The J D Bragg Mystery Series Box Set

by Ron Fisher

  The only nullifying possibility was the economy. Although it seemed to be gradually improving of late, there was always the chance of another downturn. I caught myself almost hoping for it, if it meant Barry Beal losing his ass on the deal.

  But if changes were coming to this little valley, they still lurked behind the scenes. I saw no flagged stakes to indicate surveyors applying their trade, no fresh scars in the landscape, and no advertisement of a developer’s future plans. The only signal that anyone had designs on the place was that no one seemed to live here anymore. New weeds grew in the yards of vacant farmhouses and summer cottages, the driveways were without cars, the porches lacked the usual rocking chairs and hanging flowerpots, and the barns and outbuildings were void of farm machinery and implements. No new crops grew in the fields and no livestock roamed the pastures. From the look of it, the Hood place wasn’t the only property that had been sold.

  A rusty mailbox on the side of the road signaled the Hood farm with faded red letters. Behind it, a sandy drive led up to the old two-story farmhouse, partially hidden behind a towering grove of old oaks. Beyond the house I could see the edge of the barn where Eloise said Cecil Hood fell to his death.

  The bulk of Mr. Hood’s farmland lay across from the mailbox on the other side of the road, toward the river. Looped over one of the posts on either side of the driveway was a length of chain with an open padlock threaded through the links. Both the lock and chain looked new. I drove through the open gate and up to the house.

  A large yellow rental truck was backed up to the front porch, and two men were crab-walking a sofa into the back of it. One was a beefy kid barely out of his teens, wearing a faded Metallica t-shirt; the other was at least twenty-five years older. The older guy was tall and lean, with broad-shoulders. His arms were corded with muscle and covered with blue jailhouse tattoos. His long black hair was slightly gray-streaked and tied into a ponytail. A diamond stud sparkled in his left ear. Older, a little grayer, and more tattooed, this was the guy who stared defiantly at the camera from the courtroom shot I’d seen on the microfilm reel. It was Carl Hood, Cecil Hood’s black sheep son.

  I got out of the Jeep and walked to the edge of the porch. Both of them saw me, but neither spoke. They continued to struggle with the sofa until they had it wedged into the back of the truck against more of Cecil Hood’s furniture. Behind Hood the younger guy spread a furniture blanket over the sofa. Hood jumped down off the porch, dusting one hand with the other.

  “Yeah?” he said to me.

  “I heard this place has been sold,” I said, a spur of the moment attempt to start up a conversation.

  “You heard right,” Hood said.

  “I was out this way and thought I’d stop. It’s been years since I was here.”

  The young boy came out of the back of the truck, plopped down on the tailgate and pulled a pack of cigarettes from his jeans. I smiled a broad hello at him and got a vacant look in return.

  “I ain’t paying you to sit on your butt, Jimmy,” Hood said, without even looking over his shoulder at him.

  Jimmy got up and went quietly into the house. I didn’t blame him. There was something about this guy that discouraged backtalk. I might have been taller, heavier, and younger, but I knew I never wanted to tangle with him.

  “I’m John David Bragg,” I offered, and stretched out my hand. “I knew Mr. Hood.” His only response was a hint of something—recognition perhaps—that moved behind his eyes. I got the feeling he already knew who I was. I withdrew my hand and shoved it in my pocket.

  “Mind if I look around a little?” I asked.

  He studied me for a moment, his face occupied with thoughts he didn’t turn into words. “Knock yourself out,” he finally said, and went back inside.

  I went around the house and walked toward the barn. A stand-alone garage sat off to the side, the door closed and locked with another shiny new padlock and chain. Just beyond was a corncrib, empty of grain, the nail heads in the walls leaving rusty tails down the side of the weathered wood. A hog lot, long absent of livestock sat beyond that, the ground underneath the troughs—once mire and muck—was now as dry and hard as set cement. The barn was just ahead, the pasture beyond sprouting clumps of wild onions and dandelions all the way to a line of trees in the far back.

  The old barn, gray and weathered and with a rusted tin roof, was typical for the southern highlands, built with hand-carved tree-size timbers meant to stand the test of time. However, a different kind of time was overtaking it, a time defined by the harsh test of usefulness. Long before age could tumble the heavy walls, the structure would be knocked down for a fairway or a two-story colonial with a three-car garage. For now, the smell of old hay and horse manure still lingered in the air around it like a final tribute to the old man who toiled and died here.

  I walked through the hallway. The walls inside were as smooth as soap in some places from the body oil of years of horses and mules rubbing their flanks against them. Overhead, clusters of dirt daubers’ nests stuck to the ceiling like miniature pueblo towns. At the back of the barn, I turned and looked up at the open hayloft door. According to Eloise, Cecil Hood fell through it and died, probably about where I was standing, but the packed earth beneath my feet bore no sign of it. Eloise said he was found with his head cleaved by some kind of farm machinery, but that was gone too. I turned to find Carl Hood standing at the corner of the barn, watching me. He gave the loft door a quick glance.

  “They don’t build them like this anymore, do they?” I said, nodding at the barn.

  He neither agreed nor disagreed.

  “But I guess they won’t need a barn on a golf course, huh,” I said.

  He looked at me for a long moment.

  “We’re about to leave,” he said. “I’ll be putting the chain back across the drive.”

  He followed behind silently as I made my way back to the Jeep.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  On the way out of the valley an idea popped to the surface of my mind like an air bubble from the depths of a pond. Something that held no meaning a minute before, now made perfect sense. I dug the note page from Grandfather’s office out of my pocket and looked at the hotel list again. If I added Barry Beal to the equation, they took on a whole new meaning. All of them were within comfortable driving distance of Eastatoe Valley, and all were places Beal would choose if he were in the area on business—upscale places likely to pamper a narcissistic asshole like him. That had to be why Grandfather was looking into them. I marveled at his ability to uncover a lead—but then I’d never found him lacking in his professional ability. It was his personal skills I always had a problem with.

  Halfway down the list was the Transylvania Inn, the catalyst for my sudden “moment of clarity.” I’d never been there, but I was aware of it. Obviously, the eerie sounding place wasn’t in Romania. It was in the town of Rosman, in Transylvania County, North Carolina. And I would bet my whole collection of baseball cards (which included the entire starting lineup of the “Miracle Mets”), that the hotel lay exactly 14.6 miles from the turnout. Back at the turnout again, I reset the mileage counter on the Jeep to zero and headed north.

  This time I drove past the intersection with the Cleo Chapman highway, and continued to climb the mountainous road. After a couple of miles, I crested a summit before traversing the small summer community of Rocky Bottom. The few scattered cottages along the highway were tucked among the tangles of mountain laurel and rhododendron. The doors were closed and the windows were dark as if the owners were yet to return for the summer.

  The old Rocky Bottom camp lay off to my right, out of sight behind the trees, a meeting place for church groups and schools in earlier years. According to a sign along the highway, it was now a summer camp for the blind. Just past the entrance to the camp, another sign by a narrow gravel road pointed the way to the forestry lookout tower up on Sassafras Mountain, the highest point in South Carolina.

  Leaving Rocky Bottom, I followed the hig
hway up another steep ascent then down across upper Eastatoe Creek. From there on, it was all heavy forest, sheer drop-offs, and mountain vistas all the way to the North Carolina state line.

  The heavily forested road continued to ascend and switch back on itself until the mountains gave way to a wide valley and the small town of Rosman. Off to my right, a single engine airplane made a landing approach to a country airstrip. If Beal were looking at property in the area, I would think he’d want to see it from the air as well, and a handy airstrip nearby would be another reason to choose his lodgings.

  Just before the town, I spotted a small ornate sign on the right announcing “The Transylvania Inn.” About a mile down the road, I came to a sprawling Victorian Inn, the entrance bordered by rows of azaleas in red, white, and fuchsia, looking like strips of ribbon candy.

  The three-story building was a postcard from another era, when Rosman was a prosperous lumber and logging town. It bore the look of recent renovation. It was painted a bright white and had a porch that wrapped around three sides with posts trimmed with ornate woodwork. On the lawn a croquet game was in progress, the participants dressed in all white. I half expected someone on a unicycle to come peddling down the drive to greet me. The Jeep’s odometer showed I’d driven exactly 14.6 miles from the turnout.

  I had a hard time picturing Barry Beal at a place like this, but given the choice of a budget motel or here, and with an airstrip for a plane or helicopter nearby, I guess it made sense. However, a guy like Beal would have been one bored puppy here. Bored enough to chase some local skirt—like the young woman I was looking for.

  I parked in a spot in front marked visitors. Out on the lawn behind me, the clack of a mallet against a ball brought a small round of applause, as someone evidently made a good shot—if shot was the right thing to call it in croquet parlance. I’d never covered a croquet game. I could hear the grizzled long-hunters and mountain men who traversed these hills 250 years ago chuckling in their graves.

  Inside the tall glass-paneled front door was a room that looked more like a parlor than a hotel lobby. The front desk, in an alcove, was a low table with a computer. A little bald-headed man about my age or a bit older sat behind the table watching me approach.

  “May I help you?” he asked, as I walked over.

  “I’m supposed to meet Barry Beal here,” I said.

  “Mr. Beal?” he said, with a genuine look of surprise. “I don’t believe he’s presently a guest.”

  He said it as if Beal was well known to him. Again, I was impressed with my Grandfather’s investigative abilities. He’d made short work of placing Barry Beal in the vicinity.

  The desk clerk began punching keys on the computer keyboard.

  “I wasn’t aware that he was expected,” he mumbled, gazing at the screen. “No, he isn’t with us,’ he added, “and I don’t even see a reservation.”

  He looked up and smiled as though he was pleased to know that he was still in the loop on the guest list.

  “What about his associate? She was supposed to be here too. Maybe the room’s in her name. Melissa something? I can’t remember her last name. Young . . . pretty. Long dark hair?”

  “Melissa Raines?” he asked.

  “That could be it,” I said, trying not to look too smug at how easily I had ferreted her name out of him.

  He went back to his computer and began to shake his head.

  “She isn’t a registered guest, and I didn’t think she would be,” he finally said. “She works with Mr. Beal and handles all his arrangements, makes his reservations, schedules meeting rooms, things like that. But she never stays here. She lives in the area.”

  “Do you happen to have her address and phone number?” I asked.

  “Oh, I can’t give that out, sir. We have a strict guest privacy policy.”

  And I was doing so well.

  “Has anyone else been around to ask about her recently? Perhaps a distinguished looking elderly gentleman?”

  He cocked his head and studied me, regarding me with suspicion.

  “You’re not looking for Mr. Beal, are you? You’re looking for Ms. Raines, just like he was.”

  “Guilty,” I said holding up my hands. “So, you talked to him?”

  “Not really. He had an appointment with Mrs. Trotter, our general manager. All I did was direct him to her office.”

  “Then how did you know he was looking for Melissa Raines?”

  He looked at me for a moment, blinking rapidly several times. I guess I’d caught him in a lie, or asked him a question he didn’t want to answer.

  “Eh?” I said.

  “After he left, Mrs. Trotter came out and told me,” he said. “In confidence. I don’t think I should be talking about it.”

  “I’d like to speak to Mrs. Trotter.”

  “She isn’t here, sir. She’s attending a hotel management seminar in New Orleans. She won’t be back until Monday.”

  “That’s a problem,” I said.

  “Not for me,” he said. “I’m just doing my job and following the rules.”

  I noticed he’d stopped calling me sir.

  “I know,” I said. “Guest privacy policy and all that.”

  “Correct,” he said.

  “But look at it this way. If Ms. Raines never stays here, then technically, she isn’t a guest, is she? And the privacy policy wouldn’t apply, would it?”

  I casually placed a twenty-dollar bill on the desk in front of him.

  He looked at the Jackson for a moment, then around the room to check if anyone was watching. No one was.

  “You have a point, sir,” he finally said, and the twenty disappeared into his pocket. He went back on the computer; shortly after, the printer behind him spat out a sheet of paper, which he took from the tray and handed to me. On it were Melissa Raines’ address and phone numbers, both home and cell.

  I laid down another twenty, but kept my hand on it.

  “What else did Mrs. Trotter say about the man?”

  “She said he was with a newspaper over in South Carolina and was looking for a young woman that sounded a whole lot like Melissa Raines—working with Mr. Beal and all. The newspaperman insinuated that something bad of a personal nature may have happened between Ms. Raines and Mr. Beal, and he was investigating that but wouldn’t go into details. Mrs. Trotter has a phobia about bad publicity and wanted to know if I knew of anything that went on between them while they were here that might damage our reputation.”

  “What did you say to Mrs. Trotter?” I asked.

  “I told her that Mr. Beal was flirty with Ms. Raines, but he was that way with a couple of our female staff too—at least the good-looking ones. That was all I knew.”

  “Did she give the newspaperman Ms. Raines’ phone number?”

  “Probably,” he said. “I heard him thank her for her cooperation when he left.”

  None of that told me much, but I let the guy have the twenty, anyway. It disappeared into his pocket like the other one.

  “You keep up with the news?” I asked him.

  He looked puzzled. “Not really, why?”

  “The newspaperman was robbed and murdered right after he left here.”

  “Oh my God,” he said, surprised. “Down highway 178? I heard about that. But I didn’t know it was him.”

  “You think Mrs. Trotter knows about it?” I asked.

  “I don’t think so,” he said. “She’s called a couple of times and didn’t mention it. She left for New Orleans early that next morning and didn’t even come in.”

  “Well, you might tell her to expect the police, because they’re sure to have some questions for her, as this was probably being the last place he stopped before he died. I don’t see how she’s going to keep the Inn’s name out of that.” I left him standing there looking like he was trying to decide whether or not he was in trouble with Mrs. Trotter.

  As soon as I got to the Jeep, I got the number for the Pickens County Sheriff’s Department and left a mess
age for Sheriff Bagwell. I told him where Grandfather was right before he was killed, and that possibly the last people to see him alive were the hotel manager and a desk clerk.

  I didn’t know if the information would be helpful, but I didn’t want Bagwell to accuse me of hiding information or obstructing a police investigation, or whatever he would do if he got pissed at me for meddling in things.

  I then called Melissa Raines. After several rings her home phone went to voicemail. I dialed her cell number, and it was answered on the second ring.

  “Miss Raines?” I said.

  There was a tentative, “Yes?”

  I gave her my name and told her I was with SportsWord Magazine in Atlanta.

  “How did you get this number?” she asked, after a moment.

  “I’m a reporter, Ms. Raines. It’s my job.”

  “What do you want?”

  “I want to know about Barry Beal.”

  Another pause. “What about him?”

  She didn’t deny knowing him, so I didn’t see any point in beating around the bush. “I know he physically attacked you Ms. Raines, and I wondered if you would talk to me about it.”

  “I don’t have anything to say,” she said.

  “Did he rape you?” I asked.

  “Nobody raped me. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Beal is a bad guy, Miss Raines. I don’t think you want to be protecting him. Even if he didn’t rape you, what he did was at least assault with intent to commit rape, and that’s just as serious. He deserves to pay for that.”

  I could hear her breathing but she didn’t say anything.

  “Perhaps he’s already paying,” I said. “Has he offered you money to keep quiet?”

  “Just leave me alone, will you?” she said.