A Dead Man's Tale (16 page)

Old Friends

Old in the sense that Millicent Muntz and Daisy Perika were both well along in years; the period of their acquaintance was (as we shall soon see) not comparable to their longevity.

As the women sat in Miss Muntz’s immaculate kitchen, sipping weak green tea (Millicent), strong black coffee (Charlie Moon’s aunt), and munching almond cookies warm from Miss M.’s oven, the soul mates engaged in chitchat about this and that, and their reminiscences naturally included the adventure that had brought them together two years earlier, when the Ute elder had hatched a plan that (despite being somewhat harebrained) had resolved a dodgy dilemma that the white woman had found herself enmeshed in.

As a result of that dangerous escapade, the fragile maiden lady was convinced that she owed her life to Daisy. Millicent Muntz was not one to let a debt go unpaid; she tended to fret until the score was evened up. This aspect of her impeccable character (in addition to her natural curiosity) was why Miss M. was so eager to hear what kind of trouble Daisy was in, so that she could help her Ute friend. But being a keenly intelligent octogenarian, she knew better than to press.
When Daisy is good and ready, she will tell me what’s on her mind.

Now, whether Daisy would ever be
good
remains an unsettled issue (she is a work in progress), but by and by she signaled (by clearing her throat of cookie crumbs) that she was
ready
.

Daisy’s Confession

As the Ute woman turned the translucent china cup in her hand, she assumed the offhand tone that one of her advanced years might use when discussing the unseasonably dry weather or how the print in newspapers and magazines is so small nowadays that a person can hardly read a word of it. “D’you remember that skinny little Ute-Papago girl—the orphan who moved in with me three or four years ago?”

“Yes, dear.”
Poor Daisy is getting awfully absentminded.
“I spoke to Sarah when she dropped you off here this afternoon.”

“Oh. Right.”
Some morning I’ll wake up and not remember my own name. And the day after that I’ll wake up dead.
“Well, a few days ago Sarah got this notion that she should help Charlie Moon and Scott Parris with some police business.” Daisy added, “Charlie’s my nephew and Scott’s the chief of police.”

Her host nodded, but graciously refrained from reminding her forgetful guest that she knew both men quite well.

“Scott needed to find out whether a particular married woman had herself a boyfriend, but he couldn’t spare a cop to snoop around and dig up some dirt. So Sarah decided she’d follow the woman and find out what she was up to.”

“Really? How delightfully exciting!”

What Daisy was getting to would be difficult, so she decided to make her way there gradually. She began by making a minor confession: “I know you believe I’m sweet as honey in the comb, Millie—but you don’t know me as well as you think you do. Truth is, from time to time I can be a little bit pushy.”

The polite white woman concealed her smile behind a teacup.

“When I found out what Sarah was up to, I kind of bullied her into taking me along.”

“I’m sure that you had the girl’s best interests in mind.”

Daisy shook her head. “All I cared about was getting out and having a good time.”

Miss Muntz laughed. “And did you?”

The storyteller nodded. And grinned.

“Tell me all about it.” So as not to miss a word of what promised to be juicy gossip, Miss Muntz leaned forward.

Daisy launched into her story, leaving out Irene Reed’s identity. As the narrator approached the
good
part, she hesitated. “I couldn’t see much, what with wearing Sarah’s big hat and her silly sunglasses. And when those two got through clutching each other like a couple of silly teenagers and started gabbing, the thunderstorm was making so much noise I couldn’t make out what they were talking about. I was thinking about sneaking away when Charlie Moon’s stupid dog gave me a yank like an Arkansas mule pulling up a pine stump. And off he dragged me—in the one direction I didn’t want to go!”

“Oh!” Miss Muntz set her teacup aside. “How perfectly terrifying for you.”

“You can say that again.” But Miss M. didn’t, and Daisy continued her account of the harrowing encounter. “Well, here me and Sidewinder go, right up to where those two was standing. I didn’t know what to do, so—bold as brass—I made up my mind to pretend like I was blind as a bat and half deaf and too addled to know where I was.”

The white-haired lady clapped her hands. “What a
madcap
thing to do—how wonderfully clever of you!”

The elder of the pair paused for a moment to bask in the well-deserved praise. “Things might’ve turned out pretty well, except that dopey dog stopped on a dime and I took a tumble. I would’ve fallen flat on my face if I hadn’t made a grab for the young man.”

“Oh, my. How embarrassing for you.”

Daisy groaned inwardly at the memory. “I would’ve gotten hold of the woman, but I was closer to him than her. Anyway, when I got my arms around him, my right hand just naturally ended up where it didn’t belong.”

Miss M. blushed. “Oh,
dear
.”

“That ain’t the half of it.” Avoiding the white woman’s reproachful gaze, Daisy blinked at her coffee cup. “He had one of them long wallets that sticks out of a man’s pocket.”

Daisy’s host was beyond blushing, even oh-dearing.

Setting her face like flint, the Ute elder made her confession all in one breath: “First thing I knew, the young man was helping me back to my feet and his wallet was in my hand and I knew he’d think I’d picked his pocket deliberately so I hid it under my shawl and got away from there as quick as I could.” Which was not entirely true. A part of Daisy had been thrilled to have the wallet.

Miss M., a retired schoolteacher who had heard any number of naughty students tell everything from outright lies to poorly constructed half-truths, could read the deceit in Daisy’s face. She was also a practicing Catholic who knew that a weak confession was little better than none at all.

The white woman’s brittle-as-ice silence unnerved Daisy, who insisted, “I’ve been meaning to mail it back to him, but you know how things are when a person gets busy with one thing and another. Hard as I’ve tried, I haven’t managed to get around to it.”

“What was in the wallet?”

“Nothing much. Usual stuff.”

“A driver’s license?”

Daisy nodded. “And some pictures of women.”
All of ’em probably married.

“Pictures—that’s all?”

“Well, there was some credit cards and stuff.”

“No cash?”

“Uh…now that you mention it, I think maybe there was.”

“How much?”

Daisy shrugged. “About four hundred and twenty-eight dollars.”

Her friend drew in a long breath and let it out with a sorrowful sigh. “Daisy, dear—I know that you are a Christian.”
Not an outstanding example, but one of God’s children nevertheless.
“You must go to Confession.”

Having been there, done that, Daisy shook her head. “Them priests are as alike as peas in a pod. If I told one of ’em what I’d done, he’d say, ‘Daisy—you can’t have Holy Communion till you’ve given that man his property back—and
apologized
.’” She banged the china cup on the kitchen table hard enough to make Miss Muntz wince. “And I ain’t gonna grovel and say, ‘I’m so sorry I picked your pocket,’ to a lowlife rascal who messes around with married women!”

“Very well.” Miss Muntz turned up her nose and sniffed. “If your mind is made up on the matter of a confession and apology, I shall not press you. But the essence of this matter must be dealt with forthwith.” The former schoolteacher was not in the habit of mincing words. She told Daisy Perika exactly what had to be done and when.

The old sinner shuddered at the thought. “I have to take the wallet back to him
tonight
?”

“Immediately. I will drive you to his residence.” Seeing the stubborn expression hardening on Daisy’s face, she smiled as if addressing a fractious child. “But you need not confront the fellow. We’ll put his wallet in a manila envelope, which you will place in his mailbox, where he’ll find it on the morrow.”

“I’d like some time to think about it and—”

“Out of the question.” Miss M. shook her head. “If you wait for even a few minutes, you will come up with an excuse to avoid the ordeal and then you’ll be right back where you started from.” Practically oozing compassion, the well-meaning lady patted Daisy’s hand. “But don’t worry—I will be with you to provide moral support. Now where does the owner of the purloined property reside?”

Daisy fished the wallet out of her voluminous purse and squinted at a Colorado driver’s license that had been issued barely three months earlier. “It says 686 Sundown Avenue.”

“That doesn’t sound familiar, but we shall find it. I have a detailed map of the county.” Miss Muntz popped up from her chair like an impetuous teenager about to begin an adventure. “Get your coat on, Daisy—we must make hay while the sun shines!”

“I don’t need any hay and the sun’s already about to settle down behind the mountains,” the pickpocket grumbled. But, overwhelmed by the white woman’s enthusiasm and her bare-knuckled approach to matters of ethics and conscience, Daisy Perika could see no way out.
And I did come here for Millie’s advice.
There was this consolation:
Once we get this done, at least I’ll be able to sleep nights.
Which prospect brought on a deep sigh and a worrisome doubt.
Unless I lay wide awake thinking about how I had four hundred and twenty-eight dollars in my hand and tossed it into the wind like so much corn silk.

Millicent looked down her nose at the dawdler. “Let’s get a move on!”

“Oh, all right.” Daisy heaved herself up from the chair and followed Miss Muntz into the attached garage, where the white-haired woman’s Buick awaited them.

Miss M.’S Plan Goes Somewhat Awry

The search for the place where Chico Perez hung his hat had taken them almost a mile outside the Granite Creek city limits and into a shabby neighborhood that had few street signs and no streetlights at all. The elderly white lady eased her venerable Buick slowly along the narrow strip of potholed blacktop that boasted the presumptuous title Sundown Avenue. “Ought to be called
Run
down Avenue,” Miss M. murmured as she took a sideways glance at a dilapidated double-wide on a half acre littered with all manner of junk. “I realize that some people do not have the means to live in a nice neighborhood, but you would think they might at least have the pride to keep refuse from accumulating.”

“One person’s trash is another one’s treasure.” Daisy was watching mailboxes slip away behind them.

As if to accentuate an already dismal outing, a cold rain began to pelt the windshield. This unwelcome treat was followed by sheets of wind-driven sleet. “Oh my.” Miss Muntz’s gloved hands gripped the steering wheel tightly. “We had better find the address before the inclement weather renders our mission impossible.”

The aged Indian was indifferent to meteorological phenomena, and more alert than the driver. “We just passed a mailbox 684, so 686 should be the next one.”

Miss M. applied the brakes as the sedan slipped past a narrow, weed-choked driveway that provided access to a slatternly old clapboard house that was almost concealed in a grove of sickly elms and thirsty junipers. “That must be it.” Uncertain of what to do next, she stopped. “I mustn’t park here on the road, but there is no suitable place to pull over and—Oh, here comes a big truck behind us!”

“Take a run around the block and pick me up on your way back.” With her big purse looped over her left shoulder and the walking stick in her right hand, Daisy Perika was already getting out of the car. “This won’t take a minute.”

Miss M. cringed as the truck looked like it might knock her beloved automobile aside like a toy car a child had discarded on the road. “But—”

Her “but” was drowned in the roar of a diesel engine as the huge flatbed roared past her sedate sedan.

The Ute woman had already slammed the car door and was toddling away toward the driveway entrance, where she expected to find a mailbox.

Miss Muntz was all in a dither. “Oh dear—what do I do now?” The storm was darkening the sky like there would be no tomorrow, and a furious hail of sleet began to pepper her windshield. The driver decided to proceed per Daisy’s suggestion. “I’ll drive around the block and pick her up.”

Alas, in these environs there were no “blocks” to drive around, but rather a maze of meandering lanes with bewildering forks where either choice delivered the unwary tourist to an unseemly destination. And there was nary a road sign to be seen. Within three minutes flat, Miss Millicent Muntz was completely bewildered. But not discouraged.
This will take a little while longer than I estimated, but if I just keep turning right I’m bound to circle around and find Sundown Avenue again.
A reasonable plan. Unless one happens to turn right into a blacktop lane that, after a country mile, dead-ends at a long-abandoned cemetery.

With the chill wind at her back, Daisy quickly made her way to the driveway, where she found a mailbox post with yellow numbers painted on it. She leaned close to see the numerals. Whether you read the address from the top to the bottom or vice versa, it came out 686.
This is where Chico Perez lives, all right.

But there was a minor problem, which had to do with what was missing from the post. The mailbox.

Like her friend who was piloting the Buick upon stormy seas, Mrs. Perika was not disheartened.
I’ll find some other place to leave Perez’s wallet where he’s bound to find it, like in his car if it’s not locked.
But she could not see a vehicle in the driveway. Daisy Perika turned her face toward the sad-looking little house and applied logic to the situation.
There’s no lights on in the shack and no car so he’s not at home.
Which suggested a straightforward course of action.
I’ll leave his wallet on the front porch, then hurry back here to wait for Millie, who’ll be showing up any time now.

As we are apt to be when we make unwarranted assumptions, Daisy was dead wrong on four counts.

Millicent, of course, would not be returning “any time now.”

Chico Perez habitually parked his Camaro behind the low-rent house where it could not be seen from Sundown Avenue.

All the lights
except the forty-watt bulb in the bathroom
were turned off.

But these were minor little flea-bite errors compared to Daisy’s Number Four—i.e., her conclusion that Mr. Perez was not at home.

At this very moment, the muscular young man was stepping out of the shower stall and reaching for a towel to dry himself. How Perez sensed the unwelcome presence is unclear. He might have heard Daisy step on something in the front yard, or perhaps it was one of those inexplicable hunches. By whatever means, Chico Perez felt a sudden shiver of apprehension and the certain knowledge that…
Somebody’s out there.

By the time Daisy Perika was approaching the front porch steps, Perez, with the towel tied around his waist, was watching her from one of the squalid hut’s filthy windows.
Well what’s this?
He recognized the hunched form.
The old witch has come to pay me a visit.
But why would she do that?
I bet she’s come to break in and steal something.

To make her task all the easier, Perez unlatched the front door. Opened it a crack.

The chill breeze did the rest.

As Daisy was painfully climbing the front porch steps, the door was swinging back and forth. She shook her head at such carelessness.
The dope didn’t even close his front door when he left.
As she leaned on her sturdy oak staff, Daisy’s already wrinkled brow furrowed deeply.
I could just pitch his wallet inside the house, then close the door.

Gesturing to her, as it were, the swinging door called out a squeaky-creaky invitation:
Come in…come in…old friend…

From somewhere deep inside her own inner sanctum, a small voice urged Daisy not to enter therein. On the contrary—to
leave this place in utmost haste.

Another (louder) voice assured her (in the vernacular of her childhood) that there was no reason to be a silly old scaredy-cat.

And that was that.

Daisy Perika stepped into the abyss.