Stone Butterfly

by James D. Doss

  The most cowardly of men can finally have enough, and turn on his persecutor with all the fury of a cornered rabbit. Al Harper twitched his nose, waited for the grin to slip off Oates’s pudgy face. When it did, he said: “I’ve been wide awake since two A.M.”

  Oates saw something new glinting in Harper’s working eye. Something that made him feel uneasy. He shifted to a conciliatory tone: “You must be tired.”

  “Yes, I am.” Al Harper looked longingly at the cigar. “I could sure do with a smoke.”

  Oates opened a desk drawer, withdrew a box that still had a dozen of the original twenty-five cigars. He shoved it across the polished granite. “Help yourself.”

  Al took a cigar, stuffed it into his mouth.

  “Take another one for the road.”

  The nicotine-deprived fellow accepted the generous offer, carefully placed the second cigar over his left ear. As he searched his pockets for the ninety-eight-cent plastic butane lighter, Oates leaned across the desk, flicked the golden instrument under the tip of the Curly Head Deluxe. Harper took a long draw on the aromatic cylinder of Dominican Republic tobacco.

  His curiosity whetted, Oates moved to the edge of his chair.

  The visitor puffed out a tiny cumulous cloud, idly watched it waft toward an open window, to be sieved by the screen. “I’m here on important business.”

  Oates took a puff on his own stogie. “Thought you might be.”

  Al removed the cigar from his mouth, twaddled it between his fingers. “I got something you’ll be interested in.”

  “Is that a fact?”

  “Damn right.” He restored the cigar to its rightful position; it jiggled as he talked around it. “I know you’re lookin’ for Sarah.”

  “Cops and bounty hunters in six states are looking for that little Indian gal. But not me—searching for fugitives is not in my line of business.” Oates tapped his cigar on a massive granite ashtray that matched the slab on the desk. “But on behalf of my murdered half brother, I am naturally interested in seeing justice done.”

  “Naturally.” Al Harper’s good eye sparkled with a greedy glint. “And gettin’ back what the kid stole from Ben Silver.”

  Oates’s eyes narrowed. “What do you know about that?”

  Harper shrugged. “Only what I hear—that after Sarah clubbed old Ben with that baseball bat, she stole some stuff.”

  Oates was growing weary of the game. “I’ve got a ten-thirty appointment with a real estate developer out of Salt Lake. What’ve you got that I might be interested in?”

  “A phone number.”

  The chubby businessman smirked. “That’s it—a phone number?”

  The visitor mirrored the smirk. “Marilee got a call last night, and I picked it up.”

  The cigar went limp in Oates’s liver-tinted lips. “So who was it?”

  “Somebody who wanted to talk to Marilee.” A pause while he took a long pull on the cigar. “She was whisperin’, but I’m sure it was Sarah. And when the brat heard my voice, she wouldn’t say another word.”

  “That’s interesting, Al. But I don’t see how—”

  “You ain’t heard the good part.”

  “Okay. Tell me the ‘good part.’”

  “After Marilee went back to sleep, I laid there in bed and thought about it. Then I remembered Marilee had got herself one of them caller-ID gadgets, which comes in handy in her taxi business. I went into the living room and read the number off it, and wrote it down.” He inhaled again. “And you know what?”

  “No, Al—I don’t know what.”

  “That phone call was from an area code that’s in Colorado.”

  It was Oates’s turn to shrug. “I expect there’s three or four million people in Colorado that’s got telephones. Might have been any one of them. A wrong number, most likely.”

  “We both know Sarah Frank’s daddy was a Southern Ute Indian. And his tribe has got a reservation in Colorado, right on the border with New Mexico.” Al Harper got up from the overstuffed chair. “But if you’re not interested, maybe I should just find the kid myself.” He put out the cigar in Oates’s spiffy ashtray, stuck the stub over his spare ear. “Then I could collect that big re-ward you put on her.” He turned toward the door.

  Oates managed an oafish smile. “Look, since you took the trouble to come and see me about it, tell you what I’ll do. You leave the number with me, I’ll check it out when I get the time and if it turns out to be interesting—”

  Marilee’s boyfriend reached for the doorknob. “You can have it for five hundred bucks.”

  Oates’s eyes bulged. “You’ve got to be kidding!”

  “Okay, you want to bargain—that’s okey doke with me.” He looked over his shoulder. “Make it seven-fifty.”

  “Now see here, Al—”

  “A thousand.”

  Caught off guard by the man’s unexpected show of grit, Oates raised both palms in surrender. “Done.”

  “Make it U.S. greenback dollars. Twenties’ll do nicely.”

  Oates snorted. “I use twenties to light my cigars.” He pulled a thick wallet from his hip pocket, riffled through a wad of greenbacks. “I got nothing smaller than a hundred.”

  “Then I guess that’ll hafta do.” He held out a hand that trembled, warily watched Oates count off ten hundreds, then passed him a scrap of paper.

  After Al Harper had departed, Raymond Oates took a moment to fume, and finally to fulminate. Having vented his wrath, he began to mumble to himself. “That no-good piece of trash—coming in here, holding me up like some common robber!” He took a long look at the scrawl on the piece of paper. It’s a Colorado telephone number, all right—but probably one Al made up. If he’s swindled me, I’ll get somebody to break both his legs. The president of Oates Enterprises, Inc. pressed the red button on his telephone pad, counted off six seconds until the door to his personal secretary’s office opened and the big-boned, craggy-faced woman appeared. Rosey O’Riley wore her hair in a short, mannish cut, and she always dressed in black. Oates’s face split in an oafish grin. This woman always makes me think of Johnny Cash. He began to strum an invisible guitar, hum “I Walk the Line.”

  The annoying man did this two or three times a week.

  Mrs. O’Riley—who wore black because she had been mourning the death of her husband for some thirty-odd years—clasped her hands and waited with a pained expression until the strumming and humming had subsided.

  The Woman don’t have no sense of humor. “Crank up that confounded computer, see if you can find out whose telephone number this is.”

  She inspected the scrap of paper, memorized the ten digits. “Yes sir. It should only take a few minutes.”

  It did, in fact, require the efficient secretary precisely fifty-two seconds on the Internet to identify the Mountain West Telecommunications subscriber who held that number. But this was not a lady who was satisfied with half measures. It took another minute to determine the physical location of the telephone. Now that’s quite interesting. I wonder if there could be a connection to that Indian who arrived with the FBI agent to visit Sheriff Popper. It took approximately three additional minutes to check out her hunch, another thirty seconds for her state-of-the-art color printer to disgorge several sheets of paper. If Mrs. O’Riley had been the sort of high-spirited exuberant who has a tendency to shout “Eureka” or “Wa-hoo,” she certainly would have. As it was, the undemonstrative woman contented herself with a self-satisfied smile and a congratulatory thought: This is really quite gratifying.

  Raymond Oates stared at the name, then furrowed his brows at his employee. “That’s nobody I ever heard of.”

  She offered him a single sheet of paper.

  Oates had a knack for stating the obvious. “Looks like a map.”

  “It is, sir.” She pointed a perfectly manicured fingernail. “The residence where the telephone is located is indicated by the star in the center.”

  The cigar smoker studied the layout. “Looks like it’s p
lunk out in the middle of nowhere.”

  “Yes, sir.” Mrs. O’Riley, who savored the big punch line, had saved the best for last. “I did some cross-referencing. You may be interested to know that the person to whom the telephone is registered has a connection to that Ute Indian—Mr. Charles Moon.”

  “This is good stuff, Rosey.” He rubbed his hands together. “Tell me more.”

  The secretary explained the relationship. She also provided her employer with an additional two pages from the printer. “One of these is a topographic map with twenty-foot contour intervals, the other is a satellite photograph of the same four-square-mile area. On each, I have inked in a small arrow to indicate the structure—presumably a private residence—where the telephone is located.”

  Oates was nodding faster than one of his oil-well pumps. This could be where that Papago girl’s hiding.

  The secretary prepared to withdraw. “Will that be all, sir?”

  Her voice broke the spell. “No, it won’t.” He propped the heels of his fourteen-hundred-dollar ostrich-skin cowboy boots onto the immaculate desk, took a couple of aggressive chews on the cigar stub. “Give yourself a nice bonus, Rosey. Let’s say…twenty bucks.” Don’t want to spoil the woman. He glanced at his wristwatch. “And take an early lunch.”

  “Very good, sir.” The remarkable employee seemed to evaporate.

  Mrs. O’Riley pulled her black Volvo up to the Sybil’s Tea & Pastry Shop, switched off the ignition, removed a black cell phone from an equally black leather purse, pressed a programmed button. “Hello, cousin—how are you getting along?” She listened to the expected response, then: “Oh, I’m just fine.” Ray Oates’s secretary nodded. “Yes, I’ve been keeping my eyes open and ears pricked.” She lowered her voice to a gossipy murmur: “Matter of fact, I have something that will interest you.”

  She provided a terse account of Al Harper’s visit—it was hard not to hear every word when the door to Mr. Oates’s office happened to be cracked a quarter-inch. The person on the other end of the line was silent as Rosey described the mysterious late-night call for Marilee Attatochee which was intercepted by her odious boyfriend, and the location in Colorado where the call had originated. She read the telephone subscriber’s name to her relative, explained the connection to Charlie Moon. There was a brief pause in the conversation as a cattle truck rumbled by. “I have two computer-generated maps and a satellite composite photograph that pinpoints the dwelling where the caller’s telephone is located. I’ll leave a sealed manila envelope in the usual place.”

  Her cousin said that would be just fine, then brought up the old, familiar issue that mildly annoyed the efficient secretary.

  “No, I still don’t have any idea who Mr. Oates talks to on his private phone or what he says.” She reminded her relative for the umpteenth time: “For one thing, the line isn’t connected to the console on my desk. And when Mr. Oates intends to make a really hush-hush call, he always sends me out of the building on an errand—or like today, for an early lunch.”

  Cousin finally got down to the matter of payment.

  “Oh, you know how I hate to talk about money.” Rosey examined an immaculate set of fingernails. This Sonoran Sunset tint is just a shade too light. “But let’s say twenty dollars.”

  While chewing and smoking his cigar down to a stubby butt, Raymond Oates suffered a series of ulcer-provoking thoughts. This intense mental activity was accompanied by piggish little grunts and brow-furrowing frowns. After looking at the issue from this way and that, he concluded that the late-night telephone call to Marilee Attatochee was almost certainly made by Sarah Frank, and with that as a working hypothesis there could be no dillydallying around—the situation called for immediate and drastic action. What I need is a couple of knuckle-draggers. But for this particular piece of work, not just any run-of-the-mill knuckle-draggers would do. He ignited the tip of a fresh cigar, began to mull over a list of potential candidates, eventually narrowed it down to two. Number One was highly motivated. Number Two would strangle his sister for a carton of Lucky Strike cigarettes. This was not a mere figure of speech; when Two was twelve years old the beady-eyed little brute actually had strangled his sister. Her dual offense was (a) she had discovered Brother’s secret cache of cigarettes and (b) she had told Grandma about the hiding place. Sis had not died from the strangling, but following the assault she had (as they used to say in those days) “never been quite right.”

  The attorney picked up his private line, punched in a call to Knuckle-Dragger Number One, got an answer on the second ring. “It’s me—Ray Oates. Can you talk? Okay. Look, I came across a piece of information on that runaway Indian girl. Might turn out to be a hot lead, or nothing but fairy smoke and stump-water. But I want you and another fella to go check it out.” He responded to the expected query with an impish grin. “Yeah, that’s who I have in mind.” Hurrying to ward off the expected objection, Oates added: “We’ll discuss the details tomorrow night—usual time and place.” Which translated: 11:00 P.M. sharp at the Oates residence. The house lights would be off.

  The small-town wheeler-dealer thumbed the END button, placed another call, conducted a similar conversation with Knuckle-Dragger Number Two. Similar, but with a sinister little twist. The man who had strangled his sister would have some extra work to do. Whether they found the Papago kid or not, Knuckle-Dragger Number Two would make sure Knuckle-Dragger Number One never came home again. Which would leave Oates with the surviving knuckle-dragger to deal with. But that was another problem, for another day. The thing was to always stay a few steps ahead of the game.

  Quite pleased with himself, Raymond Oates sucked thoughtfully on his cigar, puffed a fluffy smoke ring. The coldhearted son-of-a-rustler had developed his own highly personalized brand. Of philosophy, that is. Which could be summed up more or less as follows: If a man’s got bushels of disposable income and has the right contacts, 99 percent of his problems can be solved with a couple of phone calls.

  Socrates, he was not.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Crime and Punishment

  Charlie Moon was cruising down copper street when he saw his best friend, who happened to be Granite Creek PD’s chief of police. The Southern Ute tribal investigator deftly slipped his freshly washed Expedition into a cramped parking place. There were more spacious slots available, but he was a cattle rancher and beef prices had recently taken a dip and the meter on this post was showing forty-five minutes, which was worth six bits.

  Moon cut the ignition, watched the broad-shouldered Scott Parris ambling along the opposite sidewalk like a clumsy young halfback. I wonder if he played football in high school. As the thought was passing through his mind, he watched Parris tip his cowboy hat at a pretty redhead who flashed him a semiseductive smile. Moon laughed as the chief of police turned to watch her pass, bumped headlong into a heavyset man in a bulky black raincoat who had been tagging along behind the hapless cop. The other party in the collision was even bigger and wider than Parris—he might have been a professional wrestler. Moon shook his head as his friend apologized to the oversized citizen, who appeared to take no offense at the minor mishap. As the big man went on his way, Parris craned his neck to watch the shapely redhead depart.

  After a rusty old Dodge pickup had rattled past, Charlie Moon crossed the street, waved at his friend. “Hey, where you headed?”

  Scott Parris turned to regard the rail-thin, seven-foot-tall Ute. “The Sugar Bowl. In case you’ve already forgot, that’s where we’re supposed to meet for lunch.”

  “The Sugar Bowl—you sure?”

  “Sure I’m sure.” Parris cast a doubtful gaze on the Indian. “Where’d you think we was gonna have our midday meal?”

  Moon was looking up the street, also at the redhead. “At Dukey’s A-1 Texas Barbecue.”

  “Dukey’s isn’t a serious barbecue joint—just the bus station’s lunch counter.” Parris snorted. “And the place is a dump. It’s a wonder the health department hasn’t shut �
��em down.”

  “Okay.” Disappointment fairly dripped off the Ute’s face. “But I sure had my heart set on a big, greasy, chopped-brisket sandwich. With a side of potato salad and a bowl of Dukey’s smokehouse beans and—”

  “Oh, all right.” Parris fell in step beside his best buddy. “But don’t go blaming me when you wake up dead from eatin’ tainted grub.”

  “Okay.” Moon slapped his friend on the back. “You can dance on my grave.”

  “That’ll be just for starters.” Parris told the Ute what else he would do on his grave, but this will be treated as an irrelevant detail.

  Moon selected a booth by the fly-specked window, under the neon script that boasted Bud Lite with every electric flicker.

  Parris squinted to see into the dark recesses of Dukey’s A-1 establishment. “From what I hear, he eats leftovers right off the plates.” He grinned at Moon. “If we’re lucky, maybe Dukey has died from food poisoning.”

  It was not to be. The proprietor showed up, a cigarette dangling limply from his lips, a green order pad in his hand. “Hey, guys—I ain’t seen either a you in a month a Sundays. I figgered maybe you both converted to veggie-tarianism.” He followed this with a throaty “Har-har.”

  Sensing that his friend was reluctant to converse with Dukey, Moon ordered his sandwich and sides. “And a king-size Pepsi. With just enough ice to cool a sickly grasshopper’s fevered brow.”

  “You got it, Big Chief.” Dukey turned the full strength of his personality on the chief of police. “How about you, Dick Tracy?”

  Scott Parris looked out the window, wondered where the pretty redhead had gone. Probably to meet a nice young man at a decent restaurant. Or maybe she’s dining alone. If I knew where she was, I could just saunter in and maybe bump into her again…Well, it wasn’t exactly her I bumped into, but in a manner of speaking…

  “Hey—I ain’t got all day!”

  Parris blinked at the man behind the grease-stained apron. It was also stained with other things, but the details didn’t bear thinking about. “Cup of coffee. Decaf.”