Holes in the Sky_Small Town Sheriff Big Time Trouble

by Mark Reps

  “Did he say how much hemlock was found in his system?” asked Kate.

  “Four times as much as it would take to kill a man,” said Zeb.

  “Only a person who was bent on killing themselves would take that much of a poison. Maybe we are looking at a suicide after all,” said Kate.

  “If that’s the case, there’s a lot of evidence that doesn’t make sense. The neck burns, the broken neck, the fingernail marks that were dug into his ankles, the lack of rope fibers under the fingernails, the excessive wood shavings on the body and the floor,” said the sheriff.

  “Granted, but how would someone have gotten Farrell to take that much poison? At gunpoint?” asked Jake.

  “Wait a second,” said Kate. “Didn’t Darla Thompson say Farrell drank espresso all day long?”

  “Yes, but so what?” asked Zeb.

  “Have you ever tasted espresso?” asked the deputy.

  “No. I’m not even sure exactly what it is, other than French coffee,” said Zeb.

  “It’s coffee steamed under high pressure. It’s thick, rich and aromatic, very bitter tasting…”

  “Bitter? Like water hemlock?” asked Jake.

  “Espresso is so strong I’ll bet it could easily hide the taste of four or five drops of lobelia.”

  “There’s one other thing Doc told me. Something Song Bird told him about Delbert,” said Zeb.

  “What’s that?” asked Kate.

  “Doc said Song Bird told him Delbert had been poisoned with water hemlock.”

  “Is there anyway Doc can verify that?” asked Kate.

  “The poison’s been out of his system too long, but Delbert’s symptoms matched up with water hemlock poisoning. Doc said if it’s true there’s no way to prove it.”

  “Now we’ve got two poisonings on our hands. Delbert’s and Farrell’s.”

  “Jake, what do you know about water hemlock?”

  “When I was a kid, we called it pukeweed. The ranchers called it cowbane.”

  “Pukeweed, water hemlock, lobelia, Indian tobacco. It’d be nice if it kept to one name,” said Zeb. “Let’s call it water hemlock.”

  “In the old days every cowboy had a story about it. The one I remember hearing is about how the dumbest calf in the herd would eat some cowbane, excuse me, water hemlock, twitch like crazy and drop over dead in a fit. I guess it was quite a sight. I even heard of calves becoming so crazed they’d run right off a cliff,” said Jake.

  “What does water hemlock look like?” asked Kate

  “Parsnips,” replied Jake.

  Suddenly Jake’s hand began to tremble.

  “Damn it!” cried Zeb.

  “What?” asked Kate.

  “The answer’s been right here under our noses. I know where and when Delbert was poisoned.”

  “Jesus, Zeb, you’re right,” said Jake.

  “Where? When?” asked Kate.

  “The night before he got sick. When we were up on Mount Graham. Jake and I were up there to look at the land the Catholic Church was buying up through Farrell’s real estate office. Jake was suspicious because Farrell was trying to railroad something through the county planning commission. It turned out the land was near a place where my grandfather had taken me years ago. It was also an Apache holy place.”

  “So what’s this have to do with Delbert’s poisoning?”

  “Delbert happened by on long distance patrol when we all ran into Dr. Bede,” said Jake. “We were returning a briefcase he had left behind here at the Town Talk. He came across as a pathetic sort of man. You know the type, a loner, no friends. I guess you could say we sort of felt sorry for him. So when he asked us to stick around for some dinner, we did.”

  “I’m not sure how this ties into the poisoning. Are you saying Bede poisoned Delbert?”

  “Maybe, maybe not. If he did, it might have been accidental.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Kate.

  “He made dinner for us, like I said. We had hamburgers, potatoes, carrots and parsnips.”

  “Parsnips? Do you think he accidentally fed you water hemlock instead of parsnips?”

  “It could have happened that way,” said Zeb.

  “How come you and Jake didn’t get sick like Delbert did?”

  “I hate parsnips. Always have. I wouldn’t have put any on my plate. No, wait a minute. Bede served us. I tossed mine away when Bede wasn’t looking.”

  “So did I,” said Jake, “but I saw Delbert take a bite, make an ugly face, swallow halfway and then spit the rest out. He definitely got some in his system.”

  “You don’t think it was an accident, do you?”

  “I don’t know, Kate,” said Zeb. “But it is kind of hard to believe that a professional who studies plants for a living might not know a poisonous plant like water hemlock from a parsnip.”

  “Just because someone is book smart doesn’t mean they have a corner on common sense,” said Jake. “But what on God’s green earth could be his motive for poisoning us?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe he thought we were onto something.” said Zeb.

  “I suppose you’re certain Bede poisoned Farrell too,” said Jake.

  “Somebody poisoned him. It seems like water hemlock is the common thread.”

  “Do we know anything that connects Farrell to Bede?” asked Kate.

  Jake sat quietly thinking for a minute before responding to his deputy.

  “The only time I know Bede and Farrell even laid eyes on each other was at the county planning commission meeting,” said Zeb.

  “That was the night Farrell was trying to railroad through the conditional land use permit for the Catholic Church up on Mount Graham,” said Jake. But Bede was nothing more than a casual observer. Besides if this has something to do with Mount Graham, shouldn’t I be the one he was going to poison and not Farrell. After all, I was the one who was questioning the goings on up there, not Farrell. Farrell was for it.”

  “It’s beginning to look like Bede’s actions were no accident,” said Kate.

  “It seems hard to believe Bede is a killer,” said Zeb. “Next thing we’ll be saying Father McNamara’s death wasn’t a suicide either and Bede poisoned him too.”

  “This is getting stranger by the minute. This whole thing might be far more interconnected than we ever dreamed of.”

  “What are you talking about, Kate?” asked the sheriff.

  “I delivered a foreclosure notice out on the reservation to Beulah Trees not too long ago. With the foreclosure notice were some legal documents from a law firm in Phoenix. She couldn’t read the papers because her vision is poor, so she took it into the tribal offices to have Eskadi look it over. He read it and, like you, smelled a rat. He started snooping around. It turned out the Phoenix law firm was dealing with Farrell’s real estate office. Their client had an open option to buy the land as soon as it went into foreclosure.”

  “What does that prove?” asked Jake. “Farrell handled most of the real estate transactions in the area.”

  “It doesn’t prove anything in and of itself. Hear me out. Later I went back out to Beulah’s place with Eskadi. She had told Eskadi a story and he wanted me to hear it. A while back Father McNamara visited Beulah to find out if she wanted to sell her land to the Catholic Church.”

  “That’s what I’d call a mighty popular parcel of land.”

  “But what’s even stranger is Beulah told me there was another man with Father McNamara. She described him as a small man with tiny hands and glasses as thick as the bottom of a coke bottle,” said Kate.

  “Bede.”

  “She said the two of them drove up there in the biggest pickup truck she had ever seen. She said it had four wheels on the back instead of two.”

  “Bede’s truck has four rear wheels. I noticed it that night of the meeting,” said Jake.

  “And, in back of Farrell’s office, next to his parking spot, a vehicle with a double set of rear tires had been parked,” said Kate.

  “I thi
nk it’s time we paid Doctor Bede a little visit,” said Zeb. “Kate, you track down his license number through motor vehicles. Dig up whatever background information you can get on him. We’ll bring him in for questioning. Find something for me. Come on, Jake. Let’s roll.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Kate’s fingers tapped nervously on the Rolodex. She needed information on Bede. She needed it now. The DMV was helpful in obtaining a physical description but not much else. Any possible info from state agencies would require more time than she had. A call to the Forest Service ended in a voice mail nightmare. Thumbing through the Rolodex, her finger stopped on the name of Elaine Coburn, her former mentor at the FBI Academy.

  “Elaine, this is Kate Steele.”

  “Hello, Kate. It’s good to hear from you again.”

  The old friends briefly exchanged pleasantries before getting down to business.

  “I need your help, Elaine. I need some information, and I need it as soon as possible.”

  “This is your lucky day. If there is something I can give you, it’s at my fingertips as we speak. We just got a new computer system installed. I am learning how to use it, so bear with me. What do you need?”

  “Do you have a Dr. Venerable Bede on file anywhere?”

  “Mind telling me what you’re looking for?”

  “Specific information about past history of criminal activity, if there is any, that is.”

  “Why don’t you just get it locally? That information should be available to you on a state level.”

  “I need the information now, not next month.”

  “Let me see what I can do for you. Do you have a date of birth?”

  “DMV states his date of birth as December two five, nineteen forty-seven.”

  “Driver’s license number?”

  “West Virginia. 5629345.”

  “I’ll need something to cross-reference. How about educational information?”

  “He has a doctorate degree in environmental botany.”

  “Okay, here we go. Hmm. This is interesting. Is he about five feet six inches tall, a hundred forty pounds, poor vision?”

  “That’s describes him well. What was that hmm all about?”

  “If the man I’m looking at on my computer screen is the same man you’re talking about, he has worked with the FBI as a contract worker. We’ve used him as an expert witness.”

  “Do you know under what circumstances?”

  “He testified in a murder case. The poisoning of a priest.”

  “What!?!”

  “Your disbelief is duly noted. Here, let me read what our people say about him. There are two brief dossiers about him in this file. The first one reads as follows, ‘Dr. Venerable Bede is a qualified expert in the area of botanical poisoning in both qualitative and quantitative analysis.’ His Ph.D. is in the field of Environmental Botany from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with special emphasis on plants of the southwestern United States. His dossier says he is usually available for immediate travel and should be considered a reliable and dependable witness. He has never been married, has no children, pays his taxes punctually, has no history or record of arrest and is a registered Democrat.”

  “It sounds like he is well thought of by the FBI.”

  “He’s what we call a stray cat.”

  “What’s that?”

  “An oddball expert. He’s one of those rare birds with a niche skill area who can be called upon at a moment’s notice in unusual cases. How is he involved with your problem?”

  Kate cleared her throat.

  “You sound hesitant. Are you concerned about investigating someone the agency has used as an expert witness?”

  “The implications crossed my mind. I mean, I doubt the FBI would like it if they had missed something significant in a person’s background.”

  “Why are you looking into him?”

  “He’s a potential suspect in multiple poisoning cases...and murder.”

  “That does make it difficult.”

  “You said you had two dossiers. Can you read me the other?”

  “I can brief you on it, but you can’t use the agency as the source of this information. This is deep background from his psychological profile. This type of data is never released and is inadmissible in court. It’s the in-house profile we keep on our operatives. It presents quite a different picture of your suspect. It says here that although he is a highly qualified expert in the area of environmental botany, the agency should be very reticent about using his services. It seems your man, Dr. Venerable Bede, is of questionable mental status. He’s obsessed with the priesthood of the Roman Catholic Church. He has a lengthy history of attempting to gain entrance into the Catholic Order of Saint Barnabus. His attempts have always ended in rejection based on a psychological profile of obsessive compulsive behavior. Each time he was refused admission into the priesthood, he was hospitalized for mental exhaustion. There is a long history of priest mimicry, including the wearing of priest’s garments, unofficial celebration of the Catholic Mass and simulation of religious sacraments.’”

  “Did you say the Order of Saint Barnabus?”

  “Yes. Ever heard of them?”

  “Only recently. A local priest committed suicide. He was a member of the Order of Saint Barnabus.”

  “It might only be a coincidence, but remember the case I was telling you Bede testified in? The one with the poisoned priest?”

  “Yes.”

  “The priest was also from the Order of Saint Barnabus.”

  “That’s a pretty remote coincidence,” said Kate.

  A lingering moment of silence floated between the teacher and her former student.

  “I guess you know what you’re assignment is, don’t you?”

  “Once a teacher, always a teacher,” laughed Kate. “Anything else that looks relevant on your computer screen?”

  “Just one more thing. I don’t know if it will be of any assistance, but a footnote here says his first choice for postgraduate education was in the Astrophysics program at MIT, but he wasn’t accepted. It appears he’s done okay in botany. I’ll e-mail the non-classified part of his profile to your office.”

  “Thanks a million, Elaine.”

  “One last bit of advice, Kate. If he is your man, make certain of it. Since he has worked for the agency, and if it turns out he’s a murderer, somebody’s head is going to roll. For the time being, please keep my name as a source of information on the q.t. Good-bye.”

  “Good-bye and thanks again.”

  Kate put her head in her hands and rubbed her eyes. Eskadi had majored in Comparative Religion at Berkeley. He might know about the Barnabites. If he didn’t, he would know how to find out quickly. She didn’t need the Rolodex for his number.

  “I didn’t know you had such an exacting interest in the Catholic Church,” said Eskadi.

  “I went to Catholic school, but I never heard of the Barnabites until Father McNamara died.”

  “Well, Katie my dear, it just so happens I kept a lot of my old textbooks. Somewhere amongst them I have a Catholic encyclopedia. Tell me what you’re looking for so I know where to begin.”

  “This is going to sound crazy, but I am beginning to think there is a conspiracy involving the Catholic Church, the death of John Farrell, maybe even the death of Father McNamara and it all involves–”

  “Mount Graham,” interrupted Eskadi.

  “How did you know I was going to say that?”

  “There has been a conspiracy against all of the Apaches and our rights to Mount Graham for over one hundred years. The US Government forcibly took Mount Graham from the Apaches in the 1870’s. We have been fighting for return of the sacred mountain ever since. They must have something really big cooked up this time.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “They have chosen some very powerful allies.”

  “What do you know that you aren’t telling me?”

  “I have been doing a little
investigation of my own. Ever since we talked to Beulah Trees together, something has been rubbing me the wrong way. Remember when you served Beulah with a notice concerning her land being confiscated by the government?”

  “It was being sold for back taxes. That doesn’t fall into the category of confiscation,” said Kate.

  “Call it what you will,” said Eskadi. “It was being taken out of Apache hands by the powers that be. The law firm in Phoenix was handling the purchase of the land through Farrell’s real estate office.”

  “Yes, I remember you talked with the firm in Phoenix and to Farrell’s secretary.”

  “The land was being purchased by a dummy corporation, a business venture whose sole purpose was buying land on Mount Graham.”

  “I suppose you’re a lawyer now, too?”

  “If it was honest work, I might have become one, if for no other reason than to defend myself. Anyway, I got to thinking about the dummy corporation and figured if they were doing business in Arizona, they would have had to file public papers. I got in touch with an old friend of mine who works for the Records and Deeds Department at the state government offices. I think you’re going to find this information interesting.”

  “What is it?”

  “The dummy corporation goes by the name of AIMGO.”

  “The sheriff has mentioned it.”

  “It’s an acronym for American and International Mount Graham Organization. In addition, the local Catholic Church, the University of Arizona, the German government via the Max Planck Institute and the Vatican are somehow involved. You know as well as I do when big institutions join forces, they’re usually going after something big.”

  “Eskadi, you have no factual basis for saying that.”

  “Maybe not yet, but I will. Whatever is happening on Mount Graham needs the sanction of the forest service, the federal government and even the county commission.”

  “You might be right, but you also might be acting just a little paranoid.”