by Anne Hagan
###
Back at home, I found Hannah there and at loose ends without Jef so I started to fill her in on what I’d been up to.
“Chuck Knox never showed up,” I was saying. “”Mel called in one of her lieutenants and a detective and they’re out there now combing over the place for evidence and, I imagine, searching the woods for Knox.”
“And the guy that was hurt, that was her uncle?”
I nodded. “Apparently so.”
“Why was he there?”
“I’ll tell you the same thing I told her, I don’t have a clue.”
Hannah scratched her head and stared off over my shoulder.
“I know that look,” I said. “What are you thinking?”
She pulled a face. “It’s actually Mel’s great uncle, right? He would be Faye’s uncle, wouldn’t he?”
“Yes, true.”
“Do you think...maybe...I don’t know, after everything that happened yesterday, Faye might have called him for some reason and he came out here to talk to her...or maybe confront this other man?”
I felt like an idiot. I hadn’t thought of that. “That’s a good point. Let’s find out.”
I picked up the phone and dialed the number out at the farm. No one answered. I tried Faye’s cell. I got her voice mail.
Even though I didn’t leave a message, Faye saw my call and dialed me back about ten minutes later. By then, Hannah and I were contemplating dinner and not the case.
“Did you need something?” she asked. I just got over here to the hospital.”
“The hospital?”
“To be with Owen, at least until his wife gets here anyway. Mel called me. She’s back with him right now but she was out here in the waiting area when I got here a couple of minutes ago. She said you’re the one that found him.”
“What are they saying? Is he going to be okay?”
“I haven’t seen him yet. Mel says it might be a while, that he’s lost a lot of blood and they’re worried about damage to his brain. She said someone hit him.”
Or something, I thought.
When I didn’t respond right away, she started asking questions.”Where did you find him Dana? Do you know what happened?”
I hated to lie to her but I knew Mel’s men were conducting a man hunt as we spoke if they hadn’t already caught Chuck Knox. I didn’t want to throw her mother into that mix. She was as likely to try and get involved as I was to stay in the middle of the case. “That’s just it,” I said, “ I don’t know what’s going on. I found him at a cabin where I was was going to interview someone for some historical background for my book. That guy wasn’t home. His name totally escapes me right now, I’ll have to look at my notes. I didn’t know your uncle; I just found him lying there, moaning in pain and I thought he was the guy that lived there.”
Faye harrumphed on her end of the phone. She wasn’t buying it. “Listen, I know darn well that you’re laser focused on one case at a time, I know what you’re working on and I know this isn’t a story to you anymore, it’s a case.”
I was non-committal. I didn’t want to mention Chuck Knox to her and fuel her fire. Instead, I told her again, “I just can’t figure out why Owen was there and how he figures into all of it, or if he even does. I’ll promise you this, I’ll try and get something out of Mel - if she doesn’t say anything to you herself when she’s done with Owen.”
“She isn’t going to tell me anything and, for that matter, if Owen is as bad off as she said he is, he probably can’t tell her anything.”
“I’ll work on her. “In the meantime you just be there for your uncle and try to keep us posted. Hannah’s here too until she has to leave for class. I have to go and pick up Jef, but I’ll be right back.
Faye muttered something about trying to get a hold of Owen’s children and she hung up.
I turned to Hannah. “You might be a little late to class tonight; we have work to do.”
Chapter 24
Mel
My deputies Joe Treadway and Lomas Gates were heading up the an all-out manhunt for Chuck Knox. While I was still at the hospital, I managed to get a hold of his son in Cincinnati by phone. He said his dad was probably out bow hunting, especially if that smoker was going. He explained that he wouldn’t just disappear and leave that because it would need tending to over the days that it took to finish whatever meat he was smoking.
No sooner did I hang up with Charlie, who hated to be called Chuck Jr., than my assistant Holly called me to tell me Chuck Sr. Himself was standing at the SDO desk, asking to speak to me and only me.
“Tell the desk Sergeant to hold him for 10 minutes and then to send him up to her office. I’m en-route.”
“Maybe you better talk to the duty officer first, Sheriff.”
“Patch me through.”
I started right in telling the deputy managing the desk what I’d just told Holly. “I know Chuck I said. He’s a pain but he’s not going to pull anything. Not in a police station.”
“You just have to see him first Sheriff,” came the response.
“Why? Is he covered in blood or something? Is he hurt?”
“Nope, none of those things.”
Frustrated, I gave in. “Fine. I’ll be there in five mikes.”
###
Knox was dressed from head to toe in camouflage, including face paint, and carrying a bow.
“Why’d you bring that thing in here?” was the first thing out of my mouth.
“Wasn’t leaving it in the truck, even in your parking lot. It’s too valuable.”
“Where you been?”
“Where’s it look like?” He shook his head, incredulous. When I just stared back, he sobered, “I was bow hunting, same as I always do this time of year.”
“Anyone with you?”
“No. Just me.”
I tossed my head for him to walk with me and then looked the 70+ year old man over as we headed upstairs to my office. I didn’t think it was necessary to take him to interrogation, not just yet.
I had to admit, Knox was in good shape for his age and it was plausible he’d been out hunting on his own. “Why’d you come to the station?” I asked.
“I was about a mile or so from the cabin when all the ruckus kicked up over there. What with the ambulance and cops and all, it scared all the deer off. I got out of my tree stand, hoofed it back to where I hid my UTV out of the line of sight of any deer that wandered into my hunting honey hole and I headed back.”
“When I saw his property being taken apart by deputies, I high tailed it back to the house instead, got in my truck and here I am. I’m not going anywhere in cuffs. Never have, never will.”
“My guys didn’t hear your ATV?” I wondered what the hell they were doing that they missed that but then I realized they had no way to give chase through the woods anyway.
As we entered my outer office, Holly was listening to someone on the phone. She looked over at me and shook her head solemnly. Owen Lafferty didn’t make it.
I led Knox into my office and indicated he should take my only visitors chair. Once we were both seated, I took the straight forward approach.
“Why was Owen Lafferty at your cabin today?”
“Who?”
“Don’t play dumb with me, Chuck. You know who I mean; my grandfather’s brother.”
“Mel, look, I’ve been out most of the day. If there was someone at the cabin, anyone other than your department folks, I don’t know anything about it.”
“When’s the last time you saw Owen?”
“Is he all right? Did he say what he was doing there?”
“He was hit pretty hard by someone with something inside your cabin. He was transported by the ambulance you heard. They worked on him at Mercy, but they couldn’t save him.”
You could have heard a pin drop as Knox contemplated the information. He finally opened up and started talking.
“I hadn’t seen Owen in years...a really long time. He moved out of the Morelville
area even before your grandpa’s last attempt at an oil well went bust. Owen was usually one of the guys in on bankrolling all of those pipe dreams...pardon the pun. I’ve seen him back in town once, maybe twice since then and not in the last half dozen years or so.”
“Why would he show up at your cabin now then?”
“I honestly don’t know. I mean, I’ve had it for years but I didn’t know that he even knew where it was. We weren’t close and I rarely take anyone there. It’s sort of my own private hunting lodge and where I smoke my game meat.”
Not yet ready to believe him, I tried a different tack. “How do you get back and forth to the cabin, usually?”
“The UTV. It’s only three miles through woods and across a couple of fields from the house.”
“So the truck that was parked in front of the cabin belonged to Lafferty?”
He shrugged then crossed his arms. “I didn’t pay that much attention. It must have.”
She chided herself silently and made a note to ask Treadway and Gates if they’d I.D’d the truck. “Does anyone else know where the cabin is or go back there at all?”
He tipped his chin up and rolled his eyes to the ceiling as he thought. “There’s a pond not far that I let friends fish in...the one you all found Terry Ford in last year. Some people still use it...his death didn’t scare them off. They’d maybe know about the cabin. I don’t know.”
“Like who?”
“Horace for one...”
“Old man Bailey?”
Chuck nodded. “Him probably the most, now that Terry’s gone, that is.” His eyes shifted left and then back to me.
It was the first indication that he’d given me that he wasn’t be straight up. ‘He’s lying or holding something back,’ I thought.
Chapter 25
Dana
“Was there anyone around the cabin that you could hear or sense?” Hannah asked me.
“I didn’t pick up on anything and, to answer your question, I’m not that rusty.”
She grinned. “I didn’t say you were.”
We stared at each other. She blinked first but her mind was still on the case. “You said we have work to do. Mel’s trying to find Mr. Knox so what would we do?”
“You know, you do have class. You should probably go. There’s Morgan and your cake client is coming in on Wednesday and...”
“No. No way. I’m not leaving you alone to get into some sort of trouble. Where you go, I go! So, you might as well tell me where we’re going.”
“Mel isn’t happy I’m involved,” I said, telling her only half of the real truth. “She’s not going to be happy at all if I pull you in too, now that I think about it.”
“You’re just going around talking to older people, right? What kind of trouble could we possibly get in?”
“Sweetie, one of those old guys just got knocked in the head with something, probably by one of the other old guys, remember?”
In a bit of bravado I was seeing more and more from her as she came out of her shell and got comfortable with herself she said, “It’ll be two against one. If we go together, we’ll be fine. You ask the questions and I’ll, how do you say it, watch your back?”
I couldn’t argue with that logic so I told her, “I think we need to go and see Horace Bailey.”
“That old guy that comes into the shop and buys black coffee and a plain cake donut?”
“Yeah.”
“Why him?”
“Because something just doesn’t add up. He kept certain key details from me when I talked to him before that the coffee klatch ladies all seem to know and these guys are all tied together...him, the Laffertys’, Mathis, Knox...”
It was dusk but the air wasn’t cold and there was no threat of rain. We decided to walk the couple of blocks to Bailey’s home.
As we ambled along, Hannah asked me what I intended to say to him. I was about to answer when I noticed Selma Morrison leaving the store, across the State Route, half a block up.
Mama followed her out with the broom. It had become her habit to sweep the little front door area of leaves before she locked up for the night. She waved and called out when she saw us, “Out for a stroll, ladies?” catching Selma’s attention.
“Yes, it’s a nice night.” I answered back quickly before Hannah could say anything that might give us away. Mel certainly wouldn’t be enthused if my mama or her own mother got involved in any more crime solving in Morelville.
Selma waved too and then headed toward her car. I still wanted to talk to her.
“I wish I could join you,” Mama went on, “but I’ve got the books to do yet.”
Nodding toward Mama, I crossed the road with Hannah following. “Mrs. Morrison,” I called as she started to pull her car door closed. “Can I have just a minute with you?” She stopped where she was and smiled over at me.
Under my breath, to Hannah, I said, “Chat with Mama. Keep her busy.” We split apart and I approached the car.
“I won’t keep you long, ma’am.”
“Selma, please. What can I do for you dear? This is about earlier, isn’t it?”
“You had some pretty strong opinions this morning that the other ladies didn’t seem to feel. Maybe they don’t know all that you know?” I raised an eyebrow and gave her a look.
She gave me a simple half shrug.
“Just between you and me?”
“I’ll say this and it’s all I’ll say,” she gave in. “Someone needs to put Owen Lafferty, Horace Bailey and Chuck Knox in a room and let them fight it all out. It’s between those three men and that’s all I’m going to say. I probably shouldn’t have said that.”
My gut feeling was, someone already had.
###
It took a little while to get away from Mama but, once she went in to lock up and work on her bookkeeping, we continued on our way to Bailey’s place. We arrived in time to see him maneuvering with his cane to enter the house through a side door off of his driveway.
It was my turn to do the calling out. I waved and hollered, “Mr. Bailey!”
He turned on the low stoop and looked toward me but, in the growing darkness, he didn’t seem to recognize me. I walked up the driveway toward him.
“Looks like we got your tulips in just in time. I mean, that was some storm we had the other night.”
Now recognizing me, he said, “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“You did. Say, do you have a few more minutes to spare to talk to me?
“About that book?”
“Yes sir,” I said, being as polite as I could muster.
“Who’s that with you, there?” He pointed at Hannah.
“That’s Hannah, my niece,” I fibbed as she came closer to us. “She’s helping out with the book. We were just taking a walk and talking a couple of things over when I spotted you. You were so helpful the last time we talked but I’ve got a few more questions, if you don’t mind?”
When he seemed to waver, I said, “We really won’t be long. Hannah has to pick up her son at his grandmother’s house. We just need a few minutes.” Hannah smiled and nodded.
He let out a breath then pulled the screen door he’d been holding ajar open further and waved us in ahead of him.
We found ourselves on a little landing with a few stairs to go up into the main part of the house and a dozen or more leading down into the basement. It was a design more like what I was used to from growing up back in McKeesport, unlike all the homes around here where cellars and furnace rooms like in our own house had been put in after the fact, years later.
Bailey tossed his head toward the closed door leading to the first floor. “Go ahead up into the kitchen. Takes me a minute with the stairs.”
“Would you like some help?”
“No.” With that, we both scrambled out of his way and waited in the kitchen.
I watched nearly a full minute later as he place his cane down firmly and then struggled over the last of the three steps from the landing. He was b
reathing hard from the exertion and his lack of mobility. I shot Hannah a glance but didn’t say anything.
“Did you want to do this in here?” I asked him.
“Let’s go in the living room,” he offered. “I need to get off my feet.”
Once we were settled in, me seated on one end of a short sofa and Hannah on the other and him across from me, I told him, “I’m just going to ask a few questions and, if you don’t mind, Hannah is going to make some notes for me.”
He fidgeted in his chair a little. “I guess that’ll be alright. You didn’t take notes the last time.”
“I was just getting some background from you then. This time I have some more specific questions.”
Bailey looked at Hannah, holding her phone at the ready and clucked his tongue. “These kids today. Pencil and paper aren’t good enough anymore.”
Hannah was hardly a kid but I let it slide. It wasn’t worth contradicting him just yet.
“When we talked before, you told me about buying mineral rights and a little bit about drilling but that led me to some questions,” I began. “For one, back then, how did you find land that was oil rich to buy the rights to? I mean, they didn’t have the sort of technology they have today to ferret the pockets of oil out, right, so what did you do?”
His eyes gleamed. “That was the whole trick, see. Nothing was perfect. Short of finding it seeping from somewhere and drilling there, which didn’t happen a whole hell of a lot, a lot of it was pure, dumb luck. Lotta guys had theories and some were better than others at getting them to pan out but then it was mostly luck.”
“You told me your grandfather found oil on his land and that’s how your family got into the business. How’d he find it?”
“Wasn’t even looking for it, that’s how. The water well for his house ran dry in the late winter one year. We’d always watered the animals from a pump that was fed by a natural spring. We were hauling water from that pump for my grandmother to cook with and do the wash. Granddad tried to dig the old well deeper but it didn’t work. Him and dad pinpointed a place about half way between the spring and the house where they thought they had the best chance of hitting the water table. They started drill down there. The rest is history.”
