in
he was a good man and a fine officer. Ever since the incident in 1974, in which Ken McElroy backed Johnson down with a shotgun, many people thought that he did not have the guts for the job, at least when it came to Ken McElroy. There were also complaints that Johnson was shooting stray dogs that weren’t really stray to collect the $10 bounty.
Larry Rowlett, then the mayor of Skidmore, thought the town could do better than Russ Johnson. Rowlett’s choice was David Dunbar, a friend and coworker on the Maitland pipeline. Dunbar had moved to Skidmore in 1979 from Lamont, Iowa, a small town about a hundred miles away, where both he and his wife, Dana, had grown up. At twenty-four, Dunbar was a former wrestler, handsome and imposing with powerful shoulders and arms. Soon after coming to Skidmore, he earned a reputation in Skidmore as a good fighter, someone who could take care of himself and wasn’t afraid to mix it up.
In April 1980, Larry Rowlett bet Dunbar a case of beer that he could win the upcoming election for marshal. As a newcomer with absolutely no law enforcement experience, Dunbar laughed and said there was no way he could get elected, even if he wanted to.
“It’ll be an easy case of beer for you then,” Rowlett taunted.
When Dunbar finally agreed to run, he did so as a lark. He had no idea that people were seriously dissatisfied with Russ Johnson, and he had heard only the faintest rumblings about Ken McElroy.
Rowlett called Dunbar on election night and told him to bring a case of beer and come get sworn in—he had won by four votes. After the shock wore off, Dunbar decided to approach his new responsibilities in a low-key fashion, trying to calm things down rather than escalate them. He paid little attention to demands that he crack down on speeders and teenagers running loose at night But after an attempted burglary at the tavern, and after several people warned him that if he fucked with Ken McElroy he could get his head blown off, Dunbar asked the board of aldermen to buy a gun for him. To his surprise, the board refused. The town would buy his ammunition and a light and radio for his car, give him $35 a month for gas, pay him a salary of $200 a month, and that was all. Dunbar bought himself a Rugger Security .357 Magnum and practiced with it until he felt reasonably proficient. With no training or orientation he pinned the badge
on his shirt, put the pistol in the glove compartment of his car,
and proceeded to attempt to keep the peace in town. David
Dunbar became the law in Skidmore.
21
In March the hilly countryside began to awaken from winter’s long slumber. Cold, gray dawns gave way to streaked pink sunrises, and the stubbled fields absorbed the yellow-white rays of the morning sun. The bitter winds began to lose their sting; the earth, still frozen solid two feet down, began to warm; and the small animals ventured from their dens into the timber and fields.
By early April light southern breezes blew gently over the drab landscape, washing away the lingering traces of winter. The air was fresh and fragrant and stimulating. Tiny alfalfa shoots punctured the earth like millions of needles, casting a light green haze over the black soil. The grass began to turn green and the hedge sprouted bright yellow buds.
In town, Mom’s Cafe filled earlier than usual. Around the tables, the talk intensified as the farmers forecast the weather, comparing this April with Aprils past, and argued the merits of no-till farming and a new strain of seed corn from Illinois. Soon the streets would fill with machinery and the tractors would run day and night, crawling over the hills, churning the compacted soil. But for a few weeks in early spring, after the redbuds had popped but before the ground was ready, when the nights were still cool and the days were brisk and sunny, the farmers basked in the feelings of renewal.
As the days passed and the formers performed endless tasks in preparation for planting, the urge to get in the fields and break winter’s seal grew stronger. The farmers felt the earth for warmth and studied the
sky for moisture, anticipating the precise moment of confluence.
In 1972, Bo and Lois Bowenkamp bought the large white house on the east edge of Skidmore that greets travelers coming from the north as they round the curve on 113. Five years later, they bought the B & B Grocery around the corner from the D & G Tavern. The store never made much money, what with the poor farm economy and people buying most of their groceries in Maryville or St. Joe, but savings and Bo’s Social Security enabled the couple to get by without a lot of worry. They fixed up the big house with new windows, a new roof, and a paint job, making it one of the more attractive places in town.
Bo loved to spend spring and summer evenings in the large garden behind the house, tending to his corn, tomatoes, squash, and beans. Fishing was his other love, and he knew many of the ponds and rivers in Nodaway County.
For her part, when the work day was done, Lois preferred to sit on the porch drinking coffee and chatting with Evelyn Sumy, her neighbor from across the street.
At the store, Lois ran the show. She kept the books, ordered the products, prepared the tax records, and handled the money. Bo spent most of his time behind the meat counter at the rear of the store, sometimes helping out at the cash register or stocking new goods.
Bo had grown up in Elmo, a small town twenty-five miles north of Skidmore. At sixty-nine, he was a good twenty years older than Lois, who had grown up in the Skidmore area. Bo stood close to 6 feet 5 inches, and weighed around 220 pounds. His large hands and feet seemed to hang from his limbs, and his nose jutted out from underneath glasses that magnified his blue eyes two or three times their actual size. His voice rose from deep in his throat, like a gurgling brook. Wearing overalls, short-sleeved plaid shirt, and a baseball hat, Bo occasionally joined the men for coffee at Mom’s, gradually folding his lanky frame into one of the chairs at the center table, leaning forward on his elbows, and mainly listening. Slow and easygoing, Bo did not talk unless he had something specific to say. At the store, he tended to business from behind the meat counter, greeting the customers kindly and courteously. A gentle giant, his way was the path of least resistance.
Lois, however, took a harsher, no-nonsense approach to life. A short and stocky woman with dark brown hair and glasses, not unattractive, she bristled easily and jabbed back at life. If anyone asked her how she was doing, she was apt to reply, “Well, I’m here.” To “Beautiful day, Lois,” she might respond, “I guess.” Some townspeople saw her as bossy; others perceived her as a genuinely decent, caring person. One thing was sure: Lois was not one to be pushed around.
On the afternoon of April 25, 1980, Bo was behind the meat counter and Lois sat at a small table nearby, smoking cigarettes, drinking coffee, and tending to her books. Evelyn Sumy was working at the checkout counter, which was at the front of the store in the middle of four aisles running from front to back. At about two o’clock, two girls, a teenager and a blond preschooler, came in the front door. Evelyn wondered why the teenager was not at school. The teenager walked to the aisle where the cookies were kept while the child picked around in the candy rack.
After five or ten minutes, the teenager approached the counter with a candy bar and a sack of cookies, and asked for a pack of cigarettes. The child stood close by, holding a couple of pieces of bubblegum and a jawbreaker, probably worth no more than a dime. As Evelyn rang up the third item on the register, the teenager handed her some money and said, “Here’s for the candy bar and the cigarettes.” Realizing that the girl wanted to split the order, Evelyn voided the tape and started over, ringing up the cookies separately. She asked about the candy in the child’s hands and the teenager replied, “She has her own money.”
Evelyn returned the change to the teenager and, noticing that the child was not moving to the stand, asked about the candy again. Becoming distraught, the older girl took the candy from the younger girl’s hands and put it back in the boxes. Up until this point, the child had been fine, a pleasant little girl interested only in the task of selecting candy. But as the teenager was leading her out the door, she broke away and ret
urned to the candy rack and grabbed the items she had selected. As the teenager opened the door, Evelyn said loudly, “Ma’am, she still has the candy in her hand.”
The teenager whirled, grabbed the candy from the child and threw it into a box on the rack. The child immediately began to fuss, and by the
time she reached the door, she was wailing and trying to pull away from the older girl.
From her table at the back of the store, Lois had heard the little girl start to fuss and cry, so she wasn’t surprised, after hearing the tinkling of the bells on the door, to see Evelyn coming down the aisle toward them, very upset. Evelyn had no sooner begun to explain to Lois what had happened than the door opened and a third, still older girl came in. Walking back up front, Evelyn recognized her as Tammy McElroy, a girl who had gone through school with her son Greg. Tammy had come in the store off and on during the summer.
“May I help you?” asked Evelyn.
“I want my money back!” Tammy said angrily.
“What money?” Evelyn asked. “Is something wrong?”
Tammy stepped closer and dropped a sack on the counter. “Whoever in here waited on my little sister accused her of trying to raid the store.”
According to Evelyn, she tried to explain about the two purchases and the fact that the older girl had put the candy back, but Tammy wouldn’t hear it.
“Debbie has no reason to lie to me,” she challenged.
“Well, neither do I,” Evelyn responded evenly.
Overhearing part of the exchange, Lois figured she had better take charge and straighten things out. She didn’t recognize Tammy.
“Is there a problem?” Lois asked. “If there is, I’m sure we can work it out.”
“Nobody,” declared Tammy, “accuses my little sister of stealing!”
“What are you talking about?” demanded Lois in her sharp reedy voice.
“Don’t get snotty with me!” Tammy shot back.
“I’m not getting snotty with you. I just said if there’s been a mistake, we can straighten it out. If you’ll just bring the girl back in we can talk to her.”
“She’s only four years old!” Tammy said.
Evelyn refunded the money to Tammy and began replacing the items on the shelves.
“Nobody in our family will ever buy anything in this store again!” Tammy said, starting for the door.
“OK, that’s fine,” pronounced Lois huffily. “That’s your privilege.”
Tammy left, and Evelyn immediately burst into tears. She had never in her life been accused of anything so hateful, particularly toward a small child. Walking to the back, Evelyn told Lois and Bo that Tammy was a McElroy and that the other two girls probably belonged to Ken McElroy, too. Neither Bo nor Lois knew Ken McElroy by sight, although Lois had known him years before, and both had heard stories about him.
Lois decided to take a look at the two younger girls so she would recognize them if they ever returned to the store. She stepped outside and saw the three girls sitting in a green pickup just north of the store. Tammy was at the wheel. Lois stepped back into the store, and within moments, all three girls tromped back in, Tammy in the lead.
“Is there something else you want?” Tammy demanded, standing a few feet inside the door, glaring at Lois.
“No,” replied Lois evenly, “I just wanted to see the other two girls, so if they come in here again, I will know them.”
By this time, Evelyn had calmed down a little and, hearing the commotion, returned to the front of the store. When she saw the teenager she had waited on earlier, Evelyn said, “Debbie, you know I didn’t accuse your little sister of raiding the store.”
“Yes, you did!” said Debbie defiantly.
The three girls flounced out the front door, and the two women retreated to the back of the store to sort things out and regain their composure. About twenty minutes later, Evelyn heard the bells jingle and looked up to see a hulking figure striding down the cookie aisle toward them. “Batten down the hatches,” she told Lois, “you’re about to meet Ken McElroy.”
Well that’s fine, thought Lois, I don’t know the man, haven’t seen him for years, and I know Bo has never seen him. She stood up and walked around the table to meet him. Bo came out from behind the meat counter to back her up. McElroy’s huge shoulders spanned the aisle, and in his hand he cradled a large pocket knife, holding it about chest high with the blade open.
“You can put that knife away,” said Bo. “There’s no need for that in here.”
“Nobody tells me what to do,” McElroy said, then smiled slightly. Almost chuckling, he said, “I have a right to stand here and clean my
fingernails, don’t I?” He fiddled with the knife, running the blade along the tips of his fingers.
A woman Lois didn’t recognize burst out from behind him and stopped a foot or two from Lois and Evelyn. According to Lois, Evelyn and Bo, she opened up with a string of profanities that left both women speechless.
“I wanna know,” the woman yelled in a rising falsetto, jabbing the air in front of the two women, “which one of you fuckin’ bitches accused my fuckin’ kid of comin’ in this fuckin’ store and raidin’ it!”
Lois and Evelyn stood mute, in a state of shock. The woman, her face reddening and her blue eyes flashing, continued to spew forth, teetering on the edge of hysteria.
“I’m gonna take one or both of you fuckin’ bitches out here in the fuckin’ street and whip your fuckin’ asses off!”
Still, neither Lois nor Evelyn could react. The language was horrible, but they had heard it all before; what stunned them was the viciousness of the attack and the fact that it came from a woman. Lois knew that there was an elderly woman at the front of the store, and she had seen the milkman come in a few minutes earlier. (The milkman, upon seeing McElroy with a knife, hid in the cooler.)
My God, thought Evelyn, suddenly recognizing the woman hurling abuse at them. This raving woman is Trena McCloud, that shy little blond girl. She noted a slurring lisp in Trena’s voice, something she had never heard before, and wondered whether it was permanent or simply a result of her excited state. Recovering enough to respond, Evelyn said, “I waited on the girl.”
But Trena was out of control.
“Which one of your bitches is the fuckin’ boss around here?” she screeched.
Lois came to and puffed up a little. “I’m the boss around here and she works for me.”
“If you’ll just shut up a minute,” Evelyn said to Trena, I can explain to you what happened, but you’ll have to come up front to the register.”
Trena began yelling again. Finally McElroy, who had said nothing so far, told her to be quiet and let the woman explain. Trena shut up immediately.
At the register, Evelyn reenacted the entire incident. Trena paid
attention and seemed to understand. McElroy appeared almost nonchalant, asking no questions and making no comments. When Evelyn had finished, Trena said, “Why would Debbie lie to me? She had no reason.”
“I don’t know, Trena,” Evelyn responded, “1 really don’t know.” Maybe, thought Evelyn, Debbie didn’t want to bring the little girl to town in the first place, or maybe she just had to have some explanation for why the little girl was crying when the two of them left the store.
At that point, McElroy, who had been watching Lois replace the roll of tape in the register, turned to her and said he wanted a pack of Camels. Pride and pugnaciousness rising within her, Lois looked Ken McElroy in the eye and said in an accusatory singsong, “Sir, I understand that nobody in your family wishes to do business in this store anymore.”
“That’s right,” McElroy responded.
“So be it,” said Lois, closing the conversation.
McElroy and Trena walked out, saying nothing.
After the door shut behind the McElroys, Bo doubted he would ever see them again. Evelyn, who had been terrified from the moment McElroy walked in the door, felt sure she and the Bowenkamps hadn’t heard the last of it.
Lois was nervous but she had no regrets over her behavior. McElroy had tried to threaten them with a knife, his wife had cursed them, and his kids had called them liars. She would hold them to their word: Neither he nor any member of his family was welcome in her store.
McElroy told various versions of what had happened that afternoon. To one friend, he said that Bo had thrown the girls out of the store, accusing them of stealing and yelling at them that they were all a bunch of thieving McElroys and not to come back. To another friend, he said that the little girl had her own allowance with her that day, but that when she put a jawbreaker in her mouth, Lois started raising hell. When Debbie tried to pay for the candy, Lois told her and the child to leave. McElroy apologized, but Lois told him to “Get out. We don’t need your type of people in here, and we don’t want your business.” Ken also told Alice Wood that Evelyn Sumy called him one night and told him that he and Trena weren’t raising their kids right.
In Broad Daylight (Crime Rant Classics) Page 15
