Zeb Hanks Mystery Box Set 1

by Mark Reps

  “Not me,” replied Zeb. “All I’m saying is that when one person says something and two other people hear it and they tell two people…well, pretty soon the whole town is taking gossip for the truth.”

  “I suppose it gets around like that. But how do you explain away all them cattle mutilations that have been goin’ on down New Mexico way?” asked Doreen.

  “Rustlers,” replied Zeb.

  “Zeb Hanks, you expect one person in a hundred to believe a rustler’s gonna risk his neck just to cut out the internal organs of some dumb ol’ cow? The fool that’s dumb enough to do that sort of thing and leave all the good meat behind wouldn’t be no kind of rustler I ever heard of. What do you take me for anyway? Do I look like I was born yesterday?”

  “I never implied that, Doreen. But you do have to be careful about believing those sorts of rumors. Like I said, that’s how stories get started.”

  “Rumors, schmoozers. What I do know is what people are talkin’ about and how people think.”

  “And how’s that?”

  “If aliens are cuttin’ up cattle for experiments and just takin’ certain parts out of ‘em, why not do the same to people? Tell me that ain’t logical!”

  “It ain’t…isn’t,” said Zeb. “Mostly because all those rumors about cattle organs missing are just that—rumors.”

  “Just cause it’s a rumor don’t mean it ain’t true,” said Doreen.

  “Speaking of rumors, any hot ones making the rounds about the reservation?”

  “There’s a lot of talk that there’s people out there who know exactly what happened to that poor lil’ child. But they’re keepin’ mum. You know, Indian secrecy and all that.”

  “Not too many folks can keep that big of a secret, Doe. At least not for long.”

  “Up there they do. Those reservation folks, they tend to keep the bad things that happen on their own turf to themselves. And there are some real crazy Apaches out there. Everyone knows that.”

  “There’s real crazy people everywhere,” said Zeb, “both White and Indian alike.”

  “I got nothing against them Apaches. Personally, I’m hopin’ it’s an outsider that done such a horrible thing. So, if you ain’t got no suspects, what exactly are you doin’ to keep our fair city safe?”

  “It’s my job to find out who the killer is and arrest him. That’s exactly what I’m working on. After that, it’s the job of the court system to see that justice is done. I’m sure it all will happen in due time,” said Zeb.

  “The sooner the better, I’d say! We sure don’t want no killer walkin’ around free.”

  “I couldn’t agree with you more, Doe.”

  Doreen reached over and kneaded the sheriff’s muscles vigorously. After a few moments, she squared the shoulders of his uniform and cleared away his plate.

  “That headache of yours a little better, sugar dumplin’?” she asked.

  “It’s nothing but a distant memory, Doe. I think the aliens took it away on their spaceship.”

  “Oh hush your mouth,” said Doreen.

  Smacking him gently on the back of the head, she got up and sashayed around the corner of the lunch counter. The swaying of her hips in her spotless, white uniform caught Zeb’s eye, making him tingle in all the right places.

  “How do you do it, Doreen?”

  Doreen swept her hair away from her face with a flick of the wrist, exposing a smile that could light the way out of any man’s darkness.

  “Whatever are you talkin’ about, Sheriff?”

  “How do you stay so perfect?”

  “That’s awful nice of you to say, Zeb, but I’m darn near the farthest thing from perfection, ‘cept to a man with stars in his eyes.”

  Amidst a palpable silence, Doreen pulled the clips from her up do, allowing it to fall over her shoulders. Leaning forward across the counter, she whispered to Zeb.

  “However, Mr. Zeb Hanks, you can just keep on believin’ whatever your lil’ heart desires.”

  Letting her eyelid close in a sultry wink, Doreen swung around and pranced her way through the swinging kitchen doors. Zeb was transfixed on her every titillating motion. He perked his ears as he listened to Doreen croon softly. He couldn’t quite place the tune, but the rhythm told him it was definitely a love song.

  Zeb grabbed a couple of muffins and left a large tip. As he turned to tip his hat to the radiantly beaming Doreen, the buoyancy in his step induced by the sparkle in her expression caused him to slam a shoulder into the door frame. Zeb casually brushed aside the pain and embarrassment. He headed for the office where he dropped off Helen’s treats before driving up to Antelope Flats to have another look at the scene of the crime.

  15

  The trip north on Highway 70 to the death scene went by quickly. Sheriff Hanks barely noticed the scenery as he mulled over his new information and knowledge.

  Song Bird’s and Jake’s granddaughters both being in preparation for a religious rite stuck in Zeb’s craw. The abalone shell in Amanda’s chest and the Book of Mormon placed in Angel’s made it clear the killer had at least a working knowledge of Mormon and Native religions. But that could be a ruse intended to misguide him. What seemed more likely to Zeb was a tie to the mothers, Jenny and Maya. They had been best friends who hung out with some very dangerous characters. Maybe they had crossed the same person who had exacted revenge against their daughters. Although the sheriff’s office routinely received reports of UFO sightings, Doreen’s silly gossip about the alien abductions was right out of the rag magazines. Toss in a little of Mrs. Trudy Feathers’ theory about the timing of dead young Apaches off the reservation and a detective coming to town about some mysterious missing person, and you could find yourself embroiled in a fine fettle.

  At the scene of the murder, Zeb found things exactly as he had left them. The site felt incredibly lonely and remote. Sitting at the center of the five candles, he took off his hat and carefully placed it on the ground behind him. Eyelids closed, the sheriff shut out the visual world. A gentle breeze rushed across his neck, cooling it, relaxing him. Lying on his back, he stared into the blue sky focusing on the passing clouds. Zeb closed his eyes and drifted off into a deep sleep. An hour later he was awakened by the grinding engine of an approaching truck. As he got up, Tommy Horse Legs stepped out of an Apache police truck.

  “I saw dust trails when you drove up here a while back,” said Horse Legs.

  Zeb looked at his watch. He hadn’t realized how much time had passed.

  “When you didn’t make the trip down the hill, I decided I’d better come up and have a look. Everything all right?”

  “Just having another look around.”

  Zeb replaced his hat on his head. Horse Legs stood in awkward silence until the tribal officer made a stab at small talk.

  “You’re the first person to come by this way since you were here last time. It’s been kind of lonely out here. Gives a man plenty of time to think.”

  “Officer Horse Legs?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Can I be direct with you?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Do you think an Apache or a White killed Song Bird’s granddaughter?”

  “A White killed her. I can tell you that in no uncertain terms.”

  “How can you be so positive?”

  “All the signs point to it.”

  “Signs?”

  “Her hands, Sheriff. They were sort of stuffed inside her body when we found her. I know for certain an Apache would never do something like that.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “No Apache would ever touch a dead body. It stands to reason that whoever stuck her hands inside the wounds could only have done it after she was dead. And no Apache would stick their hands inside a living body to begin with. You ever see an Apache surgeon? There aren’t any.”

  “How about a renegade? What about someone who had moved off the reservation and wasn’t living the Apache way?”

  “Well, maybe tha
t could happen, but I doubt it.”

  “But the possibility exists.”

  “There was a second thing that makes me certain a White did it. It was the way they tried to sew the hands into her chest cavity. I saw it close up. That wasn’t Apache stitching. It was nothing but big broad loops. Apache stitches are small and fine. I wouldn’t waste any more of your time looking on the Rez. The killer isn’t one of us.”

  Sheriff Hanks thanked the tribal deputy. He returned to Safford thinking about what Horse Legs had said. The pile of paperwork on his desk seemed to have grown in his absence. Hunched over his undersized desk, Sheriff Hanks didn’t look up again until the grandfather clock in the front office chimed a dozen times. The final hours before midnight had slipped past in what seemed like a few short minutes. Fatigued, Zeb rubbed the tips of his fingers roughly against his temples, hoping to stimulate his tired brain. Flecks of dry skin fell from his scalp, filtering through the air, landing on the scattered pages of what was now called the Antelope Flats murder file.

  By Sheriff Hanks’ order, the murder case of Amanda Song Bird was officially the Antelope Flats murder case, in deference to the respect the Native culture gave to their dead. Song Bird had taught him long ago that it was customary practice among the Apache to avoid speaking the name of the dead. Uttering the name of the recently deceased, it was believed, impeded their passage into the spirit world. The same divination held true for touching their personal belongings. Horse Legs had made it very clear, since laying a hand upon the corpse was virtually unheard of, a genuine Apache would never place an object inside a dead person. He cursed himself for not having put it together from the start. The killer was not an Apache and, for sure, Song Bird suspected the same, yet he said nothing.

  Zeb was puzzled why Song Bird would tell him about the Sunrise Ceremony, which constituted a leap of faith, one that hurdled the chasm that separated the old ways from the new, yet failed to point out something as obvious as what Horse Legs had mentioned. In addition, by allowing the autopsy of his granddaughter, Song Bird was defying traditional mores, leaving him wide open for potentially serious repercussions from fellow tribal members. The implications were enormous. It was clear the highly respected Medicine Man was using a different standard when it came to his own family.

  Sheriff Hanks intertwined his fingers behind his head and leaned back in his chair. As the second hand ticked away the minutes on the old clock, he thought of how people referred to the death of Angeline Bright. Rarely did anyone refer to her directly. Instead people merely mentioned “October eighteenth” or “the murder of Sheriff Dablo’s granddaughter.” The failure to mention her name was a cultural similarity he had overlooked. Now, the same thing was happening all over again. The death of Amanda Song Bird was referred to as “that poor little Apache girl who was killed up at Antelope Flats.” The sheriff looked down at her printed name and respectfully avoided saying it aloud. But what he couldn’t do was avoid the echo in his head of Amanda Song Bird…Amanda Song Bird...Amanda Song Bird. The more he tried to stop it, the louder the mantra repeated itself. Through blurry eyes, he read the autopsy report one more time.

  The coldly scientific description of the incision into the child’s flesh and excision of her heart in Dr. Virant’s report triggered a fire bolt of electricity rippling up his spine. In his hands was the final chapter of a human life that had ended in torture and violence. Yet the doctor’s report was void of emotion. He felt his face turn red as he seethed in anger. For the sake of Song Bird and Maya there needed to be resolution. The only just ending to the story would be the death penalty for the killer. But that wouldn’t happen. No jury in Arizona would pass that kind of a penalty on a person who committed an act this insane.

  Zeb’s body tingled as though his head had been injected with Novocain. His office suddenly seemed inordinately quiet as a deep shiver fought its way through the numbness. When Amanda Song Bird’s name became synchronous with the beating of his heart, Sheriff Hanks was overwhelmed. He realized this murder case now carried its own, distinct rhythm and it was pulsating inside him.

  He organized his notes, touching each page, waiting in vain for an answer to jump off the paper at him. He needed a breakthrough, someone willing to step forward, an event to happen that would propel him nearer the killer. A single chime on the clock reminded him that another hour had passed. He rubbed his eyes and placed the newly ordered file in the top drawer of his desk. Taking a deep breath, he realized that he was standing at the precipice of allowing this murder to become personal. He pushed himself away from his desk, donned his hat and walked outside into the cool night air.

  Standing on the front steps of the office, he gazed at the crescent moon. The twinkling stars served as a background to its radiance. As the moonbeams struck Zeb’s face and calmed him, he recalled a lesson Jake had learned from his grandfather and graciously passed on. The story contained a bit of wisdom from an older generation of cowboys who seemed able to toss out such tidbits with each spit of their chewing tobacco.

  Jake’s grandfather had taught Jake that moonlight has the power to make men forget, if only for a fleeting moment, the seriousness of living a day-to-day existence. When you stare at the moon, if you listen closely enough, you can hear the sweet music moonbeams carry through the atmosphere. How many old lonesome cowboys, Zeb wondered, had the moon helped release their worldly woes?

  Squinting at the stars, Zeb imagined a formation that appeared as a noose hanging from a tree. His tired mind saw it slowly slipping around the neck of the killer. “Quick justice at the end of rope,” Jake used to say, “it’s not perfect justice, but it has its place.”

  Amanda Song Bird...Amanda Song Bird. In the soft, pale aura of the moonlight, her name repeated itself like a cool breeze on a chilly desert night. A beautiful young girl viciously murdered on the cusp of traditional womanhood. Why? The death of any child, even a natural one, made no sense. The murder of an innocent young person leapt across the border of sanity. Zeb knew he had to think like the killer, get inside his head. Yet, how could he when there was no way to even justify the existence of such hideous thoughts?

  If Song Bird or Maya made a vicious enemy along the way, that person may now be exacting his pound of flesh in the most revengeful manner. Maybe Horse Legs had it backwards. Maybe only an Apache could do such a thing, thereby creating the perfect alibi.

  Zeb felt hot, as though the moonbeams were heating him with the power of mid-afternoon sunshine. He erased the cool beads of midnight sweat from his forehead with a heavy hand. In the distance, near the graveyard at the edge of town, he listened to the cry of a stray coyote. Zeb shuddered with the thought that no matter the race of the killer, Apache or White, he was dealing with a rabid, lone wolf. And right at this moment the lunatic was moving freely about his county. If Zeb didn’t find him soon, God only knew what the consequences might be and who would be next.

  October eighteenth, the date was everywhere. He saw it on the office calendar, in Helen’s handwriting underlined three times and on the autopsy reports of Amanda Song Bird and Angeline Bright. He saw it in the stars. Why October eighteenth? Why had the killer chosen that date? His eyes once again shifted toward the heavens. This time the stars were a painting he had seen in art class in high school. He searched his memory for the name and laughed aloud at its obviousness as it came back to him. Starry, Starry Night. Vincent Van Gogh was the artist. A dreamy skyscape painted by an artist who lopped off his own ear in a fit of madness.

  “A mad man,” Zeb said aloud. “How do you find a madman? Where does a madman hide?” He inhaled deeply through his nostrils and exhaled slowly through his mouth. Sheriff Hanks knew that finding such a person demanded that he think like a madman. His head began to throb.

  Zeb blinked a few times, stretched his neck and gazed across the desert toward the horizon. A shooting star arced into oblivion as a single truck passed, heading south through town. It was then he noticed that the streets of Safford were unnaturally q
uiet. The city, like the surrounding desert, should have been coming to life by this time of night. The lawman had been trained to observe activity. Inactivity allowed him no action steps and nothing to evaluate. Something was wrong, out of synch. For a moment, he was uncertain if it was the world or just himself.

  Taking a spin around town, he sought out the turf of low lifers, driving by their homes and hangouts. But tonight, the bad parts of town were as quiet as the inside of a Monday night church. Not even the Lopez gang or the Garcia brothers were out and about. The peacefulness grated his mind, making him uncomfortably suspicious.

  Sheriff Hanks drove home in a restless, angry mood. He lay down on the sofa and switched on the television, keeping the volume one notch lower than normal. His house, extraordinarily quiet like the rest of Safford, held no solace.

  The slumber that sneaked over him carried him fitfully to the three o’clock hour when the low, static hum of white noise from an off-the-air television station startled him into a slow wake. Stiff in the lower back from sleeping on the worn sofa cushions, he stood and stretched his arms overhead, brushing a hand against the slowly rotating ceiling fan. The dull blade scuffed his knuckle, opening a small laceration. Instinctively, he licked the wound. The metallic tang of blood wakened him fully.

  Alert, he pulled back the shade and peered out the window. An old car with one tail light missing moved slowly up the street. When it parked, he shut the curtain. Out of habit, he listened for a door slam. When none came, he figured it was a polite night shift worker, not wanting to wake his family, quietly shutting the car door as he arrived home at the very late hour. Still dressed in his work clothes, Zeb walked to his bed and lay down on top of the crumpled covers. Moments later he fell asleep and drifted off to a land fertile with dreams.

  In his dream, he saw Doreen Nightingale straddling her blue Electra Glide Harley Davidson. As she sped through the open desert at full throttle, he felt the power of his own Harley between his legs humming against the pavement. Glancing in her direction, Doreen responded with a serene smile. Even in the dream state he felt her gaze push him deeper into a cloud of tranquil clarity. Mesmerized, his eyes caught the trail of an eagle flying behind her in the low desert. Doreen’s long hair, flying straight back in the warm wind, seemed to swallow the large bird.