Zeb Hanks Mystery Box Set 1

by Mark Reps

  “Maybe deep inside he wants to tell someone why he did what he did. Maybe that person is you, Sheriff.”

  “I hope so. I am going to bring him a radio so he can listen to the game tonight. He’s a big baseball fan. He knows his stuff. His favorite players, back in the day, were Orlando Cepeda and the Alou brothers. What are their names again? I remember one is Felipe.”

  Without skipping a beat Kate replied. “Matty and Jesús are the other brothers. They’re all from Domingo in the Dominican Republic. They had a fourth brother that never played ball, Boog.”

  “Boog Alou? Never heard…” Suddenly the sheriff caught the inside baseball joke. “Good one, you got me.”

  “Just keeping you on your toes, Sheriff. Actually I stole the joke from my grandma, who stole it from Gramps.”

  “Keeping on the subject of baseball, Felipe listens to the games on that Spanish speaking station. I also told him I would bring him some car and truck magazines. He likes them. He uses them to help practice reading English. Speaking of baseball, are you going to visit your grandmother over at the nursing home and watch the World Series game?”

  “That’s where I’m headed right now,” said Kate. “Who do you like?”

  “Yankees, of course,” replied Zeb. “I like Jeter and Jorge Posada. You a Yankee fan.”

  “Actually, I do like the Yanks,” said Deputy Steele a bit sheepishly. “I’m a big Derek Jeter fan too.”

  “How about your grandmother?”

  “Grams, she loves the Yanks. She says Soriano reminds her of the way Grandpa used to play second base.”

  In the years since her move to Safford, Kate had made it an annual event to watch as many playoff and World Series games as possible with her grandmother. Tonight the rest of the world would be put on hold for a few hours while she carried on the tradition.

  “Kate, enjoy yourself. Say hi to Grams.

  26

  “I’m glad you’re in a little early today, Kate. Did you catch the game?”

  “Man, oh man, Jeter was out of his mind. I thought the Yanks had it when Giambi smacked that homer. The nursing home gals went crazy. They even brought out a bottle of fake champagne to share--but in the end it went to Florida. It’s do or die for the Yanks at this point.”

  “Sounds like you and Grams and the gals had fun,” said Zeb. “Even if the Yankees took it on the chin.”

  “We had a great time. Did you and Doreen watch the game?”

  “You bet we did. But after I fell asleep, Detective Muñoz called me at home. I was so tired I didn’t even hear the phone ring. He and Doreen talked for half an hour. He wanted me to call him about the autopsy findings on the dead woman in Lorenzo García’s truck. I’m going to call him right now. I’ll put him on the speakerphone. I want you to listen in.”

  The switchboard at the Tucson Police Department was expecting the call.

  “Detective Muñoz. How may I help you?”

  “You can start by covering my behind next time a brick comes flying my way. That is what you can do.”

  “What the? Zeb? Zeb Hanks? Is that you?”

  “It sure as hell is, pardner.”

  “You should be glad it wasn’t a bullet you were trying to duck. That little buttercup of a gal of yours said last night you could have been hurt bad. Sorry to hear about your deputy. That has to be tough.”

  “It was. It is. But life goes on.”

  “Amen,” replied Detective Muñoz.

  Kate listened as the two men tossed feigned barbs and old stories back and forth before getting down to business.

  “Max, I’ve got one of my deputies sitting here with me. Her name is Kate Steele. She lived for a while in the neighborhood where the truck and the body were found. I’m putting you on the speaker phone.”

  The lawmen exchanged greetings. Kate explained to Detective Muñoz that the body had been found three blocks from the house she once lived in.

  “Give us what you’ve found out, Max,” said Zeb.

  “Let me begin with something Doreen brought up last night. That gal of yours is quite a talker.”

  “You can say that again.”

  “We’ve had some luck in identifying the dead girl. Her name is Juanita Melindez. She’s a twenty year-old Mexican-American. She had no permanent address. We know about a month ago she was staying with a girlfriend in Tucson. The roommate moved back to Mexico. We have tried contacting her. No luck yet. According to the roommate’s landlord, Juanita was a quiet girl. She had no social life that he knew of. He heard her mention a boyfriend but never saw one, though she did receive regular letters postmarked from the prison in Florence Junction. That could be a pen pal relationship, a brother or relative, or even a boyfriend, we don’t know. Ms. Melindez worked as a waitress at a Chinese restaurant in the Village. The owners were pretty mum about her. At first I thought it was a bit of a language barrier, but it didn’t take long to figure out they were paying her off the books.”

  “I bet I know how you got them to talk.” said Zeb.

  The two men began to laugh like boys in a private world.

  “Do you two care to share your little secret with a fellow officer?” asked Deputy Steele.

  “You tell her, Zeb,” said Detective Muñoz.

  “The one thing a restaurant owner hates is surprise inspections. The easiest way to get information is to send one city health inspector to the restaurant during breakfast, another one during lunch and another during supper. You get the idea. Normally we can get all the information we need, and then some, in less than twenty-four hours. In the big city it’s called inter-agency cooperation,” explained Zeb. “Here in Safford elections are won and lost over little things like that.”

  “I’ll remember that,” replied Kate.

  “Go ahead, Max.”

  “It turns out the guy was paying her cash under the table,” said Detective Muñoz. “I could care less. That’s business for the revenue boys, not the police department. When he decided we weren’t the enemy, he gave us some interesting facts.”

  “Such as?” asked Zeb.

  “Such as the last anyone saw of Juanita Melindez was the night she disappeared. She was seen getting into a blue Chevy LUV pickup with a white male described by the Chinese man as big as an ox, uglier than a pig and wearing a military buzz cut. The truck matches the description of the one we found her in. It matches the truck belonging to Lorenzo García. When I talked with Doreen last night, she seemed to know all about Lorenzo García. When I mentioned the truck had a stolen plate on it from the San Carlos Reservation, the name of Eskadi Black Robes came up. Doreen suggested I talk with Deputy Kate Steele about that one.”

  Sheriff Hanks turned to Deputy Steele and pointed to the receiver.

  “I know Eskadi Black Robes quite well. What do you need to know?” asked Deputy Steele.

  “We got the information in a roundabout way from the State Highway Patrol. Eskadi Black Robes had called to get a vehicle ID. He wanted to get new plates for a previously non-registered vehicle. The VIN drew a match to the plates on Lorenzo García’s truck. When the highway boys put that together, they called us. The discrepancy is that Lorenzo’s truck is a Chevy LUV and the plates were from a Ford F-150. In my mind there is a pretty high certainty the plates on the burned up truck were indeed stolen from somewhere on the reservation.”

  “I think I can clear this up, Detective,” said Deputy Steele.

  She explained how Eugene Topy’s plates had been stolen and because he had not changed registrations when he bought the vehicle he now knew he needed to get some license plates. He was worried about getting fined because he did not have current plates. She further explained how Eskadi was going to help him work his way through the system. Deputy Steele didn’t mention anything about Eskadi’s political beliefs. She didn’t have to.

  “Mr. Eskadi Black Robes doesn’t seem to have much respect for authority,” said Detective Muñoz. “Trying to get anything from him was like trying to pull hen’s teeth.”


  “He can be difficult when it comes to dealing with what he refers to as the White man,” said Deputy Steele.

  “Did he tell you anything about the stolen plates?”

  “Did he mention that someone saw a White man stealing plates up on the reservation?” asked Deputy Steele.

  “He didn’t mention it. But like I said, he wasn’t real free with the information,” replied Detective Muñoz.

  “The second set of stolen plates was taken from a car up near Diamond Butte. That happened four or five days after Eugene Topy noticed his plates were missing. A woman gathering herbs saw a White man steal her plates. She got a pretty good look at him but she is awfully scared. The man she saw pointed a large hand gun in her direction and frightened her.”

  “Did this get reported to the police?” asked Detective Muñoz.

  “I assume the reservation police took care of it. But I don’t know for certain,” replied Kate. “There is a bit of a jurisdictional issue.”

  “Of course. You said she got a decent look at him. What sort of description do you have?”

  “I got the description second hand from Eskadi,” said Deputy Steele. “He got it from a very frightened woman.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” replied the detective.

  “She described a big man who was scary and ugly. She said he had a cap on but it looked like he had short hair, maybe a shaved head. He did have one distinctive trait. His left hand was missing some fingers.”

  “Did she notice how many?”

  “Two,” replied Kate. “Maybe three.”

  “Can you give me her name?”

  “I don’t have it, but I will try and get it for you. Do you want to talk with her?”

  “Yes. I want to find out how sure she is about the missing fingers,” said Detective Muñoz.

  “She was very certain about the fact that he was missing some fingers on his left hand. She just wasn’t certain of the number.”

  “The Chinese restaurant owner’s wife told me she thought the man who picked up Juanita Melindez in the blue Chevy LUV truck had a deformed left hand.”

  “So you believe our murderer is a tall, not good looking, White male with a deformed hand and a buzz cut who stole a truck and switched the license plates?” asked Sheriff Hanks.

  “That’s what we have been able to put together. Because the truck and the plates are from your area and the girl is from mine, it sort of looks like we are working together again, doesn’t it?”

  “I guess it does,” replied the Sheriff.

  “Do you have anything else on the dead girl?” asked Deputy Steele.

  “Not much. I hope to have more once we locate her family or her roommate. The autopsy had one other sort of weird thing. The young woman’s neck was broken and her windpipe crushed. She was strangled before she was torched in the truck. She wore a necklace with a fairly large silver cross.”

  “There’s nothing strange about that,” said Zeb. “About half the people around here wear a cross around their necks.”

  “Just hold on a second. The doctor who did the autopsy is an ambitious young buck, just out of school. He is slow to get us our reports and a real pain in the ass, but he is as thorough as they come. In this case his pedantic behavior may have big dividends.”

  “How so?” asked Zeb.

  “The broken neck was compressed down hard against her breast bone.”

  Zeb unconsciously pressed his chin against the top of his chest.

  “The chin bone ended up resting right on top of the silver cross. The immense heat from the fire seared an impression of the cross into the breast bone and protected the metal. Although the autopsy also noted that silver melts at 1764 degrees Fahrenheit and a car fire generally can only burn at a maximum of 1300 degrees. Because the chin was resting on top of the silver cross, instead of melting, it was sort of protected in a way. It was fairly intact upon autopsy. The doctor was able to use a small scalpel to remove it in one piece. Using a high powered microscope he was able to see the cross in detail.”

  “What was he looking for?”

  “I don’t know. The guy is so obsessive about his work he does some pretty odd things. My guess is he was just curious. But who the hell knows? When he was looking at the cross, he noticed some words. Evidently the back of the cross had been inscribed and the inscription was legible.”

  “What did it say?”

  “Three words…‘Ángel loves Juanita’,” said the detective. “We know who Juanita is. Now I’m looking for an Ángel.”

  Detective Muñoz was hedging his bets in hoping the proximity of the stolen car to the stolen plates would eventually tie into someone else who had seen the white male with missing fingers. Max made it clear his belief was that the killer was tied both to the Tucson area and to the specific area between the north central part of Graham County and the south central tip of the San Carlos Reservation. Zeb and Max ended their conversation with an agreement to keep each other closely informed.

  “What do you think of the detective’s theory?” asked Zeb. “Do you believe we’re dealing with a creature of habit who is tied to both Tucson, Graham County and the San Carlos Reservation?”

  “I certainly would like to know who the big brute with the bum hand is. But the odds of the car thief and the murderer being the same guy, based on what we know now, are nothing short of fantastic. With the evidence we currently have, Detective Muñoz’s theory is little more than wishful thinking. Our job is based on facts not wishes.”

  “But theoretically speaking, a White male with a deformed hand last seen with a murder victim in a stolen truck with stolen plates, and also a White male with a mutilated hand seen stealing plates on the reservation does have the potential for being a good starting point in an investigation,” countered Zeb.

  “Your theory might have a few holes in it,” Kate cautioned.

  “I didn’t say it was anything more than a theory. And, hell yes, it’s full of holes. There is certainly more than one guy with a mangled left hand walking around, but we’ve got the same description from two different people and a stolen vehicle with stolen plates,” explained the sheriff.

  “Putting together times and places of the truck and license thefts and the murder is going to be difficult. To begin with, the plates on the Chevy LUV were from Eugene Topy’s truck,” said Kate. “He lives a good fifty miles from the Garcías. Why would someone steal a truck out in the middle of nowhere, drive it fifty miles onto an Indian reservation, steal some plates, and then drive it over a couple of hundred more miles to pick up a young girl, break her neck, leave her in the stolen truck and burn it? It could only make sense if we had any kind of a motive, which we don’t.”

  “Well, Deputy Steele. Why don’t you get to work and see if you can figure out exactly what the motive is? It’s called doing your job.”

  The uncharacteristic cynicism in the sheriff’s tone did not go unnoticed by his subordinate.

  “The truth is, Sheriff, I am having a little trouble with motives in general these days. Sitting in our own jail we have a man who confessed to making the bomb threats. His motivation is completely lost on me,” stated Deputy Steele.

  Sheriff Hanks made no attempt to hide his irritation. Deputy Steele eyed the normally easy going sheriff. Maybe his gut pain was affecting his personality. Perhaps he was trying a little too hard to help an old friend solve a murder case when there was really nothing he could do.

  “Deputy Steele, why don’t you go back out toward the García place and see if you can find someone else who saw anyone sneaking around there.”

  “But you’ve been out there. I’ve been out there. We have talked to everyone more than once.”

  “No buts about it. It’s an order,” said Sheriff Hanks. “And while you’re out making the rounds drop by the Madrigal place and pick up his Bible and rosary. Would that be okay with you, Deputy?”

  “It’s out of the way, but consider it done,” said Deputy Steele sensing Sheriff
Hanks’ obvious frustration.

  “And as long as you’re out there, ask around again to see if anyone saw a big White male, sort of a nasty looking guy with a deformed left hand, missing fingers, you know the description. Try to shake loose someone’s, anyone’s memory. We have him linked…” Sheriff Hanks shot a glance in Deputy Steele’s direction. “…make that possibly linked to García’s truck and some stolen license plates up in that general vicinity.”

  “Yes, sir. Anything else?” asked Deputy Steele.

  “Just do your job. People’s lives may depend on it,” said Sheriff Hanks.

  27

  “Sheriff?”

  “Yes, Helen?”

  “You were a little short with Deputy Steele. Are you feeling okay?”

  “Other than a bombing, stolen vehicles connected to the body of a murdered young woman and Delbert’s death, yeah, I guess all is well.”

  “Don’t get short with me, Zebulon Hanks, I changed your diapers,” said Helen. “Deputy Steele is doing her best. Just because you are frustrated doesn’t mean you can take it out on her. You need to concentrate on your work.”

  Helen was right. It suddenly seemed clear to him that the actions of his brother Noah, in reverting to his pre-prison behavior of car theft, had been the turning point. Just about everything else had been going downhill since then. Maybe he was angry at the bombing and the loss of Delbert. Perhaps his frustration was in the fact that he couldn’t find the stolen vehicles that might be linked to the death of a young woman. Maybe the stress of his upcoming marriage to Doreen who, thanks to her recent revelation, he wasn’t even sure he knew was weighing on him. It didn’t matter. Zeb wasn’t being professional and he knew it. It was time to change. It was time to be a man, a good sheriff for the people of Graham County.

  “Helen, you are right. I am sorry.”