The J D Bragg Mystery Series Box Set

by Ron Fisher

  CHAPTER SIX

  As the SportsWord offices are located on Spring Street in Atlanta’s busy midtown, I was surprised when I found a parking space on the curb right in front of the building. Normally, I parked in the bowels of the multi-storied parking garage next door. But then again, I was never in this early.

  Using a key that I almost forgot I had, I entered the unremarkable two-story building and made my way down the darkened hallway, flipping on lights as I went. With my packed bag sitting in the back of the Jeep, my plan was to be there only long enough to do a couple of things to make my absence easier for my editor, Joe Dennis, to accept.

  Joe didn’t care when his writers came or went, as long as they met their deadlines. But the only story I was working on was likely to be as dead as Osama soon, and if I were going away I would need something to hold Dennis over until I could begin earning my meager salary again. Fortunately, I had a sneaky remedy for that. Filed away in my computer were a couple of stories I wrote as emergency backups—and if this wasn’t an emergency, I didn’t know what was.

  I went to my cubicle and sat down at my desk. A quick search of my computer files turned up the two stories I was looking for. The first dealt with major league baseball players who charged money for autographs. The money they made from it was insignificant when compared to their stratospheric salaries, and in my opinion, a petty and classless thing to do to fans, especially the kids. The other piece dealt with the college recruitment of star high-school athletes, and the perks and expenses accrued while touring prospective colleges. Among other things, one father and son racked up over five hundred dollars in hotel mini bar charges alone.

  Polishing the two stories took longer than I’d intended because my mind kept drifting to my grandfather. I had images of him crushed beneath four thousand pounds of vintage Detroit metal. Eventually I wrapped up the stories, reread everything one last time, making a final nip or tuck here or there, and emailed the files to Joe Dennis. Just as I did, he stepped into the doorway of my cubicle.

  “John David,” he said, apparently as surprised to see me, as I was to see him. “You’re in early. I was just going to leave you a note to come see me.”

  “Were you going to explain why you weren’t at the meeting with Burt Lowe yesterday?” I asked.

  He gave me a pained look. “I wanted to be there. But Burt felt that it wasn’t a good idea.”

  I was sure that was true. Burt wanted me to be the lone punching bag in the room. There was no reason to add Joe Dennis or anyone else from SportsWord to Barry Beal’s hit list.

  “Then I guess you’ve got nothing to apologize for,” I said.

  He glanced at me sharply. “I didn’t come here to apologize, but I will, if you think you need it.”

  “Do what you feel like, Joe,” I said.

  “Burt gave you 24 hours to find this woman Beal allegedly assaulted. Is that going to happen?”

  “I doubt it,” I said.

  I didn’t feel like saying anything more about Beal or the girl—or my missing grandfather.

  “Then you’ll drop this thing?” he said.

  “I told him I would.”

  “He didn’t believe you. Maybe I don’t either. Remember, J.D., I stuck my neck out to get you here. Don’t let me down.”

  “I heard. And you have my undying gratitude. I just hope I haven’t broken a rung on your corporate ladder.”

  Joe shook his head slowly. “I don’t deserve that.”

  Maybe he was right. Joe Dennis was my only friend at the magazine.

  “I’m going to be away for a few days on a family matter,” I said. “I’ve got vacation coming, so I thought I’d take it. I emailed you a couple of stories to get you through next week.”

  “Actually, a short vacation could be a good idea,” Dennis said. “Take a few days off, go see your family. Cool down.” He tried to smile and almost succeeded. “I’ll tell Burt you’ve shelved the story,” he said before leaving.

  I sat listening to his footsteps recede. I’d just told my boss, a man who was my friend, a bald-faced lie. The truth was, I wasn’t going to shelve anything. I would find the girl, expose Beal for what he was, and let the story be my apology to Joe Dennis for lying to him.

  My cell phone rang in my pocket. It was my sister.

  “Eloise?” I said.

  “He’s dead, John David.”

  I tried to wrap my mind around her words.

  “What happened?” I finally asked.

  “Somebody shot him last night up on highway 178.”

  She began to cry, and it was a moment before she spoke again.

  When she did, she said, “It was a robbery. Sheriff Bagwell and one of his deputies just told me. They just left. It happened at one of those roadside rest areas, or turnouts, or whatever you call them. They took his watch, wallet, and his camera. Why was he even there?” she asked, more to herself than to me.

  “Do they know who did it?” I asked.

  “Sheriff Bagwell thinks it was probably some meth-head looking to feed a habit, but he doesn’t have anyone in mind yet.”

  “Is Mackenzie still at her friend’s house?”

  “Yes. She doesn’t even know he was missing.”

  I could sense her focusing all her will and strength on the matter, like white cells rushing to an infection.

  “I’m going over to pick her up now,” she said. “I don’t want her hearing about this from anyone else.”

  “I’ll be there as soon as I can,” I said.

  Experience had taught me that the best way to go was to drive. It was cheaper, easier, and just about as quick as flying. Actual flight-time was only an hour and driving time was about three, but by the time I drove to Hartsfield-Jackson Airport, parked in one of the long-term lots and went through the tedious security check, I could be halfway there by car. Also, flying would still leave me forty-five miles from my final destination, depositing me at the Greenville-Spartanburg Airport, which would mean scrambling to arrange transportation for the last leg of the journey. So, I found the freeway and headed north.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Ninety-five miles out of Atlanta on I-85 I crossed over the Lake Hartwell Bridge and left Georgia for South Carolina. I took the first exit onto state highway 11, a rolling two-lane blacktop called the Cherokee Scenic Highway, which cut a northeastern semi-circle through a serene landscape of pine thicket, hardwoods, and hilly pastureland. To the north, the Blue Ridge Mountains climbed one above the other in progressively faded blues to merge with the sky. My destination lay at the foot of the mountains, still about forty miles away. The picturesque view almost made me forget the tragic circumstances that were taking me home. Almost.

  Thirty-eight miles later, I passed over Little Eastatoe Creek just south of its confluence with Big Eastatoe, with Dug Mountain and the western entrance to Eastatoe Valley a half-mile to the north. I thought of the young woman I was trying to find and Barry Beal and wondered if he had begun construction on the golf course. Under different circumstances I would have taken a short detour into the valley and checked it out. However, my sister and more important matters were waiting. Five miles on, I turned left at the intersection with U.S. highway 178, just north of Holly Springs Baptist church. In the rear-view mirror, I could see the tombstones in the church graveyard rising up a hill in neat rows like marble and granite dominoes.

  Among them I knew were the graves of several generations of Braggs: my great-grandmother and great-grandfather, deceased since the fifties; my grandmother, who died of breast cancer before I was born; four great-uncles who were all killed in action in World War II, (Grandfather was the only one of the five Bragg brothers too young to enlist); and next to them, my mother and father.

  I tried to picture my parents and as always, I saw them in black and white, my mom smiling prettily under the dark locks of a seventies hairstyle and my dad with a devilish smile and a kiss-curl, the kind of guy who would carry a pocket comb and never be without a fresh stick o
f gum. It was a memory created by a photograph on a mantle, and over time, had replaced any other mental picture I had of them. Grandfather would soon join them on that hill; the Bragg clan had been reduced to just Eloise, Mackenzie and myself.

  A small private lane appeared ahead on the left and I slowed down and took it. On either side of the narrow gravel driveway, Dogwoods bloomed in clusters of small white crosses against a backdrop of dark green foliage. Honeysuckle vines covered the banks along the driveway, which wound around a stand of ancient cedars to reveal the house. It stood like an aging sentinel over an acre of perpetually well-kept lawn; two stories of neat, white clapboard, with stacked-stone chimneys rising above the gables on either end. The windows, upstairs and down, were braced by green-painted shutters, and a wide porch surrounded the house on three sides. I was impressed again by the beauty and peacefulness of the place. Every time I came home on one of my infrequent visits, it was as if I’d never been there before. When I was younger, I guess I’d taken the place so much for granted that I never really saw it. It’s strange how time and distance can sharpen your vision.

  The house sat on land that had been in our family since the late 1700’s; the property consisted of the original two hundred acres acquired by bounty land grant. The grantee, a discharged colonial soldier named William Bragg, who ended his military service in the Carolinas, and with no family, prospects, or reasons to return to his native Maryland, stayed.

  Locals knew the Bragg home-place as “Still Hollow,” not because of the peaceful and serene setting—which was a fitting description—but because several generations of Braggs were notorious bootleggers, with a moonshine still always working in some remote hollow.

  The infamous family business ended with the death of my great-grandfather, whom I never knew, but from all I heard, was truly a rascal. A gambler, hell-raiser, and staunch combatant of revenuers, he was said to be a man quick to put birdshot in a rear end if someone got on his wrong side. When he passed away, my grandfather inherited the place, and set out to cleanse the Bragg reputation. But a history of scalawags lay only one generation back, and it seemed like the specter of that reputation made Grandfather try to raise my father, his only son, and then my sister and me, like novices for the seminary. It didn’t work, at least not in my case.

  The drive made a circle in front of the house. I stopped by the steps and killed the engine. Eloise came out and down the steps to meet me with a silent hug, her tears warming my neck.

  “Oh, John David,” she finally said, “I feel so misplaced. It’s like the whole world turned upside down and dumped me out.”

  We held each other tightly. “I know, sis, I know.” It was all I could think of to say.

  “What did we do to deserve this?” she asked, defeat in her eyes.

  I knew she was talking about all of it, not just Grandfather; the accumulated sadness of her life: the devastating loss of our mother and father that made sudden orphans of us as children; the addiction that overwhelmed her husband, Billy, and threatened to destroy both of them; and finally, the tragedy of Billy’s premature death. I knew of no answer that would console her.

  I threw my bag over a shoulder and led her inside. I asked about Mackenzie, wondering how Eloise’s 15-year-old daughter took the news.

  “When I picked her up from her sleep-over,” Eloise said, “she was so cheerful and happy. She was still giggling about something silly her friend did. It was hard to watch her go from such a high to absolute rock bottom in seconds.”

  “Where is she now?”

  “Holed up in her bedroom with the phone unplugged. The calls have been too much. Most of them have been from people who just want to express their sympathy—but the Greenville newspaper and the TV stations have been simply ghoulish in their curiosity.”

  I wondered if Eloise realized that had it been some other prominent man who was murdered, and someone else’s grieving family answering the calls, then most likely, Grandfather would have been one of the callers.

  “Mackenzie was too young to remember Billy dying,” Eloise went on, “so this is really her first experience with the death of someone she loves.” My sister looked at me, her eyes searching mine. “But we know it doesn’t get any easier no matter how many we go through, don’t we?” she said.

  “No it doesn’t,” I said, knowing that was a lie. The death of our parents was by far the toughest for me. Billy, I never liked, and while his death was tragic, it may have been a blessing for Eloise and Mackenzie. And Grandfather? Beyond the anger I felt at whoever killed him, I wasn’t sure how I was taking his death yet. Everything was happening so fast that I subconsciously placed that on a shelf, to be dealt with at a later time.

  “Let’s go sit on the porch,” I said to Eloise. “It’s nice out, and we can talk without waking Mackenzie.”

  We went back out and sat on the porch swing.

  “Are there any new developments?” I asked.

  “I don’t know any more than I did this morning,” she said. “When I heard a car coming up the drive, I ran out, thinking it was Granddad. But it was Sheriff Arlen Bagwell. When he got out of the car, I could tell by the look on his face what kind of news he was bringing.”

  A small gray rabbit emerged from the row of junipers at the edge of the yard and froze in place as it sensed our presence on the porch. We both stopped and watched it decide whether to advance or retreat. After a moment, it made a leisurely hop back into the shrubbery.

  Eloise continued, “Arlen said it happened sometime last night. I guess they’ll know a more exact time when the coroner makes his report. They found Granddad up on Highway 178 early this morning, not far from here, at that turnout just this side of the intersection with Cleo Chapman highway.”

  The turnout she was referring to was one of a number of short loops of tarmac and gravel built at intervals along the shoulder of the two-lane mountainous highway as it wound like a drunken snake into North Carolina. These turnouts allowed slower vehicles to pull over, so faster ones could pass. Some had a picnic table and garbage barrel for roadside picnics.

  “His camera was the most valuable thing they took,” Eloise was saying. “He never carried much cash money on him, his cell phone was old and outdated, and his watch was inexpensive. But you know how he was about photography. Only the best equipment was good enough. This camera was a fancy digital model and was almost new.”

  I thought of Grandfather’s photography, his hobby for many years. Beyond the shots he took for work, he liked to photograph the beauty of the local landscape. One whole wall of the den was covered with his photos, and while not quite Ansel Adams, they weren’t bad.

  “He kept the camera in a shoulder bag filled with lenses and filters and stuff,” Eloise continued. “They took all of it. I gave Arlen serial numbers in case any of it turns up.” Her eyes misted over again and she said, “How could those things be worth a man’s life, John David?”

  Out on the lawn, a couple of yellow butterflies wobbled aimlessly in and out of the tree-shaped shadows. It was far too idyllic a backdrop for the contemplation of such an unanswerable question.

  “What was he doing up there?” she asked again. “He had to pass right by here to get there, so why didn’t he just come home?”

  “Is there a garage or service station nearby where he takes the Cadillac for service?” I asked.

  “Yes,” she said, with some curiosity. “Grady Morton’s Garage. On highway 178, just this side of where they found him. Why do you ask?”

  I told her about the pneumatic wrench sound I heard in the background of Grandfather’s voicemail, and how I thought he might have called from a garage or service station.

  “Maybe someone followed him from there—and what do they call it—carjacked him? Shouldn’t we tell the sheriff about this, John David?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I’ll do it.”

  She had another question. “You said Granddad was helping you locate some woman for a story you’re working on. Could she
be the reason he was up there?”

  “It’s a possibility,” I said. “In Grandfather’s voicemail, he said he had a line on her.”

  “Why were you trying to find her?”

  I told her what I thought Barry Beal did to the woman. “I need to get her to attest to the assault,” I said, “or I don’t have a story and Beal gets away with it.”

  “What an awful man,” Eloise responded.

  She would get no argument from me on that.

  “This happened in Atlanta?” she asked. “Then how did you know to look for this woman in Pickens County?”

  “Following a lead,” I said. “She may live here and work with Barry Beal on a golf course community he’s planning for Eastatoe Valley.”

  “They’re going to build a golf course in Eastatoe Valley? And you told Granddad this?”

  “Yes I did.”

  “I’ll bet that lit his burners,” she said.

  “It’s probably the only reason he agreed to help me. An environmental menace to the local landscape would certainly attract him more than any plea for help from his only grandson.” I regretted saying that the moment it came out; the hurt in Eloise’s eyes was obvious. “I’m sorry, Eloise,” I said, even though I’d spoken the truth as I saw it. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

  “John David, this trouble between you and Granddad, shouldn’t it finally be over?”

  She started to say more, but stopped. I was relieved, as I didn’t know how to answer her. The rift between Grandfather and I was an old subject—years old—and one I’d never explained or even discussed with her—and I knew, neither had Grandfather. All I knew was that he was gone, but the bitterness within me was still present. Unfortunately, any chance to ever resolve our problems face-to-face died with him. Both this and his death were tragedies that I needed to deal with, but until I did, I had no answers for anyone, myself included.