The Morelville Mysteries Collection

by Anne Hagan

She saw the question in my eyes.

  “Most folks think he was framed.”

  “By the Brietlands?”

  She nodded.

  “Is he still there...in prison, I mean?”

  “Far as I know.”

  “And Ryan? How did he end up a backwoods moonshiner?”

  As I spoke, my father, Jesse Crane, stepped through the door, into the kitchen. “McClarnan? In his blood, I reckon.”

  I turned to him. “How much do you know about Ryan, dad?”

  A man of few words, he shrugged.

  “Was he in touch with his dad, ever? Could he have inherited that cabin?”

  Again, all I got was a shrug but mom spoke up again.

  “Melissa dear, I just told you his daddy is in prison. I don’t think he’s passed. If he still had the cabin when he was convicted, Ryan probably uses it now. He seems to have severed ties with the Brietlands since Callie, his mama, died.”

  “Right, right. Sorry!”

  Dana finally piped up, “Any idea where it might be...the cabin, I mean?”

  Dad looked from me to her and then back at me, “Woulda’ been close to Blue Rock back in the day. Now-a-days the Brietlands and Quinns own most of that land. They’ve been swapping property back and forth that butts up against Blue Rock for years. Might be still there.” He shrugged again and clammed up.

  Interesting!

  Chapter 16 – Back to the Grind

  Monday, June 2nd, 2014

  The kids were already off to school on Monday morning for the first of their last few days for the school year when Dana and I said our goodbyes. She was a bundle of both nerves and excitement as she headed to Columbus for her first day back on the job. I’m not typically the cuddly, sentimental type but I could see her apprehension about what the day might hold for her. She’d been off for over a month and she was wading back into her very demanding job in an unfamiliar place.

  I pulled her in for a hug and held her close for a minute. Even though she was dressed up for a day in an office and she was wearing reasonably chunky shoes, given her medical condition, I still had a few inches of height on her. He head nestled into the nape of my neck, the scent of her shampoo tickling my nostrils.

  She tipped her head back and smiled at me. “Thank you. That’s just what I needed right now.”

  “Anytime,” I whispered.

  I kissed her goodbye, handed her, her crutches and helped her out to her car. Once she was safely underway I headed in to the station where I hoped to find at least a preliminary forensics report from the coroner after his examination of the body of Dallas Granger.

  I was in luck when I reached my desk. The forensics report from the coroner’s office showed that Dallas Granger had skin cells and blood under his fingernails that were not his own. They weren’t a DNA match. Unfortunately, they didn’t match the DNA of anyone in the national database either. Ryan McClarnan’s convictions were all for misdemeanors and never for anything that lead to the collection of a sample or even any time served other than a day or so in the county lock-up while he waited for arraignment. If he was on the scene and, in fact, Granger’s killer, we’d have to get a sample from him to prove anything.

  Friday we’d dusted Granger’s house and vehicle for prints. Since that time, the crime lab had been able to match Granger himself but nothing else we found matched anyone in the AFIS database including McClarnan. At least his prints were on file! The bastard either didn’t touch anything but Granger or he wore gloves!

  No murder weapon was left on site. A canvass of the neighborhood that same day hadn’t turned up anyone who saw anything. It was the middle of the workday in a working class neighborhood. Most people were at work where they would normally be at that time of day.

  I really had my work cut out for me today. I had to make a concerted effort to find McClarnan and bring him in. I also had to figure out the Manuel Rojas/Estaban Perez connection to the death of Ben Tracy. I was starting to believe that Manny Rojas fingering McClarnan was a red herring effort to throw me on that case. It was probably just an odd coincidence that his name was linked to both cases.

  It was time to pull in both of my detectives – not just Shane Harding – and start hammering at these two murder cases. They were two cases too many in a county that rarely saw two murders in the same year.

  “Holly, please get a hold of Harding and Rice and have them meet me in the conference room at 9:00.” I released the intercom switch.

  “Yes Sheriff.”

  Shane Harding is a hard worker and a good detective. He started out as a jailer just like most of the deputies in the department and then he worked his way out of there and up through the patrol ranks to earn his current spot. He’s smart, quick on his feet, available around the clock and a real asset in any investigation.

  Kelly Rice, on the other hand, is a different story. She couldn’t be more different from Harding if she tried. Rice started out in dispatch at the age of 18 and, when the department was forced by the state to hire more female deputies for law enforcement duties a few years later, she was pushed through the Academy and went right to patrol at the ripe old age of 21 – barely legal to hold Peace Officers Certification and carry a weapon in Ohio. A favorite of my predecessor Sheriff Carter, she advanced quickly and made detective by the time she was 26 which was only a couple of years ago.

  Rumor has it that Rice performed sexual favors and otherwise slept her way to her position. We’d never know for sure now with Carter dead so, for the time being, I was stuck with her. We don’t see eye to eye her and I, but I have to tolerate her since I have no other alternatives at present. If I’m officially elected, she’s gone! She’s the first one I want out of here!

  At ten minutes to 9:00, I headed to the conference room. Shane Harding was all of 15 seconds behind me and primed to go.

  “Good morning Shane.”

  “Boss!”

  I grinned. Sheriff is such a formal title. I didn’t mind at all being called ‘boss’ in the office. “Take a seat Shane.”

  Before I could say a word, he asked, “So, what’s on the agenda for today?”

  “Well, as soon as Rice gets up here we’re going to have to put our heads together on these two murder investigations and divide and conquer.”

  “Gotcha.”

  “Is she in the office?”

  “Yeah but when Holly called down, she was on the phone.” He shrugged and wrinkled his nose up.

  I ignored it his obvious distaste with her. For now, I had to be evenhanded in my dealings with her and put my personal feelings aside. Instead, I asked, “What are you working on right now?”

  “I was just finishing up my notes from our observations and our little following operation on Saturday. I brought them up with me so we could go over them and see if we could make any connections between what we saw and anything you’re aware of that we didn’t think about when you and I and Treadway met up afterward.”

  “Do you have any idea what Rice is working on?”

  “Maybe the moonshine stuff but...” He trailed off and shook his head. “I don’t really know...Not a clue boss, sorry.”

  “It’s okay. Let me take a look at what you have there while we wait for her.” He slid a printout of his notes over to me and I scanned through them. He’d also printed off the BMV’s driver’s license photo for Perez. I looked at it closely, trying to memorize his face.

  “So let me get this straight; Perez dropped Rojas off, parked a block away from the funeral home, then walked down and entered the funeral home himself but sat nowhere near Perez?” Harding nodded. “Then, after the funeral, Rojas actually left first and went to the vehicle they arrived in. He was followed a couple of minutes later by Perez who then drove to the residence of Rojas. They then sat in the vehicle for several minutes before Rojas went into his house and Perez left?”

  “Correct.”

  “It’s odd but it’s all explainable. Rojas sat with other employees from the Hive, right?”
/>   “Yes, er, at least we believe so.”

  I described Michael Peng and Bree; the Hive employees that I was familiar with to him.

  “Yes, I believe they were both there where Rojas sat.”

  “Maybe Perez knows Rojas and he knows the Tracy’s but not the cafe employees. He gives Rojas a ride and then he parks his expensive ride well away from other cars so it doesn’t get dinged up. After that, he goes in, pays his respects to the family and takes a seat...” I raised my eyebrow and looked at him.

  “Nope. It just doesn’t add up. The vibe was different. Rojas stared at Perez during the service while Perez sat right behind the widow. Too, if they rode together and Manny was hitching a ride back home, why not wait for Perez and walk back to the vehicle with him? Nope, those two were together; they just didn’t want anyone to know they were.”

  “Know they were, what?” Kelly Rice asked as she entered the room.

  I didn’t have to say anything as Harding looked at his watch and did my dirty work for me, “So glad you could join us, detective.”

  She shot him a nasty glare, flipped her hair back and then flopped down in a seat across the table from him.

  I shuffled Shane’s notes back to him and then flipped open my own notepad. “We’ve got a lot we have to get on so let’s get started.” I spent the next ten minutes bringing Kelly Rice up to speed on the two murders and the information we had to date.

  “So, that’s what we know or have reason to believe so far,” I said when I was finished briefing her. I stood up and looked at them both and then started to tick things off on my fingers, “Here are the things we need to get on right now: One, we need to find McClarnan and get him in here. Period. Levi Jones may be a person of interest there and so too might our moonshiner collar on Friday, Ethan Funk. Two, there’s something Rojas is hiding. We need to figure out what that is and I think Michael Peng knows at least a part of it.”

  I looked at Harding. “When I interviewed Michael, I was very soft on him. I think I let him feel a little too comfortable and he held something back...figured he’d told me enough. I think you should bring him in here – alone – and work him harder. He stutters badly because of trauma he suffered in an accident and he moves a little slow but he’s not dumb and he speaks English better than he lets on publicly. A little pressure should crack him.”

  Shane nodded. “If I can get him, I can start leaning on Rojas.”

  “Exactly.” I turned to my other detective, “Kelly if Rojas really is hiding something it probably has something to do with drugs and I believe that’s where Estaban Perez comes into the picture. We need to connect those dots. Michael Peng might be able to hand us Rojas but he probably can’t get us all the way to Perez.”

  “Where do you suggest I start?” The attitude lacing her tone spoke volumes.

  I stared at her, incredulous that she would ask such a question. “You start, detective, by investigating Perez, by tailing him, by interviewing his known associates, by staking him and/or Rojas out, by assisting Shane with Rojas, even by trying to find the connection – if there is one – to Liberty Tracy!” I had a head full of steam.

  I braced my hands against the edge of the table and leaned towards her. “Do I really need to tell you how to do your job? Do you want me to just go ahead and do it for you?” I knew I was turning red, the blood boiling in my face. As I straightened back up and loosened my grip, my hands shook with fury.

  I started to talk again but then thought better of it and reined myself in. After sitting back down, I folded my hands tight in my lap and took a deep, cleansing breath. I needed to calm down before I choked her out and I made it so that I really did have to do everything that I couldn’t delegate to Shane or to patrol. She had the grace to begin scribbling in her notebook and pretend that I was actually giving her suggestions instead of a dressing down.

  “Use the patrol and unmarked assets that you need for stakeouts and for following our potential suspects. I’m going to work on finding McClarnan. I work those angles I mentioned and see if I can’t just ferret out his hiding place. Meanwhile, if either one of you finds anything at all that ties these two cases together, I need to be the first to know.”

  “Roger boss!” Shane tried to lighten the tension in the room.

  I gave them a half grin and started to send them on their way but then I remembered something. “Guys wait! Hold up a minute.”

  They both turned back to face me. “When I interviewed Rojas, I got the distinct impression that he might be gay.” I looked at Harding. “That’s my gut feeling and you can do with it what you want but that might play into what you were witnessing the day of Ben Tracy’s funeral.”

  “Thanks for the tip boss. We’ll check it out.” He turned again and walked away but Rice just stood and stared at me.

  “Is there something else Detective?”

  She spun on her heel and quickly trailed after Shane Harding.

  Chapter 17 – Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch

  Aiden Quinn and I were meeting again; this time in his office.

  “Are you familiar with the name Ethan Funk?”

  “No, sorry. I can’t say that I am.”

  “How about Ryan McClarnan?”

  He looked thoughtful for a moment. “McClarnan, yes. Ryan in particular? No.”

  “What McClarnan’s do you know?”

  “Personally? None. I more know of them than I actually know them. There seems to be a long running history of them right in this general area.” He studied something on the wall behind me. I turned to follow his gaze.

  The object of his attention was a large aerial photograph of what I presumed to be the bulk of the Quinn holdings. It was hung over a sofa in a conversational seating area.

  “Let me show you some things.” With that, he got up and strode around his desk toward the sofa and framed photo on the wall. I stood and followed him.

  He moved to one end of the sofa and indicated the other. Together, we moved it out of the way to have better access to the picture.

  “This was done a few years ago. Here’s the main house and all of granddad’s original holdings.” He traced a circle with his finger around an area that only took up about a tenth of the photograph. “Here’s where we are right now.” His finger touched a small dot that was easily a few of miles or more from the main estate. Suddenly, I had an entirely new perspective on the vastness of the Quinn holdings.

  “So, where are the wells Dallas Granger was servicing when he was seeing and hearing things that indicated illegal activity?”

  “There was this one about 5 miles northeast of here, just south of the Blue Rock State forest boundary in that area. And then, the day he saw the smoke, steam...whatever it was, he was a few miles northwest of that, here.” He touched the photo in an area that was densely forested on Quinn property but not far from the Blue Rock boundary.

  “How would he have seen smoke from that area?”

  “A good question that I can’t answer...perhaps enroute to the well? The access trail runs along here where several areas are in the open.” He traced a line with his finger. “He would have been facing toward that area for most of the way to it.”

  “Have you been in the area where he said he saw the smoke?”

  “Not recently, no.”

  “But you have been out there?

  “Well, no, not exactly. Much of this land – he traced another circle with his finger that included the area where Dallas Granger reported seeing smoke or steam – my father acquired in an exchange of sorts with the Brietlands. I’ve personally flown over that area which, as you can see, is heavily forested but I’ve never been on the ground in most of it.”

  “Not even when the well was being drilled?”

  “No. My father commissioned that well. It was done just before I took full control of day to day operations...I’d say about 10 years ago, give or take.”

  “So you probably aren’t aware of a cabin or any other structure that might be on that
part of the property or near to it?”

  “No, I’m not. My father may be but, I have to warn you, his memory isn’t what it used to be, I’m sorry to say. If you think it’s important to know that – and I get the impression that you do - we can go up to the main house and try to ask him.

  “That would be great but you certainly don’t need to go to any trouble to go up there with me. I know you’re busy too.”

  “Quite frankly, you’ve got my curiosity piqued. I’d like to know too if there’s something more out there than just a still or something along those lines.” At my skeptical look, he back peddled softly, “Mind you, I’m not going to go poking around out there. I’ll leave that to the experts.” He nodded in my direction. “I don’t want any part of being involved in some ruckus over making moonshine which is what I think is probably going on!”

  Quinn insisted that the fasted way to the main estate house was over land so we took his John Deere Gator there. Doing that gave us the added advantage of not moving my marked county SUV back and forth along Route 60 where it could be easily spotted if we were being watched by anyone on the lookout for a law enforcement presence. Chances are it was a lookout who saw me there before and that likely led to Granger’s death. The Gator running around between the estates would appear normal to anyone looking on.

  Aiden’s father, Aiden Quinn Sr., met us in his own study. His was a decidedly more ornate room that had indications it was used previously as more of an office than as a library, unlike his sons study. It was evident it had been his workplace when he ran the Quinn business and oversaw the family holdings. Now, over 80 and not involved in business operations, his desk was devoid of anything but a blotter, a phone and a few photographs. There wasn’t a scrap of paper in evidence there or anywhere else in the room.

  “Thank you for seeing me on such short notice Mr. Quinn.”

  “My pleasure.” He looked me over so closely that I felt like I was back in the academy, under inspection. “Back in my day, women weren’t cops Miss Crane and they certainly weren’t Sheriff!” He leaned back in his oversized leather desk chair. “So young lady, how can I be of help to you?”