In Broad Daylight (Crime Rant Classics)

by HARRY N. MACLEAN

  Finally, Margaret decided to call McElroy’s bluff. Her legs shaking, her hand gripping the rail, she slowly descended the stairs. As she walked by the Buick, passing within a few feet of the gun barrel,

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  McElroy stared at her. For an instant she looked back into his flat eyes, without flinching. She got in the car and sat still for a second. Well, I’ve got my best clothes on, she thought. If he shoots me, I’ll be in good shape for the hospital and the funeral parlor. She turned the key and started the car, but she was so nervous that her leg jumped, and the engine died. She started the car again, thinking that if he didn’t back up, she would push the button to open the garage door and pull forward.

  When she shifted into reverse, McElroy started the Buick and began bbacking slowly out of the driveway. Margaret drove to the Greenhills SShopping Center to pick up some items before going to church. McElroy fFollowed, staying about five or six feet behind her. Inside the store, sstanding at the checkout counter, she looked out the window and saw the BBuick parked next to her Monte Carlo. I can ’t even go to church in peace aanymore, she thought angrily.

  After telling the clerk what was happening, she asked for the number of the patrol. The two women fumbled unsuccessfully in the phone book until the manager came over. By then, Margaret was running late and realized that she might miss church. Besides, McElroy had already pointed the gun at her and hadn’t pulled the trigger. She thanked the clerk, picked up her sack, and left. As she walked by the Buick, McElroy crushed an empty beer can and dropped it in her path, staring at her with that empty, expressionless look. Trena looked straight ahead as Margaret got in her car.

  As she drove out of the parking lot, Margaret decided she had had enough. She pulled onto the beltway and drove to Troop H headquarters.

  “Where’s five-oh-seven?” she demanded of the sergeant at the desk when she walked in.

  “He’s out working the airplane,” the officer responded.

  “Well,” said Margaret, “Ken McElroy was sitting in my driveway with a shotgun this morning when I left for church, and now he’s following me, and I’ve had it. I can’t take it anymore!”

  “Do you have a CB in your car?” the sergeant asked.

  “Yes,” said Margaret.

  “Turn it to channel nine and go on ahead to church,” said the sergeant. “I’ll contact the plane and the patrol car.”

  The Buick was nowhere around when she drove out, but about two miles away she saw it sitting at a stop sign, waiting for her, as if McElroy

  had a map of her route. When she drove past, the Buick pulled out and swung in behind her. Just then she heard the plane overhead.

  “Can you see the plane?” the Troop H dispatcher asked on the radio.

  “Yes,” she replied.

  “We’ve got you under surveillance,” he said. “Just keep on going to church.”

  The plane hovered overhead, while she drove to church. After a block or two, the Buick dropped from her rear-view mirror. McElroy had undoubtedly picked up the transmission from the dispatcher.

  Stratton decided that the harassment had gone on long enough. Only a few days earlier, McElroy had blocked the entrance to the parking lot at St. Francis Hospital and made Vicki late for work.

  Stratton’s captain, Fred Roam, cared about his men and tried to help with any problems they might be having. “How is Margaret taking it?” he would ask Stratton. “Is there anything we can do?”

  Once, Captain Roam had asked Stratton why somebody hadn’t already shot the son of a bitch.

  “You trained us too well for that,” Stratton responded, the frustration showing in his voice.

  Now, Stratton explained to the captain, the time had finally come to do something about Ken McElroy. Stratton had no intention of embarrassing the patrol, and he would be happy to resign before carrying out his plan. He would also listen to any alternatives the captain had.

  Roam didn’t want Stratton to resign, but neither did he want to hear about the plan. “Be careful,” he said. “Don’t do anything rash.”

  Later, Stratton ticked off a mental list of McElroy’s buddies and selected a character McElroy had run with for many years and would probably listen to. Both men had supposedly been involved in killing a man some years earlier in St. Joe by stretching him over a set of railroad tracks minutes before a train came. Stratton found his quarry in the lobby of a seedy hotel frequented by winos and prostitutes and other lowlifes in the industrial part of St. Joe.

  “What do you want?” the man asked nervously as Stratton approached him.

  “Come outside,” Stratton said. “I want to talk to you.”

  When they reached the sidewalk, Stratton told him they were going for a ride and ordered him to get in the patrol car. Stratton headed north on Waterworks Road, an isolated stretch of gravel road that ran along the river bottoms below the bluffs. As he drove, Stratton told the lowlife what McElroy had been doing. He then explained that the harassment was over, that he wasn’t going to put up with it anymore.

  “That shit’s going to stop,” said Stratton. “I could set McElroy up and blow him away and be all legal about it, and it’s very near to happening. Darkness will cover me as well as it’ll cover him.”

  “Why are you telling me?” the man asked. “Why would I care what he’s doing?”

  Stratton looked at him and said nothing. They rode in silence for five minutes, then Stratton turned the patrol car around and headed back to the hotel.

  Neither Stratton nor McElroy ever found out whether Stratton was indeed capable of setting a man up and shooting him down in cold blood. The phone calls, the appearances in the driveway, the visits to the Pamida store, all stopped. As Stratton had always believed, McElroy couldn’t handle strength.

  As McElroy’s February 5, 1981, trial date approached, his case did not look good. Bo was still alive and well and seemingly as determined as ever. McElroy needed a break, and he needed time for the break to happen. In short, he needed a continuance.

  On January 22, 1981, two weeks before trial, a powerful state senator named Richard Webster filed papers with the court stating that he had been retained by McElroy on January 5 to represent him in the case. Webster also sought a continuance, alleging that the Missouri General Assembly would be in session on February 4, and that his attendance would be required there.

  Webster was invoking a law referred to as the legislative continuance statute, certainly one of the most self-serving laws ever adopted by any legislative body in this country. The law provided that in any criminal or civil case pending in the state courts, a continuance would be granted if the lawyer for either party was a member of the general assembly, if the assembly was then in session, and if the attendance of the lawyer was necessary to a fair and proper trial or other proceeding in the suit. The lawyer-legislator had only to file an affidavit setting forth the above facts, and the court had to continue he trial until ten days after the general

  assembly adjourns. The Missouri Supreme Court had held that a judge cannot question the legitimacy or truthfulness of a legislator’s assertions. Thus, any party who wanted a case continued could hire a lawyer-legislator during the session, and the continuance would be automatically granted.

  McFadin had played the game beautifully, of course. First, he got the case continued from December 5, 1980, into the legislative session, which began on January 6, 1981. Then, he retained a lawyer-legislator to obtain a continuance past the legislative session. McFadin did not hesitate to use this statute to obtain continuances for clients in criminal cases. In fact, he used it as often as once or twice a year, and he made no apologies for it. In his view, he was simply using an appropriate procedural tool to advance his client’s case. Technically, McFadin believed that the legislator-lawyer need never actually appear in court or participate in the proceedings, but he always insisted, as a matter of ethics, that the legislator actually participate in the case.

  The hearing on the motion for a continuance w
as held on January 27, 1981. Judge Donelson understood what was happening, and he wasn’t happy about it. He stated plainly that if Webster didn’t participate in the trial, he would be held in contempt of court. With no other choice, Donelson continued the case to June 25, 1981. Thus, in a county where the average criminal cases went to trial in thirty to sixty days, McElroy’s first-degree assault case had been delayed for almost a year.

  February could be the coldest month of the year. The ground was frozen solid, and the temperature often hovered around zero. The chill, damp winds swept unhindered across the fields and through the valleys. Although spring was only a month away, the countryside lay in the depth of winter, the trough of the lull before the new cycle began.

  Farmers with livestock mucked about in ice-slickened barnyards, hauling feed, giving shots, cleaning pens, and going through the twice-daily round of chores. In the evening, they went over their books, making calculations about acreage and loans and costs for the past year and thinking about how to present their requests to the bankers and the FHA for another year’s financing.

  After the second continuance, fear about what McElroy might do next

  grew and began, in one way or another, to affect the lives of nearly everyone. People started closing up shop early to avoid trouble, whether he was in town or not, and people became more careful of what they said and how they said it. Something could get twisted and get back to him.

  In the past, one of the bank tellers had gone home around three o’clock each afternoon, leaving her fourteen-year-old daughter, who worked after school in the B & B Grocery store, to walk the few blocks home alone when the store closed. Now, the woman walked back up the hill to the grocery, went inside, took her daughter by the hand, and walked her home. Often, the big Silverado would be parked directly in front of the store, and McElroy would sit silently and stare at them as they passed.

  Another woman, a God-fearing Methodist born and raised in Skidmore, had heard stories about McElroy all her life. Although she knew Ken by sight, she had never met him. When the woman went to the grocery store to buy bread and she saw his track parked in front of it, she thought about whether she really needed the bread or not. She worked evenings as a janitor in the bank, and was scared to go to work when she saw his pickup around. It was a horrible nightmare. Like everyone else, she just wanted to stay out of his way.

  For years, the senior citizens had met every third Wednesday night at the Legion Hall to eat supper, play games, and socialize. But in 1981, the dinners were canceled, because the older people didn’t want to leave their homes after dark.

  One elderly couple had moved to town in the mid-1970s after a lifetime of farming. The wife became upset soon after the Romaine Henry shooting and, when the rumors and threats started flying around after Bo was shot, she became so fearful that she locked all the doors whenever her husband was away, even during the day. Her fear of Ken McElroy, whom she had never met, became all she could talk about to her friends.

  Cheryl Brown had begun working regularly in the store to keep an eye on her dad. Certain that something further was going to happen, she worried about him constantly. She would wake up two or three times each night, check her kids, and phone her parents to see who was with her dad. She felt helpless sitting and waiting for McElroy to make his next move, but she also felt guilty. She wanted her dad to come to her house, but she was afraid that McElroy would find out he was there. Birthdays usually

  appeared in the Skidmore News, a monthly paper, and she didn’t want her children’s names published next to the Bowenkamp name because she was afraid that McElroy might see them. She also felt guilty about carrying the shotgun in the car with her kids. Once, when she forgot the gun, one of her daughters asked, “Mommy, how come you aren’t taking the gun with us today?” And the mere sight of McElroy had come to terrify her. One time she missed the Silverado when she drove into town, and walked nonchalantly into the tavern. McElroy was sitting at the bar and turned to stare at her. She began shaking, and her legs nearly gave way beneath her.

  Former mayor Larry Rowlett, who had talked his friend Dunbar into running for marshal, encountered McElroy in the tavern one night. McElroy walked up to Rowlett and asked if he knew where to get any copperhead snakes.

  “I’ll pay $50 apiece for some copperheads,” said McElroy, “if you know where any are.”

  “Sorry,” Rowlett said. “I don’t know how to get any. What do you want them for?”

  “If I can get two or three snakes,” McElroy said, “I’m going to put them in the old man’s car and let them crawl around inside and bite him.”

  Another night, McElroy walked in and emptied a sack of money onto the counter. Rowlett guessed there must have been between $2,000 and $3,000 lying there in a heap.

  “How would you like some of this money?” McElroy asked him.

  “Hell, yes,” Rowlett responded. “Everybody can use money.”

  “I’ll give it to you,” said McElroy, “if you’ll do something for me.”

  McElroy nodded toward Trena, and she left the tavern. She returned in a few seconds carrying a long, sharp corn knife.

  “You just take this corn knife up there to the store and run it through the old man,” said McElroy, “and you can have all this money.”

  “No way,” Rowlett replied, “I don’t want to go to jail.”

  “You can make it look like an accident,” McElroy insisted. “Just carry it in, stumble around, and accidentally ran it through him.” McElroy kept

  insisting that the killing could be made to look like an accident, and Rowlett kept refusing, although saying no made him nervous as hell every time.

  “He’s the only goddamn witness against me,” McElroy would say, "and I ain’t going to jail. It’s going to be done right this time.”

  32

  Spring appeared in late March. The music of the songbirds after a warm morning rain signaled the end of winter and the emergence of the new season. As the moisture in the top foot of the frozen ground began to thaw, the earth turned to mush. The fields became impassable, and many cars traveling the dirt roads in the hilly areas ended up in the ditches, leaving behind deep ruts like the paths of huge earthworms.

  March was shakeout time for the farmers. Those who fared well last year had money for planting, but others were still hustling for financing, trying to convince the lenders to carry them for another year. This was also the time of year for foreclosure sales, and many farmers attended them religiously to get a sense of the value of land, equipment, livestock, and grain. Standing in small groups, the farmers discussed their neighbors’ fates, crying on each other’s shoulders and wondering out loud who would take over the farm now, and what the displaced neighbors would do for a living. All the while, they were eyeing the machinery, thinking about whether they might get a good deal on the big green and yellow John Deere combine sitting in the shed, or whether they could use that twelve- row planter in the middle of the yard.

  The Great Planting Debate began in March and was in full swing by early April. The discussions went on continuously in the cafe, at the gas station, in the tavern, in the grocery store, on the sidewalk outside of the post office, over the dinner table, inside the farmers’ heads. An early spring intensified the debate, because the farmers could start planting

  earlier, and the earlier they planted, the more time the corn would have for growing, and the bigger the yield would be.

  A week of 70-degree weather usually warmed the soil to the necessary 58 degrees, but that alone didn’t mean the time was right for planting. If you planted too early, the ground might not be ready, or the kernels might mature during the hot, rainless month of August, or you might lose your crop to a killing frost in May. If you planted too late, you might miss the early spring moisture. Then the seed would sprout, but the roots wouldn’t go deep enough to find the water, and the ears would be stunted.

  The older farmers tended to be conservative, and some followed hard and fast rules pass
ed down by their fathers and grandfathers. The younger farmers pushed to get the seed in the ground early, worried that the warm days would give way to steady rain that could keep them out of the fields for days. If the ground was too wet, the earth would clump and clod when turned, providing a poor bed for the seeds. The tractor would compact the dirt, the roots would be unable to spread wide and deep enough, and the resulting stalks might be too short and weak to hold the ears of corn. The views of successful farmers like Q Goslee and Pete Ward, who consistently got good yields, were listened to with respect. The older farmers backed their arguments with stories of years past, and the younger farmers argued that nothing stayed the same and that recent advances in seed quality or equipment had to be taken into account.

  One story was always repeated. Two bulls, one old and one young, came to the top of the hill at the beginning of mating season. They spied a herd of cows in the valley, and the young bull said, “Let’s run down there and screw one of those cows.” “Why don’t we walk down there,” said the older one, “and screw them all.”