“Since when do you take my telephone calls and discuss my personal life? And what’s this ‘high-strung dame’ stuff?’”
Newman switched to his ugly-bulldog face. “Lissen here—I ain’t no easygoing Charlie Moon, so don’t think you can push me around. I’m the silver-back gorilla in this office—I’ll take any calls that come in and say whatever I feel like to whoever’s on the line.” He poked a stubby finger at her. “And if I see a dame who’s wound up way too tight, what should I call her—pleasant? Agreeable? Sweet? Nice?” He bared his teeth to produce a hideously nasty grin. “High—strung—dame,” he said.
Special Agent McTeague reached for Newman’s favorite coffee mug—the green one with ATLANTIC CITY—1988 stenciled on the side. “If a ceramic object such as this happens to shatter, what should one call the pieces—shards? Fragments? Flinders? Smithereens?”
The bulldog face paled. “Hey—don’t you dare—put that down!”
She did. It hit the floor hard. “Flinders,” she said.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
GRANITE CREEK PD
Standing at a second-story window, Chief of Police Scott Parris watched Betty Lou ease up to the curb. He turned to his desk, pressed the Speak button on the intercom. “He’s here.” He listened to the response, nodded at the unseen communicant. “Okay, if that’s the way you want it. I’ll buzz you when it’s time.”
PARRIS GAVE his best friend a hearty handshake. “Hey, Charlie—thanks for coming over on short notice.”
“You’re practically welcome.” The tribal investigator looked around the spacious corner office. “So what am I here for?”
Granite Creek’s top cop pointed at a white cardboard box on the conference table.
The Ute gave it a wary look. “What’s in it?”
“Three guesses.”
“Disgusting piece of road kill?”
“Dang,” Parris said with genuine regret, “I should’ve thought of that.”
“Okay—fried chicken from the Mountain Man Bar and Grille?”
The chief of the Granite Creek PD shook his head. “Better still.”
Moon leaned close, sniffed. “Sugar and spice.” He frowned at his buddy. “You brought me all the way into town for a snack?”
“Hey—you got a problem with that?”
“Nope.” The Ute opened the box, helped himself to a still-warm jelly-filled pastry.
Scott Parris seated himself behind the desk, gave the tribal investigator a curious look. “Okay, Charlie—now tell me what’n blazes has been going on.”
“Well, let me gather my thoughts.” As the rancher converted the rich confection into sweet satisfaction, he concentrated his gaze on the slowly rotating blades of a ceiling fan. “About a week ago, a cougar took a calf over by Pine Knob. Last night, a couple of the new cowhands got into a nasty scrap over a hand of Texas Hold ’Em. One of the players got carved up some, the one that knifed him hit the road. There’s a fine little ranch next door to the Columbine that’s been put up for sale and my foreman thinks I should buy it and—”
“You know what I’m talking about, wise guy.”
“Do I?”
Parris tapped a finger on his temple. “Remember who I am—and what is my noble calling in life.”
“You mean like hassling jaywalkers and fixing parking tickets?”
“Besides that.”
Moon looked to be completely bumfuzzled. “Could you give me a hint?”
“I’ll tell you straight out—the shooting of Ralph Briggs.”
“That incident has never left my mind. As you may recall, I was there at the time.”
“So let me in on what you’ve been up to.”
“Could you be more specific?”
“Okay. Here’s specific. What got you interested in one Mr. Eduardo Ganado as a prime suspect in the Cassidy burglary? And why didn’t you tell me?”
“I will address the first question.”
“What about the second one?”
“I choose to pretend I did not hear it.”
The chief of police felt the burn of acid in his throat.
Charlie Moon opened the grease-spotted cardboard carton once more with gusto, selected a heavily glazed doughnut. “I began to feel somewhat antsy when I went to visit Eddie Ganado and he came out to meet me with a shotgun. He claimed he’d had a prowler, but I guess he must’ve been worried that I’d found out he’d shot Ralph Briggs and was intending to put the cuffs on him. And while I was there, I realized he’d lied to me about how his hair got pulled out by the roots.” The Ute gourmet tasted the sugar-crusted toroid, judged it to be more than adequate. “That wily Navajo had spun me a wild yarn about how a big pine was leaning toward his house, claimed he was using a chain saw to cut the tree down when the infernal thing grabbed him by the hair, yanked most of it out.”
Parris was troubled by the image. “This guy actually expected you to believe a tree deliberately pulled his hair out?”
“I may well have been mistaken,” Moon said. “But it was my impression that Ganado was referring to the chain saw.”
“Oh—right. And you did not find this anecdote to be entirely plausible?”
“On the contrary, it was a fairly solid story. But when I stopped by Ganado’s place, I did not see a fresh pine stump in his yard—or a pine left standing that could fall on his house. And on toppa that, he did not have a propane tank.”
“Whoa, cowboy—you’ve done rode off and left me. What does a propane tank have to do with the price of pickled peppers?”
Moon gestured with a crescent of doughnut. “If Ganado does not have propane, he is doing his cooking and heating by more traditional means. Which means he’ll store up all the wood he can collect before winter sets in. So if he takes down a pine tree in his yard, he’ll cut it up and put in on his wood pile to age for a while. But all Ganado had stacked against his garage was cottonwood—and not half enough of that to get through December.”
“Okay, so he lied about the chain-saw business. But that still doesn’t suggest that he’d caught his hair in—” Parris bit off the rest of the sentence.
The tribal investigator grinned. “Caught his hair in what?”
“Never mind.”
“There was another thing,” Moon said. “Ganado had these funny-looking scars on his face. They were round, about the size of dimes—and white. They looked like burns to me. But I couldn’t figure how he could’ve got them from a chain saw.”
Our heavy hitter is swinging wild. “And what did you deduce from this?”
“At the moment, I would rather not say.”
“Hah—on account of you don’t have the least idea how he got his hair yanked out!”
“You misunderstand.” Moon’s expression radiated a pure, childlike innocence. “I will not say because—I am cursed with excessive modesty.”
“Hah.”
“You already said that.”
“Okay Mr. Humble Pie—then tell me as much as excessive modesty allows.”
“Well, there might be some small thing I could mention.” The Ute put a Styrofoam cup under the spigot on a coffee urn, pressed the lever down. “Ganado’s spiffy Pontiac convertible—which he’d already told me was the only wheels he owned—was getting badly spotted by sticky tree sap. This would not have happened if he’d parked it in the garage. And Ganado was very fussy about that car.”
“So you figured Ganado had moved his Pontiac out of the garage so he could hide Gourd Rattle’s van inside.”
“Eventually, the thought did cross my mind,” the tribal investigator said. “Where did you get these fine doughnuts?”
“New place around the corner. Fat David’s Gourmet Bakery and Small Engine Repair.”
“Sounds like David is a man of multiple talents.” The Ute took the last bite.
Parris took note of the Seth Thomas clock on the wall. “Charlie, there is something I almost forgot to tell you. Something that will make you happy.”
“Happine
ss is a good thing.” Moon licked his fingers. “You have my undivided attention.”
“Largely as a result of your aunt Daisy identifying Jim Wolfe’s turquoise pendant, Mr. Navarone’s attorney has plea-bargained her client for two cases of voluntary manslaughter—Jim Wolfe and Jacob Gourd Rattle, of course. Just yesterday, Felix Navarone made his formal confession.”
“This is news to me—and the kind I like to hear.”
Parris beamed at his friend. “Would you like to see my very favorite new TV program of the season, produced and directed by the United States Department of Justice?”
“Navarone’s confession? How did you get the tape so fast?”
The white man blushed pink. “Uh—it was hand delivered to me just this morning.”
“Hand delivered to you by who?”
“By whom.”
Moon pondered the pithy grammatical issue. “You sure about that?”
“Not in an absolute sense.” But the criticism had distracted the Ute from his question. Parris had the VCR control unit in his hairy paw. “You don’t want to suffer through the recitation of the plea agreement, how Mr. Navarone agrees to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth—in exchange for fifteen years in one of Uncle Sammy’s finest slammers. I will fast-forward directly to the good stuff.”
The tribal investigator seated himself in a comfortable armchair. “Let ’er rip. I am primed and ready to be highly entertained.”
DOWNSTAIRS, AND situated immediately beneath the grand office of the Granite Creek chief of police, was a mildly oppressive cafeteria, furnished with a long dining table flanked by an assortment of gaudy plastic chairs and a half-dozen vending machines that—in exchange for silver-plated copper coins—offered up such delicacies as Dr Peppers, Milky Ways, and Moon Pies. At this hour, it was empty of GCPD employees. A single lonely soul paced back and forth, occasionally pausing to sip at a cup of acidic black coffee—and count the minutes.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
ALMOST TRUE CONFESSION
Scott Parris thumbed the fast forward button, watched the VCR’s digital counter advance. “That should be about the right spot.” The chief of police pressed Play. The whining videotape jerked to a near halt, began to rotate at a more sedate rate.
The scene displayed on the Sony color monitor was of an antiseptic-looking room on the third floor of the Federal Building in Denver. The single camera had been set up to frame the conference table in the precise center of the screen. Seated on the viewer’s right was the Apache, outfitted in a neon-orange jumpsuit. Felix Navarone was protectively flanked by his legal counsel; the thin-faced young woman wore a robin’s-egg-blue suit, rimless spectacles, a thin smile. The left side of the table was occupied by the lumpy form of a middle-aged assistant United States attorney. He had a pencil in his hand, a sour look on his face. On the table in front of him were three stacks of documents, a glass of water, a yellow legal pad. He was speaking to the accused in a bullfrog-deep voice.
“…AND SO you understand, Mr. Navarone—you must respond to all of the questions with the truth—”
The defense counsel interrupted: “The truth to the best of his knowledge.”
The federal attorney nodded. “Of course. But quite aside from responses to direct questions, it must also be clearly understood that Mr. Navarone will not make any statement that is intended to misinform or otherwise mislead this investigation into the potentially deadly assault on Mr. Ralph Briggs, the deaths of Mr. Jacob Gourd Rattle, Mr. Eduardo Ganado, and Southern Ute police officer James Wolfe.” He fixed Felix Navarone with a soul-chilling stare. “Furthermore, any relevant omission on your part will be seen as equivalent to deliberate lying, and will be considered sufficient grounds to break the terms of the plea agreement your counsel has negotiated.”
Navarone turned to his attorney with a worried expression.
“Just tell the truth,” she said.
“Let me make it crystal clear.” Sour Face delivered the words in a cold I’d-just-as-soon-hang-you monotone. “If the Department of Justice should conclude that you’re not entirely on the up and up, the plea-bargain deal is history. Forget the fifteen years max. Nothing you say here can be used as evidence, but you go to trial on two counts of first-degree murder.” The federal attorney sketched a hangman’s noose on his pad.
The prisoner stared at the grisly cartoon, nodded dumbly.
The defense attorney aimed a silver-plated ballpoint at her heavy-jowled counterpart. “I wish to go on the record—I am advising my client that he is not to address any issue unless he is absolutely certain about the facts. So do not attempt to trip him up with questions that will be looking for speculative responses.”
“So noted.” Sour Face tried to look pleasant. The effect was that of a fox grinning at a cornered rabbit. “Mr. Navarone—tell us what happened.”
The prisoner seemed uncertain. “Where should I start?”
“Whose idea was it to break in to the Cassidy Museum?”
Navarone glanced uncertainly at his attorney.
She adjusted the spectacles onto the bridge of her nose. “My client wishes to state that he and Mr. Eduardo Ganado are the sole persons responsible for the burglary of the Cassidy Museum.”
Sour Face glanced at Navarone. “That right?”
The Apache hesitated, then nodded. “Yeah.”
The fed consulted a document. “In an earlier statement, you suggested that another person provided helpful information about the general lack of security at the Cassidy Museum—and encouraged you to burglarize it.” He directed a cruel smile at the felon. “Do you now wish to withdraw that statement?”
“Yeah, I guess so. I sure don’t want to queer the deal we made—”
“Our position on that matter is quite clear,” the defense counsel snapped. “Because my client has no material proof of any alleged third-party involvement in the burglary, he prefers to make no statement on the issue. We do retain the option of addressing this issue in the future, should events warrant.”
Felix Navarone was quite obviously confused.
His lawyer leaned to whisper in his ear.
The Apache nodded, said to the federal attorney, “I’m not claiming that anybody but me and Eddie Ganado had anything to do with the heist.”
Sour Face had dotted the I; he had one more T to cross. “Was your brother, Mr. Ned Navarone, involved in any way in any of the crimes for which you are accused?”
“Nah.” Felix Navarone grinned. “Ol’ Ned ain’t smart enough to tie his own shoes. I’d never let my big brother know what I was up to.”
SCOTT PARRIS stopped the tape. “Felix Navarone tried to bargain himself down to five years by implicating Ralph Briggs in the Cassidy Museum burglary. So Felix must be the guy who called Ralph a few hours after the theft—and when Ralph refused to set up an exchange with Jane Cassidy, threatened our buddy.” Parris shook his head at the stationary image of Felix Navarone. “Lying scum bum. I wish they’d put him away for life.” He restarted the VCR.
THE FEDERAL attorney was making cryptic notations on his legal pad. “Please go on, Mr. Navarone.”
The Apache continued in the casual manner of one telling a friend about a recent fishing trip. “That night when me and Eddie drove up to the Cassidy place, it was dark as the inside of a crow’s gut. I parked in some bushes. Eddie got the crowbar from behind the seat, broke through the glass on the museum door, reached through and opened the latch.” He paused to smile. “It was no sweat—like opening a can of sardines.”
The thief described the mundane details of the burglary, the jolly late-night drive to Three Sisters Mesa. And then Felix Navarone began to hesitate.
The federal attorney was glaring at the prisoner.
Engrossed in his memories of that night, Felix Navarone seemed almost unaware of the fed. “While Eddie kept a lookout, I stashed the loot on that ledge that sticks out from the cliff like a Ubangi’s lip. Those Utes call it something else….”
> “The Witch’s Tongue,” the federal attorney said in a helpful tone. “For the record, Mr. Navarone, I understand that you do not wish to reveal how you were able to gain access to this rather precipitous ledge.”
As expected, the response came from the prisoner’s attorney: “That is correct. The precise means by which my client got onto the so-called Witch’s Tongue is not relevant to these proceedings. He has admitted to his involvement in the burglary, and the fact that he concealed the stolen items on the ledge.”
Having already agreed to this omission in the testimony (on grounds that it involved certain Native American “cultural issues”) the federal attorney nodded. “So noted.”
“STOP THE tape.”
Scott Parris complied with the tribal investigator’s request.
Charlie Moon leaned forward, stared hard at the frozen image of the Apache.
Parris eyed his enigmatic Indian friend. “What is it?”
“After he was dropped back in the jug on the murder charge,” Moon said, “Navarone bragged to some of the other prisoners that he’d flown onto the Witch’s Tongue. And I’ll bet that’s what he told his lawyer.”
Parris’s mouth crinkled into a merry grin. “Then how come he got stranded there—why didn’t he just flap his wings and fly off again?”
Moon’s smile felt stiff on his face. “Felix Navarone told some of his fellow jailbirds that his magic was turned against him while he was on the Brujo’s Tongue—he lost his ability to fly. At least for the time being.”
“That’s not the dumbest thing I ever heard,” Parris said. “But it’s somewhere up there in the top ten.”
“I’m sure the Apache expects a big-medicine tale like that to make a serious rep for him behind the walls.” The Ute pointed at the prisoner’s image on the television screen. “But look at his eyes. Navarone is scared.”
The chief of police turned to take a long look at the television. “I expect he’s frightened about going to prison.”
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