Snake Dreams (40 page)

Which scenario presented Harper with a dilemma.

The smart thing would be to write the whole thing off as a loss and leave town before the cops pick me up.

On the other hand—

I could sure use some hard cash. And the landlady’s right across the street. And she knows she ain’t got no legal right to Hermann’s money, so she ain’t told the cops about it. If I was to go over there and put a bad scare into her, she’d hand his money bag over so fast it’d scorch my hand.

In addition to those virtues of Determination and Persistence, is Mr. Harper also endowed with even a meager helping of Wisdom—or the most minuscule portion of Common Sense? Presently, we shall find out.

As Daisy returned to the front porch, and the men obligingly renewed their conversation, the St. Anthony’s activities van came rumbling over the Too Late Creek bridge and pulled under the cottonwoods in the headquarters yard. Moon escorted his aunt to the roomy vehicle, where she insisted that she could get inside without any help. He spoke to the driver, a slender white man with a crown of snowy hair. “Like I told you on the phone, you don’t have to come all the way out here. Anytime my aunt wants to go to church, I’ll be happy to drive her into town.”

“And like I told you, I don’t mind a bit.” Snowy Hair smiled at the rancher. “It’s fun to make a run out into the countryside.”

Moon watched Daisy settle into the seat behind the driver. “When should I expect her back?”

“Bingo generally goes until about ten
P.M
. and after that there’s snacks and punch, so I won’t get away from the church before eleven.” The driver scratched his chin, which helped his thinking process along. “I’ll have some other folks to drop off in town before I head out here, soooo . . . it’ll prob’ly be a little while after midnight.”

“That’ll be fine.” Before closing the van door, Moon smiled at his relative. “Have a good time.”

She intended to do just that. Daisy Perika tapped the driver’s shoulder with the knobby end of her walking stick. “Okay, bud—let’s get this thing rolling.”

As they watched the van pass over the bridge again, Parris recalled one of his worries: “I’m kinda concerned about Wetzel’s landlady.”

The Ute stretched out in the porch chair. “Why’s that?”

“Oh, just a bad feeling.”
I’d sure like to have another cup of coffee, but I’m too comfortable to go into the house for it.
“I had lunch with Miss Muntz today. On the night she drove Nancy Yazzi over to Sarah’s birthday party, she stopped off at Sunburst Pizza for a few minutes.”

“That’s mostly a hangout for kids.”

“And it’s a regular dump. But the old lady don’t eat there.”
Except for today.
“She picks up to-go orders to take home.” He grinned at the recollection of Miss M’s determination to give the weirdo Sunburst employee his gratuity. “Point is, when she came out of the pizza joint that night, Miss Muntz saw Nancy talking to some guy in a Jeep. It was probably Jake Harper.”

“Even if it was, that’s old news.”

“Yeah. But what nags at me is if it
was
Harper Miss Muntz spotted, then he probably saw her too and he might be worried that—one way or another—she knows a lot more about him than he’d like.”

“Like if Nancy Yazzi talked to her landlady about her love life.”

“Right.”

“So what are you gonna do about it?”

“There’s not much I can do, except have our regular patrols do a pass-by check of Miss Muntz’s house every few hours. But most of the time, we’re so short-handed I can’t even manage that.” Scott Parris waited for the hoped-for response.

Charlie Moon, who knew this man like they were blood twins, provided it. “I could ask Daisy to invite her new friend to spend a week or two at the Columbine.”

The chief of police grinned. “I’d be much obliged.”

I thought you would.
The rancher gazed at the mountains, recalled what had happened the last time he’d opened the Columbine door to another woman Parris was worried about.
I hope this one won’t run off with a pickup truck and what’s left of my guns.

The Night Stalker

For the sixth time in as many minutes, the Felon’s right hand found the knife holstered on his belt. The Buck Kalinga was a wicked-looking instrument, with a blade that curved sinuously upward as if eager to slide under someone’s ribs.
There’s no lights on in the house. The old biddy’s probably gone to bed early.

Like so many of his generation, the young man supposed that senior citizens consisted entirely of worn-out grandmas and grandpas who are obliged to spend eighteen of the day’s hours in sleep. The fact that he had not caught a single Z for almost forty hours, had a pounding headache, and was running on a potent combination of alcohol and caffeine probably clouded his judgment.
This little job will be easy as spending somebody else’s money.
The confident scoundrel counted off the reasons why.

One. The old lady lived all alone.

Two. Not a soul had witnessed his approach.

Three. No one could see him in his shadowy hideaway. (He was concealed beneath the drooping branches of Miss Muntz’s Japanese cherry bush.)

But was he correct?

If we disregard the presence of Mr. Moriarty in her home, it is a fact that the elderly spinster lives alone.

Okay so far. But when the game is deadly serious, only a born loser would consider
one out of three
to be a satisfactory score.

So what about assumptions Two and Three?

As it happened, more than a dozen locals had witnessed the prowler’s arrival and just as many knew where he was hiding. In the interest of brevity, we shall consider only two of these alert local citizens.

A mildly inquisitive chipmunk peeks from his cellar entrance, which is artfully concealed under the arch of a gnarled juniper root. As he is entertained by a drama far surpassing anything a rodent is likely to see on TV, the furry little fellow is fresh out of buttered popcorn, which is why he gnaws on one of last year’s piñon nuts.

Eleven floors up (in the penthouse), a tiny wren is warming three pinto-bean-size eggs. No, not for the evening meal. This is an expectant mother, who has pressed herself into a nest so snug that her feathered tail sticks straight up behind her behind. She watches the prowler with unblinking black eyes set immediately above her beak, which rests on the finely wrought cup of twigs and grass. She has no piñon nut to gnaw, but Mr. Wren is out looking for something tasty for the common-law wife, whose taste runs toward victuals that scuttle about on six legs. Tiny beetles are her version of lobster thermidor.

IN MOST
(if not all) of the lower forty-eight states,
breaking and entering
is a legal term, and the first requirement under the law is that something must be broken. Such as a door latch or a pane of window glass. The latter is what the felon had in mind, which is why he had a roll of masking tape (to minimize the scattering of shards) and a heavy glove on his left hand (to avoid injury to his precious flesh). What else could he do—tap on the front door in the hope that Miss Muntz would invite him in for tea and crumpets? In light of the murder that had recently
occurred just across the street, the woman would surely not be so careless as to leave her door unlocked. Even so, before breaking the glazing, he reached out with the gloved hand, gently twisted the doorknob.

It turned. The latch clicked. Well, shall wonders never cease?

The inside of the house was dark—though not quite as black as the depths of a coal mine in Anthracite County, Pennsylvania. He had brought along a small flashlight, but (hoping to surprise the elderly resident) was loathe to use it just yet.

AS IT
happened, Miss Muntz was not napping.

Like the piñon-nut-gnawing chipmunk, she was in her basement, which is where the contractor who built the house had installed the electrical panel. Fumbling around in the dark, she had not heard the front door open, but as the intruder walked across the floor over her head, Miss M heard the boards squeak. An interesting situation, and eerily similar to those events that had immediately preceded Hermann Wetzel’s murder.

So what did she do?

The elderly spinster called out, “Yoo-hoo!”

The response from above was the ceasing of footsteps.

From below, another “Yoo-hoo,” to which she appended, “I’m down here messing about with the circuit breakers, and cannot come upstairs until I get the lights turned on. Please stay right where you are—the basement stairway is rather steep and hazardous.”

When an old lady yoo-hoos from the cellar and advises a dangerous felon to stay put, what is he to do? Wait until the lights go on? Possibly. Switch on his flashlight and find the basement stairway? Or should he withdraw, return on a more auspicious evening?

The fellow with the knife in his hand was obliged to make a choice, and whatever his shortcomings, he was not one to dilly-dally when faced with a critical issue that must be dealt
with right on the well-known spot. After only a few ticktocks of Miss Muntz’s grandfather clock, he came to a decision.

As she stood by the circuit-breaker panel, Miss Muntz heard the floorboards begin to squeak again. Having spent quite some time in the inky cellar darkness, which was
exactly
like a coal mine deep under Anthracite County, Pennsylvania, perhaps the old lady’s sense of direction was a bit befuddled. Was her visitor returning to the front door, or moving toward the top of the cellar stairway? At first, she could not decide. But give the boards over her head time to make a few more squeaks.

Squeak. Creak. Squeak-creak. Creak-squeak.

Now she knows for sure.

Evidently, Miss Muntz has exhausted her supply of yoo-hoos.

APPROXIMATELY THIRTY-FIVE
minutes later, when Charlie Moon’s wristwatch read half past ten o’clock, the tribal investigator and the chief of police were seated in the Columbine headquarters’ kitchen, enjoying a penny-ante game of Texas Hold-’em Spit into the Wind—a highly complex contest that we shall not attempt to describe. Moon was a dollar and change ahead when the telephone rang. He took the call, grinned when he heard his aunt’s voice.
I bet she’s tired of the bingo game already and wants to come home before the van leaves.
“You want me to come get you?”

Yes, she did.

“Soon as this hand is played out, I’ll be on my way.”

That would be satisfactory. But there was one other thing. A minor detail.

“You’re
where
?” The grin slipped off Moon’s face.

A grin is a terrible thing to waste.

Parris picked it up, put it on.
Daisy’s probably creating a big row over at the Catholic church.

Daisy repeated what she had said to her nephew.

“Okay. I’ll leave right away.” Moon hung up the phone.

The chief of police eyed a pair of jacks and some trash. “So what’s the old lady up to this time?” He imagined the aged Ute with a hammerlock on another elderly bingo player.

The rancher frowned at a framed print of a majestic bull buffalo standing in knee-high grass. “I guess we’ll find out when we get there.”