Outcast In Gray

by M. Glenn Graves

  “You mean before all of these murders began?”

  “It’s a thought,” I said.

  “That’s a long leap, even for you,” she said.

  “It would explain why those two showed up to help us in the woods. Just how they knew where to look for us, don’t you imagine? What if they had used that very trail to walk into the backside of K.C.’s property in order to keep tabs on her?”

  “Walt Stanton said he had grown up in the Gabriel’s Creek section of the county,” Starnes reminded me.

  “He did.”

  “So wouldn’t that naturally explain how he knew that woods so well?”

  “Yes, it would. But what if he lied or what if Hack also knew that about Walt and got him to help because of his knowledge of the terrain?”

  “Okay, I see your point, either way. Any way we can find out if he lied?” she said.

  I hit the speed dial number for Rogers.

  “Yes, ma’am, what now?”

  “I need to know where Walter Stanton grew up, which section of McAdams County?”

  “Give me a moment or two. You can stay on the line for this one. I saved the data I collected on him from that earlier inquiry you made.”

  “She’s checking,” I said to Starnes.

  We walked on towards the river while we waited for Rogers to find the answer to our question. We were getting close to the river. I could smell the water and the other odors that often accompany wilderness waters. Our trail was taking us through some woods as well as through some farm fields. We avoided a field that had been recently plowed since walking might have been a tad difficult for Starnes.

  We came upon a road that went along the edge of a field that had been planted with some early crop. From what I could tell, the dirt seemed to be rich, healthy soil. Its proximity to the river no doubt aided that richness.

  “Okay, Sweetie, this is what I have on Walter Stanton. As you know he is the grandson of Zeb and Ida Carter, the son of her daughter, Bethany Blue Carter and her husband Wiley Jo Stanton, born in 1990 and graduated from high school in 2007. Went to Mayfield Community College for his law enforcement training in 2008. Became a deputy sheriff in mid-2008 in McAdams County. It appears that he lived at home with his parents until he graduated from the police course he took at Mayfield. They live in the Laurel Ridge area.”

  “He live anywhere else?” I said.

  “Let me check that … no ma’am. There is no record that he lived anywhere but in Laurel Ridge with his parents. At least not before he purchased that house and land you asked about in the earlier call. Anything else you need, Sweetie?”

  “Not at the moment. I’ll call if something comes up.”

  “Do that. I’ll do the same.”

  I told Starnes what I had learned.

  “Laurel Ridge is a big, big area, but it’s not Gabriel’s Creek,” Starnes said.

  “He lied.”

  “Yep.”

  Just then I heard what sounded like some leaves rustling and twigs snapping. We were not alone at the river. I grabbed Starnes’ arm and pulled her to the ground as I gave her the index-finger-to-the-lips, the universal sign for quiet.

  “What’s going on?” she whispered to me.

  “Somebody’s here.”

  “I heard nothing.”

  “Yeah, I got that. My ears are still good.”

  “When you listen,” she said.

  “Don’t start with me,” I said and drew my weapon from my back holster.

  “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

  “Too many have died for me not to be serious.”

  We crept along the foliage on the road using it to block any view of us if someone was on the other side close to the river. We could hear the river moving rapidly along.

  More sounds of someone walking. The sounds seemed close-by to us. Starnes and I crept along our protective hedge until we arrived at an opening. The hedge that hid us ended.

  “Now what?” she whispered.

  “You stay and I will sneak over there,” I said pointed towards the river with my handgun.

  “You have an extra gun?” she said.

  “Where’s your gun?” I said.

  “At home in my drawer. We were going to see Aunt Jo. I didn’t figure we would need to shoot her.”

  “You lab rats really are something, you know,” I said in frustration.

  “Don’t get testy with me. I don’t usually visit people I know while packing a firearm.”

  “Right. Wineski would have your hide if he were here.”

  “This ain’t Norfolk,” she whispered. “Now, give me your second weapon.”

  I reached down and retrieved my small .38 from my ankle holster. I handed it to her and she checked it quietly. Fully loaded. Of course it was. Why carry an unloaded second gun? She was right to check it, though.

  “Now, go play near the river. I’ll be fine here.”

  “Don’t shoot me,” I said as I moved away from her in the direction of the river, towards the walking sounds I had heard.

  “Don’t give me a reason,” she whispered, and smiled.

  61

  I moved gently and stealthily along, pausing every few seconds to listen for any distinguishable sounds about me. All that I heard was the river flowing along over the rocks and a slight breeze rustling some branches of the nearby trees.

  I remembered my cell phone in my pocket. I thought it a good idea to put it on vibrate. No sooner had I done so, Rogers called. I was still holding it in my hand when the vibration began.

  “You found something else?” I said upon answering.

  “That was quick,” she said.

  “It was in my hand. I had just set it to vibrate. I’m moving towards the river and waiting for something to happen.”

  “What are you waiting on to happen?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Is this a normal technique of yours as an investigator?”

  “Probably. What do you want?”

  “After that info I gave you regarding Walt Stanton, I decided to do some more checking on young Mr. Stanton.”

  “Okay. So besides lying to us about where he lived, what other dubious traits did you uncover?”

  “Nothing dubious necessarily. Just something I thought you might like to know.”

  “I see. Tell me quickly. I need to move to a better spot for my surveillance. Starnes is apprehensive and waiting anxiously on me to hurry up and get this over with.”

  “You two are an interesting team,” she said.

  “Talk to me about Walt Stanton,” I said.

  “Walt Stanton’s father, Wiley Joe Stanton, has an older sister named Sybil Erwena Stanton some twenty years older than Walt’s father. Years ago she married a man named Ewell Ponder and gave birth to three boys. The oldest of those boys was named Hack Ponder. You want to know more?”

  “You have my attention,” I said as I stopped my slow movement and paid closer attention to her information.

  “I have info on Hack’s two brothers, but it’s not necessary for your work at this point. Suffice to say, Hack has not always been such an upstanding citizen of McAdams County. It seems that he stayed in trouble in high school, nothing bad enough to have him thrown in jail, but bad enough to set a pattern for a life. When he was in his twenties, he was charged with raping a young girl in the seventh grade. However, he was never convicted, it never came to trial, and nothing became of it because the girl refused to testify against him. He was generally known as a womanizer, or some such term, I think it was referred to back then.”

  “Son of a gun,” I said, more to myself than for Rogers’ sake.

  “I was thinking of a phrase much stronger than that one,” she said. “You want me to keep digging around?”

  “By all means. But, unless you find the missing link in the evolutionary chain of human development, let me call you back. I’m in the middle of something here which could get testy.”

  Rogers clicked off without anothe
r word. I put the cell phone away and considered this new information.

  Moving closer to the river, I rested behind an oak. It offered me a canvassing view of a small beach area at the river’s edge. The beach was protected, partially hidden from the bottom-land field I had walked through to get to this spot at the oak. It lay about ten feet below the field level and was partially covered by vines, small trees, and one or two enormous rocks. The beach was composed of a mixture of sand and soil, mostly sand.

  My surveillance spot was at least fifty feet away from the beach. I could see that the area was heavily used because of the footprints in the sand.

  I waited to see if anyone would show up since I was certain I had heard someone earlier. I wasn’t about to walk out into the open and become vulnerable. The best thing for me to do at the moment was play it safe and remain hidden behind the oak.

  Time passed. Nothing happened. There were no sounds except for the river and the breeze blowing the branches.

  Half an hour had passed and I was still leaning against the oak waiting for something to happen.

  “What are you doin’?” Starnes said.

  She was standing out in the open with my .38 in her right hand. The barrel was pointing directly to the ground beside her.

  “I was being quiet and waiting.”

  “For what?”

  “Whatever was going to happen next.”

  “Today or this year?”

  “Funny,” I said and stood up. “Follow me. I want to show you something.”

  I figured that whoever might be around doing the same stealthy ritual I was employing was now more than keenly aware of my presence. Our presence, now. I might as well throw caution to the wind and do what I wanted to do. I headed towards the beach to check out some of the foot traffic.

  “Hey, this is a neat spot,” Starnes said.

  “Used.”

  I circled the large area looking for anything out of the ordinary. Most of the prints seemed to be human except for one set. I held out my arm to stop Starnes from passing me, just in case her exuberance carried her along.

  “What?” she said.

  “Those tracks are not human,” I said and pointed.

  She stooped closer to the ground and studied the prints in front of us. They headed directly to the river and disappeared into the flowing stream.

  “Yeah. Larger than most canines,” she said.

  “You thinking what I’m thinking?”

  “I doubt it, but we’re probably close enough to each other to find some common notions.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

  “There’s more here,” she said and moved past me, closer to the prints. “Look.”

  I followed the direction of her finger as it moved to within a few inches of the ground next to one of the large canine-like prints. It appeared to be blood.

  “What’s on the other side?” I said as I looked across the water.

  “That a rhetorical question?”

  “Anything of note, you know, like houses, developments, towns, villages … stuff like that?” I said.

  “You’re in the mountains of western North Carolina. You are miles from any town or village. Forests would be the kind answer for me to give you. Lots of land … trees, bushes, wildlife … stuff like that.”

  “Lots of places to hide,” I said.

  “Yeah, if you’re given to that kind of behavior.”

  “We’ll come back,” I said and turned away from the water, climbed the bank and walked back to our vehicle through the farm field near the mailboxes.

  62

  “Tell me why you chose that place along the river to investigate,” Starnes said as we sat on the front porch after our evening meal. Despite the cold wind that had confronted us at Aunt Jo’s house that morning, the remainder of the day had turned towards some unseasonal warmth. The evening was rather mild. A slight breeze was blowing.

  Rosey was sitting on the steps rubbing Dog who was still nursing her injuries. I was sitting on the porch floor leaning against the wall of the house. Sam was sitting next to me looking around for whatever it is that Labs look around for. Starnes was swinging in the porch swing. It was the way she convalesced.

  I started to say something when Starnes interrupted me.

  “Don’t give me that crap about hunches and the like. I know you better than that. Something else caused you to go down to the river at that very place and investigate. I want to know what it was.”

  “I believe something more happened to K.C. Higgins around that area than just some fifth graders holding her down and removing her clothes.”

  “What makes you say that?” Starnes said.

  “You don’t hold a grudge for nearly three decades because of some prank by your classmates. And you don’t kill all of those people.”

  “Unless you’re pathological,” she said. “And that reminds me.”

  “Of what?”

  “I’m not one to hold grudges … so, I forgive you,” she said.

  “For what are you forgiving me?”

  “Keeping secrets from me … about Rogers.”

  “Oh, that.”

  “Hey, don’t minimize it. It’s a big deal. But I have decided to forgive you.”

  “Well, that’s big of you.”

  “It is, isn’t it,” she said.

  “And why have you come to this resolution?”

  “Your dog saved my life. I’m gonna give you the benefit of the doubt with this Rogers’ thing and all. And since I’m not pathological.”

  “Yeah, well, okay. There’s that, but … now back to the issue at hand. I don’t buy some latent pathology held over from grammar school. I believe something traumatic happened and everyone that has been murdered was involved in it one way or another.”

  “You thinkin’ anything specific?” Starnes said.

  “Since that old coot and scoundrel Hack Ponder is involved, yeah, I’m thinking something really bad happened.”

  “More story to uncover,” Rosey said.

  “Somebody knows something,” I said. “And there’s a lot more to it than what Aunt Jo told us about Randall Lee running into K.C. and Aunt Jo at the Walmart store.”

  “Hack’s dead, so is Dottie, Randall Lee, and Rufus. Who else would know?” Starnes said.

  “Aunt Jo might know,” Rosey said.

  I nodded.

  “And Eula Robertson,” I added.

  The next morning Rosey, Starnes and I were in the Jeep heading towards McAdams Manor to have another conversation with Eula Robertson. Both of the dogs were staying behind at the house. There had been one of those emotional moments that happen when you least expect it earlier.

  When Sam realized that we were heading off again to some destination, he headed towards my car to go with us. I opened the door and he jumped into the backseat. The three of us climbed inside. At that moment, we looked towards the house and saw Dog sitting on her haunches staring at us. I could hear Dog whimpering softly.

  “I can’t leave her by herself,” Starnes said and opened her door to get out.

  Swift as a deer galloping in front of a vehicle along a dirt road, Sam jumped through the divided seats of my Jeep and bounded out of Starnes’ door to Dog. He sat down on his haunches next to her as if to say that he would stay and we all could go.

  “I’ll be,” Starnes said.

  “He’ll take care of her,” I said to Starnes.

  “Probably better than anything I could do,” she said and climbed back into the vehicle.

  “Good boy,” I called after him and he wagged his tail.

  Sometimes a dog owner has some pride in her animal because of decisions that the animal makes and not from anything the animal is told to do. Life is full of great wonders. I also figured that Sam needed more recuperation time in light of his recent injuries. The vet told me that he was in good shape despite his deep wounds. I think she told me that Sam had twenty stitches. Perhaps his feelings for Dog were conditioned by his
need for some R&R.

  When we arrived at the manor an emergency vehicle was pulling away with its lights flashing. Probably a normal event at this place, but somehow it had a depressing effect on me. Life and death. Ebb and flow. Yin and yang. Something like that. Still depressing.

  We walked past the desk in the center of the facility.

  “Excuse me,” the lady behind the desk spoke to us as we were passing.

  “We want to see Eula Robertson,” I said. “We know where her room is.”

  “She’s not there,” the lady said.

  “Still eating breakfast?” I said.

  “Not likely,” the lady answered. “She’s dead.”

  Wow. Nothing like the direct approach to answer questions, bedside manner notwithstanding.

  “When did she die?” Starnes said.

  The lady looked at her watch, then back at us.

  “Almost an hour ago. You probably passed the ambulance when you were coming here. They took their own sweet time getting around to coming.”

  “If she was dead, why the ambulance?” I said.

  “Okay, she’s not quite dead yet, but she had a massive heart attack and the EMTs came and took her to Asheville after our nurse did all she could. Technically she’s still alive, but it don’t look good.”

  Mostly dead, I thought to myself.

  We headed off towards Ivy Gap to see Josephine Starling one more time.

  “She might not have known anything,” Starnes said. “Aunt Jo is a safer bet, don’t you think?”

  “Safer, but no guarantee that Aunt Jo knows more than she has told us already, or that she would tell us anything else she might know,” I said. “Eula might have been able to tell us something. Might have.”

  I couldn’t tell whether she meant that or she was trying to offer some kind of solace to me. She could tell I was disappointed in this turn of events. I was disappointed, but I was thinking more about Eula than any information she might have had for us. At least at the moment her life was more of a concern.

  There was still a little fog covering Aunt Jo’s house when we arrived. It was mid-morning. It was still on the cool side, but I had the feeling that it was heading towards warm for the rest of the day.