Stillborn Armadillos (John Lee Quarrels Book 1)

by Nick Russell

  "Paw Paw, for them to be born dead alongside the road there had to be a live one to give birth, right?"

  "There's another one right there. That's two of them in what, a quarter of a mile?"

  "Yeah, so what?"

  "So we've seen two dead ones. Have we seen any live ones?"

  "No, we haven't."

  "Well, there you have it," Paw Paw said, slapping the steering wheel for emphasis. "Stillborn armadillos. I'm telling you, John Lee, I don't know how the scientific community has overlooked this all these years. One of these days I'm gonna write a paper on it and send it up to the Smithsonian, there in Washington, D.C. You just wait and see, I'm gonna do it!"

  Before John Lee could reply, Paw Paw made a hard right turn with no warning, throwing him sideways in his seat and then bouncing him off the roof of the Wagoneer.

  "Jesus Christ, Paw Paw, are you trying to kill us both?"

  "Nope, I'm just driving up this here power line road to take you where you want to go."

  They thumped down into a dip and back up again with a tooth rattling jolt.

  "You might want to hang on to your gonads," Paw Paw advised. "It's gonna get rough up here in just a little bit."

  Chapter 28

  Describing the rough track paralleling the power lines as a road was quite a stretch of the imagination, but they took it for some distance before Paw Paw finally stopped the Jeep.

  They got out, and he said, "Let me see, I think it's just over there a little bit."

  "You think? How can you tell? It all looks the same to me."

  The area was a mass of trees and brush and there did not seem to be anything discernible about this particular location from any other they had passed, but Paw Paw set off through the waist high tangle like a homing pigeon.

  "Why don't you slow down before you get bit by a rattler or something?"

  "Oh, hell, John Lee, if I was worried about things like that I wouldn't have lasted a day with FPL. When people's power goes out, do you think they care about a bunch of critters minding their own business out in the middle of the woods?"

  John Lee was in excellent physical condition, but he still had to work to keep up with his grandfather's long strides. Mosquitoes and gnats flew in his face and he had to constantly wave them away. At one point he walked into a massive web from a golden silk spider and cursed as he tried to wipe it off his face, hoping none of the big arachnids were on him.

  Eventually Paw Paw stopped and said. "Here we are."

  At first John Lee couldn't tell the difference between this and any place else they had walked past, but then Paw Paw pointed to some old boards. "There used to be more, but most of it has probably rotted away or been overgrown. See over there, that straight line? There aren't many straight lines in nature."

  They walked to the spot Paw Paw had indicated and he kicked with his foot, uncovering weathered and crumbling concrete.

  "This was probably part of a foundation for one of the buildings."

  "Could be," John Lee said. "From what I hear, most of the workers lived in wooden shacks. But they may have had something here. I know there was a camp store and things like that."

  "Yep," Paw Paw said walking the length of the line, then making a left turn. He followed the foundation around a roughly 10 x 20 foot rectangle.

  Once he looked past the trees and brush, John Lee began to see how the camp may have once been laid out. They dug around and found some pieces of heavy rusted metal, numerous flattened rusty cans, lots of broken glass that had come from bottles, and other trash that indicated that at one time people had lived out their lives in this place.

  "I'd love to come out here with a metal detector and see what I could find," John Lee said.

  "Probably a whole lot more of the same," Paw Paw replied.

  John Lee took his GPS from his pocket and found the location he had marked for the construction site where the skeletons had been found.

  "2.9 miles overland to where we found the skeletons."

  "Make sense that they probably came from here," Paw Paw said. "Now what?"

  "I don't know," John Lee admitted, looking around. He took the blow up of the map that Sheila had copied for him. "Do you suppose we could find this other one over here?"

  "It would be a crapshoot. I knew where this one was from being up on the power poles and seeing, but otherwise how would we have ever known it was here?"

  "Yeah, you're right."

  "In this country you could be ten feet from something and not know it," Paw Paw said. "If you want to, we can look around, but I don't know of any roads or trails going off in that direction."

  "No use breaking our necks or getting lost back there," John Lee said.

  He marked the camp's location on his GPS so he could find it again and they spent another hour prowling around, but all they found was more trash from long ago. John Lee stared at the old turpentine camp and wondered about the people who had lived and worked here. Their lives had been so different than his own, toiling from sunrise to sunset six days a week for little pay, always getting deeper and deeper into debt to the company with no hope of escaping their situation except by fleeing, hoping they could outrun the company's horse mounted posse and their dogs. Some may have made it, but he knew that most didn't. He wondered if the three poor men whose skeletons they had found had been among those who been hunted down and suffered the swift justice of the brutal system.

  ***

  Every law enforcement officer in Somerton County, from the deputies and the small city police force to the state patrolmen who came through were on high alert, aware that at any time bullets could ring out and the sniper could strike again. He did, but this time around, the results were tragic.

  Maybe the shooter had aimed to miss, like he had every other time, or maybe he had gotten bolder. Either way, Ray Ray Watkins paid the price.

  People are creatures of habit, and one habit that nearly every Somerton County deputy seemed to have was to park at a wide pull off on the shoulder of Cemetery Road, six miles outside of town. From there, the road ran straight as a yardstick for over two miles. It was a favorite place for teenagers to drag race, testing their cars and their skills against one another. Over the years more than one unfortunate youngster had died or been maimed in accidents on that stretch of road, and deputies knew that if they went out there late in the day, there was always a good chance of interrupting a race and writing a ticket or two.

  Ray Ray was parked there late Sunday afternoon, waiting for any action that might come along. He never saw the shooter hidden behind a tombstone in the cemetery, he never knew that he was breathing his last when a large fly flew past his face. He didn't know how it had gotten into the car, since he had the windows up and the air conditioning on. But twice now it had buzzed him, and he didn't plan to let it happen a third time. He rolled up the magazine he had been reading, turned sideways in his seat, and leaned over the back of it looking for the irritating thing. That's when the back window exploded in a shower of glass and the bullet plowed into his forehead before exiting in a misty cloud of gore.

  There wasn't much traffic on Cemetery Road and nobody thought much of the police car sitting there, since it was a common sight. It was only when a couple from out of town, lost and dangerously low on gas, pulled in to ask the officer where they could find the closest station or convenience store that his body was found, slumped sideways across the front seat of his patrol car.

  Chapter 29

  County and state police cars, an ambulance, and two vans from the State Crime Lab were parked along the shoulders of the small two lane road. Many deputies had tears in their eyes as they tried to go about the job of processing the crime scene. They had all seen death in its many forms before, and in a small county like Somerton, oftentimes the victims were people they knew. Neighbors, people they had gone to school with, friends from their church, softball league teammates. It was never easy, but they all knew it came with the job.

  But Ray Ray Wa
tkins had been one of their own, and that made all the difference in the world. Every one of them had worked alongside him, had shared meals with him during their shift breaks, had depended on him to have their backs, just like they had his. And every deputy knew that it could just as easily be them lying there dead in the front seat of the police car.

  Their emotions ranged from disbelief to profound grief to rage, and back again. "Who would want to hurt Ray Ray? Why, he never had an enemy in the world!" "This just can't be happening. I keep thinking it's a nightmare and I'm going to wake up." "We need to find the prick who did this and we need to take him out once and for all!"

  Normally someone who never passed up an opportunity to preen for the news cameras, D.W. had ordered deputies to keep the media at a distance and tell them he would issue a statement later, but right now the top priority was investigating the crime scene and taking care of his people.

  "From all appearances, I'd bet the shooter was over there in the cemetery," said Ralph Doherty, a state crime scene technician.

  Ray Ray's cell phone began to ring again from inside the car, like it had over a dozen times. John Lee looked at D.W., who looked at Doherty. "That's his wife calling."

  "Do you want to answer it?"

  "No, sir, I don't. But somebody has to. I imagine by now she's goin' crazy."

  The sheriff looked at John Lee, who nodded and reached inside the car to retrieve the phone from the dashboard. He pushed the answer button and said, "Hello."

  "Oh, thank God, Ray Ray... I heard about a deputy being shot and I kept calling and calling."

  "Marcella, it's not Ray Ray, it's John Lee."

  "John Lee? Where's Ray Ray?"

  "Marcella...."

  "I want to talk to Ray Ray. I'm out here on the road and they won't let me in and I just want to talk to him. I just want to know he's okay."

  "You stay there, Marcella. I'll be right down."

  "No. No, no, no! No, don't you come down here, John Lee! I want Ray Ray. I want my husband."

  "Marcella..."

  All he heard was a scream and then the call ended.

  ***

  "That poor woman. Two little kids at home and another one in her belly. It ain't right, John Lee. It just ain't right!"

  It was after 2 AM and John Lee felt dead inside. It had seemed like he was in a trance as he went through the motions of helping to process the crime scene, filled out endless reports, tried to comfort his fellow deputies, and then drove to the hospital in Perry to check on Marcella Watkins, who had collapsed when he and D.W. had delivered the news that her husband had been murdered.

  They were driving back to Somerton County, D.W. behind the wheel of his white Tahoe. John Lee watched the white lines of the highway unfold ahead of them, but all he could see in his mind's eye was Ray Ray's bloody body. That and the look of anguish on his widow's face.

  "I'm tellin' you somethin' and I want ya' know I mean it. When we catch this son of a bitch, if he gives you any excuse at all, blow him away. You pass the word out to the rest of the guys, okay?"

  "Yeah, I think everybody feels that way right now, D.W., but is that right? We're the police, not judge, jury, and executioner."

  "Ain't nobody respects the law more'n I do, You know that. But whoever did this to poor Ray Ray, far as I'm concerned he don't deserve anythin' more than what he did to him. Only difference is, I want him to know it's come'n. And why."

  As tired and as emotionally wrung out as he was, John Lee was still surprised at his father-in-law's words. He had always thought of D.W. as more politician than lawman, more concerned with the next election than the case at hand, except for possibly how that case might impact his political future. This was a whole different side to the man, one he had never seen before.

  "I know I told you to keep workin' on those skeletons, but put that on the back burner for now, John Lee. There ain't nothin' more important than findin' the bastard that shot Ray Ray."

  John Lee agreed with that. The first shooting out at the construction site while they were excavating the crime scene had led him to believe that it was tied into the deaths of the men they found there. But the subsequent attacks showed that whoever was doing them was on a vendetta against the Sheriff's Department for something, and there was little likelihood it had anything to do with whatever had happened to those men so many years ago.

  ***

  Early Monday morning, heavily armed deputies raided the home of Dennis McRae, the older brother of Earl McRae The same brother who had provided his alibi for the day Greg Carson's patrol car had been shot at by the sniper. They brought in Dennis, his wife Georgette, and Earl's son, Lonnie.

  "I swear to God, I didn't have anythin' to do with any of the shootings. Good Lord, man, just because my name is McRae don't mean I'm as crazy as my brother!"

  "You think it's just a coincidence that Deputy Carson and Deputy Watson arrested your brother for drunk driving, and both of them got shot at? And now one of them is dead? Dead right after we arrested Earl?"

  "I don't know nothin' about that," Dennis insisted. "I'll put my hand on the Bible and swear to it, or take a lie detector test, or whatever you want me to do!"

  Fig's face was red and he leaned so close into the other man's that spittle sprayed him when he said. "Oh, you're gonna take a lie detector test, all right. And when it shows that yer lyin' to me I'm gonna see that I'm sittin' right there in the front row when they stick a needle in your arm for killin' that deputy!"

  "I didn't kill nobody. I swear I didn't. I keep tellin' you, I'm not like Earl. Not like him at all. I mean we're kin and all that, but he was trouble from the day he was born. You check my record, I've never had so much as a speedin' ticket. I'm a deacon at Grace Lutheran Church. You can ask anybody from there, I was there at the church yesterday afternoon helpin' get ready for Sunday night services. Poor old Sister Standridge, she had an accident when she was leavin' Sunday mornin' services and I was steam cleanin' the carpet."

  "An accident? What kind of accident? I don't remember any reports of an accident out by the church yesterday."

  "Not a car accident, you know, an accident."

  "No, I don't know! You start talkin' straight to me, mister, or you're never goin' to see light of day again."

  "She crapped herself! Poor old lady's 86 years old and she usually wears those Depends or whatever you call 'em. I guess she ran out or somethin'. I don't know. Anyhow she made a mess when she stood up from the pew and started walkin' out after mornin' services was over. Poor old woman was humiliated. Some of the ladies took her in the bathroom and got her cleaned up, and I told Reverend Leyendecker that I'd rent a steam cleaner and come back and get things cleaned up and ready for evenin' services. You can check with Christopher Rosenfeld, too. He came down and opened up the Ace Hardware for me so I could rent the cleaner. Had to call him at home, since he's closed on Sunday. I went home and changed clothes, then went and picked up the steam cleaner and went back to the church. Some of the other men from the congregation helped out and we figured while we had the machine anyway we'd steam clean the whole carpet. We moved all the pews and worked all afternoon. It took longer than we thought it was goin' to, so we wound up hav'in evenin' services in the Fellowship Hall because the carpet in the church was still too damp to walk on."

  Flag looked at Bob Patterson and said, "Make some calls. See if his story checks out."

  Bob left the room and Flag turned back to Dennis. "I'm tellin' you right now, McRae, if your story don't hold water, you and me are goin' to have a problem."

  Bob was back in twenty minutes and motioned for Flag to join him out in the hallway.

  "Man's story checks out, just like he said. Reverend Leyendecker says he's a good man, that Dennis has even come to him to ask him to pray for Earl and his family because of the direction their lives are headed. I don't think he's our man, Flag."

  "What about Earl's son? Not the one we arrested, the other one? The one that was staying with the uncle and his wife?
"

  "His name is David, I know him. I don't think so. Just like the difference between Earl and Dennis is like day and night, it's the same way with the two brothers. Jackson, the one we've got in custody, who came at John Lee with that hammer? He's a psycho just like his dad. But David, he's a... I guess we can't say retarded anymore, but he's real slow. My wife had him in her fifth grade class for two years in a row. She said he was a good kid, never gave her any trouble, but he just wasn't able to grasp even basic stuff. He played Little League for a while when he was younger and half the time he couldn't remember which direction to run when he hit the ball. He stopped coming when his dad showed up one night all liquored up and got into an argument with the umpire and caused a big scene."

  "Shit," Flag said. "I was sure Ray Ray's killin' was revenge for us lockin' up those others." He turned and stared at the door of the interview room, then said, "Cut him and his wife and the kid loose."

  Watching him walk away, Bob shook his head and said, "Least he could do is apologize to the man in there for us showing up like we did and dragging them in here while they were still half-asleep."

  "Have you ever known Flag to apologize for anything?"

  "No, John Lee, I haven't."

  "Doesn't mean we can't."

  Dennis McCrae looked up when they came back into the room, his eyes hopeful. "Did you talk to Reverend Leyendecker? Did he tell you I was at the church all day yesterday?"

  "Yes, sir, he did," Bob said sitting down across the table from him. "You're in the clear, Mr. McCrae."

  The man, who looked so much like his brother but who was so very different, seemed to sag with relief and tears came to his eyes. "I wish... I wish Earl would get on the straight and narrow. I really do. Him and his wife and Jackson, they're just... they need the Lord's help but they won't take it. David and the two little girls, we try to show them there's another way, but it's hard when that's all they've ever known or seen."