A Murder In Passing

by Mark de Castrique

  “That’s two questions, but I take your point. My brother and I weren’t seeing eye-to-eye. He’d brought me into his business, but then wouldn’t let me expand it into new markets. He got tied up with Lucille, fathered a mulatto child, and kept an ongoing relationship that went against the law. Then when that law changed, the woman he could now marry rejected him. He told me I could do whatever the hell I wanted with the company. He was starting over. He took ten grand out of his checking account and was never seen again.”

  “And you never got worried that something had happened to him?” Nakayla asked.

  “Of course I did. But I had my pride, and Jimmy knew where I was if he wanted to find me. Look. It was a tough time. My wife had just died of cancer, my only son William was in Vietnam, and my brother was acting like a damn fool.”

  “And you blame Lucille Montgomery,” Nakayla said. “That’s why you want her out of this.”

  His face flushed. “Hell no. Lucille’s the one who called me. Lucille’s the one who thought something had happened to Jimmy. I was just too damn stubborn to listen to her.”

  Lang worked himself up into such a frenzy that spittle foamed in one corner of his mouth. I became concerned he’d have a stroke if he didn’t calm down.

  “Okay,” I said. “I think we understand. And you’ve kept up with Lucille all these years?”

  “Yeah. And I’ve tried to help out. She never had any money to speak of. I gave her a job that paid higher than her cafeteria work. I helped her with daycare expenses. Then I hired Marsha when she graduated from high school. I guess you could say Jimmy’s absence bound us together.”

  “And your relationship is public knowledge?” Nakayla asked.

  Lang glared at her. “We did what was best for both of us.”

  I thought of Marsha Montgomery’s phrase, “There was a code of silence. My mother wanted it that way.” It appeared Lucille shared that desire not to cross the color line.

  “All right. Here’s what I propose,” Nakayla said. “We’ll talk to Lucille and Marsha. If they want you involved in the investigation, then we’ll consider it. If they don’t, well, there are other private investigators.”

  “Lucille said Blackman and Robertson were the best.”

  “We are,” Nakayla said. “And whoever hires us deserves our full attention.”

  Lang looked to me, but I said nothing.

  He shrugged, put his weight on his cane, and rose from the sofa. “Then I’ll wait to hear from you.” He fumbled in the side pocket of his sport coat and pulled out a business card. He handed it to Nakayla.

  “Don’t wait,” she said. “Go to the police and tell them what you told us. Better you find them than they come looking for you.”

  When we heard the elevator in the hall descending to the ground floor with Lang, I said, “Tomorrow let’s both talk with Lucille and Marsha Montgomery. This is too strange for me to follow up on my own.”

  “Agreed.” Nakayla went into her office and returned with her purse. “But let’s leave it till tomorrow. Tonight, you can take me to dinner.”

  “All right, dearie. Right after I forward the phones.”

  We walked to Bouchon, a favorite French restaurant a few blocks from the office. The mountain air was invigorating and the setting sun cast that magical golden aura on everything it touched. We were early enough to beat the crowd, but not so early that we couldn’t start dinner with a bottle of wine. And it was all-you-can-eat mussels night. Life couldn’t get any better.

  Actually it did. We split a bottle of Pinot Grigio, if my three glasses to Nakayla’s one qualifies as a split. Then Nakayla insisted she drive me home. To her home.

  Somewhere in the fuzzy realm of wine, mussels, love, and sleep, I heard ringing. Nakayla threw a bare hip into me in case I had any doubt as to whose cellphone was the culprit. I rolled over and grabbed the offending instrument from her nightstand.

  “Yes,” I croaked.

  “Mr. Blackman?” The woman’s voice sounded breathy and frightened.

  “Yes.”

  “This is Marsha Montgomery. I’m at the Henderson County jail. They’ve just booked my mother on suspicion of murder and charged me as an accessory. Please help us!”

  Chapter Eight

  As I gathered my wits during Marsha’s call, I realized it was only ten-thirty. Immediately upon hanging up, I phoned Hewitt Donaldson and told him the story. When he heard an eighty-five-year-old woman was sitting in a county jail, the pit bull side of his personality launched into high gear. What I intended to get on his agenda for the morning became an instant crusade. He asked where I was and said he’d pick me up in thirty minutes. I had no chance for rebuttal. You don’t argue with Perry Mason on steroids.

  Nakayla, Hewitt, and I arrived at the Henderson County Detention Center shortly after midnight. A deputy behind the reception window asked for identification. Nakayla and I flashed our P.I. licenses. They struck the deputy with all the force of an airborne dandelion seed.

  The deputy eyed Hewitt. In his wrinkled orange and yellow Hawaiian shirt, Hewitt looked like someone we were bringing into custody.

  “And who are you?”

  Hewitt leaned in till he was less than six inches from the protective window of thick glass. “Hewitt Donaldson, attorney-at-law, and I’m here to see that elderly woman and her daughter you have egregiously incarcerated.”

  The deputy wet his lips. He had heard of Hewitt Donaldson. “Visiting hours are in the morning.”

  Hewitt leaned even closer and tilted his head to read the deputy’s name badge. “Officer Stinson. I am not a visitor. I am their attorney. I am not waiting until morning for them to exercise their constitutional rights. Now, you can let me talk to them under the protection of attorney-client privilege or I will make one phone call to the editor of the Hendersonville Times-News and tell him how the Sheriff’s Department dragged an eighty-five-year-old lady out of the critical care wing of her retirement center and dumped her in a jail cell.”

  Deputy Stinson’s face turned scarlet. “That’s not true. We went after hours when we wouldn’t be disruptive to the whole complex, and Miss Montgomery was in her own room. She came willingly.”

  “Fine. Those will be nice quotes, but they don’t refute the fact that less than twelve hours ago the woman was in a critical care facility. Need I remind you that your boss is an elected official and that the actual voters in this county who elect him are disproportionately retirees? Who do you think they’re going to identify with in our drama tonight?”

  Deputy Stinson didn’t say anything. Hewitt just waited, letting the silence build.

  Finally, the deputy looked at Nakayla and me. “Tell your friend here that they’re sleeping. If Miss Montgomery didn’t feel well earlier, then she needs her rest tonight.”

  “I can hear you,” Hewitt said. “I have two good ears. I also have two good eyes.” He looked around the room. “No offense, but this isn’t the Ritz-Carlton. If you think she’s sleeping, then she’s probably in a coma.”

  The deputy glared at Hewitt for a few seconds. Then the anger in his face dissolved into the tired recognition that Hewitt wouldn’t yield to any argument or threat.

  “All right. I’ll buzz you through.” He pointed a finger at Nakayla and me. “But you two stay here. This isn’t going to turn into a circus.”

  Hewitt gave me a nod. He would cover us later.

  Nakayla and I sat in two chairs across the small lobby from the duty officer. A second deputy appeared from the back rooms and waved Hewitt inside. He acknowledged Nakayla and me with a “Good evening, Sir. Ma’am.” I was tempted to correct him that it was after midnight but decided I was skilled enough at making enemies without putting in extra effort.

  Twenty minutes later, the interior door opened again and Deputy Overcash stepped into the room. He wiggled his index finger for us to follow him.
Without saying a word, Nakayla and I walked behind him until he led us into an empty interview room and closed the door.

  I noticed that his shirt was mis-buttoned and part of the tail wasn’t smoothly tucked into his trousers. He’d been roused from his bed and probably dressed in the dark.

  “Have a seat.” He gestured to two chairs on the far side of a wooden table.

  “What are we doing here?” I asked.

  “That’s what I’d like to know. Hey, no skin off my nose if you prefer to leave, but I thought a little talk might be helpful to all of us.”

  Since Overcash knew more about what was going on than we did, I saw no point in being antagonistic.

  When we were seated, Overcash clasped his hands in front of him. “No notes. No recordings. Just a simple chat. Okay?”

  “Sure,” I said. “I’ll even answer that first question. We’re here because Marsha Montgomery hired us to find a missing photograph. Through us, she met Hewitt Donaldson who is now engaged as her attorney.” Technically Hewitt and Marsha had met only for a brief moment in our office, but I was confident that by now Hewitt was part of the Montgomery family. “Hewitt brought us in case this mix-up has anything to do with our investigation.”

  Overcash looked incredulous. “A photograph? You expect me to believe this is about a photograph?”

  “Believe whatever the hell you want. That’s not going to change the facts of what happened. All I see from your side is an overzealous rush to book a suspect.”

  Overcash studied my face for a few seconds, probably deciding how much to reveal in our simple chat. We were about the same age, but I seriously doubted he possessed either the investigative experience or the discipline my years in the military had provided me. I counted on his vanity to prompt him to show me his hand. He might not like me, but he didn’t want to appear foolish.

  “An overzealous rush to book a suspect.” He mimicked my words. “Tell me, Mr. Blackman, what would you do if you found a rifle freshly buried in a woman’s backyard that had her fingerprints all over it. A rifle that hadn’t been fired or cleaned for some time because of the extensive corrosion in the barrel, yet not in such poor condition that rifling marks couldn’t provide a clear ballistics match to the slug we found in our friend in the log.”

  “So, Marsha Montgomery disposed of her own property. The skeleton has to be so old that she was only a child when the shooting occurred.”

  “Maybe. But I can guaran-damn-tee you her mother wasn’t a child. There’s no statute of limitations on murder, no matter how long ago, how old the perp, or how many years later someone conspired to cover it up.”

  “You’ve identified the remains as someone Marsha or her mother had a motive to kill?”

  His eyes flicked down to the table just for an instant, but long enough for me to tell I’d hit the weak spot in his case.

  “We have a strong lead on a person missing during the timeframe consistent with the skeletal remains, and there is a clear link between that person and Lucille Montgomery.”

  “Oh, so an official missing person’s report led you to dig up Marsha Montgomery’s backyard?”

  Again, the flick of the eyes. “We have our methods.”

  “I’m sure you do. Discovering Jimmy Lang’s name when no missing person’s report exists is outstanding detective work. Of course, you could have called Nakayla or me and we would have told you Jimmy Lang disappeared in the summer of 1967. We’re detectives too you know.”

  His face flushed. “Who told you that?”

  “We have our methods. I figure you got a tip on the rifle before Lang gave you the name. You had to have found it yesterday in order to turn around even a fast-tracked ballistics report.”

  “Someone said they saw Marsha Montgomery burying a rifle on Sunday morning.”

  The morning the story of the log skeleton first appeared in the newspapers, I thought. “Anonymous, or are you withholding the name?”

  “Anonymous. The caller told our dispatcher he didn’t want to cause any trouble in case there was an innocent explanation. He claimed he was out walking his dog when he saw Marsha bury the gun in her garden. Then William Lang contacted me Sunday afternoon and told me about his uncle’s disappearance.”

  I kept my eyes on Overcash, forcing myself not to look surprised. He hadn’t learned about Jimmy Lang from John Lang but from John’s son, and an entire day earlier. Furthermore, if John was to be believed, William hadn’t told his father. John got that information from Lucille.

  Overcash leaned across the table. “We got a search warrant for Marsha Montgomery’s exterior property. She wasn’t home and since we weren’t going inside the premises, we simply proceeded with our search. We saw the freshly turned earth, found the rifle, and got it to the ballistics lab.”

  “And you didn’t talk to Marsha or her mother in the meantime?”

  He shrugged. “Nothing to talk about. Not till we got the report.”

  “And then you made a grandstand arrest of an eighty-five-year-old woman and her daughter, both of whom have lived in this county all their lives.”

  Overcash remained calm. “Nothing grandstand about it. We had probable cause, obtained an arrest warrant, and went to Golden Oaks after things had quieted down for the evening. Marsha was visiting her mother and both came peacefully. After booking the women and matching Marsha’s prints to the rifle, each was given her right to a phone call and here we are.”

  I wondered if Lucille made a call and to whom.

  Overcash shifted his gaze between us. “To be perfectly straight with you, I feel they’re better off in our custody than the Greenville Sheriff’s Department. If the victim was Jimmy Lang, then he was a Henderson County resident, most likely shot in Henderson County, and he happened to die only a few feet across the state line. This is clearly our case.”

  “If Jimmy Lang is your victim,” I said.

  Overcash couldn’t keep a smirk off his face. “Oh, we’ll know that through any dental records or if not then DNA testing.”

  Nakayla touched my wrist, a subtle signal that I should be careful what I said.

  “Is it a crime to be related to someone?” she asked.

  “What do you mean?” Overcash asked.

  “I assume you’ve taken a saliva swab from both Marsha and Lucille.”

  “Yes. That’s all perfectly legal.”

  “And if you find their DNA matches DNA evidence collected at a crime scene, then you have something to pursue. But using that for victim identification might be another matter. I’m not a lawyer. I’m just saying I’d hate to see your case collapse on a technicality.”

  Overcash looked confused. I understood how he felt. I didn’t know where Nakayla was heading with a legal argument more suited for Hewitt’s maneuvering. North Carolina law had recently required the collection of a DNA sample from anyone charged with a felony, but I didn’t know if there were restrictions on its application. Then I realized Nakayla was expanding my own argument. Proving the victim was Jimmy Lang and irrefutably establishing Marsha’s kinship to him made the link between Lang and Lucille only stronger. That might not play well with a jury if the case ever came to trial.

  Overcash’s face brightened. “Well, don’t worry your pretty little head about that. We’ve got a better way of identifying the skeleton. You might say the perfect way. John Lang is Jimmy Lang’s twin brother. It’ll be like looking in a DNA mirror.”

  He was correct, as if DNA markers weren’t accurate enough already. “Anything else?” I asked.

  “Nope. I just wanted to establish a cooperative relationship with you both. You know, before the D.A. gets involved.”

  “All right. You can check that off your to-do list. Now, do you want a description of the stolen photograph?”

  Overcash laughed. “No. I’ll leave that matter to you big city detectives.” He stood. “We’l
l piddle along with our little murder and let you solve the high-profile cases.”

  We followed him back to the main entrance. Seated in the chair I’d occupied was John Lang. He looked madder than a wet hen, and I immediately knew whose number Lucille Montgomery dialed for her one phone call.

  “What the hell’s going on?” He pounded his cane on the floor and then leveraged himself to his feet.

  “We have a suspect in your brother’s murder.” Deputy Overcash couldn’t keep a note of pride out of his voice.

  “Are you talking about Lucille?” Lang hurried forward as fast as he could. “Overcash, you jackass. What proof do you have it’s Jimmy?”

  “Your son said your brother went missing during that time.”

  “My brother left town and my son was in Vietnam. So, again, what evidence do you have that it’s Jimmy?”

  “There’s the timeframe.”

  “And how wide is that?”

  The Adam’s apple on Overcash’s thin neck bobbled as he swallowed nervously. He didn’t like the way the old man was grilling him, especially in front of us. “That’s for the Medical Examiner to determine. But Lucille’s gun definitely shot the man.”

  “That old Remington fourteen and a half? Lucille’s gun might have shot the man, but Lucille couldn’t hit the broadside of a barn if she were standing inside it.”

  “She was a lot younger then.”

  Lang waved his cane at Overcash. “Of course, she was younger then. We all were. Jimmy tried to teach her to shoot, but he told me she was hopeless.”

  I looked at Nakayla. She smiled. Hewitt Donaldson would love this old codger as a defense witness.

  Overcash didn’t have the good sense to let Lang’s rant go unchallenged. He put his hands on his hips and squared off facing him. “Even a blind man can hit something if he stands close enough.”

  “Right.” Lang pressed the end of his cane against the deputy’s chest and pulled an imaginary trigger. “And at that distance, what bone in your body do you think will stop a thirty-eight rifle slug from passing clean through?”