by Mark Reps
"I hear that old man in the moon all right, but I can't quite make out the words."
Zeb ran his tongue over her finger. She felt weak in the knees.
"Doreen?"
"Yes, sugar dumplin'?
"That sweet old man in the moon is saying...will you marry me?"
The hushed quiet of the night became palpable. Chirping crickets paused. Creatures of the night froze in mid-step. Even the warm evening breeze calmed as if awaiting a reply.
Doreen ran a caressing hand over her man's recently flattened stomach, stopping only when she reached the inside of his thigh. The tingle of pleasure created suddenly turned to pain as she grabbed a pound of flesh.
"Ouch! Damn! What was that for?"
"I wanted to make for certain you wasn't talkin' in your sleep...and that I wasn't dreamin'."
Doreen drew her flushed body tightly into her man's loving arms.
"Before you answer," said Zeb, "I have one important thing for you to think about."
"Is this the part where you prattle on 'bout the down side of bein' a sheriff's wife?"
"A cop's pay isn't so great. And the hours are terrible..."
"Do you think for half of one minute, what with the path I've beat through my life any of that would even matter?"
"It's not just..."
Before he could say another word, Doreen kissed him long and deep. She pulled back and stared into Zeb's moonlit eyes. Suddenly now didn't seem like the right time to tell her the Tucson Police Department had called today and made him an offer to return to his old position as a homicide detective. This sure as hell wasn't the time to let her know about things he could never tell her.
"Baby, I didn't fall in love with the badge. I fell in love with the man."
Her words rang true.
"I don't want you to worry every time the phone..."
As if on cue the ringer on Doreen's phone pierced the special feeling of the moment. Goosebumps involuntarily flared from every pore of her body as she grabbed the receiver.
"Hello."
"Doreen, this is Kate Steele. I'm so sorry to bother you, but I saw the sheriff's car parked in your driveway. I have to talk to him. This is important."
"Don't think twice, hon. Business is business. Hang on one short sec."
"It's Kate," whispered Doreen, handing him the phone. "She says it's important."
"Deputy Steele, what's up?"
"We've got a situation."
"Go ahead."
"We've got a dead man, white male, undetermined age. We found his body three miles west of town on state route three, six, six, just beyond the Mount Graham Market."
"You know who it is?"
"Not yet. There was no ID. The body is mangled beyond recognition."
"Somebody dump him there?"
"No."
"Car go off the road?"
"No. Nothing quite that ordinary. This is rather strange. That's why I called you."
"Don't keep me in suspense, Deputy."
Sheriff Hanks cradled the phone between his shoulder and his ear. Using his finger, he made a writing motion against the palm of his hand. Doreen had already anticipated his need and was reaching into the nightstand for a pen.
"This looks like a suicide."
"Suicide?" asked the sheriff. "How do you figure?"
Heading into the kitchen to start a pot of coffee, Doreen reversed direction and returned to the bedroom upon hearing 'suicide'. She sat next to Zeb, placing an understanding hand on the leg she'd just pinched.
"Give me what you've got," said the sheriff, pointing to his pants and mouthing to Doreen, 'I need my clothes.'
"George Halvorson, owner of the Mount Graham Market, called it in about thirty minutes ago. He was rousted out of bed by a frantic trucker banging on his door. Mr. Halvorson described the driver as being in a state of shock. He said the trucker was unable to utter a complete thought. Even though George was in his pajamas, the trucker grabbed him by the arm and practically carried him to the spot where he had just run over a man."
"Was the victim walking along the side of the road?"
"That's the odd part. Apparently, the dead man had placed his rocking chair in the westbound lane in a depression just beyond where the road crests."
"Sweet mother of Jesus."
The mental image...a man sitting in a rocking chair...on a dark lonely stretch of road...in the middle of the night...flattened by an eighteen-wheeler, made Zeb shudder.
"Barreling down the road at seventy miles an hour, the driver had no chance of seeing him, much less stopping. His truck hit the man head on. The man and the rocking chair were smashed to pieces. I'm sure the man died instantly."
"Thank God for small favors," mumbled the sheriff.
"Pardon me, Sheriff?"
"I was talking to myself. Go on."
"The driver panicked. He flipped his rig over into the ditch when he realized what happened."
"Have you talked with him?"
"He keeps muttering. 'Man--rocking chair--middle of the road--I killed him'."
"Call Doc Yackley and fill him in. Better have him bring a sedative for the trucker. The poor son of a gun. Have Deputy Delbert call someone to tow the rig out of the ditch. I sure as hell don't want a bunch of gawkers hanging around the scene tomorrow morning causing more accidents. I'll be right there, shouldn't take me more than ten minutes."
"I haven't completely surveyed the entire scene yet," replied Deputy Steele. "I'll take care of things until you get here."
Zeb set the phone on the nightstand, tugged up his pants and turned to Doreen.
"Now that is about the damndest thing I ever heard."
"What is? Tell me what happened?" begged Doreen.
"We've had a suicide."
"What's so crazy about that? There has been at least one every year since I moved to town," said Doreen. "Some people get depressed and see no way out but dyin'."
"This wasn't the suicide, Doe," said Zeb, slipping into his boots. "It was how it happened."
"Now dumplin', that ain't the kind of story you pull the reins in on halfway through. Tell your sugar what happened."
"Apparently, somebody took a rocking chair and placed it in the middle of the highway."
"Uh-oh."
"Then they sat themselves down and waited for an eighteen-wheeler to come by and do the dirty work."
"Oh, dear Lord. Did Kate say who the deceased was?"
"The body was mangled pretty badly. We haven't identified who yet."
"Is this the kind of thing you were warning me about? Middle of the night phone calls and all that?"
"I was trying to warn you death comes with the territory. I'm sorry to say it's part of the job."
"No need to be sorry about that," replied Doreen. "A man's got to do his job."
Zeb smiled and kissed her on the cheek.
"Why don't you try and rest," he suggested. "I'll come back once I check out the accident scene for myself."
"Good Gawd almighty, I couldn't go back to sleep after hearin' something like this. I might as well go open up the café and get an early start at the day."
"Okay, then, I'll stop by the Town Talk after I have a look around out there."
"Zeb, honey bear, it's not like this every night, is it?"
"No," replied the sheriff. "Usually pretty quiet."
Holding Doreen firmly in his arms, Zeb placed a parting kiss on her lips.
"Zeb, I got an awful feeling flowin' through me right now. Baby, please be careful."
"Don't worry, Doe. I'll be careful. I always am."
The dull thud of Sheriff Zeb Hanks' boot heels on sidewalk cement and the distant hoot of a night owl broke the silence as dawn gave chase to what remained of the rapidly waning nighttime. Opening the door of his patrol car, Zeb glanced toward the arched doorway where Doreen's mindful eye had been trailing his every step.
"You never did give me your final answer. What's it gonna be? Will you marry me?" shouted Zeb.<
br />
"Hush up now, sugar pie! You're going to wake the entire neighborhood. Then I'll have a heap of explainin' to do."
The sheriff turned his head toward a nosy neighbor's house as she flipped on an outside light and peeked through a curtain.
"Well, what's it gonna be? Yes or no?"
"Gee whiz, honey bun, give a girl a little time to let a big ol' question like that sink into her heart, would ya? It ain't everyday somebody offers up to change your life. Besides, it's good to keep a man wonderin'."
Zeb winked and waved.
"Fair enough. Take all the time you need between now and the next time you see my smiling face," he said.
Doreen watched Zeb's car turn the corner and pass beneath a lone street lamp lighting the intersection at the end of the block.
"I love you. When the time is right, I promise I'll tell you why I'm hesitant," she said softly. "But something is scarin' the bejesus outta me."
3
The first rays of the rising sun sparkled crisply against the golden rock faces of the highest elevations of Mount Graham. The purity of a new day dawning on the mountaintop bumped hard against the ghastly death image burning inside the sheriff's head. Who would do such a thing to himself? Why choose such a dramatic statement? He found himself agitated as he thought how horribly indecent this was to have drawn a complete stranger into the personal act of suicide. He thought of the truck driver. His thought was simple, "Poor bastard will live with that the rest of his life."
The sheriff's thought was interrupted by what seemed a flash of sunlight glinting off his rearview mirror. He stiff-armed the steering wheel, instinctively straightening his posture. He squinted into the rearview mirror for a closer look. What he had incorrectly assumed to be reflected sunlight abruptly transformed into a pair of high beam headlights bearing down behind him at a dangerously fast pace. A split second later a candy apple red Cadillac Sedan Deville shot past him like a rocket. Dr. James Yackley was behind the wheel. Pressing down long and hard on the car horn, the old doctor stuck an arm out the window and gave the sheriff the thumbs up sign as he left the police cruiser in the dust.
"Jesus H. Christ, Doc, you're gonna get yourself killed if you don't slow down some," mumbled the sheriff as the whining Doppler effect of the car horn faded into the distance.
Two miles down the road Sheriff Hanks pulled into the graveled parking lot of the Mount Graham Market. Doc's flaming red Cadillac was parked obliquely, driver door flung wide open and the engine purring like a kitten. The sheriff reached in and switched off the ignition.
The market was a converted farmhouse from a decade's earlier cattle boom. The store had seen better days. The unpainted railing of the rotting wooden porch with half of its spindles missing was a perfect match for the toothless old timers who idled their days away jawboning about what might have been while resting their aging carcasses on equally run-down chairs that lined the veranda. Death on the nearby road would give them fodder for half a year's worth of gossip.
Beneath the eerie glow of a dust-covered, neon bug zapper, George 'Grumpy' Halverson sucked down hard on the last quarter inch of a cigarette stub. Sitting nearby wrapped in an Indian blanket, a balding, middle-aged man with mutton chop sideburns rocked catatonically. Grumpy peered over the top of his glasses and pinched the remaining life out of the cigarette between a smoke-stained calloused thumb and bent finger. He pointed the sheriff toward the wreck with a slight nod of the head.
At the edge of the parking lot, soft mauve and pink early morning hues painted the desert floor with splashes of color. The beauty of the desert landscape was harshly disrupted by a series of bright red flares placed near the tipped over semi-tractor trailer rig. Sheriff Hanks' deputy, Delbert Funke, surveyed the scene, hands on hips.
"We're over here, Sheriff."
Sheriff Hanks stepped over small splintered pieces of widely scattered rocking chair remains, making his way through the undergrowth.
"Watch where yer steppin', Sheriff".
The mangled wreck of a human body quickly came into the sheriff's scope of vision.
"The dead dude here is missin' a few parts. We don't want to be destroyin' no evidence."
Deputy Delbert crouched down, shining his flashlight under a small creosote bush.
"Looky here," he exclaimed. "An arm. Torn right off his body. I ain't never seen nothin' like it."
"Where's the rest of the body?" asked the sheriff.
Delbert pointed the flashlight beam behind a big rock about fifteen feet away.
"Scattered around. But most is right back there."
The dead man's remains were lying in a crumpled heap, stomach down. The head was twisted so far around on the body that it appeared like it had been placed backwards on his shoulders. A single open eyeball with the pupil dilated leaked a line of clear fluid.
"Looks like he's been cryin', don't it, Sheriff? But I don't suppose he felt any pain when the truck hit him. Do you?"
Sheriff Hanks glanced down at the tears on the dead man's cheek.
"If he did, it sure as hell didn't last too long." The sheriff directed the thin ray of the flashlight beam down the left side of the dead man's body. The stub of his arm rested in a pool of dark liquid.
Sheriff Hanks crouched. Something inside the ripped black shirt caught his attention. He reached in and pulled out a stiff white collar, like that of a cleric. Reaching forward, he dabbed a single finger into the thick and inky substance. He rubbed the liquid in a circular motion between his thumb and first finger. A stain appeared on his roughened hand. Bringing his finger near his face, the sheriff took a shallow whiff. The unmistakable aromatic mixture of drying blood and death churned his stomach.
"Smells like skunked up late summer backwater, don't it, Sheriff?" said Delbert.
The sheriff pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped away the greasy, sticky mixture.
"Jumpin' Jehovah!" cried Delbert.
Sheriff Hanks squinted in his deputy's direction.
"I think I'm standing on the dead man's hand."
"Take it easy, Deputy. His hand is over there, buried under the sand in that pool of blood," replied the sheriff.
"No, it ain't, Sheriff. It ain't buried 'neath nothin' 'cept my...foot."
"What are you talking about, Delbert?"
"Looky down here by my right foot. I just stepped on somethin'. I ain't certain but 'neath my boot feels like a hand. It's givin' me the willies."
Sheriff Hanks shined the light near the deputy's boot heel.
"Lift up your foot, Delbert. I want to get a closer look."
The big deputy gingerly lifted his right foot and balanced all six feet six inches of his two hundred seventy-five-pound body on a nervously unsteady left leg.
"No, it's not a hand," said the sheriff. "Only a rock and some dead cactus spines."
"Whoa, whoa," yelled Delbert, tipping over and crashing into the underbrush. "Yeow, dang it all! Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!"
"You okay, Delbert?"
"I think so," cried the deputy reaching back to rub his head. "What the heck is this?"
"What's what?" asked the sheriff.
Delbert reached beneath a small bush that had cushioned his fall. Rubbing the back of his head and pulling cactus needles from his hair, Delbert handed a large book with a red leather cover to the sheriff.
"What the heck is a book doin' out here?" asked the deputy.
"It's a Bible," said the sheriff.
Sheriff Hanks instinctively opened the book. On the inside cover leaf was a handwritten inscription.
To Michael, my blessed son. Congratulations
on this Holy Day, your ordination. I give you
freely to God and the Sacred Order of St. Barnabus.
I am proud to call you Father McNamara.
Love Mother
Reading words of felicitation from a mother to her son gave the sheriff a shiver so powerful his shoulders jerked up involuntarily. But the flash of a second realization that nearly
floored him.
"It's Father McNamara's Bible."
"No way!" exclaimed Delbert.
"From the inscription, it appears to be a gift from his mother on the day he became a priest."
"Geez. Now ain't that somethin'," added Delbert. "I mean that he had it with him when he croaked. But we still don't know it's him."
Sheriff Hanks and Deputy Delbert Funke stared blankly at the Bible, averting their eyes from the butchered body.
"Say, aren't Father McNamara and Doreen real close friends?"
"I suppose they know each other from the café," replied the sheriff.
"No, I mean..."
Delbert's statement was cut short by a shout from Deputy Steele. "Sheriff, I've found a billfold. The driver's license and credit cards belong to Father McNamara."
Zeb's heart sank as any hope of the body being someone other than the locally beloved Father McNamara faded quickly.
"Zeb."
Doc Yackley's thundering voice startled the men as he came barreling toward them.
"What the hell? What are you doing? Reading a book? Funny damn thing to be doing at a time like this."
"We ain't readin' it, Doc. We're just lookin' at it," answered Deputy Funke. "This is the personal Holy Bible of Father McNamara."
Sheriff Hanks tucked the Bible under his arm and pointed at the body of the priest. Doc Yackley knelt near the dead man.
"Damn knees of mine," grumbled Doc.
"You all right, Doc?" asked Delbert.
"Just my age and a touch of the 'tis. Nothing that being twenty years younger wouldn't cure," mumbled the doctor. "No damn concern of yours. Now who identified this man as Father McNamara? Too much of his face is gone to recognize him."
"The Bible is inscribed to him, and we got a wallet with his identification," said the sheriff.
"I'll tell you in ten seconds if this is Father McNamara or not."
The old doctor unzipped the dead man's pants and pulled his underwear to the side revealing a red birthmark the size of a baseball. He tugged on a plastic tube implanted in the priest's body.
"Yup, we've got ourselves a dead priest all right. This is Father McNamara."
The doctor reached over and pulled the forearm out of the sand.