The J D Bragg Mystery Series Box Set

by Ron Fisher

  “Then this is all hearsay and of no help to me.”

  “I would think you’d be at least a little interested,” I said.

  “What I’m interested in is none of your business. As of now, your involvement in this matter is over. I understand that you run a newspaper, Mr. Bragg, and have a right to cover anything you want, but you are not to interfere with an active investigation in any way, or there will be serious repercussions. You could go to jail for it, and I won’t hesitate to arrest you. Leave the police work to the police. Do you understand?”

  I just stared at him. He seemed to ignore the fact that if not for Alvin and me, they would have absolutely nothing—either about who assaulted Kelly, or where the dangerous opioids in Pickens County were coming from.

  “I asked you if you understand me,” Underwood said.

  Then it hit me. His smug attitude gave it away.

  “You already know about the Dollar brothers,” I said to Underwood.

  He gave me a blank look. “I can’t discuss that with you.”

  “If you know, what the hell are you doing about it?” This officious asshole was pissing me off.

  “I said I can’t discuss that with you,” he repeated.

  I turned to Bagwell. “I’ve got a right to know if anything will be done to catch Kelly’s assailants.”

  “We’ll be working with the DEA now to do just that,” Bagwell said.

  I pointed at Underwood. “But it won’t be his priority, will it? His interest is in busting a drug ring. He doesn’t give a shit about what happened to Kelly.”

  “She should have kept her nose out this,” Underwood said. “Just like I’m telling you to do now.”

  I stood up quickly, fighting the urge to knock the smug look off Underwood’s face. I felt Alvin grab my arm.

  Underwood said, “All you and your girlfriend have been doing is making these guys more suspicious of everyone and putting the whole investigation at risk. I will at least tell you this. This operation is bigger than you think. We believe that the opioids being distributed here are also being manufactured here, and shipped to many other states. There are millions of dollars of illegal and dangerous drugs going out from here.”

  I asked, “Have you even searched this junkyard where these Dollars live? Sounds like a pretty good place for a drug lab to me.”

  “Nothing you’ve told us here today helps us, Mr. Bragg. You have presented no factual information that would establish enough probable cause to get any judge to sign a search warrant. And there are legal complications here that you don’t understand, so you’re not helping, you’re just in the way. You need to stop.”

  “What legal complications?” I asked him. “From where I stand it doesn’t look complicated at all. I’ve told you who to go after, you know where they live, now go after them.”

  “Look, Mr. Bragg, I understand how badly you want to see these guys caught for what you think they did to your girlfriend. I get it. But you don’t understand the law. That property the junkyard is on is broken into parcels, all owned by the Dollar family, and each parcel has a separate family member owner, making getting warrants even more difficult than usual. So, to search the whole property—which we would want to do—we need warrants for each owner. We’re working on that. So, give us time. Leave this to the proper authorities and butt-the-fuck-out.”

  I said, “You don’t have power over the press. You can’t stop me from investigating anything.”

  “It is a crime to interfere with the police and their investigations. I can arrest you for that, regardless of who you are. And don’t think I won’t,” Underwood said.

  I looked at Bagwell and held out my hands out, palms up, in a gesture of frustration.

  Bagwell said, “I’m just hearing most of this myself right now, Mr. Bragg. But I want you to know that my priority is still to find and arrest whoever assaulted Ms. Mayfield. If it was the Dollar brothers, I will now be working closely with the DEA on a coordinated investigation to get them, not only for the opioid distribution, but for the assault and battery of Ms. Mayfield.”

  The look Bagwell gave me was so earnest I believed him. Bagwell would do his best, not only because of his dedication to his job, but because Eloise was expecting that of him. Was his best going to be good enough? Underwood may have already known everything I told them about the Dollar brothers, but Bagwell didn’t. Which meant they weren’t keeping him in the loop and probably never would, regardless of how much they promised him he’d be part of their team. I could see in Bagwell’s eyes that he knew that too.

  I stood up. “Can we go?”

  Sheriff Bagwell glanced at Underwood, who nodded.

  “Stay out of our investigation,” Underwood repeated.

  In the car, I said to Alvin, “Maybe they can’t search that junkyard, but we can.”

  I got that fierce grin of his again, and took it as an affirmation.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  We left Sheriff Bagwell’s office and headed south to Central, about eight miles away. On the way, we dropped Alvin’s Mustang at his place and took my Jeep on the hunt for the junkyard.

  In Central, I stopped at a gas station, topped off my tank, and asked a guy if he knew of any auto junkyards in the vicinity. He directed me to a couple north of town. We quickly found the Dollar’s junkyard well beyond the town limits.

  The place was like a redneck gypsy camp surrounded by a sea of automobile carcasses of all vintages and at every stage of decomposition, stacked in places atop one another, along with scattered piles of mufflers, transmissions, engines, bumpers, and every other used car part imaginable. An aging house trailer and several small white-shingled houses were in the middle of the yard, nesting at angles around an old two-story farmhouse that looked a hundred years old—and at least half that since the last painting. The whole place was enclosed by a patchwork fence of weathered wood and rusting sheets of old tin roofing.

  A dirty cinder-block building sat outside the front gate, windows and a door on one end, and an open repair bay on the other. A large tow truck sat nearby. Faded blue letters covered the front of the building and announced, “Dollar’s Auto Salvage and Wrecker Service,” and a phone number. If what I suspected was true, other things were going on here that weren't being advertised.

  From what I could see of the junkyard behind the fence, it looked like it covered six or eight acres. The whole place was a blight on the otherwise pleasant woods and open farmland.

  We made several passes, then pulled in and parked near the cinder block building. It was getting late in the day, but the place looked open for business. A large dog lay near the door, watching us. It didn’t seem to mind our presence.

  A long-haired man somewhere in his mid-twenties came out of the bay. He was wearing a tee-shirt and jeans and wiping his hands on a greasy rag. Behind him in the bay an automobile engine hung from an engine hoist, greasy parts strewn on the floor beneath it. I guessed we’d caught him working on it.

  “What can I do for you fellers?” he asked.

  Alvin leaned down and patted the dog's head. She lolled her tongue out and closed her eyes in enjoyment. He said, “I’ve heard of em’ all my life, but this is the only one I’ve ever seen.”

  “What’s that?” the boy asked.

  “A junkyard dog. But I’m disappointed. This one doesn’t live up to the reputation. Don’t look like there’s a mean bone in this dog’s body. Another myth shattered.”

  The boy looked at the dog, then back at Alvin. “You was to come around here after dark, you’d meet the real thing. We got two more dogs we only let out at night. They’ll chew your leg off up to your dick.”

  There seemed to be a taunt in the kid’s voice. I got the feeling that he especially enjoyed telling that to a black man.

  “Good to know,” Alvin said, and looked at me.

  I’d learned never to underestimate Alvin’s intelligence and slyness. The kid might have gotten a kick out of saying that to Alvin, but he didn
’t know he’d helped us. Now we knew we’d have a couple of watchdogs to contend with if we ever decided to go inside the fence at night. If Bagwell or the DEA couldn’t get a search warrant, we might just have to do that.

  “So, what do you fellers need?” the boy asked again.

  “You have a front bumper for a 1953 Studebaker?” I asked.

  The boy thought for a moment. “I don’t think so, but I’d have to ask my daddy to be sure. But he’s up at the house gittin’ something to eat.”

  “What’s your daddy’s name?” I asked.

  “Wade Dollar. I’m Benny, his oldest. And I ain’t interruptin’ his meal. You’ll have to wait, if you want to see him.”

  “Mind if we take a walk around the lot? I love looking at old cars, and I bet you’ve got some great ones back there.”

  The boy gave me a side-eye. “We do, but we can’t let you go back there. You get hurt or something and our insurance won’t cover it. If you want to talk to Daddy about this bumper, you’ll have to wait, or come back later.”

  “We’ll come back later,” I said, and Benny Dollar didn’t look torn to see us go. I didn’t think he took a shine to either of us.

  “I noticed something back there,” I said to Alvin, as we drove back to Central.

  “What? That the whole place would be at home in the movie Deliverance if they’d wanted a junkyard in it?”

  “Well, that too. There’s a line of trees on a hill behind the junkyard, and I saw what looked like a deer-blind in one of them. If we climbed it and staked out the place, we might find probable cause for Bagwell and Underwood to get a warrant to go in.”

  “I’m game,” Alvin said.

  “So maybe we’ll go up there tomorrow sometime and see what we can see. But first, there’s a couple of things we’ll need to get.”

  “What, a sniper rifle to shoot all these redneck mother-fuckers?”

  “That’s certainly a thought, Alvin, but I was thinking more along the lines of a bag of sandwiches, some bottled waters, and a can of Off.”

  “Off? The insect repellant?”

  “Yeah, for ticks and chiggers. The great outdoors, Alvin. We’ll be roughing it for a little while.”

  “My idea of roughing it is a hotel without room service,” Alvin said. “But ticks and chiggers? I might be having some second thoughts here, bro.”

  “Let’s call it a night, Alvin. I need some sleep.”

  “Tell me something, J.D.. Do the more politically correct white people down here call them chigroes?”

  I didn’t reply to that.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  The next morning I was at the hospital early and with a good night’s rest behind me. I had undoubtedly needed it and felt like a new man. When I walked into Kelly’s room, I found a nurse with a syringe in her hand, apparently about to feed it into Kelly’s IV. She must have heard me enter because she quickly turned her head and looked at me over her shoulder as if I’d startled her. Then, she straightened up and without speaking walked by me and out of the room. I stood and watched her disappear down the hall. Odd, I thought. If she’d actually emptied the needle into the IV, I didn’t see it her do it.

  She wasn’t one of Kelly’s regular nurses. I would have remembered her. She was quite attractive and shapely, with long dark hair and piercing blue eyes. But I usually wasn’t here this early, so maybe she was a night nurse still on duty.

  I sat and held Kelly’s hand for about an hour. She seemed unchanged, which to Dr. Mathis’ optimistic view was a good thing. Stabilization indicated normalcy and was why he was planning to bring her out of her medically induced coma soon.

  #

  I called Alvin on the way back to Pickens County and the Clarion.

  “Yo,” he answered, breathing hard.

  “What did I interrupt?” I was almost afraid to ask.

  “Just finished my morning run. It’s nice out here in the country. At home, I’d be dodging cars all the way, but here I just have to dodge the occasional roadkill.”

  “I’m going into the Clarion until the afternoon sometime, then I’ll come by your place to pick you up and we’ll go junkyard spying. Wear something appropriate. Preferably dark, for nighttime.”

  “There’s a dress code for junkyards?”

  “Just wear something you don’t mind getting dirty. We might take a stroll through the junkyard at some point, if we can get in there.”

  “No problem, Cosmo says a well-dressed traveler is ready for any occasion. I got a junkyard suit in my bag, right next to the tuxedo.”

  “You read Cosmopolitan?”

  “Got several girlfriends who read it in bed, if they can get the time,” he said. I felt him grin over the telephone.

  #

  Eloise still hadn’t come in when I arrived at the Clarion. She called and said she’d been in touch with a claims adjuster from the insurance company, and yes, there was a clause that covered vandalism and malicious mischief, and there was nothing that said gunshot damage was excluded. She was meeting the man at Still Hollow at noon. She’d arranged a builder to be there too, for replacing the windows and repairing the bullet holes as soon as possible.

  Eloise expected Mackenzie and me to pitch-in on the cleanup and everything else, including the repainting. I decided to wait until later to make a case to have it all done through insurance and this contractor. Painting wasn’t my thing. Eloise was caught up in the activity of getting things back to normal, and it seemed to be lifting her spirits, so I decided to leave it alone for now.

  There were no fires to put out at the paper, and everything seemed to be under control and running smoothly, starting the march toward next week's edition. At a big-city daily, there was never a slow moment like this. I found myself liking the pace of a small-town weekly.

  This week’s issue had gone out without a hitch, and I’d read it cover to cover several times. Again, I had to admit I was proud of it, the first for me as a hands-on publisher, and I thought of Grandfather again. I’d finally fulfilled his wishes for me to take over the Clarion, although it would be short-lived. As soon as Kelly was back to a hundred percent, I’d be back in Atlanta—if there was a job waiting for me.

  Vickie had done an excellent job with the story of Kelly, and I was proud of her too, despite her aversion to following orders. The girl had writing chops. Even Mackenzie had a piece in it, and her writing had surprised me. It was a human-interest thing on a local beloved high school teacher who was retiring.

  Joanne McKinney had just turned in a story about a City Council meeting where two aldermen got into a dust-up over finances that almost came to blows, and it wasn’t bad. I was sitting at my desk making a few small edits to it when Mrs. Mozingo buzzed me.

  “I’ve got a Doctor Michael Stefans on the line for you.”

  I punched the button.

  Stefans said, “I was thinking about you, Mr. Bragg, and wanted to give you an opportunity to learn more about what we doctors are trying to do about the opioid crisis in our area, if you are still interested in the subject. It might give you something else to write about. I’m just down the road at the County Tax Assessor’s office dealing with a tax matter, and just minutes away, so if you are free, let me buy you lunch and I will tell you about it.”

  “Lunch sounds good,” I said.

  Anything more that I could learn about the area’s drug situation could be a subject for a Clarion story—whether I wrote it, or handed it over to someone else. I was, after all, running a newspaper at the moment.

  He asked, “Is there a good place nearby? I do not know Pickens all that well.”

  “The Gatehouse Restaurant. Good place for salads and sandwiches, among other things. It’s just around the corner.”

  “How about in thirty minutes?” he said.

  I agreed, and he rang off.

  #

  Doctor Stefans was seated at a booth along a wall and studying a menu when I arrived. We shook hands across the table as I sat down.

&
nbsp; “How is Ms. Mayfield?” he asked.

  “Still in the induced coma, but the doctors plan to bring her out of it soon.”

  “That sounds like good news. It means the swelling on her brain is going down. You said she suffered acute physical trauma. What is her doctor’s prognosis? I do not mean to scare you, but depending on the severity of her injury, there can be lingering or even permanent brain impairment. Everything from loss of memory to diminished function.”

  He didn’t mean to scare me, but he damn-well did, and I found it insensitive of him. I still hadn’t told him how Kelly got hurt and had no urge to do it now. If this was an example of his bedside manner, he sucked at it.

  “As far as I know, she’s going to be perfectly fine,” I said.

  He said, “Before we get down to why I wanted to talk to you, let us order first if that is okay. There was a line at the tax office and I am running a little late, but I had to eat. I am famished. I have already moved my morning appointments to the afternoon, and if I make them wait even longer, I will have an office full of disgruntled patients on my hands.”

  “Fine by me,” I said, as I motioned to the waitress.

  Once we’d ordered, Stefans said, “The reason I wanted to have lunch with you was to tell you about our monthly meeting of the South Carolina Medical Association in Greenville early next week. I thought you might want to attend. It is a private meeting, but I can get you in. The subject of discussion this month will be about how we doctors can better address this opioid crisis. Given the interest your newspaper has taken in the matter, there might be something newsworthy for you there. There will be up-to-date reports on the current status of it, a discussion of a doctor’s responsibilities, and the law as it pertains to both doctors and the drug companies. I guess you know that the government now has lawsuits against them?”

  “Yes, I’m aware of that,” I said. “Thanks for the information and the offer, Doctor Stefans. If I can’t make it myself, would it be all right to send one of my reporters?”

  “Why yes, as I told you and Ms. Mayfield, anything I can do to help bring attention to this egregious problem, I will gladly do. I will have someone from my office contact you with the details, and have passes available for you there.”