by Ron Fisher
#
With my job on the special edition done, and in the capable hands of Eloise, I thought of something Alvin said at the hospital that morning. Somebody has to know who Ray-Ray is, and the location of his cabin. That had been on my mind too. I felt like Ray-Ray was either a relative or an old running buddy. With Laverne Dollar and his brother’s long record of arrests, even though they were a tight gang, they had to have their friends in crime. If the Clarion had covered any of those arrests, perhaps accomplices were named.
In the paper’s morgue in the basement I did a search of past Clarion issues with stories that included the name Dollar. There were three. All of them still on microfilm and not yet digitized by Jason Pilgrim. Unless he could spend every waking minute of his time on it, it was a project that would take quite a while.
I found the appropriate microfilm reels in the steel filing cabinets along the wall and strung the first one up on the viewer that sat in the room like a relic from another age.
I hit the jackpot with the third reel. There was a twenty-year-old article about the conviction of a Laverne Stanley Dollar for manufacturing or distributing methamphetamine. He received a three-year sentence to the Tyger River Correctional Institution, a Level Two state prison in Enoree, just on the other side of Greenville in Spartanburg County. I didn’t know if he’d done the whole time or not. The news that was most interesting was that a “William Raymond Rayford” went down with him, but for ten years. This had to be Ray-Ray. The story went on to say that Ray-Ray’s father, Edward Rayford, testified for his boy before the court, claiming that Ray-Ray was a good boy who just fell in with the wrong crowd. The judge pointed out it was William’s third offense for the same crime and threw the book at him. They sent Ray-Ray to the same state prison as Laverne.
I did a quick computer search and found an Edward Rayford listed. I gave him a call.
“Who’s this?” an elderly voice asked.
“My name is J.D. Bragg, I'm with the Pickens County Clarion and I’m trying to get some information about a Ray-Ray Rayford, whom I believe to be your son.”
There was a long silence. “Ray-Ray’s been dead several years, sir.”
He didn’t say how, and I didn’t ask. I was sorry the guy was dead. At least the man had confirmed that his late son was indeed nicknamed Ray-Ray.
“You’re not gonna’ drag up old stories about him, are you? Let my boy rest in peace. He’s paid for his mistakes.”
“No sir, this is about a man named Laverne Dollar. I think your son knew him.”
Another long silence. “He did, the two of them were cell-mates over at Tyger River. I’ve been seeing pictures of him on TV. Is that what this is all about?”
“Yes, sir, it is. Did Ray-Ray have a cabin in the mountains somewhere?”
“It belongs to me, but Ray-Ray had access to it. It’s probably fallen in on itself by now. I ain’t been up there in years, and the way my old hip is I’ll probably never be going up there again. Ray-Ray used to spend time there before . . .”
Before he died, I thought.
“It was run-down, even then,” he added. “For a while, Ray-Ray was trying to fix it up, I guess to take girls up there, or have a place to play cards—he did that a lot. Or maybe he just wanted somewhere else to live. He was a grown man and still living at home. I should’ve sold it years ago when it was worth something.”
Can you tell me where that cabin is located?”
“It’s off Highway 28—some people call it the Highlands Highway—about fifteen miles north of Walhalla. The turnoff to it is right before you get to a sign for the Sumpter National Forest. You can’t miss that. It’s a brown wooden sign with yellow letters settin’ on a stack-stone base. But the cabin is quite a-ways off the highway, and the little road that leads up to it might be hard to find these days. It’s probably all grown over by now. Aint’ nobody been up there in years, as far as I know. But what’s this got to do with Laverne Dollar?”
“Maybe nothing, but it bears checking out.”
“So, Dollar ain’t been caught yet, huh? You thinking he may be hiding out in my cabin?”
“Probably just a long shot, Mr. Rayford. But I would advise you not to go to that cabin, or tell anyone about our talk until it can be checked out. The Dollars are dangerous. Anybody that goes up there could get killed. My next call is going to be to the authorities, telling them what you’ve told me. Let the police handle it.”
I had to laugh at myself for what I just told him; it was precisely what Bagwell had been preaching to me—let them handle it. But it wouldn’t be Sheriff Arlen Bagwell who would handle it anyway, I thought. The cabin was in Oconee County and wasn’t in his jurisdiction.
“I got no plans to go up there,” Mr. Rayford said. “And I ain’t telling nobody about you calling me. I don’t want no part of it.”
Mr. Rayford hung up abruptly. I looked up the number of the Oconee County Sheriff’s Department, then hesitated. Bagwell would still want to be involved as much as he could. I owed him the call. I’d let him bring in the appropriate authorities.
I rang him up, then had second thoughts and hung up before anyone answered. What if the Dollars weren’t at the cabin? Did I want to call out every cop in two counties, which would most likely include a battle-ready SWAT team, for something I hadn’t first checked out? What self-respecting investigative journalist would do that? Besides, selfishly, I didn’t want to be left out. I’d found the cabin for them.
I went to Eloise and told her she was in charge of getting the special edition out, and that I was leaving it in her capable hands. I was out the door, heading for my Jeep before she had a chance to argue. I thought about calling Alvin to come to help me, but there was no time for that and I didn’t want to pull him off Kelly’s door. Rightly or wrongly, I figured that one person could approach the cabin with more stealth than two. After all, all I wanted to do was see if the cabin looked occupied. I wasn’t stupid enough to try to apprehend the Dollars if they were there. I’d call Bagwell from some safe and well-hidden spot, and wait for them to show up.
I gave Alvin another thought, but decided not to try to take him with me. He was too valuable where he was, watching over Kelly. All I was going to do is take a look, anyway. It didn’t take two sets of eyes to do that.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
The drive to Ray-Ray’s cabin was about forty-five miles from Pickens with the last fifteen being on some very curvy mountain roads, so it took me most of an hour to get there. I made it to the Sumpter National forest marker, but missed the turn-off. I turned around and went back, driving slowly and finally spotting it— a small path barely wide enough for a car, overgrown with weeds and small saplings, and easy to miss. When I pulled in and took a closer look, I saw recent tire tracks cutting through the weeds. Someone drove in here in the past couple of days, and more than once. Was it the Dollars?
I parked the Jeep and set out on foot. All I wanted to do was get close enough without being spotted to see if the cabin looked inhabited. It wasn’t easy going. The road was steep in places and nearer the top of the mountain than I had expected. I had to wade through knee-high weeds and young saplings, Mother Nature taking back her land. My pants legs became covered in beggar’s lice, tiny pods that stick to your clothes like Velcro.
Finally, through the trees, I glimpsed a weathered old house with a rusted tin roof. I found a large poplar tree by the path and got behind it. A black SUV sat in front of the cabin. It was like the one Laverne Dollar drove. I took out my cell phone to call Sheriff Bagwell, but there was no signal.
I kicked myself for not thinking of that. Before I went back to get the Jeep to drive back close enough to Walhalla to get a signal, I decided it was worth taking a closer look at the cabin to make sure the Dollars were here and hadn’t dumped their SUV. A part of me still believed they were smart enough to put as many zip codes between them and this part of the country as they could.
Using a thick cover of trees I circled the cabin
to come at it from behind. The cabin was small, two rooms and a kitchen probably, with a fallen-down outhouse in the back. If anyone was in house, they were using the great outdoors as their bathroom. It was a weird thing to be thinking about when someone might be pointing a gun at you.
I made my way to one of the windows in the back. It was dark with no light coming from within. The place may not have the electricity hooked up, so sitting in the dark didn’t seem any more unreasonable than anything else about hiding out here.
The window panes were broken out. I approached, crouching low. I chanced a peek over the sill and what I saw scared me enough to duck back down.
Someone was sitting in a chair by a table, looking straight at me.
I was about to flee back into the woods but realized there were no sounds of anyone making a clamor to come after me. It was eerily quiet inside the house. Maybe the person in the chair didn’t see me after all. I chanced another look.
The seated figure was Delilah, the light streaming through one of the windows behind casting her in silhouette, creating a bright yellow-white halo around her head. She wasn’t moving. Laverne lay slumped over one end of the table, his head in a pool of dried blood. Between the table and the door, Sonny Dollar lay face down on the floor. The back of his shirt, a mess of dried blood. It looked like he had been shot in the back several times, trying to flee. The front of Delilah’s blouse, the same one she was wearing when I’d last seen her, was also bloody.
Sonny’s gun was still stuck in the back of his belt. I didn’t think they’d been expecting this. This was done by someone they knew well enough to let into the cabin.
I went back to the Jeep and drove toward Walhalla until I got a cell phone signal and called Bagwell. He was in his office and didn’t ask how I’d found the cabin or why I didn’t call him earlier. He just told me not to return to the cabin, park out by the entrance and wait for the Oconee County Sheriff’s department to get there. It wasn’t his jurisdiction, but it was his case and he was coming too and bringing DEA Agent Underwood.
I figured I was probably in for another ass-chewing from Underwood, even though I’d just solved another problem for them. I went back to the entrance to the overgrown driveway and sat in my Jeep, waiting. After a while I heard sirens coming up the highway. From the sound of it, the Oconee County Sheriff was bringing every deputy he had. When they came into view, he’d also brought a CSI unit, and several EMT vehicles, all followed by a short train of lookie-loos, and what appeared to be the local press.
The Oconee Sheriff had apparently made a big show of leaving town. If he knew this was Bagwell’s case, he certainly wasn’t going to be left out of its publicity. He probably had an election coming up.
The Oconee Sheriff was leading the pack and came straight to me when he arrived. I told him, as briefly as possible, where the cabin was and what he would find there. With a suspicious look, he told me not to go anywhere and had a deputy lock me in the back of his patrol car to make sure. If I’d expected a hero’s welcome, I wasn’t going to get it.
I spent the time watching various police cars, official vans and trucks go up to the cabin, each one squashing down the weeds further. Most of the lookie-loos left when they realized they couldn’t get to see what all the commotion was about.
The local press was joined by reporters from farther afield and were all hanging around like vultures on a fence waiting for road-kill. Every time one of them would peek through the car window at me, or rap their knuckles on it, or try to photograph me, I would turn away. Once again I was making the news, not reporting it. Sometimes, I was ashamed to be one of them.
Since my mobile phone was again out of range, I couldn’t make a call. I wanted to call Eloise and tell her where I was and why. If she hadn’t yet gone to press with the Clarion special edition, the news about what I’d discovered should be in it. Otherwise, we were going to get scooped by all these yahoos gathered alongside the road, and our special edition would be yesterday’s news when it came out.
I saw something that gave me an idea. An Oconee County deputy was walking by and I rapped my knuckles on the car window hard enough to get his attention. He walked over and looked in on me.
I said, “Excuse me, can I ask you to do something for me?”
“What would that be, sir?”
He had the fresh-faced look and demeanor of a rookie and was probably just out of military service.
“You know who I am, right?”
“You’re the guy who found the bodies?”
“And you know I’m not under arrest?”
“Yes, I am aware of that, sir.”
“My sister doesn’t know where I am, and she’s got to be worried sick. I can’t call her to tell her. Was that a satellite phone I just saw you on?”
“Yes, sir. There’s no cell phone reception up here.”
“Yeah, I know it. That’s why I’d like to ask if I can use your phone, just for a minute. My sister is easily upset. She suffers from a nervous disorder.” I almost laughed. Eloise was one of the calmest people I knew.
The deputy seemed to buy it, and I got the feeling he wanted to help me but was having a hard time deciding without somebody up the chain of command okaying it.
“Look,” I said. “I’ll give you the number. You can dial it.”
He looked at me, then behind him, and back at me. He took the phone off his belt.
I gave him Eloise’s number.
He dialed it and held the phone up to my face.
“Don’t say one word about what’s going on up here or I’ll take the phone back,” he said.
He wasn’t as green as I thought.
Eloise answered, and I said, “It’s me. Can’t really talk right now, but I’m okay, so don’t worry about me. Has Clarion gone out yet?”
I looked at the deputy and mouthed, “Clarion is my sister’s daughter.”
He gave me a blank look, but wasn’t taking his phone back.
“Oh, good,” I told Eloise, over-riding her confused questions. “Don’t let her go until I get back. I mean it. Wait for me. I have something to tell Clarion that she shouldn’t miss. Okay?
Eloise asked, “Is this a weird way to ask me to hold the presses?”
“Yes, it is, my darling sister, and I will see you and Clarion soon.
I yielded the deputy back his phone and thanked him. He closed the door on me and walked away.
I’d caught Eloise in time, I hoped, and thought she’d understood my message. We couldn’t go to press without this new episode. With it, we could cover this whole story from start to finish. All it would take to put a happy ending on it would be for Kelly to come out of her coma tomorrow as good as new.
I could at least use my phone to begin writing the story of today’s events. The trickiest part would be to make this a news story, and not a narrative of my actions. The Dollars were the news, not the reporter who found them.
I got to work.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
Two hours later they’d turned me loose from the back of the patrol car—the last hour spent with Sheriff Bagwell and his Oconee counterpart firing questions nonstop. I told them everything I’d done and how I did it. DEA Agent Underwood was there too, but he had little to say to me. I guess he was getting accustomed to finding me in the middle of police investigations. He and I were just not destined to be best buddies.
The only question I couldn’t answer is why I didn’t call them in earlier. No explanation I could offer up would keep them from being pissed off at me, so I didn’t even try. Had Alvin been there, I’m sure he would have told them how we’d done their job for them again, but I chose not to do that. I only wanted to get back to the Clarion.
They let me go after I promised to meet with them again the next day if needed to tie up any loose ends. I guessed that they didn’t want to spend any more time with me than necessary. Bagwell had to be downright sick of me. They took the Dollars to the morgue, and the CSI unit was working hard to find an
y clue on who killed them.
On the way to Pickens, when I finally drove back into cell phone coverage, I called Eloise and briefly filled her in on the Dollar murders. She had understood my cryptic message and had put everything on hold for me.
Then I called Alvin and told him about everything that had happened. I got an earful from him almost as bad as I’d received from the two sheriffs for going it alone. I told him he’d helped me more by watching Kelly. It was a great relief knowing she was safe, and by the way, at no time was my life at risk from three dead people.
I added that I was on my way in to help Eloise put the finishing touches on the Clarion special edition, and he should go home and get some rest, I’d see him tomorrow.
The sun was sitting on the western horizon when I arrived at the Clarion. We’d missed getting the edition out by this afternoon, but working into the night, we could have it on the streets by day-break—the digital version even earlier. I sat down at my desk and with what I’d already written on my phone, finished the story of the Dollar’s murder, with a segue from the other stories so that all of the content worked together seamlessly. I rushed it into Eloise to put into the layout of the edition and prepare it for the press run.
To those of us with printers ink in our blood and a reporter’s passion in our guts, hitting the streets with the breaking news of a big story is a thrilling experience. It’s an exciting moment that defies description, flooding you with pride, accomplishment, and a tinge of nostalgia for an earlier time when newspapers ruled the world of news. That was before cable news and the internet, when people waited by newsstands in the wee hours for a delivery truck to drop off the nation’s news in banded bundles on the sidewalk, or sat at their kitchen tables over their first cup of coffee, waiting for that thud on the doorstep.
Granted, the Clarion was a small-town affair, unlike the big-city papers with their giant rolling presses and fleet of delivery trucks standing by, but we were still getting an informative work of substance out to the people, and there was a nobility in that which made your chest swell. I kept feeling like Grandfather was standing somewhere watching with the same sense of pride in what we were doing.