Stillborn Armadillos (John Lee Quarrels Book 1)

by Nick Russell

  "Please ma'am, this is very important. It has to do with those three skeletons we found the other day."

  "Well why you askin' me? I didn't shoot 'em!"

  "No, ma'am, I'm sure you didn't. But we found this at the crime scene and we're trying to figure out what the connection is."

  "Then why ain't ya talking to Chester?"

  "Chester?"

  "Yeah, if anybody'd know anythin' 'bout somethin' like that it'd be him, not me."

  "Does Chester have a last name, ma'am?"

  "Course he's got a last name! Everybody's got a last name. What kind a damn fool question is that, anyway?"

  John Lee needed to remind himself that she was an old woman, and a volunteer, and that she had gone out of her way to meet him at the museum. Even if she made it a point to let him know that it was a great sacrifice on her part.

  "Ma'am, I really appreciate you coming down here and helping me out, and I know you've got other things to do. If you could just tell me how to get a hold of Chester, that would really help me. And you could go on about your day."

  "Damn right I got better things to do!"

  "I understand that ma'am, I really do. Now, how can I talk to Chester."

  "You can't, he won't be here 'til Saturday."

  "Saturday?"

  "Ain't that what I just said? I work Fridays and Chester works Saturdays."

  "Is there any way I can talk to Chester before then?"

  "I don't see how you could, he won't be here 'til Saturday."

  "Is there a way that I could call him? Do you know his phone number?"

  "No, I don't know his phone number. Why would I know his phone number?"

  "Because you work with him at the museum? What if you needed to ask him about something?"

  "Then I'd get hold of him when he was here on Saturday."

  John Lee took a deep breath, "Ma'am, what if you were in the museum on Friday and a water pipe broke or something like that and you needed to get hold of Chester. What would you do?"

  "Why would I call Chester for a broken water pipe? He ain't no plumber."

  "I don't know, I just thought there must be some way you can get hold of him if you really had to."

  "If I really had to, I'd call him. But Chester don't know nothin' 'bout water pipes. He ain't no plumber."

  "Wait a minute. You'd call him? How could you call him if you don't know his phone number?"

  "I don't need to know it, it's wrote down in the address book there inside the museum, along with everybody else's numbers."

  "I thought you said you didn't have his number."

  "No, you asked if I knew his number and I told you I don't, 'cause I don't. You didn't ask me if I knew where his number was wrote down."

  John Lee wanted to throttle the woman, but he knew that wouldn't do any good. Instead, he asked, "Could you possibly open up the museum and write his number down for me and give it to me?"

  "Deputy how many times I got to tell you? The museum ain't open today. It's open Fridays and Saturdays. And this here is Thursday."

  "Right, it's Thursday and you need to go help Gracie Ellen with her potato salad. And I have to figure out who killed those men out there by the highway. And the quicker you get me that number, the quicker you can go do what you have to do and I can go do what I have to do."

  "Well ain't you a snotty pants? I'll have ya know that I know Sheriff D.W. Swindle very well and I'm goin' to be talkin' to him about your attitude. Here I come all the way down here on a Thursday, when the museum ain't even open, and I got better things to be doin' and you talk that way to me. Yes, sir, me and D.W. are gonna have us talk!"

  "That's fine. ma'am. In the meantime, can you just open the damn door and get me Chester's phone number?"

  "There ain't no need for cursin'. After all, I'm doin' you a favor."

  "You're right, ma'am and I apologize. Please, would you mind going in and getting me his number?"

  "That's more like it, young man. Didn't your mama ever tell ya that ya can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar?"

  He was tempted to tell her his mother hadn't taught him much, except to never expect anything just because someone made you a promise. But instead, he just waited while she went inside the museum. She made a point of closing the door in his face and leaving him standing outside. She came out a moment later with a phone number written in a shaky scrawl and asked, "Are we done now? Gracie Ellen is waitin' on me."

  "Yes ma'am, and thank you again for your time."

  He started to open her car door for her and she said, "Step back. I don't need you lookin' up my dress when I get in the car."

  John Lee was sure that whatever was under her faded print dress was not something he wanted to see. "No problem, ma'am, " he said, backing away. "You have yourself a good day."

  She didn't reply, just turned the key in the ignition. The weak battery just barely managed to turn the engine over, and John Lee thought he might have to give her a jump, but then it caught and burst to life in a noisy cloud of blue smoke. She backed out of the driveway and into the street without looking, causing Billy Dickerman to slam on his brakes to keep from broadsiding her. She gave Billy a withering look, like it was his fault that he was driving down the street when she wanted to go someplace, then shifted into gear and drove away.

  Chapter 20

  A man answered the telephone, and when John Lee asked for Chester, he said that was him. John Lee identified himself and said that he was a deputy investigating the murders of the three men whose skeletons were found recently and that he was at the Historical Museum and wondered if there was a possibility Chester could meet him there.

  "Why sure, if you think it'll help you. I'll be right there. Sit tight."

  John Lee went back to his car to escape the heat, but before the Charger's air conditioner could cool him down there was a knock on his window. He looked up to see a short, stoop shouldered man with white hair and a goatee.

  "You that deputy?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "I'm Chester Kelly. What can I do for you?"

  "I'm sorry," John Lee said, getting out of his car. "I didn't see you drive up."

  "Drive up? I only live three houses down. I can walk here quicker'n I could start my pickup and drive here."

  "I wish I had known that," John Lee said. "I've spent the last half hour dealing with a lady whose phone number is on the door there as an emergency contact for the museum."

  "Hazel? Why'd you call her when I'm almost next door?"

  "Hers was the only number there."

  Harold walked to the museum door and leaned down to peer at the sign.

  "There should be a card there with my number, too." He pulled a key ring from his pocket and sorted through a number of keys until he found the right one and unlocked the door. "Come on in, officer."

  He opened the door and bent down to pick up another 3x5 card with his phone number on it and said, "Here it is. Guess I need to put some more tape on it. Come on in, get out of the heat." They were met with hot, stale air. Chester went behind the counter and rummaged around in desk drawers for a moment, then came back with a roll of Scotch tape and re-affixed the sign to the window in the door.

  "So you met Hazel?"

  "Is that who she is?"

  "Yep. Did she bust your balls?"

  "Oh, yeah. I don't know why she wouldn't tell me to just walk down to your house and knock on the door."

  Chester laughed and shook his head. "That'd be too easy. Hazel's been volunteering here for five or six years now, and I think she drives as many people off as she ever makes feel welcome."

  "You might be better off without her," John Lee suggested.

  "If I had anybody else that would open up even one day a week, she'd be gone. Most times we don't get enough traffic in here to make it worth keeping the door open, so we have to depend on volunteer help. And she's the last person we had offer to volunteer in as long as I can remember."

  "Well anyway, I really a
ppreciate you coming down, Chester."

  "No problem. Now what is it I can do for you, son?"

  John Lee took the tag from his pocket and showed it to him. "We found this out at the place where those three skeletons turned up. We don't know if it has anything to do with them or not, and we don't know what it is. Some people have said they think it's everything from a dog tag to a key fob, to a tag that went on a steel jaw leg trap. But nobody knows for sure. I know it's a long shot, but I was hoping you might have some insight."

  Chester was shaking his head, and John Lee expected him to respond the same way everybody else had, but instead Chester said, "It's not a dog tag or a key fob or any of that stuff people been telling you."

  "It's not?"

  "Nope. Follow me."

  He led John Lee through a series of cluttered rooms, turning on lights as he went. Each room held displays of the county's history, each with its own theme. In one a female mannequin with its right hand missing and a worn-out wig on its head stood in front of a wood burning stove. Another had high school football trophies and other sports memorabilia. It looked like the newest display may have been from the 1950s. A third room seemed to be dedicated to Somerton County veterans. There was a mannequin of a World War I Doughboy, and another wearing a World War II vintage Eisenhower jacket. Everything seemed neglected and forgotten.

  In the fourth room they came to, Chester stopped at a glass display case and said, "What you found out there is one of these." He pointed into the case at two identical brass tags, one with the letters SL and the number 236 stamped into it, and the other with SL 103.

  John Lee couldn't believe that after running into so many brick walls, he would find two more tags just like the one he had been carrying around on display at the historical museum.

  "I'll be damned. What are they, Chester."

  "Those are ID tags turpentiners wore,"

  "Turpentiners? What are turpentiners?"

  "Not are, officer, were. There haven't been no turpentiners around here since I was knee high to a grasshopper. They're a breed that died out a long time ago."

  "Do you know anything about them?"

  "About the ID tags, or about the turpentiners?"

  "Anything you can tell me will help."

  "Oh, I can tell you a lot about those days, if you've got time to listen."

  "I've got nothing but time," John Lee assured him.

  "Most folks are in too much of a hurry for history lesson," Chester said. "I guess that's why this place don't get much traffic. Folks are too busy playing with computers and texting and all that nonsense to remember the past. Not me, I've been studying it forever. So do you want the Reader's Digest condensed version or the full story?"

  " I want anything you can tell me. I've already learned more from you in five minutes than I have all week."

  The old man smiled with pride and said, "Well then, you're in for a bit of education, officer. Are you from around these parts?"

  "Spent my whole life here except for a couple of years when I was gone in the Army."

  "And I bet you never heard a word about the turpentine industry in these parts when you was in high school, did you?"

  "No sir, I didn't."

  "Don't surprise me none. It's one of those things we don't talk about 'round here. One of those dirty little secrets, kinda like slavery and lynching and things like that. Guess that makes sense though, since a lot of the turpentine industry wasn't much more than just another form of slavery. Only difference was, it lasted half way through the 20th century. Pull up a chair, deputy, let me tell you all about it."

  Chapter 21

  "Do you know where turpentine comes from?"

  "I'm sorry, I don't," John Lee admitted.

  "Pine trees. Pine trees just like we got all around here. Collecting turpentine dates back to Colonial times. Back then we had wooden ships, and they used pitch, which was rosin made from turpentine gum, to caulk the seams between the timbers on ships' hulls. They also used it on ropes and rigging on sailing ships to preserve them. That's how turpentine products came to be called ‘naval stores’ and that's what gave birth to the turpentine industry. But turpentine had a lot of other uses, too. People used it to polish furniture and clean floors and windows, and as a solvent for paint. It was also used to heal cuts and insect bites. The whole South was part of the industry, from the Carolinas down to Georgia and here in Florida. Right here in Somerton County the Somerton Lumber Company had half a dozen turpentine camps. It made them rich."

  "Somerton, as in the Somerton family?"

  "Yes, sir. Ezekiel Somerton first settled this county way back before the Civil War. As I recall, his family was from Alabama and he was kind of the black sheep. I don't know if they drove him off or he left on his own, but he wound up here."

  Everybody in the county knew the Somerton family, and though John Lee knew their roots went deep into the past, he had never really thought about how they came to prominence. The Somertons owned several businesses in the county, including Somerton Forest Products Company, one of the biggest employers around. A lot of local people worked for the Somertons, lived on property owned by the Somertons, or did business with them in some form or another. And John Lee had his own unfortunate connection to the family.

  "From 1909 until 1923, Florida led the country in production of turpentine gum," Chester said. "It was Florida's second largest industry, and big corporations bought or leased huge tracts of forest land and set up turpentine camps. Things started to slack off a bit with more and more steel ships and when they switched from sail to steam, and then diesel power. But the industry continued way past that. I think the last turpentine camp in the state shut down in about 1952. The last one here in Somerton County closed in 1950."

  "I never even heard of them. Where were the camps located?"

  "I've got an old map here someplace, I can find it and show you. I know one was just about three miles from where you guys found those skeletons."

  "Really? Then they could have come from the camp."

  "It's entirely possible," Chester agreed. "Now, you need to understand something about these camps, officer. They wasn't pleasant places to live or work. Before the Civil War they used slaves to work in the woods harvesting turpentine. They'd cut a slash in a tree and when the sap came out they collected it in buckets. Then it was hauled back to camp and run through a still, just like the new moonshine. It was dangerous work and men were killed and maimed by equipment all the time, not to mention getting snake bit or attacked by gators."

  "Sounds like a hard life," John Lee said.

  "It was, and after the Civil War when they didn't have slave labor no more, they came up with new ways to keep people working. So they hired the negroes who had just been freed, but all they was really doing was making slaves of them all over again. They worked from sunup to sundown Monday through Saturday. The pay was about ten cents an hour, and most of the camps didn't pay with real money. They paid with scrip that could only be used at the camp store. You ever hear the old song about the coal miners and I owe my soul to the company store? It wasn't any different down here in the turpentine camps. If a fella needed to feed his family, or clothe them, or anything else, he had to buy what he needed at the camp store. Besides the camp store, workers lived in little shacks owned by the camp, and they had to pay rent. At the end of the month, he always wound up a little bit more in debt than when he started."

  "Then how did he to break the cycle?"

  "Most of them never did," Chester said. "The law was on the side of the companies, and if the worker tried to leave without pay'in his debt, the camp captain, who was, like the overseer, could chase them down and bring them back, and whip them or do just about anything he wanted to teach them a lesson. And if one of the workers did somehow manage to get away, any cop could pick him up anywhere and bring him right back."

  "And this went on right here, in Somerton County?"

  "Not just here. All over the place," Chester told him.
"And it wasn't just negroes. The law made it possible to arrest any male age 18 and over who didn't have a visible means of support, and then they had a convict-lease system. The local sheriff could lease out those prisoners to the turpentine camps. It made a lot of good old boy sheriffs rich back in the old days."

  Chester stood up and opened the back of the case and took out a short leather riding crop. "That captain I told you about, the overseer who ran the camp? He'd ride around on a horse and use this to whup a worker upside the head or across the back if he didn't think he was performing hard enough. And at the end of that long workday, when they finally drug themselves home from the woods, life in the camps could be just as dangerous. Folks lived in little shacks and shanties almost on top of each other, and there was always fighting and stabbing and stuff like that going on. And the captain and his thugs that helped him keep things in control, a lot of them weren't above taking a woman if they wanted her. Didn't matter if she was black or white, didn't matter if she was married or not."

  "And back then the law was part of it?"

  "Like I said, a lot of sheriffs and other politicians made a lot of money off the system. That stopped after a fella named Martin Tabert, who was arrested for vagrancy and became part of the convict-lease system, was beaten to death by the overseer at a camp over in Dixie County in 1922. After that the state got so much bad publicity that they put an end to using prisoners that way. But they still had plenty of ways to get workers. The law still said that anyone who accepted anything of value from one of the companies had to work off that debt. And anything of value could be whatever they wanted it to be. Not just something they bought from the camp store or the shack they lived in, it could be as simple as a ride someplace, or getting treated by a doctor when somebody was sick or injured."

  "Damn Chester, it really was just like slavery."

  "In a lot of ways it was worse. At least back in slavery days the plantation owner owned the slave. He had an investment in him, just like he would a horse or a mule. Now I'm not saying they were nice people, because there was a lot of abuses back then, too. But you're usually not gonna kill a horse or mule just for the sake of killing it. Same way with a slave. But here in the turpentine camps, a worker died or wound up getting killed, so what? There was plenty more where he came from, and it didn't cost you a penny."