“Well, do you know anybody that may have put them there?” The sheriff was being gentle with Hugh. He didn’t want to get him upset and worry poor old Annie.
“I guess some son-of-a-bitch kilt ’em and figured nobody would find ’em there fer awhile is all I can figure.” Hugh couldn’t carry on the simplest conversation without cursing.
“Okay, is there anybody…….”
In the middle of the sheriff’s question, one of the deputies that was searching the house yelled for them all to come there. The sheriff and the state investigators walked into Hugh’s bedroom. The deputy was standing at the tiny closet, pointing inside. It was full of nice dress shirts and dress pants that anybody who knew Hugh could ever imagine him wearing. There were also some expensive dress shoes lying in the floor, lined up neatly.
The deputy looked at the sheriff, then at the investigators. “Sheriff, you’ve known Hugh a long time,” he said, “have you ever known him to wear duds like these?”
The sheriff shook his head. “Hugh could never afford these kinda clothes. Hell, he can barely make enough to buy groceries and keep his lights turned on. Have you searched the rest of the house?”
“All except that little room in the back where Snake sleeps,” the deputy answered.
“Well you might as well look there, too. It ain’t no bigger than a chicken coup, so it won’t take a minute.”
The sheriff walked back in the kitchen where Hugh was sipping his free coffee. “Hugh, you sure do have some awful nice clothes in there. I ain’t never seen you wear any of ’em.”
“Yeah, Snake brung them home to me. Said somebody give ’em to him. Wouldn’t never tell me who it was.”
The deputy walked in the room with more nice clothes folded across his forearm. “Found these in Snake’s room, sheriff.”
The sheriff looked back at Hugh. “I guess these came from the same place.”
“Damn shore did,” Hugh answered, taking a big gulp of coffee.
One of the investigators from the state spoke up, “Looks like we have enough circumstantial evidence to make an arrest, sheriff.”
Sheriff White was pinching the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger, “Now just wait a minute. I’ve known Hugh for thirty-five years, since both of us was just kids. I know he wouldn’t kill nobody. Hell, he wouldn’t hurt a damn fly unless it pissed him off.”
The investigator smiled and said, “Well, maybe those guys or gals that were in those barrels pissed him off.”
The sheriff motioned for the investigator to walk out the back door with him. Once they were away from everyone else the sheriff said, “Hell, we can’t arrest a man just for havin’ clothes in his house he claims somebody gave him, or gave his boy.”
“No, but a man with a bunch of clothes he can’t afford, and two barrels full of dead people, well that might get the district attorney’s attention, don’t you think? Let’s at least take him in for questioning and get him away from his house and family. He’s too comfortable here.”
“Alright, we’ll take him to the station and question him, but we’ve got to let him know he’s not under arrest for anything.”
“Of course we don’t want to arrest him. He’ll lawyer up if we do.”
Sheriff White didn’t like this investigator at all. And to make matters worse, he had a Yankee accent. A transplant from somewhere up North.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Deputies had watched the William’s property all night until the investigation could resume the next morning. Forensic experts had been called in for the day and were due any time, as well as chemists who were summoned to try and identify what sort of solution had been used to dissolve the bodies.
The persistent detective from the state troopers department had taken over the interrogation of Hugh Williams the night before after Sheriff White had gotten nowhere. The detective, whose name was Baker, told the sheriff he was too soft and could not be objective, given his long relationship with the suspect. But he too had failed to get anything out of old Hugh, other than a considerable amount of cursing. After about four hours of non-stop questioning and at least two gallons of coffee, they took Hugh home.
“I ain’t gonna be worth a damn tomorrow,” he told the sheriff when he let him out of the car at about 1 A.M. “Y’all kept me up all damn night. Some folks has got to work for a livin’.”
“Sorry about that Hugh,” the sheriff apologized, “it was that damn Yankee detective. I never would have made you go to my office in the first place.”
When all the experts had arrived, they started examining the solution that had been left in the barrels. They quickly ruled out sulfuric acid, surmising that if the bodies had been in sulfuric acid very long at all, the bones would have been at least semi- liquefied as well. They all agreed that it was most likely some sort of lye solution. Mixed the right way with water, lye would be very efficient in dissolving a human body and would still leave most of the bones intact.
Ben Goodman and Wally Yates had been put in charge of the continued search of the property. They had been told by Detective Brown to ‘leave no stone unturned.’ Easy for him to say. He wasn’t the one having to dig through all of old Hugh’s junk in the ninety-five degree heat. Hugh’s barn, where he kept his mule and milked his two cows, had been gone over with a fine tooth comb. The smaller barn, where the hay and various hand tools were kept, along with huge piles of worthless junk, would take a while.
Sheriff White had slept later than he meant to after the late night spent with Hugh and the annoying and abrasive detective. He had missed supper with his family after all, and decided he would at least stay and have breakfast with them.
When the sheriff arrived just after noon, the place was bustling with activity. There were state detectives walking around in the yard and going in and out of the house. Poor old Annie is probably a nervous wreck, he was thinking. He made his way down into the pasture and saw two men wearing gas masks and protective clothing gathering samples of the putrid sludge that was in the barrels. He decided to stay as far away from those barrels as possible. He would never forget that horrible odor. Just thinking about it made him queasy.
He was walking toward the barn where Detective Baker was standing, wishing he could avoid him too, when he saw Goodman and Yates walking out of the hay shed. Goodman had what appeared to be some kind of tool in his hand, examining it closely. Detective Baker apparently spotted them at the same time the sheriff did and started walking toward them.
The sheriff and detective walked up to the two deputies at the same time.
“What you got there, men?” Brown asked, taking the buck saw from Goodman’s hand.
They all looked at the saw, which was covered in blood stains and had what looked like human hair stuck to the teeth. Then Baker turned to the sheriff, “Looks like human hair to me. And I’d bet you a dollar to a doughnut that is human blood,” he said, pointing to the stains.
“That ain’t all,” Yates chimed in, “those chemist guys said the stuff they put in them barrels to dissolve the bodies was most likely lye.” He looked over at Goodman and then back at Baker. “Me and Ben found two full bottles of lye and about ten empty ones.”
Baker looked at the sheriff with a smug expression on his face. “Well sheriff, do you still believe Hugh Williams wouldn’t hurt a fly? Those bodies would most likely had to have been cut up to fit in those barrels. And what would anyone need with that much lye?”
Andrew White couldn’t believe it. Didn’t want to believe it. There had to be some mistake. But the evidence was there and he couldn’t dispute it. He started to feel queasy again. Almost as bad as the horrid odor had made him feel.
“Sheriff, why don’t you let me and some of my men go and pick him up. I know you two have known each other for a long time,” Baker said, actually looking like he felt sorry for the sheriff.
“That’s mighty kind of you, detective. But I reckon I need to be the one to go get him. That’s what they pay me for. Ben
, you and Wally bring your car and go with me. I don’t expect him to put up a fight, but hell, I didn’t expect him to be capable of this either,” the sheriff said, motioning toward the saw.
*****
Hugh and his two sons were about four miles south of his house, near Collinwood, cutting pulp-wood off the Higgins place. They weren’t working too far off Long Hollow Road. The sheriff turned onto the rutty little logging road that Hugh had worn down with his old truck. He had his windows rolled down and could hear the chain saws whining as they sliced through the timber. He drove about a hundred feet up the road and stopped his car, waiting for Goodman and Yates to pull up behind him. When they had stopped, the sheriff got out and the three lawmen started walking in the direction of the sound of the chain saws.
Frank saw them first and waved, smiling like he always did. He cut his saw off and waved both hands over his head to get Hugh’s attention. Hugh saw the sheriff but kept on working, not wanting to stop until he had cut completely through the felled tree. When the log was cut through, he stopped his saw and wiped the sweat from his face with an old checkered handkerchief. Snake had been running the winch that was loading the truck. He stopped what he was doing as well and jumped from the back of the truck to the ground.
These men were doing the hardest work the sheriff could imagine, in heat that would kill some men, and could barely make ends meet. Of course if Hugh didn’t spend a lot of his money on alcohol, things would be easier. But given the fact that he had a wife that was almost crippled and getting worse every day, who really needed full time care he couldn’t provide, and then two sons, who were hard workers, but were most likely not mentally capable of making a living on their own, the sheriff could kind of understand why a man would want an escape from cruel reality.
Snake asked the sheriff if he wanted a cool drink of water. The sheriff thanked him and told him no. Then he looked at Hugh, who looked beaten down from the hard work and little sleep he had gotten the night before. The sheriff had to do his job, no matter how hard it was. He decided not to tell Hugh he was under arrest until they were in the car and on their way to the sheriff’s office. He didn’t want to upset Snake and Frank.
“Hugh, I need you to come with me. I’ve got a few more things I have to clear up. I know you need to work, but this has to be done.”
“Alright then,” Hugh said, looking down at his old ragged work boots. “I’m plum tuckered out today anyhow from not sleepin’ last night. Let’s go git this over with. Now by god, you can’t keep me up all night tonight, though.”
Hugh got in the car with the sheriff as Snake and Frank watched.
“Daddy, what do you want us to do?” Snake asked.
“Just load everthang up and go on home, boys. Frank, you drive the truck, but be keerful. We’ll git a fresh start in the mornin’.”
As the sheriff started backing his car up, Snake yelled, “You’ll be home for supper won’t you? I’m cookin’ pinto beans and corn bread tonight.”
The sheriff had to look away from Snake and Frank and try to control the big lump that was in his throat. What in the world is gonna happen to Annie and those boys?
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
We were walking down the dirt road from the old grist mill dam when we saw an old pick-up truck approaching. Me, Glenn and Tom had just helped Randall Robins get in his hay and had walked down to the creek to jump in the cool water and rinse away the stinging, itchy straw that clung to our sweaty bodies.
Jack Bynum pulled up beside us, his left arm hanging out the window of his truck. “Reckon you boys could help me if I paid you a little? My old bull busted down the fence and got over in Hugh Williams pasture and I can’t get him up by myself.”
I couldn’t think of anywhere I had rather not be than Hugh Williams pasture in light of what had just been found there two days before. But we were all raised to believe that you always helped a neighbor in need, and a couple of extra dollars on top of what I’d just earned wouldn’t be bad either. So we all agreed to help Mr. Bynum and jumped in the back of his pick-up.
There were still a couple of unmarked cop cars on Hugh’s property when Mr. Bynum pulled the truck over on the shoulder of the road. We jumped out and asked him where he’d last seen the bull, thinking more about the cop cars and the bodies that had been found in a liquid state, than the actual task at hand. He told us that he had seen him chasing one of Hugh’s milk cows down on the creek bank, and he figured the reason his bull got out was because the old cow was in heat.
When we crossed the fence over into Hugh’s pasture, one of the cops who was sitting in his car got out and asked what we were doing. He told us that this was a crime scene and we weren’t allowed on the property. When Mr. Bynum told him about his bull, he looked us over and must have decided we didn’t look much like crazed killers. Of course Hugh Williams didn’t look like one either.
“Well, go ahead,” the cop told us reluctantly. “But be as quick as you can and let me know when you leave. Don’t touch anything or take anything off the property.”
We nodded, stating that we understood and accepted his terms and began walking in a fast pace toward the creek. The shade of the trees along the creek was a welcoming sight. It was a hot day and I was completely dry from our little swim we’d had earlier.
Mr. Bynum stopped and put his hands on his hips, looking up and down the creek. “Boys, let’s split up and see if we can find him that way. If one of you sees him, just yell real loud. If we can git him hemmed up down there in the corner where the gate is, I believe he’ll cross the creek and go through it. He’s probably mounted that old cow a hundred times by now. Maybe he’s got it out of his dern system. But be careful. An old horny bull can git kinda fractious sometimes.”
Well, this was wonderful. If we hadn’t been in the wrong place at the wrong time, I could be resting right now in my cool bedroom, smelling what Momma was cooking for supper, listening to my new Eagles tape. Mr. Bynum would have found someone else to help him. Instead, I was trying to find a bull that weighed almost a ton, that was horny, and I was going to try to separate him from the one thing that could relieve his horniness. I was pretty sure he was not going to go without a fight. On top of that, all of this was taking place on the property where two people who had been murdered were found in barrels, their bodies reduced to a gruesome, stew-like substance. What a glorious day this had turned out to be.
I started walking down the creek bank with the ambiguous feeling that I wanted to find the bull and get this over with, and at the same time hoping one of the others found him first. The water level of the creek had gone down considerably in the last couple of weeks like it always did in the hot, dry summers. I had my head down looking for hoof prints, which was crazy, because the whole creek bank was covered in them. Hugh’s cows came here to get water and would stay in the cool shade most of the day in the summertime.
Not watching where I was going, I tripped over a sizable mound of dirt that looked out of place on the otherwise smooth creek bank. It looked like wild ferns were growing on top of it, but when I took a closer look, I noticed that the ferns had been uprooted. It looked more like they had been laid over the top of the mound, maybe to conceal it. If that was what they were trying to do, they had only done a half-assed job. I squatted down on my haunches to pull out what appeared to be a white root that was sticking out the side of the mound, near the bottom. It didn’t give at all, and felt cold and wet. Not giving up, I straightened my legs and placed my foot on the side of the mound for leverage and pulled harder. The root started to give and the small tree it was attached to began to emerge from the damp pile of dirt. I saw what I believed to be a piece of cloth that had been wrapped around part of the tree and brushed away the packed soil from it with my other hand. It was then that I realized that what I was pulling up was not a small tree at all. It was a man’s arm. What I had thought was a small piece of root was a finger, the blue nails caked with mud.
To my surprise, I didn’t screa
m like a girl. I calmly stepped back a few feet and yelled, “Y’all come here, quick!”
“Did you find him?” It was Tom’s voice.
“Just come here. Everybody.” I answered loudly.
Tom came trotting up before the others and looked at me as if I had lost my mind. He could see the mud on my hands that I hadn’t bothered to wipe off. I didn’t say anything, just pointed to the partially exposed arm that looked like it belonged to a mannequin.
When Tom finally realized what it was, he jumped back and shouted, “Oh, my lord. Is that a…oh,… that….that ain’t real.”
“Yeah, it’s real, Tom.” I said, watching the color rapidly drain from his face.
Neither of us said a word as Glenn and Mr. Bynum walked up at the same time. We just kept looking from the arm back to each other.
“Well? What is it?” Glenn finally asked, thinking it must be some kind of joke.
Me and Tom pointed at the same time. “It’s that,” Tom said, waving his pointed finger.
“Oh my God. Not another one.” Mr. Bynum muttered under his breath.
Glenn looked like he was going to faint, so I grabbed his arm, “Are you alright? You’d better sit down,” I said, pulling him away from the body. At least I assumed there was a body that the arm belonged to. After hearing what was found in those barrels, I didn’t know if it was attached or not.
Mr. Bynum looked at us, a grave expression on his face. “Boys, I wish I hadn’t of brought you here. Y’all ain’t got no business havin’ to see somethin’ like this at your age.”
“It’s okay, Mr. Bynum,” I said. “Somebody had to find it sooner or later. I can’t believe those cops missed it. I guess it’s a good thing you did bring us here.”
Mr. Bynum shook his head and said, “I guess we better go up there and tell that lawman what you found, George.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Long Holler Road - A Dark Southern Thriller Page 7