“I didn’t do nothing.” Smith groaned. “About an hour or so ago, there was gunshots down by the machine shop and then it caught on fire and the roof blew off. I came over to the headquarters to see what was goin’ on, and the boss invited me in nice as you please. He brought me over here by the fire and said, ‘Bill, have a seat and warm yourself.’ And I said, ‘I don’t mind if I do,’ and when I sat down I heard this peculiar noise under the cushion and asked him what it was. That treetop-tall Indian says, ‘Bill, you’ve just set down on a gadget that’ll blow your butt off if you move it so much as a quarter inch.’ ”
“That don’t sound like Charlie.” Parris put on a worried expression. “Unless he’s on one of his drunks.”
“Well, maybe he is.”
In the faint firelight, Parris could see that the whites of Smith’s eyes were yellow. He backed two paces away. “Maybe I ought to go look for Charlie and ask him about—”
“Don’t go anywhere—you’ve got to help me!”
“I don’t know.” Parris backed up another step. “I wouldn’t want to get blown to kingdom come.”
“Please. I know how to . . . uh . . . what I mean to say is—I think I might be able to disarm this damned thing.”
“No kidding.” Parris gave him a wide-eyed look. “How’d you do that?”
“Well, I figure all I need is a slender blade.”
What a sneaky bastard. “Let me get this straight—you want me to give you a knife?”
“Not just any knife—the blade shouldn’t be sharp, or too wide.” I might cut one of the wires. Smith made a slight movement, cringed when the aluminum pie pan crunched again. “I need something dull. Like a butter knife. Or better still, a letter opener.”
Parris took his time thinking about this. “Charlie has an office upstairs. I think I might’ve seen a letter opener on his desk.”
“Then go get it for me.”
“This better be on the level.” The chief of police reached out with a clenched hand. “If this is some kinda sicko joke, I’ll wring your neck like you was a fat chicken for Sunday dinner.”
“I swear on a stack of Bibles—I’m telling you the honest truth.”
“Be careful now. You know what happens to folks that play fast and loose with the Scriptures. ‘Their eyeballs fall out and their socks catch on fire.’ Second Deuteronomy, Chapter Eleven.”
“Uh . . . right. But if I’m lying, I hope I get struck by a lightning bolt!”
“Well all right then.” Parris marched across the parlor to the stairs. “I’ll see if I can find you a letter opener.”
Up the stairway he went. Down the second-floor hallway. Into Charlie Moon’s office, where the desk was barely visible in a soft glow of moonlight. Looks like the storm’s over. Parris used a small penlight to illuminate the desk. Nothing on top except for the brass gooseneck lamp, the cranberry-glass vase containing a yellow No. 2 pencil, a ballpoint, and an old-fashioned fountain pen. My buddy’s a regular neat freak. He opened a drawer, then another, and spotted Moon’s fancy ivory-handled letter opener. And something else.
An envelope labeled:
TO BE OPENED IN THE EVENT OF MY DEATH
C MOON
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
A DELICATE SITUATION
CHARLIE MOON’S OBJECTIVE WAS CLEAR ENOUGH; WHAT HE NEEDED was to get on the right side of Special Agent Annie Rose. How to accomplish this taxed his gray matter. After considering one or two complex plots and not a few subtle ploys, he came to a firm conclusion: I’ll just play it by ear.
Armed with manly determination, he entered the darkened kitchen with the firm gait of a man who owns the premises. After touching a lighted match to the kerosene lamp’s curled wick, the rancher removed his John B. Stetson hat and headed for the dining room. Mr. Moon approached the table where the lady was seated, her back straight and stiff, her upper lip stiffer.
If Special Agent Rose’s eyeballs had been equipped with high-power lasers, the beams would have burned holes all the way through Moon’s face and out the back of his skull. And Annie would have enjoyed the process. She glared at her persecutor. “Well, where have you been?”
“Outside.” Moon placed his hat on the table brim up, like any sensible cowboy. (So all his luck wouldn’t spill out.)
“Doing what—looking for additional victims?”
He gazed at the angry little woman. Thoughtfully. To enhance the impression of a man who has been engaged in deep meditation, even transcendent contemplation, he said, “I’ve been thinking.”
“Fancy that.” About to toss her head in derisive fashion, she remembered her precarious situation and raised an impudent chin instead. “And what did you think about?”
“Oh, this and that.” He seated himself at the dining table. “Like how this has been a stressful evening for everybody concerned.”
“Tell me about it,” she snapped.
“There’ve been gunshots. A fire in the machine shop, and an explosion that blew the roof off. I’ve had to make some snap decisions.”
Annie Rose sniffed. “What is this I smell—the sickening odor of a feeble excuse?”
She does have a sense of humor. “Now that things have calmed down, I’ve had time to reflect upon my actions.”
“And what have you concluded?”
“That even though there’s plenty of evidence to tie you in with Bill Smith and the Family, I realized there’s just the slightest chance you might be what’s called . . . a victim of circumstance.”
Special Agent Rose arched an artfully plucked brow. “Really?”
“Yes ma’am.” She sure is pretty when she’s mad. “And that being the case, I mean to give you the benefit of the doubt.”
“How very generous of you.”
Seemingly impervious to caustic sarcasm, the lanky man leaned back in his chair. “While I was outside thinking things over, it occurred to me that there might be some other plausible explanation for you packing a concealed weapon—and being the only soul on the Columbine with a satellite telephone when the landlines and cell-phone tower was taken out, and knowing what you’d sat down on when you heard the pie-pan crunch.”
The lady seriously considered spitting in his eye. “I’m sure you’re just dying to tell me—so don’t hold back on account of my not having the least interest in a single word you’re saying.”
“Thank you kindly.” Recalling a trick Aunt Daisy had taught him when he was a twelve-year old, Moon picked up a pepper shaker. He passed it from one hand to the other until it vanished.
Annie’s eyes popped. How did he do that?
The Ute conjurer continued as if nothing remarkable had occurred. “Way I figure it, there’s about one chance in a hundred thousand that you’re some kind of undercover cop.” He closed his empty left hand to make a fist. Opened it to show her the pepper shaker. “You could be a state-police officer.” He made the fist again. “Or a U.S. marshal.” The sly man opened the sly hand to show her an empty palm. “You might even be an FBI agent.”
Where did the pepper shaker go? “What a preposterous idea.”
“When the notion first came to mind, that’s what I thought.” He flipped nothing at all from his left hand.
Annie’s gaze could not help following Moon’s as he watched an invisible something rise almost to the beamed ceiling and hang there for an instant before falling.
The performer caught a solid-as-rock pepper shaker in his right hand, and pointed the object at his audience. “I asked myself—why would an undercover cop be plying her spooky craft out here, of all places?” He placed the pepper dispenser on the dining table. “Then it occurred to me that your assignment might be to stake out the Columbine. Just in case some bad guys from the Family showed up to create some mischief.” He flashed the thousand-watt smile. “What do you think about that?”
A prickly silence preceded the lady’s tart reply. “I am surprised that you were capable of coming up with such an original and complex theory.” Annie raise
d her chin, which had advanced from impudent to downright insolent. “Are you sure you didn’t have some assistance from an adult?”
“Now that’s an unkind thing to say.”
“Compared to what’s coming, you will consider it a compliment.”
“All I wanted to do was let you know that on the off chance that I’ve made a mistake, I’m sorry as all get-out.”
“I do not doubt it for a second. But being sorry is not sufficient to atone for your crimes, Mr. Moon—and I use that word in a quite literal sense. It is a serious federal offense to . . . to . . .”
“To interfere with an FBI agent while she’s pursuing her official duties?”
“Yes it is! And it is far worse to deliberately put her life in jeopardy. And I could go on. But your being sorry—even being bone-headed stupid—does not alter the fact that you have committed several felonies.” She made her hands into tight little fists and leaned just slightly forward, as if pouncing on her victim and punching his face black-and-blue was at the very top of the list of things she most yearned to do. “Almost two hours ago, I called for a helicopter and six armed agents. They have apparently been delayed by the storm, but as soon they discover what you have done, an explosives expert will be dispatched from Denver to get me out of this predicament. And make no mistake, Mr. Moon—I will relish filing charges against you. I shall clap my hands when you are indicted. I will stand up and cheer when you are found guilty of all charges. And when you are put behind bars for the rest of your unnatural life, I will celebrate with expensive fireworks and pink champagne!”
“Yes ma’am.”
“And don’t ‘yes ma’am’ me—I hate and despise that!”
“Sorry.” He raised both palms to placate the lady. “I know I’ve messed up. And you’ve got every reason to be mad at me.” Moon inhaled. “But before you get your hands all primed for clapping and order a case of champagne, there is what my defense attorney would call a ‘mitigating circumstance.’ ”
“That your IQ is comparable to room temperature in an Inuit’s igloo?”
“Uh—that might help sway a jury, but it’s not what I had in mind.”
“It is unkind of you to keep me in suspense. After all, I am a captive audience.”
“Well, actually that’s the point—you’re nothing of the sort.”
Her eyebrow arched again. “What do you mean by that opaque remark?”
“Just what I said. You’re not a captive of any kind. Anytime you want to, you can get up from that chair.”
Her brow furrowed. “You don’t mean . . .”
“Yes I do.” Moon cocked his head and this is what he said: “Never, in a billion-million years, would I trick a pretty lady like yourself into sitting down on an explosive device.”
Pretty? “You . . . you wouldn’t?”
The sweet-talker sensed a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel. “Not if you buried me up to my neck in a hill of red killer ants and poured a gallon of honey over my head.” He explained, “Cowboys don’t do bad things like that to sweet young ladies.”
Sweet? “They don’t?”
Moon shook his head. “Code of the West.”
She stared at the enigmatic westerner for quite some time. Long enough for a man who’d just shaved his chin to grow a noticeable beard. Or so it seemed to the Ute, who had never had to remove whiskers from his face. “Please tell me—if I am not sitting on one of the Family’s notorious explosive contraptions, precisely what is under this cushion?”
He was pleased to tell her. “Nothing the least bit dangerous. Just an aluminum pie pan I found here in the kitchen when I was looking for a snack.”
This revelation was not easy to come to grips with. “For all this time, I’ve been sitting on an ordinary pie pan—there’s no explosive under the seat cushion?”
“That’s right.” Charlie Moon took this opportunity to remind his guest of a significant factoid: “I never actually said there was.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
HIGH ANXIETY
WHILE SCOTT PARRIS WAS UPSTAIRS IN CHARLIE MOON’S OFFICE, AND the repentant Ute was doing his level best to charm Special Agent Annie Rose into forgiving his understandable error, the murderous man sitting in front of the parlor fireplace had some time to kill. Not one to waste his thoughts on trivia, Bill Smith had been occupying his gray matter by pondering various and sundry issues that were of considerable and immediate importance. As is so often the case, this intense mental activity neither provided a solution to his problems nor calmed his troubled psyche. Two examples of this fruitless pondering come to mind.
FIRST (FOLLOWING an urgent high-pressure signal from his bladder):
What’ll I do if I have to take a leak? His concern was that if he lost control of his sphincter valve, would the release of an electrically conductive fluid onto the explosive booby trap set off the detonator? Unsure of the answer to this timely and pertinent question, Smith made up his mind to refuse any offer of refreshment that included a beverage. He was also determined to continue to sweat away as much of his internal body fluids as possible.
Second (with a brow-furrowing scowl):
I wonder if they have capital punishment in Colorado? If so, he concluded that his execution was more likely to be by injection of a deadly toxin into his veins than such arcane practices as sentencing a citizen to hang by his neck until he was thoroughly deceased, or by a firing squad (his choice). But what if they still use an electric chair? The very thought of being connected to high-voltage electricity made the felon shudder.
THE DEAL GOES DOWN
When Scott Parris left Moon’s office, the normally uncomplicated fellow found himself in one of those thoughtful, brooding moods that a more philosophical type would have described as reflective. Or, if the philosopher wore horn-rimmed spectacles and smoked a curly-stemmed brier pipe—pensive. Not even halfway to pensive, the Granite Creek chief of police descended the carpeted stairway into the parlor without making a sound, approached the seated man from behind, and—put his hand on the assassin’s shoulder.
An already tense Smith jerked like he had been electrocuted. He also swore under his breath.
Parris pretended not to notice the electrifying effect of his arrival. “How you doin’, sport?”
“Uh—okay I guess.” Smith stared straight ahead, squinting at the sooty fireplace. “You find me a letter opener?”
“Sure did.”
“Then cut my hands loose and give it to me.”
“Not so fast, Dog Face. While I was upstairs, I had some time to cogitate about your unlikely tale—and I don’t believe Charlie Moon would do a mean thing like sitting a nice fella like you onto an explosive gadget.” Parris patted Smith on the shoulder. “Way I figure it—ol’ Charlie was just joshin’ you.”
“No—he—wasn’t.” This earnest assertion was punctuated by a vigorous head shake. “That Indian was dead serious. I move my butt offa this pillow, I am monkey meat!”
“What makes you so sure Charlie wasn’t playing a prank on you?”
Smith hesitated. “Well . . .” Also faltered. “Thing is . . .” And dillydal-lied. “The guy was acting crazy. Like he thought I was some kinda outlaw.”
“For all I know, maybe you are. Maybe that’s why Charlie strapped you to this chair. But that don’t convince me you’re sittin’ on some kinda rigged-up bomb. For all I know, all this stuff about dynamite and how you can make it safe with a letter opener is a scam—all you really want is to get cut loose. You figure you’ll stick this blade between my ribs and be outta here faster’n a scalded jackrabbit.”
“Then hold a gun to my head.”
“Well . . . I might just do that.”
“Look—I know this damned thing I’m sittin’ on ain’t no joke, because the Indian told me how the explosive contraption works. And it sounds like the real McCoy to me.”
“Sounds like you know a little something about explosives.”
“Sure I do. Few years back, I d
id some hard-rock mining up in Nevada.”
“Tell me how Moon rigged this one.”
“Uh . . . why’s that important?”
“Before I cut the plastic restraints and give you a pointy instrument that you might blow yourself up with—and maybe me to boot—I’d like to know exactly how you intend to disarm whatever it is you’re sitting on.”
“Uh—it’s kinda complicated. With electronic stuff and whatnot.”
“Not a problem. In my younger days, I graduated from DeVry Technical Institute in Chicago. You ever hear of it?”
“I don’t think so.”
“It was on Belmont Avenue, just a few blocks east of Cicero. Great school. I learned how to repair TV sets, built an AM radio from scratch, even got myself a first-class FCC license. And for years after that, I was a ham-radio operator. So tell me about the detonator.”
“Well, there’s this battery that—”
“What kinda battery?”
“Nothing special—a standard nine-volt transistor. When somebody sits on this damned thing, the pie pan crunches down on a coiled spring and makes contact with a stainless steel screw head—”
“Did you say pie pan?”
“That’s what the Indian told me. Anyway, the pie pan makes an electrical connection that charges a capacitor—”
“Years ago, we called ’em condensers.” Parris knelt by the remnants of the fire and held his hands out to the embers. “What kind of capacitor?”
“Uh, the Indian didn’t say.”
“Probably an electrolytic.”
“Maybe so. The point is, I can get myself outta this situation if you’ll help me.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that.” Parris shrugged. “If Charlie Moon wants you dead, he must have his reasons.”
“Listen to what I’m telling you—that Indian is crazy!”
“Sane or nutty, ol’ Charlie’s still my buddy.”
Smith ground his teeth. “If I get blown to pieces, your buddy’ll get charged with murder.”
The Widow's Revenge Page 24
