Appalachian Intrigue

by Archie Meyers

  Snake ducked between two houses while Dex was still fifty to seventy-five yards behind him but quickly closing the gap. Dex was just running between the houses when he saw Snake disappear through the gate of a solid wooden fence into the woods. Now he had to make a critical decision: should he follow him into the thick underbrush and take a chance on getting ambushed, or should he call in the cops? Dex decided not to do either of those things. He slipped through the gate, but rather than follow Snake, he sat down just inside the fence. He was well concealed and planned to wait on daylight before pursuing him. It was going to be a long night.

  After his nerves finally settled down, Dex leaned back against the fence and actually slept fitfully for a few hours. He was wide awake by 4:00 a.m., but he waited for daylight. At 7:00 a.m. he decided it was light enough to begin his search. He was pretty sure that Snake’s lair, probably a cave, was somewhere nearby. He also thought that Snake would continue to stay in hiding until after nightfall.

  Dex started slowly moving through the underbrush with the pistol in his hand. He searched for over an hour before he finally saw an opening in the earth between two boulders. The underbrush around the opening was bent and broken, and he knew that this had to be Snake’s hiding place. It was less than two hundred yards from the gate through which Snake had disappeared the previous night. Dex backed well away from the opening and used his cell phone to call Lundy.

  “Lundy, I’ve got Snake trapped in a cave on the mountain. I surprised him on the street and we exchanged some gun shots, but no one was hit. He ran back to the mountain, and I waited until daylight and then found his cave. The problem is I don’t know how to get him out. If I go in there, he can ambush me before I ever see him. Do you have any suggestions?”

  “You mean other than my initial suggestion that you let the police handle it?”

  “Come on, Lundy. I need to figure out something before one of us kills the other one.”

  “What the police use to empty out a house is a tear gas grenade, and I still have three or four of them from when I was on the force.”

  “How do they work?”

  “Some are made to be launched from a weapon, but the ones I have don’t look like a regular hand grenade; rather than exploding into shrapnel, they are filled with tear gas. If you throw a couple of those babies into an enclosed area like a cave, I guarantee you it will flush out a grizzly bear if he’s in there.”

  “Will you give me two of them?”

  “I’ll give them to you, but you will get me locked up and I will lose my license if you tell anyone where you got them.”

  “If I get caught with them, I’ll swear I bought them from someone on the street.”

  Dex asked Lundy to bring the grenades and meet him on the street near the shopping center in thirty minutes. They met and Lundy handed him a sack containing the grenades. Before driving away, he spent a few minutes telling Dex how to use them and what to expect after they exploded in the cave.

  Dex picked out a spot to hide behind one of the boulders near the cave entrance. He took the two grenades and slipped up to a point beside the cave entrance. He pulled the pin and threw the first grenade as far back in the cave as possible. Before the first one exploded, he threw the second one in behind it. He quickly moved back behind the rock and waited.

  Almost instantaneously hundreds of bats came streaming through the opening. Not long after that he heard uncontrollable coughing and saw Snake crawling out of the small opening. He was on his knees rubbing his eyes with both hands and coughing at the same time. He was only wearing a T-shirt, and the pistol was nowhere in sight.

  Dex moved out in the open, holding the pistol in front of him and said, “I hope that stuff causes permanent blindness, you bastard.”

  Snake looked toward the sound of his voice, but probably couldn’t see him clearly because of the tears pouring out of his eyes. “Martin, you be a dead man.”

  “If you don’t shut up and do what I tell you, that hole in the ground is going to be your final resting place. I’d love to shoot you right between the eyes for what you did to Hoagie and Marie.”

  “I ain’t done nuttin to ’em.”

  “Get up and start walking toward that gate you’ve been using.”

  Snake could see well enough to see the pistol Dex was pointing toward him. He struggled to his feet, and while still coughing and rubbing his eyes, he started making his way through the thick underbrush toward the gate.

  They had only gone about twenty-five yards when Dex got his foot tangled in a honeysuckle vine and fell. He dropped the pistol to catch himself, and when he tried to get back on his feet, he got even more tangled in the thick vines. Snake started running through the brush as soon as he saw Dex fall. Dex couldn’t immediately locate the black pistol in the heavy dark vines and saw that Snake was getting away. He got to his feet and started chasing him. He went through the gate about twenty feet behind Snake but caught up to him about halfway across the lawn behind the houses. He left his feet and executed a perfect open field tackle on the lanky felon.

  Snake came up swinging, but his fighting skills hadn’t improved since that schoolyard fight so many years before. Dex easily overpowered him and ended up sitting on his chest beating his face to a pulp. When Snake stopped fighting back, he realized that he was unconscious. With all of his willpower, Dex stopped pounding him.

  Snake’s face was a bloody mess, and he was still unconscious when Dex stood up and pulled his cell phone out of his pocket. He dialed Detective Morgan.

  “Morgan, I’ve captured Snake Wilson. He’s unconscious and lying on the ground at my feet right now.”

  “Don’t tell me you’ve killed him?”

  “No, he isn’t dead, but he needs an ambulance.”

  Dex gave Morgan directions, and the detective said he could be there in fifteen minutes. He also said he would notify the city police and call an ambulance. Snake was still unconscious, and he folded up like an accordion when Dex lifted him by his belt. He dragged him all the way to the street with his head bumping along the ground. He could have carried him, but Dex didn’t think Snake deserved the extra effort. Snake was still only semiconscious when Morgan and the ambulance arrived, just ahead of two city police cars. One eye was already swollen completely closed and he had several cuts on his face. From the distorted appearance of his long nose, Dex assumed it was broken. Snake was loaded into the ambulance, and one of the city cops rode in the ambulance with him.

  After the ambulance left, Morgan turned to Dex and asked, “Do I want to know how you found him?”

  “No, you really don’t want to know. Just assume that I came onto some information that wasn’t available to you. I didn’t have time to contact you, so I went after him myself to keep him from getting away.”

  Morgan smiled and said, “Dex, is that really what happened?”

  “No, but it’s close enough to the truth to keep me from being charged with perjury.”

  The city cop asked him a few question and then said, “We’ll have to get a detailed statement from you tomorrow. Can you come by the station tomorrow morning about ten?”

  Dex agreed to meet him the following morning, and when he got in his car, the first thing he did was call Marie.

  “Don’t ask me any questions, but meet me at your apartment. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

  He disconnected the call before she could question him. He drove directly to her apartment, but she had arrived before him. When she opened the door and saw he was covered in blood, the anger that had been building since they last talked immediately melted.

  Her nursing instinct kicked in. She pulled him into the room and started an initial triage procedure. He said over and over, “It’s not my blood.” Most of it was not his, but the knuckles on both hands were raw and still oozing blood.

  “Marie, I got hi
m. He’s in the hospital and under arrest.”

  “Thank God he’s been caught and you didn’t get killed.”

  As she dressed the abrasions on his hands and cleaned the splattered blood off his face and arms, Dex told her the story of how he had finally captured Snake. He winced each time she touched his right hand, and she told him he might have fractured it and would need to have it X-rayed. After she finished bandaging his hands, they held each other for a long time. They had been worried for so long that they didn’t even know how to act or what to do now that it was apparently all over.

  “Marie, maybe now we can begin to live a normal life. I’m sorry for everything you’ve had to go through because of me. If it takes forever, I swear I’m going to make it up to you.”

  “Oh, Dex, you don’t owe me anything but to love me. I was just so scared when I thought about you going after Snake; I was sick to my stomach all night. Please don’t ever take a chance like that again because I need you in one piece.”

  Chapter 51

  Snake was released from the hospital the next morning. The media either anticipated his release or got a tip from someone on the staff about when he would be transferred from the hospital to the jail. They were camped out waiting for the opportunity for photos or maybe even an answer to a shouted question. Overnight, the news had leaked out that Snake had taken a terrible beating from Dex and his face was really messed up. When he was rolled out in a wheelchair, he was handcuffed and had leg irons. While Snake was being transferred to the waiting police car, the photographers got several shots of his swollen and lacerated face. Both eyes were almost swollen shut.

  Photos of Snake’s face appeared on the front page of the newspaper that evening, and a film clip of him leaving the hospital provided the lead story for the local telecast. In the film clip, a TV reporter was heard yelling a question at Snake while he was surrounded by police officers.

  “Why did you kill Hogan and kidnap Ms. Murphy?”

  The policeman pushing the wheelchair tried to turn Snake away from the reporter, but he yelled back over his shoulder. “I ain’t kilt Hoagie, and I ain’t took Marie. The cops done got the wrong man.”

  The newspaper that day raised the first questions about his guilt. The reporter wrote that the police claimed to have conclusive evidence that Snake had been the one who shot Dex, but an unnamed source in the department had admitted that the evidence was only circumstantial that he had committed the other crimes. It was also reported that Snake continued to insist he was innocent of the murder and abduction. Dex and the police were sure he was lying, but they didn’t yet have the proof to back up their assumption.

  Dex turned down an offer from a national magazine for a story on the ordeal. He did, however, talk to the local newspaper and television stations. He was well aware that the police were not at all happy with him because he had not only gone after Snake with no authority to do so, but he had also made them look incompetent. He needed to make amends.

  In the several interviews he carefully complimented the police and especially praised the untiring efforts of county homicide detective Lester Morgan. He explained that he just happened to come across some information that was not available to the police and he had to act quickly to prevent Snake from escaping. He refused to reveal the source or the nature of the information that led to the capture.

  In each interview the reporters questioned Dex about Snake’s motive. Every time the question was raised, he gave the same answer: “Mr. Wilson and I had an altercation in high school. Apparently he has never gotten over a schoolboy fight that I had forgotten about long ago. I want to emphasize that neither Mr. Hogan, who was killed, or Ms. Murphy, who was abducted, were his intended targets. He simply used them as a way to get to me. That’s a burden that I’ll have to carry with me for the rest of my life.”

  When one of the reporters remarked about the condition of Snake’s face, Dex took the opportunity to say, “Yeah, he looked pretty bad. I hope they have a lot of EaseFast at the jail. He needs some really fast pain relief.”

  Surprisingly, the television station left the remark in the broadcast, which forced them to then have to explain the relationship between Dex and EaseFast.

  Snake was arraigned two days later. The arraignment was announced on TV and in the newspaper, so the curious local citizens turned out in droves to pack the courtroom for the arraignment. The murder and mayhem allegedly committed by Buford “Snake” Wilson was River City’s most widely covered news event of the decade.

  Dex and Marie had not planned to attend the arraignment, but the prosecutor asked them to be there. He thought the psychological shock of Snake seeing them together might provoke an outburst that could potentially help the prosecution. Although courtroom seats could technically not be reserved, the prosecutor had two of his office workers sit on the front row until Dex and Marie arrived and then surrender their seats to them.

  Snake, in leg irons and an orange prison jumpsuit, shuffled into court led by a deputy. His hands were manacled behind his back. He was met at the defense table by a young, court-appointed attorney with a “Why me?” look on his face.

  Just before he sat down, Snake saw Dex and Marie sitting in the first row, smiling at him. Most people would have the intelligence to realize they were being baited and would at least try to mask their raw emotions, but Snake wasn’t smart enough to conceal anything. His bruised and battered face contorted into an animalistic snarl. His intense hatred of the couple was clearly evident to everyone in the room, including his young attorney, who was powerless to prevent Snake’s reaction. He launched into a diatribe that contained enough admissions to convict him on the spot.

  “I ain’t bout quit with youens. I ain’t gonna miss agin. You’ens is both deader’n hell iffen I’s get outta here.”

  Two deputies finally forced the enraged defendant into his seat. His attorney whispered in his ear, “If you don’t shut up, the judge will gag you. I can’t defend you when you threaten to kill two people in front of a room full of witnesses.”

  The prosecutor was sitting at the adjacent table trying unsuccessfully to suppress a smile. His tactic had worked beautifully. He had notified the court reporter to be ready because he expected an outburst from the defendant, and he wanted a transcript of exactly what was said even before the court convened.

  The defense attorney and the deputies managed to get Snake partially settled down by the time the presiding judge entered the chamber. His attorney warned him not to say anything else and not to turn around until the arraignment was over.

  The charges were read to the court. Snake was charged with capital murder in the first degree, aggravated kidnapping, attempted murder, and grand theft auto. They had discovered that the car he had been driving was stolen in addition to the Lexus he had wrecked.

  When the judge asked for a plea, Snake stood silently. His attorney said, “Mr. Wilson pleads not guilty, your honor.”

  “Well, that’s interesting, Mr. Levi, but I would like to hear a plea from your client after the disturbance I understand he caused in my courtroom.”

  When a nudge in his side elicited no response, the attorney whispered in his ear, and Snake said, “I’s ain’t kilt nobody, but I wish I’s had kilt Dex Martin.”

  Bail was denied and the trial was set to begin in two months. Snake was led from the courtroom, but not before he turned, glared at Dex and Marie, and said, “You’ens don’t ferget what I tole you.”

  The threat sounded ominous coming from this manacled creep, but with the evidence against him, there was little chance he would ever again be free to carry out his threat. Marie knew she would have to see him again when she testified, but she was going to enjoy helping to convict the animal that killed her friend and almost killed Dex.

  Marie and Dex walked out of the courtroom hand in hand, feeling safer than they had at any time since their ordeal wi
th this madman had begun. They were now ready to put it all behind them and get on with their life together.

  The reporters were waiting at the courthouse steps, but this time the couple declined an interview. Dex said, “Guys, this story is over as far as we’re concerned, and we will not be making any further comments to the media. We appreciate you staying involved in the story until Wilson was captured. Your diligence helped keep the pressure on him and no doubt contributed to his final capture. Thank you very much.”

  As they walked away, Marie smiled and said, “I thought you weren’t going to make a statement. I think you miss the spotlight already.” Dex started to pat her on the butt and then realized the reporters were still watching.

  Chapter 52

  In the first few weeks after Snake’s capture and arraignment, Dex was like a recovering heart attack victim. He kept waiting for the next event.

  Dex and Marie’s relationship had unfurled on the River City stage like a star-crossed Shakespearean tragedy. It had begun with Dex’s career-ending injury and desperate search for a new life outside athletics. As soon as that crisis had passed, they almost immediately faced the tragedy of Hoagie’s murder and the agony of Marie’s captivity. Then just when they thought their troubles couldn’t possibly get worse, Dex was shot and almost killed.

  That this many tragedies could happen to one couple was almost unimaginable. But if one was searching for a silver lining in the dark cloud, perhaps it would be that things couldn’t possibly ever again be as bad as what they had already endured. If their love survived this kind of rocky beginning, it could probably survive any curve ball that life might later toss their way.