Dumping Grounds (Joshua Stokes Mysteries Book 1) (16 page)

A few minutes after Will left the room, old Annie came back to retrieve the breakfast tray. Emma heard Annie’s footsteps before she opened the door and jumped back into bed, jarring the tray and knocking over a glass.

“Old Annie ain’t deaf, Miss Jeanette. I know you was back up at dat winder again. You is gone get yo papa up here on both us, fore you know it!”

“I’m tired of staying in bed!” Emma exclaimed, trying to sound as she thought Jeanette would sound.

“I know you is, Honey, but you has got to do what da doctor says. He s’posed to be back today to check on you, maybe he’ll let you get out dat bed then.”

“Well, I surely hope so. It’s no fun laying in bed all day long and not getting to move around.” Annie started to speak, when some commotion outside drew her attention to the window.

Emma sprang out of bed and ran to the window. She squatted down so Jeanette’s father would not see her if he was out there.

Annie squatted down amid grumbles and grunts, and then they both peeked over the windowsill. A gang of eight to ten men on horseback was gathered near the dock, talking with whom Emma thought was the overseer. Their voices were loud and hurried.

“Is dey Yankees?” Annie asked.

“I don’t think so. They look like regular men to me,” Emma replied, but Annie’s question let her know that the war must have already begun. One of the riders was slumped over his horse; he appeared to be injured.

“They said the doctor was out here!” she heard one of the riders exclaim. The overseer replied, but Emma could not hear his response. The overseer and the other riders began dismounting. Several of the men removed the injured rider from his horse and began toting him toward the house.

“Oh Lawdy, one of them men’s needs nursing’. I reckon old Annie better get herself down there. You stays put now Miss Jeanette, an don’t you come outta dis here room, you hears me!” Annie said firmly.

“Yes, em” Emma replied as she helped Annie to her feet.

As soon as Annie closed the door, Emma ran back over to the window so that she could listen. She wanted to know what was going on, but she still could not hear what the men were saying. Their voices sounded excited, and Emma’s curiosity was stronger than her fear of Annie.

When she squatted back down, she heard the men gathering just beneath the window, so she stuck her head out the window to see what was happening.

When Emma looked down, she looked right into the eyes of a young man wearing a gray flannel shirt and cowboy hat. He had the bluest eyes Emma had ever seen. His hair was of a dirty blond hue and hung in curls to his shoulders. Except for his slightly bucked teeth, his finely chiseled features were almost perfect. His eyes were gentle, but Emma could see that he was worried. Perhaps about whatever events were taking place.

Although she knew that she should, Emma could not pull herself away from the window. The young man had not moved his eyes from hers nor had she looked away.

She did not move until she heard a man’s voice yell, “What the hell you mean we can’t bring him into your house!” Only then did Emma drag her eyes from the young man’s eyes to look toward the loud voiced man. When she looked back toward the young man, he was also looking toward the loud voiced man.

“Get outta my way woman! Can’t you see that Clem needs medical attention, and he’s gonna get it too,” the loud man said gruffly.

“Outlaws are not welcome in my home.” Emma heard a woman say firmly, and then watched as the loud angry man pushed his way through the door.

She heard a man’s voice say something, watched the loud man back out the door with a broom shoved in his face.

“Militiamen are out fighting the war, protecting our community, not roaming the countryside pillaging common folk!” the woman wielding the broom said angrily.

The angry man drew a gun and said for them to move out of his way.

The well-dressed, redheaded man rode up fast on the big white horse. He dismounted before the horse had even stopped and said loudly, “Copeland, there will be no need for violence!”

Emma sat there, completely fascinated by the scene below her. It seemed as if she was watching a movie. However, she knew that she was no longer in the year 1976 where cowboy and outlaw movies were an everyday occurrence; she was back in the real life days those movies were fashioned after.

She heard a noise toward the river road and as she looked in that direction, she saw a one-horse buggy coming up the driveway. It was exactly like the buggy Doc Adams drove on the TV show, Gunsmoke. Emma tried to see if the man driving the buggy were Doc Adams, if so, she would know she was dreaming.

“Lizabeth, Annie, prepare an area for the doctor to attend to this man.” Emma heard the redheaded man say as he walked toward the doctor’s buggy.

When the buggy came to a halt in front of the house, Emma was still stretched out the window. She looked toward the doctor, he gave her a perturbed look. She imagined it was because she was out of bed.

The look in the doctors old blue eyes, changed from a look of annoyance to a look of concern as he looked toward those gathered in front of the house.

“What’s going on here?” the doctor asked tersely.

“One of these men has a gunshot wound that needs tending to, Doc,” the redheaded man replied.

“Yeah, Doc. Clem Stringer’s been shot and you need to fix him up so he can ride,” one of the outlaws said coarsely.

“Ain’t likely he’ll be going anywhere soon from the looks of him and it’ll be the cemetery if you all don’t get out of my way and let me do my job,” the old doctor said firmly. Emma could tell the doctor was use to delegating when he began spouting out orders to Annie and Lizabeth for hot water and clean rags.

“Plenty of em” he shouted.

The crowd of men and the doctor had moved into the house and Emma could no longer see what was going on, nor could she hear what was being said. The sound of their voices was muffled through the thick walls.

Moments later, some of the men were ushered back into the yard. Among them was the young man in the gray flannel shirt. As he walked over to a shade tree, Emma watched him. After a spell, he looked up to her window. Their eyes met and she smiled at him.

Her smile seemed to take him by surprise and then he smiled back at her. His teeth were not perfect, but at least he has some, thought Emma. She noticed that some of the men had no teeth or they were rotted out.

The men seemed anxious, but after a few minutes, they must have decided they were going to be there a while. They trampled over the flowerbeds getting their horses tethered to tree branches, and then they gathered wood and built a fire. They built it right there in the front of the house… Emma thought they should have more respect than that for other people’s property.

While growing up, she had heard many stories of the Copeland Gang. She knew of their notoriety, but for some reason, she was not afraid of what they might do.

The first time Emma heard the story of the Copeland Gang, and of how they had murdered the Moffett family, she was probably not yet five years old. She reckoned she was not afraid because she already knew what was supposed to happen.

Is this going to be the day of the massacre, Emma wondered as she watched the men setting up a camp. Then she remembered that the massacre supposedly did not take place until after the war was over. At least that was the story that survived the retellings of history.

Emma could feel his eyes on her even before she looked over to where he had squatted under a tree. He was staring at her. She could see the curiosity in his eyes, as if he was trying to figure her out.

This time, Emma did not smile at him. Instead, she searched his eyes for the killer inside.

If they were supposed to be so mean, and just a bunch of ruthless outlaws, it should be evident in his demeanor; the other men too, at least that is what Emma thought.

None of them, except the man who had gone inside with the injured man, seemed like a ruthless outlaw, at least to her. Emma had always felt she was a pretty good judge of character. Only time would tell. That is, of course, if she did not jump back through time before the alleged massacre took place.

“Jacob!” a man shouted. When he did, the young blond headed man jumped to his feet and headed toward the house.

“Ride back over to Clem’s house and tell his wife that he’s dead. The doc couldn’t save him. Tell her we’ll brang him home to bury after while,” the angry man told him.

Emma watched as Jacob walked to his horse, mounted, looked back toward the house, and then spurred the horse down the road the doctor’s buggy had come down. Jacob did not look directly at Emma before he rode off, but she could tell the man’s death saddened him.

Emma was still looking out the window, watching the goings on, when she felt the wind rush past her once again. When she turned to face the room, it darkened.

That was when she realized she was back in the dusty cellar, where she found the human skull. She remembered how the spirits surrounded her, causing her to lose consciousness and slip back in time… Emma knew it was no dream, nor was it a trick of the mind. She had actually been there.

She had been inside Caledonia when the family lived there.

27

The Man Who Wasn’t There

Joshua could see the body sprawled face down through the doorway of the bedroom. It was bloated, and from the smell, he had been dead for quite a while.

Joshua covered his mouth with his kerchief and then stepped in for a closer look. Even without getting very close at all, he could tell the dead man was not Roy McGregor. Roy was bigger, and much taller than the dead man was.

Stokes looked toward Metcalf and then he looked back to the body.

“I thought maybe you could identify him, Sheriff.”

“I will have to get closer to do that, John,” Joshua said, thinking, Its one thing when you think you know who is dead, it is another when you’re thrown a curve ball like this. “Just give me a damn minute!” Joshua snapped.

Joshua had seen many a dead body, in all states of death and decomposition, but the hardest he had discovered, was when it was people he had known his entire life.

Roy was one if those.

He had known Roy since Roy started school. He remembered him as a cocky little feller even back then, but Roy got it honest, his daddy was the same way.

Joshua inched his way toward the body, making sure he did not step in any of the blood. He did not want to mess up any footprints or other evidence that might be present.

When he was standing at the dead man’s feet, he recognized him. The dead man appeared to be Joe Dyas.

Joe was a humble sort of man. He worked for one of the local flower nurseries and lived between the town of Wilmer and the Tanner William’s community.

Roy’s complexion was swarthy like Joe’s was, and he could see how someone might mistake the body for Roy; especially, with the body lying in Roy’s house, but the body most definitely was not Roy. It was Joe Dyas. Joe was a mulatto, what some referred to as a high yellow.

If Joshua remembered correctly, Joe was married and the father of three or four children.

Joshua wondered why Joe would even be at Roy’s house, much less lying dead from multiple knife wounds. Now that they had found out that Roy was not dead, they needed to find him; he had some explaining to do.

Joshua stepped out the kitchen door onto the back porch, lit a cigarette, and then stood gazing around. A group of about a dozen azalea plants caught his attention. They were in one-gallon plastic containers, the type the nurseries used. “That must’ve been why Joe was here,” Joshua mumbled under his breath, “to deliver the flowers.” Why he ended up dead, was a mystery.

“Sheriff, what do you want me to do?” John Metcalf asked as he walked up behind Joshua.

“I want this kept under wraps, at least until we can notify Joe’s next of kin. Don’t tell anyone that this isn’t Roy, and I mean no one, not even my deputies” Joshua said firmly.

“How can I do that?” asked John Metcalf, stating, “The coroner still has to bag him and tag him and get him out of here.”

Joshua thought on it a minute, not knowing who he could trust not to let it leak out that it was not Roy McGregor who was dead. He walked back through the house to the front door where Deputy Cook stood guard and called Jim Davis to him.

“Jim, I want you to guard the back entrance. Cookie, you keep this entrance covered. No one is to enter except the coroner and his helper. And, I do mean no one!”

“Yes, Sir!” both said simultaneously.

Joshua Stokes walked past everyone, got into his patrol car, and then headed toward Georgetown. He was headed to talk to Cassandra Bohannon’s folks.

Maybe they can shed some light on this situation, he thought to himself as he took the back roads through Cuss Fork. He came out about two miles south of the Bohannon’s farm and within five minutes was sitting in their driveway.

Joshua hated this part of his job, talking with friends and family of victims or suspects. For the time being, both Cassie and Roy were suspects; at least until they could be cleared, but he could not clear them lest he talk to them.

Jasper Bohannon was usually an intimidating man. He stood six foot five inches tall and weighed about 300 pounds, but he looked more like a big teddy bear sitting there in his kitchen, slumped over his coffee cup. His eyes betrayed his heart; Joshua could see that something had already deeply saddened him.

“Sheriff, I know why you’re here. You’re here to tell me that my Cassie is dead, ain’t you.”

“Why would you think that, Mister Bohannon?”

“Well, Sir, I got a call this morning, just before daylight. They told me there was dead bodies and blood all over Roy’s house!

They hung up after they said that, didn’t even give me time to ask em any questions. That was when I called the sheriff’s office. I wanted someone to check it out; I started to go myself, but I didn’t want to see my baby girl like that.”

“Mister Bohannon, there was a lot of blood, but the only body found at the scene was that of a local nursery worker, by the name of Joe Dyas. I was hoping you could tell me where Cassie and Roy were. Neither of them were there, nor was Cassie’s car.” Joshua could see the relief on Jasper’s face hearing that Cassie was not found dead.

“Boy that is a relief, Sheriff!” Jasper Bohannon exclaimed and Joshua could see him visibly sit up straighter as the weight lifted off his heart.

“Sheriff, I don’t know where Cassie and Roy are. I just hope they aren’t a laying dead somewhere else. I done told her and told her that I didn’t like her living there with Roy, specially out of wedlock and all, but you know how these young folks are these days; they want to do things their own way an all. She’s hardheaded like that. Thanks she’s grown because she’s over eighteen.”

“You said you got a call this morning, Mister Bohannon. What can you tell me about the caller?”

“Well, Sir, it was a man who called and he was talking low, like he didn’t want anybody to hear what he was a saying.”

“Did you recognize the voice?”

“No Sir, they was whispering and sounded gravelly voiced. They sounded downright evil, Sheriff.”

“Do you think it could have been Roy?”

“No Sir, I don’t. The voice sounded nothing like Roy. I've talked to Roy in all forms of life, sober, drunk, puking his guts out, he never sounded like that.”

“We will be in touch, Mister Bohannon,” Joshua said turning toward the kitchen door. “If you hear from Cassie, please give me a call, and Mister Bohannon,” Joshua said, stopping and looking him straight in the eye, “Don’t let this conversation go any further than this kitchen.”

“I won’t speak a word, Sheriff.” Jasper Bohannon said quietly. Although Joshua did not know him very well other than seeing him around for years, he knew that it would go no further, because he was a good judge of character, and he could tell that Jasper Bohannon was a man of his word.

Joshua drove back to Roy’s house the way he had come and as soon as he got there, he ordered his deputies to start canvassing the neighborhood. The neighboring houses were spaced out, not crammed against one another, but he still wanted them to go door to door and ask the neighbors if they had seen anything out of the ordinary.

The coroner had removed Joe Dyas’ body while he was at Bohannon’s farm, and now that it was moved, John Metcalf was going over the blood splatter with a fine-toothed comb. As soon as Joshua stepped into the house, he could see and hear the excitement in Metcalf.

“Sheriff, I have been following the blood trails around here and there is most definitely more than one starting point.I count two separate trails,” he exclaimed. “The perpetrator probably cut him or herself during the stabbing of the victim.”

“With the amount of blood present, that is definitely a possibility. I just hope we do not have more than one victim,” Joshua voiced his concern.

“Anything is possible, Sheriff. It is hard to tell without another body present. But as soon as I get through typing the blood from the different areas, maybe we’ll know how many were involved.”

Joshua sat in his patrol car smoking and thinking, awaiting the deputy’s return from canvassing the neighborhood. He could not help but wonder the whereabouts of Cassie and Roy. Roy’s motorcycle was there, but not Cassie’s car.

The laundry could possibly be from the day before, or even before that. He wondered when the last time that anyone had seen Cassie or Roy was. He had forgotten to ask Jasper Bohannon when he had last talked with Cassie.

Joe’s body was beginning to bloat and smell. That meant he had been dead several days.

Had anyone reported Joe missing? If so, he was not aware of it, but there had been so much going on with the murder of the women and then his wreck. . . Sitting there, Joshua became painfully aware that he was out of touch with his responsibilities.

The deputies returned shortly and announced that no one admitted to seeing anything out of the ordinary and no one had seen Roy or Cassie for several days.

Joshua concluded that whoever called Jasper Bohannon, had to have been at the scene, but getting someone to admit it was going to be another thing.

It reminded Joshua of something he had read in a crime novel once about the man who wasn’t there. There were still way too many loose ends to tie up the investigation and those loose ends led to too much speculation on Joshua’s part.

What he needed was facts, not speculation. He could speculate until the end of time, but that would not solve anything. He needed to talk to Joe’s employer.

Joshua drove to Edgewood Nursery. He wanted to check with Bill Thrower and find out when Joe Dyas had made his ill-fated trip out to Roy’s house to deliver the azalea plants. He also wanted to know if Joe had been reported missing.

When he arrived at the office, Kitty Christian was sitting at her desk doing paperwork. Kitty was the wife of one of Joshua’s deputies and the secretary at Edgewood.

“Good morning, Sheriff. What brings you out here to the piney woods?”

“Morning, Kitty. How’s things been going?”

“You know how it is, Sheriff, same old shit, different day.” Kitty gave Joshua a searching look.

“I was wondering if Joe Dyas still works for Bill.”

“Well, yeah he does, Sheriff, but we haven’t seen Joe since last Thursday. I called his house to find out why he didn’t show up for work Friday morning, his wife said he called her Thursday evening and said the boss was sending him to Jackson, Mississippi, to pick up a load of plants.

I did not tell her that it was a lie; I wanted to give Joe a chance to explain. He hasn’t missed a day of work since he has been working here and if he felt a need to lie about his whereabouts, I figured it was something important.”

“Do you know if Joe delivered any azaleas to Cassie Bohannon or Roy McGregor?”

“Not that I know of, Sheriff, but Bill gives his workers a discount for their own personal use. Now, that does not always mean they use them for their own landscaping needs. I know Joe does side jobs. I just keep mum about it. I know he has a big family to support… Is Joe in some sort of trouble, sheriff?” Kitty asked with concern in her voice.

Joshua thought about it a moment, then decided to tell Kitty that Joe was dead.

“Joe was found murdered at Roy McGregor’s house this morning,” he said blandly, watching for Kitty’s reaction, which was one of stunned silence, before she burst out with an “Oh my Lord! Who in the world would want to hurt Joe? He is the most easygoing, humble man in the world!”

“We don’t know, Kitty. That is what I am trying to find out. What you have told me is more information than I had previously and it helps more than you know, thank you.”

“Well, I haven’t really done anything to help, Sheriff. This is some crazy shit if you ask me!”

“Yes, Kitty, it is some crazy shit. It is very perplexing too. I can see right now that there is more to this than meets the eye. Please, keep this to yourself, do not tell anyone, not even Bill, and please don’t Jerry either.”

“I won’t tell anyone, Sheriff.”

“I know Jerry is your husband, but we did not release any information this morning, even to my deputies. It is not that I do not trust my deputies, but things have a way of getting out. I do not want the news getting to Joe’s family before I can notify them myself. It just wouldn’t be right for them to hear about it out of the blue; now would it.”

“No Sir, it wouldn’t. I won’t say a word, Sheriff.”

Joshua walked to his car, lit a smoke, and then sat there thinking where to go next. It has been a very long day already and its not even noon yet, thought Joshua.