by Ace Beckett
“But there had been no contact lately with anyone in her class?”
“Nothing except maybe a note on Facebook.”
I nodded.
“Our local sheriff’s department investigated Mary’s death and concluded it was an accident. I have no reason to question that. You’re wasting your time, Mr. Lancaster.”
“Possibly, but I’m getting paid good money to waste my time,” I said.
Late afternoon I fixed a drink and turned on the baseball game. I’m an avid baseball fan but today my mind wasn’t on the game. As I drank the bourbon I know I had an interesting theory but, to be brutally honest, no hard evidence.
I technically had nothing but I discovered I was now leaning toward the view that an intelligent but cold-blooded murderer had killed Mary Laurie.
The question was why?
And did he kill Harper Fletcher in Georgia too?
I woke up a few minutes after seven, yawned and crawled out of the motel’s comfortable bed. It’s a small pleasure in life to wake up in a motel and not have to rush. You don’t have to repack your bag, choke down a breakfast, check the map or fill your car’s gas tank; that was one reason I decided to stay an extra day. The other reason is I wanted to see if a good night’s sleep changed any of my opinions about the Laurie case. After I showered, shaved and chugged a cup of coffee, my views hadn’t changed but they had weakened a little. Suggesting barely visible red lines around the victim’s ankles were proof of murder was stretching credibility a bit.
I programmed my GPS to give me directions to Green Groves, Georgia. It would take about six hours of driving but I wouldn’t have to rush in the morning because as you know, I’m not a morning person. I try not to get on the roads until at least nine, this assures my safety and the safety of other drivers.
The eggs, hash browns and bacon at the Village Inn were cooked perfectly. Always wondered how the chefs make the scrambled eggs look so fresh and yellow. When I try to cook eggs at home they look a whole lot different.
As I walked back to the motel I think about why the murderer, if there was a murderer, didn’t just shoot Mrs. Laurie? He had to observe her long enough to know she swam in the lake, but how could he know the time? When she went in he had to be prepared, grab the scuba suit and slip into the water. If someone had been swimming the same time he’d have to forgo his plan because. Mrs. Laurie would have obviously cried for help. Other swimmers would have heard and swam to her assistance, that’s one of good things about the South. If you’re in trouble someone will always come to your aid.
That was one of the great, honorable lessons from Hurricane Harvey. It’s one of the many reasons I love the South. Listening to the media it might seem like the nation is full of hostility fanned by fanatics of both right and left – and exacerbated by the media – but when the storm came Americans of all colors, and creeds came together and began saving others. The “Cajun Naval” should be given a Presidential Medal of Freedom to honor all the men and women who rose to their finest in the aftermath of Harvey.
That helping others trait meant the alleged murderer probably had to watch Mrs. Laurie and not attempt to kill her when other people were swimming. Maybe he had watched her a number of times but couldn’t dive in himself because other swimmers were near his victim. But he finally got his opportunity.
I paused at a red light. Cars drove by at a leisurely pace, much more leisurely than in a big city. No traffic jams and a couple of drivers even smiled at me. I smiled, waved back and said “Good morning,” although I wasn’t sure they could hear me.
I walked back to my motel room and filled a plastic cup with ice. Usually I don’t drink before five so I filled the cup with Coke and I sat down extending my long legs on the bed.
Assumption Number One - For the sake of argument - assume Mr. Bates is correct, an unidentified murderer is targeting some members of his senior class. Chances are there are not two members of his senior class in Cross Creek, North Carolina. So the killer had to travel to the area and he had to spend weeks watching the moments of Mrs. Laurie. Which meant he needed a place to stay for weeks. A motel? That would be very expensive. Perhaps he just rented an apartment for a month. I noticed at least one Lodge in the city that offered rooms for a week to a month. Maybe I should check that out. I was staying an extra day in Cross Creek, may as well put the time to good use.
In some ways, a private detective is akin to a policeman and reporter. There’s a lot of legwork involved; Ninety-eight percent of the job is legwork or, nowadays, computer work. The other two percent is when second-rate thugs, such as the two men Dr. Markham hired, get in your way. However, if you must face thugs, be thankful they are second-rate thugs.
After four hours and twenty-eight minutes of legwork I did have a possible clue without any thugs bothering me.
After giving two crisp fifty dollars to the manager or the Banglow Inn, a second-rate establishment, told me there was an individual who fit my description. Leroy Hills was a rotund man with a brown stain on his shirt and at first he was uncooperative but the money changed his mind. He had a watermelon belly and jowls that looked he had jammed oranges in his mouth.
“A man who rented for a month or two months?” he said, scratching one of the oranges.
“Yes. And possibly he left suddenly.”
“Let me check to see if I remember the name right. We get a lot of people in here. Names and faces run together.”
He could barely wedge himself behind the computer. After punching a few buttons he nodded.
“A man who registered as Paul Smith from Daytona Beach, Florida came in late August, paid for two weeks. Two weeks later he said he needed more time and paid for another month.” Hills tapped the screen with his finger. “I remember this guy now. He said he was on business and didn’t want to be disturbed or bothered. I put him in the end cabin. If we’re not full up he wouldn’t have anyone next to him. Most of the time we run about 80 percent occupancy so I told him he’d be practically alone in the end cabin. He said that was fine.” He moved his finger to another point on the screen. “Thing is, on Sept. 23 he suddenly said his business was over and he was leaving. I told him there would be no refund because that’s the policy here. Customers can pay for a day, week or month, but no refunds if you leave sooner. I figured Mr. Smith would object and argue but surprisingly he didn’t. He didn’t care at all.”
“Sept. 23? You sure?”
He nodded. “Room was available for rent the next day and I rented it out the day after that.”
“Know anything else about Mr. Smith.”
“Well…. only that he was a scuba diver.”
My ears perked up. “A scuba diver? How do you know that?”
“I walked down to the end cabin to make sure everything was OK the day I rented the cabin to him. Since we don’t use that room every day, unless we have full occupancy, sometimes the staff can get careless and forget the ice bucket, soap, things like that, but when I checked it everything was fine. Then as I walked out Smith had pulled around and opened his trunk and I saw the scuba equipment. Tanks, fins, mask and scuba suit.”
“What did he look like?”
He shrugged. “Medium height, medium build, dark hair. That’s all I remember.”
“Thank you very much, Mr. Hills.”
“I appreciate the hundred, pal.”
I appreciated Mr. Hills’ time too. Sept. 23 was the day the mysterious Mr. Smith said his business was done so he made a fast exit. I had noticed the date on Mrs. Laurie’s death certificate. She was pulled from the lake on Sept. 22.
What an amazing “coincidence.”
I was back in my room relaxing when Stephen Bates’ voice came on the line.
“Hello Stephen, this is Hank Lancaster.”
“Hank, hello. How is the case going?”
“Well, I can give you all the details when I get back to Florida but I think I have found some evidence that indicates your classmate was murdered. I don’t have definite p
roof just a few hunches and one or two vague pieces of evidence.”
“I knew it! I knew it!” he said, excitement was in his voice.
“Don’t get ahead of me. The city police have officially ruled the case an accidental drowning. I don’t think my hunches would change their opinion in the least. There is, at least in my view, a degree of evidence a murderer drowned her. One person traveled to this city in September and stayed for about a month, days that he could have spent watching Mrs. Laurie before killing and then left the day after she died.”
“Yes! I see your point. He watched her, found the right time, and killed her in cold blood.”
“Maybe. That is a conjecture but we have no hard proof yet. I need to establish that a certain Mr. Smith was seen at the lake on the same day and at about the same time Mrs. Laurie was there; I’m not sure that can be done.”
“Who was the man?”
“I don’t know. He registered at the motel as Paul Smith from Daytona Beach but using my years of experience as a private detective I’m guessing it’s a fake name.”
“What’s your next move?”
“I’m heading to Green Groves, Georgia tomorrow.”
CHAPTER FOUR
The Public Information Officer at the Dalton County Sheriff’s Department leaned back in his chair and looked totally uninterested in my request. Most of the PI officers I had dealt with were young and eager to share facts and stories about their departments. Lt. Eldridge Lackamore appeared to be drifting off to sleep at times. He was a large man, with hair and skin battling for supremacy on his head and the skin was definitely winning. It had split the hair in two and was now advancing down towards the base of his neck on the right and left fronts. Lackamore spoke with a distinct and slow southern drawl.
“You’re the second private investigator who has asked about the Fletcher accident. I told him the same thing I will tell you. A man drove off the road, hit a ditch and turned over and he suffered a head injury and died. It’s not a criminal case,” he said.
“No one forced him off the road?”
“No.”
“There wasn’t a dent in the side of his car which could have been caused by a collision?”
Lt. Lackamore stared at me in the same way he might look at a mentally-challenged child.
“When a car rolls over and hits a ditch you get a lot of dents.”
“But another private detective asked you for the file?”
“Yes, a Bill Wyland, came from Macon. Mrs. Fletcher hired him. I think she had a hard time accepting her husband could be that careless, but after looking at the file I haven’t heard anything from him. So I guess he came to the same conclusion we did.”
“I’d still like to see the file.”
“Suit yourself.” He pointed toward a side door. “If you walk in that room we’ve got a desk in there. I’ll bring the file in for you.”
“Thank you.”
The file was full of dull detail and stated in police language that the car had left County Road 52 while traveling at about sixty miles-per-hour about seven miles from Green Groves. The vehicle skidded into a ditch, turned over at least once and crashed into one of the large oaks along the highway. The driver crawled out from his seat but didn’t get far. He was found about twenty yards from his vehicle suffering head injuries. One was minor, one was more serious but not considered fatal. It was the third injury near the back of his head that was the fatal wound. Mr. Fletcher’s blood alcohol level was slightly high but not over the legal limit. The state of Georgia says you are driving illegally when the blood alcohol level is more than 0.08. That’s lower than some states. Fletcher’s level was 0.07, which was not illegal but it could have affected his driving. The report concluded that there was no indication of foul play and I saw nothing to quibble with. I walked back into Lackamore’s office and dropped the folder on his desk.
“One last question, lieutenant. Fletcher was driving back to Green Groves. Where had he been?”
“About three months ago he opened another appliance store in Keen Junction, about twenty miles from here. He’d drive up a couple of times a week to see how it was doing. He was driving back at about six in the evening but there was still plenty of light in the sky.”
“Is there a lot of traffic on County Road 52?”
He shook his head. “Not usually. It’s a back road so not a lot of people use it, we don’t get much traffic between two small towns in Georgia.”
I nodded slowly. Five minutes later I registered at the local Comfort Inn.
The next morning I phoned Mrs. Melinda Fletcher who had a very pleasant voice, a lilted alto that did not hint of the recent tragedy she experienced. We scheduled an appointment for early afternoon.
Her residence was a large white house with blue trim in an upscale subdivision of the small town. The living room was adorned with pictures of her late husband and three children, two boys and one girl. One picture showed a young man receiving his high school diploma. Melinda walked over and stood beside me as I stared at the picture.
“He’s a freshman at Georgia Southern College now, a very bright young man. He skipped a grade in high school. Harp used to say Joseph got his brains from my side of the family but the truth was Harp was very intelligent, he just did not apply himself during high school. Later in life he sure did, there were weeks when he spent ten to twelve hours a day on business. He put in a lot of long hours when he opened the second store too. Please sit down, Mr. Lancaster,” she said.
I eased down on a green sofa facing the photos. Melanie sat opposite me in a chair.
“I was intrigued by your call. You are investigating Harp’s death?”
“Yes, ma’am, I am.”
“And you think it might be connected to a death of one of Harper’s classmates, high school classmates?”
“Yes, ma’am. However, I must say I have no proof yet. The details I have discovered would not stand up in a courtroom and there’s not even enough for a skilled district attorney to seek an indictment. Your husband was in the same high school class as a woman named Marie Laurie, Mrs. Laurie drowned about a month before your husband was killed in the accident. A third member of the high school class is also under the belief that both Mrs. Laurie and your husband were murdered."
Melanie Fletcher was an attractive woman. About five-seven she had brown hair and brown eyes and a figure to match her height. At first she stared at me for about thirty seconds then an intensity came in her dark hazel eyes.
“I’ve had suspicions about the death of Harp,” she said boldly.
“I understand you hired a private detective because you didn’t agree with the official police verdict on the crash?”
I had a sense she was a very strong woman but she spoke softly.
“It’s not that I disagree with the ruling. I was puzzled about it because Harp was a moderate drinker, very moderate. At the time of his death we had no liquor in the house, no wine, no beer, no hard liquor but occasionally we would have a glass of wine together and at times a beer. For years Harp never took more than one drink and I certainly don’t think just one drink could give him a blood alcohol rate of point zero seven. I thought that was very odd. Who would he have been drinking with?”
I nodded.
“He was also a careful driver, before this he had never had an accident, not even a fender bender. I had a minor accident about six years ago and a second when another car rear-ended me. But not Harp. I thought it was also strange that a man with a perfect driving record would suddenly run off the road. But who is this fellow classmate, Mr. Lancaster?”
“A man named Stephen Bates. He said he didn’t know Harper well in high school but they said they played on the baseball team.”
“Harp did play baseball in high school.” She smiled and almost laughed. “He still has his athletic jacket, the school’s colors were green and white and the jacket is still in our closet. He jokingly said he wanted to keep it to prove to people that he was not always bald and
fat, he always loved to joke around. He put on maybe ten pounds since high school, but he was definitely not fat.” She shook her head and a brief laugh escaped from her lips as she patted her forehead near the hairline. “He had a very slight forehead creep. Hair had receded just a tiny bit and I used to kiss him on that spot and we’d laugh.” She leaned back on her chair and crossed her legs. “I thought some of the details about Harp’s accident were odd but, then again, I never thought it was murder. For one thing he had no enemies; Harp was a friendly man, almost everyone liked him. At times his joking went a bit too far but he had even toned down that trait in recent years. Back when he was overdoing it I wanted to slap him once in a while but I can’t think of anyone else who’d want to hurt him. Did Mr. Bates suggest a motive for the two deaths?”
“No, he didn’t. The reason for the murders eluded him and he knew of no connection between your husband and Mrs. Laurie. There was a third death of a classmate, a murder, which occurred not too long after your husband’s death. However the victim, whose name slips my mind right now, was a man involved in the drug trade and Bates wasn’t sure if it was connected to the previous two deaths. Drugs are a dangerous business with a high mortality rate so I tend to doubt it.”
“I don’t recall Harp even talking about a Stephen Bates but he may have mentioned Mrs. Laurie once or twice. The name seems to ring a slight bell but I…I can’t be sure.”
“May I ask you what the private detective you hired said about the case?”
“He’s not through with his investigation. In fact he’s scheduled to arrive in two days and give me a full report but the last he told me is he found a couple of suspicious details about the crash, although nothing that could prove it was foul play. Would you like to me to have him contact you?”
“Yes, I would.”
She nodded. “I will have him call you.”
“Thank you. Was there anything your husband was involved in besides his business?”
