Indian prepared himself a supper of
roasted rabbit and coffee.

  Twilight gradually darkened intonight, exposing a thin crescent of silver moon above the jagged Misery Mountains.

  Somewhere off to the south, the obligatory coyote yip-yipped.

  At this poignant signal, Mr. Moon rolled up his sleeves.

  Parris watched with considerable satisfaction as the Ute used a shorthandled miner’s pick and a square-bladed spade to dig the grave. This was not a morbid interest in being buried—it is always a pleasure to watch another fellow do backbreaking work.

  When the task was completed, Charlie Moon got to work on the grave marker, which was a weathered plank.

  Parris watched with rapt fascination as his friend removed the red-hot iron from a heap of glowing embers. The lawman’s spirit wondered: What’ll he put on the marker?

  Charlie Moon burned a name onto the smoking wood.

  SCOT PARIS

  Dammit, Charlie, that’s not how you spell it. Any dope knows Scott has two ts. And you ought to know my last name has two rs.

  Oblivious to these nitpicking complaints, Moon burned the deceased’s title.

  U.S. MARSHAL

  The dead man smiled. That’s nice. And he spelled it right.

  Under that, the Ute etched in these numbers:

  1822–1877

  Well, at least he got this year right. The spirit rolled its spirit-eyes. But I was born in 1823.

  “Hmmm,” the Indian said.

  Parris watched with fascination as his buddy puzzled over the epitaph.

  Charlie Moon thought.

  Thought some more.

  Aha!

  As the Ute applied the hot iron to the moldering plank again, the U.S. marshal’s spirit leaned close to see what tribute his pardner would leave for posterity to marvel over. Maybe something about how I never took a dime of graft, or never backed down from a fight, or how I drilled “Lightning” Bull Bates between the eyes before his Navy Colt ever cleared leather.