Skull Smashers

“What big mysteries will pop out of the woods in this sleepy burg this morning into my adventure-filled life? Police Chief Arley Socket asked sarcastically, as he slowly sipped his second cup of black coffee in Joe’s Cafe, ready for another eventless day in the tiny backwater of Jericho, Arkansas.  

           “Will gas cans mysteriously disappear from Harley Johnsonian’s garage or can I expect a call from that crotchety Mrs. Mumford in a panic because her cat Paulie has climbed to the highest branch of her oak tree and refuses to come down?”

        Just as the chief began to page through this week’s edition of The Morning Call, substitute deputy Rawley Hartnett breathlessly rushed in and bellowed in Socket’s face, “Come quick. You gotta rush up to Pa Jones’ cornfield.”

      “Calm down Rawley. Did one of Pa’s cows escape from the barn again?”

       The color had drained from the deputy’s face and he shook so hard it looked like his hat would fall off his head.  So Arley hopped into his patrol car and tore out of town with Hartnett in the shotgun seat with the siren blaring and the emergency lights flashing.

       They raced across Jones’ field, and the chief slammed on his brakes, almost knocking his second-in-command through the windshield.

       “Pa Jones came runnin’ into headquarter this morning and dragged me away from breakfast to show me this,” Rawley said.

       Socket looked down and saw a two-foot wide gaping hole dug about six feet into the earth. A headless corpse laid at the bottom of the freshly-dug grave.

       Pa Jones ran up, out of breath with large beads of sweat dripping from his forehead.

     “Came out this morning to begin pickin’ the corn and found this,” he shouted. “I had supper after working in the fields all day and spent most of last night watchin’ the livestream of the Razorbacks game and settled in for a nice peaceful night’s sleep like every other Thursday. Then I comes out all set for another back-breakin’ day and finds this.”

       The chief threw a few shovelfuls of dirt to the side and uncovered what looked like some type of diary buried next to the corpse. The entries seemed written in a foreign language, like German or French.

        “Have any strangers come out to your place in the last week?” Arley asked. “Heard a number of evangelists recently passed through town on the way to some type of convention in Little Rock.”

           “Come to think of it,” the farmer said, “two fellas did stop by my place two nights ago. Guess they were lookin’ for a hotel to stay overnight on their way to a religious meeting at the other end of the state.  I couldn’t make out a lot of what they said because they spoke with accents. Sounded like German to me. Told them about the Trendways Motel just outside of town. They left in kinda a hurry, but they was talkin’ kinda loud to each other. May have been arguin’.”

         The chief and his deputy then got back into the patrol car and headed for the motel.

         Desk Clerk Harry Jamison, told them three men who planned to stay overnight on their way to a church-type gathering had checked in two nights before. He said they spoke English broken up by German and the guy who looked like he headed the group signed in as Hans Rudolphin.

        “Sounded to me like they was really ticked off at the third guy and they nearly got into a fist fight. Almost had to throw them outta my lobby. Looked like they wanted the third guy to give them some type of book, possibly a diary or journal. Once they got their room key they rushed outta the lobby.  After they left, I saw they had dropped a book and I paged through it before runnin’ after them to try and return it. I used to teach German part-time in another town before comin’ here, so I could make out some of the writing in the book.”

       The chief showed the clerk the book found at the grave site and Jamison said it looked just just like the one the guests had fought over. 

       He said the writings hinted at a 100-year-old feud between the Rudolphin and Friedakendolf families. The poisoned relations had passed from one generation to the next and they believed that ancient curses had followed them to the New World.

    “From the little I could make out, according to legend, the life of the top-achieving male in the Rudolphin line in every second decade since the Middle Age battles had suddenly run into a brick wall of failure,” the clerk said.

       According to the journal, Johann Rudolphin, one of the heads of the original clan, had angered Angelica Friedakendolf, a revered soothsayer. She promised her vengeance would block the path to success for every top-achieving male Rudolphin family member every 20 years.  

      Jamison added “Two of the travelers raced out in the middle of the night without paying their  bill. I chased them to try and collect and It looked like they threw a big leather bag into their pickup.  It coulda been large enough to carry a corpse and they had trouble loading it. When I caught up to them they paid me what they owed. They said they would continue on their way to get to the religious convention early the next day.  According to them, the bag contained articles for presentations at their meetings. They also said they needed to stop for gas and asked me about the nearest service station in the area.”

           The clerk told them that Sam Johnsonian operated the only service station within 10 miles, so he guessed that’s where they headed. The chief and his deputy made Johnsonian’s their next stop.

             “Sure, they stopped here, filled up and asked for directions,” Sam said. “They then headed off in the direction of the Jones farm.”

             Just as the sun came up Harley and Rawley headed back to the Jones farm, where they discovered tire tracks leading across the cornfield to the grave site. Both Johnsonian and Jones confirmed that the tire marks matched those on the truck the pair who had stayed at the motel had driven.

           Hawley put out an all points bulletin on the truck and, It turned out, the sheriff in Jaxsonville, the town just north of Jericho, had spotted two men throwing a large package out of the back of a pickup and had pulled them over. 

          “Saw somethin’ roll out of the package,” the sheriff said. “When I opened it I almost fell over. A human head fell out.”