Holes in the Sky (Zeb Hanks: Small Town Sheriff Big Time Trouble Book 2) Read online

  “It seems 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 it was?”

  “The body was mangled pretty badly. I guess we don’t know just yet who it is.”

  “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 get some rest,” he suggested. “I’ll come back when I see for myself what’s happened.”

  “Good Gawd almighty, you know I couldn’t go back to sleep after hearin’ something like this. I might as well just 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. “It’s usually pretty quiet.”

  Holding Doreen firmly in his arms, Zeb placed a parting kiss on her lips.

  “Zeb, I got just 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.

  “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 outa me.”

  Chapter Three

  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 of how horribly indecent it 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. It had definitely 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. “It’s 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 of it 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 it 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, sti
cky 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 it 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. “It’s just 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 it was 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. “It’s 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. “It’s no damn concern of yours, that’s for certain. Now who identified this man as Father McNamara? There’s not enough left of his face 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 it’s him 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.

  “You find his hand anywhere?” asked Doc. “He’s seems to be missing it.”

  “Over here,” said Deputy Steele. “I found it over here.”

  The doctor slowly brought himself to an upright position.

  “Let me give you a hand, Doc,” said Deputy Funke.

  Doc Yackley brushed aside the offer.

  “Is that some sort of pun, son?” asked Doc Yackley.

  Delbert scratched his head as Sheriff Hanks chuckled.

  “Just a little gallows humor, young man,” added the doctor. “Don’t worry your pretty little head about it.”

  “Don’t worry, Doc. I won’t. I never worry about nothin’,” replied Deputy Delbert.

  Deputy Delbert and Sheriff Hanks shined their flashlights on the severed hand, an unnecessary act as the sun had risen well past dawn.

  “It’s a human hand all right. A left one.”

  Upon hearing Doc’s explanation, Deputy Delbert glanced down at his palm, then the back of his own left hand. He repeated this gesture several times before finally extending his arm and holding his hand directly in his line of vision with the severed hand in the background.

  “Yup, it’s a southpaw all right. And there’s a ring on the third finger.”

  Doc reached forward and carefully scraped particles of dirt and sand from the severed hand.

  “With an inscription.”

  He reached into his coat pocket and removed a pair of bifocals.

  Sheriff Hanks and his deputy leaned forward as Doc brought his face to within inches of the excised hand.

  “Let’s see here. It’s written in Latin.”

  “You read Latin, Doc?”

  The savvy old country doctor winked at the sheriff.

  “I suppose I’m going to have to if I want to know what this damn ring says.”

  “No foolin’, Doc. You can do that? You can just look at another language and read it?” asked Delbert. “Now that’s really something.”

  “Helps being a doctor. Lot of our secret stuff is written in Latin and Greek.”

  “Oh, I see,” replied the deputy. “That makes a heap a sense.”

  “Now let me see. It says here…Ordinis Sancti Barnabae Vat Astronomicis Observatorium, Basilicam Sancti Petri…I would say that translates roughly as Order of St. Barnabas, Vatican Astronomical Observatory, Basilica St. Peter. There’s a picture here, too.”

  Doc Yackley squinted, moving his head a bit closer to the ring. After a moment he took off his glasses and cleaned them on his untucked and rumpled shirt.

  “There, that oughta make seein’ things a bit smoother.”

  Returning the cheaters to his face, Doc scrunched his cheekbones back and forth, allowing his glasses to slip down to the tip of his nose.

  “Yes, that’s better. It’s a picture of a building. Hmm. It looks sort of like an old- fashioned tower up on a hillside in front of a church. Likely the Vatican Astronomical Observatory.”

  The rising sun now fully illuminated the eastern slopes of Mount Graham. Coming from the direction of town, Sheriff Hanks eyed the hearse from Shepner’s Funeral Home making its way down Route 366 toward the death scene.

  “Never a welcome sight, is it?” said Doc Yackley, observing the sheriff honing in on the death wagon.

  “Nope, never is.”

  “Doesn’t seem to be much of a need for a full blown autop
sy. I’ll take some blood and tissue and give it a routine once over. Is that okay with you?” inquired the doctor. “I mean with the birthmark and the colostomy bag, odds are one in a million it could be anyone else.”

  “Colostomy bag?” asked Sheriff Hanks.

  “Father McNamara had stage four colo-rectal cancer. He was in the end stages of life. He had a month at best. He was headed for hospice care real soon.”

  Zeb and Doc exchanged a glance that spoke to the hidden fear all people have. What would they do under the same circumstances?

  “Out of respect for his position at the church, I imagine it will be just fine if we let Shepner’s do their business and leave it at that,” replied the sheriff. “I think the cause of death is pretty damn obvious. No sense making it any worse for his congregation by delaying the funeral.”

  “I guess that settles it. I’ll take some blood samples and get my medical report to you later this morning. The official cause of death looks like it’s going to be suicide unless that trucker over there’s got a different story.”

  Doc Yackley pointed to the porch where the distraught trucker continued his manic rocking.

  “Why don’t you come along and we’ll have a little chat with him? That way he can say it once and hopefully I can be done with it, legally anyhow,” suggested Zeb.

  “Let’s get crackin’ then,” said Doc. “I’d like to grab a bite of breakfast before I start my rounds at the hospital. Better have Delbert snoop around a little more before they load up the body. Father McNamara is missing both his shoes and his left foot was severed just above the ankle. And don’t forget the hand. Make sure Shepner’s gets it.”

  “Oh, crap,” moaned Delbert, “more missin’ body parts. Gad, I hate touchin’ that kinda stuff. It gives me the creeps.”

  Deputy Delbert Funke half-heartedly began to look around for the shoes and missing foot of the priest as the hearse driver and his assistant came scrambling up the small knoll with a stretcher.

  Sheriff Hanks and Doc Yackley slowly made their way toward the Mount Graham Market and the traumatized trucker.

  “I already gave him a light sedative, ten milligrams of Valium, to calm his nerves. Poor son of a bitch was pretty shook. He should be okay to talk, unless the Valium fogs him out.”