The Old Gray Wolf (32 page)

“It fits,” Charlie Moon said. Sort of.
Like a pair of new boots that're a half size too small.
He fixed a hard gaze on Martin. “Did the witness across the street actually
see
the pickup driver go inside Patsy's house—or come out of it?”

“We haven't had time for a detailed interview yet, Charlie—but I don't think she did.” Officer Martin shot a quick glance at her boss. “But like I said, the porch light was turned out right after Miss Smithson went inside.” Martin took a moment to review Parris's grisly scenario. “After things got quiet, I doubt that Mrs. Buxton was paying much attention. A man in dark clothing could've gone into the house to assault Patsy's sister without being noticed by our eyewitness.”

A grateful Scott Parris nodded his approval.
Martin is a first-rate cop.

Moon stared at the scorched SUV.
Scott's theory must be pretty close to how it went down.
Committing two murderous assaults, concealing one of the bodies in a parked car and setting it afire—that did seem quite a lot to accomplish in a minute or so, but probably not for a seasoned professional who knew what he was doing. Even so …
I wonder why he'd want to burn Miss Whysper's corpse.
But the longtime lawman knew that even ordinary folks do some very strange things when stressed out. There was no telling what an edgy assassin might do in a pinch; even old pros occasionally lose their cool.
It could've gone down that way, I guess.
But Deputy Moon was not entirely convinced.

“This ain't getting us nowhere fast,” Scott Parris announced obliquely. “What we need to do is find that pickup before this Cowboy strangler is a hundred miles from Granite Creek in any direction.” He suddenly felt wobbly and somewhat light-headed.
Must be low blood sugar.
The long, difficult day had finally caught up with the overweight lawman, who was dithering uncertainly in that gray borderland between
middle-aged
and
over the hill
. To steady himself, Parris leaned against Alicia Martin's GCPD black-and-white, its blue-and-red emergency lights illuminating his ruddy face with cyclic pulses alternately suggesting blood and bruises. “Officer Martin, put out a statewide alert on the pickup—”

“Already done, sir.”
He looks a little shaky.
She coughed again, then inhaled a deep breath of not-so-smoky air. “Problem is, the witness didn't get a very good look at the suspect vehicle. It was too dark to see what color the truck was, and Mrs. Buxton doesn't know how big it was, much less one make of pickup from another. This Cowboy character could've been driving a pint-size Toyota or a Ford F-250. And our witness never even thought of looking at the plate.”

Running out of steam, Parris managed a weak grin. “Thank you, Officer Martin—for making my day.”

However diluted, a dose of comic relief was just what she needed. Alicia Martin's smoke-smudged face returned a bright, pretty smile. “Just part of the job, sir.”

The moment of frivolity was short-lived.

As soon as the last word was out of her mouth, the trio of cops turned to watch the ambulances bearing the Poynter sisters pull away. Farther down the block, a fireman detached a few yards of the yellow-and-black barrier to allow the vehicles to pass without breaking the tape. Seconds later, the keening wail of their sirens pierced the chill evening air.
Like,
Officer Martin thought,
silver blades slicing ice.

Parris turned his gaze on Moon, whose face was bereft of expression. “I'm sorry about your prospective sister-in-law, Charlie.” Raising his voice, he tried to hit a hopeful note. “But we know Patsy's okay, and with a little bit of luck her sister'll pull through and be just fine.”
And provide us with a good description of the bastard who bopped her on the head.

Still gazing into the darkness where the ambulances had been swallowed up by night, Charlie Moon directed a routine query to Officer Martin: “When d'you figure the suspect pickup pulled away?”

“It must have been immediately before the neighbor called 911.” Alicia Martin checked her timepiece. “Which was about twelve minutes ago.”

The deputy barely heard her response.

LOOK
OUT
,
CHARLIE
—
HERE
THEY
COME
AGAIN
!

Yes, those deputy-distracting flashbacks had returned for a third run. Annoying, to say the least—especially when a man is trying hard to sort out his thoughts. But illusions have their issues, too, and sometimes it takes one a little while to get itself organized. Toward that end and during the interim, the formerly jumbled scenes had cleverly realigned themselves into chronological order along one, seamless filmstrip. Not a presentation worthy of Alfred Hitchcock; the resultant motion picture did not offer even a coherent storyline. That defect admitted, it did hint at an underlying plot. One so absurd that Moon tried to put it out of his mind.
That's way too crazy.

Undismayed by this harsh criticism, the stubbornly sinister suggestion refused to fade to black. It looped back on itself, repeating the performance to its singular audience.

After a second viewing, Charlie Moon was compelled to admit that the notion did make a twisted kind of sense. Sufficiently so that he could not entirely dismiss the bizarre possibility.
But it sure is an awful long shot.
Which knotty conundrum resulted in one of those pesky internal conversations:
I'm probably way off base, but I ought to at least check it out.
And look like a biggest damn fool in Granite Creek County.
Which wouldn't be the first time, or the last.
But before I go off half-cocked, I should let Scott do his job. After all, I'm not the chief of police.
But I'm his deputy.
If I stick my neck out, I'm likely to get my head chopped off.
Maybe so, but that risk comes with wearing the badge and doing the job.
The outcome had never been in doubt. The man who never backed away from his responsibilities took a deep breath.
Well, here goes nothin'.
The deputy cleared his throat before addressing his best friend. “Pardner, things are happening so fast that I don't have time to explain. I'll have to ask you to trust me—and take my advice without asking any questions.”

Uh-oh.
“What d'you want me to do, Charlie?”

“Excepting Officer Martin, pull every GCPD uniform off this crime scene. Send every one of 'em—and every off-duty cop you can call in—over to the southeast section of town. Job one is to block off Silver Avenue from Plum Street to Fargo. Nobody gets through except law enforcement. No exceptions whatsoever.”

Parris's wide eyes didn't blink. “That's it?”

“Order a silent operation. No sirens within a mile of the quarantined area.” Moon added urgently, “And do it
right now
.”

“You got it, buddy.” Parris nodded at Alicia Martin, who promptly passed the order along.

Scott Parris watched the GCPD black-and-whites pull away, followed by one of the state-trooper cruisers. “Okay, Chuck—so what about you and me—what do we do now?”

“The hard part, pardner.” The Ute stared at his best friend. “I'm not armed and you're packing that little .38 peashooter. We're liable to need some help.”

Ignoring the crack about the beloved Smith & Wesson snub-nose nestled in his shoulder holster, Parris cocked his head. “Who d'you have in mind?”

Moon jerked his chin to indicate a tall, thin state policeman who deserved his reputation for getting the job done
no matter what
. And Officer Jackson was a dead shot.

Parris arched a fuzzy eyebrow.
That cop gives me the willies.
“Ice-Eyes Jackson?”

The Ute nodded.

The GCPD chief of police shrugged, but made the request to the lean trooper. Jackson immediately agreed—and without asking what was expected of him. Whatever the job was, he'd take care of business. Ice-Eyes was reputed to have shot a convenience-store robber between the eyes while mumbling, “Please drop the pistol, sir—and release the young woman.” (Bang!) “Otherwise, I will be obliged to use deadly force.” Probably apocryphal; neither the terrified cashier hostage nor Jackson's stand-up partner had mentioned this detail during the obligatory shooting investigation, or would confirm it later after a customer provided a fragmentary account of the trooper's alleged remarks.

Charlie Moon was pleased to have a dependable shooter to round out their team.

Scott Parris was a little uneasy as he eyed the trooper, then his best friend. “Okay, Charlie. So where do we go from here?”

His grim deputy grinned mirthlessly.
Probably to witness my all-time-greatest folly.
“You and me and Officer Jackson will pay a courtesy call on the Holiday Inn.” Which hotel was located smack-dab in the center of the about-to-be cordoned-off area.

 

CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

THE CRITICAL TELEPHONE CALL

As Charlie Moon pulled his Expedition away from the Stop sign, he shot a sideways glance at the uniformed policeman in the passenger seat. In a tranquil tone that a man might use to ask a fellow diner to pass the bread, he said, “Please contact GCPD Dispatch, Officer Jackson.”

Without asking why, the state trooper removed his portable radio from its belt holster, selected the proper channel, and made the connection.

As the big SUV picked up speed, Moon turned on the defroster. “Ask Clara Tavishuts to place a telephone call to Scott's lady friend—a Miss … no, make that
Professor
Tiffany Mayfair. Clara should advise the lady not to open her door to anyone except Scott, or me—or a uniformed police officer.”

Jackson passed along Moon's polite request as a priority-one state-police directive, to be taken care of right now—any 911 calls would have to wait.

Moon enlarged upon his request: “If Professor Mayfair doesn't answer her phone, Clara should contact the condominium supervisor and ask him to check on the resident.”

That instruction was also relayed to the dispatcher.

“Thank you, Officer Jackson.”
I wonder what his first name is.
An unlikely but appealing possibility occurred to the whimsical Indian:
Maybe his momma took one look at her brand-new, blue-eyed baby and said to his daddy, “Let's call him Ice-Eyes.”

Jackson uttered his first words since strapping his angular frame into the Columbine SUV: “Anything else, Charlie?”

“There's a portable emergency light in the glove compartment. Use it at your discretion.”

Officer Jackson found the appliance, slipped its plug into the Expedition's twelve-volt power outlet, buttoned the driver's-side window down, popped the magnetized emergency flasher onto the steel roof, and raised the window to a crack just wide enough to accommodate the electrical cable. He rested his thumb on the in-line switch.

With Scott Parris's black-and-white practically biting at his bumper, Charlie Moon alternately accelerated and slowed, watching for intersecting traffic before running several Stop signs.

As he had on the way to Patsy's home, Parris used his transponder to green the occasional red light. In between these legally allowable excesses, the deputy was exceeding the posted speed limit by as much as he could manage without significantly endangering life and limb of nearby citizens. There was not a second to lose, and the Ute's flinty face was grim, as if death was right around the next corner.
We show up a heartbeat too late, Cowboy is gone for good.
Moon realized that he might already be a thousand heartbeats tardy.

As nifty gadgets sometimes do during emergency situations, Scott Parris's traffic-light controller went on the blink. Approaching a major intersection where traffic was thick, Moon leaned on the horn as Jackson turned on the emergency flasher.

A pair of startled motorists stopped dead center in the intersection.

The situation took several agonizingly long seconds to remedy, but (despite Deputy Moon's quiet-approach stipulation) Scott Parris eventually dispersed the minor gridlock by blasting three hellish wolf wails from his siren.

The Colorado state trooper turned off the Expedition's emergency light, and on they sped toward an uncertain destiny. About a half mile from the Holiday Inn, Officer Jackson took a call from GCPD Dispatch. Clara Tavishuts's voice on the portable transceiver was loud enough for Charlie Moon to hear about every third word.

After listening intently until the dispatcher had completed her terse report, Jackson said, “Okay—tell the supervisor to lock Miss Mayfair's door and sit tight until a uniformed police officer arrives on the scene.” Softly as a lullaby murmured to an infant drifting off to sleep, he added, “But tell him it may be a little while before anyone shows up—we're all kind of busy right now with one thing and another.”

Moon swerved to avoid a dressed-in-black bicyclist with neither lights nor reflectors. “I'm guessing that Parris's sweetheart didn't answer her phone.”
Please tell me that when the supervisor showed up Tiffany wasn't at home.

No such luck.

Officer Jackson made his report in a deathly flat monotone. “The condo supervisor—a retired U.S. Navy nurse—advised Clara Tavishuts that Professor Mayfair had been bludgeoned on the head, and is definitely dead. No pulse. Eyes dilated to the max. Fingers already cool to the touch.” The hardened lawman allowed himself a breath of a sigh. “I guess I'd better put in a call to Scott's unit.”

“No.” Moon glanced in the rearview mirror, which was filled with his best friend's black-and-white. “I'll tell him.”