Adios Angel (2 page)

“Sheriff Hanks!”

Helen Nazelrod’s crisp hushed voice sounded
unnaturally urgent.  The wheels of Sheriff Zeb Hanks’ chair sent a piercing
squeak through the air as he scooted across the worn hardwood floor.  Through
his half-open office door he peered over the top of his reading glasses toward
his secretary’s desk.     

“What?”  Sheriff Hanks silently mouthed the question. 
His eyebrows rose inquisitively.

The veins on the back of Helen’s hand bulged bright
blue as she squeezed the phone.  Covering the mouthpiece, she kept the receiver
tight against her ear.  Her whispered utterance was a desperate response. 

“Bomb threat.  The high school.  Line one.  What
should I do?”

Gesturing, the sheriff calmly issued unspoken orders
that said, “Keep him talking.  I’ll get on my extension.”  Sheriff Hanks moved
quickly to the phone, and picked it up with extreme caution.

“I place bomb in gym--under bleachers--on other team
side.” 

The accent was Hispanic with an underlying hint of
Mescalero Apache, or perhaps mixed Spanish and Apache.  Zeb suspected the voice
to be at least part that of the Mescalero, the nomads of the Apache family.  He
had some contact with the few Mescalero in the area.  Their voices were
distinct enough, but it was hard to be certain. Maybe Helen could confirm this
from her church work on the reservation.  The slurred speech suggested fear or
anxiety. It was apparent he had been in the gym before.

“Could you tell us exactly where you placed the bomb?”
asked Helen.  “We don’t want any of the children to get hurt.”

Helen was cool, logical under fire.

“No one ges hurt if you ges everyone out of building.”

“What sort of bomb is it?”

The man on the other end of the line paused.  His
hesitancy sent a bullet of anxiety zinging through the sheriff’s heart. Helen
kept cool.

“The bomb.  Please tell me about the bomb.”

“It jes a bomb. Thas all I know. Nothing else I know. 
Now go get bomb before someone ges hurt.  It’s go off at nine o’clock on
button.  Now jes’ go get it.  That’s all I say.  Apúrate!  Hurry!”

“Please tell me what the bomb looks like.  That way we
can find it faster,” said Helen.

“It jes look like bomb.”

“But I’ve never seen one.”

“Is red,” said the caller.

“Like dynamite?”

“Sí, sí, like dynamite.  Now, please, go get it.”

The man’s pleading voice sounded near tears.

“Okay.  But could you…”     

The receiver on the other end rattled clumsily.  A
blast of static shot down the line and the phone signal died.

“Did you recognize the voice?” asked the sheriff.

Helen’s response was terse. “No, I did not.”

“Call the principal’s office.  Have them start
evacuating immediately.  Move everyone away from the school. Far away from the
gym.  Call Delbert on the two-way. Have him meet Kate and me at the school. 
Get the fire department and the EMT’s up there ASAP.  Call Josh Diamond. Tell
him to bring his dogs.  He’ll be at his gun shop.”

“Anything else?”

“Pray the bomb threat is just a bad prank.  Pray real
hard.”

Helen was already dialing the school’s number as the
sheriff barked out the orders.

“What’s going on?  Did I hear bomb threat?” asked
Deputy Kate Steele.

“You heard right, Deputy.  Let’s move it.  The target
is the high school.  The device is allegedly under the bleachers on the
visitor’s side of the gym.  It’s set to go off at nine.”

With sirens blaring and lights flashing the usual
three minute trip to the school took less than half that.  Sheriff Hanks was
surprised to see what appeared to be most of the student body milling about on
the football field, away from the gym just as he had ordered.

Principal Newlin, obviously panic stricken, raced
toward the sheriff’s car shouting. “We’ve just about got everyone evacuated. 
What do you need me to do?”     

Zeb eyed the newly hired administrator. She didn’t
look a day over twenty-five.  But these days everyone seemed younger.  Everyone
except him.  Her accent, pale complexion and blonde hair spoke of an outsider
from the Midwest--Iowa, perhaps Minnesota.  He thought of how everyone,
everything was changing. 

“Should I call the school bus company?  Have them take
everyone home?”

“Just sit tight,” assured Sheriff Hanks.  “Keep
everyone on the far end of the football field.  We will go in and check this
thing out.  Make sure no one goes near the school buildings.  Try to keep
everyone calm.”

“Sheriff, are you sure everything is going to be
okay?”

It was a ridiculously absurd question, but she was
young and youth wore ignorance like a tightly fitting glove.  He could offer no
such assurances.

“Keep your fingers crossed.  Whisper a little prayer
for us.”

“I already am, Sheriff.  Please save the school.”

He was thinking buildings can be replaced.

“Are the bleachers up or down?”

“They are down all the way.  We had an assembly
scheduled for nine this morning.”

Deputy Steele and Sheriff Hanks exchanged a glance. 
The same horrible thought collectively passed through their minds.  Maybe the
idea was to kill and injure a whole lot of children.

“Miss Newlin, a man with two dogs will be arriving any
minute.  Direct him to the gym through the front door.  Tell him to double time
it.  Advise him that three of us are already in the building.”

Principal Newlin’s ashen face inferred a woman on the
verge of shock.  Sheriff Hanks grabbed her by the shoulders.

“Do you understand me?”

“Yes.  Yes, I know what to do.”

Deputy Delbert Funke stood by the front door. The
lumbering man directed the last of the school kids out of the building as
Sheriff Hanks and Deputy Steele raced around the corner.

“Why would somebody want to blow up the gym, Sheriff?”

“How did you know the bomb was in the gym?”

“Some teachers said everybody was ordered to get out
of the gym first, the rest of the rooms after that.  I just figured…”

“We got a threat around eight thirty-five saying a
bomb was set to go off at exactly nine.  The caller said it was under the bleachers
in the visitor’s section.”

“Jiminy cripes,” said Delbert pointing to a large
clock in the hallway.   “We only got about thirteen minutes.”       

“The bleachers are down. Hopefully the lights in the
auditorium are on.”

“If they’re not, I know how to turn ‘em on,” said
Delbert.  “I used to help the janitor sweep the floor during the summers.”

“Use your flashlights to check in the corners.  Deputy
Steele, you enter at the west end doorway, under the time clock.  Stay toward
the front of the bleachers.   Deputy Funke, you go under the bleachers in the
middle by the scorer’s table and go along the back wall.  I’ll enter by the
east end and go down the middle of the bleachers.  We’ll do two quick sweeps,
one up and one back.  Make certain nothing is taped up underneath the seats. 
Give the bottom bleacher a real close look-see.  Check every corner closely. 
Got that?”

“Yes, sir,” replied the junior officers.

“If we find nothing on two sweeps, check the time.  If
we have time, we will sweep the home side of the gym in exactly the same
fashion.  If we find nothing, exit the building at two minutes of nine.  Two
minutes before nine.  Got it?”

Once again in unison the law officers replied in the
affirmative.

The bright lights, turned on for the assembly, gave
clear visibility throughout the gym.  Sheriff Hanks’ heart pounded with anxiety
as he led his team under the bleachers.  Two trips under the opposing team’s
bleacher section took six minutes.  The results were negative.

“Clean as a whistle,” said Delbert.  “Not even a dust
bunny.”

“Nothing harmful visualized,” reported Kate.

“Let’s check the other side and hope we have the same
luck.  Keep your fingers crossed this is just somebody’s idea of a bad joke.”

Josh Diamond’s silhouette in the doorway cast a sinewy
shadow.  At his side a pair of highly trained bloodhounds attentively awaited
his signal.

“Sheriff Hanks,” said Josh.  “What sort of device are
we looking for?”

“We’re looking for a bomb with a timing device.  We
don’t know the size or type.  It might be dynamite.  It’s allegedly set to go
off at nine.” He used a single finger to outline the already searched area. 
“We’ve completed a visual inspection of the visitor’s side.” 

Sheriff Hanks’ words echoed eerily off the tall
ceiling of the empty gymnasium as somewhere off in a distant part of the
building a phone began to ring.

“Take your dogs and search the area where we’ve just
been.  You’ve got three minutes.  If you get nothing, you have another two
minutes on this side.  We are all out of here at eight fifty-eight.”

Josh’s hand signals set the bloodhounds into action. 
With great precision the precisely trained animals went into search mode.  As
the clock above the scoreboard ticked away five fast minutes, nothing
resembling a bomb was evident.

“Everyone out.   Move it.  Now!” shouted Sheriff Zeb
Hanks. 

Safely away from the building the quartet formed a
semi-circle facing the school.  The dogs, with their noses in the air, sat by
their master’s side.  Josh pulled a pack of gum from his pocket offering a
piece to the others.   Delbert took one.  The others declined.    

“Ten to one it was a crank call.  Some pissed off kid
getting his jollies,” said Josh.

“I bet you’re right.  I bet it was a prank.  When I
was in high school, we’d pull the fire alarm just to get a little time off. 
Kids these days got a weird idea of humor, that’s for sure,” said Delbert.

“What’s the plan, Sheriff?” asked Kate.

“We wait.  If there is a timer on the bomb, most
likely its next click through will be at quarter after the hour.  Right, Josh?”

“If there is a bomb, that would be the most likely
scenario.  If there was one, Mutt and Jeff would have found it.  There is no
bomb in the gym.”

“They are true professionals,” he said, giving each
dog a treat.  “Nothing escapes their sense of smell.”

“I’m inclined to agree with you.  Let’s give it
fifteen minutes.  Then we will give the building an additional once over,”
added the sheriff.  “Deputy Steele, would you go inform the principal that we
are going to do a building search?  With the dogs, it shouldn’t take more than
an hour.  Have her hold tight.  No sense sending the kids home for nothing.”

“How’d ya’ come up with names like Mutt and Jeff for
your dogs?” asked Delbert.

Josh Diamond chuckled, patting the dogs on their heads
and tickling their ears.

“When they were pups they were exploring around at my
store, like young dogs do and they came across a case of Bazooka Joe
Bubblegum.”

“Mutt and Jeff. You mean those cartoon guys inside the
gum wrapper?”

“That’s right.  The little fellas, at least they were
little fellers back then, started in on that gum. The next thing you know they
were chewing away.  Funniest damn thing I’ve ever seen a dog do.”

Delbert slapped his knee.  His body spasmed with
uncontrollable laughter.

“Dang, I’da paid a whole week’s worth of wages to see
that one.  They were okay, weren’t they?  I mean they didn’t get sick from it,
did they?”

“They were none the worse.  I would like to think they
were a little smarter for the experience.”

“Don’t that beat all?  Dogs chewing gum.  Well, I
betcha you couldn’t hardly teach a dog to do that if you tried, now could ya?”

Sheriff Hanks stared at the low hanging, sparse clouds
over the northwestern horizon of the morning sky.  Behind the clouds the peaks
of Mount Graham were beginning to reveal the stable unchanging nature of a
mountain.  The scene calmed him.  Something told him they would find nothing--there
would be no explosion.  Everything about the call pointed in a single
direction.  Somebody, a disgruntled student, a sick practical joker, had wasted
his time, his deputies’ time and that of hundreds of children and their
teachers.  God, as they say, was probably the only one who knew why.  Sheriff
Hanks glanced at his watch.  Nine-sixteen.

“Let’s go back in and have another look around.  Let’s
be thorough but make quick work of it.  Josh, I imagine you have a plan
already?”

“Yes, sir, I do.  I’ll take the dogs and one of the
deputies.  We will do the first floor.  You and the other deputy do the second
floor.  Then we will double back and check each other’s work.  We will finish
up with the locker rooms.”

“Deputy Funke, come with me,” ordered the sheriff. 
“Deputy Steele, you go with Josh.”