Zeb Hanks Mystery Box Set 1

by Mark Reps

  The real hunt inside Zeb’s head was the pursuit of the killer’s mistakes. The killer had been methodical but brutal, a combination of traits found inside the head of a smart but angry man. Maybe if the girl resisted, he had struck her knocking out a tooth. If she fought her attacker, there was always the chance that a piece of whatever she was bound with could have come loose and ended up on the ground. Maybe he would get lucky and find a paint chip from the killer’s vehicle. He scoured the area on his hands and knees. Half an hour later Zeb had little more than skinned knees to show for his trouble.

  Standing, he felt the heat of the Apaches’ glare on his every move. He returned the unfriendly glower as he concentrated on the murder weapon. The scalpel used to eviscerate the young woman had to have been kept in a bag or a toolbox. Murderers, he knew from experience, have an obsessive, almost sexual relationship with their killing weapons. If he had to place a bet, the killer probably still possessed the weapon. He had also likely kept the extracted heart. The seed of hatred in Zeb’s soul toward the murderer was quickly germinating.

  Zeb paused, breathed deeply and forcefully reminded himself to leave his emotions out of the equation. Hating the killer and despising the shoddy work of the tribal police would do nothing to return life to the dead child. He turned once again to the sacrificial altar. A ghostly vision of an adult carrying a young person’s body became crystal clear. The killer might have cradled her in his arms or carried her over a shoulder, gunny-sack style. Such an action would leave traces of blood and hair on his clothing. They would have to be disposed of or cleaned. Find the clothes, find the murder weapon and find the killer.

  Zeb’s mind began to speed up as he considered what kind of relationship the killer developed in his mind with Amanda Song Bird. He may have treated her like his prey or like a sick dog that had to be put down or, worse, much worse, a despised lover.

  The sheriff shifted his gaze and viewed the landscape through a different set of eyes as he shifted from fantasy back to fact. Cholas and prickly pear cactus dominated the green vegetation. The undergrowth was typically sparse and brown. A small barrel cactus glistened gold, looking out of place as it jutted out of the soft rock on a south-facing side hill. A ground squirrel flitted across Zeb’s field of vision a hundred feet away. No birds, save the mockingbird, were singing. When the mockingbird rested momentarily from its mimicry, the entire landscape seemed absent of life.

  The hard, rutted road the killer drove in on was situated in a shallow ravine, between the rocky hills. It was recessed and lower than the surrounding area. The cold remoteness of the spot once again struck Zeb. In the direction of Bylas, the road quickly disappeared around an incline. A hundred yards in the opposite direction the road dead-ended. This was a spot of extreme isolation. It was a desolate place that only a loner would have an innate feeling for. It was the perfect spot for a murder.

  The lack of any solid evidence paid homage to the cunning nature of the killer. This was a well-planned, well-thought out crime, likely even rehearsed. The sheriff’s instincts told him he was dealing with an extraordinarily rare killer, a highly intelligent and highly motivated one. He jotted down a few notes and called to Eskadi who was still perched like a wild animal on the boulder.

  “Eskadi,” he demanded. “Have your men get me a good set of tire tracks from all their vehicles. I want a copy of yours too. Have them cordon off a perimeter a hundred yards extended out in each direction from the candles. They need to do a square inch by square inch detailed search of the area. Tell them to keep their eyes open for clothing, footprints, blood, gloves, a piece of tape, a band aid, chip of paint, strand of hair, anything that shouldn’t be there. Think they can handle that without screwing it up?”

  Eskadi passed the order to the lieutenant, and the men went to task.

  “Have the tribal police keep an eye on the road leading up here. Ask them to call me with the license plate numbers of any cars or trucks that come up this way,” said Zeb. “That means all Whites and all Indians. Instruct them not to stop anyone. Have them discreetly tail anyone who looks suspicious. Make damn sure they don’t fuck up. They’ve done enough of that already.”

  The mockingbird cried out once more. This time an almost humanlike, high-pitched scream came shrilly through its beak. The Apache policemen stopped and turned in its direction.

  Staying behind after the others had completed their work and gone, Eskadi and Zeb stood silently over the ground where the mutilated body of Amanda Song Bird had been found. An otherworldly sensation crept through Zeb’s being. It was a brutish, ugly feeling that he tried to shake off, but he couldn’t.

  The men returned to the truck and headed down the hill toward Bylas, the radio humming lowly in the background.

  “We have lost one of our children.” The disembodied voice of the announcer carried with it a heavy tone of sadness and sorrow. “The dead body of Jimmy Song Bird’s granddaughter, Amanda, was found today in Antelope Flats. The Graham County Sheriff’s department is assisting tribal police in the investigation.”

  Haunting, spiritual chanting music resonated in the cab of the truck. Deep, baritone, Apache male voices blended in harmony with the alto-soprano wailing of the Apache women, whose intonations were contrasted by the constant din of a mellow, tranquilizing drumbeat.

  Eskadi hummed softly, peacefully with the funereal chant as puffs of pure white clouds drifted lazily in formation across the horizon.

  “Who the hell called them? That’s all I need, for the killer to have up to the minute information on what we’re doing,” snapped Zeb.

  Eskadi stared ahead at the road as Zeb gave him a hard once over.

  “If I’m going to work on this case, you’re going to have to learn to keep your mouth shut,” cautioned Zeb.

  “I need your help, but you’ve got to remember the reservation is sovereign Apache land. It doesn’t belong to the White man,” said Eskadi. “My people need to know what’s going on in their community.”

  Zeb pulled the brim of his hat down and stared out across the barren wasteland of the lower San Carlos. His thoughts turned to Maya Song Bird, the dead girl’s mother. Since moving back to Safford from Tucson, he had thought many times about going out see her. He found himself regretting that he had not taken the time. In fact, he hadn’t had any contact with her since the night he left town fifteen years earlier. That night, the night before he left for boot camp, he, Maya Song Bird, Jenny Dablo had celebrated at Red’s Roadhouse. They got smashed on pitchers of beer and shots of tequila. Under the false euphoria of alcohol, they vowed eternal friendship to each other. Now, years later, both women had lost their daughters and Jenny Dablo Bright was dead.

  When Jenny died, Zeb had gotten word from a friend of his in the Phoenix Police Department. The official cause of death was accidental vehicular homicide. She had fallen out of a car and was run over by a truck. The actual cause of death was acute alcohol intoxication. Her life, one that was already racing downhill on greasy skids, took a serious turn for the worse after her child, Angel Bright, was murdered. Zeb sat up straight and squared off his hat.

  “Head south when you get to the highway,” he said. “I want to take a little trip up toward Song Bird’s place.”

  “I don’t think that’s the right the thing to do,” said Eskadi. “We should at least wait until he and Maya are there.”

  “And let more evidence possibly get destroyed? You and your men have done a good enough job of that already. Besides, we need to have a look at the spot where she was allegedly snatched.”

  “What makes you so sure she was kidnapped up there?”

  “I’d tell you why, but I’m afraid you’d want to call your reservation radio station and have them make a public announcement.”

  “I need to know. How do you know where she was taken from?”

  “Horse Legs has a big mouth. He let it slip that Maya said her daughter was running between her house and Song Bird’s just before they discovered her missing.”<
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  Zeb could see the information was news to the tribal chairman.

  “He shouldn’t be punished for accidentally saying something that might help me,” said Zeb.

  “He won’t be,” said Eskadi. “That’s not the way Apaches operate.”

  Approaching Wildhorse Canyon, Zeb realized he had forgotten what a beautiful oasis Song Bird’s land was amidst the harsh and barren reservation land. Returning to the stunning surroundings triggered a memory, an Apache yarn Song Bird had spun one long ago autumn morning when Jake quizzed Song Bird about how many generations of his family had lived on this piece of land.

  “It was so long ago,” said Song Bird, “that when Usen created the earth, he stopped by with a housewarming gift for my first grandparents.” The serious look on Zeb’s face had been met with a gleeful howl from Jimmy Song Bird.

  As Eskadi parked his truck at the end of Song Bird’s yard, Zeb thought of happier days and the dozens of times he and Jenny Dablo would pull into Song Bird’s yard and honk for Maya. Back then Zeb had a beat up old truck that could barely make it up the road without bottoming out. His well-known boyhood crush on Maya didn’t stop Jenny from coming on to him. As he looked back on it, maybe sleeping with Jenny when it was Maya that he truly cared for was the real reason he had left town. Jenny had slept with half the boys in the county and most of the men. Under the influence of alcohol, Zeb had given her his virginity behind the Roadhouse in the building the youngsters fondly called Red’s Shed.

  It wasn’t long after their tryst that Jenny got pregnant. And when she married a greaseball trucker she met at Red’s, she confided in Zeb that it wasn’t the trucker’s kid. She confessed to marrying him because he had money and she could get out of town fast. The real father of the baby, she said, would remain a secret locked in her heart. Though Zeb had slept with Jenny only once, pangs of guilt that Angel may have been his daughter loomed large.

  Zeb got out of Eskadi’s truck and headed immediately down a small arroyo to the home of the murdered child. The thicket of cottonwood and acacia trees formed a fortress-like canopy overhead, keeping the area cool even in the heat of the midday sun. Maya and children of the Song Bird clan for generations had played games in this peaceful spot where elders took siestas, children giggled happily and teenagers wooed one another.

  Zeb listened to flower-hopping cactus wrens and purple finches chirp out greetings and warnings as the men encroached on their turf. If only they could talk, he thought. If only I could see through their eyes. A soft breeze sweeping through the canyon whistled through the cottonwoods as Zeb envisioned Song Bird instructing his granddaughter in some of the same lessons he had taught him.

  Zeb scoured the area in search of the smallest of clues, seeking anything that would link the killer to the private world he had invaded. When he found nothing, Zeb felt his faith being tested. Doubts about his ability to solve the child’s murder came creeping in. Overhead a mockingbird shrilled out in mimicry, ‘ah-ha, ah-ha, ah-ha’.

  “We should leave this place until Song Bird returns,” said Eskadi.

  “Let’s wait here for a few more minutes,” said Zeb.

  “We should go,” insisted Eskadi.

  “No,” said Zeb firmly. “Not yet.”

  Waiting for some mystical, magical happenstance to guide him, Zeb lay down on some soft grass in a shady spot and closed his eyes. For what seemed like the first time in his life, he heard nature not as individual sounds, but rather as a symphony. Nature’s amalgam of lush music was interrupted by Eskadi’s whining drone.

  “Maya and Song Bird are in Globe with the body. We should respect the sanctity of their property until they can be here with us.”

  Zeb rose to his feet and made his way to the truck. A shiny object, glinting in the sunlight thirty or so feet down the road, caught his eye. He walked directly to it. Bending down he picked up a sliver of thin yellow-orange plastic. It looked like a broken section from a tail light cover. He slipped it into his shirt pocket.

  By the time the men were on the road back, the sun, sinking into the western landscape, radiated a lavender hue atop the surrounding mountain peaks. The magic peacefulness of twilight time in the desert bled deeply into the day’s disturbing emotions.

  “Tomorrow we need to talk to Song Bird and Maya,” said the sheriff.

  “Much is happening with them right now,” replied Eskadi. “Maybe you could give them another day or two?”

  “No. The sooner I can talk to them, the more likely it is they’ll be able to help us. My guess is they may know much more about the murder than they realize. The quicker I can ascertain what they actually know, the greater chance we’ll have a suspect on the near horizon.”

  “According to Apache tradition, we shouldn’t yet disturb the family.”

  “Tell Song Bird it’s at my request,” said Zeb. “Tell him for the sake of finding the killer and bringing him to justice that I said cultural beliefs needed to be put on the back burner for now.”

  The men parted, agreeing to meet early the next morning at the Silver Spur.

  Zeb’s heart felt hollow during the long drive back to Safford as he recalled the time and circumstances surrounding the murder of Angel Bright. He had only returned from Tucson and been back in town acting as Jake’s deputy for several months when the murder happened. Even though he had seen many murder cases in Tucson and his experience was deeper and broader than Jake’s in such matters, he didn’t push back when the sheriff kept him at arm’s length during the investigation. Now, under these circumstances, he found himself regretting his lack of aggression in that matter. At the time, Zeb assumed Jake suspected Angel could have been his child. It appeared to be some sort of grand gesture to save Zeb the pain and agony of dealing with the child who might have been his own flesh and blood. Zeb now realized just how flawed Jake’s thinking was at the time. But Jake never saw clearly when it came to family.

  For years Jenny had caused Jake nothing but heartache. The death of his granddaughter was the final crushing blow to a troubled relationship. Shortly before her death, Jenny, in a drunken rage, went so far as to publicly blame her father for failing to catch the killer of his only grandchild, her only child. Once the best lawman in Southeastern Arizona, practically every resident of Graham County had held him in the highest regard. In those days, when people talked of Sheriff Dablo, they had always used a tone of reverence. But the events of October 18, 1992 changed that forever.

  Zeb bore no ill will against the former sheriff, nor thought poorly of him for the way he handled the investigation of his granddaughter’s death. After all what man could go through what Jake Dablo had, finding his granddaughter, dead and gutted like a slaughterhouse animal, her tiny heart crudely ripped from her body, apparently while she was still living. What man could go through all that and remain sane? And what man would not succumb to the punishment from the hateful heart of his only child?

  6

  Jake Dablo, former Graham County sheriff, slowly awoke to face the dread of another day. His eyelids, sealed shut from encrusted sleep, concealed heavily bloodshot eyes. The lonesome coo of a solitary dove, nesting in the dilapidated gutter of his rusting trailer, called to him. He weighed his options. Should he bother to open his eyes or should he simply return to the escape that only sleep brought him? He waited until the deep ache in his head gave him no option.

  A thin splay of early morning light crept through the yellowed window shade, allowing only minimal light into his bedroom. The tattered window veil was shut not so much to keep out the daylight but rather to keep Jake from having a view of the night sky, the enchanted sphere his grandfather had taught him to love. The same night sky whose celestial formations revealed the myths of life and death. The heavens above, home to the ancient Gods as well as his own God, had cast him aside in his moment of need. His heart, seeded with grief, could no more forgive his Maker and forget the pain of his loss than it could cease to beat of its own volition. Ruefully, he opened his eyes.
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  Beads of foul, alcoholic sweat oozed from every pore of Jake’s slowly decaying body. As the light of day filtered through one blurry bloodshot eye and then the other, he gazed at the water-stained ceiling tiles directly overhead, ceiling tiles that now, sadly, replaced the stars in the sky of his long-lost normal life.

  The once robust and healthy cowboy sheriff coughed, clearing the phlegm from his blackened lungs. His chest tightened sharply as he rolled onto his side, reaching to the floor for his nearly empty pack of Marlboros. A second raspy hack ejected greasy sputum from his lungs, which he swallowed, barely noticing its mucous consistency and smoky taste. The scarred fingers of his bony hand fumbled across the linoleum floor until they grazed against an open matchbook. Pulling a single, limp cardboard stick from the book, he glanced at the cover. ‘JoeBob’s Bar—Good Eats and Drinks’. Stewart sandwiches nuked in a radar range and pickled eggs tasting of burnt rubber and reeking of sulfur were hardly good eats, even to a high mileage drunkard like himself. Jake managed a pathetic grin as he flamed the match head. The odor of burning sulfur stirred a wave of nausea where his gut met his throat, quelling his short- lived smile.

  The first drag of tobacco seared his lungs and cleared the milky vision from his tired eyes. Cupping a hand behind his head and pulling the grimy covers halfway over his protruding gut, he blinked repeatedly, hoping to create a little moisture for his painful, reddened eyes. His arm drooping over the side of the bed held the growing cigarette ash nowhere near its intended receptacle. Eyes transfixed by the water stains overhead, Jake squinted his sunken brown eyes, hoping to rid himself of the illusion he envisioned. But it was not to be. The discoloration on his ceiling manifest itself as a small child, a young girl playing happily...smiling...normal...normal life...normal existence...a different time...one that no longer existed. The brown stains melted into gray, then black, as the image assumed the proportions of a dead child lying on a cold desert floor surrounded by burning candles, snakes slithering over her lifeless form.