by John J. Lamb
“I remembered there was someplace else I had to be. I figured to go back on Monday.”
“I’m afraid you’ll be in court on Monday.” I decided it was time to shift gears. “Tell me, what were you doing on Everett Rawlins’s land on Thursday night?”
Chet exhaled dismissively and interlaced his fingers across his chest. “I wasn’t anywhere near Rawlins’s place on Thursday night.”
“Game Warden Kent saw you.”
“Then he must have damn good eyes, because I was up in the Alleghenies near Reddish Knob, hunting,” said Chet, naming a spot about twenty miles west of the Rawlins farm.
“Ev Rawlins saw you, too . . . right before you murdered him.”
The attitude of casual indifference vanished in a flicker as Chet’s jaw dropped. “What? Rawlins is dead? Nobody said nothing about no murder!”
“With those bad ears of yours, you must not have heard when Sheriff Barron mentioned that we’re looking at you for the murder of Ev Rawlins. Oh well, maybe the prison doctor can get you a hearing aid.”
“I didn’t kill anybody!” said Chet, and for the first time since we’d begun to talk I had the sense that he was providing an unrehearsed and honest answer.
I replied, “Maybe, but before you say another word, let me give you a little advice: Start telling me the truth, because your life may depend on it.”
Chet swiped at his suddenly sweaty pate. “I didn’t kill Rawlins. Hell, I didn’t kill nobody.”
“Convince me. But understand this: Right now, the commonwealth’s attorney is gathering up the nails and lumber to crucify you. And the only thing you accomplished by lying to me was to give him more ammunition to show a jury that you were trying to cover up your crime. He’ll have no trouble convicting you of murder.”
Chet was growing pale. “Look, Ev and me may have had a little feud going, but that don’t make me a killer.”
“Actually, as far as the prosecutor is concerned, it does. He’ll say that there was bad blood between you two, that you were there the night Everett Rawlins was murdered, and then you ran. And you were there, weren’t you?”
“Only up on the hill, and I never saw Rawlins. I was just hunting, and I swear to God, I didn’t even know that Rawlins was murdered, but—”
“I’m glad you didn’t swear on your mother’s grave.”
“—I can tell you who did it.”
I leaned forward. “You have my undivided attention, but this better be good. More importantly, it better be the truth. Otherwise, I’m out of here and you can take your chances with the prosecutor.”
“It was that neighbor of his, Tice.”
“The husband or wife?”
Chet looked at me as if I were soft in the head. “The man, of course. Wade Tice.”
“It was as dark as the inside of a cow on that hill. How could you see anything to hunt, much less the supposed killer?”
“I got me a pair of night-vision goggles like the soldiers wear.”
“Of course, because that’s how Dan’l Boone used to hunt. Okay, let’s start the story at the beginning and you can tell me exactly what you saw.”
“I will, once you answer me a question.”
“Shoot. Ooh . . .” I held my hands up in mock surrender. “That probably isn’t the best thing to say to a poacher.”
He glowered. “Okay, so I’m white trash. How come you’re so interested in showing I didn’t kill Rawlins?”
“I’m interested in doing the job properly.” I paused to collect my thoughts, intrinsically understanding that Chet would reject a Horatio Alger-like explanation of why I was committed to seeing justice done. Finally, I said, “Look, both of us are hunters. You hunt game; I hunt killers. Now, let’s say you were up in Alaska and you went out looking to bag a ferocious Kodiak bear. If you couldn’t find him, would you feel right about shooting a skunk instead?”
“No.”
“I feel the same way. The skunk may smell, but he hasn’t really hurt anyone. I want the predator. Does that explain it?”
“I guess.”
“Then tell me what happened.”
Chet took a deep breath. “I’ve been hunting on Rawlins’s land for a long time.”
“Let’s be precise. You mean trespassing and poaching, right?”
He gave me an aggrieved look. “My people been hunting in those mountains for over two hundred years. It’s a family tradition and, hell, I wasn’t hurting anyone. Anyway, I was up on the hill above Rawlins’s house early Thursday night.”
“What time?”
“It was getting dark. It was maybe around five-thirty when I got there. I was out of my truck and walking through the woods toward . . . You been out there?”
I nodded.
“I was kind of prowling toward the road that leads to the sand quarry.” Like many of the folks who lived their entire lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains, he pronounced quarry to rhyme with marry.
“I know the place. You were going down there to hunt bear, weren’t you?”
Apparently there was something that changed slightly in my expression. Chet jutted his jaw out a little and said, “Hey, city boy, meat don’t just appear magiclike at the market. Someone’s gotta kill it. Any meat I eat, I done the killing myself. Can you claim the same?”
Although I strongly suspected that Chet Lincoln was killing bears to harvest their gall bladders and sell the meat to the lodge, I decided not to pursue that line of questioning for the moment. It might derail the interview, and I needed his statement about Wade Tice’s actions that night. However, before we finished chatting, we were going to revisit the topic.
I said, “Hey, my wife’s family are all hunters. I’m not making a judgment about hunting. Now, getting back to Thursday night. You were armed, right?”
“Right. I use a old Remington Model Seven Hundred. It’s bolt-action and three-oh-eight caliber.”
“That’s a big rifle bullet.”
“You need something with some muscle to drop a bear.”
“I can imagine. Have you ever hunted with a bow?”
“Nope. Tried it once, because it was more quiet.” Chet gave me a swift sheepish look that told me why he’d wanted silence. “But I couldn’t hit the damn side of a mountain with it.”
“So when the sheriff searches your house, she isn’t going to find a bow and hunting arrows?”
“Depending on how much crap she wants to move, she might find a bow. If she does, I’ll thank her, ’cause I got no idea where it went.”
“How about the arrows?”
“Hell, I lost them all in the forest. I told you: I ain’t no Robin Hood.”
“Okay, so you were creeping through the woods on the hill. What happened then?”
“I heard a quad-runner kind of puttin’ along that road, real slow.” Chet mimed gripping an ATV’s handlebars. “It didn’t have no lights on, but that actually helped me see it.”
“Because night-vision goggles work best in complete darkness. What time was this?”
“Maybe six o’clock. I figured it might have been the game warden. So I hid behind a tree and tried to get a better look.”
“And obviously you did.”
Chet nodded. “Yeah. That’s when I saw it was Wade Tice. He was riding down that dirt road all slowlike toward Rawlins’s house.”
“And even though it was dark and rainy and you were using those goggles, you’re absolutely certain it was Wade Tice?” I quietly demanded.
“I’m positive, mister. At one point, I was maybe ten yards from him. Course, he couldn’t see me.”
“Would you testify to that under oath in court?”
“If I had to.”
“You will.” I nodded toward the cassette recorder. “And you realize that if you change your story you might be charged with interfering with a homicide investigation?”
“If I’m swearing by the Holy Book, I tell the truth.” Chet sounded a little irate.
Unlike swearing on the grave of your mo
ther, I thought. I said, “And all I want is the truth. Was there any particular reason you continued to hide from Mr. Tice?”
“I hunt on his property, too. Wade never had no problem with it in the past, but I figured there had to be some reason he was sneaking around in the dark. I reckoned that things had changed and he was looking for me.”
“Did you notice anything else?”
“I’m betting that he has the bow and arrows y’all looking for. He done had a hunting bow slung over his shoulder.”
“What happened then?”
“He rode past me and then stopped the quad-runner. I was curious, so I kept watching. Wade got off the motorbike and started tiptoeing toward Rawlins’s house. ’Cept I didn’t know he was heading toward the house.”
“What do you mean?”
Chet locked eyes with me. “Mister, the first I ever heard of Rawlins being dead was when you told me a few minutes ago. So I didn’t know where Wade was headed that night. I thought maybe he was hunting.”
“What caused you to think that?”
“Wade was carrying his bow like he was ready to shoot.” Chet pretended to hold an invisible bow and nocked arrow.
“Did he ever shoot an arrow?”
“Yes, sir, he sure did. I watched him pull that bow back and let rip. Couldn’t see the arrow, ’twas too far away. But I know he shot one.”
Chet’s clarification that he hadn’t actually seen the arrow told me that he was still providing a reasonably truthful account of what he’d seen. I asked, “What direction did he shoot?”
“Toward Rawlins’s house. But like I done said before, I didn’t know that Wade was gunning for Rawlins. I thought he’d spotted a deer or something.”
“How many arrows did he fire?”
“Just one . . . that I saw. After that, he started creeping toward the house again.”
“What did you think that meant?”
“That he’d hit whatever he was shooting at and was going to collect the carcass.” There was a pause and then Chet added meditatively. “Though, if ’twas a deer he shot, I don’t know why he didn’t drive the quad-runner over. That’d have been easier than lugging it back.”
“Did he lug it back?” I asked.
“Don’t know. It was raining and cold and I had stuff of my own to do. I headed toward the quarry.”
“So that’s the last time you saw Mr. Tice?”
“Yep, he kind of disappeared through the trees.”
“Did you hear him leave on the ATV?”
“Now that you mention it, I did hear the ATV again, call it ten minutes or so after I last saw him. I was up in a notch, so I couldn’t see the quad, but it sounded like it was flying back to Wade Tice’s farm.”
Ten minutes would have been more than enough time for Wade Tice to walk the short distance to the farmhouse, yank the arrow from the wall, and stab Rawlins. Furthermore, I could now prove that both he and his wife had lied to me about him never having left their home on Thursday evening. Add the preexisting feud with Rawlins, the history of violence, and Tice’s skill with a hunting bow to the mix, and the surly farmer had once more emerged as the prime suspect.
I asked, “Did you hear any other vehicles that night?”
“There could have been a car or something on the road. Can’t say for sure, but I did hear the game warden’s truck a while later,” Chet replied.
“But before the game warden arrived, you went to the quarry. What happened there?”
“Nothing. If there’d been any game there, Tice’s quad scared it all off. I waited awhile, but then the batteries started to go south on my goggles.”
“No animals to hunt, no commando night vision, and then the law arrives. All in all, Thursday night was a big bust for you. How could you tell it was the game warden’s truck?”
“Out in the woods, you learn to live by your eyes, ears, and nose. I know the sound of that damn Kent’s truck.”
I almost blurted, Yeah, and it’s a damn shame the bears out there don’t recognize the sound of yours. Instead, I said, “So you took off.”
“Yeah. I stopped and got some batteries and headed over to Reddish Knob.”
“You must have been luckier there. That’s why you were at the lodge yesterday.”
The poacher folded his arms across his chest. “Hey, mister, I’ve told you everything I know about Thursday night. Why I was at the lodge has got nothing to do with any of that.”
“I understand, and we can stop talking whenever you want.” I reached over and my finger hovered above the stop button on the cassette recorder. “I just wanted to give you the opportunity to tell me your side of the story.”
Chet’s eyes narrowed. “What are you talking about?”
The comedian George Burns once observed that the secret to success in acting was the ability to fake sincerity. It’s also the secret to success in cop work. Sometimes you have to lie, and when you do, you’d better be good at it.
I said in a mildly regretful voice, “I had a long chat with Thalia Grady yesterday and you know what? She threw you under the bus, Chet.”
“I’m not saying I know her, but what did she say?”
“She certainly knows you,” I said, while slowly withdrawing my hand from the cassette recorder. “Thalia told me that you supply the venison and bear meat for the restaurant. But she had absolutely no idea that you were selling her poached game and was so shocked I thought she was going to faint.”
Chet slapped the table. “Shocked, my ass! Why that backstabbing broad-assed bitch! She’s lying! She knew exactly how and where I was getting that meat!”
“No doubt. But unless you have some sort of proof that she was involved, it’s your word against hers.”
“Hell, she even called earlier this week and left a message on my answering machine telling me where I could pick up some deer that was hit by a car!”
“No! They serve roadkill at the Rathskeller?”
“Mister, you would lose your appetite for all time if you knew some of the things they was dishing up at that place.”
“Wait a minute. You said she called earlier this week. Did you delete the message?”
“Nope. I got a real old answering machine and I can’t remember the last time I erased the tape.” An evil smile began to spread across Chet’s face. “And now that I think on it, there are other messages on that machine from her.”
“Such as?”
“Well, back in September, Kent nearly caught me. I told her about it and said I had to lay low for a while. She called the next day and left a message, saying she wasn’t paying me to hide from the game warden. She was all squawking, ‘Go out and get some venison. I got customers to feed.’ ”
“I think you’ve found your proof, Chet. If you still have those recordings, Thalia is dead meat.” I said. The poacher chuckled at the bad pun as I continued, “By the way, does Thalia also buy the bear gall bladders from you?”
Chet’s vengeful smile vanished in a flicker. “I don’t know nothing about that.”
I understood why he’d instantly reverted to lying-and-denying mode. As Game Warden Randy Kent had told us on Thursday night, the U.S. park rangers had found dead and mutilated black bears inside Shenandoah National Park. So Chet Lincoln couldn’t admit to having harvested bear gall bladders without otherwise opening himself up to federal prosecution and the draconian punishments that usually resulted from that process.
I said, “You don’t know anything about bears being killed for no other reason than to yank out an organ so that it can be used as a snake-oil cure for impotency?”
“Nope.”
“What’s the matter, Chet? You’re suddenly all tongue-tied. Aren’t you going to lecture me about how hunting is a family tradition from the pioneer days? Gee, would Davy Crockett kill him a bar, just to steal a gland?” I sang the final few words to the tune of the theme song from the 1950s Disney television program.
“I want my lawyer.”
“And I need some
fresh air. Everything about you stinks, including your soul. And my fondest hope is that someday a big black bear harvests your gall bladder.”
Twenty-one
Grabbing the cassette recorder, I left the interview room and went to tell the jail deputy that Chet Lincoln could be booked into custody. After that, I headed down the corridor to Tina’s office. I found her seated at her desk. She was so focused on the computer monitor and typing up the affidavit for a search warrant that she didn’t hear me come in.
I cleared my throat. “If that’s the paperwork for Mr. Lincoln’s truck or mobile home, it can go to the bottom of our ‘to do’ list.”
Tina swiveled in her chair to face me. “He actually told you something worthwhile?”
“Yeah, and it’s a good thing you didn’t let the prosecutor stampede you into arresting Chet. I’m convinced he isn’t the killer, though he might just turn out to be our star witness.” I went on to briefly recount Chet’s statement.
“So he saw Wade Tice shoot an arrow and then head toward Everett Rawlins’s house?” Tina asked. “With the other information we have on Mr. Tice, that’s pretty damning. Will Mr. Lincoln testify to that in court?”
“He says he will, but even if he changes his mind, we have his statement on tape.” I held up the recorder. “But the more important thing is that we now have enough information to get a search warrant for Wade’s house and his ATV. It’s time to put this case on Tice.”
Tina looked heavenward but elected not to acknowledge the dreadful pun. Instead, she said, “Okay, so I’ll start writing an affidavit for the Tices’ place. Can you have dispatch radio Randy and tell him that he can clear from Chet’s mobile home?”
“Absolutely, but first, let me bring you up to speed on something else that I forgot to tell you before I interviewed Chet. Linny has video proof that Sherri and Jesse lied to us about never leaving the hotel on Thursday night.” I then told her about how the couple had departed an hour apart from each other and then returned together shortly before 10 P.M.
Tina said, “Huh. It seems to me that if Mr. Hauck didn’t leave the hotel until seven-thirty and stopped at Delbert’s shortly before it closed, he couldn’t have killed Mr. Rawlins.”