Coffin Man Page 6

  CHAPTER TEN

  NOW, THE SERIOUS BUSINESS

  Wanda Naranjo plopped onto a flimsy kitchen chair that creaked and threatened to collapse under her moderate weight. “In all the excitement about getting the leak fixed, I’d almost forgot about Betty.” She looked up at the ceiling, as if expressing regret to the cracked plaster. “I guess I’m not much of a mother.”

  Scott Parris returned a Crescent wrench to his toolbox. “Betty’s your daughter?”

  Still gazing upward, the parent nodded at a cobwebbed moth carcass. “She left this morning—and should’ve been back hours ago.”

  So that’s what this is all about. Assuming his grumpy-bulldog expression, the chief of police was about to bark at the woman. At a cautionary look from Moon, Parris snapped his mouth and the toolbox lid shut. After drawing in a deep breath and counting slowly to six, he addressed the citizen in a dangerously smooth monotone. “Let me make sure I’ve got this straight, ma’am—you insisted on me and Charlie coming out here because your daughter is a few hours late coming home?”

  Wanda Naranjo met his flinty gaze with an unflinching one of her own. “Yes, I did.” Her dark eyes challenged the cop: Do you have a problem with that?

  Parris’s icy-blue orbs shot right back: Damn right I do!

  Expecting a double explosion, Deputy Moon moved between the two to reach for a kitchen chair. He turned it so the back was up front and straddled it to face the feisty little lady. “Who’s this Mike you mentioned?”

  “Michael Kauffmann is my boy—” She grimaced. “My ex-boyfriend. I run the louse out of the house this morning.” I should’ve shot the bastard dead.

  Charlie Moon nodded as if he’d heard this story a hundred times before. He had. “When did your daughter leave?”

  The Ute’s voice had a calming effect, like a soft breeze in the pines. The woman cocked her head and strained to recover a clear memory of this morning’s events. “Betty left after Mike drove away in his Jeep.”

  “How long after?”

  “Just a little while.” Wanda put her thumb on the table and attempted to rub a wrinkle out of the worn oilcloth. The greasy crinkle refused to be flattened. “Maybe ten or fifteen minutes.”

  Ol’ Charlie sure knows how to talk to women. Resting his butt against the edge of the kitchen table, Scott Parris elbowed himself into the interrogation. “What was she driving?”

  “My daughter doesn’t have a car—or a driver’s license. She was on foot.”

  Parris arched an eyebrow. “So where was she footing it to?”

  “Betty was walking down to the commuter bus stop.” The weary woman examined bulging veins on the backs of her hands. I’m getting old before my time.

  Ever so gently, Charlie Moon pressed on. “Where was your daughter going on the bus?”

  “To see her high school counselor—Dr. Whyte.” The mother’s eyes narrowed. “Betty said she had an appointment, but she must’ve been confused. I called and got a voice-mail message that said the doctor’s office is closed on the second Friday of the month.” She glanced at Parris. I guess he ain’t so bad as I thought. “Did I mention that my daughter is eight and a half months pregnant?”

  “No, ma’am.” Parris exchanged a quick glance with his deputy. “How old is Betty?”

  “Seventeen next January.”

  “Maybe…” Not knowing quite how to pose the sensitive question, Parris disguised his query as a suggestion. “Maybe she was going to visit the baby’s father.”

  Mildly amused at his embarrassment, Wanda Naranjo appreciated the tough cop’s clumsy attempt at delicacy. “Maybe she was.”

  She ain’t making this easy. There was nothing to do but ask outright. “Who is the father of your daughter’s unborn child, Mrs. Naranjo?”

  The mother effected a nonchalant shrug. “Betty never told me.”

  The white policeman felt his face redden. “D’you have any idea who your daughter might’ve been … close to?”

  “Some pimple-faced kid at school, I guess.” Wanda had already considered the possibility the beefy chief of police was hinting at. “D’you figure she’s run off with her boyfriend?”

  “Maybe.” Parris pretended to change the subject. “Speaking of boyfriends—and ex-boyfriends—could you tell me where I could find Mike Kauffmann?” Seeing the woman’s eyes glint, he wondered whether she’d caught his drift and added quickly, “What I mean is—where does Mr. Kauffmann hang out when he’s not here?”

  Unconsciously, she assumed Moon’s mossy-soft tone. “Mike’s got a bedroom over at Mrs. Hawley’s Boardinghouse.”

  “Thanks. I’ll ask him a question or two.” Parris jotted this information into his shirt-pocket notebook. “Maybe your daughter mentioned something to Mr. Kauffmann about her intentions.”

  “I doubt it. Betty never had much to say to Mike.”

  “I expect you’re right, ma’am.” Parris had picked up her tattered phone book and was looking up Mrs. Hawley’s number. “But he might know something that’d be helpful.”

  As Wanda watched the cop place the call to Hawley’s Boardinghouse, the impact of his question finally dawned on her. So that’s what you think—that my boyfriend was messing around with my daughter! That was crazy. For a dozen racing heartbeats, the angry mother glared at the cynical chief of police. But with every contraction of her left ventricle, Wanda’s suspicions increased. I wouldn’t put anything beyond Mike. And the timing was right. Rat-face started hanging around my house about ten months ago. She searched for some evidence in the ex-boyfriend’s favor and found it. Right before I went to work on the night shift at Snyder Memorial, Mike always kissed me good night and left for his bedroom at Mrs. Hawley’s place. But there was a “but”: But quite a few times, he was already here when I got home the next morning. Her lazy boyfriend—who wasn’t one to be up with the sun—had provided an explanation for his early presence. Mike said he wanted to make sure he showed up by breakfast time. Nevertheless, even a man who lied almost every time he opened his mouth deserved the benefit of the doubt. At the moment, doubt was a commodity in short supply. When I left for my night shift, Mike could’ve gone two or three miles down the road, then come back and spent the whole night with Betty. It was a sinister jigsaw puzzle that Wanda was assembling, and Rat-face was looking uglier with every piece that she fitted into place. As her slow simmer approached a boil, a significant subliminal memory bubbled up: A few times last winter, when I got home from work in the morning, Mike’s car had thick frost on the windshield—or even a skim of ice … like the old clunker had set outside my house all night. The Prosecution rested, and bit her lip. I’m an idiot.

  After exchanging a few words with Mrs. Hawley, Parris said goodbye and disconnected. He directed his remarks to his deputy. “Mr. Kauffmann left the boardinghouse early this morning, on his way over here I suppose. He returned to Mrs. Hawley’s place about an hour or two later, cleaned his belongings out of the rented bedroom—and left without paying his bill.”

  “That’s Mike at the top of his form.” Wanda Naranjo snorted. “By now, he’s long gone.” She forced a brittle smile. “The bastard could be in Salt Lake or Kansas City by now—or maybe he’s waltzed halfway across Texas.”

  One of the best poker players in six states was studying the woman’s face, and Charlie Moon was thinking Scott Parris’s thoughts virtually word-for-word: She knows where Kauffmann’s gone to, but she don’t intend to tell us.

  True. And Mrs. Naranjo also knew what the lawmen were thinking.

  Without doubt, a congregation of highly perceptive minds.

  * * *

  By contrast, the missing daughter does not perceive anything. Betty Naranjo has not the slightest awareness of what has happened, where she is, or of her very existence. One might reasonably conclude that the young woman is sleeping, and she is—in a macabre manner of speaking. Sadly, the girl’s slumber is not of that kind which refreshes both body and mind.

  Then does she dream?


  No.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  THE LADY LIES THROUGH HER TEETH

  And sharp teeth they were. But, unlike her daughter and ex-boyfriend, Wanda Naranjo practiced deception only when she deemed it absolutely necessary. Which was rarely more than two or three times a day. To assist in expelling the fabrication, Wanda Naranjo cleared her throat. “Before you ask me, I don’t know where Mike might be headed.” But I’ve got a pretty good idea. Jutting her chin, she narrowed her eyes to slits. “He could be anywhere.” And I know exactly where anywhere is.

  The lawmen continued to read the falsehoods her face could not conceal.

  Scott Parris’s eyes were also capable of narrowing to slits, and did. “If you happen to think of some place Mr. Kauffmann might have gone to—”

  “I already told you I don’t have any idea!” Wanda snapped.

  Parris’s face began to redden dangerously.

  Wanda Naranjo’s hands clenched into knotty fists.

  Again, Charlie Moon intervened. “Did your daughter say when she’d return home?”

  This gentle query snapped the tension like a rotten rubber band.

  Wanda’s hands relaxed as she shook her head. “But when she goes to see Dr. Whyte, Betty’s always back in a couple of hours. With his office closed, she should’ve been home sooner than that. She rides the little commuter bus, and it makes the circuit every half hour.”

  To keep her talking, the Ute asked another routine question: “Has Betty called home since she left?”

  “No. And she’s got a cell phone that I gave her for her sixteenth birthday.”

  “Sometimes cell phones don’t work,” Parris said grumpily. “Batteries can die.”

  “So can teenage girls,” Wanda whispered. And their babies.

  Charlie Moon had read her lips. “Your daughter might’ve decided to stop off somewhere. A friend’s house, maybe.”

  “She don’t have any friends.” Wanda exhaled a down-and-out sigh. “The kid’s what you might call … a loner.” Betty’s a bitch and nobody likes her.

  Wearying of this interview, Scott Parris got right to the heart of the matter. “Officially, Mrs. Naranjo, it’s way too early to treat your daughter as a missing person.” Seeing a flash of anger in the mother’s eyes, he added, “But I’ll see what I can do.”

  Moon smiled at the distraught mother. “Do you have a recent photograph of Betty?”

  Wanda shook her head, then had an afterthought. “But there’s a picture in last year’s high school yearbook.” The lawmen followed her into the parlor, then into an unkempt bedroom where posters of scruffy punk-rock stars and fuzzy kittens were thumbtacked onto the yellowed plastered walls. The woman rummaged around in a pile of unused schoolbooks and tattered romance magazines until she found a volume with a white imitation-leather binding. She thumbed through it. “Here it is—sophomore class.”

  Scott Parris reached out.

  Pointedly ignoring the ranking officer, Wanda gave the yearbook to Charlie Moon.

  After taking a perfunctory look, the deputy passed the book to his boss.

  Parris stared at the array of seventy-six smiling faces, then squinted at the list of names.

  Wanda’s painted fingernail touched the page, guiding his gaze to her daughter’s face.

  Parris stared at the big-eyed brunette who looked back at him over a bright smile. Betty Naranjo was easily the prettiest girl on the page. “Could I keep this for a few days?”

  Wanda Naranjo nodded.

  Charlie Moon had gotten barely a glance at Betty’s image, but that was sufficient to ruin his day. Unlike his aged aunt Daisy, whose mind was attuned to a whole range of spooky things, the tribal investigator was a down-to-earth fellow who managed to get by on common sense and analytical thinking. Moon’s secret curse was that nine times out of ten, he could look at a photograph and instantly know whether the face looking back at him was dead or alive. This one was alive, but only barely so—and Betty Naranjo had the look of someone who didn’t have too many hours left in this world. Making a snap decision, Moon signaled his friend with a barely perceptible tilt of his chin.

  While Wanda restacked Betty’s pristine schoolbooks and well-used magazines, Scott Parris followed his deputy into the shabby parlor. “What’s up, Charlie?” Besides your antenna.

  Moon didn’t meet his friend’s earnest gaze. “This is starting to look serious.”

  The white cop felt a sudden chill. “So what should we do?”

  “I wish I knew.” The Ute tilted his face to take a thoughtful look at the rough-cut pine rafters. “Maybe check with that doctor the girl said she had an appointment with.”

  “Right.” After consulting Mrs. Naranjo’s telephone directory again, Parris placed a cell-phone call to Dr. Stuart Whyte’s residence office. There were seven rings before he heard the recorded voice that Wanda Naranjo had listened to hours earlier. It tailed off with; “If this is an emergency, please hang up and dial 911. If you wish to leave a message, you may begin after the beep.” Immediately after the tone, he barked, “This is Scott Parris, Granite Creek Police Department. I need to speak to Dr. Whyte as soon as he has a spare minute. He can call me at—”

  “Hello—this is Mrs. Lorna Whyte.” The woman was out of breath, but her voice was loud enough for Charlie Moon to hear their conversation. “I just walked in the front door and heard the phone ringing in Stuart’s office. May I be of any help?”

  “I hope so.” Parris scowled at the unseen person. “I don’t suppose you’re acquainted with your husband’s work, but—”

  “Oh, but I am—I serve as Stuart’s receptionist.” The spouse shifted to her professional tone: “Do you wish to make an appointment with the doctor?”

  “Uh, not that kind.” Parris blushed beet red. “This is official business.”

  “Regarding what?”

  “One of his patients.”

  “Oh, I see. Is this an emergency?”

  “I don’t know. I sure hope not.”

  “Oh, dear.” There was a nervous giggle from the psychologist’s wife. “If you’d said ‘yes,’ I was going to suggest that you call 911.”

  “Yes ma’am.” Parris grinned. “I’m the chief of police, so the buck stops on my desk. Now, if I could just speak to Dr. Whyte—”

  “I’m sorry, but the doctor is not in.” A two-heartbeat pause. “He’s away for the weekend.”

  “Where can I reach him?” Parris fumbled in his shirt pocket for the notebook.

  “I’m sorry, but that isn’t possible.” Mrs. Whyte cleared her throat. “Stuart is on one of his retreats. On the second Friday of the month, he goes on a camping trip. He camps in the mountains in a tent. No radio, no television, no telephone.”

  “Not even a cell?”

  “Well … yes—but only for emergencies, like if his truck breaks down. Besides that, he keeps his mobile phone turned off.”

  “Sounds like a fine idea.” The overworked public servant sighed at the thought of a few days’ downtime with no phone ringing. “When do you expect him back?”

  “Late on Monday morning. Stuart has no appointments scheduled until one thirty P.M.”

  “Okay. When the doc shows up, tell him I’ll be dropping by about noon.”

  “That will be satisfactory. And the patient’s name?”

  “Sorry, ma’am—that’s official police business.”

  “I see.” The temperature dropped ten degrees. “When my husband shows up on Monday, may I at least tell him what the issue is?”

  “Sure. Tell the doc that his patient is … well … kinda late in getting home. Her mother’s worried.”

  “Oh.” Silence. “I see.”

  Parris said his goodbye, disconnected, and said to his deputy, “So what d’you think?”

  The tribal investigator murmured into the white man’s ear so that the mother in the bedroom couldn’t hear, “I don’t think this missing girl’s gonna be coming home.” Moon’s grim face resembled chiseled stone.
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  Chilled by his friend’s haunted expression, Scott Parris realized that pessimism was infectious. Determined to avoid contagion, he attempted to shield himself with a mix of professionalism and wishful thinking. “You know the drill, Charlie—if the girl don’t show up in forty-eight hours, I’ll issue the usual bulletins.” He clapped the slender Indian on the back. “Now stop worrying so much—this’ll turn out okay.”

  The deputy had barely heard the hollow reassurance, hardly felt the friendly pat; Parris’s hand was like a feather, his voice faraway like the day before yesterday.

  Realizing that he wasn’t getting through, the chief of police assumed a flinty-edged tone: “Leave it alone. Okay?”

  The deputy nodded, but Moon’s mind’s eye was focused on what he could not avert his gaze from—the pretty girl’s face in the yearbook. His inner ear listened intently to the voice he could not bear to hear—Betty’s curvaceous lips whispering, Thanks for caring, mister … but it’s too late.

  THE LADY MAKES A DECISION

  After her unnerving conversation with the chief of police, Lorna Whyte checked the messages on the office answering machine. There were only three, two sales pitches and a call from a worried mother. She played that one several times. Over and over, she listened to the woman’s anxious voice:

  “Uh … This is Wanda Naranjo. My daughter thought she had an eleven A.M. appointment with the doctor, but … I guess she must’ve been mixed up about what day it was for. Betty’s awfully late getting home and I’m worried about her … but I guess I shouldn’t be bothering you with my troubles. Sorry.”

  Lorna was about to place a call to her husband, but for obscure reasons of its own her right hand refused to touch the cordless telephone. And the lady had her own reasons for hesitating. This isn’t the first time the police have called about one of his patients. In her husband’s line of work, that was to be expected. Also … Teenage kids go missing all the time, and almost all of them come home again. There was, of necessity, a dark side to that shiny penny: And a few of them don’t. Either way, in a few days this police business with Betty Naranjo would be old news. And not only that … Stuart gave me strict instructions not to call him unless there was an emergency. And this was not an actual emergency—not really. Not yet. She stared at her diffident hand, the long, slender fingers outstretched—and withdrew it. I’ll wait until he calls me on Monday morning.