by Dudley Lynch
I wasn’t one of those, but he’d doctored my tea with a near-fatal dose of rat poison. Nearly killed someone who frequented my office. And he still might put a bullet in me. Or Angie. “You think I’m one of the causes?”
What he did next washed through my awareness like battery acid. He glanced down at Angie with a look that was almost loving. “I did until I talked to this lady.”
It was the same kind of look I’d seen less than three hours before — when Garrick Drasher had watched Angie enter my interrogation room. On that occasion, my mesmerizing FBI special agent girlfriend had taken matters into her own hands.
She did it again.
“Sawyers, these cuffs are getting unbearable. You need to let me go.”
When he answered, he seemed to be addressing the tombstone more than Angie. “It’s time, isn’t it?”
He freed her and let the handcuffs fall to the ground. Angie walked over to me, took my hand, and whispered something only I could hear. “Tell him you’re going to let him have a moment with his mom.”
I did that. And we continued toward my car.
We were halfway to my patrol cruiser when my sniper fired. Later, he said Sawyers had raised his revolver and was pointing it straight at us.
Chapter 74
I was still sitting in my patrol cruiser when I got word from my dispatcher that Professor Huntgardner had died at Flagler General. It had happened at almost the same time Chief Deputy Tanner’s life had been snuffed out by our sniper’s bullet.
My thoughts flitted instantly to Leviticus 24. To those four verses where the Old Testament lawgiver spells out the consequences for doing injury to your neighbor. Under the Tribe of Levi’s rules, you got equal payback. Fracture for fracture. Eye for eye. Tooth for tooth. And now, perhaps, death for death. But who did I consider the primary instigator — the most serious offender — in this instance? The professor? Or Sawyers? And was it my right, or my role, to conclude that it was more one than the other?
I’d always choose to think my chief deputy had killed himself — suicide by cop. Believing he’d have shot me or Angie, or the both of us, in the back was beyond my comprehension.
Officially, he was a murderer. A mass killer. That was in my public world.
In my private world, which I’d need not explain to anyone, he’d always be my friend and a loyal employee. I wouldn’t be explaining to very many people how painful it was to be forced to own both realities.
As for Huntgardner, to the extent that I knew, I had no further role to play. No doubt, as he’d become more and more self-obsessed, the physicist had committed more than one serious crime, murder included. But the statute of limitations on most of these offenses had run out. There wasn’t a statute of limitations for murder. But I had no evidence of that to forward to a prosecutor.
Besides, the man was dead.
I planned to attend the professor’s memorial service. Might even send a deputy with a smartphone to make a record of who showed up. But Dr. Mayes, the physician, had been the professor’s legal guardian. I’d leave it to him to sort out the demented old man’s affairs.
And that’s where matters stood, until they didn’t.
Chapter 75
The phone call from Dr. Mayes came about midmorning. There was urgency in his voice. “The local paper was just here.”
That didn’t surprise me, and I told my caller so. “Dr. Huntgardner was a bit larger than life in these parts. Has been for a long time.”
“Most of the questions weren’t for his obituary.”
“Let me guess. They’re doing an article on the fragment.”
“More than that. They’re doing an entire section on it in tomorrow’s paper.”
I did a double take he couldn’t see. “An entire section?”
His rush to tell me the whole story was obvious. “Listen to the headline. ‘Ten Places to Search for Abbot County’s Most Famous Space Junk.’”
Mayes couldn’t see me shaking my head. But he heard my expletive.
He had more to tell me. “They’re offering a five hundred dollar cash prize to anyone who finds it.”
I couldn’t hold back my invective. “Motherless oafs!”
“And that’s not the crux of the trouble, Sheriff.”
“What might that be?”
“They’ve hit the nail on the head with one of those ten sites.”
“You’re saying you know where the fragment is?”
“I think I do.”
“And you know this how?”
“I’ve just opened up the professor’s safety deposit box. Read his will. It gives precise directions to where he buried the fragment.”
* * *
I thought this was one of those situations where less would be more. What that boiled down to was one of each.
One person in charge. That was me. One legal representative of the family — Dr. Mayes, who was riding with me. One surveyor, because we were going to need precise measurements. One dual wheeled pickup driver, a friend of Mayes. He’d also operate the ditch digger on the trailer he was pulling. And one of our CSI team, coming in his own vehicle, bringing a video camera.
It wasn’t until we’d left the Sweetwater Highway turnoff two miles behind and were making our first curve to the west that I noticed a fifth vehicle keeping pace with our little caravan. Not crowding it. But not falling off the pace any, either.
The vehicle puzzled me. From what I could see in the mirror, it looked official. One of those black Chevy Suburbans that federal government law enforcement favors.
Angie drove one.
The thought that it might be hers was why I didn’t react to it. Didn’t bring our entourage to a halt and check the SUV and its occupants out.
Instead, we kept raising dust. Reached the point where Judson’s yellow-flagged stakes had begun. Turned west and motored to the circle of aristocrat pear trees.
The black Suburban didn’t follow us all the way to the clearing. It hung back about 150 yards and came to a stop on the prairie. Two people emerged from it. They leaned against the vehicle, watching us through binoculars.
According to Dr. Mayes, the fragment was buried twenty-seven meters and 140 degrees west of a tree located at due east in the circle of trees. We’d know the exact one because it had been flagged. A survey marker had been embedded fourteen inches due west of where the tree emerged from the ground.
The surveyor in our party found the marker. Set up his equipment. And was soon driving a stake into the white stones that were part of the top oval “eye.”
He was off by only a few inches.
The operator on Dr. Mayes’s ditch digger needed less than five minutes to expose a large, heavy-duty army-green military surplus case. Two feet long. Almost that wide. A foot-and-a-half high. Its recessed handles made it easy to attach cables at each end. The boom on the ditch digger made it easy to lift the case free and place it on the ground.
The doctor brushed the remaining dirt off the case’s thick lid. Undid its five latches. Thrust the weighty lid back on its three hinges. And began removing the packing material jammed inside.
The rest of us crowded around, keen to observe. The equipment operator stayed on his knees. I bent over Dr. Mayes’s shoulder. My CSI staffer had his eye pressed to his camera viewfinder.
We were all so focused on what was happening with the case we’d uncovered that none of us maintained any kind of a lookout.
I had an excuse for not noticing unavailable to the others. The activity we missed was taking place on my blind side. I’d had to have turned my head at least a third of a circle to have realized that the black Suburban had edged forward to the trees. And its occupants had dismounted.
What our little entourage was riveted on was what was in the case. Beneath the packing straw, Dr. Mayes had found an elongated white shroud. Something was wrapped tig
ht within it. The doctor slipped his hands underneath the bundle, palms up. Lifted it free of the case. And laid it on the ground with care.
Two white cords held the shroud in place, one at each end. Each was tied with a bow. The doctor tugged both bows loose. Let the ends of the cords drop. And began opening the shroud. That was another reason why all of us lost touch with what was going on around us. The whole engagement felt funereal — like we were recovering the body of a long-dead infant.
We got only a quick look. I’d check with my companions later to see if they agreed with my reaction. Gazing down at the object in the shroud felt like peering into a bottomless portal. And getting a glimpse of something that didn’t belong to our world.
The object had a color to it, but its hues vacillated.
Oscillated.
One moment they might be the darkened grays of anodized aluminum and the next, the coal-blacks of the cast-iron skillet in my kitchen. Yet, there seemed to be an unmistakable luminosity being generated. Funny, but as I stared at it, I kept thinking of Professor Huntgardner’s comment to Professor Rawls. The one about how much the dark can tell you if you don’t get blinded by the light.
What we saw was an entity — if that’s the right word — that seemed to be drinking up its surroundings instead of taking its rightful place among them.
Another way to say it?
The substance that the entity was made of caused it to stand apart from everything around it, including the shroud that had been its protection. The entity was directing no yea and no nay — to anything. But I wasn’t seeing any of those markings about which the professor had made such a big deal. At least, there were none in view on the part of the entity visible to us.
Our impressions might have been more substantial if we’d had more time. And if we’d not been interrupted with such jarring rudeness.
Four figures approached us. All of them wore tactical fatigues. Splotches of dark gray on a sea of white. And sunglasses. And dark green berets. But no insignias of any kind.
Not even on Garrick Drasher’s clothing.
Because of the sunglasses, I couldn’t tell if he ever looked me in the eye. But he was the one who reached down and scooped up the shroud and its contents. The other three were heavily armed with machine pistols. As Drasher headed for the eastern edge of the trees, clutching the object he’d just purloined to his chest, the others fell in protectively around him.
I took a couple of seconds to process surprise. I considered pulling my revolver. But knew I’d not pull the trigger.
For three reasons.
One, we were badly outgunned.
Two, I was concerned about hitting the object in the shroud, not to mention shooting someone in the back.
The third reason was the noisy beast that swooped in over the circle of trees from the west. It made a low pass over the clearing and lowered itself onto the prairie a few dozen feet to the east of the trees.
The bulb-nosed UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter had dived down on us like — well, like a hawk. I knew what it was because I’d seen the intimidating crafts darting around the Army’s firing range west of Burford DeBlanc Air Force Base.
The chopper disturbed the air. Disturbed the grasses. Disturbed the closest trees. Disturbed our peace of mind.
One of the crew extended his hands through a wide-open door halfway down the chopper’s side. Our absconder passed along his plundered cargo. Other hands were extended to him and his companions. One at a time, they scooted into the craft on their stomachs.
In less than a minute, the helicopter was disappearing over the ridge in the direction of Mexico.
My first words were to Dr. Mayes. “I’m pretty sure that was the professor’s fragment.”
Epilogue
The appearance, then the disappearance, of the Black Hawk might have signaled the end to the reign of mysteries in Abbot County.
Not meaning we’d found convincing explanations for any of the others. We hadn’t. Nada. Nary a one. And it wasn’t for lack of trying.
By my department. By Angie’s FBI. By Pentagon investigators and other hifalutin government gumshoes I’d been told about and some I hadn’t been. At least, if the other agencies had come across any culprits or motives, they hadn’t shared them with me.
But there was one important breakthrough.
One Thursday night after Angie’s and my regular “date night” meal, I suggested that we motor up Make-Out Mountain. The peak was a favorite spooning location with Flagler’s teenagers. It was only about fifteen minutes’ drive east of my house.
Angie and I had been there enjoying the twinkling lights of the city below and the starry hosts of the heavens above for about twenty minutes when I suggested we get out. Walk around to the front of the car. Commune with the moment and the elements without being surrounded by a cage of automotive steel.
I slipped an arm around the extraordinary woman I was with and drew her close. Kept the flashlight I’d exited the car with out of her sight. Removed my arm. Reached inside a pant pocket and extracted the ring box I’d kept jammed down in my car seat. Stepped in front of her in the darkness. Dropped to one knee. Flicked on the flashlight. Opened the box. And asked her to marry me.
She said yes and burst — spectacularly, I thought — into tears.
No sooner had I slipped the ring on her finger than Angie looked up and pointed. “Luke, are you seeing this?”
I stood up and spun around.
Five blue lights in a ragged V formation were approaching Flagler from over the prairie. One occupied the nose position. The others filled out a Delta-wing-like shape, two on each side. Their speed slowed to a crawl, and the entire V started a slow, wide spin. Like it was trapped at the edge of a huge whirlpool.
To our further astonishment, one of the lights broke off from the formation. Dipped low over our little city. Made three passes in all. Then returned to its place in the V. That was when the formation broke apart — like a slow-motion firework — and each of the five blue lights departed in a different direction.
When she spoke, Angie’s voice sounded small and wondrous. “What was that?”
I smiled. “The weather people must have sent their balloons again. They sure have a weird sense of humor.” I paused. “You buying that explanation?”
Angie smiled back.
I drew her close, kissed her, then joined her gazing at the now empty sky. No more blue lights. No more weather balloons. No more flying saucers. Just a million, billion twinkling stars.
Acknowledgments
My lifelong companion and business partner, Sherry, has spent an untold number of hours vetting every twist and turn in this work. Her sense of how the world works is uncanny and her imagination is boundless. So is my love for her and my appreciation for what her selfless spirit and zest for living bring to my work.
I’m indebted to these other individuals for their assistance with the Sheriff Luke McWhorter Mystery Series:
Brandon Allen, MD, Assistant Medical Director, Adult Emergency Department, University of Florida Shands Hospital, Gainesville, Florida. ED procedures and terminology.
Amy L. Beam, EdD, owner of Mount Ararat Trek travel agency of Dogubayazit, Turkey, and Barbados. The realities of climbing Mt. Ararat.
Jennifer Blanton and Penny Goering, Texas Search and Rescue, Austin, Texas. Care and handling of cadaver dogs.
Jack David, Co-Publisher; Rachel Ironstone, Managing Editor; Amy Smith, Marketing Manager; Jen Knoch, Senior Editor; Jessica Albert, Art Director; Jen Albert, Production Editor; Crissy Calhoun, Proofreader; Susannah Ames, Publicity Manager; Emily Ferko, Sales Director, ECW Press, Toronto, Canada. Publishing, marketing, and general hand-holding.
Leo Halepli, Istanbul and Green Bank, West Virginia, the first Turkish citizen of Armenian descent (“a Bolsohay”) to be offered a position in Turkey’s Secretariat General for EU Affairs.
Turkish geography and culture.
Heather A. Reed, Site Manager, Buffalo Gap Historic Village, McWhiney History Education Group, Buffalo Gap, Texas. History and geography of the Callahan Divide area of West Texas.
Marco Samadelli, PhD, Researcher at the Institute for Mummies and the Iceman, South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology, Bolzano, Italy. Mummy preservation and all things Italian.
Emily Schultz, Brooklyn, New York. Superb editing instincts, insights, and mastery of the English language.
Steven Schwartz, Sarah Jane Freymann Literary Agency, New York, New York. Finding a publisher and negotiating financial aspects.
My grateful thanks to Charles Boulos and Michèle Carrier of Montreal, Quebec, Canada; Gary John, EdD, of Dallas, Texas; and my brother, Stanley Wayne Lynch of Phoenix, Arizona, for providing quality control for this work in spades.
Other friends, family, and/or fellow authors who generously answered questions and/or critiqued early drafts include Jay Brandon, Dan Coleman, Skipper Duncan, Stephanie Jaye Evans, Perry Flippin, Larry Hahn, Joe Holley, Victor L. Hunter, Howard R. Johnson, Scott Kinnaird, Larry Lourcey, Major General Don Lynch (U.S. Marine Corps, Retired), Robert M. Randolph, and Harold Straughn.
My thanks to staffers at the Roswell Daily Record and the International UFO Museum and Research Center in Roswell for responding to questions about the 1947 incident.
Several individuals have my lasting gratitude for their outsized contributions to developing my writing skills. In the order they appeared in my life:
Mildred Downs, Journalism Teacher, Pharr-San Juan-Alamo High School, Pharr, Texas.
Heber Taylor, PhD, and Charles Marler, PhD, Journalism Professors, Abilene Christian College (now University), Abilene, Texas.