Murder Mountain

by Stacy Dittrich

  “CeeCee, please listen to me,” he said, leaning over and putting his hand on my cheek, “You cannot begin to imagine how much I want you right now, but I’ve done a lot of thinking. If I make love to you tonight, I will fall deeply in love with you—if I’m not already—and you don’t love me. Yes, you want to be with me right now, but what about tomorrow and the next day? What about Eric? You’ll never love me like you do him, and I don’t think I can put myself through this. I will go to bed tonight, being able to smell your perfume on my hands and it will hurt me. But to hold you in my arms all night, knowing it’s just one night will absolutely kill me. Please, understand, I’m being selfish and protecting myself.”

  “I do, Michael. I do. I don’t know why I did that. I’m sorry. I guess I just got caught up in everything. I’ve never done something like that before, and it scares me. You scare me. Honestly, I’m not used to having feelings like this for someone other than my husband. They make me want to run as far away from you as I can. It scares me to think that I’ll wake up tomorrow, and look at you, admitting that I have fallen in love with you and never wanting to be without you, but it’s impossible. I love Eric, too, and I have my girls. But you’re right—I’m sure tomorrow I’ll be absolutely humiliated by what I’ve done.” I took a long, deep breath. “I’m sorry, Michael, I just don’t know what to do.”

  He took my hand, gave it a squeeze, and kissed it. It seemed that we had come to an understanding, and we were both okay with it. I didn’t know what the future held for Eric and me, but just then wasn’t the time for Michael. As we drove to the motel in silence, I realized that by refusing my invitation, Michael might have saved my marriage. I also realized how hurt he was by that.

  Chapter Twelve

  When Michael and I arrived at our motel, we were both exhausted and looking forward to the prospect of a good night’s sleep. In hindsight, I can see that we had yet to learn that this case was different from others, and that something simple as sleeping soundly was a luxury we weren’t going to have that night.

  I began coming to grips with this realization as I stood in front of my motel-room door, which was standing open with its lock ripped out. Michael was already inside his room, and I yelled for him, bringing him running with his gun in his hand.

  “What’s happening?” He was also suddenly alert and ready.

  “They got into my room; look.” I pointed to the lock on the door, my gun already in hand. I started into the room, quickly hitting the light switch, astonished at the sight before me. My room was ransacked. My suitcase was upside down on the floor, my clothes were strewn all over the room, the sheets and blankets had been ripped off the bed, the mattress turned over, and the drawers had been pulled out of the dressers. I checked the bathroom and shower before putting my gun away.

  “I’m going to go out on a limb and guess they know we’re here,” I remarked.

  “One thing’s for sure,” Michael said quietly. “These people aren’t on the same page, or we would be dead right now. That guy on the mountain didn’t know who we were, but probably will soon; and he didn’t compare notes with whoever broke into your room.”

  “That’s comforting,” I assured him sourly as I started gathering my clothes off the floor.

  Michael flipped the mattress back onto the bed, put the sheets and blankets together, and then slid the drawers back into the dresser. I had my briefcase, including my files, with me in the car so, as with my house; they failed to take anything of interest. I thought they would’ve learned by now.

  “I’m going to go talk to the clerk working in the office to see if he heard or saw anything,” Michael told me. “He’s a complete imbecile if he didn’t. Are you okay by yourself for awhile?”

  “Of course. I’ll be fine.” I looked at him like he was crazy.

  “Just asking. I’ll be back shortly,” he said briskly as he walked out of the room.

  I sat on the edge of the bed, my exhaustion dissipating, and wondered what I would do for the rest of the night, since I was now wide-awake and on edge. Opting for a shower, I closed the room’s door as best as I could and went into the bathroom. I closed the bathroom door, turned the shower on, and splashed cold water on my face while I leaned over the sink. As I was sitting on the toilet seat, taking my shoes off, I heard the door to the motel room open.

  “Michael?” I called out, not getting a response. I called his name again, and instead of a response, I heard something being knocked over outside the door. Alarmed, I decided to trust my instincts. I slowly stood up and reached over to the bathroom door, locking it. I started looking around the bathroom, praying my gut feeling was wrong, and knowing the bathroom was not where I wanted to be just then. I hoped it really was Michael outside the door and he just didn’t hear me calling, but if it wasn’t, I didn’t want him to come back right now and walk into an ambush. The shower still running, I quietly put my ear against the door, listening for any more noises, but as soon as I did, I was knocked backward from the force of someone ramming into it.

  This is it, I thought as the door was rammed again, a large crack forming down its middle, wood chips spraying the bathroom. My gun was in the room, underneath my pillow, and as I frantically looked around for any type of makeshift weapon my eyes veered to the small window above the toilet, a window that led outside almost directly next to the motel room door. The door wasn’t going to hold much longer, and in a worst-case scenario, if I used the window, I would run smack into someone standing in the doorway of my room. I didn’t know exactly how many people were there to kill me, but I took my chances they were all trying to ram the bathroom door, and not outside standing in the room’s doorway. If I could get through the window, I could run to the office and get Michael.

  Standing on the toilet, I started tearing the screen apart on the open window. There were already holes in it, which made the tearing easier. I just hoped I could fit through. Hoisting myself up, I saw it would certainly be a tight fit. I went headfirst, looked to my right at my room door, saw nobody, and wriggled my way down to the ground, my hipbones scraping on the aluminum of the window. In my bare feet, I started a dead run for the office, praying that Michael was on his way back and I would be able to catch him early.

  I saw a figure walking towards me on the walkway and I started running faster, until I saw that the figure wasn’t Michael, but someone shorter and heavier. At the same moment the figure yelled, “She’s out here,” I heard the loud crackling of the wood of my bathroom door being shattered. I made a sharp right turn and ran towards the woods, picking up my speed as best I could because I could now hear the shuffling of several people coming through my motel room door.

  Michael where are you?, my head screamed as I continued my run, now being pursued by at least three people, as I learned from a quick glance over my shoulder. I didn’t know what kind of shape the other two were in, but the short, fat guy I saw on the walkway would have a hard time catching up to me, and I wasn’t by any means a skilled athlete.

  The tree branches and briars were scraping my face and arms as I ran through the dark woods, and the bottoms of my feet were being ripped to shreds by the rocks, sticks, and other elements of the wilderness ground, but I hardly noticed. I took a quick glance behind me and saw I was maintaining a fairly wide distance, with the exception of one of them who seemed to be narrowing the gap too damn quickly.

  Coming upon a hillcrest, I made the decision to veer left, but it was too late, I was running too fast, and I ultimately fell, rolling down the hill. It was a large hill, as it seemed to me that I rolled forever, with rocks piercing my ribs, branches jabbing my legs, briars tearing at all parts of me, and pieces of my hair getting caught and ripped out. My roll stopped abruptly when my back slammed against the trunk of a tree at the bottom of the hill, knocking the wind out of me. For a split second, I thought my back was broken, but the sounds of my pursuers getting closer and the amount of adrenaline running through my body quickly brought me off the ground.
/>   I looked around, trying to adjust my eyes to the dark and to find a place to hide, when I looked up and saw I had fallen against an enormous pine tree. I grabbed the closest branch to the ground, placed my feet on the trunk, and started climbing, branch by branch, towards the top of the tree, stopping when I heard the men reach the crest of the hill. I was more than halfway up the middle of the tree, which was very thick, and I didn’t want them to see the tree sway or any branches shaking, since there wasn’t any wind just then. The branch I was standing on was wide and seemed sturdy, so I straddled it, held onto the trunk for support, and became very still.

  I was covered with dirt, leaves, sweat, and blood, and had to make a conscious effort to control my breathing and trembling. We had been in West Virginia less than 48 hours, and I was hiding in a pine tree from a bunch of psychos. Fantastic. I could hear the men make their way down the hill towards my tree, one of them coughing and breathing profusely, sounding as if he were on the verge of a heart attack, God willing.

  “Where’d the fuck she go?” said the coughing man in a raspy smoker’s voice.

  “She’s around here somewhere. We’ll find her. It’s just so goddamn hard to see in these woods,” said the same man whose voice I’d recognized on Murder Mountain.

  “If you wouldn’t of fucked up on the mountain and taken care of her then, we wouldn’t be dickin’ around with this,” the coughing man said.

  “That was Tim’s fault. I didn’t know they was out there. And ya forget, that fed was with the bitch. Ya know what we agreed,” said the man with the recognizable voice.

  They were all breathing hard, and when they started walking around my tree in different directions, looking for me, I heard Michael yell from a distance,

  “CeeeeeCeeeee!”

  Don’t come and look for me Michael, I thought, assuming they would kill him instantly. I was, however, wrong.

  “It’s the fed! I thought ya tole me he left!” said the coughing man.

  “I thought he did! I watched him leave!” said the third man, whose voice I didn’t recognize.

  “We need to get the fuck outta here, now! We’ll cut through the back, down by the gorge. Let’s go!” said the familiar man, as I heard the sounds of leaves crackling and sticks breaking, as the men ran away.

  Oh, thank God, I’m still alive and they’re gone—for now, I thought as I slowly began climbing down the tree, listening to Michael continuously calling my name. I was sore all over. Standing at the bottom of the hill, I didn’t think I had the strength to climb it again and make my way back to the motel. But somehow, I found the will to make the climb, and once at the top, noticed that each step towards the motel brought on a new ache or pain which I had ignored until then. It didn’t even dawn on me that I wasn’t wearing shoes until I felt the bottom of one of my feet and discovered that it was covered with blood and debris from the woods. I was scratched everywhere and my ribs were sore from the rocks I’d rolled on when I fell down the hill. As I neared the edge of the woods and saw Michael on the walkway, I was too sore and tired to speak, merely uttering a slight grunt to draw his attention to me. He came running.

  “CeeCee! Oh my God!” he shouted as he ran to me.

  Holding onto a small tree for support, he grabbed around my waist to prevent me from falling before eventually scooping me up and carrying me to the motel.

  “I’m getting you to a hospital,” he puffed, jogging while carrying me.

  “No! No! I’ll be okay! Michael, please!” I whispered.

  “Are they still here?” he asked, laying me on his bed and locking the room’s door.

  “No,” I grunted, sitting up and feeling dizzy. “They left when they heard you calling for me. I was hiding in a tree.”

  “I can’t fucking believe this shit,” Michael cursed (startling me a little) as he went to the bathroom, grabbed some towels and ran some water over them to use for cleaning up my wounds. “CeeCee, lay down! We need to get you to a hospital!”

  I stayed upright. “Michael, calm down and listen. I’m okay. This is all superficial scratches from the woods and stuff. I don’t need to go to the hospital. I’m sore from a fall, and tired, but that’s it. I need some water,” I whispered, my voice still scratchy.

  Michael retrieved a glass of water, and knelt down in front of me to begin wiping and disinfecting my scrapes and bruises as I slowly sipped my water and regained enough strength to talk in complete sentences. When he got to my face, he began gently pulling my hair back, and kissing my cheek and forehead, lingering there for awhile before whispering in my ear, “I love you, CeeCee.” I didn’t protest. I felt the tears well up in my eyes as I put my hand on Michael’s cheek, and it didn’t go any farther, but at that precise moment, I thought there was a part of me that truly loved him as well. Once Michael had cleaned me up to his satisfaction, he decided to take it upon himself to play doctor, since I was too stubborn to go to the hospital and be looked at.

  “Where else do you hurt?” he asked quietly, as he put the twentieth band-aid on my arm.

  “The right side of my ribs is sore.”

  “All right; let me take a look.”

  I pulled off my shirt, which was torn, dirty, and bloody. Holding my right arm up, Michael went down each rib, touching it gently until I cried out on the ones that hurt, which were several.

  “I don’t think they’re broken, but they’re definitely bruised. There’s not much you can do for those.” He pulled one of his t-shirts out of his suitcase and handed it to me.

  “Thanks,” I told him, “but I think I’m going to soak in the bathtub first, and I’ve got extra clothes.” I stood up and headed for the door to go back to my own room.

  “No way are you going back to that room. You stay here tonight and I’ll keep watch.”

  I wasn’t in the mood to argue, and frankly, I wasn’t in the mood to stay by myself, either. I went into Michael’s bathroom and took a long, hot bath. I was in quite a bit of pain, and the hot water felt good. I caught myself almost falling asleep more than once. Michael called Coop while I was in the bathroom and left him a message about what happened. He also called one of his FBI contacts and told him to have the West Virginia State Police meet us in Spencer late the next afternoon. Michael requested specifically that they be called from Charleston, and not a local post, just in case they were involved. I think his intentions were to have us escorted to the state line without being killed. He arranged for the FBI agents who were going to come from Parkersburg to meet us in Mansfield instead. Based on what had happened that night, the FBI would be taking over the case in its entirety, and I would only be assisting.

  After I was out of the bathtub and dried, I put on fresh clothes and talked to Michael about our next course of action. Morning was only a few short hours away and neither of us expected to get much sleep. I knew the men who’d been after me earlier wouldn’t be back, at least not for now, and that bothered me to an extent. I might add that it was also difficult to stay with Michael in the same room and not be in the same bed.

  “I’ve been thinking,” I told Michael. “I wonder why they were worried about you being back. They didn’t hesitate to kill a cop, or to try to kill me. Why do you think they don’t want to mess with you?”

  “It’s their mentality. A cop is just the same as them, so they don’t sweat it, but a federal agent is important in their eyes, and they don’t want that kind of heat brought down. That shows you what kind of people we’re dealing with. They realize that killing a cop will get them the death penalty, but they don’t put it together that it could happen to them. They’re more worried about federal attention.”

  “Michael, who is the Chatham County Sheriff? Did we ever find that out?”

  Michael grabbed his briefcase and started looking through his files. From the amount of time it took him, I felt it was safe to assume we’d forgotten to check.

  “Here it is: Garvin B. Conroy, Chatham County Sheriff; the king himself.”

  “I’d
like to get his Bureau of Motor Vehicles photo, if we could. I don’t know where we’ll find a fax machine here. We’re lucky they have cable TV.”

  Michael said he would check on it, but we needed to get a couple hours of sleep. He would keep watch while I slept for two hours, and then vice versa. We’d already decided to make a pass on Murder Mountain again, and I wanted to drive by the Chatham County Sheriff’s Department for my own curiosity. We were not going to stay in West Virginia one more night, even I agreed to that. We would finish what we could the next day, meet the State Police, and be on our way.

  Michael was on his second hour of sleep and I was packing my suitcase when I heard a light knock on the room door. Michael sat straight up and grabbed his gun off the nightstand while I grabbed mine off the bed, each of us scrambling to stand on opposite sides of the door.

  “Who is it?” I yelled.

  “Um? I’m lookin’ for the cops from Ohio? I, um, my name is Gina and I really need to talk to y’all. I’m not lookin’ for any trouble. It’s important. Please ...,” said a small female voice.

  I looked at Michael and he stepped back to the window, slightly pulling the curtain back to see how many people were actually at the door. Holding up his index finger, indicating only one, he nodded towards the door for me to open it, our guns ready. I grabbed the doorknob and swung the door open, pointing my gun into the face of the small, dark-haired female standing in front of me.

  “Show me your hands,” I ordered her, calmly.

  “Please,” said the woman, holding her hands up and looking terrified, “I’m here to help ya; ya don’t know what yer dealin’ with.”

  “Okay,” I barked the word out, “but first I need you to step inside here and put your hands on the wall. You alone?”

  She nodded and complied with my commands.

  “Good, I’m going to pat you down first. Do you have any weapons on you?”