Zeb Hanks Mystery Box Set 1

by Mark Reps

  Looking revitalized and youthful, Song Bird walked to the corner of the living area and sat on the edge of the bed. He motioned Zeb to his side.

  “The world has changed for you,” he said. “This new knowledge you have gained will help you to serve others. It is difficult to open the eyes of an adult man, but I believe yours have been opened.”

  Zeb placed his hand into the Medicine Man’s upturned palms and said goodbye.

  Lying down, the old man closed his eyes and drifted instantly into what appeared to be a deep, peaceful sleep.

  “He trusts you,” said Eskadi. “You should believe in him and trust what he knows. His interpretation of your dream may help you solve the murders.”

  Zeb studied Eskadi’s face and saw, for the first time, into his heart. He witnessed goodness and peace. He shook his head. Seeing Eskadi in this new light was going to take some getting used to.

  Heading south on the highway toward Safford, Zeb replayed Eskadi’s parting remarks in his head. His final comment, “your dream may help you solve the murders,” kept echoing around his brain. Not the murder but, rather, the murders. Eskadi was also linking the murders of Amanda Song Bird and Angel Bright to the same person. But how could Eskadi be certain Song Bird’s interpretation of Zeb’s dream would have an impact on the case? How that would manifest itself was a mystery beyond his comprehension.

  Cruising down the highway at seventy miles an hour, Zeb took notice that the sky was not just blue, but radiant with greater depth than he had ever witnessed. The pale brown of the sand and dirt seemed to meld into the subtle hues of pink rock, late blooming purple sagebrush and green and gold cactuses. From the corner of his eyes, he caught the action of small animals, lizards and squirrels making sudden darting movements as they scurried toward their destinations. He glanced again toward the azure heavens as the sun, behind the graceful soaring wings of a lone eagle, cast a fleeting shadow across the hood of his car. Omens were everywhere and speaking loudly to him. Perhaps his dream had been real.

  17

  Zeb found himself passing by the Town Talk Diner. He yearned for a taste of Doreen’s sassy banter. A little teasing topped off with a special Tex-Mex burger would be the perfect prelude to asking her to take a little time off work and drive with him out to Antelope Flats to meet with Song Bird. The clock on the dashboard warned him that if he didn’t watch the time he would be late for his meeting with the detective.

  Through the office window, the sheriff noticed a well-dressed and well-groomed stranger. This guy screamed city slicker with his Italian cut suit, Tony Lama eel-skin boots, Saddleback brief case and Gucci sunglasses resting on the brim of a brand new, store-bought cowboy hat.

  The sheriff couldn’t help but notice Helen Nazelrod chatting away like a charmed schoolgirl with the broadly smiling young man. Helen, leaning against her desk, was engaged in animated conversation and was no doubt spilling facts and information at the speed of sound. He trusted Helen, but this was his office. He should be controlling the flow of information. This situation he would remedy posthaste.

  As the sheriff made an entrance, Helen noted his stern expression and quickly returned to her usual professional demeanor. The change didn’t escape the detective.

  “Sheriff Zeb Hanks, I presume?”

  “You must be Benjamin Jensen. I see you’ve already met my secretary.”

  “Yes, lovely woman,” said Benjamin. “You’re lucky to have her. In Phoenix she could write her own ticket. A woman like her is easily executive secretary material for the best private investigation firm.”

  Helen blushed radiantly at the compliment.

  “She is the best at what she does,” said the sheriff dryly. “Step into my office.”

  The detective quickly detailed Zeb’s office with an eyeballing of the room. He scanned over a locked weapons cabinet with its neat display of a dozen rifles and handguns, a photo of a football team from the eighties, a picture of Sheriff Hanks as a detective in Tucson, and some well-worn leather furniture, including a chair too small for a man of the sheriff’s stature.

  Zeb, in turn, gave the young private cop a quick once over. Outside of the fact that he dressed like he was in the cowboy Mafia, he seemed pleasant enough. His charisma and easy good looks had certainly won Helen over in a hurry.

  “What brings you to town?”

  Taking a chair opposite the sheriff’s desk, Jensen came to the point.

  “I need your assistance.”

  “How so?” asked Sheriff Hanks.

  The detective grabbed the leather valise he had placed at his side, raising it to the level of the top of the sheriff’s desk. Before placing it on the large desk, he inquired politely.

  “May I?”

  “By all means.”

  Sheriff Hanks leaned back and interlocked his fingers behind his head. The detective removed several files and set them on the desk.

  “It’s a missing persons case,” he explained. “One that’s turned into quite something else, I suspect.”

  “What are the particulars on the missing person?” asked the sheriff.

  The private detective described a young girl—thirteen years old, ash-blonde hair, five feet two inches tall, blue eyes, one hundred five pounds. He rattled off her social security number, home address and even a list of the extracurricular activities she was involved in at the private Catholic junior high school. Her father was a hotshot criminal lawyer in Phoenix that the detective did a lot of work for. The girl had been missing for a month. Her name was Sara Winchester.

  “Sounds like you know who you’re looking for,” said Zeb. “How’d she end up missing?”

  “She’s a runaway…maybe. She got into a fight with her old man about the clothes she was wearing, the kids she was hanging out with, the usual. This happened on a Saturday. The next day she leaves home and never comes back.”

  In Tucson, Zeb had worked on a dozen cases involving runaways. Most of the time they resolved quickly. But a thirteen-year-old girl missing for thirty days certainly wasn’t something to be optimistic about.

  “What brings you to Safford?”

  “I had a lead that puts her at the Flying J truck stop. You know it? It’s north of Tucson at the intersection of interstates eight and ten.”

  “Sure.”

  “One of the hookers who works the Flying J said she spotted a young girl who matched the description with a creepy looking guy. She described him as a thin, redheaded guy with bad skin who was driving a nineteen sixty-five or sixty-six Mustang. She said the girl looked scared and doped up. When the car drove off, the hooker noticed it had a bumper sticker advertising one of your local establishments, Red’s Roadhouse. You know the place?”

  “It’s just across the county line. It’s a shit hole, pig sty frequented by bikers, drunken Indians and about every kind of loser in the five county area. It’s populated nightly by trash of every race, creed and color. During the day, it’s also a bus stop and a stopping off point for every vagrant passing through the area.”

  “Other than the fact that it serves a rather classy clientele, what do you know about the place?”

  Zeb knew more about Red’s than he would ever confess to a private cop. In his misspent youth, he went there often with Maya and Jenny. He could buy beer there because the owner, Red Parrish Senior, had no qualms about selling beer to minors. Even in those crazy days, when Zeb’s judgment wasn’t so good, his instincts told him the bar and everybody in it was bad news. But Jenny and Maya felt differently about Red’s. They loved the seedy joint. It became their hangout. It was also the place where his two good friends went to escape the pressure they felt as daughters of the most highly respected citizens in their individual communities. At Red’s Roadhouse they could live outside the tight reins of social mores that inhibited their ability to live the life they thought they wanted to live.

  The bar was little more than a black hole to Zeb. He had no doubt it was the influence of Red Parrish Senior and the low-life ty
pes that frequented his place that led to Jenny Dablo Bright’s long, downhill slide. He also was certain the same alcoholic fate would have met Maya if Jimmy Song Bird had not sent her away to college.

  “It’s a place where lost souls gather,” said the sheriff. “And a place some of them never really leave.”

  Zeb’s response drew a raised eyebrow from the detective.

  “What do you know about the current owner?”

  “Michael Doerry? He’s an odd duck. Calm as the eye of a storm until someone starts asking the wrong questions or starts talking religion.”

  “And then?”

  “He becomes a bull, snorting and scratching in front of a matador’s red cape.”

  “Hates being questioned, huh?”

  “He hates, period. Cops are usually the ones asking questions. The way I got it figured they’re just convenient scapegoats.”

  “And religion?”

  “I’ve heard he preaches shit that makes him sound like the anti-Christ. I got him figured for a blowhard. All talk and no action, other than occasionally scaring the pants off a Mormon missionary who stops by to try and spread the word.”

  “Any idea what makes him tick?”

  “Do I look like a psychologist?”

  “Did you know Doerry isn’t his real name?”

  “Nope.”

  “His real name is Michael Parrish, aka Red Junior.”

  “That’s news to me,” replied Zeb.

  “I guess his old man owned the place years ago.”

  “That isn’t news to me. I knew Red Senior, but never knew he had a son.”

  “Did you know Red Junior, aka Michael Doerry, has an arrest record for the sale of child pornography over the Internet?”

  “No. I haven’t heard anything about that. I wonder how he managed to keep it quiet?”

  “Weird privacy laws, that’s how.”

  “How did you find out?”

  “Man’s best friend, the computer.”

  “What else don’t I know about him?” asked Zeb.

  “He served a little time in California for the porno charge. And, get this. While he was in there, he became an ordained minister, mail order variety. Sort of odd for the anti-Christ shit he gets off on, I’d say. When he got out, he laid low and kept his nose clean. After he got off probation, about eighteen months ago, he moved here. That’s when Red Junior reopened his old man’s bar. Somehow or other the State of Arizona saw fit to give him a license to operate a liquor establishment. I hacked into his business computer. He’s still got a thing for the young girls.”

  Like father like son thought Zeb. Red Parrish Senior had preyed on the underaged Maya and Jenny every time they had set foot in his place. Back in the day old man Parrish’s perverted leers at Zeb’s close friends made him feel jealous and angry. Though he had no proof, there was a time when Zeb even suspected Jenny’s child, Angel, was fathered by Red Senior.

  “Did you know the old man?”

  “I was pretty young. I knew him more by reputation than personally,” said Zeb.

  “I heard he disappeared about eight or nine years ago.”

  “Disappeared? Hardly. The story around here is that he ran off with a teenager,” said Zeb. “He had a reputation as being a freak for young girls.”

  “So the kid learned it from the old man?” asked the detective.

  “The fruit never falls far from the tree.”

  “How do you think he’d take to me having a look around at the bar?”

  “He’d make you as trouble in about five seconds flat. Mostly from that get up you’re in. I’d dirty myself up a bit if I was going to wander up that way. Your duds might work up in Phoenix, but down here you don’t want to wander into the lion’s den dressed like a lamb.”

  “Thanks for the advice. I need to make something happen. Time is working against me, and I’ve got a very powerful father anxious to see his little girl come home safely. He’s pushing me hard.”

  “For what it’s worth, if I were the missing girl’s father, I’d be more than a little nervous that my daughter was last reported seen at Red’s,” warned the sheriff.

  “He is extremely nervous,” said the detective. “And he’s willing to do just about anything to get his daughter back.”

  “When you called,” said Zeb, “you also wanted to know if I had a working relationship with the people on the reservation.”

  “Yes, I did, but I doubt you’re going to be able to help me. Most of the information predates your tenure as sheriff.”

  “Give it to me anyway.”

  “I did a search on LexisNexis.”

  Zeb’s puzzled look told the detective he was speaking out of the sheriff’s range of knowledge.

  “It’s a computer search engine. You can type in a name, for instance, and pull up all published references to that name. I typed in Red’s Roadhouse and did a search of all newspaper reports in the state, all arrest records and reports of criminal activity for the county and state. After that I gained access to all the tribal police and BIA records for the San Carlos Reservation. That was no easy task, believe me. When I got all that information, I correlated my findings with a nationwide data bank of missing persons. I found that over the last twenty years a dozen missing persons had a direct link to Red’s Roadhouse.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Either they were known to be heading there, actually seen in the bar or used the bus stop out front. I’m on my way out there now.”

  Zeb had an uneasy feeling that this case was about to turn a dark corner.

  18

  Helen Nazelrod was still hard at it an hour past usual working hours.

  “Working late tonight, Helen?” asked the sheriff. “Or working ahead?”

  “Neither really. I’m just getting a few things in order before tonight’s MIA meeting.”

  Zeb’s youth had been filled with endless nights spent at Mutual Improvement Association meetings. He enjoyed socializing with the other teenagers, and the activities were fun. But, seeing those days in retrospect was the real blessing.

  “I’m headed for the church. Your paperwork is on your desk,” said Helen. “See you in the morning.”

  Zeb bid his secretary goodnight just as his stomach reverberated with a grinding, mechanical growl. Staring blankly at the paperwork, his gut began to moan like a sick puppy. He patted his stomach like it was a dog’s belly. Pushing himself away from the confines of his desk, he addressed the voice inside his abdomen.

  “Thanks for the reminder,” he said. “I guess it’s time to ask Doreen if she can run up to Wildhorse Canyon and visit Song Bird.”

  Already his body was sweating in nervous anticipation of asking Doreen to spend the better part of a day with him. The clock on the wall told him the dinner rush hour would be over. In half an hour Doreen would have things put away and in order. He could work a bit longer, then mosey on over to the Town Talk. But the minutes passed too slowly, causing the sheriff to tap the glass cover on his watch to make sure the hands were moving. Outside his window, nothing was moving on the streets of Safford. Everywhere he looked, the world seemed frozen in the moment.

  The paperwork lying in front of him bordered on the monotonous, except for a complaint from Mrs. Rajas who had called to report a ghostlike figure hovering in the graveyard. He would stop by later to reassure the nearly blind woman. Odds were nearly one hundred percent that once again, she thought she had seen the ghost of Domingo, her dead husband, wandering among the tombstones. More than once the sheriff had given Mrs. Rajas a ride home after she delivered a plate of tamales to Domingo’s grave in the certainty that he was trying to find his way home for dinner.

  “He’d never eat any cooking but mine,” she would say. “And in heaven they only serve manna, not tamales or tacos. The poor man is probably half starved to death. That’s why he wanders out of his grave, you know. He can smell my cooking.”

  At five minutes to seven, with his stomach aching for Doreen’s cooki
ng, Zeb wrapped up his desk work and headed directly to the Town Talk. Taking off his hat, he entered the cafe to the bellowing voice of its owner.

  “Hey, trooper,” she hollered. “How goes the life of the county’s numero uno law dude?”

  Zeb glanced around the empty café before taking a seat at the counter. Everything was spotless and fresh. Salt and pepper shakers, ketchup and mustard bottles were cleaned and full. Napkin holders were bursting at the seams and perfectly placed at the center of the tables. Doreen, bobby pin in mouth, fiddled with her hair. She looked like the proverbial million bucks.

  “It was an interesting day, Doreen, a real interesting day. Thank you for asking.”

  Doreen grinned like a cat spitting canary feathers.

  “Well, well, well! An interesting day you say? Is there anything lil’ ol’ Doe can do to maybe make it a little more than just plain ol’ vanilla and mayonnaise interesting?”

  Here it was, the end of the day, and Doreen was smiling, happy and full of monkey business. To top it off, the front zipper of her immaculately white waitress uniform exposed a hint more cleavage than usual. Zeb’s heart pounded a little faster with the acute awareness the feeling in his gut wasn’t just ordinary hunger.

  “I guess I’ll have the usual, Doreen,” he stammered.

  “One of these days, Cowboy, you’re gonna’ order the unusual, and God help me, I just might have a heart attack or, worse, flop face first into a bowl of chili and end up with orange slices in my ears.”

  Doreen clutched her heart and, spinning with the style and grace of a ballet dancer, pirouetted her way through the kitchen doors. Zeb recognized an angel at play as the sound of her voice echoed against the pots and pans.

  “You know something, Zeb?” she said, sticking her head through the serving window. “You might think about hitchin’ your wagon to my star. Hell’s bell’s, just on meals alone, I could save you a pile of dough. Think what you could do with the money you saved.”