Murder Mountain

by Stacy Dittrich

  “No, ma’am.” Her voice was quivering.

  I patted her down. Satisfied that Gina wasn’t hiding a rocket launcher under her tank top, I motioned for her to have a seat on the edge of the bed while Michael closed and locked the room’s door. I kept my gun in my hand and went into interrogation mode: “Who are you, how do you know us, and what exactly do you want?”

  Gina put her head down, and for a brief moment I thought she was going to cry, but she merely rubbed her eyes and then looked at me. She was an unattractive woman and had an unusually hard look to her. She was probably in her mid thirties, but appeared to be in her late forties, having clearly not kept many appointments with dentists or dermatologists.

  “My name is Gina Reynolds, and my boyfriend is Timmy Carr? Y’all know him, I’m sure. I’m here because I don’t feel right about what they’re doin’, only if they knew I was here, they’d kill me and I got me a little girl. Anyway, the reason I’m here is to tell ya: y’all need to leave West Virginia, or they’re gonna gitcha.”

  “Who is going to get us, Gina?” I asked softly, sitting down next to her.

  “Y’all know who they are, and don’t make me say nothing more ...”

  Realizing who she was, I interrupted, “You called and told us where to find Karen Cummings! You were in Ohio with Tim when he slashed my tires, weren’t you!” I stood up and faced her. “I recognize your voice from the tape of the phone call you made to our department.”

  She hung her head and began to cry, “Yes! Don’t ya understand! They don’t care who ya are, they’ll kill ya just the same as me! They know everything you do! Ya kin’t help that dark-haired girl now, they’re gonna take care of her soon, and if ya stay any longer they’ll take care of y’all, too!”

  “Gina, listen to me, please,” Michael began. “We can help you. We can take you and your daughter out of here and place you in protective custody where these people will never be able to find you again. We need you to talk to us.”

  I thought this woman was taking a big risk talking to us just then, and at the rate things were going, she would probably be dead by nightfall. She’d indicated that Andrea Dean was still alive, an idea I had written off during the preceding 48 hours. I was sure they had killed her by now, but I knew one thing: this woman was not leaving the room until I had several questions answered.

  “I kin’t talk to ya no more,” she sobbed. “I don’t wanna die!”

  “Gina, you are not going to die,” I assured her, remembering a similar promise I’d made to Matt Hensley. “You came here today for a reason, the reason being you are a good person and cannot consciously sit back and watch this go on. Listen to Agent Hagerman. The FBI will help you and your daughter start a new life, away from here, and protect you. Whatever you tell us today may be enough to issue federal warrants and lock them up, anyway.”

  She kept sobbing and shaking her head, “That cop!” she sobbed. “That cop; he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. I wasn’t there but I heard ’em talkin’ about it! I heard ’em talkin’ about the guy at the prison, too! I gotta go!”

  Gina stood up and tried to go for the door, but Michael stood and front of it. I grabbed her arm. She was going to tell me about Boz if I had to threaten her life to do it.

  “Wait! Gina, you are already in danger! You don’t think they know you’re here? You said yourself they know everything! Let’s go get your daughter and we’ll drive you out of town, now, and put you up until other arrangements can be made.” I stood there holding her by the shoulders, looking as deeply into her eyes as I could. “Please, I’m begging you. What happened to the officer they killed?”

  She stayed at the door, turning from me to face it, while Michael walked to the window and peered out again, making sure we were still alone. “I heard ’em talkin’ one night when I was in the kitchen,” she told us. “They was all yellin’ because they were lookin’ at that girl’s house when that cop showed up and they had to take care of ’im. That’s all I heard. They try not to talk about things in front of me. I told ya where that other girl was buried ’cause they was talkin’ ’bout movin’ her last week and I hoped y’all would find some evidence to git ’em all away from me.” She seemed as if she was starting to calm down.

  “Gina, how is the sheriff’s department involved in all of this? Who is running the show?” Michael asked.

  Gina quit crying and straightened her posture, almost stoically, and smiled at Michael before she opened the door.

  “I’m done talking. I kin get myself and my daughter outta here quicker than y’all kin, and that’s what I’ll do. I’ll tell ya two things before I leave. Find Laurie Kaylor, that’s Big Al’s woman. She’s on the inside. Second …,” she hesitated, then blurted, “The sheriff runs the county and keeps a tight leash on things ’round here; y’all just remember that.” Then she darted out the door.

  I stared at the door and knew that when Gina left she just signed her death warrant. She had, however, given us the first acknowledgment regarding the local law enforcement’s involvement, but what we could do with that information, now that she was gone, was anybody’s guess. Boz had surprised them at Andrea Dean’s house, a confirmed fact, but how and why he’d driven to the woods was still unknown. Michael was already on the phone calling in Gina’s information, if that was her real name, and running a check on her.

  “Andrea’s alive, Michael, and she’s here,” I said as he was hanging up the phone.

  “Now, CeeCee, you don’t know that! We don’t know that anything this woman said was on the up and up, or whether it was bullshit. For all we know, she could be setting us up for something, and casually mentioning Andrea Dean’s name like that could be it.”

  “I don’t think so, Michael. I think she was telling the truth. Why would they want us to know where Karen Cummings was buried? She called that in …”

  “I don’t trust anyone here, that’s all. Let me get cleaned up, and then let’s get the hell out of this place. By the way, you still sore?”

  I told him I was fine and I lay back on the bed while he took a shower and packed his things, thinking of the best, and quickest, way we might be able to find Andrea Dean. I wondered if they were keeping her at the trailer on Murder Mountain, but I didn’t think so. They knew we’d been there already, and if she had been there, they would’ve moved her by now. We needed a break, a big one, if we were going to find Andrea alive, and in my frame of mind at the time, I wasn’t optimistic. Our time to meet the State Police had been pushed back, so we still had a full day ahead of us. There was a little time left.

  After checking out of our rooms (I think the clerk was glad to see us go), we stopped and grabbed something to eat before driving to the Chatham County Sheriff’s Department to do a simple but discreet drive-by. I wasn’t overly impressed by the department’s appearance. It was a small brick building with “Chatham County Sheriff” in white letters on the front, a bush on each side of the front entrance, and a small parking lot off to the left. There were two sheriff’s cruisers and three civilian cars parked in the lot. Not a lot of business today, I guessed. At my department, I consider myself fortunate if I can find a parking place within a five-minute walk of the building. Michael pulled into a small car dealership across the street and turned around, facing the department. Before he put the car in Park, I saw the front door open, and a deputy walked out with an older female.

  “Michael, look!” I reached for my camera.

  The deputy was tall and broad-shouldered, wearing his hat, a thousand ribbons and pins as if he were a four-star general, and, most importantly, captain’s bars.

  “It’s VanScoy,” I said, furiously snapping pictures.

  “How do you know?”

  “That man is a captain. I don’t think they have more than one, and my instincts tell me that’s him.” I put the camera down and watched.

  Captain John VanScoy had a very commanding appearance. He stood tall. His polished brass and ribbons were neatly in place, a
gray Stetson hat sat square on his head, his black boots and leather belt shone, and his pants sported a starched crease, bringing me to the conclusion that he had once been in the military. He was the kind of officer that, if I were pulled over for speeding, would bring me to tears at the sight of him, even now. He was exactly what I’d expected.

  I don’t know who the woman was, maybe the dispatcher, but he seemed to be protective of her, walking her to her car and opening the door. This man may be a lot of things, I thought, but at the very least, he’s a gentleman. How nice.

  We watched him walk across the parking lot towards the building until he stopped, halfway, and turned to look directly at us. I froze, praying he was thinking about buying one of the new cars surrounding us, but instead he smiled, tipped his hat at us, and continued into the department.

  “What the hell was that about?” Michael almost shouted after VanScoy had disappeared into the building.

  “I don’t have a clue,” I said, quietly. “I don’t know how he knew we were over here, but he just showed us he is still running the show. That guy scares the piss out of me.”

  “I wonder if they have cameras on the outside, and he just happened to be watching them when we pulled in. Man, did you see his uniform? He looked like a four-star general.”

  “I thought the exact same thing. He has obviously been in the military, which does nothing to put my mind at ease. And, Michael, as far as cameras on the outside go, do you see any? Because I sure don’t.”

  Michael turned his attention back to the department to try to prove me wrong, and unless they had microscopic hidden cameras, there wasn’t any outside surveillance, which is unusual for a law enforcement agency. But again, I reminded myself, we’re not dealing with the average police department here. Michael shook his head and drove out onto the street, leaving the area, and making loops and turns to make certain we weren’t being tailed.

  Now that I had actually seen Captain John VanScoy with my own eyes, I was concerned. If he wasn’t the head honcho, I hated to imagine what the real boss looked like. I’d been raised to respect the uniform, and seeing a man dressed like him made me cower down in fear—something I clearly had to shake off. His entire demeanor exuded confidence; he’d smiled and tipped his hat at the detective and FBI agent who were here to bring him down. He wasn’t scared in the least, and that truly concerned me. Maybe we were in over our heads, but how could that have been? The FBI was involved; it doesn’t get better than that, but this guy wanted to play psychological football that day, and he’d just scored the first touchdown.

  “Why do you think he’s so cocky?” I asked Michael as we were driving away. “I mean, he just saw a federal agent and a detective doing surveillance on him. Most cops would be changing their underwear as we speak. Michael, don’t take this the wrong way, but it’s not possible he has connections in the FBI, is it?”

  “Absolutely not,” he shot back. “I think you’re reading too much into it. He is scared; don’t let him fool you about that. He’s playing games and you’re falling right into it. Guys like that want to keep their pride.”

  Feeling somewhat foolish, I knew Michael was right, and as we drove towards Murder Mountain I kept thinking about Gina Reynolds and wondering if VanScoy’s smile wasn’t about her. I wished we could have gotten Big Al’s name out of Gina before she flew out of the room.

  We were still waiting on a call from the FBI regarding Laurie Kaylor’s information as we made our way up the mountainside, observing how different the area looked in daylight. Michael went past the clearing where we’d sat the night before, and basically just drove into the woods to park. We hadn’t been parked for more than fifteen minutes when we saw the Cadillac back out of the driveway and start down the hill. I couldn’t see the house from where we were, but I could see a man driving the car. I told Michael to follow it.

  Maintaining a safe distance, we followed the Cadillac down the mountain and through a series of dirt roads that seemed to lead us deeper into the wilderness. I was trying to write down the roads we turned on, but half of them didn’t even have names, so I resorted to documenting any landmarks I could see on each road. There weren’t many, but it was better than leaving a trail of breadcrumbs, which was next on my list. I tried to call Coop and give him the best location I could, but there probably wasn’t a cell phone signal for thirty miles.

  Not that Coop would’ve answered his phone anyway, because he was on his way to Chatham County with Kincaid and Eric. Coop had been relaying all of our messages to Eric, who’d finally had enough and had gone to Kincaid, demanding the file and telling her he was coming to our aid. Kincaid, never one to pass up a trip with two attractive males, gave Eric the go-ahead on the condition that she would accompany him and Coop, an arrangement, which, of course, Sheriff Stephens readily cleared. Their intention was to help us finish up what we needed to finish and get us back to Mansfield safely.

  After we’d been following the Cadillac for a long time, it started speeding up and widening the gap between us, with Michael doing his best to keep up.

  “He knows we’re behind him,” Michael observed aloud.

  “Who cares? Just keep on him, and we’ll screw with him for a little bit.”

  “CeeCee, I don’t know that I can find our way back out of here.” His voice was concerned.

  “Don’t worry, I’m keeping track and leaving breadcrumbs,” I said, laughing a little. Michael did not.

  Our speed continued to climb while we tailed the Cadillac, and Michael started to express concern because of the winding dirt roads that seemed to be bordering on more cliffs with each turn we took. If we overshot our turns, we would be a rolling fireball down the side of whatever mountain we were on.

  Suddenly, we slowed down almost to a crawl, raising a red flag that I could either choose to ignore and continue, or recognize and back off. It didn’t matter, because we came around a turn and found the Cadillac parked with two other vehicles, including the blue pick-up truck, blocking the road. I realized then that we had been set up; I hoped it wasn’t too late to react.

  “Michael! Turn around! It’s a set-up! Go! Go!” I yelled.

  As Michael was doing his best to turn the car around on the narrow dirt road, the blockade of vehicles started heading for us from about a quarter of a mile away. As we started driving in the direction we came from, we were faced, head-on, with a dark-blue SUV with tinted windows trying to block us in.

  “Damn!” Michael yelled as hit the gas and drove towards the woods to veer around the SUV. He barely made it, but the SUV rammed the back end of our rental car, almost knocking us off the road. Somehow, we stayed on course and Michael really gassed it this time as the other cars stayed right behind us.

  We sped up, making twists and turns, going uphill and going downhill, until we were confident that they couldn’t keep up and we’d lost them. Problem was, we were lost, too. We’d been only concerned with getting away from the other cars, not with looking at my makeshift map. Michael pulled off to the side of the road so we could both catch our breath and get our bearings.

  “Where are we?” he asked.

  “I have no idea.” I turned and looked behind us. “Do you think we lost them?”

  “Jesus, I hope so. Do you know how we’re going to get out of here?”

  I grabbed the West Virginia map I’d taken from Lizzie Johnston’s car and started scanning it, unaware of what to look for, since I didn’t know where we were to start from. I told Michael he’d have to drive around until I could find one of my familiar landmarks that I’d written down.

  It took us an hour to find our way out of the woods. By then it was almost dark. We were supposed to meet the state police in a half an hour at the rest area on State Route 33, just outside of Spencer, West Virginia. We weren’t going to make it; we had at least an hour’s drive ahead of us. When we finally got into an area where we had phone service, Michael pulled over and called them, telling them that we were running late and that we woul
d meet them at a rest area on State Route 27 just outside of Tariff.

  We were just leaving Ovapa when Michael got a call from the FBI. He pulled over, grabbed a pen and paper, and wrote something (I couldn’t see what) down. After he hung up, he stared for a moment at the piece of paper.

  “What is it?” I demanded.

  “They found Laurie Kaylor’s information and ...” He cut himself off.

  “Michael, would you please just spit it out!” I was getting annoyed and I was tired.

  “They found Big Al’s information. His name isn’t Allen Davidson, it’s Allen Davis, and he shares the same address as Laurie Kaylor,” he said.

  I smiled for the first time all day. This was the break I’d been looking for!

  Chapter Thirteen

  I looked at Big Al’s address for a long time before I grabbed Lizzie’s map and tried to find where his road was.

  “He lives way, way out in the sticks,” I told Michael, showing him Big Al’s road, which was a small line through two inches of green area.

  “It doesn’t matter,” he spat out. “We’re not going there anyway.” He began driving again.

  “Excuse me, Michael! This is what we’ve needed. This could break the case!” I yelled, astonished that he wanted to pass this opportunity up.

  “I don’t care. We are leaving West Virginia right now.”

  “Michael, let’s just drive by so I can take some pictures, please? Andrea might be there. How would you feel if that were your daughter? Would you just drive away then? Please?” I pleaded.

  “I swear, if I’m alive by tomorrow morning it will be a fucking miracle.” He turned the car around, his face dark.

  “Thank you.”

  Michael called Coop with the directions to our next destination at precisely the time they stopped to eat, about two hours from Ovapa. Since Coop had left his cell phone in the car, Michael left another message.

  Night had closed in by this point, making it extremely difficult to follow the map to Big Al Davis’s house in the dark, driving on still more roads that were poorly marked, if at all. For the last five miles, we were going uphill on another winding dirt road, and we didn’t pass one house, cabin, trailer, or shit-house. Seeing lights in the woods ahead of us, Michael turned his headlights off and slowed down before stopping about 100 feet away, giving me a clear view of the house.