Zeb Hanks Mystery Box Set 1

by Mark Reps

  Dusk sneaked across Jake’s property line in concert with Zeb’s truck. The change of light created what seemed to be an illusion. Mysteriously absent from Jake’s yard were piles of empty booze bottles, bundles of yellowed newspapers and the discarded heap of rubble left behind by a messy, chronic inebriate. Replacing the debris was a sitting area complete with a picnic table, chairs and an umbrella large enough to provide shade for a small group of people. At the end of the trailer on a small pad of freshly laid cement was a mounted telescope pointing toward the heavens.

  But the most shocking sight for the sheriff’s eyes was Jake Dablo sitting at the picnic table. Dressed in crisply pressed khaki pants and shirt, clean-shaven and looking hale and able bodied, Jake appeared to have shed a decade off his aging face. Zeb did an involuntary double take. The clarity and serenity in the old sheriff’s eyes was something that had been missing since the death of Angel Bright.

  “Zeb,” Jake shouted, “by God, but it’s good to see you. I was sort of expecting you’d be showing up about this time.”

  Jake reached out and shook Zeb’s hand, nearly crushing his fingers in the process.

  “Good to see you too, Jake. Looks like you cleaned the place up a little.”

  “This rat trap was just like me, a stinking, rotting mess. You know how it goes, garbage in, garbage out. But you should also know all messes, including personal ones, can be cleaned up.”

  Jake rip snorted a laugh. Letting go of the vice grip he had clamped on Zeb’s hand, he took a step back and sized up his former deputy. Zeb found himself standing a little straighter, as though Jake were still his boss and giving him a military style inspection, just like he had when he first came to work for him.

  “Yes, sir, young man. I can see the job of Graham County sheriff agrees with you. But an old timer like me can also see that it’s wearing you down just a bit too,” said Jake, slapping Zeb squarely on the back. “Take a load off. We’ve got some serious ground to cover.”

  Zeb took off his hat and set it on the table. Jake grabbed the cowboy hat by the crown and placed it on his own head.

  “You still wearing this old thing?” Jake asked. “I’d have thought by now it wouldn’t hardly have any shape left in it. I figured that Doreen, that wild filly of yours, would have up and made you spring for a new one.”

  The thought of changing hats never entered Zeb’s mind.

  “You know where that hat came from?”

  “Of course I do. You gave it to me when I was about thirteen,” said Zeb. “Hell, I can still remember the day.”

  “No, no, no,” Jake roared. “Before that. Did I ever tell you where I got it?”

  “No, as a matter of fact, you didn’t.”

  “I should have ‘cause it’s got a little bit of a story attached to it.”

  Zeb gently flicked away some dust that had settled on its well-worn brim.

  “Song Bird gave that ten-gallon contraption to me about fifteen years before I gave it to you,” said Jake. “He won it in an all reservations championship bow and arrow shooting contest. He nudged out a couple of Navajo boys from up by Chinle.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “Even though Song Bird won it fair and square, he never once placed it on his head.”

  “Why not?” asked Zeb. “It’s a fine-looking hat.”

  “Old Song Bird was a bit of a radical himself back in those days, not unlike Eskadi Black Robes. He claimed it would be bad luck for him if he ever wore it. You see, Apache Medicine Men in those days wouldn’t wear cowboy hats. Back then, well, it was taboo, sort of what it would be like if an American soldier wore a Nazi uniform. At that time, Apache Medicine Men would only wear Indian headdresses.”

  “Is that true?”

  “Hell, I don’t know for sure. That Song Bird can be pretty quick to pull your leg and spin a yarn when he figures he can pull a fast one over on ya’. For all I know, he stole the damn thing.”

  The wind kicked up unexpectedly, pulling a single piece of paper from the stack Jake had laid on the picnic table. Zeb instinctively reached for it as it flew by at shoulder level. He nabbed it cleanly without putting as much as a crinkle in the paper.

  “I see your hands are as good as they were back when you were the leading receiver for the conference champion Safford Tigers in ’83.”

  Zeb chuckled.

  “That was a long time ago.”

  As Zeb spoke, his eyes homed in on the headline on the sheet of paper the dust devil delivered to his hands.

  Autopsy Report:

  CURRENT DATE: October 19, 1992

  NAME: Angeline Rigella Bright

  DATE OF DEATH: October 18, 1992

  The sheriff made eye contact with Jake as he handed him the paper.

  “Have a sit down, Zeb,” beckoned the former sheriff.

  Zeb hadn’t heard Jake use that particular expression in years. It was the phrase Jake used whenever he was about to ‘go to school’ on somebody. The last time Zeb heard the former sheriff talk this way was way back, way back when Jake used to smile freely, before the death of his granddaughter.

  The last time Jake went to school on Zeb he was carrying on about how the legal system let some of the real criminal element slip through their hands like so much sand through an hourglass. Jake raved for most of a day about how justice, real justice, was not available for the common man. Rich people, he ranted, could buy justice in the courts, whereas regular folks too often got the shit end of the stick. Zeb also remembered that Jake had ended his lecture by warning him that regardless of how justice was served, it had to follow the letter of the law. Now, tonight, the long-suffering Jake Dablo had the corners of his mouth upturned again.

  Zeb took a seat as the setting sun cast a long shadow across the front of the trailer. The multi-armed saguaro standing sentinel over Jake’s property was party to a family of baby cactus wrens who bobbed their skinny necks and gaped their open mouths in wait of their mother’s return. Just above the distant horizon a sliver of a moon was rising to greet the night.

  “How was the trip up to Globe?”

  Zeb withdrew the neatly folded coroner’s report from his back pocket and handed it to Jake.

  “Here, see for yourself.”

  Jake paused momentarily, fingering the report as he examined the official coroner’s seal before setting the document on the table. Reaching into a shirt pocket, he removed a set of wire-rimmed glasses. He toyed with the bifocals as he waited for his eyes to focus. Zeb watched the emotional metamorphosis as blood rushed to Jake’s wrinkled face, smoothing his skin and further turning back the hands of time. From a rounded slump, his posture became upright and erect as Jake slowly devoured each word of the report he held in his weathered hands. Studying the body language of the man who had taught him so much, Zeb observed the pain of deep-seated sorrow in the facial demeanor of his one-time mentor. Jake removed his glasses, reached into his pocket and pulled out a bandanna that doubled as his handkerchief. Pausing to wipe clean his glasses and dab the corners of his mouth, Jake neglected to wipe away a tiny tear that clung to the corner of his eyelid, leaving it to evaporate in the dry desert air.

  “Let’s go inside,” Jake ordered.

  Zeb followed a few paces behind the former sheriff. Once inside, Jake marched directly to a file cabinet large enough to cover the entire corner of the small living room. Opening the top drawer, he grabbed a file thick enough to cover the spread of his gnarly fingers. The label of the tattered file read ANGELINE RIGELLA BRIGHT. Jake’s familiarity with the file became evident as he reached into the middle of hundreds of sheets of paper and pulled out what looked like an invitation. He placed it gently on the table in front of his guest.

  “Here.”

  Jake stood over Zeb, arms stuck deep into his pockets. He said nothing as the sheriff slowly reached for the envelope. The upper, right-hand corner of the envelope was stamped and postmarked. The cancellation date was clearly legible, Oct 9, 1992. Zeb carefully withdrew
the contents. Inside was an invitation addressed in a child’s scrawled handwriting.

  Grandma Dawn and Grandpa Jake Dablo

  238 North Fifth Street

  City

  From the childlike handwriting, Zeb assumed Angeline Bright must have addressed the letter. The date on the envelope was only days before her death. He removed the inner envelope and opened it. As Zeb suspected, it was the official announcement of Angel’s baptism. He set the invitation on the table in front of him, leaving it open.

  “Look at this,” said Jake.

  Calmly sliding the autopsy report in front of Zeb, Jake tapped a finger on the third paragraph.

  “Read this line,” Jake said firmly. “Read it out loud.”

  He tapped down heavily with his finger again.

  “The child’s body was dressed in clothing typical of that worn during a Mormon baptismal ceremony,” read Zeb.

  “And note the date,” demanded Jake.

  “October 18, 1992.”

  The words had barely escaped Zeb’s lips when Jake thrust a second piece of paper in front of him.

  “Now look at this.”

  With the swipe of an arthritic finger, Jake pointed to a specific line in Amanda Song Bird’s autopsy report. Zeb read the simple sentence aloud.

  “The body of the young woman was clothed in traditional Apache Sunrise Ceremonial dress.”

  “And this.”

  Jake pointed to the official date of death, October 18, 1999.

  “Same day.”

  “And one other thing.” Jake’s lips quivered angrily as he read aloud from Angel’s autopsy report. “The hands of the victim were placed into the open wound, fingers interlocked, as if in prayer.”

  Jake had it all laid out in black and white.

  “Both children were preparing for an important religious ceremonial rite. My granddaughter for baptism into the Mormon Church and Apache Jim’s granddaughter for the Sunrise Ceremony of the Apache Tribe.”

  Zeb nodded, rubbing his temple.

  “Killed on the same date, October the eighteenth. Murdered in the same ritualistic style, gutted like lambs at the slaughter, hearts removed from the bodies and replaced with religious symbols. The hands of both the girls were placed inside their bodies. The physical environment of the crimes is identical, remote and isolated. The five burning candles placed at the four directions and above the head, identical.”

  Jake’s words, an expressed mixture of long-awaited relief compounded by fear, burned hot on the sheriff’s ears.

  “Zeb, I know for a fact that the same goddamn son of a bitch committed both murders.”

  The sheriff knew he was in for another sleepless night.

  13

  Helen Nazelrod sat at her desk just outside of the sheriff’s private office. She looked up as her boss briskly whisked past. His face carried the look of grim determination. His boot heels, striking down hard against the wooden plank flooring, sounded mean and angry.

  “Helen, could you get a hold of Eskadi Black Robes for me as soon as possible. Tell him I need to speak with him now. And that means the sooner the better. I’ll drive out to meet him if that works for him. Tell him I can leave right now. When you have him on the line, ask him if he’s talked to Song Bird today. No wait, I’ll ask him that myself.”

  The machine gun way he was firing off orders was the antithesis of his usual interaction with the secretary.

  “Sheriff, why don’t you sit down for a minute. Let me get you a nice cup of coffee and I’ll ring up Mr. Black Robes,” said Helen.

  The soothing tone of Helen’s voice made the sheriff realize just how rapidly he had been firing off orders. A deep breath later he felt his heart palpitating heavily. His mind couldn’t shake the macabre image of the sliced open chests of Amanda Song Bird and Angel Bright, their little hearts pumping away, gripped by the killer’s hand and yanked from their innocent bodies. The sorrow in his ghoulish image made him lightheaded and anxious. The sheriff’s muscles tightened almost to the point of snapping as he felt the weight of the responsibility for closure of the heinous deed bearing down squarely on his shoulders.

  “That would be fine,” he said. “Just do it now.”

  Sitting down, Zeb began loudly rolling his fingertips against the desktop. The rhythmic tapping of his fingers on the wood served to calm him. His head began to clear. With a concerned look, Helen placed a cup of steaming brew in front of her agitated boss.

  “Here you go. Black coffee, fresh pot,” she said.

  “Helen,” he said.

  “Yes, Sheriff.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Of course, Sheriff. Now let me see if I can round up Mr. Black Robes for you.”

  For the thousandth time since he had been elected sheriff, Zeb realized Helen was the grounding force he counted on in times like these. He had barely swallowed his first sip of hot java when Helen reentered his office.

  “That was fast,” said the sheriff. “Did you get a hold of him already?”

  “No, I didn’t. But I’ve got Mister Jimmy Song Bird standing by my desk,” replied Helen. “He says you want to see him.”

  “I do,” said Zeb. “Bring him right in.”

  Helen escorted the Apache Medicine Man into the sheriff’s office and departed, making certain to leave the door slightly ajar.

  “Sheriff,” said Song Bird. “Jake called me last night after you left his place. He told me you wanted to talk to me.”

  “Thanks for stopping by. I know this is a tough time.”

  “Jake told me those closest to the victim often know much more than they realize. I’m here to help you. I’m here to help find justice for my granddaughter. Her spirit must have rest.”

  “I appreciate that, Song Bird. We are all seeking the same thing.”

  “Do you have any idea who might have done this?”

  “I’ve been searching my mind ever since it happened. I really don’t know anyone who could do such a thing.”

  “Horse Legs tells me you think your granddaughter was taken from the arroyo between your house and Maya’s.”

  “Yes.”

  Song Bird proceeded to give the sheriff a detailed, minute by minute account of his granddaughter’s last hours on earth. She had been snatched without a sound or any sort of warning in broad daylight. Neither he nor Maya had seen any cars or trucks on the road. They assumed she was practicing her endurance running for the Sunrise Ceremony. They didn’t become alarmed until a couple of hours after sunset.

  “I’m glad you brought it up. I also need some information about the Sunrise Ceremony,” said Zeb.

  Just outside the sheriff’s private enclosure, Helen’s chair squeaked as she moved into position for an earful. Zeb rose from his chair, hitched his pants, walked around his desk and started to shut his office door. There was a time and place for Helen’s eavesdropping. This wasn’t one of them.

  “Helen,” he said, “this is going to take a while. Would you please hold all my calls?”

  The sheriff turned the knob, closing the door soundlessly.

  “About the Sunrise Ceremony, can you help me?”

  “What do you want to know?” asked Song Bird.

  “That’s the problem. I don’t exactly know what I want to know. I don’t even know what I need to know. I was hoping you could help me with that.”

  “Let me put it this way then,” said Song Bird. “What do you know about the Sunrise Ceremony?”

  “That’s just it, I don’t know a thing about it,” said Zeb. “You could say I’m steeped in ignorance.”

  “Why do you want to know about the Sunrise Ceremony? You’re not planning on arresting anyone for performing the Sunrise Ceremony, are you?” asked Song Bird.

  “No, why would I arrest someone for that?”

  “Because it’s against the law, that’s why. Since the early part of this century, the US government has formally banned all Apache girls from performing the ceremony. Federal laws call the Sunrise Cer
emony ‘a spiritual act, ritualistic in nature and an act of defiance against a Christian nation’. Not to sound like some sort of a radical, but according to your lawmakers in Washington, partaking in such traditional observances, even after the American Indian Religious Freedom Act, is strongly discouraged.”

  “That sounds to me like a federal problem,” said Zeb, “not a local one. I can assure you I have no intention of interfering with the private, religious ceremonies of the tribe. I think you know that.”

  It dawned on Zeb that the information he was asking for fell into the sacred and privileged category. He was banking on the long-standing trust between the two of them for Song Bird to be forthcoming.

  “Long ago, the elders,” began Song Bird, “in their wisdom to keep the Apache culture alive, took the ceremony underground. Because of the potential problem of being arrested for taking part in one of our sacred rites, the Sunrise Ceremony was performed in total secrecy for almost a hundred years. Today, some families are choosing to bring it back into the public eye, which I am uncertain is the right thing to do.”

  The sheriff was startled by the striking similarity between Song Bird’s story of religious persecution and the stories Zeb’s grandparents and parents had told him about his Mormon ancestors.

  “Why do you really want to know about the ceremony?” asked Song Bird.

  “Let’s just say I have a hunch that knowledge of the Sunrise Ceremony might help with your granddaughter’s murder investigation,” said Zeb.

  “I’ll help as much as I can, but there are many things about the ceremony I don’t know,” said Song Bird.

  “As an Elder of the San Carlos and as its Medicine Man, I assumed you knew all the rituals.”

  “Some things are kept secret, even from me,” said Song Bird.

  “Can I ask why?”

  “The Sunrise Ceremony is not my turf because it’s a ceremony that the women of the tribe handle.”

  “Tell me what you can,” said Zeb.

  “Na’ii’ees,” began Song Bird.

  “What?” begged Zeb.