by Mark Reps
"Maybe there were parts of him no one knew," said Kate. "Maybe he was suffering in a way no one could see."
"I suppose it's a possibility," replied Jake. "But all we really have right now is what's in front of our faces."
Jake tied the rope into a noose. He left enough extra length dangling so the rope could easily be reached from the floor.
"You two stay on the ladders. I'm going to grab onto the rope and hang down with my body weight until my shoulders give out. You keep a close eye on the rope as it rubs back and forth over the beam," said Jake.
"You sure you don't want me to do that?" asked Zeb.
"I wouldn't want you to hurt yourself," replied Jake. "City can't afford a work comp claim."
Jake grabbed the dangling piece of rope and hoisted his feet up off the floor. Within fifteen seconds he lost his grip and banged his boot heels down hard onto the floor. Jake spit on his hands, prepping for a second attempt.
"Rope's slipperier than I thought."
"Maybe you're older than you think," said Zeb.
"Bah!"
This time Jake held on for nearly thirty seconds before his heels smacked against the floor.
"You want me to come down and hang on it?" asked Zeb.
"I'll give it one more shot. Besides Farrell and I are about the same size. You're too big."
"Okay, but don't hurt yourself. I might have trouble explaining what you were up to."
Jake grabbed the rope and pulled his feet off the floor.
"You're at one minute and holding," said Kate.
"No sense shootin' for any Olympic records," replied Jake.
"Your theory looks right, Jake."
The officers examined the markings from the rope on the crossbeam.
"Almost all of the little slivers of wood are pointing down. But there aren't nearly as many as where Farrell's rope was."
"How about on the other side?"
"It looks like there are equal amounts of wood gouging on each side."
"What's your conclusion, Deputy?" asked Zeb.
"Here's how I see it," said Kate. "Farrell's rope put wear and tear on the wooden beam in the opposite direction of weight bearing. When you compare that with our little experiment showing a downward force producing downward wear and tear, it can only mean one thing. The body was hoisted up there with a rope already around its neck. That way the rope pulling up against the beam would cause the splinters to point upward."
"Exactly the way I see it," said Zeb. "All that hoisting would cause more than enough friction of rope on wood to scrape off a ton of shavings."
"The Hush Puppies," said Kate.
"What about them?" asked Zeb.
"These drag marks."
Kate pointed to the drag marks running from under Farrell's desk to beneath the spot where he was found hanging.
"They were made from the heels of Farrell's Hush Puppies."
"I think you're onto something, Deputy. If Farrell was at his desk and someone put the rope around his neck, dragged him back to this spot and then pulled him up, it would go a long way in explaining the direction of the drag marks made by his shoes."
"But how could somebody overpower him and do all that? Farrell would have put up some sort of a struggle. We don't have any evidence of that," said Kate.
"He must have already been unconscious," said Jake. "That would explain it."
"But we got one major problem, don't we?" said Zeb. "Like Kate said, there are no signs of resistance. I didn't see any injury marks on Farrell. No man just gives up and lets someone put a rope around his neck and hang him."
"We've got a jigsaw puzzle with some missing pieces," said Jake. "Let's go have a little chat with Doc Yackley. Maybe an amateur sleuth can enlighten the likes of us."
Jake drove with Deputy Steele to the morgue area of the hospital. Zeb followed in his Dodge Ram truck.
"Just the trio I've been looking for."
"Greetings, Doctor Yackley."
"Deputy Steele. Gentlemen."
Doc Yackley removed the meerschaum pipe from his mouth and peered over the top of his bifocals.
"Kate, please, call me Doc. I don't want to lose the mysticism that goes with being an old country doctor."
"It's a deal," replied Kate. "If you call me Kate."
"It looks as though I've got some good news and some bad news for you. Why don't you come in? I'll show you what I'm talking about."
They followed Doc through swinging aluminum doors and across the spotlessly clean morgue floor.
"Here, put on these face masks," said Doc. "There's always a little bit of an odor hanging onto a dead body. This one stinks a little more than most."
Donning the rubber gloves, they followed Doc to the body in single file, like school children.
"I want to show you a few things. You will probably come to the same conclusion I did. Take a look at these pupils."
Doc Yackley reached overhead and pulled an illuminated lamp close to Farrell's corpse. Using the thumb and first finger of his right hand, he spread open the eyelids of the dead man. A scalpel in his left hand doubled as a pointer. Kate blinked reflexively as the coroner placed the tip of the knife next to the dead man's eyes. Doc twitched his head to the side, signaling them to have a closer look.
"Dilated," said Doc. "Farrell's pupils are dilated. Now look at this."
Doc placed the scalpel on the table near the dead man's ear. Carefully, he closed the eyelids. Inserting a single finger into the mouth of the dead man, he rubbed slowly along the inside of the upper teeth, then toward the back of the tongue and finally under the tongue. Chunky white thick material was gathered on the tip of his fingers. He exhibited the exudate for Kate and Jake by wagging his finger in front of their eyes.
"Gastric ruminant, known to the general public as vomit. Farrell was full of it. I gathered up almost four ounces of the stuff."
Doc placed the material into a sterile specimen container.
"You say that like you're surprised," said Zeb.
"There is no medical reason for a hanged man to toss his cookies. At least not from being hanged."
Doc pulled back the sheet covering Farrell's body, exposing him from the waist up. Incisions made during the autopsy revealed the inside of John Farrell. Carefully using forceps, Doc retracted the muscles of the neck.
"Right here. You can see where the neck is broken. Four fractures. Quite unbelievable. Four fractures. I've never seen anything like it. This is the third, fourth, fifth and sixth vertebra of the cervical spine, the neck. All fractured. And look at this, the larynx, the windpipe, and this is the cricoid cartilage. All crushed."
Kate, Zeb and Jake weren't exactly sure what Doc was getting at.
"Now for the pièce de résistance."
Doc grabbed a large pair of forceps. He pulled the skin away from the chest wall. The exposed rib cage had been cut and the ribs removed, leaving a five-inch hole in Farrell's chest.
"You're probably wondering how I made such a perfect cut. I used a Skill Saw from Sears. Cuts through bone like a hot knife through butter."
Doc reached inside the body, pulling a gooey, pale pinkish gray matter from beneath the ribs.
"This is what a lung looks like. The goo is called viscera. This is the pleura. You've heard of pleurisy. When this stuff is inflamed, you've got pleurisy. This stuff is called alveoli, where respiration, breathing, takes place. Technically, the gaseous exchange between the lungs and the blood takes place in the alveoli. But here, right here, is what I want to show you. It’s what you don't see that makes the difference. This is the bronchial tree, so called a tree because of the continuous branches it has. When you look at it, you should see something that resembles an upside-down tree trunk with branches."
"Sorry Doc, I don't see that."
"Precisely."
The coroner jammed the lungs back into the cadaver.
"Because they are nowhere to be seen."
Removing his examination gloves, Doc Yackley lit
his pipe. He casually leaned back against a steel examining table. Kate, Zeb and Jake took off their examination gloves and face masks. Following Doc's instruction, they placed them in a bin marked 'disposables.'
"You want to be a little more exact, Doc," said Zeb. "We're hardly medical students."
"Based on what I see, I'd have to state the cause of death as respiratory paralysis. That's why you didn't see what you should have seen in the lungs."
"The bronchial tree. You mean because it was missing?"
"Right."
"And what about the dilated pupils? And the vomit?" asked Zeb.
"The dilated pupils and the vomit lead me to believe he was poisoned. Pupillary enlargement is a sign of chemical toxicity. The vomit confirms a consumed irritant."
"You are pretty damn certain, Doc. Any idea what kind of poison?"
"I sent some blood and tissue samples up to a lab in Phoenix. Should have a pretty good idea of what poison it was, if it was poison, in a few days."
"You get anything else?"
"Just one more obvious thing. Farrell's socks were pulled down around his ankles. He had deep fingernail gouges in his skin directly above the malleoli...the ankle bones. I'm certain they weren't made by Farrell's own hand."
"Why do you think that, Doc?" asked Jake.
"His fingernails were short. He clipped them even with the tips of his fingers. Not only did Farrell not have enough nail to gouge that deeply into himself, there wasn't any evidence of skin under his fingernails."
"We'd better have another look around Farrell's office," said Zeb. "Doc, you've been a great help."
"I'll phone you once I get the lab results," said Doc.
22
Darla Thompson paced back and forth frenetically outside of the Rodeo Real Estate office.
"I'm so glad you're back," she said. "I've got a real problem."
"What is it?" asked Kate.
"I just can't stand the idea of anyone seeing the office in such a messy state. I always kept it as neat as a pin. I don't want Mrs. Farrell to come in here to gather up Mr. Farrell's things, thinking her husband's last day was a messy one. Can I please go in and clean now?"
"We're just about done. We have a couple of final things to do. Then you can go ahead and clean."
"Thank you. By the way did you find Mr. Farrell's espresso cup? It's funny but it bothers me terribly it wasn't in its usual place."
"We didn't run across it yet. Why don't you have a seat? We'll be finished in there shortly."
Kate walked back into the office to join Zeb and Jake.
"Farrell must have passed out right at his desk," said Zeb. "If he was poisoned somewhere else, we'd have more drag marks from the heels of his Hush Puppies. So, for the sake of argument, let's assume someone slipped poison in his drink, and he passed out in his chair at his desk. Then whoever gave him the poison pulled his chair back underneath the wooden beam."
"Which explains the single set of drag marks from his Hush Puppies," said Kate. "And the missing espresso cup."
"From there the killer must have tossed a rope over the top of the beam, put the rope around Farrell's neck and hoisted him up from his chair," said Zeb.
"Which makes perfect sense of the fray marks on the rope, the upward direction of the splinters and the way one side of the beam took so much more wear and tear," added Jake.
"What about the fingernail marks in his ankles?" asked Zeb.
"Dear lord," gasped Kate.
"Tell me," asked Zeb. "What?"
"The broken neck," said Kate. "Remember Doc said the type of noose around his neck wouldn't have caused the neck to break, yet it was broken in four places.
"Go on," said Zeb.
"I think the killer either pulled down hard while grabbing around the ankles thereby breaking the neck or..."
"Or what?"
"This is really gruesome. The killer grabbed onto Farrell's ankles and swung back and forth. The amount of damage to the beam and all the splinters indicate the body was swung back and forth while being pulled down on."
"Jesus," exclaimed Zeb. "If that's true, we have a very twisted killer on our hands."
"That would go a long way in explaining four fractured bones in the neck."
"Did you find the espresso cup yet?" shouted Darla Thompson.
"No, Darla. We're looking right now," said Kate.
Jake, Zeb and Kate quickly scoured the room.
"We didn't find one," explained Kate. "But if you find the cup when you're cleaning the office, please call us right away. Don't wash it. Don't even touch it. Could turn out to be evidence."
"His favorite cup? Evidence in a suicide? Well, I never."
23
Song Bird moved with ineffable intent throughout Delbert's hospital room. Except for four headdresses he placed at the foot of the bed, his mannerisms were more those of a Medical Doctor than those of a Medicine Man.
"Delbert, how are you feeling?"
The big deputy nodded and forced a smile. He blinked twice, hesitated and blinked once.
Delbert's mother, sitting by her son's side, served as his voice.
"One blink means yes, and two blinks means no. I think that means no and yes. I don't know if he understands what he is trying to say."
"Not so great, huh, Delbert?" said Song Bird. "Maybe the time has come to change that."
Delbert blinked once and held his eyes shut.
Song Bird walked to the window. Opening it slightly he placed a bundle of sage on a small piece of cedarwood at the edge of the sill. He struck a stick match with a thumbnail, lit the sage and began to chant. Placing his hand amidst the small stream of swirling smoke, Song Bird increased the pitch of his incantation as he collected dark oily residue on his fingertips. Song Bird walked to one side of the bed and smudged three lines on each of the sick man's cheeks and one from his forehead to the tip of his nose.
"Here. Put this on the sage."
Delbert's mother placed more herbs on top of the smoking sage. They created a filmy haze which blew into the room and coiled around her son's body.
Song Bird held an eagle feather in one hand and a piece of turquoise in the other. He began to pray and chant. At each of the four directions, the Medicine Man stopped and covered himself with a new headdress. With each new adornment, Song Bird placed a ceremonial ornament against Delbert's body. His gesticulations were intended to scatter the sickness to the four winds. As he completed his task, a nurse entered the room. The opening of the door swept the smoke out the window to the northwest, toward Mount Graham.
"What's going on here?" she demanded. "Does Doctor Yackley know about this?"
"We are helping a friend. A man who needs healing," answered Song Bird.
"You had better wait right here while I contact Doctor Yackley. He's going to want to know about this!"
"What do I do now?" asked Delbert's mother.
"Pray," replied Song Bird. "Pray and meet me here tomorrow."
Delbert's mother bent down to kiss her son. When she turned around, Song Bird had gathered his things and disappeared with the smoke.
"Del, wait for me here," said his mother. "Don't move a muscle. I've got some serious praying to do."
Strolling out of the hospital and heading straight for the church, she felt the weight of the world had somehow been lifted from her shoulders.
Hours later, deep sleep and comforting dreams enveloped Delbert's mother as she slept in the chair next to her son's bed, holding his hand. It was almost noon before his stirring awoke her. She rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and focused on the Medicine Man who had returned.
Song Bird stood at the side of the sick man's bed. He laid out a small mortar bowl, a pestle and four bundles of herbs. Meticulously he removed a single stalk from each of the packages. He placed them in the bowl and began to grind the herbs into a fine powder. Taking some of the mixture and adding a drop of oil, Song Bird placed the concoction on the sick man's chest. With great delicacy he rubbed the mixture
into Delbert's skin in a clockwise direction with the heel of his hand. Delbert's chest became purplish red. Song Bird walked to the opposite side of the bed, rolled Delbert slightly up on to his side and repeated the procedure on the sick man's back. The deputy remained still, unmoved. His mother prayed as Song Bird dipped his fingertips into a brackish, oily substance and shoved them deep into Delbert's nostrils.
Delbert began to cough and gyrate. His chest heaved up and down like a man gasping his last breath. Mournful guttural wails shot from his mouth. Suddenly he rolled onto his back, his pale face now strawberry red. He turned to his mother and smiled broadly.
"You had better go tell the doctor his patient is improving," advised Song Bird.
"Nurse," shouted Delbert's mother. "Nurse! He's better! My boy is better! Get Doc Yackley."
The nurse checked Delbert's pulse and placed her hand on his forehead.
"I'll get the doctor right away."
Doc Yackley greeted Song Bird and the happy mother before looking into his patient's eyes. Lightly touching the purplish red patches on his chest, he wiped some residue from Delbert's nose.
"Nurse, help me remove the ventilation tube," said Doc Yackley. "He's breathing on his own. Anyone care to tell me what's been going on here?"
"This man was poisoned by water hemlock," said Song Bird.
"How can you tell that?" asked Doc.
"It is the job of an Apache Medicine Man to know such things. I have seen it many times. Nature gave me the cure."
"I don't know what the hell you did, but whatever it was it ranks up there somewhere between spontaneous healing and a full-blown miracle. I've never been one to argue with positive results. Nurse, check Delbert's vitals every fifteen minutes and keep me informed."