Murders of the Sixth Kind

Legends of Tsalagee, book 2 — Chapter 3

Author’s note: The chapters presented here in ILLUMINATION Book Chapters are from the second novel in my Legends of Tsalagee mystery series. The release date has yet to be determined, but roughly late summer, early fall 2021. In the meantime, I’m looking for beta readers. If interested, please visit my website and contact me via email for more information.

Three

The irony of the whole thing didn’t cloud Mark Easter’s culpability. This time driving under the influence wasn’t the issue. Well, he had two beers, which was what he told Sergeant DuFranc. Hell, that didn’t really count as drinking, and the breathalyzer backed up his story, the “not drinking” part. So at least he’d just get an inattentive driving ticket instead of another DUI. Which probably would’ve landed him in jail again.

If he had swiped the rail of the bridge instead of the driver’s side of Gary Rix’s Honda Ridgeline, he could’ve driven on home. He would’ve only suffered embarrassment and the expense of his own repairs. As it happened, he not only crumpled the sides of his and Rix’s vehicles, but he got a ticket and an ass-chewing from both Gary and Officer DuFranc. Plus, their skepticism at his excuse, the “only two beers” one.

At first, he thought Venus distracted him; he just glanced up at it, noticing the bright white light in the evening sky. Seen it a million times, but he always found the planet’s shine fascinating, enthralling in an indigo twilight. What he always told his ninth-grade science students: “Go look at the clear night sky, that’s when you’ll speak the truth when you say awesome.” But the planet looked different this night; brighter and to the north. Not the position in the sky you’d find Venus. Its extreme brightness confused him. Even for Venus, way too bright. It was much closer than he thought, or very large. A plane? No flashing strobes, as you usually saw with airplanes.

Still looking upward through his windshield, Mark asked himself, “What the hell?” He wondered that right before Rix blasted his horn and swerved away from him on the bridge. Mark jerked hard right, but too late to avoid the sliding smash and grinding screech of metal-on-metal. The skidding stops of the vehicles spun them perpendicular to the roadway, effectively blocking both lanes of traffic.

“Good Lord, Easter!” Rix yelled as he tried to extricate himself from his truck, his crunched door groaning.

“You okay?” Mark asked, having to exit his Corolla on the passenger side.

“Are you drunk?” Rix asked back.

Mark didn’t answer the question, moving right on into his explanation on his driving-distractedness. “There was this light in the sky, bright as all hell.” He was looking up and around again. “Didn’t you see it?”

“What?” Gary asked, caught off-guard. He looked about at the night sky, too. Seeing nothing, he brought his anger back to his assailant. “You are drunk.”

Mark still checked the sky, turning in circles, ignoring Rix’s judgement. “It was big; I thought it was about to crash.”

Rix, irate and disgusted, pulled out his cell and dialed 911.

Patrolman DuFranc started asking questions and writing things down, after he put flares at both ends of the bridge. Curious occupants from already stopped traffic wandered up to the accident scene. Seeing Mark Easter, they figured they knew why the wreck happened.

Sergeant Charlie DuFranc liked the streets. He much preferred roaming Tsalagee than sitting at a desk back at the station. Most of the action took place around the casino, outside of it, where he had some jurisdiction. His six-five, two-fifty size intimidated most folks, especially those who didn’t know him. Charlie used it to his advantage, though a peaceful and amiable person to those who knew him. “You been drinking tonight, Mister Easter?” Sergeant DuFranc asked as he wrote.

“Had a couple beers, Charlie,” Mark answered. They knew each other from high school… well, kinda. Both were graduates of Tsalagee High, but twenty years apart: Easter in ’75, DuFranc, ’05. But Mark had taught Charlie in his general science and physics classes and was one of the All-Stater’s football coaches.

DuFranc nodded and shone his flashlight into Mark’s eyes. “Well, I’m gonna have to give you a field sobriety test, then. Say the alphabet backwards for me.”

“z, y, x… um w, v, u, um, um, then s and r, p, q… aw hell, et cetera, et cetera.”

DuFranc sighed, “Aw ite, then. Imma ax you to take a breathalyzer.” He handed the device to Mark. “You know the drill, Mister Easter,” he said.

Mark complied. DuFranc looked at the digital readout and raised his eyebrows. “Damn, looks like you tellin the truth, Mister Easter. Says point two.”

“Told ya,” Mark said. “I was looking at a light in the sky and didn’t see Gary until too late.”

Charlie shook his head and pulled out his citation pad. “You as bad as these damn kids and they cell phones.” He started writing. “Gonna have to give you a citation for inattentive driving, Mister Easter.”

“Hasn’t anybody else called in about that light?” Mark asked.

“I ain’t heard nothin,” Charlie answered. He turned to Gary. “You see any lights in the sky, Mister Rix?”

Gary, leaning against the crumpled front fender of his truck, arms folded across his chest, looked up at DuFranc with a scowl, and silently shook his head, no.

Back at the station Pete handled a few calls inquiring about strange lights in the sky. “Aircraft,” he said to the callers. “Probably military.” And let it go at that.

A rookie sheriff’s deputy in the department less than six months, Renata Ortega still got daily butt-chewings from her boss. She committed no monumental screw-ups, just new guy… new person stuff. But what the sheriff, and some of her colleagues said smacked at her confidence. That’s why she took extra effort to be more diligent on the job. Took care to gather details to separate facts from fiction. Why she carefully chose how to report her observations.

Hired as the department’s first and only woman deputy, and the youngest, didn’t help. She chalked up the peer derision to that. Tried not to let it hurt her feelings. Hard to win over Good old boy clubs, especially by a twenty-two-year-old rookie.

The sheriff hired her on the recommendation of Jorge Estevez, the general manager of the casino, and a big-time campaign supporter. She was the daughter of an old friend of Jorge’s, and fresh from graduating third in her class with a degree in criminal justice.

So, when Pete the dispatcher’s strange radio call came in, Deputy Ortega started preparing herself mentally for what she’d find when she got to the location.

“Renata, got a call from resident three miles south and one mile west of Highway 58, exit 13 about a disturbance at her place. Woman identifying herself as Olivia Anderson reported bright lights in the night sky over her south pasture.

“An airplane? Helicopter?”

“Yeah, I asked her that, but she insisted it wasn’t. Said it didn’t make no noise, but it put her animals in a panic. Wants us to check it out.”

Recent experience with the boys in the department made Renata suspicious. More ridicule from amongst her peers, and another scornful reproach from Sheriff Bluehorse? This looked like a setup. But setup or not, she’d handle it like a pro.

Renata glanced at the blue light of the digital clock on the unit’s dash; two-fifty in the morning, not yet halfway through her shift.

“Miz Anderson?” Renata backed to the top porch step after she’d knocked. The door swung open halfway. A woman stood holding it, a big damn German shepherd standing beside her. At least she thought it was a German shepherd but bigger, a lot bigger; had a wildness in its amber eyes. The dog gave Renata a vigilant stare, but only threatening in a cool, indifferent way, sort of like a Secret Service agent.

The woman appeared to be in her late sixties; tall and slender, about five nine or ten. Had an athletic look. Still handsome, in a weather-tanned, outdoor-worn sort of way. Sandy-red hair, no gray, cut and shaped in that man-ish style some women liked to wear these days. The deputy wondered if that was the woman’s natural color. In her green flannel shirt and stone-washed jeans didn’t look like she’d been to bed… or perhaps up early? The jean legs covered a pair of pointed-toe boots, gator skin, maybe lizard. Expensive.

“Yes, I’m Olivia Anderson,” the woman answered. Her eyes darted left and right, sending Renata a message of uneasiness.

“I’m Deputy Ortega with the Sheriff’s Department. You called about a disturbance?”

Mrs. Anderson cleared her throat and glanced away. She put her hand on the dog’s head and stroked it. “Well, yes, I did.” A nervous little laugh escaped her. “It all seems over now, and I feel kinda silly. But I tell you, I was more than a little scared when it happened.” She turned her attention to the dog, scratching its jowl. “Weren’t we, boy?” The dog gave her wrist one lick, then back to duty. “Damnedest thing I’ve ever seen. Guess I’ll miss sleeping tonight, too,” the woman said, turning back to the deputy.

“Too? There been other incidents?”

The woman brushed fingers through one side of her hair, looked away. “Well, we… I didn’t sleep much last night, either. Pack of coyotes came after my chickens. Step and I had to stand guard.”

“Tell me what happened tonight,” Ortega said.

“Okay, well…” She came out onto the wide porch and walked left to one end of it. The dog followed, staying between her and the deputy. The light from the living room played onto the porch from the double front windows, giving it a soft yellow glow. Mrs. Anderson gazed toward the pasture, put a hand on the waist-high rail. “It, uh, it was out there over the pasture maybe a quarter mile away. Hard to tell, though; it seemed pretty big.”

“What did, ma’am?”

“The thing… the craft, or whatever it was. Couldn’t see the shape of it, the lights were so bright. Maybe kind of oval or round, I dunno.”

“It was in the field?”

“No, over it, hovering, sort of bobbing a little.”

“How high was it?”

“About two, three hundred feet, I guess.

“Did you hear anything, like a helicopter?”

“No, nothing… well, maybe a low buzz like a swarm of angry hornets. Hard to hear. The horses and the other animals were kicking up such a ruckus, and Step was barking his brains out. I’ve got a meat house out by the barn. Keep cuts in there, a couple of beef quarters. I do some of my own butchering. Refrigeration unit is always humming, but I usually tune that out.”

Renata listened, picked up the hum. “You think that was the buzz you heard?”

“No, this was a different pitch, higher. I was with a medical unit in Vietnam; heard a lot of helicopters. Don’t think it was any kind of helicopter I know about. But, you know, that was forty years ago. Hueys made a lot of racket. Choppers today are a lot quieter, especially military.”

“What did it do after you first saw it?”

“Well, it stayed where it was for a while, then it backed up and move around. Not trying to hide itself. Had those really bright lights. After a minute or so, it lifted slowly, moving faster as it went, then it just disappeared.”

“Did it land?”

“Not while I saw it. Just disappeared.”

Deputy Ortega scratched her nose. “What do you mean, ‘disappeared’?”

“I mean it was there and then it wasn’t. The lights just blinked off, just empty sky.

Renata nodded, doubtful. “Empty sky,” she repeated.

“Yeah.”

“Anybody else in the house see this?”

“I live alone, just me and Step. He saw it, barked at it. I think it scared him. Not much scares Step.”

Ortega looked at the canine. “I can believe that. Step?” The beast looked back impassively; aviator shades the only thing missing.

Olivia turned and smiled. “Yes. I call him Step. Full name’s Steppenwolf. Named him after a band I liked in the Sixties.”

The deputy liked dogs. Wondered if she should reach out to pet this one, but the animal didn’t invite it. “Anything else?”

“Nope, that was about it. Whole thing lasted about ten minutes. Maybe no big deal. Not threatening, but living out here alone, I get a little nervous. I hear stories from other ranchers about rustlers. And I got processed beef. Don’t want anyone stealing that, either. That’s why I called it in.”

“And the previous night, you sure it was just coyotes?”

Olivia nodded. “That’s what we saw.”

Renata sighed, looked at Steppenwolf again. “Okay, Missus Anderson. I’ll go look around your barn and field, but most likely it was an aircraft, probably a helicopter. Distances and lights can fool you at night.”

After Deputy Ortega drove the SUV around the forty-acre pasture for thirty minutes, she concluded whatever aircraft Mrs. Anderson had seen hadn’t landed; the tall grass covering would’ve shown such; no signs of that anywhere, nothing out of the ordinary.

She picked up the mike and keyed it. “Unega HQ, Unit three.”

“Go ahead, Renata,” came Pete’s response.

“Talked to the woman on west county 48 about the disturbance. Appears an aircraft, possibly a helicopter, was flying and hovering over her pasture. I’m headed there to see if I can find anything, but the craft appears to be gone now.”

“Got calls comin in,” Pete came back. “More lights in the sky. One nearest your location is five miles east of you at the old Buchanan place.”

“Sunny Griggs?” Renata groaned into the mike.

“Yep.”

Despite Olivia Anderson’s report, Renata felt the prank. “Okay, I’m about done here. I’ll head over there next.”

She cut diagonally across the pasture, heading to the farthest fenced corner that crossed into a copse of trees.

Deputy Ortega knew Sunny Griggs, an eccentric woman who lived alone on an old farm known as the Buchanan place. People called it that, even though Buck and Gladys had been dead for over ten years.

The sheriff gave Renata a rundown on Griggs following their first encounter. Sunny, the old couple’s only child, inherited the place after they passed on. She’d come to them as a foster child when she was eleven, after her actual parents took up residence in the state prison for failed drug enterprises.

Given Sunflower Delight’s — her legal name — early childhood and sketchy parenting, the Buchanans took in a difficult pre-teen who became a troublesome teenager. But the big-hearted couple persevered with the girl in their strong-valued heartland fashion until she went off to a community college and work in Oklahoma City. She spent a dozen years as a misplaced second-generation hippie ensnared in corporate America. After cutting loose from that, she came back to aid her ailing foster mother, eventually staying on permanently at the old farm.

Somewhere in her thirties, Sunny started calling herself a Wicca, something she discovered on the internet to fill a spiritual void in her life. She and Punch Roundstep had a torrid fling, but that didn’t work out, each being at the opposite end of the compatibility spectrum. Once the passion wore off, neither found a lasting relationship worth the trouble. So now in her late forties she lived alone, if you didn’t count her cats and yard gnomes. Bad enough she called her dozen-odd semi-feral cats her children, but she seemed to think the gnomes had kinship, too. Had more than a dozen of the little concrete statues placed all over her property. She gave them all Hobbit names, and insisted they were spiritually, if not physically, animated.

Her neighbors on bordering land knew her as peculiar, although not the word they used to describe her. She had a few run-ins. Especially with White Oxley, where things appeared more chronically irreconcilable. White commonly referred to her as that “crazy bitch” or “damned ol’ hippie.”

Three months ago, Dispatch sent Deputy Ortega out to the Buchanan place to investigate the murder of a gnome named Samwise. That’s how Sunny had called it in — “I want to report a murder.”

Sunny had placed Samwise at the fence line between her and Oxley’s pastures. She positioned Samwise to always have his stony gaze on White’s shooting range. She hoped the projected feng shui, or whatever, would stop him from firing off his firearms, which upset Sunny… and her cats. The old rancher took exception to Sunny’s and Samwise’s intrusion and blew the goblin’s head off with his vintage lever-action .44 Henry rifle.

The deed proved pre-meditated, cut and dried. Renata even had White’s confession: “You damn right I shot the little sumbitch. Pretty dang good shootin from that distance, too, I’d say.”

Sunny replaced the decedent with another gnome — this one called Adalgrim — and White promptly shot the head off that one, too.

As a long-time friend of the sheriff, and sort of related (White’s sister married the sheriff’s brother), the boss sent his and White’s nephew out to help mediate a settlement.

Faced with two misdemeanor charges for destruction of private property, White grudgingly agreed to pay Sunny for her loss and to cease any further such murdering. However, the incident started a continuing feud between the two neighbors. It became an ongoing topic of conversation among the usual gathering of men at Arlene’s Café, especially when White brought it up, which he often did.

Renata stopped the SUV at the woods’ edge, idling, keeping the headlights on, switching on the high beams. She sat at the wheel, scanning the lit woods with its black background. Nothing she could see, at least into the forty feet the high beams reached. She turned the wheel right and moved forward, lighting up a new section. She couldn’t see the fence row at the back of the trees, so she walked out there with her big Maglite.

Ten yards into her foot advance a light flashed on. Large, blinding, so intense she couldn’t judge its size or distance, but it was beyond the fence line. It rose slowly, silently, with a low hum or buzz. The fall foliage of the trees stirred fitfully. She tried to watch it ascend but had to squint into its glare. It shot off and disappeared. At least, she thought it did; one second it was there, then it wasn’t.

© 2021 by Phil Truman. All rights reserved PTI Publishing Broken Arrow, OK

This is a work of fiction. All persons and events depicted sprang from the mind of the author.

Thanks for taking time to read these chapters. I would welcome and appreciate your comments, pro or con.

Shout outs to : Britni Pepper Liam Ireland Stuart Englander Linda Halladay Dr Jessey Anthony The Garrulous Glaswegian Amanda Walker Terry Mansfield Terry Trueman Carla Woody Teresa Kuhl Karen Madej Bebe Nicholson Roz Warren Tree Langdon Tim Maudlin