The Widow's Revenge (9 page)

Stung by the painful reminder of what he
had failed to do
, Charlie Moon was suddenly struck deaf and dumb. The familiar words caught in his throat; the priest’s voice was drowned out by a heavy silence that seemed bent on suffocating his soul. For some time—precisely how long he could not tell—he might have been at the bottom of a deep well. And then he heard—or
thought
he heard—a distant murmuring.

Oh, I’m dead now—dead, dead, dead!

Her voice was instantly recognizable.

But don’t blame yourself, Charlie Moon.

The old woman was coming closer.
Don’t give it a thought.
She appended an addle-brained cackle.
Oh, no—it’s not
your
fault.
The Apache crone seemed to be sitting in the pew beside him.
There’s no way you could’ve got there in time to help me.
A pause for sighing.
It happened not long after dark.

From the corner of his eye, Moon thought he could see a wispy image of the dead woman. He could definitely smell the pungent scent of kerosene, the horrific odor of burned hair and roasted flesh. And then . . . and then—

The whatever-it-was reached out with an icy hand—
touched his face.

Charlie Moon could not move. Like a sleeper stranded between a nightmare and wakefulness, he was paralyzed.

He felt her clammy breath, and caught a whiff of garlic as Loyola Montoya whispered in his ear,
Alphabet soup. White Shell Woman smears mud on her face. Hammers and nails. Buckets and pails. Puppy dogs’ tails. Sugar and spice and everything nice. When White Shell Woman smears mud on her face. Hammers and nails . . .

Over and over she repeated the string of nonsense, then added,
Remember what I told you . . . Jefferson’s General Store . . . something terrible!

Moon closed his eyes.
Please, God . . . make it stop.

For too many racing heartbeats, the urgent prayer went unanswered.

Then—intermittently, as if from a dream—he could hear the voices of the priest and the small congregation. The words drifted in from some faraway place.

“Glory to God in the highest, and peace to his people on earth . . . we worship you, we give you thanks . . .”

Over it all, Loyola prattled on:
Hammers and nails. Buckets and pails. Puppy dogs’ tails . . .

Though he could not make a sound, Charlie Moon managed to move his lips.
You take away the sin of the world . . . have mercy on me.

Such a plea cannot be ignored.

The agonizing spell was broken by the voices from flesh and blood:

“. . . For you alone are the Holy One
You alone are the Lord
You alone are the Most High
Jesus Christ,
with the Holy Spirit,
in the Glory of God the Father.”

“Amen!” the stricken man said, mildly alarming the small congregation, causing even the decorous priest to arch an eyebrow.

Moon was too relieved, too happy to be concerned about committing a churchly misdemeanor. Though a fading hint of the telltale scents remained, whatever had been haunting him had fallen silent. The
presence
was gone.

Aunt Daisy, who had experienced more ghostly encounters than (as she liked to say) “Bayer has aspirins,” would have insisted that her nephew had been visited by Loyola Montoya’s wandering spirit. Without a doubt, the dead woman wanted to tell Charlie something. When he had the time (and inclination) to mull over this unsettling experience, Charlie Moon would conclude that he had been visited by a guilty conscience.

The Gospel reading was from the third chapter of Matthew, where St. John the Baptist describes how the Lord—winnowing fork in his hand—will clear his threshing floor to gather the wheat into his barn—and burn the chaff with unquenchable fire.

Pretty strong stuff.

The homily was on the same subject.

Though Charlie Moon tried hard to concentrate on the message, he remained distracted by the memory of the
visitation.

After receiving Holy Communion, he left the century-old brick church and pushed his comfortable black Stetson down to his ears. He was making long strides across the parking lot when a flash of lightning illuminated that jagged row of dark peaks that looms over Granite Creek.

As he approached his parked car, Charlie Moon remembered the razor-thin crescent that had hung like a scythe over last evening’s sunset. White Shell Woman had already muddied up most of her face. If Loyola
had heard the “witches” discussing their intent to commit a “sacrifice,” the planned crime might have been committed last night.
Or it could happen tonight. Or for that matter . . . right now.

At that very instant, as he was reaching for the car door, a long tongue of lightning took a good lick at an old, diseased, precariously leaning elm tree across the street. A withered branch splintered and burst into flames that illuminated the gray morning. Simultaneously, as if an inner flash of light had brightened a dim corner of his mind, the tribal investigator experienced a remarkable epiphany.

The priest’s homily contained the key that would unlock the mystery of Loyola’s seemingly meaningless phrases. It was all a matter of separating the wheat from the chaff, the true from the false. Easier said than done, of course. Charlie Moon went with intuition.

And perhaps, just a touch of inspiration.

I’ll toss out puppy dogs’ tails. Ditto for sugar and spice and everything nice.

The chaff was discarded. Now,
pay close attention to what’s left.

Loyola had been unambiguous about one critical point: the witches would strike in Granite Creek. Moon barely heard a heavy rumble of thunder.
But where in our fair city?

Again, the absent apparition nattered at him,
Hammers and nails.

The Ute felt rain pelt his face.
A carpentry shop? Or maybe a general contractor?

The haunt seemed to be frustrated:
Hammers and nails. Buckets and pails
.

A hardware store?
Maybe.
But which one?
There were four establishments in Granite Creek that dispensed hammers, nails, buckets, and pails.

The dead woman would not shut up.
Alphabet soup . . . Alphabet.

Alphabet. A-B-Cs. ABC Hardware?

It fit.

But Granite Creek was also home to ABC Auto Supply, ABC Dry Cleaners, and ABC Auto Repair. And . . . Alpha-Pet Veterinary Hospital.
Puppy dogs’ tails.
But that had been discarded as chaff.

Moon felt his face flush.
This is getting downright silly.

But wait a minute . . . The intended victim was someone who’s name
reminded Loyola of President Jefferson. That wasn’t much help. Counting first and last names, there were probably four dozen Jeffersons in the county. On the other hand, Loyola had said,
That’s not quite right.
Maybe the name she’d heard had only
sounded
like the president’s surname. But what sounds like Jefferson? The man who’d been awake all night could not think of a single example. Except . . .

Jeppson.

Jeppson’s ABC Hardware.

Moon stared through his automobile window without seeing the other worshipers, several under brightly colored umbrellas, emerging from the church.

What he did see, writ large:

Mrs. Montoya was a widow.

Mrs. Jeppson is a widow.

Mrs. Montoya lived alone.

Mrs. Jeppson lives alone.

Mrs. Montoya was murdered.

Mrs. Jeppson . . .

Barely two minutes later, after greatly exceeding the posted speed limit, the Southern Ute tribal investigator arrived at the oldest hardware store in Granite Creek.

LOCATED ON THE CORNER OF SEVENTH STREET AND ROOSEVELT AVE
nue, Jeppson’s ABC Hardware was the successor to a general store that once had been the centerpiece of a thriving business district. Alas, the Red Horse Saloon, Floyd’s Barber Shop, the First Miner’s Bank of Granite Creek, the Purina Feed Store, and several more—all had long ago closed their doors. The widow Jeppson lived in a 1940s-era two-story brick home that was situated about two blocks from her hardware store, that struggling enterprise now a faded and somewhat seedy anachronism in a neatly trimmed residential neighborhood. The venerable purveyor of
hammers and nails, buckets and pails
was surrounded by thirty acres of modern homes and a scattering of three-story apartment complexes that resembled those motels that cluster around interstate exits. As Charlie Moon turned in at ABC Hardware, a light rain salted with sleet began to sift through a vaporous gray mist. Turning on the windshield wipers, he noted that there was only one other vehicle in the parking lot—a twenty-year-old Ford Econoline van with California plates. Its rusted-out, sooty-black body appeared to have been brush painted by an amateur who was in a big hurry. Not much there to elevate the experienced lawman’s eyebrow. Aside from the fact that the van was puffing exhaust.

Which minor extravagance raised a few questions in Moon’s mind.

Such as:
With the only business on this side of the street closed, why’s somebody in an old clunker burning gasoline?
One query so often leads to another.
And why, with a hundred spaces to pick from, did he back into a handicapped parking space at the front entrance?
Questions posed in the absence of clear answers are such a vexation—and also a challenge to the imagination.

Moon eyed the driver’s dim form.
He could be a lookout for some bad guys who’re already inside.
The poker player rolled that long shot over in his mind.
It’s a lot more likely that he’s an out-of-towner who’s waiting to meet someone.
The Ute checked his dashboard clock. It was almost 9
A.M
.
He might be a customer who hopes the hardware store will open in a few minutes.
The experienced lawman considered other innocent possibilities. Calculated probabilities.

Came to a decision.

He pulled out of the parking lot, headed in the general direction of that fine place where he hung his hat, and more than that—tended strictly to his own business. The pull of warm hearth and peaceful home was almost irresistible, but before Mr. Moon could enjoy those domestic pleasures, he had a detour to take and an unpleasant task to attend to. One that was likely to ruin someone’s day.
Mine, most likely.

ASIDE FROM
the man in the van, only one other person had witnessed Charlie Moon’s transient coming and going. Across the street from the hardware store, seated alone at a table for two in the Caffeine High Coffee Shop, this singular individual sipped a cup of black Honduran coffee spiced with genuine Louisiana cane sugar and pure Mexican ginger, and from time to time penciled notes on a small spiral pad. The most recent entry was:

Dk blue Exp CO Pltes entrd ABC pkng lot apprx 8:56 AM
Flwr logo on drv’s dr & sign: COLUMBINE something
BRANCH? RANCH? (Rem—Chck Yel Pges)
Exp Dprtd apprx 8:57
AM

In a potential emergency, such as the high probability of an imminent encounter with an armed officer of the law, the coffee sipper known as Trout was prepared to either (a) set fire to or (b) eat the incriminating pages, and had done so on three previous occasions (two quick burns, one hurried ingestion that led to acute indigestion). Trout was not particularly concerned about the cowboy-hatted man in the big SUV, who was gone now and very nearly forgotten.

BARELY THREE
blocks from the hardware store, Moon turned right at a stoplight, then drove another two blocks before turning right again on a shady residential street. The tribal investigator parked the Expedition in front of a Home for Sale sign, opened the tailgate window, and removed an essential tool of his trade from under a blanket. He strapped the weighty assembly around his waist.