The Turkey Tussle (The Morelville Mysteries, #9)

by Anne Hagan

  There were two parcels that had county tax assessed dwellings on them according to the auditors reports. One, about five miles from the farm, had 60 acres of land and a small pond that was accessible from about a quarter mile of dirt road that came off a main road.

  I put the parcel number into the search box and got the map to center on the portion of his holdings where the structure was. It turned out to be a small cabin and it was a good hike away from the pond. Scanning around, I saw that there was a dirt track that led from the pond to it and that seemed to be the only way to reach it.

  The other piece of land included a larger home but it didn’t have very much property around it at all. Given the time of the year, bow hunting season and nearly gun season, I was willing to bet my live off the land quarry was hanging closer to the cabin than the house. I locked up, corralled Boo, loaded her into the car and then headed out that way.

  Chapter 21

  Mel

  Monday Morning, November 9th

  North Zanesville, Ohio

  I knew Dana took the Mathis case file up to my upstairs den. When mama called to beg off her shift at the bakery and Dana left to cover for her, I saw my chance and went and took it back and went through it piece by piece.

  It wasn’t hard to track down the deputy that had been first on the scene, Alex Ackerman. He’d left the Sheriff’s department but he worked North Zanesville for years. I’d had a couple of run-ins with him when I was a patrol deputy. Figuring on starting at the beginning, I had Holly pack up the carving set and send it off to the crime lab as soon as I got to the station and then I left again, his last known address in hand to set out and call on him.

  Now in his mid-sixties and out of police work for a half dozen years, he still had the air of a cop who’s seen too much.

  “The Tanner Mathis case,” he was saying as he led me into his sparsely furnished living room and indicated I should sit. “I’ll never forget that one. Shame they never solved it. Wouldn’t take any input from me back then. Told me to watch and learn. I watched all right and I saw plenty but they wouldn’t listen to me.”

  “Some new information has come to light and I’m reopening the case,” I said.

  “After all these years? What the hell did you find out?”

  “I haven’t ‘found out’ much of anything so far. I’m just getting started on the interviewing side of things so I thought I’d start with you. The file is a mess. What I do have is the possible murder weapon.”

  “Big knife, like a kitchen knife?”

  “Yes; how did you know? Did you see the Coroner’s report?”

  He shook his head. “Nope; saw the victim. Didn’t need any confirmation from the doc. Man had a deep, four-five maybe six inch gash in his chest. You don’t do that with a pocket knife. Somebody with a little strength drove it in and managed to hit where there was no bone then slashed it down and out.”

  I did my best to suppress a shudder. “Why don’t you walk me through that day, as best as you can remember?”

  He leaned way back, crossed his legs out in front of him and rested his elbows on the arms of his chair. He and his hands began to tell his story.

  “I got to the home within five minutes of getting the call since I was in the village that day. I was having dinner with a local family. People were already trying to leave when I got there.” It was hysteria in that house...people and kids everywhere. People yelling, women and kids crying. I called out and told everyone to calm down; even tried to herd them all into the living room. A couple of the men there just weren’t having it. They tried to bulldoze me and leave saying they were protecting their wives and kids.”

  I understood what they wanted to do but I was also smart enough to know that someone there killed that man. Nobody snuck into a house full of people, did the deed in broad daylight and snuck back out. When the men kept trying to get by me, I drew my service revolver and ordered them all to stay put.”

  He spread his hands. “That there was my undoing; drawing on a room full of unarmed folks. The Sheriff gave me some heat about that when he got there a couple of minutes after that. He he took over then and sent me outside to watch and make sure no one else went in or out.”

  “He didn’t ask for a report?”

  “Sure he did...gave me about 30 seconds and then left me trailing him in the hallway while he went in to look at the body. Told me to write up everything that happened before he got there. Out’a’ spite, I did a sworn statement rather than a report and had another deputy swear me.”

  “That was in the file. I thought it was odd.” I decided to tread very softly. Ackerman had been a vindictive sort back then and my experiences with him over the years didn’t indicate he’d ever changed.

  “Your rep...your statement was pretty brief. Is there anything you can recall that you didn’t include in it at the time?”

  “Oh, plenty. For one, I can’t recall all the names now but I do remember very well finding two guys there with their heads together, whispering, and I thought that looked pretty suspicious. In my thirty second brief, I pointed them out to the Sheriff. They’d separated by then and they were pretending like each other didn’t exist but I knew the Sheriff spent extra time with the two of them.”

  “Hmm. Some of the names from that day that are in the case file are Drew Lafferty...”

  “No, that was the homeowner, right? I remember him.”

  “Right. They were renting the place, but yes. His brother Owen was there too.”

  “He was one of the ones, I think, kicking up a fuss, wanting to leave.”

  The case file seemed to bear that out. I made a mental note. “How about Horace Bailey, Dennis James, Chuck Knox, Dale Walters,” I threw the last one in.

  “Whoa, back up! Harold...Horace? Definitely that guy. He was one of the two.”

  I ran down through all the male names I could recall from the case file including some of the kids. When I finished he looked thoughtful for nearly a minute and then he said, “I want to say ‘Chuck’. When they split up, I remember someone calling out ‘Chuck’ and looking at him.”

  “Chuck Knox?”

  “Yeah, I’m pretty sure.”

  “Can I ask a more personal question?”

  He nodded.

  “You weren’t with the department long after that; what, maybe another six or eight months?”

  “Sounds about right.”

  “Was it because of what happened that day?”

  “With drawing my gun, you mean?”

  “Yes.”

  “No but my beat was mostly Route 146 into Chandlersville and down to Duncan Falls and Morelville. I tried to keep working it after that Thanksgiving but that one guy, whenever I’d go into the village and he’d see me, he’d give me a hard time. Horace Bailey or Harold or whatever his name was.”

  “What was his beef?”

  “All I know is, it had something to do with the Lafferty guy that owned the house or rented it or what have you. It was like the other guy was trying to keep me away from there and away from him. He would follow me around town and just be a pain in my ass even if I wasn’t going anywhere near Laffertys place. I always thought the guy looked good for it and the Sheriff must have too.”

  “Bailey? Because of his conversation that day with Knox?”

  “Nope; the homeowner.”

  “Drew Lafferty?” I knew my surprise sounded in my voice but I did my best to appear unaffected otherwise.

  Ackerman bobbed his head several times. “Lafferty,” he said. “The Sheriff’s report fingered him as having a pretty loud argument with Mathis the day before that was heard by a couple of witnesses. Those two guys were acting mighty strange but Lafferty had motive. The one guy following me around all the time after that, like he was trying to protect him from something sort of cemented that for me, in my mind. ”

  ‘I must have missed that. Who were the witnesses?”

  He tilted his head and gave me a strange look. “It was all right there i
n the case file. I, uh, kept tabs on the progress even though ol’ Sweeney pulled me out of it. It was the Walters guy you mentioned when you were listing off names a little bit ago and a guy that ran the old filling station at the time whose name totally escapes me.”

  I went into the conversation with Ackerman thinking there was something fishy about Dale Walters creeping around on our property, knowing Dana had spoken to him. Now I had Bailey and Chuck Knox to think about as well.

  Chapter 22

  Mid- Afternoon, Monday, November 9th

  In the Woods Near Morelville

  The track from the pond to the cabin was rutted and rough. I felt bad for Boo. She weighed so little, she bounced up and down on the seat with every bump I hit and there were plenty. It was all dry and cracked now, only two days or so removed from the storm but, with just a little more rain, it would be even worse - a soupy mess. After what seemed life forever, we got to the cabin and we both got out of the car gladly.

  I looked at it out in front of me. I hadn’t thought to check the dimensions on the auditors website. It was smaller than I might have thought; not even thirty feet across the front and not very deep from the look of it.

  There was a pickup parked up close to the door, the only thing along the front wall. I went up and knocked and waited and then knocked again. Nothing. No one seemed to be there. I couldn’t hear a sound coming from inside.

  There was a low lean-to type structure off to the right. The front of it was tarpped against the wind and weather. I walked over to take a peek.

  A utility quad was parked underneath, facing out, with a snow blade on it. The space next to it was empty. The ground was a little softer there than out on the trail that had brought me to the cabin. I could see tracks leading from there from something that was a bit larger than the quad but no other vehicle was anywhere in view. There was almost no sound at all, save a bit of a breeze rustling the tops of the trees.

  Boo stuck her nose in the air and sniffed and that’s when I realized what I’d been smelling; just a hint of wood smoke from a meat smoker. She darted around the lean-to and toward the back of the cabin, no doubt going for the source of the scent. I followed calling to her all the way. I didn’t want her to dart off into the woods and be lost.

  I didn’t need to worry. The back side of the cabin yielded a small back porch with a rather large smoker next to it and stacks of wood to stoke it with. It was burning, doing its job and Boo was engrossed in sniffing all around it.

  Up on the porch, I tried the door. The screen door wasn’t latched and the handle to the interior door turned but it seemed to be latched somehow from inside, or so I thought.

  There was a single, grimy little window close to the door on the side of the porch where the smoker was. I went over to it and tried to peer inside the cabin. It was so dirty, I couldn’t see much of anything. I tried to swipe at it with the cuff of my hoodie but I only succeeded in removing some of the caked on dirt on the outside.

  I shielded my eyes against any reflection and looked in again. I couldn’t make out much of the interior of the dark cabin but, from what I could see, it looked to be pretty sparsely furnished. ‘He must not stay here, just hunt from here and do his smoking’ I thought to myself.

  Something caught my eye down and to my left. Just a little movement. I scooted around sideways and tried to peer through the circle of clean window downward to the floor near the door to the left. That’s when I realized what I saw was a booted foot. Someone was lying just inside the door.

  Just as quickly as I saw it, the foot was gone. I shook my head and tried hard to focus on the spot where I thought I’d seen it. I jump back when I saw a leg rolling back and forth as if someone was writhing in pain. I realized then that whoever was laying there was hurt and blocking the door.

  I tried to open the dirty window. It didn’t budge. Against my better judgment, I went again to the door and tried to get it open. It cracked open from the top but there was too much weight against the bottom.

  I calls out to the person on the inside, “I’m here to help you but I can’t get the door open. Can you move at all?” Listening, I could barely make out the sound of someone moaning. I tried to push the door again but it still hardly moved.

  Boo had lost interest in the smoker and she was at my feet, in the way, trying to sniff at the bottom of the door. I got down on my knees, scooted Boo away and attempted to push at the bottom of the door but Boo came right back to me as though I was trying to play with her.

  “Please,” I called out, “You’re going to have to try to move a little.”

  I heard some more moaning and what sounded like someone shimmying along against a hard floor. I pushed again gently and the door opened a couple of inches.

  “My name is Dana,” I called out through the crack. “Are you Chuck Knox?”

  The person inside mumbles something incoherent. “Chuck, listen to me; I want to help you but I don’t want to push on this door and hurt you more. Can you move just a little bit more?” Again, came a mumble coupled with a moan.

  He finally moved just enough for me to get in.

  Inside, I found a seventy-ish year old man that I thought might be Chuck but I wasn’t too sure. His face was so pale.

  Checking him over quickly, I saw he had a pretty nasty head wound to the back and left side of his head that was bleeding but the blood was starting to coagulate. H was moaning and trying to raise his hands to his head.

  “Chuck, don’t move anymore. I know it hurts and it’s hard but you need to stay still.”

  I took out my cell, prayed for half decent service and called 911 for an ambulance. After giving the dispatcher directions back to the cabin, I wondered if I should go out to the main road, past the pond, and direct them back so they could find us quickly or if I should stay with Chuck. I crossed my fingers and hoped that whoever was sent knew something about the area and could get to them quickly. The way he looked, I didn’t want want to leave him alone any longer.

  While I waited, I scrounged around and found a clean kitchen towel that I could compress against his head. After unlocking and opening the front door, working as gently as I could, I folded the towel into quarters and held it against his head wound.

  It took the ambulance nearly 20 minutes to arrive. With Boo sitting quietly by my side, I’d managed to get him calm by then but he convulsed when the squad pulled up, sirens blaring and then again when a Sheriff’s department SUV pulled in right behind the squad just as noisily.

  Boo jumped up and ran to the door, toward the sources of the sound but then back again as a man came toward her.

  “That’s one heck of a ride in here,” a paramedic said as he trucked through the front door, gear in both hands.

  I barely heard him as Mel charged through the door right behind him. She did a double take when she say me.

  “Why are you here? Was it you who called in the head injury?”

  “I came out here to talk to Chuck.”

  Mel walked over to me and the paramedic who was now kneeling at Chuck’s head. She looked at him and then looked away and back again. “Where’s he at?”

  “Who?”

  “Chuck Knox. That’s not him.”

  “It’s not?”

  Mel shook her head no but before she could answer, another paramedic bustled through the front door and pushed a gurney toward them. He bent immediately to the patient and took over from me.

  “Do you know this man Sheriff?” the first man to come in asked.

  “I think so. I haven’t seen him in years, but I think it’s my uncle Owen Lafferty.”

  Chapter 23

  Dana

  “Your uncle?” I was shocked. “Not Chuck?”

  “Yes...and no. Probably my uncle; definitely not Chuck. I take it you haven’t seen him?”

  “Chuck? No, if this isn’t him then I suppose not. I’ve been here maybe half an hour and most of that was waiting for the ambulance to come. Nobody else has been around.”


  “If he did this,” Mel said, “He’s probably long gone. Right now, we need to get him to the hospital,” she looked sideways and down, tipping her chin toward her uncle, “and, we need to get you out of here. Knox isn’t young but if he’s capable of this, who knows what else he’s capable of.”

  “Why would your uncle be here?”:

  “I was hoping you could tell me.”

  “I don’t have the first clue”

  My car was completely blocked in. Since I couldn’t leave, I stepped aside and kept Boo with me while the paramedics tended to Owen Lafferty and got him loaded on the gurney.

  Mel inspected the ID in the man’s wallet and, satisfied that the victim was who she thought he was, she stepped out to her SUV to radio for backup. When she returned, she walked right over to me.

  “I moved my vehicle. Once the squad pulls out, you need to get going too. One thing though? You didn’t tell me why you’re here.”

  “You didn’t exactly ask me.”

  “You’re not still investigating the Mathis murder are you?”

  I gave her a puzzled look. “Of course I am. Why wouldn’t I be?”

  Now Mel looked confused. “I, uh, thought you were clear that I was reopening the case?” She leaned closer to me and all but whispered, “I sent the carving set off to the crime lab this morning and I’ve already started doing interviews.”

  “Oh? Who’d you talk to?”

  “Uh, uh,” she said backing up again and waving a hand back and forth. “We’re not going there. I know you mean well but I’m going to need you to fill me in on everything you know and you’re going to need to stand down for the rest of this one. It’s in department hands now.” She looked over at Owen as they wheeled him by us and out the door. “Especially after this.”