The Judas Murders

by Ken Oder

  He looked around. The pine forest ran from there to Reba’s trailer at the southern end of the trailer park. He didn’t look forward to the hike, but his approach would be concealed.

  He sat behind the wheel and gathered his thoughts. He would park his truck there tonight after midnight and kill Reba. If Ballard hadn’t died by tomorrow, he’d go to Dolley Madison and finish him off. Then he would turn his attention to Cole.

  He pulled the truck onto Whiskey Road and headed toward the rented house. He was almost done with this cursed project, thank God.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  The Old Jolley Place

  March 9, 1967, Thursday afternoon

  Chase Dooley spent two days trying to track down Ray Middleditch. The South Carolina DMV sent Chase a copy of his driver’s license. It was issued to him on April 6, 1966. South Carolina could find no record of a prior license under that name. The photograph on the license presented a pasty face with lots of mileage on it, droopy eyes with puffed blue bags underneath, an uneven gray beard, and thinning silver hair.

  Date of birth: January 18, 1902. Height: 6′ 2″; Weight: 190 lbs.; Address: 2193 Dave Lyle Blvd, Rock Hill, South Carolina.

  The York County, South Carolina, sheriff’s office told Chase no residential homes or apartments were located on the 2100 block of Dave Lyle Boulevard. It was lined with commercial businesses. The address 2193 didn’t exist. The closest street number to it was 2197, a Sears, Roebuck store. The sheriff could find no record of a Ray Middleditch ever living anywhere along that street or at any location in Rock Hill or York County.

  Running the Virginia license plate number, Chase located a car dealership in Lynchburg, Virginia, that sold a black 1965 Dodge 100 pickup truck to a Ray Allen Middleditch on November 13 of last year. A salesman at Beech Motor Company told Chase that Middleditch paid $1100 cash for the truck and refused to give a mailing address until the manager explained that state law required the dealership to provide the DMV with a buyer’s current address, and that without it, he couldn’t allow him to drive the truck off the lot. Middleditch only then gave up his address: P.O. Box 39, Tinker’s Mill, Virginia.

  * * *

  Thursday afternoon, about an hour after Ray Middleditch had finished scouting Reba Emley’s trailer, Chase drove out to Tinker’s Mill, a small town in the northeast corner of the county with ten houses, an Esso station, a Baptist church, a country store, and a little white cinderblock post office, all clustered around Horsehead Road.

  Chase found Clayton Fiddler sitting on a stool in the post office, sorting mail into boxes on the wall. A short, fat pig farmer with black hair, Clayton became Tinker’s Mill’s part-time postmaster three years ago to supplement his income when falling pork prices put the squeeze on him. He told Chase that Middleditch rented a post office box on December 1.

  “Told me he moved here from South Carolina. Retired from a real estate outfit down there. Comes in once or twice a month to get his mail, which ain’t nothin but circulars and the like. He don’t get personal mail, and he don’t never say much. Keeps to himself.”

  “Where does he live?”

  “Rents the old Jolley place from Sam.”

  “I don’t know the Jolley place.”

  Clayton said Sam Jolley inherited a house and some land from his mother when she passed on last year. It was in bad shape and Sam hadn’t been able to rent it out until Middleditch came along.

  Chase drove a short way down Horsehead Road to the Esso station Sam Jolley owned and operated. Chase found Sam under a Chevy convertible with the transmission strewn all over the floor. A big, bald-headed, barrel-chested man in his fifties with a dark complexion and a beer belly, Sam rolled out from under the Chevy and wiped his hands on a rag. He led Chase into the gas station’s little retail shop and sat on a stool behind the cash register eating a Baby Ruth and drinking an orange Nehi while he answered Chase’s questions about Middleditch.

  “He stopped here for an oil change couple days after Thanksgivin. Said he was lookin for a place to stay. I told him about Momma’s house. He went up there and looked her over. Said it fit his needs cause all the furniture and dishes and such were still there, so he could move right in. He offered me six months’ rent in cash up front. I jumped on him like a tomcat on a rat.”

  Chase followed Sam’s directions to the end of Horsehead Road and turned right onto an unnamed dirt road that climbed Bald Eagle Mountain. There were only three houses along that road, and the first two were abandoned. The third, on a flat shelf of land about a hundred feet from the summit, was the old Jolley place.

  Chase pulled off the road in front of the house.

  A black Dodge 100 with Virginia plates bearing the number Chase had traced was in a gravel driveway to the right of a dilapidated two-story frame house set back about twenty feet from the road. Most of its white paint had worn off and its felt roof tiles were curled and peeling, but it fit the needs of a man wishing to go unnoticed. No one had a reason to drive past it since no one lived beyond it and the road dead-ended on top of Bald Eagle.

  Ten windows faced the road, five stretching across the length of an upstairs balcony; five downstairs, three to the left of the front door, two to the right. The front yard was barren of trees and shrubs save a few small cedar bushes under the windows. No one could approach from the front without being seen from inside; another advantage to a man trying to lay low.

  Chase saw no movement in the windows and the house was quiet, but the truck’s presence implied that Middleditch was there.

  Chase got out of his truck. Before he took a step toward the house, he heard an explosion and felt a blow to his right collarbone, as though someone had hit him as hard as he could with the end of a steel bar, cracking the bone and plunging the bar deep into his flesh. The blow threw Chase back against his truck. He slid down it to a sitting position on the running board and looked at his shoulder. Blood oozed from a hole in his shirt the size of a quarter. He flattened his hand over the hole and tried to hold back the flow of blood. Another explosion. Something above Chase cracked and splinters of plate glass showered the brim of his hat and fell on his thighs.

  Blood seeped through Chase’s hand. He pressed harder and stared at the house. The pain kicked in and he suddenly understood. He was under fire. He needed to take cover.

  When a third shot rang out, Chase saw the muzzle flash in a downstairs window. A thump sounded to the left of his head, and a wisp of smoke lilted up from a hole in the truck’s door. Chase tried to stand, but he was too weak. He fell off the running board and rolled under the truck. His right arm didn’t work, so he used his left to pull himself behind the front wheel. He extended his left hand across his body, awkwardly drew his gun, and looked out from under the truck at the window where he had seen the muzzle flash. The front door opened and an old man jig-jogged across the yard toward the Dodge pickup, limping badly. Chase’s left hand shook as he pointed the gun, but he couldn’t bring his right hand up to brace it. He’d never fired a gun with his left hand, but he let fly anyway. His bullet shattered an upstairs window fifteen feet above the man’s head.

  The man climbed in the truck. Chase braced his left hand against the front tire and fired again. The pickup’s tailgate bucked and fell down. Its engine roared. It spun around in the gravel and sped across the yard, the man’s thinning gray hair and gray beard visible in the door window. Chase fired three shots in rapid succession. None of them hit the man or the pickup.

  The Dodge plunged down into a ditch. Its front end reared up in the air and fell back down hard. Its tires spun and then gained purchase on the dirt road. Chase fired another round and missed everything. The pickup sped down the hill and disappeared in a trail of dust.

  Chase lay his head on the ground, breathing hard, gravel and grit pressing against his cheek. He lifted his head and looked at his chest. Blood mixed with white powder-dust had spread across the front of his shirt. He had to crawl out, get to the radio, call for help. He grasped the fro
nt tire with his left hand, but he didn’t have the strength to pull himself out from under the truck. He took several deep breaths and tried again, but it was no good. His breath came in short bursts. The ground whirled beneath him. I’ll die here, he thought.

  He extended his hand out into the sun, palm up, a smear of crimson glistening in the light. Not much chance anyone will come by and see it, but it’s all I can do, he told himself. Stay awake. Don’t give up.

  He tried hard to hang on, but his strength slowly slipped away; the light faded and went black.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  The Dog Breeder

  March 9, 1967, Thursday afternoon

  Percy McDibble lived with his mother in Tinker’s Mill on the corner of Horsehead Road and the dirt road that climbed Bald Eagle Mountain. A plain man in his fifties, tall and wide with narrow shoulders, a bald pate rimmed by a fringe of black hair, a long nose, and jug ears the size of cabbage leaves, Percy knew he wasn’t much to look at. That was half the reason he never married. The other half was Momma. After Percy’s father was killed in a hunting accident when he was a toddler, Momma had sacrificed everything for him, so when she got old and had no one to take care of her, Percy stayed by her side.

  He didn’t regret his decision. His only concern about his life choice had been financial. He couldn’t make ends meet with his meager paycheck from Bootsie’s Country Store and Momma’s Social Security check, and he slid deeper into debt every month until Creasy Ashburn came up with the idea of partnering with him in a dog breeding business. The breeding stock fell in Creasy’s lap for free when the county pound asked him to take in five American bulldog dams that belonged to a breeder the state sent to the big house for murdering his wife and her boyfriend. “I’ll supply the dams and the working capital,” Creasy had said. “You take care of the dogs, and we’ll split the profits fifty-fifty.”

  So Percy converted Momma’s garage into a kennel. He built five stalls separated by chain-link fencing and lined the opposite wall with feed bins, storage cabinets, a sink, and a counter. He cut a dog door in the wall of each stall and enclosed half Momma’s backyard in chain link so the dams could go outside when they pleased.

  When Creasy said the breeders were bulldogs, Percy assumed they were the short, stubby flat-faced dogs he’d seen on television, which turned out to be English bulldogs. Creasy’s dams were American bulldogs, a different breed altogether, tall with broad chests, rangy and athletic, seventy to ninety pounds, short-haired with smooth coats, white with patches of fawn. Beautiful, graceful creatures. They formed an immediate bond with Percy, and he fell in love with them.

  The kennel didn’t turn out to be a gold mine, but it generated enough profit to solve Percy’s cash flow problems. Best of all, Percy liked almost everything about dog breeding: caring for the dogs, birthing the pups, placing them in good homes for a reasonable price, even cleaning up the kennel.

  The one and only exception was the put-downs. The put-downs broke his heart.

  Thursday afternoon just before Chase Dooley approached the old Jolley place, Percy spread a blanket on the counter in the kennel and laid a dog on it gently. Henry was a dusty brown short-haired mutt, a mongrel so mixed that none of the traits of any breed came through. Rainey Meechum and her mother, Lee Anne, had brought him to Percy a half hour ago. Percy was headed across the backyard when Lee Anne pulled her rattletrap Nash eggbeater into the gravel turnaround behind the kennel and Rainey, a skinny blonde-haired thirteen-year-old, got out of the car. She ran over to Percy carrying the little mutt in her arms, crying so hard she couldn’t catch her breath. Lee Anne came up behind her. A single mother saddled with taking care of three kids and two low-paying jobs, she looked worn out. “Thank God you’re home,” she said.

  They’d just returned from Creasy’s office. He said Henry had incurable lung cancer, he was in great pain, and it was past time to put him down. Lee Anne didn’t have the fifty dollars Creasy charged to euthanize a dog, and she’d heard Percy would put Henry out of his misery for much less.

  Percy blamed himself for people bringing dogs to him for put-downs. When one of his dams had developed a brain tumor and lost her mind, Percy asked Creasy, “When do you know it’s time to let a dog go?”

  “There’s three tests. The animal is in great pain and will never feel better; she doesn’t know who she is; or she can’t eat or do her business. A dog who meets any one of those tests should be euthanized.”

  Creasy gave Percy the drugs, ketamine and succinylcholine. “Make sure you give her the ketamine first. Then wait a little while before you give her succinylcholine. She won’t suffer that way.” Percy carried Belle out to her favorite spot in the dog pen under the shade of a maple tree, gave her the shots, and held her in his arms until she passed.

  Shortly after that, when Rollo Brady’s cocker spaniel went blind and stopped eating, Rollo didn’t have the money to pay Creasy to put her down. “Would you do it for me?” he asked Percy. “Only other way is my shotgun, and I’ll never be the same if I have to shoot her.”

  Percy put Maisy down. He figured it was bad enough Rollo lost his best friend. Making him pay seemed just flat cruel, so he refused to take a penny.

  Rollo had a big mouth. Word got around. People showed up at Percy’s door, and he didn’t have the heart to turn them away.

  So Rainey and Lee Anne Meechum brought Henry to Percy that afternoon. A quick look at Henry left Percy with no doubt he met all three tests. He told Rainey it was time to let Henry go to heaven. She was a brave, smart kid. She hugged Henry, kissed him goodbye, handed him to Percy, and ran around the kennel to the car, sobbing.

  Lee Anne stared after her, wiping tears from her eyes. “We gave him to her on her first birthday, back before Rudy left me.”

  Henry’s head lolled over Percy’s arm as he breathed in short heavy gusts. Percy couldn’t stand to see him suffer. He hurried toward the kennel.

  “How much?” Lee Anne called after him.

  “No charge,” he said over his shoulder.

  She came running up behind him as he opened the kennel door. “What about . . . the body?”

  “I’ll take care of everything if you want me to.”

  “Oh, God, I . . . Thank you.” She kissed him on the cheek and then hurried back to her car.

  Now, standing over Henry at the counter, Percy rubbed the spot on his cheek where Lee Anne had kissed him. He heaved a sigh and withdrew the vials of ketamine and succinylcholine from a cabinet over the sink. He set them on the counter and opened the drawer where he stored the needles.

  He was unwrapping the package to extract a clean needle when Henry took a deep breath, held it, then let out a long slow breath, and went still. Percy set the needle down and put his hands on the dog’s flank. No movement. No trembling. Percy held his hand at Henry’s muzzle. No wind. His eyes were open, but glassed over. Percy rummaged around in a cabinet and found the stethoscope. He put it to Henry’s chest. Nothing.

  Percy placed his palms on the counter and sighed. “Goodbye, Henry.”

  He closed Henry’s eyes and walked over to a large floor-to-ceiling cabinet whose four shelves held pine boxes that he had made by hand. He withdrew a smaller one and carried it to the counter. He put Henry’s blanket in the box. He laid Henry on top of it and wrapped it around him.

  While he tucked Henry in, he heard a car drive into the gravel turnaround. All the dams in the dog run kicked up a big ruckus. Percy turned to see a tall, thin man with a wide-brimmed hat standing in the doorway, the late afternoon sunlight behind him. When the man stepped into the kennel out of the glare, Percy could see him clearly, a colored man wearing the tan uniform of the sheriff’s office.

  Percy had never met Karson Deford, but he’d heard about him. People cut Sheriff Grundy to shreds when he hired him. “Boy claims his wife got sick so he quit his state trooper job,” Rollo scoffed. “How much you wanna bet the state fired him? Cole Grundy’s the only sheriff in Virginia dumb enough to hire a colored
boy who can’t even hold down a job with the no-account state police.” Five years later, the trash talk continued, especially among diehards like Rollo.

  “Afternoon,” Deford said to Percy. “Are you Mr. McDibble?”

  Percy nodded. “You lookin to buy a pup?”

  “No, sir.” Deford crossed the room and extended his hand. “Karson Deford.”

  They shook.

  Deford looked past Percy at the pine box on the counter.

  “Neighbor’s dog,” Percy said. “Lung cancer.”

  “That’s too bad.” He stepped around Percy. He looked at Henry and touched him gently. Then he picked up one of the vials on the counter. “Succinylcholine,” he said. “You got this drug from Ashburn Animal Hospital, right?”

  Percy nodded.

  “You ever sell succinylcholine to anyone?”

  Percy’s gut clenched. “Creasy told me not to sell it,” he said.

  Deford half smiled. “But you sold it anyway.”

  Damn, Percy thought. He had made one mistake since he started the kennel, and he knew at the time it would come back to bite him. So be it. Might as well fess up to it. Like Momma says, you tell one lie, you’ll have to tell a hundred to cover it up.

  “I sold ketamine and succinylcholine to a man to put his dogs down,” Percy said. “Creasy told me not to sell the drugs to anyone, but I felt sorry for him.”

  “What’s the man’s name?”

  “Ray Middleditch.”

  That seemed to throw Deford off track. “Middleditch,” he repeated, frowning. “You ever sell succinylcholine to Dr. Hotchkiss?”

  Percy shook his head.

  Deford looked down at the floor. He seemed to take a few moments to get Doc Hotchkiss off his mind. Then he said, “When did you sell succinylcholine to this man Middleditch?”