The Old Gray Wolf (18 page)

“Oh, she is.” Moon's sophomoric grin had graduated to the status of a happy, about-to-accept-a-sheepskin nine-hundred-watt smile. “You could twist Scott's arm into a pretzel and he wouldn't say a word about
who
the stranger is—
why
she's in town—or what motel she's checked in to.”

This upping-the-ante provocation was sufficient to loosen Tiffany's tongue, which—when circumstances called for it—could be as sharp as a barbed obsidian arrowhead. Initially, all she could manage was one word, but she spat it out like a gourmand ejecting a distasteful morsel of overcooked seaweed. “Mo-
tel
?”

Defeated, Parris nodded glumly and repeated the information provided by his dispatcher: “Holiday Inn, room 215.”

With a look at her boyfriend that curdled the undigested anchovy, green chili, and pineapple pizza and Coors Lite that had previously been so satisfyingly settled in Scott Parris's stomach, she said, “I think that I should like to meet this ‘Strange Lady in Town.'” (Among her other virtues, the lettered scholar was a devoted Frankie Laine fan.)

Did the big, brawny cop stare his gorgeous date down and remind the brainy lady who was in charge and what was what?

Hah! (Enough said.)

Now beet red and knowing that he was a stone-cold-dead, shot-in-the-head six-point buck, Parris said, “All right. If you really want to meet Miss Smithson, then come along.” He made the offer figuring that …
She won't.

Poor, clueless cop. Of course she would.

“Thank you for the gracious invitation,” saith Tiffany with cucumber coolness. Then, patting Miss Poynter's hand: “You come too, Patsy—this should be fun!”

Moon's intended was loath to involve herself in a potentially flammable dispute between Scott Parris and his high-strung girlfriend, but after a hopeful glance at her fiancé (whose wooden-Indian face showed not the slightest hint of objection), Patsy could only assent to Tiffany's invitation.

And wherever Miss Patsy Poynter goeth, Charlie Moon is obliged to follow. Which, one might suppose, might have led the humorist to conclude that his little joke had backfired. If so, one would suppose right.

As Scott Parris's blush had lightened to his facial skin's normal, healthy ruddy tint and his scowl was replaced by a “now you get yours, buddy” smirk, one might also reasonably deduce that the chief of police was not entirely displeased with this unexpected turn of events. Right again. And whatever moralists may say about the dark side of mean-spirited, petty revenge—it does create a transient sense of satisfaction. Matter of fact, Charlie Moon's presumed discomfort settled Parris's indigestion with all the soothing effect of an effervescent, fizzing Alka-Seltzer tablet.

No. Even better than that.

Make it a full pack—
two
effervescent, fizzing A-S tablets.

 

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

A RATTLED “STRANGE LADY IN TOWN”

(Not rattled just yet, but she is about to be.) We refer, of course, to the lady in room 215 at the Holiday Inn, who was deeply absorbed in a Microsoft Word file labeled ALIASES.doc on her pink laptop when someone in the hallway rapped his five-cell flashlight on the door.

Headbanger flashlight:
Bang-bang-bang!

Rattled strange lady: “Yikes!” Quick recovery. “Who is it?”

“Wild West room service,” Scott Parris bellowed. “Open up before we kick this door down and start tossin' tourists and furniture around!” (Why is he feeling so danged good? On the way over, Tiffany had given him her sizzling all-is-forgiven kiss, which is enough to make a corpse get up and dance.)

What the hell …
The present occupant of room 215, who had no intention of being tossed around, got up from her prissy little pink computer and strode across the carpet to peer through the peephole and see a veritable
crowd
of people on the other side of the door. (If three qualifies as a crowd, so must four.) Their faces were hard to make out, but she sized the situation up right away and (as a lady is apt to do) concentrated her attention on the male contingent of the mob, one a broad-shouldered fellow wearing what appeared to be an old-fashioned fedora, the other a remarkably tall, skinny man topped off by a broad-brimmed black cowboy hat. These roughnecks were accompanied by a pair of shapely females who could've been poster girls for the Las Vegas chapter of the National Cocktail Waitress's League.
Must be a couple of drunk cowboys and their streetwalker girlfriends who've come to pay a call on some other cowboy drunks and gotten the wrong room.
“Whom are you looking for?”

Mr. Broad-Shoulder's voice boomed through the hardwood door: “We're lookin' for
you,
ma'am.” She watched a sharkish grin split his face. “I'm Scott Parris, the local Wyatt Earp, and this dangerous Indiana”—he jerked his elbow to indicate Mr. Tall-and-Skinny—“is Charlie Moon, my trusty sidekick who shoots low-down varmints first and asks questions after they're pronounced dead.”

“Oh.”
Of course. Chief of Police Scott Parris and Deputy Charles Moon.
She had not expected to meet them so soon or under such unnerving circumstances, but there was nothing to do but open the door just enough to eyeball the party of four. “Hello.”

“Howdy, ma'am,” Parris said.

The taciturn Indian merely nodded and removed his John B. Stetson lid.

At an elbowing from Tiffany, the chief of police also doffed his hat.

As the ladies smiled, the chief of police looped his muscular arm around one of the presumed cocktail waitresses and said, “This is Dr. Tiffany Mayfair, professor of something or other over at Rocky Mountain Polytechnic.” He nodded to indicate Moon's date. “The other pretty lady is Granite Creek's all-American reference librarian, Miss Patsy Poynter—soon to be Mrs. Patsy Moon.” Whereupon the aforesaid librarian leaned affectionately against her prospective husband. Taking note of the blank look on the stranger's face, Parris glanced at the numerals on the door again.
It's 215, but maybe I didn't hear the dispatcher right.
“I hope I didn't bang on the wrong door.” He grinned like the mischievous little boy within him. “If you're not who I think you are, then I'll tell you how sorry I am and we'll be gone before you can spit in my eye twice.”

“Oh, you have the correct room,” she said. But there was a
but
coming up.

Scott Parris was relieved to hear this. “Well then, Miss Smith—”

“Shhh!” The lady touched a finger to her lips. Also shook her head.

“What?” Parris said.

METAMORPHOSIS
INITIATED

The out-of-towner whom Parris had almost addressed as “Miss Smithson” smiled. “There was no way you could have known, but I would prefer that it was not bandied about that I'm in town. When I'm working on”—she paused to find just the right phrase, and did—“a
sensitive project,
I find it helpful to conceal my true identity.”

“Oh.” Parris nodded knowingly. “So you're in Granite Creek
incognito,
huh?”

“That was my intention.”

Miss Smithson's smarter than her grandfather gives her credit for.
“So what's your alias for this sensitive project?”

“For the duration of my business here, I shall be Susan Whysper. It was my maiden aunt's name, though our family called her ‘Missy Whysper.'” Addressing the chief of police, she said, “I suggest that you address me as ‘Miss Whysper.'”

“I'll do that.” Scott Parris preferred the abbreviated alias to Susan Whysper and Charlie Moon did, too.

Professor Mayfair considered the whole business of using an alias unnecessarily dramatic …
unless she's some kind of secret agent working for the government.

Glancing at Charlie Moon, the woman who preferred to operate incognito said (with just the hint of a sly lady-cat smile), “Or, if you prefer … Missy Whysper.”

*   *   *

So she said, and so they would do, and so shall we. A strange lady in town on serious business has a right to assume any name that suits her.

 

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

THE LADY MAKES A FATEFUL DECISION

“It is very thoughtful of you to drop by,” said Miss Whysper as she opened the door wide. “How did you know where I was staying?” Even as the words were slipping between her lips, she realized that …
I shouldn't have asked.

Parris's face crinkled into an amused, almost supercilious smile.
What an amateur, and she writes books about crime.
“I notified every hotel, motel, and flophouse in town—and asked them to notify me when you showed up.”
And every cop on the force was told to be on the lookout for an old Bronco with Missouri plates—for all the good that did.
“The bright young fella at the front desk recognized your name when you checked in—which was also on your credit card—and he called GCPD right away.”

Miss Whysper sighed and rolled her eyes. “Then even the Holiday Inn is in cahoots with the local police force?”

“You betcher boots.” Parris chuckled. “Anyway, the dispatcher called me, so here I am with alla my friends to say, ‘Welcome to Granite Creek.'”

Moon appended an apology: “We were having supper when Scott took the call, and didn't want to break up the party—I hope you don't mind having the whole bunch of us barge in on you.”

Fearing no competition from this plain-Jane sort of female, Tiffany reinforced Moon's apology: “Yes—really—if you'd like to talk to Scott alone, the rest of us won't mind waiting in the lobby.”

Well—this is hardly what I had in mind, but one must take life as it comes.
“No, please come in and make yourselves comfortable.”

“Thank you, ma'am.” Parris hated wasting even ten minutes of his treasured evening date on Ray Smithson's granddaughter. “But only for a minute or so—and only if it's no trouble.”

“It is no trouble at all.” Which was not entirely true, but circumstances and hospitality sometimes incline us to lean slightly to the deceitful side, and so she opened the door wide and watched the troupe march single file into room 215, which was equipped with a neatly made double bed, a pine dresser and chest of drawers trying hard to look like maple, two similarly unpretentious armchairs, a miniature couch, and a wall-mounted high-definition-television screen. Miss Whysper waved her hand to indicate the couch and chairs. “Please sit down.” It had been a trying afternoon, and her tone was not especially inviting.

Parris caught the hint. “Oh, that won't be necessary.”
Might as well get right to the point and get this farce over with.
“Your grandfather told me about how you write books and—”

“You're an author? What kind of books?” Wide-eyed with delight, Tiffany did not wait for a response. “I'm an English professor over at Rocky Mountain Polytechnic University, Miss Smithson—I teach a course in creative writing. Perhaps you would be interested in speaking to our students—”

“No!” Placing the finger across her lips again, the lady shook her head. “Please do
not
call me Miss Smithson.”

Tiffany returned a blank look, then: “Oh, sorry—I'd already forgotten.”

“It complicates my work, you see.” The stern lady smiled sweetly at the completely clueless university professor. “When I am conducting research for a confidential project, I prefer to keep a low profile.” She shot a glance at Tiffany's date. “Chief of Police Parris has demonstrated how easily my identity might be exposed—along with the delicate nature of my current project.”

Unaccustomed to even the least reproach, Tiffany was mildly miffed. “I guess if people knew an author was in town they'd bother you with … with all kinds of bothersome requests…”
Like, “Would you talk to my creative writing class?”

“I have never been asked to discuss my work with a university class—and frankly, the prospect is quite appealing.”
Professor Barbie Doll is such an innocent.
“But at present, I prefer to remain as inconspicuous as possible.”

Realizing that Miss Whysper had no intention of discussing either her true-crime book project in front of the ladies, much less the supposed killer she was presumably tracking, Parris began searching for an exit strategy. To that end, he aimed the butt end of his flashlight at the pink laptop and the pink suitcase that lay unopened on the bed. “Sorry we interrupted your unpacking.”

“You didn't, actually,” said Miss Whysper truthfully. “When you knocked on the door, I was about to depart.” The out-of-towner sighed like the weary traveler she was. “This is a nice hotel, but rather too noisy for my tastes. I will be seeking other lodging.”

“I don't think you'll find much in the way of a quiet hotel room in Granite Creek—not for the next few days.” Parris glanced at Moon, who nodded his agreement. “So happens, the town's hosting the Cattlemen's Association
and
the Brand Inspectors' meetings this week, and everything's filled to the gills. You were lucky to get yourself a room here at the Holiday Inn.”

“Oh, my—that is unfortunate.”

“But there might be some peaceful place where we could find you a bed to sleep in.” Parris shot one of those sharp looks at the Ute rancher that can only be described as
meaningful.

Taking the hint, the hospitable westerner immediately made the offer: “You'd be more than welcome to stay at the Columbine, ma'am.”

Charlie Moon's fiancée did not have a jealous bone in her body, and she trusted her man, and anyway this out-of-towner wasn't exactly magazine-cover material. Patsy Poynter smiled to signify her assent.