The Rings of Hesaurun

by Peter Harrett

  The nurse checked the patient for a heartbeat, then scrunched her face and rubbed her forehead with the palm of her hand. “He has a pulse,” she declared as if she disbelieved her own words. “He’s alive alright. Let’s get him inside.”

  “That…is alive?” declared one of the orderlies, pointing a shaky finger at the bloody heap lying on the gurney.

  “For now,” the nurse muttered. “I don’t give him much of a chance, but let’s get him inside and see if we can get him stabilized.”

  Hauling the immense limp body out of the truck and getting him lifted and secured to the gurney required the three-man crew’s combined strength to accomplish. Grumbling as they struggled with the slippery mess, they were all sickened by the amount of blood. By the time it was done, the three orderlies were smeared in dark red gore. Although they would never know it, their clean white uniforms were ruined from the blood of not one but two bodies. However, Jerry felt safe, knowing there was no way they could ever prove that.

  Before entering the emergency room, the orderlies took a white sheet and covered the body. Jerry recognized there were people with children in the lobby, so he didn’t object. It was better to let them believe the man on the gurney was dead rather than let the truth be known.

  Jerry followed the orderlies through the entrance but was rejected at the operating room door by a nurse. “Go get cleaned up then take a seat,” she instructed. “The bathroom is over there,” she said, pointing to the men’s room across the hall. “We’ll call you when we know more.”

  Jerry obediently turned away, deflated and tired, but just as he was about to head for the men’s room, the nurse reappeared in the doorway. “Look, son, it’s late,” she said. Then she continued with a sigh. “Frankly, your friend doesn’t have much of a chance. You know that, right?” A long moment of silence passed between them as her eyes searched his sympathetically.

  “Go get your friend checked in at the main desk, then go home and get some sleep. There’s nothing more you can do here,” she advised. “I’m Judy. I’ll be here until 9 AM. Call me before then, alright?” The door closed behind her with a click leaving the young man feeling alone and abandoned.

  Jerry agreed with nurse Judy; there was nothing for him to do here but wait, which served no purpose. So after providing basic information to a nurse at the main counter, he reluctantly decided to follow Judy’s recommendation to go home and try to get some sleep.

  At half-past the midnight hour, the country roads seemed lonelier than ever. The threat of being convicted of murder hung over him like a sword dangling from a thread. But that’s not what worried him most of all; his conscience topped that by a long shot. Jerry couldn’t shake the feeling that he was blood guilty.

  I don’t like thinking of myself as a murderer, but isn’t that the truth? he thought. There is no getting around it; I am a murderer, I killed a woman and don’t even know who she is. She must be someone’s mother or wife. Is her family out looking for her right now? What am I going to do with the body? Should I turn it in somewhere? How can I do that without incriminating myself? I can’t just leave it on the police department’s doorstep without being caught.

  When Jerry pulled up to the house, the property seemed unnaturally dark and his home cold and empty. It just didn’t seem the same anymore. With the boss living next door, the feeling of belonging and of family was strong. But with Stone gone, Jerry felt deserted. He had made this place his home and feared what would become of him if Stone didn’t make it. It had been a while since he had prayed, but that night, Jerry poured his heart out to God in prayer.

  Jerry awoke at 7 AM with only five hours of sleep. The first thing he did was call Judy at the hospital for a report on Stone’s condition. He was filled with dread, believing the worst must be true. The degree of Stone’s injuries was shocking, even to professionals. Although Stone’s survival seemed to be against the odds, he continued to hope. As he waited for Judy to come to the phone, he steeled himself for the bad news he expected her to deliver. When her voice came on the line, he closed his eyes and held his head wearily.

  “Judy Donaldson, may I help you?”

  “Hi, Nurse Judy,” he said gloomily. “This is Jerry from last night. Can you tell me Mister Stone’s condition?”

  “Certainly,” she chirped, the bright tone of her voice providing immediate encouragement. “Once we got him stabilized, we scheduled surgery for this morning. The surgeons are already here and preparing to get started a few minutes from now.”

  “Really!” Jerry said, smiling, not expecting such good news.

  “Mister Stone must be an exceptionally strong man,“ Judy observed. “No one here believed he would make it more than a few minutes after he arrived. But he seems to be getting stronger by the hour. It’s pretty amazing considering.”

  It sure is, Jerry thought, wondering what was keeping Stone alive. His heart pounded as Nurse Judy calmly explained, “We need you to come in and fill out some paperwork for us. Can you come in this morning?”

  “Sure,” Jerry said. “But I have something to take care of first. Would late morning be alright?”

  “That would be fine, Jerry. But I won’t be here then, so you will want to ask for Mrs. Clark. She will be ready for you.”

  “Alright. Thank you, Judy,” Jerry said brightly. Then he hung up the phone wearing a broad smile, thinking he ought to pray more often.

  The something he had to take care of was the body of the woman he had hastily wrapped in plastic and stowed in the barn. The bundle was well hidden behind hay bales, but that had to be remedied—and fast. The need for a permanent solution was a priority, and Jerry heeded it quickly before someone missed the woman and began searching for her. And he knew it wouldn’t be long before the body started putrefying. He hoped to have the body permanently laid to rest long before that happened. But he still had to decide on how to do it.

  Luis, his helper, would show up for work within the hour, so Jerry decided to make a pot of coffee and think about it over a hot mug. When Luis showed up at his door, the solution came to him the moment he laid eyes on him. After explaining that the boss was in the hospital and was expected to be there a while, Jerry promised he would call him back in a few days. Jerry gave Luis twenty dollars and sent him home for the week.

  Of course, it was perfect! He and Luis had been blowing stumps with dynamite yesterday! There were at least a dozen craters where they had blown stumps and pulled them out with the tractor. Better yet, most of the holes still needed to be filled. Suddenly another possibility came to mind: those stumps still needed to be burned. They already had a burn pile started, so now he had two choices: the body could either be buried or burnt.

  However, Jerry considered burying a body on the property to be too creepy. Plus, knowing it was there would forever be an unwanted reminder of what he’d done. He already felt guilty enough, so he wanted to avoid creating a constant reminder of it. He thought, perhaps I won’t feel that way if the body has been burned and then buried. And with that, the decision was made. Burning and then burying the remains seemed to be the least distasteful option available to him.

  Jerry intended to find the largest of the holes, put the body in it, stack the stumps on top, pour on some diesel, and light it on fire. Burning stumps in a newly-cleared field was as common as blasting them out of the ground with dynamite. Anyone who noticed would think nothing of it.

  After loading the plastic-wrapped body in the tractor’s bucket, Jerry set out for the burn pile in the south pasture. He selected the largest of the many stump holes and placed the plastic-wrapped package into the hole. Then he moved to the burn pile, loaded a stump into the bucket, intending to drop it in the hole over the body. But just as he was ready to drop that first stump, he hesitated. Something seemed to be preventing him from pushing the lever forward. His hand hovered over the lever, but something deep inside said; Stop! Go no further! Jerry couldn’t do it; his hand seemed held in place by an unseen force.

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nbsp; Jerry stared at the plastic-wrapped body questioning his motives. Come on! Get it over with, he told himself but his conscience, he assumed, prevented him from dropping the stump on the woman’s body. He didn’t know why but it seemed as if something called to him from the pit saying, come—you must take it for yourself, and suddenly his heart was filled with overwhelming warmth. The voice was his heart, his conscience speaking to him, wasn’t it? The message was loud and clear, one he could not ignore. It said something more needed to be done before unceremoniously burying the woman under a pile of stumps. That something moved him to turn the tractor’s motor off. Jerry sat, staring absently into the hole, wondering what to do. He didn’t know the woman but felt a duty to at least say a prayer over her.

  Then he realized he knew absolutely nothing about the woman he had killed. He didn’t even know her name! Surely she had friends and relatives who would miss her. Wouldn’t they want to know what happened to her? Jerry hated the thought of them searching for their friend, wife, or mother but never finding her. Of course he would never be able to tell them the truth. But maybe there would be some way to help ease the pain of their loss or help them sometime in the future. Since collecting her personal things and learning her identity seemed right, that is what he decided to do.

  After backing the tractor away, Jerry jumped in the big hole with the body, then sat with it contemplating what to do next. Jerry wasn’t squeamish, but he certainly wasn’t looking forward to unwrapping the body. Having already forgotten what the woman looked like, he preferred to keep it that way. The last thing he needed was a lasting image of his victim imprinted forever on his heart and mind. When he had steeled himself for the task at hand, he said aloud, “Let’s get on with it, Jerry.”

  Once he had the body unwrapped, he avoided looking at the woman’s face. However, he couldn’t help but notice the golf-ball-size hole made by the .45 caliber bullet exiting the forehead. The woman was dressed all in black and still wore her hat. The hat caused him to wonder how it had remained in place after she was shot, carried around, transported in the back of a truck, and dumped into a hole. But there it was, right where she put it. She must have had it screwed on real tight, Jerry mused.

  Jerry searched through the coat pockets and found a wallet, which he laid aside. The woman wore no jewelry other than a wristwatch and an old copper ring on her right hand. After removing them, he put them with the wallet. He was relieved not to find a wedding ring, which meant she wasn’t married. At least she hadn’t left a husband behind. He hoped there were no children either.

  Thus far, the evidence he saw indicated she must have been a modest woman; both the ring and the watch were ordinary. But they were hers, and he intended to find a way to return those things to her family. That was the least he could do.

  Slowly opening the wallet, he found her California driver’s license, some credit cards, pictures, and some cash. It was all expected, but when he noticed the dead woman’s name on the driver’s license, his heart pounded, and throat tightened. The name Arlene Dunne startled him like seeing a scorpion climbing up a pant leg.

  “Dunne?” he mumbled, barely able to believe his eyes. What was the chance that he and the dead woman shared the same last name? At that moment, he took a good long look at Arlene’s features, scrutinizing her face, searching for clues. She didn’t look familiar, but could this Arlene Dunne be an unknown relative of his? Dunne was a rare name of Irish descent, and her name was spelled the same as his. But since he didn’t remember anyone named Arlene in the family, he shrugged it off and went on with the unsavory business at hand.

  After putting the contents of the wallet back together, he continued searching through Arlene Dunne’s pockets. Just as he was about to give up, he felt something odd, a hard object, possibly another wallet, or notebook secured to the woman’s waist. Then he decided whatever it was must be enclosed in a leather money belt or something similar because it didn’t appear to have a fastener anywhere he could find. Since he wasn’t able to unbuckle it, he decided to cut it off with his pocket knife.

  It took some work, but he had the black leather belt cut off after a few moments. Jerry examined it closely, turning over in his hands what he assumed to be a money belt. There wasn’t any money, but he found a hidden flap containing a brown leather notebook, which he removed. As he flipped through the pages he saw that it appeared to be an ordinary diary. That puzzled him considerably. He closed the book then turned it over and over in his hands, trying to decide why anyone would bother securing a journal to their waist in such a curious way.

  Why hide a journal so securely? It didn’t make sense. However, what did make sense was that Arlene Dunne had secrets to keep. After all, she attacked the boss, not the other way around. Did Stone know something she didn’t want to get out? Is that why she tried to kill him?

  Jerry was convinced the journal held secrets, or else why would the woman bother hiding it? So he put it with the other things and decided to have a closer look at it when he had more time.

  After rewrapping the body and gathering the personal possessions of Arlene Dunne together, Jerry hopped up on the tractor and started it. An hour later, he had the stump pile moved to its new location and was ready to start the fire. After taking a moment to say a silent prayer for the woman he’d killed, he poured diesel on the pile, put a match to it, then stepped back and watched solemnly as the flames took hold. With most of the stumps being Eucalyptus wood, the fire spread quickly. The fire would burn unaided for days.

  After cleaning himself up, Jerry drove the Studebaker to the hospital, arriving there at just before 11 AM. Believing that doctors would have already operated on the boss, he was eager for an update on his condition.

  However, the busy emergency room was a hive of activity. People were lined up at the reception counter, so he fell in at the back of the line and waited patiently for his turn to talk to someone. It smelled as if somebody in the line ahead of him had a bladder malfunction. Jerry guessed he was right about that.

  Ten minutes later, he introduced himself to the attendant as Gerald Dunne Junior, Mister Stone’s assistant, and that he had an appointment with Mrs. Clark. The attendant—Mrs. Newsom, according to her name tag— was a middle-aged woman dressed in a white nurse uniform. The moment she heard the name Stone she paused; all other activity behind the reception counter paused as heads turned to regard him. A shock of fear coursed through Jerry’s veins. What did it mean? Had Stone died, he wondered? Or were the police waiting for him?

  With half a dozen hospital staff gawking at him, Jerry shifted his weight nervously as his gut continued grinding away. Without responding, the staff exchanged knowing glances with each other, stepping up his anxiety another notch. What that meant, he could only guess. The worst-case scenario would be that Stone had died, and the police were waiting for him with an arrest warrant. However, he recognized those knowing looks could be interpreted as either good news or bad news. He had no choice other than to wait to find out.

  “Can you give me an update on Mister Stone’s condition?” he asked apprehensively.

  “Mister Stone is still in surgery,” reported Nurse Newsom. Then with a smile, she whispered, “We haven’t heard much, but the fact that they’ve been working on him for four hours is a good sign. No one here expected him to make it this far. Mister Stone must be very strong.” Then she added, “When you are finished with Mrs. Clark, you are welcome to have a seat here in the waiting room. We will let you know as soon as we hear something.”

  Nurse Newsom directed him to an office down the hall. “Look for the business office on the right, and you will find Mrs. Clark there,” she assured Jerry with a kindly nod and a smile.

  Jerry did as instructed and quickly found the business office with Mrs. Clark seated behind one of three desks. Although she was readily identifiable by the nameplate on her desk, he would have approached her regardless. The woman seemed to ooze business administration.

  “Mrs. Clark,” he said,
“Nurse Judy asked me to come see you. She said you would have some paperwork for me to fill out.”

  “You must be Gerald Dunne Junior,” she said as she stood; however, she hadn’t met his eyes, nor had she invited him to sit. Jerry expected she had risen from her chair to shake his hand, but she turned away instead to grab a file, which left him hanging. He saw Mrs. Clark was an attractive woman in her thirties, immaculately dressed, high heels, and long hair. However, he judged her harshly. She seemed to be inattentive and self-important. Behind the glasses, Mrs. Clark was all business and cold as a fish.

  “I am he,” Jerry stated solemnly. Then he added, “Gerald Dunne Junior. I am Mister Stone’s assistant.”

  “Pleased to meet you, Mister Dunne,” Mrs. Clark said mechanically, as she thumbed through the file. “Please understand I know nothing of Mister Stone other than the name, that he is very ill, and that you are his assistant. I don’t see how he intends to pay for this hospital’s services. I need to know his full name, address, contact information, medical history, and method of payment.”

  “Here,” Mrs. Clark said as she thrust a clipboard in Jerry’s face. “Fill out these forms, and be sure to complete the insurance and payment information completely. You can sit over there,” she said, finally meeting his gaze while pointing to a chair next to the door. Mrs. Clark’s expression was a humorless mask, whose eyes said, Move it, buddy! At that moment, Jerry felt thankful he wasn’t Mr. Clark.

  The amount of information he was expected to provide was bewildering. The forms included a lot of questions he couldn’t answer. Suddenly he realized how little he knew about Stone. It shocked him when he realized he had no idea whether Stone was the boss’s first, middle, last name, or nickname. To that point, all he had written on the form was the word Stone and the address. He knew nothing of his medical history, his date of birth, or even his age. The man had never mentioned a place of birth or of ever having a career. Worse yet, Jerry had no idea how Stone intended to pay for the hospital stay. Sure, the boss carried plenty of cash around; he always had plenty of that. However, what was missing, what had always been missing, was the source of Stone’s income.