Elvin Bodner's Stand

by Ronald Gaines

  “What ain’t makin’ sense to me is why fight him? Why didn’t Raskin just assassinate him? Why not just shoot him in the back of the head like he did Ken Stepp?”

  “Maybe he had somethin’ special in mind – somethin’ slower, with a lot more suffering. I wouldn’t put it passed him,” reasoned Sheriff Andrews.

  “Of course Carson, that’s assuming Cash Raskin did this.”

  “Who else would have done it? First, the Assistant Solicitor is killed, just like Raskin said he would be. Now Bodner’s gone, just like Raskin predicted. It’s that dirtbag, no doubt about it.”

  The Sturn County Sheriff wasn’t able to respond before Gordon Terry walked up. The Detective was shaking his head as he approached.

  “Sheriff, the crime scene people have gone over everything in, on and around that stand. No usable finger prints, no vehicle tire tracks except right at the edge of the road when Brantley’s people let the hunters out and no sign of blood anywhere. More than twenty people have been searching the area for three hours. What you see right over there is pretty much all we got,” said Terry, pointing toward the Bodner stand.

  “Okay Gordon, when CSI finishes up why don’t we call everybody in and knock off until tomorrow.”

  Carroll Swicegood and Myron Marks stayed the night, hoping for some good news. After getting little more than cat naps in living room chairs, they left early the next morning. The shock and distress was numbing. Carroll offered no jokes that day. Neither of them would ever return to the Brantley Hunting Lodge.

  29 Buenos Dias Senor

  Sunday, April 18, 2010 6:25 AM

  The seasoned criminal had driven hard all night and managed to reach the North Carolina line on US 601. His actions the previous night would change things for Millard Raskin. Not the least of which would be to reinvigorate the efforts of agencies pursuing him.

  He now needed to do two things; get rid of Carla’s car with its blood-soaked trunk and put as much distance between himself and Sturn County as possible.

  The first was accomplished in a hospital parking lot where he was able to steal an inconspicuous late model four-door sedan. Carla’s car was hidden in plain sight, parked squarely in the middle of the most heavily used section of the hospital lot.

  Raskin’s plan was to make a big left turn, taking any major highway he could find that headed west. He planned to ride Interstates for a while and then move over to paralleling U.S. and state highways for a few hundred miles. The road map in the glove compartment depicted the entire United States. It was one of those plastic-covered foldouts, a little wider than the steering wheel. Although not highly detailed, it would prove perfectly adequate for his purposes.

  Cash Raskin had just over seven-hundred dollars in his pocket he had recently stolen from the back corner of a closet shelf. Carla hid the cash there in a small jewelry box. While she was at work, Raskin searched the house several times, looking for anything that might help him with his ultimate plan.

  In addition to the .25 semi-automatic given to him by Pumpkin Mize, he had taken the revolver Carla kept in the lower drawer of her bedside table. The box of ammunition was kept in the opposite corner of the same drawer. Both were moved to the glove compartment of Carla’s car, adding to Raskin’s firepower.

  Once escaping from the Sturn County jail, it was proving to be quite a run for the punk turned cold-blooded killer. He had come by two stolen vehicles as easily as could be expected. He successfully manipulated a tragically-misled benefactor who met his every request. A small army of law officers continued to bump into one another trying to pick up his trail. Now he was heading west in an almost new vehicle with nearly a full tank of gas, money in his pocket, clean clothes in the back seat and protection from a choice in handguns. If his good fortune continued, the Mexican border was only a couple of days away.

  30 A Strategy Session

  Monday, April 19, 2010 11:00 AM

  Butch asked Scott to call Broderick Adams and ask him to be at the Lodge for a meeting on Monday morning following the trouble at #12. Stephanie Powell, the closest thing to a public relations person at the Lodge, Dr. Preston Knowles, Scott, Butch and Faith Brantley were in attendance.

  “Broderick, I appreciate you being with us on such short notice and all the rest of you for being here, Dr. Knowles and Stephanie, it’s good to have you,” said Butch.

  “I certainly don’t want to sound too filled with self interest this morning. We have two men missing and that’s of grave concern. However, we probably would be well-served to talk about how this is going to affect our business.”

  “Mr. Brantley, I don’t think anyone here feels like you’re out of line talking about that. It could have bad consequences if there’s not some plan behind how you deal with bad press. Even if the press isn’t intending to harm, it can do it in the most fundamental way, by stirring up people’s fears,” said Knowles.

  “I think we all understand that. That’s the very reason we’re here Dr. Knowles,” replied Butch, feeling surprised at the man’s penchant for stating the obvious.

  First Broderick, let’s talk about our liabilities here?”

  The attorney reached into his briefcase and took out a sheet of paper. “Butch, this is exactly why we have these hunters sign a Liability Waiver before they take a step into the woods or walk out to the firing range,” said Adams, holding up and gently shaking the form.

  The younger Brantley was worried about the peculiar circumstances of the night before. “Broderick I understand that we could be pursued legally if a stand were to cave in and somebody break a leg or somebody end up in the hospital off of Sara Mae’s cookin’, but what is the situation if a guest is sitting in one of our stands, on our property and he or she is assaulted?”

  “Scott I don’t see any liability issue here. As always, the crux of the matter is negligence. There would have to be proof that the Lodge was negligent in the matter. It’s a brand new ruggedly-built hunting stand with latches and locks on every opening. How do we know Judge Bodner even had his door latched at the time of the invasion? Who’s being neglectful there? As I understand it, the metal latch on the door wasn’t engaged when Darnel and Myron Marks got there. Right now, I feel okay about the Lodge from a liability standpoint.”

  “Okay, thanks Broderick,” said Butch.

  “What are some thoughts on the public relations side of this? What position do we take?”

  Looking around the room, Stephanie took a shot at answering the question. “Well, I’m no expert on public relations, but it seems to me that we obviously express concern for the Judge and his family. We speak in a positive way about the efforts being made by law enforcement, and we remain confident that this guy is going to be caught any day. We proceed as though it’s business as usual.”

  “I think Stephanie is on to something important here,” said Scott.

  “This is a one-on-one kinda thing – Raskin and Bodner. It’s not a general threat to everyone that hunts the Lodge. In fact, hasn’t the danger sort of passed since this happened? I mean, that sounds awful, but can’t we find a way to make that point with our customers?” asked Scott.

  “It’s not that easy Scott,” said his dad.

  “There’s the whole stigma thing. We run the risk of becoming the place where, in peoples’ minds, you just aren’t safe. We become the place where bad things happen. Don’t forget now, we’ve been able to keep the story of David Bell kinda low key. It’s like Dr. Knowles said, when there’s double trouble and people’s fears get stirred up, folks figure the smartest thing to do is just stay away.”

  Butch’s words sunk in as everyone dealt with the reality of just what a sticky wicket they faced.

  31 The Banging Ladies’ Club

  Thursday, April 29, 2010 3:10 PM

  One of the liveliest, most colorful groups to hunt with the Brantley’s was The Lady Bangers – sixteen women from the Chesapeake Bay area of Maryland. They always came in December for deer and late April for hogs.


  The death of a founding member forced the group to cancel the December whitetail trip, but now they were in for a two-day hog hunt, April 30th and March 1st.

  The group’s arrival is something to see. Nine trailers pulled by an array of serious-looking vehicles. Three of the rigs are dressed out in decal schemes built around the outdoors they love and the game they hunt. The troop has been coming long enough to fully understand how and where the trailers should be set up. The whole process has a near-military precision about it. After a round of visits and greetings, along with some of Sara Mae’s good cooking for lunch, the squad likes to head out the afternoon they arrive to site in their rifles.

  Stand around the range with no hearing protection as they zero in the hardware and you’ll understand why they call themselves “The Banging Ladies’ Hunting Club”.

  While the fierce firing at the range numbed ears, the rifles lined up along the living room wall turned heads. Every brand you might imagine, many right off the shelf, a hand full of custom-made units, some dressed in all black and others in soft silver matched with solid wood stocks. Several sported stocks with colorful laminated designs. It looked like a real consumer’s dream armory.

  As varied as the lineup is, the one thing they all have in common is the one and one half inch 14-carat gold and porcelain medallion embeddedon the bolt-side of the stock –“The Banging Ladies’Hunting Club”.

  When the group’s in town, there’s little room or time for additional hunters. The camper parking is spoken for, as are the bedrooms, the seats around the dining room table and the preferred stand locations.

  On a hunt, no one has more fun than the current president, Myra Tarleton. Myra, a general contractor in Maryland, specialized in larger homes – a million dollars and up. In her late fifties, she has been through three husbands. And, according to one club member, was looking to tie up with her fourth.

  “Scott, someone was saying you had some trouble down here a couple of weeks back,” said Myra, sitting on the couch with Scott Brantley. These were words no one at the Lodge wanted to hear.

  “Yes we did. We had a Judge go missing. Looks like someone may have had a grudge or something from a past ruling he’d made. The Sheriff has a lot of people on the case, and it should be cleared up pretty quick.”

  “I’m sure you hope it is. That sort of thing might keep some hunters away if it gets a big play in the papers and all. But you don’t have to worry about us, we’re gonna be here loaded for bear, in case you come up with any of those,” said Myra, seemingly aware that Scott would like to hear her comments end on a positive note.

  Stand assignments are typically done behind the scenes by Lodge personnel. In a straight-forward manner, hunters are simply directed to the appropriate vehicle, taken to the assigned position and dropped off – not so with this competitive group from the shores of the Chesapeake – particularly when they are aware of the new options the Connor property makes available along the Turtle River.

  When a group forks over the amount of money the Bangers leave at the Lodge each year, the Brantleys are more than willing to open up the stand assignment process to some good old luck-of-the-draw.

  First, the group gathers around the large dining table, where Scott goes over a map highlighting the current stand setup. This year there are new locations, which makes this portion of the program even more interesting than usual.

  Next, sixteen stands are selected by Myra Tarleton and the vice president, Libby Bressler. By agreement of the entire group, excessive counseling and suggestions from the fourteen remaining members is held to a minimum – too many chiefs and all that. The only input asked for by Myra and Libby comes from Butch and Scott. Of course, historically successful locations are also taken into consideration.

  The third step is to put sixteen numbers in a bowl and have the drawing. The drawing order is done alphabetically by the member’s last name.

  Then, taking into consideration proximity, the sixteen stands are divided into four zones of four stands each. All members put in a twenty dollar bill for a pot of $320. The member bagging the largest hog over the weekend gets $160 and the zone scoring the most overall weight divides the other half. If she’s in the winning zone, this puts a hunter that may not even get a shot, in a position to double her money. The numbers aren’t big, but the members enjoy the spice it adds to the trip, not to mention a year’s worth of bragging rights.

  The next morning, Sara Mae and her daughter, Sybil, who’d come to help cook for the large crowd, prepared and sat out a breakfast of the first order.

  Darnel Stone was standing in the kitchen watching Sara Mae take a large tray of biscuits out of the oven when the first two Bangers walked into the dining room from the bedroom hall.

  “Here’s to the best two cooks and the best breakfast in all of South Carolina,” said Darnel proposing a toast with his coffee cup.

  “Wait, wait,” said Penny Prescott, pouring half a cup of orange juice for herself and Brenda Condello. Neither lady knew just how appropriate Darnel’s toast was until they had finished the thick-sliced bacon, homemade sausage, scrambled eggs, cheese grits, country style potatoes, biscuits, toast, dairy butter, peach preserves, cold orange juice and hot coffee.

  Twenty minutes before dawn on Friday, April 30, 2010 all sixteen members were settled in and ready for action on their annual trip to Franklin County, South Carolina.

  The group heading into the woods was a diverse lot. Members ranged in age from the mid-twenties to the mid-sixties. There were six brunettes, one set of ebony-haired identical twins, Etta and Elise Lamore, five blondes, one auburn-haired former Miss Congeniality, Tiara Aldrich, a beautiful silver-grey headed grandmother of ten named Millie Mateer (Pearly for short) and the unmarried twenty-eight-year-old redhead, Sheila Havens. Sheila was the newest member of the club and the one that sent Eddie Fulford and Darnel Stone’s heads spinning for a full two days.

  Tiara Aldrich was hunting in one of the older stands, #13, located right at the end of the cut through from stand #24 on the other side of Brantley Circle.

  In the dawn’s earliest glow, she heard the pack of hogs before she saw them. They were behind her and slightly to her left near the Turtle River. It sounded as though they were rooting, grunting, fussing and meandering more than taking a direct route to the road. Tiara, who looked like she could still compete in anybody’s beauty contest, quietly rolled her chair to the back side of the stand and placed the forearm across the wooden retaining banister.

  Alright, just keep easin’ on up this way you guys. I’m ready when you are.

  She tried using her binoculars to penetrate the morning haze. It helped only slightly, but it was enough to draw in a scene that made her roll the focus wheel a second time. The figure was as much a murky, ghost-like shape as anything else. Her strong impression though, was that someone was standing among the hogs, emptying the contents of a large bucket. Someone was feeding them, pausing several times to look in her direction.

  Abruptly, a boar and two of the shoats broke off from the group, trotting directly under her stand, across the road and into the field beyond. They stopped thirty or forty yards on the other side in the brushy broom straw. When Tiara spun back toward the woods and raised the binoculars for the second time, the shadowy images in the trees behind #13 were gone.

  After a brief pause, during which she managed to gather up her thoughts, Tiara took down the boar in the field. The radio call she expected was right on time.

  “You get him Tiara?” whispered Sheila Havens over the walkie-talkie. Her good friend was hunting in #12 just south of Tiara’s location.

  “Sure did.”

  “How big is he?”

  “I’m not quite there yet, but I think it’s a sow and she looked like maybe a hundred fifty pounds or so. I’ll give you a quick call when I get down there,” responded Tiara.

  “Sounds good,” said Sheila, pleased in knowing that Tiara’s shot was the only one she’d heard. It looked as though someone i
n her zone had taken the first hog.

  “Yeah Havens, I think she’s around a hundred thirty-five to a hundred and forty pounds. And thank goodness she’s dry.”

  By noon, all hunters had been picked up and were back at the Lodge. Three hogs were taken in the first morning hunt – Tiara’s and one each by Millie Mateer and Brenda Condello. All three were hunting in different zones; so three of the four groupings started the weekend with meat in the cooler and a step up on the $160. Tiara’s guess on her kill’s weight was close. The sow strung up at 146 pounds.

  When activity slowed back at the Lodge, Tiara’s mind jumped back to what she thought had been in the woods. That’s crazy. I’d sound crazy telling it. Better just write it off to my imagination. She never told anyone.

  Before heading out that morning, club members had been more interested in hot coffee and breakfast than giving their trailers a quick once over – not that they could have seen much in the dark. When they returned however, the Lamore twins were the first to find the alarming vandalism.

  “Hey, Elise, come back here and look at this,” said Etta, standing at the back of their twenty-six foot Shooting Star. Elise stepped around to the back of the trailer.

  “What the hell is that Etta?”

  “Looks to me like about a bucket’s worth of dried blood,” replied her sister, touching one of the dried runs down the trailer’s side.

  Elise stepped back a few paces and looked to her left and then to the right. One trailer in each direction had been given the same treatment. The three to get the dowsing were the ones with the custom vinyl decal wraps. The deed was done during the night or early that morning while everyone was at breakfast.

  It was the latest event in the continuing grizzly visitations at Brantley Hunting Lodge.

  32 The Repercussions Begin

  Friday, April 30, 2010 3:20 PM