The J D Bragg Mystery Series Box Set

by Ron Fisher

  I noticed Darla looking at me, a slight curl at the corners of her mouth.

  “What?” I said.

  “How about me buying you lunch tomorrow as a way of saying thanks. I’ll show you what I look like in the daylight.”

  “A rain check maybe? I’ve got things to do tomorrow.”

  She stuck out her lip. “Promise to call me?” she said.

  I didn’t promise, but I did take her number. Maybe I’d see her again just to stir Bobby Paige’s pot.

  The curl was at the corner of her mouth again.

  “I was going to make the invite for breakfast,” she said. “At my place. But I chickened out.” She got up and left without looking back, waving goodbye over her shoulder with a waggle of fingers.

  I sat and watched her walk away. Maybe I couldn’t read the dates on the nickels in her jeans like the song said, but it sure would be entertaining to try. Maybe Kelly Mayfield was right about me, having the thoughts I was having only a day after a death in the family.

  In the parking lot I heard a step behind me, and something cold and hard pressed against the back of my neck, followed by the distinctive metallic click of the cock of a hammer.

  “Where you going, motherfucker?” Bobby Paige said.

  “Home to bed?” I said.

  “I don’t think so. Turn around, asshole.”

  I did, and found Tommy and Nick standing behind him. Sweat beaded on Tommy’s upper lip, although it was a cool night. Neither he nor Nick would meet my eyes. Paige pointed the gun at my navel and held it there.

  “Okay Paige, you’ve had your fun,” I said. “You’ve scared me. So, what do you say we call it a night?”

  “This ain’t over until I say it’s over.”

  “You’re not related to Yogi Berra are you?” I said.

  “What?”

  “Never mind.”

  “You think I won’t blow your ass off the planet?”

  “Come on Bobby,” Nick said behind him. “Let’s just fuck him up some, then boogie.”

  “Shut the fuck up, Nick.” Paige said.

  “Okay Bobby,” I said. “You’re not going to shoot anybody for having a drink with your ex-girlfriend. You’re not that crazy,” I added, sincerely hoping I was right. “Now let’s stop this before that thing accidentally goes off.”

  There was a flicker of something in his eyes that I didn’t recognize, and I gave him a second look. There seemed to be more to this than just the girl.

  “Go back to Atlanta, hotshot,” he said. “I don’t want to see you around here again. And believe me, you don’t want to see me either.”

  Paige turned to walk away, then took a step back and hit me in that soft place just below the sternum, hard enough to knock the air out of my lungs and send me to my hands and knees to make sounds like a drinking straw that just hit the bottom of the cup. While gasping for air, I tried to remember if I mentioned to anyone in the Silver Dollar that I was from Atlanta. I didn’t.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  “What’s wrong with your voice?” Eloise asked. She was sitting in the den reading when I returned to Still Hollow. I suspected she was waiting up for me.

  “Hay fever,” I said, hoping she wouldn’t notice the red marks on my throat that went with the hoarseness. I didn’t feel like explaining my fight with Bobby Paige right now. In fact, I didn’t know if I really could. The whole thing was wrong somehow.

  I gave her the copy of the will Hagood gave me. She sat and read it while I took a chair next to her and ate a bowl of beef stew I warmed up from the fridge. The fact that Grandfather left everything to me didn’t seem to surprise her. She actually seemed to understand it, which was more than I could claim. Her confidence in me to do the right thing was a weight almost too heavy to bear.

  I filled her in on the money we owed, and she took everything with the same calm demeanor, listening quietly as if nothing fazed her, and with absolute faith that I’d work it all out. I asked her about any insurance policies that Grandfather may have. She went into the den and came back with a policy for $100,000, which could prove to be a lifesaver. With that we might be able to pay the interest on the loans and roll them over, giving us time to sell the Clarion. The rest we could use for living expenses for Eloise and Mackenzie until the sale.

  I told her about stopping by the Clarion and finding a scratchpad on Grandfather’s desk where he’d written down a list of hotels in the area. I showed it to her and asked if she had any idea why he would have done that.

  She chuckled. “So you can still read his handwriting? I’m amazed. Remember all that time we spent as kids decoding it like a couple of spies?”

  “Yeah, I thought about that when I was trying to decipher it,” I said.

  “But hotels?” she said. “I don’t know, unless he was writing a story about them, or recommending one to somebody.”

  “What about the letters WS, do they mean anything to you?”

  I waited as she gave it some thought. “I’m drawing a blank there too,” she said. “What’s this all about? You sound like you think it’s important somehow.”

  “I’m just trying to find out how he got such a quick lead on this woman Barry Beal assaulted. I still need to find her.”

  She looked at me for a moment, but didn’t comment on that. Instead she asked, “What were you doing at the paper in the first place?”

  “I was gathering the documents we’ll need for the lawyers and accountants in order to sell it,” I said. “I met Kelly Mayfield. She wasn’t too happy with me, or the reason I was there. You’re probably going to hear from her.”

  “Oh my God,” she said. “I was so wrapped up in Granddad’s death when you brought up selling the paper that I wasn’t thinking about what it would do to her. I want her involved in whatever we do, John David. Will you promise me that?”

  “Of course Eloise. Nothing will happen without her knowledge,” I said, and wondered if that was a promise I could keep. “By the way, I learned that Cecil Hood died.”

  Eloise cast me a sharp look.

  “Granddad ran the story on the front page. You didn’t see it?”

  “I guess I missed it,” I said.

  “I didn’t tell her that I let my subscription to the Clarion expire long ago. Eloise would look upon that as a treasonable act. Grandfather would have too, but if he had known, he obviously didn’t tell her.

  “Mr. Hood fell out of his barn loft and landed on a tiller, or a set of harrows, or something like that,” Eloise said. “Whatever it was had sharp blades, and he hit them headfirst, cleaving his head open. His body lay on the thing for at least a day before anyone found him.”

  “That’s terrible,” I said.

  “It really hit Granddad hard. He loved Mr. Hood. They could sit and talk about the old days for hours—about the times before the old mountain people died out or moved away. Before anybody even thought of damming up the rivers into lakes and building million dollar homes on the shores.” Eloise sighed. “Just two old men grumbling about what once was, and what nobody else but them gave a tinker’s damn about.” She blew her nose on a crumpled tissue from her pocket. “Now they’re both gone.”

  “Did you know Mr. Hood had a son?” I asked.

  “I knew it, but I never met him. I think he’d already left home when we came to live with Granddad. Mr. Hood’s wife died years ago,” she said, “and I think they lost a daughter way back, too. I have the impression that the son was sort of the black sheep of the family. Granddad said Mr. Hood rarely talked about him.”

  I told her about the microfilm newspaper article I read about him—his conviction for murder and criminal history—and said I could see why Mr. Hood didn’t speak of him. I sat pulling up old memories of Cecil Hood. One especially, came to mind. My old friend Bucky Streeter and I spent a lot of time one summer fishing the stretch of Eastatoe River that bordered Mr. Hood’s property. When Hood’s watermelons came in, we would sneak into his patch and nip a ripe melon or two, submerge t
hem in the icy waters of the stream until they were cool, then eat the hearts out of them along the creek bank, the illicit nature of the act making them taste all the sweeter.

  We prided ourselves on our stealth and cunning and repeated the larcenous act a number of times, thinking that Mr. Hood was never the wiser. So it came as a surprise to learn that he knew about our thievery all along, and had told Grandfather about it. But Mr. Hood made him promise not to punish me, saying that one of the reasons he grew watermelons was so boys could steal them. I had liked Cecil Hood, and was sorry to hear that the old man had gone in such a dreadful way.

  My thoughts turned to his farm. It was at least two hundred acres, if I remembered correctly, and practically the center-cut of Eastatoe valley. This meant it would be a necessary ingredient for anyone planning to build a golf course there.

  “So, Mr. Hood was still living on his farm when he died?” I asked. “I thought with Barry Beal’s plans for the valley, Mr. Hood would have sold the place some time ago.”

  “I think he almost did,” Eloise said. “I know Mr. Hood was offered a lot of money for it, and went as far as signing an option contract, but then changed his mind.”

  “How do you know all that?” I asked.

  “Because I heard Mr. Hood tell Granddad, right out there on the front porch. It was the last time he came to visit. He said with the money they were offering, he could afford to buy a place anywhere he wanted, put a rocking chair on the porch, and put his feet up for the rest of his life. But after thinking about it for several of months, he realized that he was already living exactly where he wanted to spend the rest of his life. He returned their honest money along with the news that he wasn’t selling, and they threatened to sue him. He told us he was planning to get a lawyer and fight them. He said he was born on that old patch of land, and that’s where he would die. He said anybody wanting to get their hands on his farm would just have to wait until after he was gone.”

  She stared vacantly out at the lawn for a minute, and then added, “Two weeks later Mr. Hood was dead.”

  I had a sudden, disturbing thought.

  “Maybe he didn’t fall out of that barn,” I said. “Maybe he was pushed.”

  The look of incredulity on my sister’s face told me exactly what she thought of that idea.

  “What on earth are you talking about, John David?” she said. “It was an accident.”

  “Who says? Was there an eyewitness?”

  “No, but Sheriff Arlen Bagwell, and the coroner—”

  “You don’t think they can be wrong?”

  “Why would someone kill poor old Mr. Hood?” she said.

  “For his land, Eloise,” I said. “Somebody just killed Grandfather for a camera and pocket change. If there’s a big development going into Eastatoe Valley, then Cecil Hood’s farm could be worth a ton.”

  The lengths the human species would go to for monetary gain was just not a part of my good sister’s psyche. I, on the other hand was capable of darker, more suspicions thoughts.

  My sister was shaking her head, still showing disbelief.

  “Who'd do something so terrible, John David?”

  “I'd start with who has the most to gain. A company called Red Hills Development . . . or even Mr. Hood’s son Carl. Did Mr. Hood say who he was dealing with in all this?” I asked.

  “I didn’t hear that,” she said, “but he may have told Granddad. It was cold out on the porch and I came inside and left them talking.”

  “There’s a coincidental chain of events here, Eloise, that can’t be ignored.”

  I spelled it out for her: “Developers wanted Mr. Hood’s farm; Hood wouldn’t sell. Hood dies; developers get the land. Hood’s son Carl—with a resume for murder—gets rich.”

  Another thought hit me like an oncoming train.

  “Without climbing too far out on a conjectural limb,” I said, “I could take this chain of events to an even more sinister conclusion. I could see Grandfather thinking the same thing I’m thinking, and saying it to the wrong person. A person who would kill him before he had a chance to tell anyone else.”

  Eloise sat staring at me with wide eyes.

  Finally, she said, “Are you saying Sheriff Bagwell is wrong, and Granddad’s murder wasn’t because of a robbery?

  There wasn't a single shred of evidence to prove what I was thinking. But that didn't stop me thinking it. My gut instinct didn’t always listen to the facts.

  “I’m just saying it’s possible. That’s all.”

  “Shouldn’t we tell Sheriff Bagwell about this?” she said.

  “It’s too early to cry wolf, Eloise. Everything I said is just conjecture. Pure speculation. Anyway, I don’t think Sheriff Bagwell would listen. He seems to have his mind made up about things.”

  “Then what do we do, John David?”

  “We don't do anything. I do. I'm going to backtrack Grandfather’s steps on the day he died and find out how he found my missing woman so quickly. Then I will try to get her to confirm Barry Beal’s assault on her, and tell the world. I can’t let that guy get away with it. If I come across anything that proves Grandfather's murder was connected in any way to Cecil Hood's death—then I'll talk to Sheriff Bagwell.”

  Eloise was staring at me again.

  “But, John David,” she said, “if you go walking in Granddad's steps, how do you know that what happened to him won't happen to you? This scares me, little brother.”

  I thought of Bobby Paige’s threats and the white Dodge Ram pickup following me. Did my sister have a point?

  After Eloise went to bed, I sat at Grandfather’s desk computer and searched the Pickens County “Online Tax Search and Pay” site. I entered the name “Paige” and clicked “search all properties.” I came up with a Robert L. Paige, 215 Ridgeland Circle, Pickens. As there was only one Robert listed, the odds were good that this was my Bobby boy.

  The record showed he pays taxes on his home and one vehicle—a 2012 Ford F15—not a Dodge Ram pickup. A Dodge Ram looks nothing like a Ford F15, so unless he had another truck that he wasn’t paying taxes on, Bobby Paige wasn’t the one tailing me. But this didn’t explain why he was trying to run me out of town. Maybe I should find out what Carl Hood drove—and if he and Paige knew each other.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Friday morning, I awoke with a fist-size bruise on my upper abdomen and a voice like Gollum from The Lord of the Rings. After cursing Bobby Paige, I went down to the kitchen and made a pot of coffee, hoping it could relieve some of the raspiness. It actually worked a little.

  Eloise and Mackenzie were feeding the animals like a couple of Dr. Doolittles. I watched from the kitchen window as a dozen chickens, two goats, a cat that I didn’t think belonged at Still Hollow, and half a dozen squirrels all vied for a share of the grub. My sister never met an animal she didn’t want to feed.

  After Eloise fed the animals, she prepared food for the humans. Eloise was a good cook. She assumed those duties soon after Grandfather took us in. I ate a large plate of scrambled eggs, bacon, and a long-stack of pancakes with butter and maple syrup. If I kept this up, I’d be the size of an offensive lineman by the time I returned to Atlanta.

  Eloise and Mackenzie went upstairs to make alterations to the funeral dresses they had purchased, while I took an old road map from Grandfather’s desk, a ball point pen, and a couple of sheets of stationery, before driving north on highway 178.

  As I sailed by Morton’s Garage, I clicked back the mileage counter on the Jeep’s odometer to zero. At the turnout I pulled in and killed the engine. According to the counter, the distance between Morton’s and the murder site was 1.2 miles. I subtracted that from the 30.4 miles the Cadillac’s odometer showed it had traveled after leaving Morton’s Garage. That left a total of 29.2 miles that Grandfather drove before returning to the spot where I sat. Halve that and you would have a maximum potential distance traveled from the turnout of 14.6 miles out, and 14.6 miles back.

  Considering that Sheriff
Bagwell said the Caddy was facing south when they found it, I made the assumption that wherever Grandfather went, it was north of this spot. I got out and spread the map on the Jeep’s hood. With a sheet of the stationery, I created a handmade ruler with a series of hash marks. The marks represented 14.6 miles according to the map’s legend. Using the turnout as the center and the paper ruler as a radius, I traced a 14.6-mile semicircle around the north side.

  There were two noticeable possibilities along the circumference where Grandfather could have gone: Eastatoe Valley via the Cleo Chapman Highway, the entrance a half mile ahead, or the small town of Rosman, up 178 and just over the North Carolina line. Rosman was 14.6-miles on the button. Eastatoe Valley was closer, but if Grandfather drove around the valley a bit—maybe looking things over—it was a possibility. Every other point was either uninhabited forest, steep mountainside, or somewhere I couldn’t imagine him going.

  I set the Jeep’s odometer to zero and drove to Cleo Chapman highway and turned left, descending into the eastern entrance to Eastatoe Valley. After a few hilly twists and turns, the valley opened up like a small, lovely crease in the green hills. The road crossed the clear, cold waters of the narrow Eastatoe River and then turned sharply to parallel it for the length of the valley. The odometer at that point was far less than the 14.6 miles maximum, so Grandfather would have had to zigzag back and forth across the valley to rack up the necessary miles. Possible, I thought.

  Beal had chosen a great spot to launch his golf and real estate development career. The little valley was perfect for a golf course community, beautiful and idyllic, surrounded by low mountains that were steep-sided, but not so much as to prohibit building houses along their flanks. The valley was also a good geographic choice—halfway between the population centers of Atlanta and Charlotte, and not all that far from the interstate and the Greenville-Spartanburg Airport.

  With the lakes and all the development going on to the west, progress had marched into the northwestern tip of South Carolina wearing heavy construction boots. The development of a scenic little valley like Eastatoe was inevitable. If Barry Beal didn’t seize the opportunity, then someone else eventually would. It rubbed my fur the wrong way to think of that son-of-a-bitch as the one to profit from it.