by Anne Hagan
“I see,” I said nodding. I watched as Hannah pretended to key what he was saying into her phone. Maybe she really was making notes; I didn’t know.
We talked about finding oil for a couple of more minutes and then I turned the conversation to Drew Lafferty. “Let’s talk about your partnership with Drew and Tanner.”
“It wasn’t always just the two of them,” he admitted. “Sometimes – most of the time – Owen was in on it too.”
“Okay then. So, do you keep in touch with Owen? Do you even know where I can find him? If he was that involved in the partnership, I’d like to talk to him too.”
He looked away from me then and didn’t look back when he replied, “I don’t have any idea. Maybe you better ask Faye.”
“Faye doesn’t exactly speak to him these days,” I let on.
My cell buzzed in my jacket pocket, startling me. I pulled it out and glanced at it quickly. When I saw it was Mel calling, I pressed ignore, punched the button for my recording application and then I laid the phone on my thigh. I felt like I was on a little bit of a role with Horace and I didn’t want him to find a reason to slow down.
“I’m so sorry. It’s Hannah’s baby sitter. Just a few more questions and we’ll be on our way.”
He looked over at Hannah. “Shouldn’t she be calling you?”
“Normally I’m in school on Monday evenings. I’m almost finished with culinary school.”
At least she wasn’t lying, I thought but then my attention was drawn back to my phone. Mel wasn’t about to give up. She sent me a text asking ‘Where are you? There was no answer at the house.’
“Maybe you better call her back, then” Bailey said, turning to me again.
“It’ll be fine. We’re almost finished here.”
A second text came through. ‘Owen died. Wherever you are, be careful!’
Chapter 26
I threw caution to the wind and decided to press the old man. Even if he took out Owen, and I doubted that he did in his poor physical condition, Hannah was right. There was only one of him but two of us and youth was on our side; more hers than mine but I was still only half his age.
“I hear you used to have a thing for Eunice Lafferty, back in the day when you were supposed to be Drew’s business partner. Some people even say the two of you had an affair. Do you deny that?”
He looked stricken. “What? No. Where did you hear that?”
“It’s come up more than once in my research about the town’s oil men, Mr. Bailey. A few different people have mentioned it or confirmed it. It doesn’t appear to be a rumor that’s just going around...not after all of these years.”
His face fell and then he hung his head in what appeared to me to be shame.
I wasn’t about to let up. “Tell me what happened Horace.”
He drew in a deep breath and looked back up at me finally but he addressed Hannah first, before answering me. “Please don’t write this down. It was all a very long time ago and not something I’m proud of, in hindsight.”
Hannah looked at me. I nodded. She put her phone down.
“I told you the other day, I was something of a carouser back then. I struggled after my wife died with my vices. I took up smoking and drinking again, the card playing...What reason did I have to , worry about anyone else then, after all?”
“Eunice was...is a good woman. A sweet, gentle sort. Why, she didn’t know flirting when I all but hit her over the head with it. Women flocked around me when I had money in my pocket to take them out for a meal or a show. She wasn’t like that.”
“She was married,” I reminded him gently.
“Yeah.” He grew quiet.
“So you pursued her? Was it some sort of a challenge to you?”
I was smitten. When I saw her, I saw what I’d had with my own wife and lost. I admit, I pursued her. Drew was always out in the oil fields.”
“He was a good man.” With a touch of admiration in his voice he told us, “He worked hard, day in and day out, sometimes seven days a week for what little they had.”
“I’d go around to the house to ‘check up on things’ from time to time when Drew was working long hours. I started flirting with Eunice at first and, eventually she caught on. Then, I...I took up with her completely; tried to lure her away, promising her a better life. I told her I’d take her out of Morelville where there’d be no shame for her. The kids too, if she wanted.”
“What ended it? Did Drew find out?”
“Nope, not him.”
“Who?”
“Chuck.”
“Knox?”
He nodded slightly. “Him and Drew were pretty tight but Chuck, he had a little money too; had a lot of property and a coupla’ wells that hit good. He didn’t spend a lot of time working hourly out in the fields like Drew did.”
“Somehow he caught on to me. He must have seen something. He confronted me about it one day over at the gas station. He told me to lay off his buddy’s wife or he’d have more than words for me.”
“I promised him I was done and I pleaded with him not to tell Drew. I was running through my grandfather’s stake trying to hit the big one and I wanted to keep the partnership going. Drew had dibs on a small piece of land, only ten, twelve acres but with the mineral rights and I just knew we were going to hit.”
“Was it that last well?”
“Yeah, eventually. It took time to get the deed, and then the rigging and to get everything going.” He got a faraway look in his eyes and then muttered, “When it came in, I was happy but cautious. I just didn’t have the money...”
“You spent what was left bringing in the well?”
“Partially. There was that and...and blackmail.”
“Pardon?” Dana asked.
“I was being blackmailed.”
I sat back fast. “Blackmailed? By who? Chuck Knox?”
“Over Eunice Lafferty?” Hannah asked him.
“Yes, over Eunice,” he said, looking at her, “but not by Knox.”
Chapter 27
“By Tanner Mathis?” I asked.
The old man looked away from me but nodded.
Hannah held up her own buzzing cell phone, looked at the screen and said, “I’m so sorry, It’s the sitter. I better go out and call her.” She shot me a look as she walked out of the room.
Internally, I shuddered but I smiled at Horace and tried to control the shock I could feel creeping all the way up to my eyes. I had the distinct feeling I was sitting just a few feet away from a double murderer and now I was going to have to face him alone. I tried to play it cool.
“Hannah is in culinary school,” I said.
“She ah, she mentioned that already.”
“Right. Sorry. She was actually supposed to have class tonight but they had some problem over at their building,” I lied as smoothly as I could manage. “I hope they have it all worked out. She hates to miss class. She gets bored. That’s really why she came with me but she does help with book research stuff from time to time. Not very often though...her son, the bakery, school...they all keep her busy.”
I realized I was rambling and I stopped, smiling again. “Where were we?” I asked instead.
“I uh...I think we’re about done here. You were supposed to be asking me about oil drilling. We’ve talked about just about everything but that and I think I’ve said enough.”
“I’m sorry,” I said to him as I fluttered a hand through the air. “I get sidetracked easily. So many stories...” I trailed off, letting my words hang in the air.
Bailey reached out for his cane and he started to stand.
“Just one more thing, please?” I asked, stopping him as he was half way up.
“What’s that?”
“You knew that it was Mathis blackmailing you?”
He drew in a deep breath and then nodded as he stood erect finally and moved to a position beside his chair. He glanced toward the doorway as he heard Hannah come back in from outside.
“Tha
t was quick,” I said, giving her a raised eyebrow as she passed between me and Bailey.
“Sorry,” she said. “What’d I miss?”
“Mr. Bailey was just about to tell me about the blackmail.”
The old man moved forward and sat gingerly back down in his chair, then he slumped backward, resigned to his fate.
“Yes, I knew full well it was Mathis doing the blackmailing,” he said. “It was a face to face sort of thing with him. The problem was, he couldn’t keep his mouth shut. He was drinking a lot that Thanksgiving and bragged to all of the men in the living room watching football that he didn’t need in on the monthly poker nights anymore, they could tell their wives that they were saving their pennies now. He said he wouldn’t be taking their money anymore, that he had bigger fish to fry.”
“I was drinking too...trying to drown him out but...but I just boiled over.” The old man shook his head ruefully. “I knew I was one of those fish even if I was almost broke. Mathis wasn’t going to let up on me. I was going to have to find a way to keep paying him or he was going to blurt about my business far and wide.”
“While everyone was arguing over the game during a commercial break, I went to the kitchen to get another can of beer. You went down a little hall and through the dining room to the kitchen. I, uh, on my way back, coming back through the dining room, as I sipped on my beer, uh, I saw, uh, the carving set box in the china cabinet. I knew what it was because my own father used a similar set at our big family doings.”
He hemmed and hawed a bit over that, repeating himself like he was reminding himself of the story he’d constructed in his own mind for that day. I felt like he was leaving something out but I didn’t know exactly what.
Prodding him, I asked, “So you took the knife? What were you planning to do with it?”
“Actually, I walked past the cabinet that first...that second time, on the way back. But, out in the hallway, I saw Mathis going into the water closet under the stairs that led upstairs to the bedrooms. I...I was drunk and still fuming.”
“Go on.” My foot was on the gas. I was recording and I wasn’t going to let off of him until I had a full confession. I glanced over at Hannah. She was sitting stiffly at the edge of the couch, a few feet away from me. She wasn’t a violent sort or one even to spoil for so much as an argument but she looked ready to pounce if he so much as moved a muscle in my direction.
Bailey swallowed. “I turned back, set my beer on the dining table that was already set for dinner, grabbed the carving set out of the cabinet, drew the knife out of it and barreled into the little toilet room with it to confront him.”
“I took Mathis by surprise, just as he finished zipping up. I jabbed the knife at the man hard when he lunged for me. It sank into his chest.”
“It...it happened so fast. He tried to pull back. I jerked backward myself, still holding onto the knife. Blood just spurted everywhere and he crumpled to the floor. He was dead by the time he hit it.”
“I sobered up real quick then and I was horrified by what I’d done.” His voice trembled as he spoke.
“Not horrified enough to take the rap for it though?”
“Just...I just wasn’t thinking straight. I don’t know...It would have come out about me and Eunice if I had confessed. I couldn’t do that to her...I couldn’t. It was all my fault we ever got tangled up in the first place, not hers.” He shook his head.
“So,” Hannah asked, “What did you do? How’d you get out of there without anyone knowing?”
“I...I just scrambled out of that tiny little room, pulling the door closed behind me. Out in the hallway...well, I stood there, heaving, trying to get some air, holding that damn bloody knife, and scared out of my mind at what I’d just done, like I said. A voice came from the living room, coming closer to the door to the hallway and I panicked.”
“I looked this way and that and then I scrambled back toward the dining room. That’s when I noticed a door on the wall that would have been at the back side of the stairs. I grabbed the case with the carving fork in it and made a beeline for that door. When I yanked it open, I found what I expected to find, stone stairs that went down to the basement. On through it I went, pulled it shut till the catch clicked and then I went on down into the darkness down there.”
“Up overhead, once I was down there, I heard someone yelling at the boys that had been playing football outside to get cleaned up and then I heard them all tromping inside and around from the living room where some of them were watching the Cowboys game, toward the hallway. The noise gave me some cover as I worked at a deep sink that was under a window set high on the wall to rinse my hands off and that knife. I cleaned it up as best I could in that little bit of dim light, dried it off on an old rag that was lying there, put it back in the case and then I hid the whole set in a box of dusty old canning jars that was on a shelf right there. I didn’t know what else to do.”
I let out the breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. His story, at least about the murder, rang true.
“A scream sounded above me. I knew one of those boys must have found Mathis. I panicked again...don’t know what I was thinking. Guess I hoped he’d just disappear...”
“Anyway, I found another window down there that I could get at that was top hinged at about ground level. I pushed it out as far as it would go then I worked myself up and through it into the yard trying to avoid mud and grass stains as I went. I still had the rag in my hand...never even thought about it. I ditched it in a trash can, went to the back door and back into the house through the kitchen.”
“I remember calling out, ‘What’s all the ruckus in here?’ The kitchen was empty though and so was the dining room. My beer was still on the table in there. I picked it up and took a big gulp...I was so nervous. It was bedlam out in that hallway...” He shook his head and got lost in his own head.
We sat there quietly for what seemed like forever but was probably only a few minutes or so. Not knowing what to say to him, I just left him to his thoughts.
There were still unanswered questions about that day in my mind and I mulled them as we sat there. I wondered how he got out of there with a bloody knife and blood spurting from Tanner Mathis and yet there were no reports of any blood dripped on the floor outside the bathroom in the file. He hadn’t told us the whole story. I wasn’t sure that he would.
“All these years, I’ve held that in,” he said, finally.
“You never told anybody?”
He shook his head. “No, not directly. Chuck’s not stupid. I’m pretty sure he knew what really happened but he never said a word about it...not to me, not to the Sheriff...not that I ever knew about.”
“What about Eunice?” I asked. I had to try and get the whole story even if he was protecting her.
He shook his head hard. “No, no. I didn’t tell her. I didn’t.”
“Did she know anyway, Horace?”
He stared seemingly through me then. “Yes...no...I don’t know...I just don’t know.” He sucked in a big gulp of air and then had a coughing fit as he let it back out. “What happens now? You’re going to tell Mel, aren’t you? What will happen to me?”
Bailey stared at me directly now, waiting for my answer, but his look wasn’t hard or defiant. He was a man beaten.
“A lot of that depends on you and how you want to handle it. A murder is a murder. There’s no statute of limitations. You’ll be charged and you’ll have to plead. You’re going to need a lawyer.” I played it straight up with him, no options, but I wasn’t done yet.
“What happened today Horace?”
The beaten down look on his face changed. “What do you mean?”
“Where’d you go today; who’d you see? What happened?”
“I went to see my doctor and he sent me on to some specialist down in Newark...’bout my knee and hip. Guy wants to do a knee replacement and maybe the hip too. I don’t want to mess with all of that.”
“You were in Newark all day today?”
<
br /> “Most of it. Zanesville and then Newark.”
“You didn’t go out to see Chuck Knox today or see Owen Lafferty?”
“Owen? I haven’t seen him in years...been a long time; maybe ten years or more. Why? He been around for some reason?”
Headlights shone through the front window behind me and played off the wall behind Bailey as a vehicle turned into his driveway. He fell silent again.
He hung his head, resigned to his fate, finally, after 42 years of waiting and hiding the truth when Mel entered the room followed by one of her Patrol Sergeants.
Chapter 28- Epilogue
Dana
Tuesday Evening, November 10th
Crane Family Farm
“Your dad...Grandpa, for as little as I can remember him, wasn’t a killer,” Mel said to Faye. “None of the Laffertys at your house that Thanksgiving Day were involved in Mathises murder.”
I wasn’t so sure that was true. My gut told me Eunice Lafferty knew exactly who killed Mathis and may have even surreptitiously mopped some blood droppings off the hallway and dining room floors before the police arrived but I’d never be able to prove it. Horace Bailey had already shown me that he wasn’t about to give her up.
“What about Uncle Owen,” Faye asked. “Do you think Horace lured him to that cabin?”
Mel did a slow shrug and shook her head. “That, I can’t answer. Bailey claims to have an alibi for the time when Owen was at the cabin and, frankly, for most of the day yesterday. We’re still checking that out. Chuck claims he was in a tree stand all day. He says he has trail cams that should have picked his movements up so...” she spread her hands.
“So, you don’t know.”
“We’re working on it. If Chuck’s trail cameras picked up his comings and goings, maybe they picked up whatever happened around his cabin or vehicles going along the access road to it too.”
“Why do you suppose Owen had gone over to Chuck’s place, in the first place?”
