Kentucky Murders: A Small Town Murder Mystery

by Larry Parrott

  Leaving the porch, he worked his way around the side of the house. He turned the back corner and approached the rear door. That’s when he saw the splintered wood and the interior door hanging open. He leaned against the building, slid the flashlight into his pocket and unclipped the hand-held radio from his belt. “Sally,” he whispered into the radio. “We’ve got a break-in here. Tell backup to hurry up, but I’m going in just in case someone is hurt.”

  Maybe boring isn’t so bad after all.

  He clipped the radio back onto his belt and lifted the flashlight.

  He awkwardly opened the outer screen door and entered the kitchen.

  ---

  Lee turned to Donnie and whispered, “He went inside. Let’s go.” They silently trotted away. Luckily, the only window on that side of the house was upstairs.

  ---

  Bringing his gun hand and the hand holding the flashlight together, he held them out in front of him and flicked on the light. The flashlight pointed where his gun barrel pointed. He listened. Silence.

  Nothing except the damaged back door appeared out of place in the kitchen. He passed through into the living room. Still nothing stirred. He shined the light around the room. All looked normal.

  He wondered if he should announce his presence. If someone with a gun was hiding nearby, maybe they intended to shoot him. Then he realized his flashlight was an obvious giveaway of his location. This was nothing like training. He rubbed the sweat off his brow with his shirt sleeve.

  He came to the bottom of the stairs and looked up. All was still silent.

  He climbed the stairs slowly, his senses on high alert.

  At the top he shined the light to the right, then turned to the left and stepped down the hallway. The first room was an empty bathroom. Then he came to a bedroom door.

  As he turned inside and shone his light, he couldn’t believe what he saw on the bed. At first he couldn’t move his paralyzed body. The killers could be anywhere. A gun could be pointed at his head right now.

  Finally he broke the paralysis. “Sally, 10-18, send that backup now!”

  Chapter 5

  Lee and Donnie sat in the truck under the dark carport of Lee’s trailer. They didn’t speak. Finally Donnie reached down between his feet in the darkness and found a paper bag. His hand brought up a sliver beer can. He popped the top and took a gulp.

  “Want one?”

  When Lee shook his head no, he took another large gulp. “I never killed people before, just animals. Damn. Holy shit, man!”

  Lee had killed twice before and he remembered the rush he’d felt each time, the power he had to end a life.

  The first victim had been sanctioned by the President in October of 1983 on the small island of Grenada. He still remembered the dead soldier’s eyes staring lifelessly up at the blue Caribbean sky. Next, he shot the son of a bitch who’d been screwing his ex-old lady. Lee thought about his six years in the joint paying for that one. Not this time. They would do this job and be gone. Lee was in control of this situation. Unlike the last time, this wasn’t an angry reaction of finding two people screwing in his bed.

  Except for the girl…

  “We’ve got a problem,” said Lee. “The girl. He wants her. And he may not pay unless we deliver.”

  “Man, it’ll be all right. Tell him we did what he asked, we killed the parents, and want the rest of the money.”

  “How the hell did a little kid just disappear like that?”

  Lee opened his door and got out of the truck. This wasn’t good. The plan had been perfect until he went into her room and she wasn’t there. Lee had figured she would be curled up under the bed or hiding in the closet. He never expected her to run. Then he wondered if he could kidnap a kid anyway. If not him, Donnie would have done it. He didn’t care about anything except beer and easy money. That’s probably why Lee had recruited him in the first place.

  Donnie, now standing on the other side of the truck and leaning against the hood, said, “Did you see my art work?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You didn’t see my Nazi swastika? I dipped a sheet in some of their blood and painted it on the wall by the bed.”

  “You stupid redneck!”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Now it’s a hate crime, you idiot. Now some special crime unit or the FBI will be down here to investigate. That’s just great. With all their resources, they’ll find some way to track us down. I told you not to do anything that wasn’t in the plan. Why did I trust you?”

  “Man, this will just make ‘em think the skinheads or the KKK did it. Not us. I was throwing them off our trail.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “Now freakin’ call him. I want the rest of my money.”

  “I’ll call but I’m worried about the girl.” He looked at his watch. “We should be delivering her to him about now. He’s going to expect to see her.”

  “What do you think they were going to do with her anyway?” asked Donnie, a sick smile on his face. “Some kiddy porn thing? Or maybe sell her to some rich, fancy colored couple who can’t have kids…you know?”

  Lee went inside the trailer with Donnie close behind. He sat as the dining table and looked up at the phone mounted on the wall. Finally, he sighed, picked it up and dialed the number he had memorized.

  “Hello?”

  “It’s me. We took care of them.”

  “Okay, we’ll meet. Bring the girl and you’ll get your money.”

  “Well, we kind of had a problem. We took care of the parents, but the girl, she just disappeared. We looked for her, but ran out of time.”

  “The job included the girl. No girl, no more cash.”

  “What do you expect--”

  “No girl, no cash.”

  The phone went dead.

  “Wud he say?”

  Lee went back outside to the carport and Donnie followed.

  “Well?”

  “We need the girl.”

  “Damn, I want my money. What the hell are we going to do now?”

  “I don’t know. Just go home and tell your old lady you were out drinkin’, as usual. Go! I have to think.”

  Donnie snorted. “Okay, man, but I’ll be back here tomorrow. It better be good news.” He turned and swaggered towards his van parked in front of the trailer.

  Lee sat down in a folding beach chair under the carport in the darkness next to the 1965 singlewide trailer that he rented for $300 a month. He leaned back and listened to the sounds of the night as an owl whooo’ed from some dark tree; crickets sang all around him. The scent of wood burning came from somewhere in the trailer park. Lee wondered if they were going to get away with this. If I can just get the rest of the money, Jenny and I can leave this shitty town behind.

  ---

  Donnie pulled out of Lee’s trailer park and headed toward home. Lee better come up with one of his plans. Why the hell did he have to always plan every detail anyway? Shit, sometimes you just have to go for it and get it done.

  He just wanted his money. He took a swig of his beer as he turned at the next road. So they wouldn’t pay without the girl. Damn. Most of the up-front money he’d gotten from Lee was already gone, but at least he’d paid off Dickerson. That son of a bitch would have taken the money Donnie owed out of his hide if this deal hadn’t come along.

  Donnie had gotten word that he could pick up some grass at five hundred a kilo. He figured if he could come up with a thousand dollars and buy two kilos, he could make five times that amount just by selling ounce bags to the losers around the county. But he didn’t have a thousand dollars. So he went to Dickerson and borrowed the money, if you call borrowing “you got two weeks to pay back fifteen hundred.” He knew it was a rip off, but he had no choice. You had to have the product to make a profit. He figured he could make back the money he’d borrowed in first two weeks, pay off the debt, and the rest was all profit.

  Except, he got ripped off. The deal was bullshit. He was
a sucker and they took his money. He now owed fifteen hundred to a thug who would break a finger for every day he was late. And when he ran out of fingers he would start breaking larger body parts. Then Lee had called, and his problem was solved. All they had to do was murder a couple people and kidnap their kid. No problem.

  When Lee paid him his first twenty five hundred, he paid what he owed to Dickerson, and he still had a five hundred left. Then after the job, another twenty five hundred was coming. What a deal. It was like he had won the lottery.

  Donnie pulled into the driveway of his girlfriend Cherry’s house where he’d been living for the past six months. She only asked him to help with the rent and utilities when he had money. Since he had a hard time keeping a job, he also had a hard time acquiring money on a regular basis. Then there was the sex. Cherry was a big girl, about three hundred pounds big. Although some guys seemed to like that, and Donnie happened to be one of them, Cherry hadn’t gotten much action in the past.

  They had a one-night stand and he never got around to leaving, and she never asked him to. They fell into a routine – she took care of the bills, and in return, she wasn’t alone on Friday nights. She even let him get a little rough with her sometimes. Hell, what was she going to do, throw him out? It’s not like men were lining up at the door.

  Donnie softly sung an old tune that his father used to listen to when Donnie was a kid. He hummed his favorite lyrics as he made his way through the living room and back to the bedroom. He removed his clothes as he went along and dropped them wherever they fell, a boot here, jeans there.

  “I’m just a gigolo, everywhere I go…”

  Chapter 6

  My second night as sheriff and there’s a multiple homicide. This is just great.

  Zack rounded the curve and the farm came into view. All four of the county’s police cars lined the driveway, their rooftop lights flashing.

  He pulled in behind the other cars, cut his engine and got out of his Chevrolet Blazer. As he walked toward the house, he smelled freshly turned soil in the crisp night air. It reminded him of childhood visits to his aunt’s northern Michigan farm. One of his deputies stood farther up the gravel driveway talking with a nervous looking older man wearing pajamas and a large woman tightly wrapped in a robe. The officer held a note pad in his hand and seemed to be interviewing them.

  “Sheriff,” said the deputy with a nod as Zack walked up to them. “This is Mr. and Mrs. Johnson. They live just up the road and Mrs. Johnson called it in when she heard the shots.”

  “She could hear a rabbit fart from a mile away,” said the old man. “I didn’t hear a damn thing but she insisted we call.”

  The woman nodded without saying anything. She reminded Zack of a female-sumo-wrestler-bobble-head-doll wearing a thick white robe. What looked like a knitting needle protruded from a ball of grey hair perched at the top of her round head.

  The deputy and Zack stepped a few feet away from the witnesses and the deputy spoke in a low voice. “I came down here to investigate after stopping at the Johnson’s and found the front door locked,” said deputy Priestly. “I went around the back and saw that the back door had been broken into. I called for backup, drew my weapon, and went inside. Found a real mess upstairs; two victims. Rachel’s up there now.”

  “Did you finish taking their statements?” When the deputy nodded yes, Zack turned to the couple. “Did you see any cars on the road or anyone who might have done this?” When they both shook their heads no, Zack reached out and touched the shoulder of the lady. “You two can go home. The deputy will give you a ride. We’ll be in touch, but if you think of anything later, you call us. Okay? Thanks for your help.” He stepped past them and climbed the steps leading to the porch.

  Two of his other deputies stood talking in the living room when Zack entered the house. “Brad,” said Zack. “How about getting out to the road and making sure we don’t get any visitors. If the press shows up, tell them to wait there.”

  “Sure, Zack. Ah, I mean, Sheriff.” He left the house.

  Zack looked at the other cop. “Where are they?”

  He pointed up the stairs and to the left. “End of the hall on the right.”

  Zack climbed the stairs. When he reached the top and turned left he saw a flash come from the last doorway. As he came to the door he watched Rachel snap another picture of the gruesome scene. He closed his eyes for a few seconds to try to get rid of that white spot in your vision you see after you stare at a bright flash. Finally, he opened them.

  The attractive young woman turned to him. She was dressed in dark clothes. Her black baseball cap read AI for Accident Investigator in white letters. But today she wasn’t investigating an accident. “Hey, Sheriff. They said you were on the way.”

  “Rachel.” Zack scanned the room. Only a small lamp on a nightstand lit the bedroom, casting shadows over the two bodies. “Damn, what a mess.”

  “Yeah, this is a bad one. I’ve finished taking the preliminary pictures. Now I’d like to start digging deeper to see if they left anything behind.”

  “They? More than one?”

  “Looks like at least two. The angle of the blasts shows that one was standing there.” She pointed to the left of the doorway. “And the other one was over there.” She pointed to the opposite corner of the room. “Blood splatter is at two different angles. Probably used 12 gauge shotguns. The victims were a thirty-something black couple. The woman was shot once in the chest while still lying in bed. As you can see, the man is half in bed with his upper torso over the side. One shot had hit him in the shoulder. Probably the first one. Then when he tried to get out of bed, the second one caught him in the head.”

  The shot had taken off most of top of his head from his eyes up, leaving only a bloody mess. Zack felt his stomach turn. Then he looked up at the wall next to the bed. A two-foot high swastika had been drawn on the wall in what appeared to be the victims’ blood. Hate crime, thought Zack. Add that to his list of bad luck for his first night on the job. “What kind of sick animals would do something like this?” He said it out loud but Rachel said nothing, knowing he wasn’t expecting an answer. Zack felt the urge to get out of there.

  “Okay, I’ll let you work.” He left the room.

  As he came back down the hallway, one of his deputies climbed the stairs to meet him.

  “Sheriff, there’s no sign of the girl. They probably took her.”

  “Girl? What girl?”

  “Bedroom down there.” He pointed to the other end of the hall. “Looks like a little girl’s room.”

  “What the hell?” Zack trotted down to the room. Inside he saw a pink flowery toddler’s bed, stuffed animals, dolls and toys for a girl about his son’s age, four or five.

  He stepped back into the hallway and faced his officer, Jeff. “You mean to tell me there’s a little girl missing and you’re standing around doing nothing?”

  “We searched the house. She’s nowhere around.”

  “You get on the radio and tell Sally to call every cop that she can find and tell them to start looking for that girl! Set up roadblocks; search the fields and woods in the area. You know what to do. Go. Now!”

  Zack hurried back into the room. He got on his hands and knees and looked under the bed. He went to the closet, opened it and dug around under all the clothes and blankets. He looked for an attic door but didn’t find one.

  He rushed out of the room and checked each of the other rooms on the second floor. Nothing, just like that idiot had said. Then, standing at the back window of one of the bedrooms, he looked out at the playhouse in the backyard.

  He ran down the stairs two at a time and found his way through the kitchen to the back. He hurried across the lawn to the tiny plastic house that stood about waist high. Leaning down he looked inside the small doorway. A little girl sat shaking, hunched in the corner. Her knees were pulled tight to her chest and her arms were clenched around them. She was wrapped in a large pink t-shirt. Her huge, terrified eyes stared up
at Zack.

  “Don’t worry, sweetie. I’m a police officer. I’m here to help you.”

  She flinched as Zack reached out for her.

  Chapter 7

  Kate lay awake in the dark bedroom wondering where Zack was and when he would finally return home. She looked over at the clock for the twentieth time: 3:34. Then she heard a car approaching the house.

  She swung her legs off the bed and stood. Still tying the belt on her robe, she walked down the hallway and leaned into Jimmy’s room as she passed by. His little snores rose from the bundle of bedspread, under which he was curled out of sight. She continued along the hallway and descended the steps leading down to the front door. She reached and opened it. Zack was coming up the sidewalk.

  Maybe she had been too hard on him. Sure he’d gotten drunk after quitting alcohol for years. Sure had needed someone to drive him home and could hardly walk when he’d entered the house. But he’d just been elected sheriff. Maybe she should cut him some slack. But then she remembered why he had quit drinking…

  “Zack?”

  “Hi. What are you doing up? I thought you weren’t talking to me.”

  Kate held the door open as Zack slipped inside the house. He didn’t attempt a hug, but made his way into the living room and flopped onto the couch. “I’m exhausted.”

  She wanted to say, if you weren’t hung over… but resisted. She sat down next to him. “What happened … with the case?”

  “A husband and wife were murdered.”

  “My God!”

  “Yeah, and they have a little girl who survived by hiding.”

  “Really? Where is she now?”

  “One of your coworkers picked her up and took her to your office.”

  Kate had been working at the social services office for the past six months.

  “How is she?”

  “She seems fine physically. But as far as I know she hasn’t said a word.”

  “Well, I guess I’ll get to meet her when I go to work in the morning. Poor thing.”