Kentucky Murders: A Small Town Murder Mystery (24 page)

“What happened?” Lee strained to sound casual.

“The Johnson’s who live down the road are saying a black couple got shot.”

“Yeah, I reckon I’ve seen them around town,” said Lee nonchalantly. “Didn’t they have a kid? Little girl I think.”

“Don’t know about no kid,” said the man next to Lee.

“Yeah, Calvin. Weren’t you listening? The little girl made it out alive,” said the second man in the row.

The third man said, “I think Calvin’s getting the Alzheimer’s. Can’t remember a conversation from five minutes ago, but ask him about the war and he can tell you how many pimples that German had that he fought hand to hand back in ‘44. And the
fralines
, that’s what they called the girls in them German bars. He sure as hell remembers them from forty five years ago. Heard the stories a hundred times. But ask him about what happened yesterday and he can’t remember a damn thing.”

The middle man spoke up again. “I heard they called the Social Services people and they picked up the girl. Must have taken her to their office.”

“Middle of the night?” asked the one closest to Lee.

“They’re on call twenty-four hours. Ya think bad things only happen during the daytime, Calvin?”

“So they found her?”

“Yup. Heard Sheriff Taylor found her in the playhouse out back.”

Damn, thought Lee. They must have walked right by her on the way out.

The waitress stepped in front of Lee and slid his omelet and potatoes across to him. “Enjoy.”

Lee ate and thought. The old men moved on to some other gossip and forgot about him.
Sheriff Taylor. Wonder boy
. Lee had been jealous for that son of a bitch ever since he had married Kate Jenkins. Lee had had a thing for Kate since her senior year. She had been a couple years behind him in school but she hadn’t been much to look at until her last year of high school. Then her braces came off, her tits got bigger, and suddenly she was little Miss Popular. Even after his graduation Lee had continued to go to all the games where she had been a cheerleader. He could still remember her in that short little skirt with that blond hair bouncing as she jumped up and down.
Damn
, he thought, feeling the stirrings of an erection.

Then he realized he needed to get over to Social Services.

He quickly scooped the rest of his food into his mouth, chewed a few times and washed it down with coffee. He stood, took five dollars out of his pocket and laid it on the counter. Looking at his watch, he saw it was 8:55. He left the diner and went to his truck. First he needed to make a phone call. Then he had to find that girl.

He drove out of town. After about fifteen minutes, he pulled into a gas station near the freeway and walked over the pay phone at the side of the building. After dropping several quarters into the slot, he dialed the number. He had wondered where the number was located. Although he knew it was probably a cell phone, which meant the person who answered the line could actually be anywhere. Even nearby. On the third ring a familiar man’s voice answered.

“Hello?”

“I think I know where the girl is but I’m not sure we can get her. Maybe we can negotiate for less.”

Lee had gotten a call out of the blue several weeks earlier. This same voice had offered to pay him $25,000 to do a “job” for him. He explained the details. Lee found out later that someone he’d known in prison, but the caller wouldn’t say who, had recommended him for the job. The deal was for him to kill certain people and kidnap their kid. Five thousand of the money would be paid up front and the rest after he delivered the kid. Then he would be out of it.

Lee had taken several days to think about it before he called the man back and agreed to the terms. He didn’t want to do it but he had no choice. The life of an ex-con was basically hopeless. When he could find a job, his employers knew they could pay him less and treat him like shit. If he gave them any trouble, they’d just fire him. After all, they had given him a break by hiring him, so he owed them. At least that’s how they saw it. There was no way to get a
good
job with a felony on your record, especially when your crime had been murder.

Then Lee thought about his daughter. His little Jenny had been just a baby when he went to prison. He couldn’t stand seeing her living with that bitch, her so-called mother. The parade of boyfriends that moved in and out of the house would eventually turn the girl into a worthless piece of trash like her momma. Lee hoped none of them were perverts that liked little girls. If he ever found out one of them was hurting his daughter, he’d happily go back to the joint for murdering that son of a bitch.

He had to get her out of there before that happened.

The bitch had made sure he had no visiting rights and the judge had gone along. After all, he had murdered a man just a few rooms from where the baby had been sleeping. But Lee had managed to meet his daughter on the sly after getting out of prison. He found out where and when she walked home from school and found a way to happen upon her.

He remembered that first time. As she had walked down the sidewalk toward him leaning against his truck he felt his heart race. At first she didn’t really pay attention to him until she got closer. She looked up at him and their eyes met. She blinked once, then again. He almost fainted when she said, “Daddy?”

“Jenny?”

She dropped her book bag and ran to him, her arms spread.

When she hugged him, he couldn’t breathe for a few seconds. He finally managed to speak. “I didn’t think you would…how did you know?”

She looked up from her hug. “I have your picture.”

Since that day he’d met her each afternoon. They couldn’t spend much time together for fear of getting caught, but he cherished their short conversations and the minutes he spent with her.

Now he had a chance to make some real money. He could get his baby and they could disappear. Twenty grand would be enough to give Lee and his daughter a new start.

“What about the girl?” asked the voice on the other end of the line.

He’d forgotten he was on the phone.

“She’s at Social Services.”

“The job was to kill the adults and bring me the girl. You haven’t fulfilled your end of the contract.”

“But we’ve lost the element of surprise. It will be dangerous to try to get her now. She’s just a kid. What do you want with her anyway?”

“Call me when you’re ready to deliver the girl. Then we’ll arrange for you to get the rest of the money.”

The phone went dead. Lee slammed down the receiver. “Damn it.”

---

He pressed the
End
button on his cellular phone and placed it back into his inside breast pocket of his leather vest.
That’s what I get for hiring rednecks instead of professionals.
Hopefully the money would be enough of a motivation for them to finish the job. As he pulled back the curtain and looked out of his motel room window at the McDonalds across the street, his stomach growled.  A sausage biscuit and some hot coffee would hit the spot.  He heard the roar of a truck passing by on the freeway bridge next to the motel. He opened his door and stepped out into the cool morning air. As he crossed the parking lot and started across the street, he looked over at the sign next to the road.  It read:
Michaeltown 8 Miles.

Chapter 10

At not quite noon Zack pulled into his driveway. He turned off the engine and sat for a few minutes, exhausted. The long night and morning he’d just spent out at the farm had sapped most of his energy. In fact, he’d almost dozed off at the wheel on his trip home. He sat and looked at his house as he summoned the energy to go inside.

He and Kate had sold the small house in town the first year Zack had joined the Sheriff’s Department as a deputy. It had gotten too small for their growing family. When the first new subdivision of the town’s expansion had started going up a few years earlier, they had put a down-payment on a three bedroom, two-story home with a two car garage. It was located just outside the city limits on the west end of town. He remembered taking Jimmy out to the house as it was being built and watching the framing go up, then the roof went on, and each piece of the puzzle was added as it came to completion. Jimmy would run through the plywood and two-by-four structure looking for something new from the last time they’d visited. “Dad, look, new sink!” he’d yell. It had been the ultimate father-son experience that Jimmy might not remember later, but Zack certainly would. Just in case, Zack had taken pictures to jog Jimmy’s memory when he got older. Sometimes they would even let Mom come along.

After his brief escape to fond memories, the night’s events came crashing back to him. The crimson bedroom and mangled bodies flashed through his mind. And the little girl who was now an orphan waited in a government building for a relative to be located, maybe to end up in foster care. She was probably in shock. Maybe the whole horrible night was blocked from her memory, at least for now.

He exited the car and walked up the driveway toward the front door.

He knew Kate would be at work and Jimmy would be with her.

After entering the silent house he removed his gun and locked it in the table drawer near the front door. He went to the kitchen. After getting a drink from the refrigerator, he picked up the phone and dialed.

“May I speak with Kate?”

After a minute, “Kate?” 

“Hi, Zack.”

“How’s it going? Did you meet the girl?”

“Sure. She’s in the community room. Jimmy’s there too. I just gave the kids sandwiches a few minutes ago.”

“How’s she taking it?”

“She still hasn’t spoken, like you said. But she and Jimmy are getting along fine. Just playing. Jimmy keeps talking and she just listens.”

“Her name is Sharnita. We found some paperwork at the house. And it looks like they moved here from Lexington. We have a lead on an aunt in Chicago but haven’t been able to contact her yet. We’ll let you know. I’m going to eat something and take a quick power nap before going back in. I’ll call you later.”

“Okay, talk to you later.”

---

The killers sat in the truck watching the building.

“If that cop hadn’t shown up and we had stayed there and looked around for her a little longer we would have found her and wouldn’t be in this mess. Now how the hell are we going to get her?”

“We just have to be patient. We watch and wait and come up with a plan.”

“You and your damn
plans
.”

“My plans are going to keep us out of jail and get us the rest of that money. Like I said before, don’t do anything unless you go through me first. Maybe I shouldn’t have brought you in on this, Donnie.”

“All right. I hear you. I just want this to be over so I can get my money.”

Lee looked toward the building across the road, sighed, and wondered if this would end well for them.

Chapter 11

Zack ate a sandwich and went straight to bed, exhausted. He had told the office he’d be back in an hour or so. He set the alarm for one-thirty.

As he lay there he thought of Kate. Their relationship had lost something in the last few years, and now this. Somehow they had grown apart. Well, that wasn’t exactly it. They still both loved each other very much. He could feel that. But they’d spent so much time apart with school and work and attending to Jimmy’s needs. It seemed like they never had “alone time” for each other. Then when they did steal a Saturday afternoon when Jimmy was with Grandma, it seemed like they were too tired to do too much.

He remembered the sex they shared that first year or two of their marriage. Kate hated when he called it sex. She preferred
making love
. He recalled those days, the lazy Saturday mornings that started with
making love
…then later laughing and chasing each other around the kitchen table while they made breakfast. He remembered how close they’d been, how good he felt, holding her on the back porch in the early morning sunlight.
And
long sessions of making out.

Then he’d started attending college at night school, and soon after Jimmy had been born. The next few years had slipped by unnoticed. Now Jimmy was almost five and they hadn’t
made love
in a month. Or had it been longer? He missed those old days.

She’d been interested in social work. She’d taken extra classes and had graduated early with an Associate Degree in Social Work. It was enough to get her license but she hoped to someday finish her BA. Now she worked for the county with a case load consisting of abused wives and children, homeless people, and foster kids. Zack didn’t really understand her fascination with assisting the downtrodden. But what could he say? He’d chosen to become a cop. 

Now Zack had started drinking again which had turned their marriage from cold to troubled. He vowed to quit. He pushed away thoughts of his alcoholic father and closed his eyes.