by Mark Reps
“To be an Indian is to be a lot paranoid. Besides, you know how the old saying goes, just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean you’re not right.”
“Keep snooping around and find out what you can. What about Geronimo Star in the Night or Ramon Hickman? They live up on the mountain. You told me they know everything that goes on up there. Have you talked with them?”
“If I do all your legwork for you, you are going to have to put me on the payroll.”
Kate chuckled at Eskadi’s suggestion. The entire town of Safford would be up in arms if the sheriff’s office put an Apache with strong political views about the corruption of the White government on the payroll.
“I don’t think Safford is ready for you yet. But if I ever get elected sheriff, I’ll keep you in mind. Gotta run, I’ve got a lot of work to do. Bye.”
As she hung up the phone, Kate began putting the pieces together. Zeb and Jake would return soon with Bede and she had work to do.
An hour later Zeb and Jake’s boot heels crunching against the wood floor created an echo in the quiet sheriff’s office.
“Did you locate him?”
“Neither Doctor Bede nor his pickup was anywhere to be found,” said the sheriff. “His campsite is still occupied. He’s around somewhere.”
“Did you have a look at Bede’s personal belongings?” asked Kate.
“Yes, what there was of them. He travels light.”
“What did you find?”
“I’m not sure. I think he might be a religious nut. The interior of his tent was made up like the inside of a church. He had a miniature altar set up, a Bible, religious icons and even a set of priest’s garments. It was strange. Other than that, he had a couple of changes of clothing, some food and his records and data for the Forest Service.”
“You’re right about him being some kind of religious nut. I talked with an old friend at the FBI, and it turns out they’re very familiar with him.”
Kate brought them up to speed on the background she’d obtained about Bede from the FBI.
“He’s seems like a nut case all right. But that’s a far cry from proving him to be a multiple murderer. On the other hand, I think we should interview him first thing in the morning,” said Jake.
“I also have some interesting information on AIMGO,” said Kate. “American and International Mount Graham Organization. It’s a dummy corporation put together for the sole purpose of buying up land on the top of Mount Graham. It’s funded by the Vatican, the Max Planck Institute via the German government, the University of Arizona and the local Catholic Church.”
“You get that information from the FBI, too?” asked Zeb.
“No, Eskadi’s been digging some things up,” said Kate. Zeb gave Kate a look of semi-distrust. “Don’t worry, I’m running it through a filter.”
“Good,” said the sheriff. “Be certain about all of it.”
“I will. When you were gone, Delbert called. He remembered something else about that night the three of you ate supper with Bede. When he reached into the cooler to grab a beer, he saw some plant roots and some vials of brown liquid. At the time he assumed they were part of Bede’s work. Now he’s wondering if they weren’t poison,” said Kate.
“Bede’s beginning to look guiltier by the minute,” said Jake. “Think about it. He’s a certified expert in plant toxicology with special knowledge of plants from this area. It’s damn unlikely he’d have given anyone water hemlock by accident. And, it looks like we can tie him to the death of John Farrell via the double tire tracks.”
“That’s a long shot,” said Zeb.
“Don’t forget he had dinner with Father McNamara the night he committed suicide,” said Kate.
Zeb found himself wondering if he had made a major mistake by not ordering an autopsy on the deceased priest.
“First thing in the morning, we’ll all go up and look for him,” said Zeb. “We’ll meet an hour before daylight at the office. I’ll bring the coffee.”
In the eastern sky, the light of a three-quarter moon greeted Zeb, Kate and Jake as they stepped out of the office. Above the glistening peaks of Mount Graham, a single star, seemingly alone in the western sky, pulsed radiantly.
“See that star?” asked Jake. “The ancient Greeks believed that star represented Thanatos.”
“Thanatos?” asked Kate.
“Death,” said Zeb. “Death.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“Sleep okay?” asked Zeb. “You look a little tired.”
Kate slid into the truck’s back seat. She grabbed the Styrofoam cup of steaming hot coffee from Jake.
“Two sugars and light on the cream, right? Jake handed her the fresh cups from the Town Talk’s first pot of the day.”
“Thanks, Jake. As to your question, Sheriff, I slept fine, just not long enough.”
“Good, there’s time for rest in the grave, Deputy, especially when there’s work to be done,” added Jake.
Zeb reached over and turned up the radio. A sad country song came blaring out. Zeb looked in the rearview mirror and saw Kate rolling her eyes as his raspy, gravely-throated passenger joined in.
“Don’t like the song?” Zeb asked.
“Not my favorite, but it’s all right.”
“Must be the singer then?” said Jake.
“No” laughed Kate. “I was just waking up slowly and thinking about a dream I had last night.”
“My grandfather liked to interpret dreams,” said Jake. “He called them the windows to the soul. What did you dream about?”
“My mother.”
Both men knew the details about her mother’s fatal car accident when she was a child.
“She comes to me sometimes in my dreams,” explained Kate. “It is usually just before life changing events. This might sound crazy, but I think she comes to comfort me. It’s almost like my mother, her spirit I mean, knows when something is about to happen.”
“You want to know something?” asked Jake
“Sure.”
“I don’t think that’s one bit strange. I believe in that sort of thing. In fact, I think the star we saw last night as we came out of the office may have influenced your dream. Thanatos may have been an omen,” said Jake.
“What an odd thing to say,” said Kate. “That’s sounds crazier than me thinking my dead mother’s spirit comes to me in dreams.”
“Remember the name of the star Thanatos - death, the child of the night,” said Jake. “The Ancient Greeks had a way of looking at things. In order to better understand the natural world around them, they sometimes created explanations to fit their observations. In many ways their logic makes even better sense today.”
Jake’s lectures on mythology were legendary around the sheriff’s office. Kate had never heard one first hand.
“According to legend, Chaos was the first created person. Her children, Tartarus, Gaia and Nyx, influenced the Greeks in much the same way children influence us today. Tartarus, the God of darkness, reigned over the underworld, a horrible place where humans were punished for misdeeds on earth. Gaia, goddess of the earth, whom I believe is very similar to the Ga’an of the Apache, knows all that is done on earth. Nyx was goddess of the night, mother of Hypnos, the Fates and Thanatos. Thanatos, child of the night, death.”
Kate listened carefully to Jake’s story. His soft but emphatic manner and the tone of his voice struck a chord within the far recesses of her mind. Jake’s voice became that of her father. She began to drift, landing in the nether world between present and past. Kate’s hypnotic state of mind was suddenly snapped back to reality as Zeb slammed on the brakes.
“Christ almighty,” cried Jake. “That was too damn close for comfort.”
From the corner of her eye Kate caught a glimpse of a mother coyote and her three pups scampering off into the desert underbrush. Zeb slowly pulled back onto the road.
“I didn’t see it coming. I wasn’t watching the road. I was listening to Jake’s story,” said Zeb. “
Sorry, I should know to be looking for animals at this time of day. Go on now, Jake, finish your story.”
“To make a long story short, the Greeks firmly believed all intricacies of human existence could be foretold by looking to the sky. Life, birth, death, comedy, tragedy, war, peace and all their subtleties could be found in the stars. Seeing the bright star of Thanatos above Mount Graham last night gave me a chill that literally made the hair on my arms stand on end. When I get that feeling, I know what I'm feeling is the truth.”
“That’s hardly solid deductive reasoning,” said Kate.
“You’re right. It’s hardly any kind of reasoning at all,” said the former sheriff. “It has a category all its own. We learn from experience what to pay attention to and what to cast aside. That star told me something. I don’t know for certain exactly what. I can’t place my finger on it just yet, but I do know it concerns Bede.”
“Speaking of Bede,” said Kate. “How do you think he is going to react when he sees us this early in the morning?”
“I’m hoping he’s still asleep,” replied Zeb. “That’s why I wanted to leave so early. I wanted to get up there before daybreak. If he is our man, I’d just as soon catch him off guard.”
“Do you think he’ll be armed?”
“We checked for guns when I was up there yesterday. There was no sign of any weapons.”
“He could have one in his truck,” said Kate.
“I checked out his truck too. No gun rack, no shells, nothing to indicate he’s armed or even has a gun,” replied Zeb. “But, just as a precautionary measure, I’ll pull off the road a quarter mile before his campsite. We will approach him on foot.”
The rising sun peeked over the rims of the mountaintop to the east. Thin rays of light darted through the pine trees, bouncing white-gold reflections off the wave tips on the slowly rippling surface of Riggs Lake. Zeb turned off the headlights and pulled the car to the side of the road. Kate, Zeb and Jake got out of the car, closing the doors noiselessly. In the near distance, at the edge of the campground, Bede’s truck was backed into his campsite. As they cautiously approached the truck, a single dull snapping sound filtered through the air. Kate glanced toward Zeb who was loosening the cover strap on his sidearm.
“What are you doing?” whispered Kate.
The sheriff signaled silence with a finger to his lips and pointed to Kate’s holster. She unloosened it.
“His truck is backed up to his campsite. The back end is loaded with his gear,” said Zeb. “His tent was over there in the clearing. It’s gone. He’s packed to leave. He might have seen us last night and certainly would have become suspicious if he saw us rummaging through his things. Kate, you circle around about thirty feet in front of the truck and stay low as you approach. Jake you take the passenger’s side. I’ve got the driver’s side.”
Kate crouched low to the ground, stopping suddenly when a dry twig snapped beneath her boot. Zeb made eye contact and hand signaled his partners to move closer to the truck. Bede was nowhere in sight. Zeb shook his head. He motioned for the lawmen to hide behind some low bushes between the truck and the road.
“He’s not in the immediate vicinity. It’s damn unlikely he’s out counting flowers this early. Where the hell is he?”
Kate felt her heart pounding hard.
“The holy site,” said Jake. “My guess is he’s up there saying goodbye.”
The new light of day streamed in as Zeb, Kate and Jake crept silently through the pines. Near the opening of the sacred place where the heavens meet the sky, crisp golden rays of sunlight coalesced, making the mountaintop a celestial display.
“What is this place?” whispered Kate.
Zeb responded by pointing to a ridge top where the golden light of morning glistened. Kate squinted as reflected light scattered brilliantly in all directions. Blocking out the sunlight with her hand, Kate realized what she was witnessing. It was Bede, dressed in priest’s clothing, chasuble, alb and hassock, kneeling in front of a makeshift altar holding a chalice above his head. The sunlight striking the goblet sent diamond bits of refracted light into the morning sky, creating a blinding radiance.
If Bede had seen them, he gave no indication. Inching closer, the lawmen crouched to the ground as they came within earshot of Bede.
“Oh, Holy Father, all praise and glory unto you. For you are wise and kind, I sing to your name because you are sweet. Whatsoever you have ordained me to do in your name, I pray that I, your servant on earth, have accomplished all you have beseeched of me.”
The lawmen crept ever closer, eyeing Bede as he took the contents of two brown vials sitting on the right hand side of the altar and poured them into the chalice. Swirling the chalice clockwise then counterclockwise with scientific precision, he created a liquid solution.
“It is of the true body and blood of the Lord Jesus Christ that I now partake.”
Bede lifted a large white sacramental host in the air with the words.
“This is the body of our Lord.”
Lifting the chalice, now full of liquid, he continued.
“And this is the blood of Jesus Christ.”
Bede placed the communion wafer in his mouth and reached for the goblet.
“Stop!” yelled Sheriff Hanks. “Put it down.”
Bolting up from his crouched position, Sheriff Hanks raced toward the would-be priest.
“No! Don’t! Stop! Now!”
Unruffled by the sheriff’s shouts, Bede, chalice in hand, turned from the altar and faced the oncoming deputy. From inside his vestments he calmly withdrew a gun and pointed the barrel directly at Zeb’s heart.
“Bless you my son, but I have heard the call of the Lord. He wishes to see me now.”
Zeb froze. Jake and Kate slowly crept their fingers toward their holstered weapons. Bede lifted the chalice to his mouth, tipped his head back and drank the contents hungrily. Turning back to the altar, he set the small handgun at the foot of the Crucifix and crumbled to the ground, clutching his stomach.
“He’s poisoned himself,” shouted Sheriff Hanks. “Deputy, we need to get him to a hospital. Right now!”
“Don’t bother.” Bede’s voice was laden with finality. “It’s too late. I’ve taken enough poison to kill ten men. I’ll be dead in fifteen minutes. You can’t possibly get me out of here and down the mountain in the time I have left on earth. There’s nothing you can do to save me. I have chosen to die here, in this spot.”
Sheriff Hanks reached down and placed a finger on the inside of Bede’s wrist. His pulse raced thin and fast. The threadbare beats came with such rapidity he could barely discern one from the next. His widely dilated pupils stared back at him. Bede’s face carried the look of an innocent child.
“Don’t worry, Sheriff Hanks. I have commended myself into the hands of the Lord. I am not suffering. I am becoming free.”
“We know what you’ve done,” said Sheriff Hanks. “Why did you kill?”
“A dying man should never be glib, but there are many reasons why I did what I did.”
Bede’s voice gurgled like water being sucked down a partially clogged drain.
“A good starting point in your final investigation might be why did I try and poison you, Jake and Delbert?”
“Why indeed?” grizzled Jake angrily.
“Be careful where you place your hatred. It could kill you.”
Bede’s words, a strange blend of advice and admonition, fell not lightly on Jake’s ears.
“Your good deputy sheriff unfortunately came across my elixirs when he retrieved a beer for himself from the cooler in my tent. Honestly, it was spur of the moment thinking. Once your deputy had seen my poison elixirs, I felt I had no choice but to get rid of all of you. It was simple logic to kill the witnesses. If your deputy hadn’t interfered with the Lord’s plans, I would never have acted. But I still don’t understand why the lobelia didn’t poison either of you.”
“We didn’t eat your damn parsnips. That’s why,” growled
Jake.
“Aha, not vegetable eaters. Big men like you two eat only meat. I should have assumed that,” said Bede.
“Why did you use water hemlock to try and poison us?” asked Zeb.
“Opportunity, Sheriff. Opportunity came knocking. I had just dug the water hemlock that very morning. I accidentally came across a batch of it halfway up the mountain. Dumb luck I guess. The root looks like parsnips and smells like carrots. I figured the two of you wouldn’t know water hemlock from parsnips if you ate them. Your deputy must have a cast iron stomach. A mere few ounces of water hemlock is enough to kill a man. He ate twice that.”
“That’s where you went wrong, Bede. He swallowed half a bite and spit the rest out. He got sick, but he’s going to be just fine,” said the sheriff.
“Are you sure there is nothing we can do to stop you from dying?” asked Kate. “Isn’t there an antidote for what you’ve taken? Certainly you must have thought of that.”
Kate took a handkerchief from her pocket and dried the corners of Bede’s mouth.
“Thank you, young woman. You are my Mary Magdalene. As to my excessive salivation, it is an unfortunate side effect of my poison.”
“Indian tobacco?”
“Very good, Deputy. Very good. Yet another name for lobelia. There are many. Might I beg to ask how you came to that conclusion? An amateur botanist perhaps?”
“We know that’s how you killed John Farrell. We have the lab reports.”
“I suppose since my time on earth is very limited now, I should confess to his murder if for no other reason than to lighten your case load. How long has it been since I ingested the lobelia?”
“Four, maybe five minutes.”
“I have no regrets about what I have done. It was preordained, out of my hands, the will of God.”
Kate wiped blood and frothy saliva from Bede’s mouth as he pressed his hands on his spasming stomach.
“The poison raises all hell with the gastrointestinal tract but don’t worry. I’ll try not to regurgitate on you.”
Bede’s clarity seemed almost inhuman.
“Why did you kill Farrell?” asked Zeb. “He did nothing to you.”