Three Sisters (28 page)

After reflecting upon his agenda, the TV star’s business manager thought perhaps he should place a call to his client and see how things were going on her end. After two rings, he heard her voice murmur a hello. “Hello yourself, Cassie. Can you talk?”

“Yes.”

“Everything all set?”

“Miss Daisy is in her bedroom, packing an overnight bag.”

“Great. When do you leave for home sweet home in Granite Creek?”

“I really can’t say—she’s rather slow.” A pause. “Will the contract be ready for signing this evening?”

“Even as we speak, I’m at my attorney’s office. Mr. Boxman’s secretary is printing out six copies.”

“So many?”

“Hey, you know how lawyers are, Cassie.” He grinned at the chipmunk on the stump. “Uh-oh, here she comes with the contracts. Gotta go.” He made a kiss-kiss sound. “Catch you later, kid.” Nicholas Moxon stuffed the charcoal Motorola Razr into his pocket, sighed. “Looks like I’ll be doing nothing for a while.” Which would be extremely tedious. He glanced at the corpse on the floor. “But I guess that won’t bother you, pal.”

Charlie Moon had just passed the Welcome to Granite Creek sign when his cell phone warbled. He checked the caller ID.
That’s who I thought it’d be.
“This is Mr. Moon’s day off and he’s gone hunting Bigfoots with Chief of Police Parris. You may leave a message after you listen to Arlo Guthrie sing the twenty-nine-minute version of ‘Alice’s Restaurant—’”

Scott Parris barked, “Don’t mess with me, Charlie. When you get to the station, I’ll be at the curb. Slow down just long enough for me to jump in.”

The tribal investigator grinned. “You in that big a hurry to go hiking on Spencer Mountain?”

“Forget that.”

“What—I don’t get to tramp around in the forest looking for broken twigs? And scat? And huge lopsided paw prints?”

“Can it, Charlie. You’ll see me on the street.”

And Moon did. He slowed to a crawl, backing up traffic as Granite Creek’s top cop—in three seconds flat—jerked the Expedition door open, launched his hefty frame into the passenger side of the Columbine flagship, slammed the door, and snapped the seat belt into place. “Drive.”

Moon pulled away. “Where to?”

“Aunt Daisy’s little house on the prairie.”

“What for?”

“I need to have a conference with the lady.” The chief of police pointed an infrared remote-control device at an upcoming stoplight. The traffic signal responded to the stimulus, switching from red to green without pausing for yellow in between. “Put the pedal to the metal.”
Hot damn—I always wanted to say that!

The Ute depressed the accelerator, watched the speedometer needle sweep past forty. Then fifty. “What’s this all about?”

“Get outta town—then we’ll talk.” Another thumbing of the IR remote control, another traffic light shifted from Stop to Go. And go was what they did, doing sixty-plus through a residential section. Bricked homes and shade trees zipped past. As he pondered about what was actually moving—Moon’s gas guzzler or the scenery—Parris was reminded that Dr. Professor Einstein was one smart cookie. “Step on it, Charlie—let’s break some laws.”

Seventy-five. His friend’s enthusiasm was infectious but Moon was not sure he wanted to catch this fever. On the long climb up Six Mile Mountain, where the left shoulder dropped off to that rippling, rocky stream for which both the county and the principal community were named, Moon leveled off at eighty. “Okay. We’re outta town.”

Scott Parris stared straight ahead. “There’s been a big break in the case.”

“What case?”

He shot his best friend a sour look. “That ain’t funny.”

Moon passed a Mayflower moving van. “Okay, what’s the big break?”

To maintain some semblance of dignity, the chief of police allowed an entire two seconds to elapse before responding. “Remember that truck-stop shooting over on I-25—the one Cassie reported on her TV show
while it was happening
?”

The driver nodded. Such events tended to linger in the memory.

“State police have turned up an eyewitness who claims he saw the shooter. Even though the perp was wearing a hat, and had his coat collar pulled up to his chin, the helpful citizen picked Nicholas Moxon’s homely mug out of a dozen other look-alikes.”

“That’s a nice break, all right.”
But not like catching the shooter with a smoking pistol in his hand.
Moon was startled to catch a sudden whiff of gun smoke. He knew what was coming next. And it did—
that haunting sense that all the cartridges in his revolver were spent.
But that simply wasn’t so.
I checked my sidearm before I left the Columbine.
As if from somewhere far away, he heard Scott Parris’s voice.

“…But without some supporting evidence, no DA in his right mind’ll go for it.” He added quickly, “Her or his right mind.” Having been lectured by his two female officers, the curmudgeon had been trying mightily to develop a modicum of sensitivity to gender issues. “All we’ve got is one eyewitness who
says
he saw the shooter outside, at night, in dim light from the restaurant window. It’s not half enough to get a conviction on.”

The scent of gun smoke had vanished, along with the absurd fantasy that his .357 Magnum was filled with empty shells. In an effort to occupy his mind with something that was real, Moon rolled Parris’s remarks over in his mind. Came up muddled. “Pard, can I ask a few questions?”

“Hey, you’re a natural-born citizen of the good old US of A, and freedom of speech is your First Amendment right.”

The Ute citizen posed query number one: “Seeing as how this lone eyewitness won’t be able to make anything stick against Mr. Moxon—why are you so dang cheerful?”

“I am glad as all get-out you asked me that.” Parris drew in a breath that threatened to rupture his barrel chest. “I am in good spirits—because I am going to bust this case wide open.”

Query number two: “How are you going to do that?”

“By finding out how Moxon’s been passing information about his ratings-boosting felonies to Cassandra Spencer—
while
she was on live TV.”

Repeat of query number two: “How are you going to do that?”

The passenger shot a sly look at the driver. “Somebody is going to tell me.”

The potential
somebody
did his one-hoot-owl imitation. “Who?”

Unaware of what his clever Indian friend had learned from watching DVDs of
Cassandra Sees,
the chief of police told him who. “If I lean on her, Cassie might talk.” Parris squinted at a sudden spray of sunlight. “But I wouldn’t bet on it.”

“Me neither.” Moon had put on the poker face. “So who does that leave?”

“Your aunt Daisy, who was sitting knee-to-knee with Cassie when our favorite TV psychic had that ‘vision’ about her brother-in-law’s violent death. And I will lay you ten-to-one odds on this, Charlie—Moxon set up the accident, watched Turner’s Corvette go tumbling over the cliff, and relayed the message to Cassie.”

“How d’you figure he managed that?”

“Now that’s the question, ain’t it?”

“But you’re hoping Daisy knows something—and that she’s going to tell you?”
The Optimists’ Club would elect you president. By acclamation.

“She might’ve picked up on something, Charlie. As for getting her cooperation, I’ll need some help from you.”

“My friend, you overestimate my influence with the elderly relative.” Now for the fun part. “But I think I might be able tell you a little something.”

“About what?”

“How Moxon passes information to his client while she’s on a live TV show.”

Parris’s eyes narrowed. “Has Daisy already told you something?”

“Nope. And don’t take this the wrong way, but us real honest-to-goodness professional lawmen don’t depend on common gossip for figuring things out.”

“Right.” Parris snorted. “So what’ve you ‘figured out,’ Sherlock Ute.”

“Oh, nothing much.” Moon paused just long enough to annoy his passenger. “I had a few minutes to spare, so I watched some old
Cassandra Sees
TV shows.”

The Granite Creek chief of police was hanging on every tantalizing word. “And?”

“And right off, I noticed that if you looked at close-ups of that spooky lady’s eyes, you could see reflections.”

“Reflections of what?”

“Oh, this and that. Anything shiny in her living room.” Moon listed several such items that had been visible on Cassandra’s corneas. He passed a gravel truck. “And there was this bright little rectangle on her eye. Applying my considerable knowledge of high-tech video recording equipment, I magnified it. Unless I’m mistaken, which I’m not, it was the TV monitor Miss Spencer keeps under her coffee table.” The driver smiled at a dark cloud bank off to the south. “Nice day we’re having.”

“Cut the crap, Charlie. What’d you see on her TV?”

“Oh, lots of stuff.” He glanced at his best friend. “Remember that big warehouse fire she reported in Denver?”

“Uh-huh. What about it?”

“Well, while she was talking about it on her show, she was looking at a live video of a fire on her under-the-table TV.”

Parris made a long, low whistle. “So that’s it. Moxon was transmitting digitized shots from the scene. Had to be by e-mail.”
Oh, this is just dandy.
“Her PC video port must be patched into the TV monitor.”

“Pictures wasn’t all he was sending.” The tribal investigator described alphanumeric banners that appeared on the psychic’s TV monitor immediately before she had one of her visions. “Like the kind the TV stations use to report severe weather. Election results. Scores on big games.”

Parris banged his fist on the car seat. “Charlie, that flat out
nails
it!”

“So you won’t need to talk to my aunt.”

The pale face blushed. “Uh—I still need to pay a call on Daisy.”

“What’s the big hurry?”

“I’ll explain later.”

“Explain now.”

“It’s kind of complicated.”

“Give me the executive summary.”

“You want the dumbed-down version?”

“That’ll do nicely.”

“Okay.”
But you’ll get all upset.
“About an hour ago, when I got an alert from the state police about that eyewitness who’d fingered Moxon, me and three officers staked out his house. His car was parked in the driveway, so we figured he was inside. But just to be sure, I knocked on the front door.”

“I’m guessing he wasn’t home.”

“Well if he was, he didn’t answer the door. Or the telephone in his house.”

Moon opted for a hopeful view: “It’s a nice day. Maybe he went for a walk.”

“You really believe that, I’ll give you six-to-one the rooster’s flown the coop.”

The Ute did not like the odds. “You figure he got a tip?”

“Wouldn’t surprise me. Moxon’s got lots of political connections.” Parris, who had a few such connections himself, occasionally toyed with the notion of running for public office. “But we’ll find him. Cops in nine states are on the lookout.”

Charlie Moon was beginning to feel uneasy. “But you figure maybe Moxon’s got more on his mind than hiding. Maybe he’s up to no good.”

“It did cross my mind that if he got tipped about the so so eyewitness, he might decide to eliminate the one person who could provide hard evidence against him.”

“Please tell me you have Cassandra Spencer in protective custody.”

“Uh…Cassie’s not at home.”

“Maybe she’s with Moxon.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Tell me why.”

“For one thing, when Officer Martin spotted her leaving town a couple of hours ago—this was before I got the call implicating Moxon in the trucker shooting—Cassie was alone in her Cadillac. Heading out of town.”

“In which direction?”

“South.”

Lots of destinations lay to the south. New Mexico. Old Mexico. Closer still, the Southern Ute reservation. “Pardner, tell me what’s on your mind.”

The beefy man clenched his hands together, making a fist big enough to KO a full-grown buffalo. “Charlie, an old pro like your aunt could spot a fake psychic a mile away. At midnight, in a heavy fog.” A few heartbeats. “And after Cassie passed out during last Saturday’s show, Daisy spent the rest of the hour sitting in the star’s chair. Maybe the old lady saw something on the TV under the coffee table. And Moxon might’ve thought of that.”

The driver was seeing the road miles ahead, far around the bend. “Which would put my aunt in the number-two spot on his hit list.”

“That’s about what the worry-stew boils down to.”

Under the Ute’s heavy foot, the accelerator was against the floor, the Ford V-8 churning out maximum horsepower, the speedometer at eighty-five and climbing.

As the big tires whined around a curve, the passenger clenched his teeth. “I’m in a hurry too. But there’s no need to break the sound barrier.”
Or my neck.

“Tell me why.”

“A little while before you hit town, I had the dispatcher put in a call to the state police and the Southern Ute PD, request immediate protection for Daisy. By now there’ll be cops camped out around her house, thick as fleas on a sickly prairie dog. The old lady’s safe as them stacks of gold bricks at Fort Knox.”

“Mmm-hmm.”
And “The check is in the mail.” And “As I insert this hypodermic needle the size of a lead pencil into your spine, you may feel a slight discomfort.” And “I’m from the government, and I’m here to help you.” And “Trust me—”

“Trust me on this, Charlie.” A sharper curve. Now the tires
screamed
. “She’ll be fine.”

“Sure she will.” Suddenly, like the snap-crack at the tip of a bull whip, it occurred to Charlie Moon that Sarah Frank should be home from the church picnic by now. “But just to ease my mind, call Daisy. Ask her to count those thick-as-fleas cops camped out around her home.”

Parris’s cell phone materialized in his hand. “Gimme her number.”