Murder Mountain

by Stacy Dittrich

  I took it all in stride and kept my sense of humor. When I finally was able to get to my office, I wasn’t really surprised to find my desk completely covered with paperwork. Being a detective and being gone for a week is like being gone for a month in the real world. I had sticky notes and phone messages, prosecutor request forms, and every possible other form, all requiring my signature, in piles so thick I couldn’t even find my phone. I wanted to cry. I’d expected no more than half of what lay out in front of me, but knew that’d been wishful thinking. This was definitely not what I’d wanted, or needed, to come back to. A sticky note telling me to see the sheriff immediately upon my return caught my eye. Obviously, that would have to come first if I liked being employed.

  Most people get nervous when they have to see the sheriff, but I don’t. Sheriff Stephens has been a friend of my family’s for years, and I anticipated that he just wanted to welcome me back and see how I was doing.

  I grabbed a cup of coffee from the break room and headed for the administrative offices, which non-administrative employees, mostly the cops, refer to as the West Wing or the Crystal Palace. When I went into the small area adjacent to the sheriff’s office, I spoke briefly with his secretary, Sharon, who told me to go right in.

  I smiled immediately when I entered his office. Sheriff Stephens was laid back in his chair, feet up on his desk, laughing heartily to whomever he was talking to on the phone. Our department had the best sheriff in Ohio, which to my mind was a fact, not an opinion. He had the respect of every subordinate, city official, and John Q. Citizen from there to Cincinnati. During contract negotiations with the Fraternal Order of Police—our union—the sheriff usually told the deputies to ask for a higher pay raise than they requested to begin with. He’ll even throw in extra perks we didn’t ask for. The union ranked our contract as the top contract for sheriff’s departments in the state. Sheriff Stephens remembers the little people, and that is important.

  He waved his hand at me, motioning for me to sit down, which of course I did. He told whomever he was talking to that, he had to go and promptly hung up the phone.

  “Oh Cecelia!” He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his desk and his chin on his upturned palms, shaking his head, his smile fading. “You look better, but still terrible. I really would like to get my hands on that asshole.” He looked me straight in the eye and asked, “How are you feeling?”

  “I’m okay, I look worse than I feel, trust me. Thanks for asking.”

  The sheriff sat back up straight, still holding my gaze, and said, “I personally called the county prosecutor’s office to persuade them to stick that dickhead with the attempted murder charge, and, apparently, my persuasive efforts did the trick. He’s going to spend a lot of time every day for the rest of his life wishing that he hadn’t attacked you. Count on it.”

  The remainder of our visit was mostly small talk. After about ten minutes, I thanked Sheriff Stephens again and left.

  I decided to be positive and take on the mound of papers on my desk one at a time. It was two hours later when I got to the statement Coop had left for me. As I read it, I agreed with Coop about it being ridiculous. The guy, Matthew C. Hensley, claimed that Samantha Johnston, or Lizzie, was dead. He gave some trumped-up story about how Lizzie got involved with a guy—whose name, of course, he didn’t know—who was deeply involved in a high-tech drug operation being run by a sheriff in West Virginia. Naturally, he didn’t know the name of the county, but he went on to say, he’d “heard” that Lizzie had suffered a horrible death. Matt Hensley ended his statement admitting that all the information he’d just given had come to him third or fourth hand, and that he couldn’t remember who’d told him. Imagine that. I just shook my head and agreed that it was a ridiculous story.

  I put the statement aside and decided that after I’d finished going through all my papers, I would head out to the street and get a hold of some of my snitches in Roseland and the North End. If there was anyone who could find out what was going on with this girl, they could. I didn’t want to screw around with this case very long, but Kincaid wouldn’t give me anything else until it was closed. I highly doubted that Lizzie Johnston was dead, but I had to find the little bitch regardless. I had already decided that I wouldn’t contact Bobby Delphy unless I absolutely had to.

  My first stop after I left the office was to get supplies. ‘Supplies’ in this context means payment for my snitches: booze, cigarettes, money, and an occasional porn magazine. It’s not exactly ethical, but it gets the snitches motivated and the job done. With my supplies in the trunk, I headed to Roseland.

  Most of my snitches have given me their cell phone numbers. If I don’t have one for a particular snitch, I basically just drive around until I find him. This isn’t hard because they usually stay in the same area.

  First on my list was Jarrod Lawhorn, my least favorite snitch. Jarrod was born and raised in Roseland and had never left the place except for stints in prison for burglaries and thefts. The Lawhorns themselves were a Roseland staple, having been one of the first families to pitch tents in the area. Nothing went on in Roseland without at least one Lawhorn’s knowledge. In his late twenties, Jarrod was my top Roseland snitch, but he wasn’t always dependable and sometimes played both sides of the fence. Standing a good six feet tall, he could easily hide behind a flagpole since he weighed, in my opinion, about 115 pounds. He always looked downright emaciated, and with his long, greasy black hair pulled into a ponytail, I found myself looking at the ground when I talked to him. He was selfish, egotistical, obnoxious, and usually drunk. The good thing is, no one would ever suspect a Lawhorn of working with the cops. Bad thing is, if someone you’re trying to get is Jarrod’s friend, he’ll tip him off instantly. I was willing to take that chance this time.

  I had Jarrod’s cell phone number, and, much to my surprise, reached him on my first try. We agreed to meet at an abandoned house that’s about a block from Jarrod’s own. The house sits in the woods, about 100 feet off the road. The locals use it mainly for partying, but I didn’t anticipate anyone being there in the afternoon. The next closest house to it is about half a mile away, so it was unlikely that anyone would see us together. I arrived first, which was as I’d expected. Not only does Jarrod make it in life without a driver’s license or a car, he also tends to walk extremely slowly when he’s meeting with a cop. I opened the trunk and retrieved two cartons of non-filtered cigarettes for him. Just looking at them made me gag—I’m a filtered smoker myself. Then I went inside to wait for Jarrod.

  It was twenty-five minutes later when he finally came strolling in the door.

  “Hey, Gallagher, no time no talk! What the fuck? You get in a car wreck or somethin’?”

  “Yep. I was in a pursuit of a bank robber and got creamed by a drunk. Go figure. So, what’s the buzz around Little Kentucky?”

  “Is that all you want, or somethin’ else? You know the deal; you got my smokes?” He licked his dried lips.

  “I got your damned smokes, Jarrod, but you know the deal, too. You get two cartons now and two after you tell me the information I want.”

  “What information do you want?”

  “Lizzie Johnston. She’s a bimbo and probably a crack-head. I gotta find her. Tell me what you hear about where she is, what she’s doing; you know the story. Matt Hensley; you know him? He says he thinks she’s been killed, but I think he’s full of shit. Yeah, and a dickhead named Bobby Delphy was heard shouting that he never touched her. See if you can hear anything on what that’s all about.

  “I heard of Hensley before,” Jarrod said in his half-mumble, his eyes on the ground at his feet. “I think that’s the guy they call Cobra. Word is he’ll move in on your piece of pussy as soon as your back’s turned. Never heard of the Delphy dude or this Lizzie chick. You sure she didn’t hook up with some nigger dealer from the North End?”

  “I don’t know. Why the hell do you think I’m here asking you about it, Mr. Genius?” I said, as nasty as possible.
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br />   “Damn, no need to piss on me. I’m just askin’ a question.” He looked up at me. “All right, Gallagher, I’ll find out what you need, but you know how it is. It’s gonna take awhile, so don’t call me every fuckin’ day askin’ me what I got yet; I’ll call you when I know somethin’,” he muttered, adding, “If that’s all you want I gotta skid. The little mama’s waitin’ for me at the homestead. Had our third baby a couple months ago, but the rug rats are all at the sitter’s. She’s horny and the doc said she can kick it now. You know how that is, don’t ya, Gallagher? You’ve popped a couple out, right?” he asked, startling me a bit.

  “Yeah, I sure have, Jarrod. Go on home, but you make sure you take it easy on the missus.”

  He took his two cartons of cigarettes and walked out the door. Getting the visual of Jarrod Lawhorn having sex and, God forbid, reproducing three times over was too much for me to take. I left the house deciding which snitch in the North End I was going to use.

  Driving into the Ocie Hill neighborhood on the North End was a whole new ball game. Most of the Detroit dealers that were out could spot a detective car a mile away, and they let everyone know it.

  As soon as I drove by several groups standing in front of houses, one guy would walk into the street and yell, “Five-O comin’! Blue Ford!” clear down the street.

  Most would scatter into the residences. A choice few, though, would walk to the curb and stand there as I drove by just to dead-stare me. It could be a bit unsettling, to say the least. I always brace myself, thinking that they’re gonna shoot at my car, but not today. I found the snitch I was looking for at the corner of Harker and Lida Streets.

  Most of my snitches in Ocie Hill won’t give me their cell numbers, but each of them uses a different hand signal with me. The signal with this particular snitch was that I drive by and scratch my nose, he scratches his nose back, and we meet at our designated spot, which happened to be the corner of an old factory yard about a quarter of a mile away. As I drove by my snitch, I furiously scratched my nose and almost started laughing because I felt like such an idiot, but he scratched his in response, and I was off to our spot.

  We cops have to be a little more careful with our snitches in Ocie Hill than in Roseland. In Roseland, if a snitch is uncovered by the bad guy, the snitch will get his wife raped and family beat up. In Ocie Hill, they just automatically kill the snitch, and we’re lucky if we even find the body.

  I turned into the factory yard, pulled my car in between piles of scrap metal, and waited for about ten minutes.

  An older dark blue Chevy Caprice with a gold grill and spinning gold rims drove in and parked next to my car. I got out of my car, and my snitch, Deondre Carter, age thirty-five, got out of his. A powerful presence, he was about five feet eleven inches tall and weighed about 280 pounds, not counting the multitude of gold chains dripping from his neck.

  Deondre, whose street name was Prince Casper, was high up on the food chain in the North End. We’d met when I investigated an attempted sexual assault on his nine-year-old daughter. I caught the perp (lucky for him it was me and not Deondre), and he was sentenced to five years. Deondre never forgot it and always respected me for it. He was local, but he had a strong Detroit connection and mostly dealt in small quantities of crack cocaine.

  Believe it or not, he was also a small business owner and a known figure in the black community. No one messed with him because, first, he was huge, and second, he was mean.

  I hear that all the time but have never seen anything out of him but pure politeness. When he was around his daughter, he had a heart of gold. I once asked him where he got his street name, and he said, “It’s because I fuck them white bitches all the time and the other brothers are jealous.”

  Deondre is also a big target for incoming dealers who try to set up shop in his area. He’s been shot six times and is proud to show the bullet scars. I knew he had a minimum of two guns on him or in his car just then, but I let it slide.

  Deondre’s eyes opened wide when he saw my face. “Who the fuck did that, Gallagher? Give me a name and I’ll go bust a cap right in his fuckin’ head! Was it one of them fuckin’ rednecks in Roseland? I know it didn’t happen here or I’d a heard about it.”

  “I’m fine, and it was nobody from Roseland; no one you know. The guy is up in the D Cell anyway, so he’ll get his, trust me.”

  “I got people in there that can take care of business. What’s his name?”

  “No way are you getting that from me. How’s Janice doing?” I changed the subject by asking about his daughter.

  He said that she was fine and had ended her counseling sessions over a year earlier, then went on to add that he was still crossing off every day on the calendar until the guy who attacked her gets out of prison. If that guy only knew what was in store for him when he got out of the joint, he’d beg to stay inside. I opened my trunk and got out a bottle of Crown Royal and a carton of Kool cigarettes for Deondre. I then went on to explain to him what I wanted, dropping everyone’s names like I did to Jarrod.

  “Man, I got to tell you, Gallagher, I ain’t never heard of any of them people. Sounds to me like its them fuckin’ hillbillies’ problem, but I’ll check around. Most of the white chicks around here come down with the brothers from Detroit or Chicago. They don’t usually mess with the locals. Give me about a week and do a drive by. I’ll have somethin’ for you by then.” He looked out over nowhere and took a deep breath. “You take care of yourself,” he said with what sounded like real concern.

  He got into his car and left. I waited for 15 minutes before doing the same. Now that I had my two snitches in place, I headed for Matt Hensley’s house.

  Matt lived on Fifth Avenue, south of Fleming Falls Road, over on the east side of town. This was in a smallish district some people dubbed the Roseland Extension. The people who called it that were mostly the ones who lived there, but who’d actually grown up in Roseland. While I was driving to Matt’s I kept trying to think of something I could use against him to make him talk. I was certain that he hadn’t told Coop everything he knew, but getting him to tell me was going to be hard work.

  I’d already done a quick check on Matt Hensley, and other than being on non-reporting probation for a drunk driving pinch, he was pretty clean. He’d had a couple minor theft convictions in the past, but nothing current. I’d never seen him before, but when I pulled into the driveway, I knew right away that the guy standing on the front porch was him. Coop had said that he was extremely goofy-looking, and the guy on the porch defined the term.

  He was about five feet seven inches tall (my height), and weighed about 100 pounds, (definitely not my weight). He couldn’t have been more than twenty-one or twenty-two years old. He had a shaved head and body piercings all over what I could see, and I didn’t want to speculate on what I couldn’t see.

  I got out of my car and told him who I was and why I was there. He told me he had no other information to give me other than what he’d told Coop, and then politely asked me to leave.

  I stayed put and looked straight at him observing his serious and grim expression. Looking closer, I could see a touch of sadness in his eyes.

  “I don’t believe you, Matt. I’ll lay everything I’ve got on the table saying you’ve got a lot more information than you let on. And the bottom line is that I’m not leaving until I get it.”

  “Oh, c’mon, man! I don’t need this shit on me right now. I swear I told that other cop all I know,” he half-whined, seeming tired, drained.

  I noticed he was holding a blank compact disc with writing on it in his left hand. My mind worked in overdrive for a minute and, being as brilliant as I am, I found something to hang on him. It was chicken shit, and I had no idea how I was going to do it, but I thought, here goes nothing.

  “What’s that in your hand?” I asked.

  Matt gave me a funny look and said, “It’s a Led Zepplin CD, why?”

  “Just wondering. Is it a copy?”

  “Yeah, burned
it this morning. Why? You like Led Zepplin? I can make you a copy if you want, but you gotta fork over the blank CD,” he said, looking skeptical.

  Then I went in for the kill. “Did Led Zepplin give you permission to copy their CD?” Matt just stood there with a blank stare on his face. “You know,” I continued, “the Feds just raided a house for copyright infringement. Oh, they’re really cracking down on it. They’ve even put those above drug cases. I’d have to look, but I’m pretty sure it’s a felony. And if I call one of the Feds, who happens to be a close friend, he’d be more than happy to come down here with his friends and seize all your computer equipment and take you to jail.” I said this in the know-it-all voice I used when I had no idea what the fuck I was talking about—which I didn’t. It just sounded like I did.

  Matt stood there with his mouth hanging open, saying nothing for a moment, and then said oh-so-sadly, with the same grim look, “Man, it ain’t right the fuckin’ games you people play. You ain’t no better than them dirty cops I was talkin’ about. I’ll talk to ya on one condition. You gotta promise me my name ain’t gonna get brought out.”

  I agreed, and we walked around to Matt’s back patio to sit and talk. Matt began his story going two months back. He had been caught shoplifting again, and his court fines were building up. He’d also had a drunk driving charge, which had resulted in the loss of his driver’s license a year before. This had prevented him from getting steady work, and had made him desperate for money.

  It was around this time he’d been in the Roseland Tavern one day having a beer and spilling his guts out to the bartender, a guy he knew from high school. A guy a couple stools down had said that he couldn’t help overhearing Matt’s conversation, and he might be able to help if Matt was interested. Matt had said that, being in the position he was in, he felt he had no other choice but to be interested. The guy had called himself “Bob,” and had given Matt an address on Fairfax Avenue where they were to meet in an hour to “talk about the future.” Bob then promptly left, which gave Matt an opportunity to ask the bartender if he knew anything about the guy.