Jewel of a Murderer

by M. Glenn Graves

  “That goes double, I suspect,…if I told you that I only vote Republican.”

  The laughter overflowed into the street when I opened the door and left the feed store. At least they had a good sense of humor.

  No one shot me in the back.

  Chapter 23

  I headed back in the direction of Johnson City and to I-81. On the other side of Abingdon, I took Hwy. 58 and stayed that course across the entire state of Virginia. I knew it to be a long route home, but I had accomplished what I had intended, and I needed some therapy time to heal my heart and my back wounds. I thought a lot about Sam. I was a bit worried.

  I spent the night in Dan River and then headed out early the next morning. I stopped at a small dinner on Hwy. 58 for coffee with some eggs and toast. I debated about detouring for a few hours to visit my mother in nearby Clancyville. I was due for a monthly visit, but I felt some pressure from the case, so the motel won out over home.

  “You want grits with that?” the waitress said with some forced friendliness. Her little badge just above her left pocket told me her name was Fran.

  “Just eggs and toast.”

  “That comes with a side. You can get grits or hash browns.”

  “Eggs and toast will do.”

  “It don’t cost no more for the grits or hash browns.”

  “Just eggs and toast, please.”

  “How about some applesauce?”

  “You make commission on those sides?” I said moving slowly towards frustration with Fran.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’re pushing the sides pretty hard. I just want two scrambled eggs and one piece of toast. Coffee. Nothing more.”

  “Not much breakfast,” she said. “Some orange juice?”

  “Black coffee,” I said as I forced a smile for her. My charm was thinning.

  “You’ll be hungry before eleven,” Fran said as she walked away.

  Before I could form a solid opinion about my waitress’s attitude and food, my phone vibrated. It was a practice to turn off my communication line whenever I was in a public restaurant or someone’s home. Sometimes I actually remembered to do it. Caller ID said it was Wineski.

  “Good morning, Chief,” I said.

  “It’s raining cats and dogs here. Hard to tell if it’s morning or some other time. Feels like winter is coming. But since this is Norfolk, I’d have to say that it always has a dismal feel to it.”

  “You called to give me a Norfolk weather update or just to gripe to someone who might listen?”

  “I called to have you check on a family lead.”

  “What family?” I said.

  “Candace Glover’s family.”

  “I thought I covered that.”

  “Got a lead on Candace’s father,” he said.

  I started to explain what I knew of her father but changed my mind. Despite his absentee fatherhood, I suppose the man had a right to know what happened to his child. It was an internal debate for me. My judgmental nature was surfacing. I had my doubts about the man who failed to show up for the delivery having any rights to know what happened to the children years later.

  “He left kinda early in her life,” I said. I was trying to justify my harshness toward a man I didn’t know.

  “Yeah, he did. But after you gave me that name, I did a search and his name popped on some arrest warrants in Dan River, Virginia. You close to that town?”

  “You jest,” I said.

  “I do not.”

  “I’m sitting right here in the midst of Greater Dan River.”

  “Don’t you love coincidences?”

  “Not so much.”

  “Check into it anyway. What else you got to do?”

  “I wanna go home,” I said, doing my best to sound a little pitiful.

  “Some people move around a lot, but I have a source I want you to contact. Find Clifton Hodgins. He lives there in Dan River.”

  Wineski was ignoring my reticence to be diligent.

  “You talked to this Clifton Hodgins?”

  “No. But he might know about Sammy Wagoner.”

  “How so?”

  “Just talk to him. Either he’ll be able to help, or he won’t.”

  Sounded a tad evasive to me. I noticed that his voice became a little irritated at my query. I let it go. Perhaps he had not yet had enough coffee in his system.

  “Anything else showing up in your crystal ball while I’m passing through this part of Virginia?”

  “Everybody’s a comedian,” he said and ended the conversation. The clicking sound was distinct. It was also my clue that Wineski no longer desired to chat with me. Imagine that. I was now free to engage fully with Fran the friendly waitress who was pushing sides.

  Something was amuck with my friend Wineski. Shrewd detective that I usually am, I had no idea what was going on. Nothing new there.

  My waitress came back with my breakfast. She plopped my plate of food in front of me with a little attitude. I had two scrambled eggs, two pieces of toast cut diagonally then stacked on top of each other, a helping of grits, and a side dish of hash browns. She also brought me a glass of orange juice the size of Texas. The only item missing was the applesauce she had previously mentioned. So much for communication and genuine understanding. I bet she was a joy to live with as well.

  I gave her my best forced smile. She smirked in my direction.

  I held up my hand as she started to turn. She was not smiling now. I forced another smile at her. I watched her body get tense. She was ready for my verbal assault. I surprised her.

  “I need some information, please,” I said.

  “It’s fresh,” Fran said quickly.

  “What’s fresh?” I said.

  “The OJ. None of that concentrate crap. We serve only the best.” Fran was confident.

  “That’s good,” I said. “But that’s not the information I need.”

  “What do you need, ma’am?” Fran was using her formal voice at this point. Our friendship was fading. Perhaps over and done. Ma’am, I wondered to myself.

  “Do you know a man named Clifton Hodgins?”

  “Everybody around here knows Reverend Cliff,” she said.

  Aha. A clue. Not much of a clue, but nevertheless, a clue. We detectives pick up on such things. Sometimes.

  “Where might I find this Reverend Cliff, you called him?”

  “Everybody calls him that. Great guy. You need something, he’ll get it for you. You need help, he’s the man.”

  “Good endorsement. I’ll file that. Where does Reverend Cliff hang out?”

  “He has an office over on Elk Run Lane, I think that’s the name of it. Go back to where Fifty-eight crosses the main thoroughfare for downtown Dan River. Turn left and keep on truckin’ until you come to the Elk Run Lane sign. It’ll be on your left.”

  “Know your way around the city, huh?”

  “Used to drive a cab. More money waiting tables. And I get to meet such really nice folks who come in here to eat,” Fran said emphasizing her last comment for my benefit. She was also frowning when she said it.

  Her sarcasm was received. I smiled.

  “Tips,” she said. “I do good with tips.”

  She must have read my mind since I had some doubts about her ability to garner tips of any magnitude.

  “This address, this office place you gave for Reverend Cliff…is this a church?”

  “Naw, he’s a director of something. Several churches – they’re all Baptist, I think – all joined somehow and he’s the main man. Something like that. I’m a Methodist. I don’t keep track of what the Baptists do so much. He’s known all over for helping folks. Somebody comes in here and looks desperate, I send them to him.”

  “You know this guy personally?” I said.

  “Yeah, he eats in here some. Friendly, tells stories, and laughs a lot. Good guy. He’s a big tipper,” she said with some emphasis as she stared hard at me. “Somebody recently told me that he was a writer of someth
ing. I don’t recall exactly what. Hey, your breakfast’s getting cold. Better eat up.”

  Fran left me for good this time. Her departure was rapid. She had other customers to intimidate.

  I ate the eggs and one piece of toast. I left her a ten-dollar tip because of the info on Reverend Cliff and not because of the grits, the hash browns, and the information about the fresh OJ.

  I found Elk Run Lane easy enough. Cab drivers and former cab drivers seem to know their way around.

  Chapter 24

  The marquee I passed as I headed to the entrance door of the medium-sized structure informed me that this was the Pitt County Baptist Associational Office. I was duly impressed. Once I entered the glass double doors, I was met by a smiling receptionist in the center of the spacious outer room. Off to my right and left appeared to be separate offices with identical doors and wall-windows.

  The receptionist who smiled and cheerily greeted me was a redhead. I surmised that a pattern was developing in my travels.

  “Good morning,” she said to me. “May I help you?”

  “I’m looking for Clifton Hodgins,” I said.

  “May I tell him you’re here?” she said politely.

  “That’d be good,” I said.

  “And your name?”

  “Clancy Evans.”

  “You can be seated over there,” she said and pointed to some uncomfortable looking chairs under a painting of some modern building that wasn’t the building in which I had entered. There was no cross atop the building in the painting and I wondered what the building was and why it was on the wall so centrally located. Perhaps it was the Baptist headquarters in another city.

  “Is he expecting you?”

  “I doubt it, unless he’s clairvoyant,” I said.

  “He’s many things, honey. That’s not one of ’em,” she shot back, surprising me a little. Must be the red hair that brings out the feistiness in some women. Go figure.

  I walked over in the direction of the uncomfortable looking chairs as if I planned to sit but remained standing while she turned right down the hidden hallway out of my sight. I heard her gently knock on a door. It opened quickly and then closed. I could hear nothing else for a minute or so.

  A door opened and closed once again. She came back to the outer room. “He’ll be right with you.”

  I nodded without comment.

  Less than a minute later, a short, smiling man turned the corner and greeted me with an outstretched right hand. “Good morning,” he said. “I’m Cliff Hodgins. Welcome.”

  “Morning, Reverend Hodgins,” I said.

  “Call me Cliff. We can talk in my office. It’s down this way.”

  I followed him.

  “I don’t believe I know you,” he said as he gestured for me to sit down in one of the three chairs placed strategically in front of his cluttered wooden desk. The atmosphere of his office was friendly and warm. I noticed several paintings with western motifs decorating the walls that did not contain bookshelves filled with books – cowboys, cows, the Rockies, and one of a Native American. There were two such walls. The other two walls, the ones with the bookshelves, were naturally full of books. They also had a few artifacts sandwiched among some of the books. I was too far away to read any titles, but I could see his collection of western objects. Some of them I could actually identify. I noted that one item was a Colt .45.

  “No reason you should. I live in Norfolk.”

  He nodded. “How may I help you?”

  “Someone told me that you might have some information about a person I would like to find.”

  “And your interest would be…what…in this person?”

  “I’m a private investigator working with the Norfolk Police at the moment. My interest in this person has to do with family notification. I have some information regarding this man’s daughter.”

  “I see. And who is this man you are trying to find?” he said as he leaned back in his comfortable looking chair.

  “Sammy Wagoner.”

  “Wow,” he said. “Not the name I expected you to say. Sammy’s a real case around Dan River.”

  “So I was led to believe,” I said.

  “How’d you come by this information that he was here in Dan River?”

  “The police in Norfolk discovered some recent arrest warrants for him. They contacted me. I was dining in one of your restaurants when the call came.”

  “So, you’re not serving any arrest warrants on Sammy,” he said. I understood his statement to be a question.

  “No, not my job. I just need a few minutes with him to let him know what I know about his daughter.”

  “He’s had a tough life,” Cliff said.

  “Yeah, so I’ve heard. At least I heard some stories about his earlier life.”

  “When he lived in Tennessee,” he said.

  “You know him well?” I asked.

  “You don’t get to know someone like Sammy well. He’s not what you would call open. Keeps whatever feelings he has bottled up for the most part. He’s lived on the streets here in Dan River for several years. That’s how I’ve gotten to know him, at least what little I know of him. When he gets really desperate, he does some petty crime and they lock him up for a while. I think he does it so he can sleep and eat. Then they release him, and he goes back to the streets.”

  “You’ve tried to help.”

  “Yeah, some. Don’t know what good I’ve done, except to feed him now and then. Gave him some clothes a few times, and even found a job for him. He didn’t stay long on the job. Restless spirit, that’s what he is.”

  “Sometimes all we can do is try.”

  He smiled and said, “Always have to keep trying. Never give up.”

  “Easier said than done.”

  “Yeah. Tell me again how you got my name.”

  “A former police captain of mine gave me your name. Told me you lived here. That’s all I know.”

  “What was his name?”

  “Wineski,” I said. “Thomas Wineski.”

  “Figures,” he grinned, leaned back in his chair and then laughed.

  “You know him?”

  “You could say that,” he chuckled and then stood up.

  “Tommy’s my brother. You might say my erstwhile brother. We share some overlapping family.”

  “Erstwhile?” I said with some confusion. “Did the bloodlines suddenly pause in midstream?”

  Cliff laughed heartily once again.

  “He never told me he had a brother,” I said.

  “Figures. Tommy’s a close chewer and a tight spitter.”

  “Cliff, you have an interesting way of utilizing idioms of English. And, you don’t sound as if you’re from the northern part of the country like Wineski.”

  “That’s because I’m not. I reckon I should explain with some brief history. Tommy’s about thirteen years older, and after mother died, he went to live with one of Mom’s sisters and I went to Texas with our daddy. I grew up in Texas. He didn’t.”

  “But you both were birthed by the same parents?”

  “Tommy was adopted before I came along. He was a Hodgins for most of his life, but then one day he discovered his own history. After that, he took the Wineski name, the name of his birth mother. I was a Hodgins from start to finish.”

  “That the reason you referred to him as a used-to-be brother?” I said, being my nosey detective-self as usual.

  “We’ve never had much to do with each other after we were separated. We’ve talked now and then, you know. Maybe once or twice a year. He didn’t come to the funeral when Daddy died. I think leaving him with my aunt was a mistake Daddy regretted, but never tried to amend.”

  “The Texas part of your journey explains some of the items in your office.”

  “Yeah, partly. I like the old west as well as the new west. I write some.”

  “I’ve heard.”

  “Really?” he sounded genuinely surprised.

  “You have some fans in Dan River
, one I met at a restaurant this morning. She couldn’t remember exactly what kind of writing you did, but she did know you wrote. That’s something.”

  He laughed, a hearty, full laugh. Cliff probably worked hard at being friendly and open. Crossed my mind that both of those traits would be good for ministers. Some of the ministers I have known could have used both traits since said traits were noticeably absent.

  “Give Tommy my regards when you see him,” he said.

  “I will. Now, if you would tell me where I might find Sammy Wagoner, I’ll be on my way.”

  Cliff stood and meandered away from his desk. He put both hands in his pants’ pockets, walked around almost in circles as if he was contemplating a difficult question. He might have been planning some serious strategy. I couldn’t tell. I didn’t know the man. But I watched him meander a bit as he gave my proposal some serious consideration.

  Suddenly, Cliff walked back to his desk, did a little drum roll with the fingers of his right hand, and then said to me, “Well, he’s either downtown locked up or he’s on the street somewhere. I’ll drive and you can ride shotgun.”

  I did not expect that to be his answer. I was pleasantly surprised.

  “Sounds like a plan,” I said.

  He laughed and pointed to the door of his office. Underneath the glass part of the door on the bottom wooden portion, Cliff had mounted a poster of a German Shepherd standing on a rock outcropping. The dog appeared alert and ready to jump.

  “Friend of yours?” I asked.

  “I wish. That’s Rin-tin-tin. He’s kinda famous from television westerns.”

  “I sort of remember that. From reruns,” I said quickly so he wouldn’t confuse my real age.

  Cliff laughed. He must have caught my drift regarding the age-thing.

  “You like dogs?” he asked as we left the building.

  “I do.”

  “Have a dog?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Odd answer,” he said, turning to take a long look at me. “You do know you’re tall for a woman.”

  “Noticed once or twice. And you’re short for a man,” I countered.

  Cliff laughed, long and full. “I deserved that one. Back to the dog thing. What on earth does maybe mean?”