by Anne Hagan
I was patting a toddler girl on the head when I glanced up and caught sight of a face I’d been looking for. I was pretty sure Olivia Stiers had just wandered through the gate. I excused myself to the little girl’s mother and headed toward the young woman in short, shorts, a crop top and dripping in gold jewelry. She looked like she should be clubbing in Vegas and not at a county fair in Ohio.
“Excuse me, Olivia Stiers?”
The woman stopped and looked me up and down. “Yes.” Her voice was tentative.
“Sheriff Crane.” I extended my hand but she didn’t take it. Her rudeness didn’t deter me, “Can I speak with you privately?”
“Um, I guess.” She waived her three companions, two guys and another woman on, telling them to save her a seat.
“I just need a couple of minutes of your time.”
She moved to step into the open front tent. I put a hand on her arm to stop her. “Let’s go around to the back. I really don’t want this to be a public conversation.”
Olivia drew her brows together in a look of consternation but she followed me off the main walkway and around behind the tent.
Before I could say anything, she asked in a stage whisper, “This is about JD, I suppose?”
“Correct. We’ve been trying to get in touch with you.”
“I’ve been busy.”
“I see.” No grieving girlfriend here! “When was the last time you saw JD?”
She closed her eyes momentarily and tipped her head up as if she was lost in thought. “Last weekend, maybe?” It was more a question than an answer. “Whenever he borrowed the Escalade from me.”
“Saturday or Sunday?”
“Um, probably Saturday. I don’t really remember.”
“Why did he borrow the Escalade?”
Olivia shrugged, “Said he needed to tow a boat for a buddy.”
“Why did he still have the truck on Wednesday when he died?”
She shrugged again. “He never said.” Her foot tapped the ground marking her impatience.
“What exactly was your relationship with JD?”
“Look, we were dating on and off. We weren’t serious. He kept his own place but he stayed with me sometimes too.”
“It didn’t concern you when you didn’t see him between Saturday or Sunday and the day he died?”
Olivia squeezed her eyes shut. When she opened them, a tear was forming at the corner of one. She was either starting to show a little feeling for JD or she was a very good actor.
“When we started seeing each other he was just a fun guy. We had a good time...”
“Then it started to be not so fun?”
Her jaw clenched and she nodded.”
“What happened?”
“He...he got involved in some heavy shit. He was still working days for my dad but he was out most evenings drinking and playing pool with some guy. I guess they hustled some dude out of, like, $5,000 dollars and they split the money. Someone tipped the dude that he’d been hustled and he came around to my condo looking for JD.”
“When was this?”
“I don’t remember exactly. A few weeks ago.”
“Was JD there?”
She shook her head, “No and I wouldn’t open the door.”
“Did you know him?”
She shook her head no again. “I didn’t get any better of a look at him than through the peep hole though.”
“Tell me everything you can recall him saying.”
Olivia stood there for a minute, seemingly going over the confrontation with the man in her mind. “Well, he demanded several times to see JD. He kept saying that JD owed him a lot of money. I told him I didn’t know where he was and that he didn’t live with me. I asked him why he was at my place.”
I raised an eyebrow, “And?”
“He was obnoxious and made some comment about me being JD’s piece of ass. I told him to get the hell away from me before I called the cops. He stood out there another minute or two trying to get JD to come to the door but JD really wasn’t with me and I told him that, repeatedly.”
“Did he say anything else?”
“He told me to tell JD that he needed to pay him all of his money back or he was going to die a slow, painful death...him and his friend were going to die slow painful deaths.”
“Who was ‘his friend’?”
“I don’t know. I assumed the guy meant the guy JD played pool with. Listen, I was a mess with that guy out there!” She was getting loud, “I didn’t know if he had a gun or if he was going to break down the door or...” She trailed off then and got a faraway look in her eyes.
I prodded her to keep talking, “When did he leave?”
“Oh... I guess one of my neighbors must have heard him. I mean, I kind of heard a man saying something outside but I couldn’t make out what he said. The guy at my door yelled at someone to mind their own business but then, as I watched through the peep hole, he left. He didn’t come back.”
“Did you call the police?”
“No, I called JD and asked him what the hell was going on...why assholes like that guy were coming to my door, looking for him and scaring me. He said he knew who the guy was and that he’d take care of it.”
“How did he take care of it?”
“Look Sheriff, all I know is the guy never came back.”
I was skeptical. “So, you and JD didn’t ever talk about what happened that night?”
She was quiet for just a beat. I waited patiently.
“Okay, look, I asked him about it later. He didn’t tell me much. What he did tell me scared me from asking any more questions!”
I gave her my best raised eyebrow, curious look but I didn’t say anything. She took the bait.
“He just said he borrowed some money from a loan shark and he paid the guy back with that and that I shouldn’t worry about it. He said he’d pay the shark back too. That sure as hell didn’t make me feel any better! Now he’s dead and I don’t know what to believe!”
Chapter 8 – When Pigs Fly
Tuesday, August 12th, 2014
I stretched in my crappy Government Issue swivel chair. Three nights of sleeping in my old camper at the fairgrounds on a barely three inches thick mattress was already starting to wear on me. My back ached and the chair wasn’t helping.
Holly, my assistant, stepped through the door with a handful of printouts. “You look mighty uncomfortable there, Mel.”
“You don’t know the half of it!”
“You know, now that you’re the duly elected Sheriff and all, and this will be your office for the next four years, give or take, you could redecorate it and make it more comfortable for yourself.”
I shot her a look.
Holly raised her hands, palms out in mock protest, “Hey, just sayin’!”
“I honestly don’t intend to spend any more time in this office than I spent in it before I was, as you put it, ‘the duly elected Sheriff’. I need to get back out there on the street, right now, today. I’ve got to hustle up a couple of runners and find a bookie who might know something about the way JD Roberts died.”
“Speaking of that, I’ve got those printouts you asked for.” She grimaced and then laid the little stack of papers in front of me. “There really isn’t even as much as it looks like there is, unfortunately. Mixed in there, there’s a patrol report about two deputies shaking down a runner they thought was dealing and there’s a statement from a bar owner just last week about somebody she thought might be taking bets on the premises. Harding looked into the second one but I didn’t find any follow-up from him.”
“What bar?” I was thinking that maybe there was more going on at Ray’s than a little pool hustling that Kevin conveniently neglected to tell me.
Holly scanned Shane Harding’s report. “This says The Boar’s Head.”
It was my turn to grimace. “It surprises me that they even reported it coming out of there.”
“Oh, you haven’t heard?”
I shook
my head, “Heard what?”
“After the last time the state shut them down for some infraction or other, the place was put up for sale. It was bought a couple of months ago. Same name, new owner.”
“Is that so?”
Holly nodded.
I skimmed Shane Harding’s report but I couldn’t readily find what I was looking for, “And what’s his name?”
“Her, Mel. It’s Barb Wysocki.”
I was incredulous, “She’s back in town?”
“With a vengeance.”
I rolled my eyes, “I thought she was too good for little old Muskingum County?”
“Apparently not. She paid in cash to buy The Boar’s Head too. It’s hers lock, stock and barrel.”
“What on earth would that woman want with a working class bar where ‘commoners’ and sometimes even, heaven forbid, bikers hang out?”
I scanned through the rest of Shane’s report. It was pretty sparse. The supposed bookie wasn’t even named.
“This report is crap.”
“I thought the same thing but that’s not like Shane. I’m sure Barb gave him a hard time.”
“Oh, I’m positive she did.” I flipped to the other report. Two of my deputies’ shook down a female numbers runner after one of them saw cash change hands on the street. He thought he was seeing a drug buy go down. They didn’t find any drugs. All they turned up was a coded numbers notebook. The woman didn’t have any ID on her. She told them her name was Lucy Farinelli and the damn fools wrote it down. I laughed out loud.
Holly was still standing by. “Do you wanna’ share what you find so funny?”
I grinned. “The runner told Pikens and Klein that her name was Lucy Farinelli.” I got only a blank stare from Holly. “Seriously? Lucy Farinelli, the lesbian genius niece in all of Patricia Cornwell’s Kay Scarpetta mystery novels?”
“Mel sweetie, you know I don’t read that stuff! When I’m off duty, if I read at all, I only want to read fluff. I don’t want to read about murder and mayhem!”
I shook my head. “I thought you were my friend and down with my world?”
Holly laughed and flipped a backhand at me. “So, I take it by your tone that you know Ms. Lucy?”
“Actually, I think so. I’m going to skip out of here shortly and see if I can roust her and then I’m going to see how early Barb Wysocki turns up at her new bar.”
“Going back to the fair this afternoon?”
“Got to. The steer show is tonight. The family would have my head if I wasn’t there.”
I had a hunch that the numbers runner my men shook down was an acquaintance of mine I called ‘Angie’. We had a mutual agreement, Angie and I. I’d busted her once for illegal gambling. In return for a little information, the Deputy DA and I let her walk. These days I mostly turned a blind eye to her numbers running and, in return, she fed me more information from time to time.
Cruising the streets in my pick-up so I wouldn’t draw any undue attention to myself or to her if I found her, I scanned back and forth for her at some of her usual corners but she wasn’t around. I looked at my watch – just after 8:30 AM. It was a little early to find her out and about. I checked the first open bar that I came to in the area where she usually did her cash pick-ups. Nothing.
Rolling on, I ended up at The Boar’s Head which was off the state route, halfway between Zanesville and the turn off for Morelville. I passed the dirty white frame structure every day but I didn’t pay it any mind. The sign on the door said the bar didn’t open for more than an hour but I could see that there was a fancy foreign car parked in the back. A driver was making a beer delivery too. I figured Barb must be on the premises.
As I exited the truck, I put my hat on my head. I might as well look official while I met with one of the biggest pains in the ass I’d ever been stupid enough to try and date. Nodding at the beer delivery guy, I followed him through the back entry into the kitchen. He looked back at me and pointed to a door on my right and then continued pushing a dolly with his load toward the open door of the walk in cooler.
Taking a deep breath, I stepped toward the office. I can’t believe she has me nervous!
Barb was sitting behind a messy desk, staring at a computer screen. She was half turned away from me, showing only her profile. Her bleach blond hair was piled high on her head and she was wearing glasses, something she’d been too vain to admit to needing when we had first met shortly after I became a 911 dispatcher for the county.
Thinking I was the delivery guy, she passed a hand over the desk and said “just lay the invoice down. I’m working on that stuff now.”
I coughed involuntarily and then cleared my throat. Barb turned and peered at me over the top of her tiny frames. While whipping the glasses off and down to the desk, she stood, “Melissa Crane?”
I nodded. “Barb.”
“Well now, isn’t this a surprise? The Sheriff,” she drug my title out, “of Muskingum County coming to see little old me.” Her tone was nothing short of haughty.
I refused to take the bait and I cut right to the chase, “You made a report last week about a suspected bookie taking bets out of here?”
“That’s why you’re here?” She squinted narrowly at me, “Don’t you have people that handle that stuff for you?”
Already feeling a headache coming on, I rubbed my temple. “I do Barb. One of my best men was out here but, for some reason, his report was a little lacking.”
She wasn’t fazed by my return tone. Instead, she went off on a little rant of her own, “Well, if that’s what passes for one of your best, maybe you should hire some more women!”
I knew I shouldn’t say anything else but I couldn’t help myself, “I had a female detective. She’s being held on murder charges.” Hoping that would throw her for a minute, I continued, “So, I need a little more information from you than you gave to Detective Harding.”
“You know Melissa that I’m all about trying to help those in authority whenever I can...” She batted her lashes at me and sat back down in her chair. Pointing at the chair opposite her, she drawled, “So, how can I help you?”
My stomach churned but this time with revulsion rather than nerves. I knew the implications of her look and her tone. Barb never wants to help anyone unless there’s something in it for her... “I just need to know what exactly you saw here and as much about the person you suspected of taking bets as you know.”
She spread her hands atop the papers on the desk in front of her and then raised one slightly and inspected her nails. “So, you’ve been the Sheriff for what now, a year?” She switched focus and inspected the other hand but didn’t look at me. I knew she was stalling but I didn’t know why.
I answered tentatively, “About a year and a half total.”
“Total?”
“I was standing in for well over a year. I’ve been the elected Sheriff for about a week.”
“I see.”
“Do you?” My frustration was seeping through.
Barb tossed her head toward the office door and the kitchen beyond it. The beer delivery driver was making another trip into the cooler. I realized she probably wasn’t going to say a word until the guy was gone. I nodded my understanding and we made small talk until he came in, dropped her invoice on the desk and took his leave.
Once he was safely out the back door, Barb closed the office door and then came and leaned against the desk right next to me. “You were asking?”
I scooted my chair back away from her several inches in the tiny office.
She grinned like a cat on the prowl and stepped toward me. Putting a hand on my arm, she asked, “Oh, am I making you nervous Mel?”
I gently removed her hand from my person. “I don’t know what you’re trying to do Barb but you can drop it. I’m here on official police business. If you’re not going to answer my questions, I’ll be on my way.” I started to rise from my seat.
Barb motioned me back down. “See, that’s the thing,” she said as sh
e moved back around the desk and took her seat again, “you’re only here because there’s something you need. You’re not here because of my original report. You’re not here to help me, are you?”
“My detective would have attempted to investigate and help you if you’d have given him better information when he was here.” Her eyes flickered with what I took as amusement and she smiled to confirm my suspicion.
“Then you wouldn’t have had any cause at all to show up for me to torment, now would you?” Before I could respond she jumped right back in, “I’m going to help you Melissa, but heaven knows why! It will probably come back to bite me in the ass later.”
“I assure you, I won’t be doing any biting.”
She scowled her displeasure at my brushoff of her advances. I wasn’t good enough for her back in the day and I sure don’t want her now!
“So you want to know what’s going on here; I’ll tell you.”
Finally! I motioned for her to go on.
“I never saw myself doing this, you know? Owning this bar, I mean and, well, being back here to boot. Life has a way of kicking you in the teeth though, you know?” She looked at me for confirmation.
“I suppose.”
“You sound confused.”
“I guess I am. No one forced you to come back to Muskingum County did they? Certainly no one forced you to buy a bar...for, for cash, or so I’ve heard.”
“Ah, the rumor mill never stops does it?” Her eyes narrowed and she stared at me through the slits.
At my lack of response, she took a deep breath, rubbed the back of her neck and then continued, “I had a partner; a partner in life and in business. We actually bought little bars and pubs and whatnot that were failing and we rehabbed them and sold most of them for a profit. We flipped several over the last dozen years. A few, here and there, along the way, we kept. We put good management in and we let them run them and we just kept going with the profits from it all. At least, we did until she got sick.”
Barb swallowed hard and her shoulders shook. A few moments slid by but then she seemed to steel herself and then she continued, “She got sick and fought and fought and then, when we thought she was almost on the road to a full recovery, I lost her after a botched surgery.”
