Zeb Hanks Mystery Box Set 1

by Mark Reps

  Doreen, usually quick with the quip, said nothing as she watched her man pondering his troubles. Her own experiences told her there was more, much more to this than he was saying.

  “What are you thinkin’ about, Zeb?”

  “Everything, Doe. It just doesn’t make sense, any of it.”

  “I was thinkin’ about Corita Funke and how she must be feeling, losin’ her only son.”

  Zeb’s heart felt as though it were about to explode. His mind raced between seeing Delbert dead in his casket and Border Patrol Agent Wendt, also an only child, dead from a bullet wound, in the remote desert near the Mexican border. Both men had been under his command, his direct orders when they died. Who was he to have power over anyone’s life or death? Then Michael Parrish sprang into his mind. He had put a bullet in him and never given it a second thought, until now.

  “I think I am going…”

  “Crazy,” said Doreen filling in the blank.

  For a few moments neither Zeb nor Doreen said a word.

  “I think I’m just feeling sorry for myself,” said Zeb.

  “A pity party for one?” asked Doreen

  “Yup,” said Zeb taking another pull on the beer.

  “Been there. Done that,” said Doreen. “It don’t work. It only makes you run from reality.”

  “Are we talking about the same thing here?” asked Zeb. “Or do you have something you want to tell me?”

  Doreen took the beer from Zeb’s hand and set it on the end table.

  “Zebulon Hanks, if you are going to be my husband, there is something I have to tell you and I have to tell you now.”

  Zeb sat up straight. He stared his wife-to-be in the eyes. What was she about to tell him? She had mentioned up on Mount Graham that she was waiting for the right time to tell him something important. He had sensed that it was an important secret she held deep in her heart. Was this what she had been talking to Father McNamara about before he was murdered? Was this about her crisis of faith? Was this the thing she needed to get off her chest so they could finally get married? It had to be. For a fraction of a second he considered her timing bad, but just as quickly let go of that thought. Right now there wasn’t a good time for much of anything, so there wasn’t a bad time for anything either.

  “I am not who you think I am,” said Doreen.

  Zeb looked into her eyes. He loved her dearly. But why was she bringing this up right now?

  “Wha…”

  Doreen gently placed her finger over his lips and began to tell a story he could never have imagined. Indeed, Doreen was nothing like she seemed to be.

  “Doreen isn’t my real name. My real name is Holly Munson Jewell. I grew up in Atlanta, Georgia.”

  Zeb was taken for a loop.

  “You grew up in Atlanta? Georgia? I guess that explains your accent.”

  “Yes, hon, it sure enough does.”

  Zeb and Doreen stared at each as if they were seeing each other for the first time.

  “What? Why?” asked Zeb.

  Before Doreen could get another word out of her mouth she began to weep. What began as a few drops turned into a river of tears, then abruptly inappropriate laughter. Zeb’s confusion morphed into concern.

  “Don’t worry, Zeb. It’s all right. I’m all right. It just feels so dang good to finally get it all out there in the open. I have been waitin’ for years to tell someone the whole truth. I’ve wanted to tell you since the day we met. Father McNamara knew most of it, but not everything.”

  “What is the truth? Why haven’t you told me before now?”

  “I didn’t know how to tell ya’ about me. I guess I was hidin’. It seems like keepin’ it all hid somehow protected me. I knew I had to tell you sooner or later. Just listen, please, without judgin’ me. Then you can decide if you want to marry me or not.”

  “Fair enough,” said Zeb, now intrigued as well as more than a bit confused.

  “My family, what there are of them, are good southern folks. But I have disappeared out of their lives…for now.”

  Zeb’s head was spinning. “Why?”

  “It’s very complicated. Someday, maybe even soon, I will see them again. Maybe not. I dunno for sure what’s right anymore.”

  “Should I call you Doreen or Holly?”

  “Let’s stick with Doreen for now,” she replied.

  “And your family?”

  “My father is alive and living in Georgia. He’s a retired high school agriculture teacher. I miss him. I wanna see him agin. I will when the timin’ is right. My mother was a sickly woman who died shortly after my birth.”

  Zeb managed to say he was sorry to hear that before being floored by Doreen’s next statement.

  “I was married...”

  “Married?” Zeb felt the anger of being lied to rising through his flushed face. “To whom?”

  “That’s what I couldn’t tell ya’. Please be patient. I’ll explain it all.”

  “Okay,” said Zeb. “I can’t even begin to imagine what the rest of the story is.”

  Zeb gulped down a beer in one swallow and opened another.

  “Less than two months after I graduated from high school I got married to Loren James Jewell.”

  “Married? You did say married?”

  “Yes, you heard me right the first time. This isn’t any easier on me than it is on you, so please be patient.”

  Zeb felt heat, anger, jealousy and rage as he downed another half of a beer. “Who in the hell is Loren James Jewell?”

  “My high school sweetheart. I was young; I was in love.”

  Zeb’s heart sank. He knew he was not the first man in Doreen’s life, but he did think he was going to be her first and only husband. Having that illusion shattered was painful. It was all like a swirling eddy in Zeb’s brain. Was she Holly or was she Doreen? The questions in his mind far outnumbered the answers. He knew she was not a virgin when he first made love to her but had no idea that she had been married. The mere thought of Doreen having been married was unsettling. Even as he sat there pondering, he realized how ridiculous that thought was, yet the pain remained. Still, he had to know about her past as it might concern their future together.

  “What about your marriage? Are you divorced?”

  “I was tryin’ to tell you about that. Loren and I dated in high school. We got married right after graduation, when I found out I was pregnant.”

  “You have a child?”

  Doreen looked deeply into Zeb’s eyes and began to cry. He could tell this cry was different from any tears he had ever seen anywhere. These tears originated from a place deep in her heart. He held her close and then smothered her in his arms as the tears did not, seemingly could no,t stop. When she was mostly cried out, he was more confused than ever.

  “I don’t know if I can make it through this,” said Doreen.

  “Please try,” said Zeb. “I love you. No matter what you say, nothing will change that.”

  His words felt slightly hollow as he spoke them. Doreen looked so deeply into Zeb’s eyes he could feel the track of her stare right down to his heart. He shivered. That anyone could see so deeply into his very being shook him.

  “I feel like I can believe you,” she said. “Yes, I really do believe you.” Her words also carried a twinge of doubt. “Seven months after our marriage our son, James Wellington Jewell, was born.”

  Zeb’s heart sank to the floor. His mind raced in a thousand directions. He was at a loss for words. He didn’t want to hear another word. How could she have possibly kept this from him? He was about to find out.

  “When young James was two and a half years old, he and I went to meet Loren for lunch at the Green Dragon Tavern. Loren had just stepped out of a cab and was waiting for us. Little James saw his father and began to run toward him.” Doreen’s complexion turned ashen. Tears welled in her eyes but none came. “Just as Loren bent down to pick him up a car veered out of control and hit them. Both of them died almost instantly. I held them both as
they breathed their last breaths.”

  With those words, Doreen collapsed into Zeb’s arms and fell onto his lap where she wept tears of pain. Zeb caressed her hair. Untold thoughts raced through his mind. Who was this woman he now held? Was she so broken that she could not be put back together? Did the horrible event she just described prevent her from ever being whole again? Or was she healing from a horrible trauma right in front of his very eyes. What did this mean for their relationship? Was it over? Was this the real beginning? His mind went everywhere. His mind went nowhere. Zeb had seen the look in Doreen’s eyes as she went back to the time and place of the deaths of her husband and son. It took him back to the Mexican border and the death of Darren Wendt and to the school basement and the explosion that had killed Delbert. If he had periodic flashbacks to Agent Wendt’s and Delbert’s deaths, he could not even imagine what went through her mind. What went on inside Doreen’s head had to be truly horrifying. Felipe Madrigal flashed through his mind. He tried to push it away, but Felipe was another person who was not what he seemed to be. The whole world seemed jumbled and crazy. Eventually Doreen sat up, dried her tears, silently made some tea, opened another beer for Zeb and announced she wanted to tell him the whole story.

  “The doctor said I was sufferin’ from an acute stress disorder. You and I would call it a nervous breakdown. I couldn’t face myself. I couldn’t even look in the mirror. I couldn’t face anyone. And, I really couldn’t face the world.”

  “What did you do? Were you hospitalized?”

  “The doctor tried to dope me up with them crazy people pills to hide my feelin’s and emotions. I couldn’t do that. The medications made me feel suicidal. I went to a shrink. That only made me feel worse. I even went to a Cherokee medicine man. I think that mighta helped some, but not a lot. I had to face my monsters in my own way. So, I did what I knew how to do. Loren was a motorcycle enthusiast. He taught me how to ride.”

  “So that’s where you learned,” said Zeb feeling irrationally jealous that Loren had been the first to share the thrill of a motorcycle ride with her.

  “I had a Harley Davidson, a 978 FLH Electra-Glide. I sold everythin’ I owned. I had some money from a settlement of the deaths of Loren and James. I called up a lawyer and he put the money into a trust. Far as I know most of it is still in that trust. I never check on it.”

  Zeb could only shake his head in disbelief. This was all too much, too fast.

  “I took off on my Harley and rode across the country and up to Alaska. I rented a house on Kodiak Island for a year. I got drunk or stoned out of my mind every day for the better part of that year. I watched television and movies twenty hours a day. When I was really messed up, I wandered off into the woods hoping the bears would eat me, but they never did. Oh they saw me and watched me,” said Doreen with a laugh. “But they must have figured I was crazy and that a crazy woman’s meat wouldn’t be no good for eatin’.”

  Zeb looked at her with alarm.

  “Don’t look at me like that.”

  “Like what?” asked Zeb.

  “Like I am crazy. I was crazy. ‘Was’ being the operative word. I ain’t crazy now. In fact, this is as sane as I’ve ever been.

  “Okay, you’re not crazy.”

  “Thank you for noticin’. Then one day I got a job waitressin’ at a local greasy spoon. I had done it back in high school. It was about all I knew how to do. I made some quick cash, hopped back on my Harley Davidson and headed south. I was goin’ to ride to the tip of South America and jump in the ocean.”

  Zeb’s head jerked back in astonishment.

  “Cool it cowboy, only kiddin’ about jumpin’ into the deep blue sea. I coulda’ done that any time in Alaska.”

  Zeb was only half convinced she was joking.

  “But as fate would have it, my motorcycle broke down right here in Safford. While my Harley was at the shop gettin’ fixed, I walked up and down Main Street. I found myself starin’ at my own reflection in the window of the Town Talk. I truly saw myself for the first time since my husband and son had been killed. I had to change. In the window of the Town Talk were two signs, Help Wanted and For Sale. I walked right in and bought the place. Best move I have ever made.”

  “And the Town Talk? Why did you choose a restaurant to buy?”

  “My husband’s family was in the restaurant business. They spent every minute of the day yammerin’ on about their cafe. I just sort of listened and learned. Like I told ya, I worked in diners in high school and up in Alaska. I figured how hard could it be to run a place like the Town Talk? I always took a shine to the idea of a small town diner so I bought the Town Talk. And the rest, as they say, is history. Or, in my case, the present.”

  Doreen felt like an elephant had been lifted off her chest.

  “I can’t say that I have ever felt as free as I feel right at this very moment,” she said.

  Zeb scratched his head.

  “I love you,” he said trying to convince himself it was true. “I need a little time to digest all of this, and to think it over.”

  “You can take the rest of yer life to think it over. Nothin’ about it is gonna change. Facts are facts and history is history. What you see is what you get.”

  Doreen opened her arms widely. Zeb accepted her embrace, but something didn’t feel quite right.

  “For now, let’s keep this between us,” said Doreen. “Sometime we’ll let the world in on our little secret. But let’s not complicate things for a while, at least until after we been married a while.”

  After their heart to heart talk Zeb tossed and turn throughout the night. Doreen’s life story was giving him second thoughts about their impending wedding.

  “Doreen, I know this is bad timing, but I think I need some time to work through everything you told me last night.”

  “I sort of was suspectin’ you might need some extra time,” replied Doreen.

  Zeb sighed. He really hadn’t thought Doreen would take it so easily.

  “We’ll talk about it soon. Give me a few days.”

  “I love you,” said Doreen.

  He kissed Doreen and headed to the sheriff’s department. It was time to find out for certain if Felipe Madrigal had killed Delbert.

  19

  “Do you think Felipe Madrigal was capable of blowing up the grade school?” asked the sheriff.

  “Do you think someone else is involved in this? Mr. Madrigal is a meek, mild-mannered old man. His voice is full of sorrow when he talks about what he has done,” replied Deputy Steele.

  “Every con man sounds like that.”

  “He really doesn’t seem like the sort of man who might make a bomb and plant it in a grade school, if that’s what you mean.”

  “What have you found out about the bomb?”

  “I talked with your friend, Josh Diamond,” said Deputy Steele. “I take it he hasn’t talked with you yet?”

  “I’ve talked with him about the break-in at his store. I am up to date on the injuries he sustained. He’s tough. He’ll be fine. What did he tell you about the bomb?” asked Zeb.

  “He called it a well-placed, amateurish, low-power, pipe bomb. It was armed with a fuse, a blasting cap and a three-inch pipe packed with low grade explosives. Josh thought it likely had a timer. Whoever planted the bomb knew when it was going to go off and had plenty of time to be somewhere else when it did.”

  “So we must assume whoever set the bomb knew it didn’t have a lot of power behind it,” said Zeb.

  “It looks that way to Josh. He said it was the type of bomb that anyone who knows how to read a library book could make.”

  “That doesn’t narrow our list of additional suspects down much, does it?”

  “No it doesn’t.” replied Kate. “I’ve been over to the grade school boiler room and looked at it closely. The mortar between the bricks is old and loose. Only eight full bricks were knocked out of the wall by the explosion. One of those was the one that hit Delbert.”

  “Well then we h
ave a situation, don’t we?”

  “Sheriff?”

  Deputy Steele’s response was a stall for time. She knew precisely what the sheriff was thinking. A phone call from a scared old man sending the sheriff’s department to a crudely made bomb placed in an area where it should never have hurt anyone did not add up. It had to be a ruse, a simple diversion to get the sheriff’s department looking the other way.

  “The day the bomb went off…the day of the threats. What else is on the crime sheet for that day?”

  Kate simultaneously had the same thought.

  “Not much…three speeding tickets, one act of vandalism, a broken window that coincides closely with the phone calls and a stolen car. The car was an old junker. The type kids steal and joy ride until it runs out of gas.”

  “How about the day before and the day after the bombing?” asked Zeb.

  “Only routine traffic violations, a few writs were served, some divorce papers, nothing overtly suspicious. Josh Diamond’s gun shop was broken into while he was in the hospital. That could have been the same day or a day or two later. We don’t know for sure.”

  “Let’s have a look at that list of stolen items,” said Sheriff Hanks.

  “Five handguns, four .38’s and a .22 and plenty of ammunition for all of those guns. A flak jacket, a double holster, military style, and a gun cleaning kit,” said Deputy Steele. “But no money was taken. According to your report the cash in the register wasn’t even touched, nor was anything taken from in or on his desk.”

  “No doubt about it, the thief knew exactly what he wanted. Entrance was made through the alley door. The door was opened using a thin, but obviously strong piece of metal to lift up a two by four that was used to barricade the door.”

  “I also saw in your report that Josh Diamond noted only one set of tracks in the alley behind his store,” said Deputy Steele. “I agree with your findings that it was a thief, not thieves. You don’t suppose Felipe Madrigal is a robber, too, do you?”