by Joel B Reed
On the north side of the grove was a dirt parking lot, well packed from years of use. Next to the parking lot, facing the community center across the square, sat a small white church fifty feet from the road.
There was no sign in front, but in this part of the world, it was safe to bet the church was Baptist. There was a bell in the steeple to call the faithful to worship, and over the lip of the narrow ridge, the tops of white crosses and gray headstones marked the cemetery.
Outsiders stand out like sore thumbs in settlements like Oak Grove, and I’m sure we did that day. Life in small towns is so unvaried that folks living there seem to sense when the smallest things out of the ordinary take place.That means anyone stopping for longer than a few minutes to enjoy the shade was sure to be seen, even if the watchers were not. Nor would the presence of a stranger fail to be discussed at length.
I knew the shooting would accelerate speculation. People would already be asking who might have done this, and I was sure names were being matched with unknown faces. The question was whether the family would choose to share this information with me or with anyone else from outside. Even though he was kin, the sheriff might not be in the loop on this one. He might hear about it weeks or months or years later, but not right away. No one likes a tattletale and, right or wrong, that’s how talking to outsiders would be seen. Any information we got would have to be drawn out patiently, one piece at a time.
Knowing this, Dee and I were both dressed in khakis, open neck print shirts, and hunting boots. That wouldn’t fool anyone into thinking we were country folks, but it could help. We might still be peckerwoods from Little Rock, but not city boys in suits, and in the eyes of rural folks, there is a difference. The way we dressed might give the Fat Boys reason to view us as hicks, but we stood a chance of getting information they never would.
I asked Dee to park his cruiser in the parking lot by the church, and we got out. From where we stood, it was less than a hundred feet to the porch of the community center, and I could see at least a dozen places where the shooter might hide. Given what I knew, one of the best spots would be right where we were standing.
The problem was that on the day Smiley was killed, a lot of people were in town. Some of them were strangers, but most were relatives of people living there or folks from similar little settlements within twenty or thirty miles. They were there to help Smiley celebrate his birthday, which actually took place three days before. That meant the bush telegraph was overwhelmed. There were simply too many different faces there at once, and it would take the Oak Grove folks months to sort them all out. Even then, some of these would certainly be overlooked.
“I imagine you checked out the parking lot,” I asked Dee. “From here it looks like the best angle.”
“Yeah, but it was a mess,” he told me. “It rained hard that afternoon and there wasn’t anything left by the time I got here.”
“We might get lucky if he shot from a car,” I said, mostly to myself. “Assuming we know whose car to look at.”
Dee nodded and we walked across the square toward the community center. As we did, I kept an eye out for anything that might have been overlooked. That was force of habit. I didn’t expect to find anything, and I didn’t. Sloppy discipline breeds sloppy evidence, and I smiled to myself when I saw Dee doing the same. I had taught him well, and I had learned a lot from him, too.
When we got to the center, Dee walked to the east end of the gallery porch and pointed to a faint chalk outline on the unpainted boards. “This is where the body fell. Or maybe I should say, this is where the deputy found it. Smiley was moved around a lot when they tried to revive him.” He pointed to dark brown smudges on the unpainted wood. I could see at least three places where the body might have been.
“Tell me how you see it going down,” I asked him.
“As far as I can tell, Smiley was out here when it happened. It was warm that afternoon and he had his coat off. It was draped over the rail there, and there’s no blood soak or bullet hole in it. There was some blood splatter.”
“You think the splatter was from the shot?” I interrupted.
“I don’t think so, but it’s hard to tell. Even if it was, the jacket had been moved by the time we got here. It was in the deputy’s cruiser.”
I nodded. “All right, what about the body?”
“You can see where it was and how it was lying when the deputy found it. He had the sense to move everyone back, but it was too late by then. The people who found him moved him around a lot.” He pointed to the grass in front of the porch. “There was a large stain out there, too, but the rain washed it away.”“
“So he may have been shot out there?”
“I don’t think so. One witness said that was where they laid him down when the EMS got here. They were carrying him to a car to take him to the hospital.” He shrugged. “That’s the only explanation that makes sense.”
I nodded. The simplest explanation is normally the best, but this wasn’t a normal case. “You’re probably right, but we need to check that out with other witnesses. I take it the deputy took names and addresses?”
“Yeah, but why would the shooter stick around?” Before I could answer, he held up both hands. “I know. I have someone checking it out.”
I nodded. I would’ve been surprised if he hadn’t. “You’re right on both counts. No one heard the shooting?”
”No, not a one, but they were all inside singing, and you know how it gets then.”
“No kidding,” I agreed. One of the great art forms in this part of the world is gospel singing, and even small communities like Oak Grove can field an impressive choir. When the choir hits its stride, a war could go on outside the building and no one would know. “I’m surprised Smiley was outside. Any idea why?”
Dee shook his head. “No. What makes it even more strange is that he was the guest of honor.”
I thought a minute. Then the obvious explanation struck me. “Where’s the outhouse?”
“Over the side of the ridge,” Dee answered, pointing east. “You can see the top of it if over there.”
I looked where he was pointing and saw the top half of an unpainted privy with two doors. It was little more than weathered gray boards nailed together with a piece of rusty sheet iron to keep out the rain, but someone had cut a half moon into one of the doors and a star in the other one. What struck me was how well it blended into the wooded background. “Did the crime lab check that out?”
The sheepish look on Dee’s face gave me my answer. “I don’t know,” he said. “It wasn’t in the report.”
“Well, let’s have a look, then,” I said. “There should still be enough light.”
As we followed the well worn path to the privy, I noticed a row of tall shrubs. These were too well spaced to be wild, and it looked as if some thoughtful soul planted them to provide a measure of privacy for patrons of the privy. When we got to the outhouse, I looked back. Sure enough, I could see the porch and part of the east side of the center, but none of the windows was visible.
There wasn’t much to see inside or around the privy, though the heavy shade and late angle of the afternoon sun made it dim. I took out a small flashlight I keep on my belt and looked around. That wasn’t much better. There was just enough light to wash out contrast from my beam. “We better come back and look this over tomorrow,” I told Dee. “I don’t think this is where the shooter was, but we better check it out.”
“Yeah,” he agreed. “We never thought about looking down here.”
“The way the body was found, you wouldn’t,” I told him. “It doesn’t look likely from up there. It’s a strange angle for a shooter to choose.”
Dee looked around. “Jesus! There are all kinds of good places for a sniper to set up down here.”
“That’s only if the sniper knew Smiley would be standing at the end of the porch,” I reminded him gently. Dee tends to be too hard on himself. “I only thought of it because I wondered if the reason Smiley c
ame out was to use the privy.”
“Or to meet someone at the end of the porch,” he suggested.
“There is that,” I agreed. “Let’s get back up there. We can go over this place with a comb tomorrow morning.”
We walked back up to the porch. The light was better on the path but neither of us saw anything out of the ordinary. When we reached the place where Dee had told me there were blood stains on the grass, I turned and looked back. From where I stood, only the very top of the outhouse was visible. Dee nodded. “No clear shot from there.”
I walked onto the porch and looked around. From where I stood, I could see most of the buildings in the settlement. “Tell me about the body. What did the autopsy say?”
Dee shook his head in disgust. “By the time our lab got the body, it was as messed up as the crime scene.” He nodded at my startled look. “I know. The EMS were supposed to notify our office immediately. Turns out they’re volunteers and took him directly to the funeral home.”
“That shouldn’t have been a problem,” I said.
“You’re right, but the guy who owns the place was out sick. The guy on duty was just a kid who helped out part time. He washed the body and stitched up the wounds. By the time we got there, he was just about to pump in embalming fluid.”
“Only a licensed funeral director is supposed to do that!” I protested.
“Yeah, but this ain’t Little Rock,” Dee told me. “Apparently the kid had done it before when things got busy. Several times. Our medical examiner said it was good professional work.”
“You think the kid was just being helpful?”
“Yeah. Apparently he got pretty irate after he got done being scared. Claimed his boss taught him what to do. He said the owner was normally there to supervise.” Dee shrugged. “I think he’s telling the truth. From what I could see, the owner’s going to need his own services before long. He’s in his late seventies and not doing very good. Lung cancer.”
I shook my head. “Too bad he didn’t tell the kid to call the sheriff if someone was shot.” He shrugged. “It didn’t give me much leverage.” He had a point. How do you lean on a guy who’s dying, and probably full of morphine, too? “Like I say, he’s not doing good. Wasn’t playing with a full deck when I talked to him.”
“Well, what do we have for sure?” I asked.
“There were three wounds, and the ME thinks he may have been shot three times. One wound was in the neck. The bullet went in here.” He pointed at the right side of his larynx. “It came out the back of his neck and cut the jugular, but didn’t sever the spinal cord. Another one went in through the right eye and came out the brain stem. That’s the one that killed him. The third went in just under his sternum and came out through the hollow by his collar bone.” He touched his left shoulder. “The strange thing is, there was no damage from bullet expansion, not even through the torso. The hole in his skull was a clean circle made by a .22 caliber round. So was the hole through his neck.”
That surprised me. A lot of people get shot with the .22 long rifle rim fire, and it can be a lethal choice at close range. Muzzle energy from a hot load is greater than the larger .38 S&W pistol shell, but the higher energy means the bullet mushrooms to as much as twice its size and sometimes tumbles. The hollow point version breaks apart, sending a shower of tiny lead slivers to wreak havoc with soft tissue. That slows the slug down quickly, and most often there’s not enough force left to punch through the skull a second time. The bullet normally stays in the body.
“Military issue?” I asked, talking to myself. The .223 the military uses is a wicked shell that doesn’t make much of a bang, unlike some of the larger calibers. While the civilian version is a hunting shell designed to mushroom on impact and do maximum tissue damage, the military round carries a solid point that doesn’t change shape. Nor does it lack the power to punch through a skull or all the way through the torso.
“That’s what I wondered,” Dee answered. “Who knows? Maybe we’re looking at a pro. With a silencer and subsonic ammunition, he could have taken Smiley out in a crowd. The way it tunneled through the torso sounds like it might be from a hot load.” His shrug was eloquent. “Or not. It didn’t hit any bones.”
“I don’t want to go there just yet,” I told him. “Unless there’s evidence there’s a professional involved. There are a lot of hand loaders out there.”
“That’s the problem,” Dee said. “We don’t have any evidence, and what we have could go a dozen ways to Sunday.We’re working blind.”
Through all the rough times at the CID, I had never heard him so close to despair.
“Don’t go there, either!” I said sharply. Dee is nothing short of brilliant in the field and can see things others miss, including me. Yet, there’s a dark side to this gift. When he can’t see his way through to at least one line of investigation, he takes it personally and gets despondent. The same thing happens when he makes his rare mistake. While the problem was much worse before he stopped drinking, Dee is like most alcoholics in recovery. He still suffers from what he calls ocular rectitis. Other folks call it a shitty outlook.
Dee looked up hurt, as if I had slapped him in the face. “There’s plenty of evidence,” I said gently. “We just have to find it. Focus on the investigation. Don’t let the bastards get to you like that.”
“Sorry,” he said. “You’re right. I got everybody and his dog on my back with this one. You’re damned lucky to be out of it these days. It ain’t much fun anymore.” Then he grinned. “Maybe I ought to go to work for you. Retirement seems to be treating you good.”
“It has its moments, believe me,” I answered. “Now, tell me about that. Is it what I think it is?” I pointed to the wall. There was a reddish brown stain I had not seen before. It was in the shape of a human hand and looked liked blood.
“That’s one of the jokers in this deck,” Dee told me. “It is blood. Smiley’s blood, and the print is the same size as his hand. Whether this is his hand print is not certain. There are no fingerprints or palm prints, and his hands were normal size.”
I stood looking around. No obvious explanation how the handprint got where it did came to mind. “What do you think?”
“Well, if it is Smiley’s hand print, then the neck shot would have had to come first. The eye shot would have taken him out immediately without much bleeding.Then, too, the angle is all wrong for the torso shot, unless the shooter was lying below him. There’s no bullet hole in the ceiling of the porch, so that would mean it would have to happen down on the grass. I guess that’s possible, but it doesn’t seem very likely to me. It would explain the hand print, but there’s no bloody trail showing that Smiley stumbled back onto the porch. No blood we
could see on the roof, either.”
I nodded. “It would put the shooter at a high risk of exposure, too.”
“That’s what I thought, but faking a heart attack would be one way of getting Smiley off the porch. But why bother? Why not just walk up to him and blow him away?”
“The amount of blood seems to say the throat shot came first.”
Dee nodded. “Yeah, it probably would’ve killed him, but he might have survived if someone got the bleeding stopped. Still, the torso would have bled a lot, too. There was no way of telling. There was nothing in the hand print but blood—his blood—no fibers or other tissue.”
I nodded and walked to one of the large smudges at the east end of the porch. “Let’s say Smiley was standing here. He could’ve been shot from down by the privy.”
“Yeah, if he was facing the outhouse.”
“How sure is the medical examiner about the throat wounds? Which was entry and which was exit?”
Dee shrugged. “That’s one of the main problems. Young Frankenstein at the mortuary really messed things up. The ME couldn’t say for sure. He thought it went in the front, but he also said there was at least a forty-nine percent chance it came through from the back.”
“Have you talked to the kid?”
Dee shook his head. “No. He’s only fifteen and his dad’s a lawyer. Refused to let us interview the kid at all. I’m working on getting him immunity, but the local prosecutor is being ornery. Apparently the kid’s dad beat him up pretty bad in court a couple of times.”
“Maybe we need to make the prosecutor an offer he can’t refuse,” I suggested lightly.
Dee laughed. “I’m not going to ask what you mean by that.”
I looked around. Between the pines and the oaks, the light was going fast. “I think I have enough for today. I need to read the file. We’ll come back in the morning.”
As we walked across the square, an old man came out of the church and hobbled down the steps. He raised his cane and waved at us, trying to flag us down, and we turned and walked over to him. He stopped when he saw us turn and waited, breathing hard.
“You the police?” he gasped, leaning on his cane and squinting at us. He was short and slight, bent almost double over his cane. His hair had turned white, and I could see enough of his eyes to see they were rheumy.
“I am,” Dee told him, holding up his identification. “What’s the matter?”
“Luther done it!” the old man declared. “He ain’t no damn good and he done it!” There were tears streaming down his face.
“Who is Luther?” Dee asked. “What did he do?”
“It was Luther shot that man!” His eyes were open now, wild.
I noticed another man appear in the doorway of the church. He looked around, then spotted us and walked toward us, limping.
“You mean Smiley Jones?” Dee asked.
The old man became even more agitated. “Who else done got shot?” he shouted, waving his free hand wildly. “Luther done it!”
The second man had reached us. He was tall and thin, with an air of quiet authority, and was dressed in a worn black suit. He took the older man by the arm. “Now Luther, you just calm down,” he said. “You go sit up on one of those benches and let me talk to these gentlemen.”