by Lila Beckham
She had been inside Caledonia when the family lived there.
27
The Man Who Wasn’t There
Joshua could see the body sprawled face down through the doorway of the bedroom. It was bloated, and from the smell, he had been dead for quite a while.
Joshua covered his mouth with his kerchief and then stepped in for a closer look. Even without getting very close at all, he could tell the dead man was not Roy McGregor. Roy was bigger, and much taller than the dead man was.
Stokes looked toward Metcalf and then he looked back to the body.
“I thought maybe you could identify him, Sheriff.”
“I will have to get closer to do that, John,” Joshua said, thinking, Its one thing when you think you know who is dead, it is another when you’re thrown a curve ball like this. “Just give me a damn minute!” Joshua snapped.
Joshua had seen many a dead body, in all states of death and decomposition, but the hardest he had discovered, was when it was people he had known his entire life.
Roy was one if those.
He had known Roy since Roy started school. He remembered him as a cocky little feller even back then, but Roy got it honest, his daddy was the same way.
Joshua inched his way toward the body, making sure he did not step in any of the blood. He did not want to mess up any footprints or other evidence that might be present.
When he was standing at the dead man’s feet, he recognized him. The dead man appeared to be Joe Dyas.
Joe was a humble sort of man. He worked for one of the local flower nurseries and lived between the town of Wilmer and the Tanner William’s community.
Roy’s complexion was swarthy like Joe’s was, and he could see how someone might mistake the body for Roy; especially, with the body lying in Roy’s house, but the body most definitely was not Roy. It was Joe Dyas. Joe was a mulatto, what some referred to as a high yellow.
If Joshua remembered correctly, Joe was married and the father of three or four children.
Joshua wondered why Joe would even be at Roy’s house, much less lying dead from multiple knife wounds. Now that they had found out that Roy was not dead, they needed to find him; he had some explaining to do.
Joshua stepped out the kitchen door onto the back porch, lit a cigarette, and then stood gazing around. A group of about a dozen azalea plants caught his attention. They were in one-gallon plastic containers, the type the nurseries used. “That must’ve been why Joe was here,” Joshua mumbled under his breath, “to deliver the flowers.” Why he ended up dead, was a mystery.
“Sheriff, what do you want me to do?” John Metcalf asked as he walked up behind Joshua.
“I want this kept under wraps, at least until we can notify Joe’s next of kin. Don’t tell anyone that this isn’t Roy, and I mean no one, not even my deputies” Joshua said firmly.
“How can I do that?” asked John Metcalf, stating, “The coroner still has to bag him and tag him and get him out of here.”
Joshua thought on it a minute, not knowing who he could trust not to let it leak out that it was not Roy McGregor who was dead. He walked back through the house to the front door where Deputy Cook stood guard and called Jim Davis to him.
“Jim, I want you to guard the back entrance. Cookie, you keep this entrance covered. No one is to enter except the coroner and his helper. And, I do mean no one!”
“Yes, Sir!” both said simultaneously.
Joshua Stokes walked past everyone, got into his patrol car, and then headed toward Georgetown. He was headed to talk to Cassandra Bohannon’s folks.
Maybe they can shed some light on this situation, he thought to himself as he took the back roads through Cuss Fork. He came out about two miles south of the Bohannon’s farm and within five minutes was sitting in their driveway.
Joshua hated this part of his job, talking with friends and family of victims or suspects. For the time being, both Cassie and Roy were suspects; at least until they could be cleared, but he could not clear them lest he talk to them.
Jasper Bohannon was usually an intimidating man. He stood six foot five inches tall and weighed about 300 pounds, but he looked more like a big teddy bear sitting there in his kitchen, slumped over his coffee cup. His eyes betrayed his heart; Joshua could see that something had already deeply saddened him.
“Sheriff, I know why you’re here. You’re here to tell me that my Cassie is dead, ain’t you.”
“Why would you think that, Mister Bohannon?”
“Well, Sir, I got a call this morning, just before daylight. They told me there was dead bodies and blood all over Roy’s house!
They hung up after they said that, didn’t even give me time to ask em any questions. That was when I called the sheriff’s office. I wanted someone to check it out; I started to go myself, but I didn’t want to see my baby girl like that.”
“Mister Bohannon, there was a lot of blood, but the only body found at the scene was that of a local nursery worker, by the name of Joe Dyas. I was hoping you could tell me where Cassie and Roy were. Neither of them were there, nor was Cassie’s car.” Joshua could see the relief on Jasper’s face hearing that Cassie was not found dead.
“Boy that is a relief, Sheriff!” Jasper Bohannon exclaimed and Joshua could see him visibly sit up straighter as the weight lifted off his heart.
“Sheriff, I don’t know where Cassie and Roy are. I just hope they aren’t a laying dead somewhere else. I done told her and told her that I didn’t like her living there with Roy, specially out of wedlock and all, but you know how these young folks are these days; they want to do things their own way an all. She’s hardheaded like that. Thanks she’s grown because she’s over eighteen.”
“You said you got a call this morning, Mister Bohannon. What can you tell me about the caller?”
“Well, Sir, it was a man who called and he was talking low, like he didn’t want anybody to hear what he was a saying.”
“Did you recognize the voice?”
“No Sir, they was whispering and sounded gravelly voiced. They sounded downright evil, Sheriff.”
“Do you think it could have been Roy?”
“No Sir, I don’t. The voice sounded nothing like Roy. I’ve talked to Roy in all forms of life, sober, drunk, puking his guts out, he never sounded like that.”
“We will be in touch, Mister Bohannon,” Joshua said turning toward the kitchen door. “If you hear from Cassie, please give me a call, and Mister Bohannon,” Joshua said, stopping and looking him straight in the eye, “Don’t let this conversation go any further than this kitchen.”
“I won’t speak a word, Sheriff.” Jasper Bohannon said quietly. Although Joshua did not know him very well other than seeing him around for years, he knew that it would go no further, because he was a good judge of character, and he could tell that Jasper Bohannon was a man of his word.
Joshua drove back to Roy’s house the way he had come and as soon as he got there, he ordered his deputies to start canvassing the neighborhood. The neighboring houses were spaced out, not crammed against one another, but he still wanted them to go door to door and ask the neighbors if they had seen anything out of the ordinary.
The coroner had removed Joe Dyas’ body while he was at Bohannon’s farm, and now that it was moved, John Metcalf was going over the blood splatter with a fine-toothed comb. As soon as Joshua stepped into the house, he could see and hear the excitement in Metcalf.
“Sheriff, I have been following the blood trails around here and there is most definitely more than one starting point.I count two separate trails,” he exclaimed. “The perpetrator probably cut him or herself during the stabbing of the victim.”
“With the amount of blood present, that is definitely a possibility. I just hope we do not have more than one victim,” Joshua voiced his concern.
“Anything is possible, Sheriff. It is hard to tell without another body present. But as soon as I get through typing the blood from the different areas, maybe we’ll kno
w how many were involved.”
Joshua sat in his patrol car smoking and thinking, awaiting the deputy’s return from canvassing the neighborhood. He could not help but wonder the whereabouts of Cassie and Roy. Roy’s motorcycle was there, but not Cassie’s car.
The laundry could possibly be from the day before, or even before that. He wondered when the last time that anyone had seen Cassie or Roy was. He had forgotten to ask Jasper Bohannon when he had last talked with Cassie.
Joe’s body was beginning to bloat and smell. That meant he had been dead several days.
Had anyone reported Joe missing? If so, he was not aware of it, but there had been so much going on with the murder of the women and then his wreck… Sitting there, Joshua became painfully aware that he was out of touch with his responsibilities.
The deputies returned shortly and announced that no one admitted to seeing anything out of the ordinary and no one had seen Roy or Cassie for several days.
Joshua concluded that whoever called Jasper Bohannon, had to have been at the scene, but getting someone to admit it was going to be another thing.
It reminded Joshua of something he had read in a crime novel once about the man who wasn’t there. There were still way too many loose ends to tie up the investigation and those loose ends led to too much speculation on Joshua’s part.
What he needed was facts, not speculation. He could speculate until the end of time, but that would not solve anything. He needed to talk to Joe’s employer.
Joshua drove to Edgewood Nursery. He wanted to check with Bill Thrower and find out when Joe Dyas had made his ill-fated trip out to Roy’s house to deliver the azalea plants. He also wanted to know if Joe had been reported missing.
When he arrived at the office, Kitty Christian was sitting at her desk doing paperwork. Kitty was the wife of one of Joshua’s deputies and the secretary at Edgewood.
“Good morning, Sheriff. What brings you out here to the piney woods?”
“Morning, Kitty. How’s things been going?”
“You know how it is, Sheriff, same old shit, different day.” Kitty gave Joshua a searching look.
“I was wondering if Joe Dyas still works for Bill.”
“Well, yeah he does, Sheriff, but we haven’t seen Joe since last Thursday. I called his house to find out why he didn’t show up for work Friday morning, his wife said he called her Thursday evening and said the boss was sending him to Jackson, Mississippi, to pick up a load of plants.
I did not tell her that it was a lie; I wanted to give Joe a chance to explain. He hasn’t missed a day of work since he has been working here and if he felt a need to lie about his whereabouts, I figured it was something important.”
“Do you know if Joe delivered any azaleas to Cassie Bohannon or Roy McGregor?”
“Not that I know of, Sheriff, but Bill gives his workers a discount for their own personal use. Now, that does not always mean they use them for their own landscaping needs. I know Joe does side jobs. I just keep mum about it. I know he has a big family to support… Is Joe in some sort of trouble, sheriff?” Kitty asked with concern in her voice.
Joshua thought about it a moment, then decided to tell Kitty that Joe was dead.
“Joe was found murdered at Roy McGregor’s house this morning,” he said blandly, watching for Kitty’s reaction, which was one of stunned silence, before she burst out with an “Oh my Lord! Who in the world would want to hurt Joe? He is the most easygoing, humble man in the world!”
“We don’t know, Kitty. That is what I am trying to find out. What you have told me is more information than I had previously and it helps more than you know, thank you.”
“Well, I haven’t really done anything to help, Sheriff. This is some crazy shit if you ask me!”
“Yes, Kitty, it is some crazy shit. It is very perplexing too. I can see right now that there is more to this than meets the eye. Please, keep this to yourself, do not tell anyone, not even Bill, and please don’t Jerry either.”
“I won’t tell anyone, Sheriff.”
“I know Jerry is your husband, but we did not release any information this morning, even to my deputies. It is not that I do not trust my deputies, but things have a way of getting out. I do not want the news getting to Joe’s family before I can notify them myself. It just wouldn’t be right for them to hear about it out of the blue; now would it.”
“No Sir, it wouldn’t. I won’t say a word, Sheriff.”
Joshua walked to his car, lit a smoke, and then sat there thinking where to go next. It has been a very long day already and its not even noon yet, thought Joshua.
28
Buried Alive!
Emma coughed as dust from the cave-in settled around her. Another large chunk of earth had fallen into the cellar. It let a wide beam of sunlight stream into the darkness. She tried to stand, but her legs were weak, shaky and she feared they would not support her. After several attempts, she rose and walked to the end of the sunbeam.
She looked up and saw the tops of trees through the hole in the earthen roof.
There was still clumps of earth occasionally dropping down into the room from where she had fallen through the day before. Emma feared the entire ceiling would collapse and bury her alive.
With the larger opening above her, Emma could now see more of the room. The shelves that she had thought covered three walls did not quite cover the entire section on one wall; there was a door at the end of one set of shelves.
Emma moved toward the door, hoping it led to a way out of the cellar. The door was large and thick, and she figured she would have a hard time opening it, but when she turned the knob, it opened with ease. Emma peered into the darkness.
Not too far from the entrance, she could see sunbeams making their way into the darkened room, but it was still not enough light to see very well.
Emma did not know what was in the room, but it gave her an eerie feeling. It smelt moldy, and had a stink about it, like the yellow sulfur powder her grandfather mixed with Vaseline to rub on mangy dogs… Something in the room, did not feel human.
Emma swore she heard something skitter around after she opened the door.
She turned back into the room of shelves and looked for something she could use to see into the dark room. There were several kerosene lanterns on the shelves, but how would she light them? Emma moved toward the lanterns. Sitting on the shelf beside them was a flintlock. Emma had seen one before, in her grandfather Stringer’s garage. When the lever was squeezed, it emitted a spark. He used it to light propane torches.
She picked up one of the lanterns that still had kerosene in it and the flintlock and carried them to where the sunlight shone into the darkness. After feeling the wick to see if it was wet, Emma adjusted it and waited a few minutes for it to soak up the kerosene. Then, she positioned the flintlock over the lantern and flicked the lever several times before the wick caught fire.
Emma picked up the lantern and headed back toward the other room. The lantern lighted a good portion of the room, but she could not see into the corners.
As she walked into the room, she heard the skittering again. This time she saw movement against a far wall. Suddenly, a large rat appeared in the circle of lantern light, and then it was gone again.
Emma knew that mice and rats could get into places that many other critters could not. At first, she did not think anything of the rat being in there, but then she had to wonder if he had come through the earthen ceiling or was there a small tunnel that led into and away from the room.
Emma walked to each corner of the room, which was maybe twelve foot square, looking for signs of mouse and rat droppings. About middle ways of the second wall was the entrance to a small tunnel. It was about three and a half feet tall and she could see it was full of earthen debris, and the roots of some rather large trees.
Emma could feel fresh air coming through the tunnel; it smelt of mold and earth, probably from moss that had leached into the tunnel with the roots.
; Against another wall was stacked several barrels. When Emma was close enough to read the lettering on them, she slowly began backing out of the room.
The lettering said “Black Powder” in bold letters. Emma knew that black powder was extremely dangerous. It’s been here for over a hundred years! Emma whispered excitedly. However, it is probably extremely unstable, thought Emma as she backed away. Nevertheless, when she reached the safety of the other room, Emma began to think of ways she could use her discovery.
As the sunlight streaming into the room slowly dimmed, Emma knew that she would have to spend another night in the cellar and await daylight before she could again try to find a way out.
Emma had climbed the stairs that led to the heavy trapdoor, but had been unsuccessful in pushing it upward. She thought of stacking the chairs and trying to climb out through the hole in the ceiling, but she feared they or the ceiling would collapse and she would be hurt badly or the earth would bury her and smother her.
She was, at least temporarily, still a prisoner.
Exploring the room, Emma found many artifacts; some that were probably worth something to someone, but the main thing she needed was food and water.
The canned goods had been there way to long to be safe for consumption. The bags of dry goods were moldy and not fit to eat either, but she did consume a small bit of the moldy brown sugar. Its flavor was not what she expected, but at least she felt better afterward and was not as shaky feeling inside.
Emma pulled the clothes out of the pile in the corner, apologizing the entire time. She discovered more bones and several more skulls. She knew the skeletons most likely belonged to members of the Moffett family, or maybe even slaves. Emma did not want to disturb them, but she needed the material to form a makeshift bed.
After fashioning a bed, Emma tried to organize the bones. There were three adult size skulls and the smaller one that had rolled out of the first dress she had picked up. Her memory of the spirits surrounding her the first time she touched the clothes was fresh and Emma wondered if they would return to attack her again.