The Night Visitor (50 page)

She put pencil to pad. “And what'd that be?”

Moon took a deep breath. “A… vegetable.”

Scott Parris was astonished; the man must be in love.

The waitress blinked at the Ute. “So whadda you want, big fella? I got your black-eyed peas. I got your boiled baby carrots. I got your creamed corn.” She deduced from his wistful expression that her customer was not greatly enthused by these offerings. “How about some nice pickled beets?”

The Ute thanked her, and politely declined. “I was thinking of something more… healthy.”

Frustration animated her wrinkled face. “Tell you what—I could open you a can of spinach.”

Moon grimaced. “Spinach?” She must be joking.

“Sure,” the old crone cackled, “same kind that makes What's-his-name… Sockeye strong enough to whip ol'… uhhh… you know… Pluto.”

“I don't hold with whipping dogs,” Moon said.

“I think she means Popeye and Bluto,” Parris offered.

The waitress shot the chief of police a withering look.

“Or maybe not,” Parris added hastily. “Sockeye and Pluto, now there was a bad pair to draw to.”

Moon was perplexed about what to order. Black-eyed peas were fine fodder for Texans. Beets were… well, beets. Carrots were for cottontails. Creamed com wasn't all that bad if a man had some pork chops to go with it. He'd never actually tried to get spinach past his lips, mainly because it had the unappetizing appearance of something regurgitated by a pitifully sick cow. But he was determined to consume a serious vegetable. Something
good
for him. But what? As sweet rains come when they are most needed, inspiration visited the Ute policeman. He recalled a snippet of tribal lore… Chief Ouray had fed his sleek horses bushels of a particularly pungent bulb to keep them in good condition. It was “powerful medicine for their hearts,” the wise Ute leader had told his doubtful wife, who was annoyed with such extravagance. In a flash of inspiration, Charlie Moon put his finger on a grease-stained menu. “This'll do nicely.”

The waitress' voice cracked. “Onion rings?”

“Yes ma'am.” Chief Ouray had fed his horses
raw
onions, but that was a trifling technicality.

“Honey, them things is deep-fried in pure lard …”

“Then make it a double order.”
If a man sets out to eat more healthy, he might as well go whole-hog.

When Sarah Frank, the nine-year-old orphan who is living with Ute Shaman Daisy Perika, kills a small spider on the old woman's kitchen floor and neglects to perform an ancient Ute ritual for it, Daisy cautions her that Grandmother Spider herself may come forth from her cabin under Navajo Lake. And when two men mysteriously disappear from the shores of the lake that same evening, caused by something policemen called to the scene describe as “big as a house, with lots of long legs,” Charlie Moon must take Daisy's warning seriously. Mystery, mysticism, and dark humor join forces in a case that leads Charlie Moon and Police Chief Scott Parris into a tangled web of curses, lies… and murder.

I
NSIDE THE
M
INING
City Cafe, the lunch crowd had thinned. A scattering of long-haul truckers sat around munching extremely greasy cheeseburgers, which they washed down with scalding coffee. The lawmen retreated to a booth in a shadowed corner, where they spoke in low, unhurried tones. The main topic was Scott Parris' engagement. The date was not yet set, but Charlie Moon was to be best man. There were details to discuss. Jokes about whether there was a tux west of the Mississippi big enough to outfit the Ute. There were also serious questions. Why hadn't Anne set a date for the wedding? How would Scott deal with her being out of town chasing stories half the time? What'd he do if the pretty journalist felt compelled to accept a job somewhere far away from Granite Creek?

When Scott's mood turned mildly blue, Moon sensed that it was time to plow some new ground. “So what's the police business that brings you down here?”

Parris rotated the heavy coffee mug in his hands. “Nothing
important. A friend of the mayors—some big-shot lawyer from Denver—he's got himself a cabin up on First Finger Ridge. Came down here last week to open it up for the summer. His wife has called several times, but he don't answer.”

Ii was common, especially after heavy snows, for trees to fall on the lines. The phone had probably been dead for months. Electric power was probably out, too. “Must be a line down,” the Ute said.

“Not according to U.S. West,” Parris said. “Phone line checks out okay. Maybe he never got to the cabin.”

“Or maybe he don't want to talk to his wife.” Moon grinned. “I've heard that married life can get tedious.”

“Tedious is a helluva lot better than lonesome, Charlie.”

His tone was so earnest that the Ute did not respond. And then something bubbled up from the depths of Moon's subconscious. “When did this lawyer get to his cabin?”

Parris consulted a neatly kept notebook. “April first, assuming he got there at all. He was supposed to call his wife that night. He didn't. She started calling the next morning. No answer.”

A cold something touched the back of Moon's neck. First day of April. That was when the men had disappeared from the shore of Navajo Lake. The same night, just minutes later, Daisy had taken a shot at something… and Sarah Frank had seen a “big spider.” And now this lawyer wasn't answering his phone. There probably wasn't any connection. “Pardner… maybe I should go up to that cabin with you.”

Parris laid his greenbacks on the table. “You think I'm gonna need some help?”

The rocky lane followed a wriggling line of utility poles up First Finger Ridge. There were no fallen trees to interrupt the flow of electricity or conversations.

There had been an uncommonly early thaw; several small streams were splashing their way down the slope. The sun was pleasantly warm, the temperature balmy. At higher altitudes there would still be thick white patches hiding under the blue spruce, but the winter's snow on this sunlit slope was
completely melted. The insects knew this and were pleased; energetic deerflies buzzed through the rolled-down windows and hummed about the men's faces.

Parris pulled to a stop in a level clearing. The cabin was nestled among a picturesque grove of spruce and pine. In front of the structure, several naked aspen were showing tender buds.

The log structure looked quite normal in every respect save one.

The front door was open; a light breeze moved it back and forth on well-oiled hinges.

Moon remarked that on such a warm day a man might well leave his door open to air out a place that had been shut up for the long winter.

Scott Parris added hopefully that telephones fail for all sorts of reasons.

But experienced lawmen develop a keen sense about such things. The policemen were filled with a feeling of unease—even dread. This had the empty, abandoned look of a dead man's house.

They climbed three pine steps to a sturdy redwood deck.

“Hello,” Parris shouted.

He was answered by a heavy, almost palpable silence.

Moon held the door steady and banged his knuckles on the varnished pine.

Still no answer.

Parris called out again. “Mr. Armitage?” A pause. “Anybody home?”

The place was quiet as a tomb.

The lawmen entered the cabin, still announcing themselves. There were cold ashes in the fireplace but no sign of an occupant. Muddy footprints led through the front parlor, down a short hallway toward the kitchen.

Parris paused to study an array of papers on a desk by the front window. “Looks like he was doing some legal work.”

Moon followed the footprints into the kitchen, which was uncommonly neat and tidy. The back door was not latched. The breeze that had opened it was about to close it. The same breath of air brought a familiar, unpleasant odor. The Ute policeman
pushed the door wide open and looked outside. The muscles in his jaw tensed. “Scott.”

“What've you got?”

“Better come and see.”

Parris appeared behind the Ute. “You find him?”

Moon, standing in the open doorway, nodded.

Charlie Moon was blessed and burdened with a formal education. He could trace the flow of electricity through a simple circuit, appreciate the lilting song of a Shakespearean sonnet, discuss the rise and fall of the Roman Empire. If hard pressed he was able (should an urgent need arise in the course of his law enforcement duties) to find the solutions to a quadratic equation and plot the results in the complex-number plane. The concept that negative numbers had imaginary square roots did not lock the gears of his mind into neutral. But for all this Moon was Ute to his very marrow. It would not have occurred to him to touch a dead man's body unless there was a very compelling reason to do so. There was no such necessity.

Scott Parris was also keeping a respectful distance between himself and the corpse. It was the medical examiner's job to poke around the lawyer's mortal remains. Doc Simpson would probe and sample and sniff around like a bloodhound. Photographs would be made from a dozen angles. The Granite Creek chief of police was already planning his department's work. A thorough search would be made of house and grounds for any physical evidence that might remain. Neighbors—such as there might be—would be questioned.

“I've never seen anything quite like this,” Moon said.

Parris tried to respond; the words hung in his throat.

The corpse's yellowed face was a reflection of horror. Shrunken eyes stared blindly from gray sockets. White teeth and bluish gums were bared of lip. The mouth yawned open in an endless scream. And this was not the worst part.

The head was separated from the body.

The torso was unremarkable except for one feature. On each side of the breastbone a pair of gaping wounds penetrated deep into the chest cavity.

Scott Parris broke the silence. “God almighty.”

Despite the stench, Moon was compelled to take a deep breath. “Looks like somebody took an axe to his neck.” Within a foot of the man's pale, shriveled hand there was a small camera. “Maybe he took a picture of whoever did it.”

“We should be so lucky.” Parris kneeled by the corpse. He pressed a handkerchief over his nose and mouth and frowned at the chest. “These are way too big to be bullet wounds,” he said in a muffled voice. “And there's hardly any blood on his shirt.”

Moon's thoughts were running in dark channels. Evidently, the lawyer had seen something outside, something so interesting that he wanted a picture. If he was working at the desk when he saw it, he would've grabbed his camera and headed out the front door. So whatever he'd noticed had been somewhere to the south of the cabin.
From whence cometh the unknown thing that snatches men off the earth.
And then he headed back through the cabin, making muddy tracks all the way to the back door. So whatever he wanted to photograph had been heading more or less to the north… passing by the cabin. After he'd gotten outside the back door, he'd dropped the camera. And besides losing his head, the victim had suffered two mortal wounds in his chest. Overkill. The Ute stared up the steeply-pitched roof of corrugated steel at a perfectly blue sky. Whoever… or
whatever
… it was didn't even bother to take the camera. Why? Didn't notice it? Didn't care about leaving evidence behind? Moon wondered whether there would be any images on the negatives. And if there were, whether he'd want to see them. “What'll you do with the camera?”

Parris considered his options. The F.B.I. Forensic Laboratory came immediately to mind. And the state police had a first-class photoanalysis team. But it would be nice to keep this investigation in the family. “I've got a friend at the university who's served as an expert witness in a half dozen crimes where photographic evidence was submitted. Guess I'll ask him to have a look at the film.”

Moon frowned at the flies buzzing around the corpse. “We better throw a sheet over the body.”

Parris stared at the gruesome scene. “You know, I keep thinking something… really crazy.”

Moon nodded. Whatever had happened here was crazy.

“These big holes in his chest,” Parris pointed, “they're about the same size. It's just that… it looks like a damn snakebite.” He was immediately embarrassed at having blurted out such an asinine remark.
Even in the tropics, reptiles just didn't
grow big enough to… and monstrously large snakes don
7
bite big holes in your chest. They crush you to death.

The Ute policeman was more circumspect and economical with his words. Besides, a sensible man wouldn't care to mention the absurdly superstitious thought that had been tickling at the dark side of his mind.
Spider bite.

Three hours later, the remote cabin site was crawling with state police and officers from Granite Creek P.D. The elderly medical examiner had arrived with his two young assistants. Dr. Simpson was, as was his custom, grumbling: about having to work in this black mud, how those damn deerflies were “biting my ass off,” and “why couldn't these slow-witted donut eaters manage to find bodies before decay had set in?” He, of course, was having the time of his life. Within an hour, Simpson had completed a preliminary examination of the corpse and declared that sufficient photographs had been made. The M.E. barked instructions to his assistants, who eased the greater bulk of the attorney's remains into a black plastic body bag and pulled the zipper. The head, lifted indelicately by the ears, was packaged separately in a scaled container that resembled a hatbox.

The lawyer's camera was tagged and placed in an evidence bag. On the morrow, Scott Parris would deliver it to Rocky Mountain Polytechnic and ask Professor Ezra Budd to examine the instrument and develop the film.