The Morelville Mysteries Collection

by Anne Hagan

  “Okay, well I have a suspicion that Perez might be the actual dealer. You just don’t drive a vehicle like that around here. He was probably passing the stuff through Rojas for convenience.”

  “You may just be right.”

  ###

  I was waiting at the station for my officers to return from the funeral. I hated having to come in on a Saturday but two murder cases inside of a week and few clues to the identity of the killers dictated my presence.

  I’d have gone to Ben Tracy’s funeral myself if I hadn’t already met Manny. I was trusting Treadway and the detective I assigned to go with him, Shane Harding, to be practically invisible and to observe and to report. I prayed they came back with something, anything useful.

  My men sure didn’t disappoint me when they reported back but they ended up leaving me with even more questions than I had answers.

  While I was waiting for them to return, I pulled the moonshiner, Ethan Funk, into interrogation and tried to pump him for information. Now that he was sober, he wasn’t talking. He’d clammed up pretty tight and he wouldn’t give an inch. The only thing that I was able to learn was that he was of the mistaken impression that all we could pin on him was running ‘shine and that, because he had no priors, he might get off with a slap on the wrist and a hefty fine. Apparently whoever he was running for never told him he could be sent up for five years on the charge, if convicted and he was too stupid to go and find that out for himself. It’s also possible that he just never figured he’d get caught. These guys all think they’re invisible and smarter than we are.

  Funk, feeling like he would have it pretty easy, didn’t bother to demand a lawyer until I informed him the department had a nearly totaled cruiser as a result of the chase to catch him and that he’d face charges over that as well. He’d been so drunk and hell bent on outrunning my deputies that he didn’t have any idea of the havoc he left in his wake. Maybe his lawyer will convince him it’s in his best interest to tell us the things we want to know if he doesn’t want to spend the next five to ten years in a 10x6!

  Chapter 15 – Family Fun Day

  Sunday, June 1st, 2014 - Dana

  “Up and at ‘em! Cole, Beth, get your butts out of bed! Get a move on!” Kris stepped away from the foot of the stairs and moved back into the kitchen were Dana was sipping tea, her plate clean, and I was finishing my eggs.

  “So, you two wanna fill me in? What’s with family fun day?” I looked back and forth between the two of them.

  “My kids are in 4H,” Kris answered. “They raise dairy market feeder calves to show at the county fair every year in August. They got their calves a month or so ago and they’re off the bottle now. It’s time to a really good clean up after them, get them started on feed and to start working with them. That’s a part of our so called ‘Family Fun Day’ Sunday activities.”

  “Just a part?”

  “Yeah, a part,” Mel said, looking up from her plate. “Dad always comes up with other stuff we need to do too...cleaning out the big barn, tearing something down, putting something up...you name it.”

  I laughed. “Too bad I’m injured. I just can’t help.” I tried not to sound too sarcastic.

  Kris and Mel both guffawed loudly. “Obviously, you don’t know our dad!” Kris just shook her head and looked at me with pity.

  “Mom does always feed us good though.”

  “Mel, baby, you just ate!”

  Kris rolled her eyes. Mel said, “Really? By the time we eat he’ll have worked us so hard, I’ll have lost several pounds I can hardly spare to lose.” She grinned that grin that was what attracted me to her in the first place. Still, it was my turn to guffaw.

  Four hours later, I sat in the farmhouse kitchen with Kris and Mel’s mother as we cut homemade noodles from dough. Earlier we’d set chicken to marinate for later grilling, we’d made fruit pies up that were now bubbling away in the oven, we’d peeled potatoes and we’d cut up vegetables for salad. So much food was in process, I wondered what army was coming for dinner. I was exhausted even though I was sitting down. Faye Crane was still on her feet and going strong.

  ###

  Mel

  I walked into the house for a break. I desperately needed to get something to drink. Dad had us pitching hay for his cows, something that I was allergic to, not that he cared because the major affect to me was only a feeling of my throat being very dry and parched. He always said I should just suck it up. That’s the problem! I’m sucking too much of that crap up!

  My mother was working my poor girlfriend’s fingers to the bone in the kitchen. I figured it was time for a little intervention.

  “Hey mom, got any sweet tea made? I could sure use some.”

  “Now Melissa, you know I do!”

  I winked at Dana while mom had her back turned to dig a glass out of the cupboard. “Why don’t you get a few down and let’s all sit out on the porch for a few minutes. The kids are getting ready to take the calves for their first walk.”

  Dana looked at me with an odd expression. “The calves haven’t walked yet?

  “Not on a lead.”

  She continued to look puzzled. I just said, “Come on hop-along! You’ll see!”

  The three of us adjourned to the porch where we settled in to watch as dad and Kris directed the first movements of calves connected to kids via a halter and lead rope. They’d been wearing the halters all along so those weren’t new to them but they’d never been connected to anything before and they’d certainly never had anyone trying to direct their movements.

  “Dana my friend, you’re in for a real treat. Walking a calf isn’t like walking a dog. Hang onto your hat!

  The three of us watched and laughed hard as the calves alternately dug in their heels or jumped like jumping beans and the kids did their best to hang on and gain some semblance of control. Unfortunately, Beth and Cole had no control at all, even after several minutes. You’d think they’d never done this before!

  After about ten minutes, mom looked at me pointedly, “Shouldn’t you be getting back to work?”

  “Well, actually, one of the reasons I took a break is because I really need to talk with you...”

  “Oh, can’t it wait? I have pies in the oven that I need to be gettin’ back to Melissa.”

  I hate it when she talks to me like I’m five! “No, it can’t wait. We really do need to talk but we can do it in the kitchen. Let’s go and take care of those pies.”

  We all wandered back into the kitchen. I got Dana settled back into a chair while mom tended to her baking.

  She turned from the oven and waved her hand toward Dana and me, “Is this what you wanted to talk to me about?”

  “Pardon?” I looked at Dana as she set her tea glass down with a bang and her entire body spasmed in a hard coughing spell. I thumped her back. “Are you okay?”

  She tilted her head to look up at me and croaked, “Really?”

  Light dawned for me. “Oh...oh. Mom, I...you...you do know that I’m gay, right? I...I thought you knew...”

  “Melissa, of course I know that!” She waved her hand in the air toward Dana. “I meant that you’ve moved your girlfriend in with you already. You barely know each other and, well...”

  “Hold on mom, you’ve got the wrong idea.” I took a deep breath. This isn’t going the way I planned it.

  “What should I think?”

  Dana half rose from her seat at the table, “Mrs. Crane, Your daughters, both of them, have very graciously taken me in as a sort of border while I recover from my injury and while I work to close out the case that brought me to this area in the first place.” Dana looked at me before she continued and I smiled my gratefulness at her.

  “Are you telling me that there’s nothing else going on?”

  My turn...I’m a big girl. I can do this! “Mom, in all honesty, we do intend to date but we’re taking things very slowly and we’re trying to be respectful of Kris and the kids.”

  “Trying?”

 
“Mom! Please...this is really between Dana and me and it’s not actually what I wanted to talk to you about.”

  “It’s not? Then what is it? Spit it out.”

  I counted to ten silently and then I did just that, “Mom, I’m going to run for Sheriff officially in a special election the county is going to hold in August.”

  Wordlessly, she moved to the table and sank down in a chair.

  “Mom?”

  Faye Crane, never a supporter of me being a police officer in the first place, was silent on the subject – and on any subject – for one of the few waking times I can remember in my life. Finally she lifted her gaze to my face and looked me straight in the eyes, “Can I ask, why?”

  I blew out a breath, stepped over to her and put my hands on her shoulders to steady us both. “The gist of it is that I’m qualified for the job and I’m already doing it. A potential candidate has filed to run that isn’t qualified to hold my gun belt for me and it’s best for the county and everybody in it if he doesn’t run unopposed and get the job by default.” I knew I was being a little full of myself but I just couldn’t seem to help it and, deep down, what I was telling her was the truth.

  “I see.”

  “Mom, I know that you don’t approve of me being a police officer but I’m doing what I love and I’m good at it. This is the next logical step for me.”

  “Melissa, I know that you love being a cop. I do...It’s just that I...I just worry so much about you. There are all kinds of crazy people out there. I worry about you all of the time...”

  “Mom, I know. I love you and believe me when I say that I really appreciate your concern. You know that I’m as careful as I can be.”

  “Yes but those crazy people out there aren’t!”

  With that, Dana had another coughing spell, this one apparently not brought on by anything other than nature. Mom jumped up from the table and started the tea kettle and then began rummaging in the cupboard.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m fixin’ your girlfriend a little drink to take care of that cough. That’s what I’m doing.”

  I watched as she squeezed honey from a bottle into a tea cup. Another light bulb went on for me; After catching a quick glimpse of the label, I was pretty sure she was using Pure Country honey produced by Ryan McClarnan.

  I jumped up from the table, strode to the counter and picked up the bottle. It was Pure Country honey. “Mom, where did you get this?”

  She looked at me and held her hand out for the jar. I gave it to her and she peered at it through her glasses. “Well, this here is the stuff I get from little Ryan.”

  “Little Ryan?”

  “Yes, Ryan McClarnan. He keeps bees and bottles this himself.”

  “I’m aware of that but I’ve been looking for...for, some of this.” I haven’t been able to find any.” No way am I telling her that I’m looking for him because he’s a murder suspect...she will go off the deep end on me!

  “Well you didn’t try very hard then! He sells it at the peddlers market just outside of town every weekend. Matter of fact, he was probably there yesterday.”

  Damn! Yet again, my own mother holds keys that might just unlock a case for me...how does she do it?

  I just have to ask... “Mom, how much do you know about Ryan or about his family?”

  “Oh heavens, I reckon I know as much as I know about anybody else around here! Why do you ask?”

  “I’m curious. They’re...I don’t know...different.”

  “You got that right!”

  Dana and I were both all ears. “Do you know anything about them being separatists?”

  “What on earth does that mean?”

  It means that they shun government and that they, for the most part, live lives apart from people who don’t share their views,” Dana supplied. She pushed aside the sweet tea and took a sip of the hot concoction.

  “That describes most of the McClarnans alright!”

  “How so, mom?”

  “Well, Melissa, let’s see; it all started as a war over moonshine. You know that McClarnans are all over the place here in the foothills, right?”

  I nodded. For Dana’s benefit I added, “Everybody around here knows a least a couple of McClarnan’s. They’re as common as ants.”

  My mom nodded in agreement and then she launched into her story. “Back in the 1950’s, a group of the men folk joined up with the Ohio Military Reserve. Their reasons were honorable then and the organization is a fine one but, in those days, it attracted its share of looneys. Some of the McClarnan men got mixed up with some government hatin’ folks who thought the militia might oughta’ take over and show the state of Ohio who was really in charge. They didn’t take kindly to the State keeping them from making moonshine. That was their livelihood.”

  “What happened?”

  “The folks in charge of the OMR would have none of it. They kicked a whole passel of rabble rousers out. Some of the ousted men, including all of the McClarnans, formed their own little militia group but most of them couldn’t stay out of their own whiskey long enough to fund any sort of real movement so much of the lot of them kinda fizzled away as any sort of organized group. Still, a few of the less drunkard members branched off from that group and started up a little, what did you call it? A little...separatist deal. They kind of had their own little commune if you want to call it that. They claimed a lot of the woods for themselves and took it over.”

  She continued, “Those men folk didn’t want to take on the government but they didn’t want to be bothered by it either. They just wanted to live off the land and be left alone. They did continue to run ‘shine to make money for what they couldn’t grow or shoot and, I think, just to thumb their noses at the government. As the group grew and the younger generations of the family got involved, they started growin’ pot and makin’ other stuff.”

  “Other stuff?”

  “Cookin’ up stuff and whatnot. You know about that kind of thing better than I do, hon...or should I say Sheriff?” She pointed at me.

  “Did Ryan McClarnan grow up in the family business then?”

  “Naw, not really. I hear tell that he’s maybe involved now but I don’t know that for a fact. He certainly wasn’t raised up with it.”

  “Hmm? How did he get involved in the whole separatist and living off the land movements then?”

  “Well, let me go backwards a bit.” She took a sip of what was left of her sweet tea.

  I stifled a sigh. This is going to be a long story. I can feel it...

  “Let me start by telling you that Ryan’s mama Callie was a Brietland, if you didn’t know that already.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “Really?” I’m sure my astonishment showed. “A Brietland?” The Brietlands are the richest of the rich oil families in the area – even richer than the Quinns and, in the eyes of many in the family, socially several steps above many of their more recent oil rich peers including the Quinns. By more recent, I meant any time since 1940 onward.

  “Yes. She created quite a family fracas by seeing and later becoming pregnant to Ryan’s daddy, William “Billy Bob” McClarnan.”

  “I bet! What happened?”

  “Callie was a free spirited sort. She’d gone off to college and became infatuated with the whole 1960s and early’70s anti-war movements and anti-political establishment movements. She got into doing drugs and the whole 9 yards. Billy Bob meanwhile was an outlaw and a draft dodger that hid out in the hills around here. He was cut from the same cloth as the older generations of his clan; hell bent on runnin’ shine, growing pot and sticking it to the government whenever he could. Miss Callie was blinded by his good looks and enamored with his whole anti-government attitude.” She paused and took another sip of her tea.

  “I take it the Brietland family didn’t accept him?”

  She snorted. “Not hardly! Oh, Callie was shunned and shut out for a time once she decided she was going to have and raise the baby rather than give it up. She left th
e family fold and moved into Billy Bob’s little cabin in the woods with him; the one his daddy had built just before he passed on from what folks speculate was liver disease. I hear it told that she gave birth to Ryan right there in the cabin with only Billy Bob for company. They gave the baby his last name but they were never married themselves. Billy Bob didn’t believe in marriage.”

  “You said she was only shut out for a time?”

  “Yes. Her papa cut her off but Callie’s mama wanted to see the baby. They began meeting secretly.”

  “Let me guess; papa found out?”

  “Oh boy did he ever! He raised holy hell about it too. He didn’t take it out on Callie and the baby though. Her mama wouldn’t have it. Instead, he went after that boy with a vengeance. Callie packed up little Ryan and took him back to mama and daddy rather than put Billy Bob through the seven kinds of hell his father was raining down on him.”

  “Did it stop?”

  “More or less. Ryan, who wasn’t even a year old yet, was sent away to live with one of Callie’s “more sensible sisters” as Papa Brietland liked to put it. She was married to a man Papa had handpicked for her.

  “Mama Brietland didn’t try to stop him shipping the baby off too?”

  “Well, the way it’s told, Callie started having all sorts of problems after she went back home. Some say it was because she was missing that boy. Others say it was because she was in withdrawal from being off of all of the drugs.” She paused.

  I prompted her, “and?”

  “The Brietlands – or rather, Papa Brietland, had Callie committed to a mental institution. She spent several years away while her sister raised Ryan as if he were her own. They never changed the child’s name though. I’d speculate they didn’t want to draw any more attention to themselves and to little Ryan.”

  “What happened to Billy Bob?”

  “Well now, that’s the kicker. Ol’ Billy Bob went to prison for life for the murder of an ATF agent that was poking around trying to catch moonshiners.”