by Anne Hagan
“Do they? Did Ben Tracy know?”
“Of course he knew. That’s why I kept trying to get him to expand our hours, our offerings...”
“So here’s what I think happened: You saw the potential there but Ben Tracy wouldn’t budge and do what you wanted him to do so you and Tab came up with a plan to get rid of him and take over the place for yourselves, correct?”
“No. That’s not what happened!”
“Then what did? Explain why Tab is also trying to take Liberty Tracy out of the picture if that isn’t true?”
Rojas shot upright in his chair. His eyes were wild as he came to the realization that he was nailed. After more than a minute of us staring hard at him, he said, “I don’t want to talk about this anymore. I want to talk to Tab.”
“I just have a couple of more questions Manny and then we’ll be done.”
“Yes Sheriff?” Rojas loosened up like he thought that meant that he would be free to go. He seemed to forget that he’d been placed under arrest and read his rights.
“Did you know that Ben Tracy had a heart condition that he took medication for?”
“No...no.”
He’s lying! “How about this; can you tell me when Tab began seeing Mrs. Tracy?”
“I don’t know why that’s important...”
“Humor me, please.”
“A couple of months ago, I guess.”
My thinking was that the arsenic laced ecstasy was taking longer to work than the two men had thought it would and they were trying to get into the Tracy home to tamper with Ben’s medication as well.
“One more thing, if I might?”
He nodded.
“Why did you tell me Ryan McClarnan might have killed Ben?”
“Mr. Tracy once told me that he and Mrs. Tracy went to college with him, that they all ran around in the same crowd. When Ryan would come into the restaurant they would argue about old times and about politics and stuff. I, I just thought...I don’t know...”
I acted like I was satisfied with his answer. I got up and started walking toward the door like I was going to leave the room. Like it was an afterthought, I asked over my shoulder, “Hey, where do you think the arsenic and the DMT came from?”
He was a fool and he played right into my ruse, “I don’t know. Sticks probably got them.”
I really did leave after that. I had an arraignment to stop, search warrants to request and more charges to file.
Chapter 27 – Jonesing
Early Wednesday Afternoon, June 4th, 2014
Holly handed me a slip of paper when I finally walked back into the office. Billy Bob McClarnan was alive and kicking at the Big Sandy Federal Penitentiary near Inez, Kentucky about four hours and a world away.
“Thanks Holly!” I tucked the slip away for future reference. With Levi ‘Sticks’ Jones in the mix in both of my cases, I now thought I might have another way to get to Ryan McClarnan.
Holly had other stuff on her mind, “Sheriff, I got that notice all done up about you running. Do you want me to print it and distribute it?”
I held up my hand, “No. Don’t do that. I wouldn’t want that to be printed on department copiers using department paper. Doing crap like that gets politicians in trouble all the time. Email it to me and I’ll send it out ‘A Distribution’ to everyone who has email. ‘I’ll get letters printed elsewhere for distribution as well since not everyone has email.”
“I can take care of that printing for you tonight Sheriff and then get them out in the morning.”
“I appreciate that. Tell you what, you get them printed and I’ll distribute them to all of the boxes tomorrow. I don’t even want it to look like anybody is doing anything for me on department time. I just have a really bad feeling about that sort of thing.”
“Okay Mel, whatever you think is best...um...well...”
“Is something wrong?”
“No, not really. I just guess I better get used to calling you Sheriff...at least during the campaign since we’re being so correct about everything and all.”
“Holly, we’re friends. Me running officially doesn’t change that. When we needed to be formal at times before I signed a candidate’s form, you always were. Just keep doing that. When it’s just you and me, you continue to call me whatever the hell you want!” I grinned at her and shook my head. “Like I said this morning, I really appreciate your help and I appreciate your concern too.”
She smiled back and gave me a quick neck hug. “You know I love you Mel, right?”
We both laughed.
“Oh no!”
“What? What’s wrong?”
I looked at Holly and shook my head. “There’s something I probably really should have told Tyler St. John this morning.”
Holly looked confused, “What?”
“Um, that I’m gay and that I uh, have a girlfriend...”
“What!” It was more of an exclamation than a question.
“I’m gay...”
She interrupted me, “I know that! I mean the girlfriend stuff...when did that happen?”
“I know that you know but most of the department doesn’t and most of the public doesn’t. He should probably know before my campaign goes public.”
“Mel, trust me, he knows and for that matter, I can’t speak for the public but most of the department knows. Look, I don’t have time to spell it out for you because we really need to talk about this girlfriend of yours!”
“Ha...how do they know?”
“Don’t change the subject; the girlfriend?”
###
I called Liberty Tracy.
“Libby?”
“Yes?”
“It’s Sheriff Crane. I thought you’d like to know that we have two men in custody in Ben’s murder.”
There was no response from the other end of the line. “Libby, are you still there?”
“Y-yes Sheriff. I’m afraid to ask w-who...”
“Libby did my detective ask you the other day if you knew about a downtown redevelopment project?”
“Yes, why?”
“That project is the reason we believe Ben was killed. Manny Rojas and Estaban Perez – whom Manny claims is actually his fiancé – plotted to kill Ben when he wouldn’t consider turning the café into a more upscale place with evening hours. It’s sitting on a potential goldmine and they wanted the property for themselves.”
“Oh my God!” She began to sob into the phone.
“I’m sorry I had to break it to you like that Libby but I still need your help.”
“My help? What can I do?”
“Do you ever see a man that goes by Ryan McClarnan?”
She was quiet.
“Libby, did you hear me?”
“Yes. I haven’t seen him in years but Ben has. We knew him for a little bit in college. He’s from around here somewhere and he kind of hung with our group for a bit but he was pretty extreme. He dropped out some time in our junior year.”
“When was the last time you saw him?”
“To talk to him it’s probably been more than 20 years...” I’ve seen him a time or two in passing. Ben mentioned him occasionally though. Was...was he involved?”
“Not that we can tell Libby; at least not directly, but he may be tied to something else we’re working on.”
“Well, I haven’t talked to him since back in the day but, back then, I wouldn’t have put anything past him.
###
“Kelly, could you come up to my office please.” I called the wayward detective directly myself rather than have Holly summon her this time. I really didn’t want to pull her into the Dallas Granger murder any further because I was very leery of what exactly she might be up to but, with Shane potentially tied up for hours or even days working the Ben Tracy case now that Rojas had told all on himself and his fiancé Perez, I needed another set of eyes, ears and hands. She was all I had. I was stuck.
Once she was in front of me, I started without preamble, “Ethan Funk, t
he guy we caught running moonshine, is being held over in the jail pending trial. His bond was denied. He’s a first time offender and he’s become very cooperative after spending a couple of nights locked up. He’s admitted that Levi Jones, who goes by the nickname ‘Sticks’ is his connection for moonshine.”
Rice scribbled down what I was telling her.
“Yesterday, Shane Harding and I witnessed Jones driving Ryan McClarnan around helping him to make product deliveries for what we presume was his honey. Today, Manuel Rojas dropped a dime on someone he calls ‘Sticks’ whose real name he purports he doesn’t know, as the drug connection for his boyfriend Estaban Perez.”
“The Perez we have in holding?”
“The very same. Rojas and Perez are being charged with the murder of Ben Tracy.”
Kelly’s eyes went wide. I ignored her reaction. “Shane can fill you in on all of that later. We need to find Mr. Levi ‘Sticks’ Jones and arrest him. We have an address but I’m more interested in nailing him at his place of work, the still site which I believe belongs to Ryan McClarnan.”
“Where’s that?”
“Well now, your guess is as good as mine! We didn’t find it in our little aerial recon yesterday, if you recall. I’ll bet Ethan Funk knows where it is or where the drug producing or packaging operations are though. Maybe you could chat with him and see if you can’t just get a little more out of him?”
“Hasn’t he already been arraigned?”
“Yes. I just told you, he’s cooperating. He signed a waiver yesterday. I suggest you pull the statements from yesterday and give them a quick look over and then get over there and pull him out for a chat again.”
“Okay.”
“Also, he pretended he didn’t know who Sticks works for but he slipped up at one point and said the words, ‘the dealer’. I think McClarnan has his own little empire out there with not only Moonshine but drugs too and Jones is his right hand man for both. You might actually want to refer to ‘the dealer’ and see if it gets you anywhere.”
“Oh, all right. I’ll try.” With that, she left.
I had the sinking feeling that I’d made a mistake and that I should have just gone back down and pumped Funk some more myself. Rice was young – only a few years older than him – and pretty if you liked high maintenance sort of women. I thought she might be able to put the scared young man at ease enough to get him to babble something useful to us but now I wasn’t so sure.
I flipped on my computer and got into the case files. I started pulling up stuff that Kelly had worked on over the last couple of years. She didn’t have a horrible track record but she really hadn’t worked on a lot of high level stuff either. Of course, murders and other felony level unsolved crimes that required detailed detective work because the perpetrators were still at large just weren’t that common in Muskingum County. I had to give her case load the benefit of the doubt there.
On a hunch, I pulled up Shane Harding’s case load. While it was true that he had a couple of years more seasoning than his more junior counterpart, the difference in their stats was striking. Harding had worked more than twice as many cases and had dozens of more collars than Rice.
I dug a little deeper. The comparison over the past few months was even more startling. Kelly Rice was involved in almost no case work at all while Shane Harding had been in the thick of plenty of stuff.
Is she a total slacker or is something else going on?
I pushed the intercom button.
“Yes Sheriff?” Holly answered.
“Can you come in here please?” She appeared in the doorway moments later.
“Holly come on in and close the door.” She complied and sat down.
“Is something wrong Mel?”
I steepled my hands and leaned into the desk, “That’s just it. I’m not sure but it sure doesn’t look or feel right.” I was practically whispering.
“What’s going on?” she whispered right back.
“Besides her employee history and the scuttlebutt about sleeping her way to the top, what do you personally really know about Kelly Rice?”
Holly sighed. “Not much that will likely be of any help to you with whatever you’re wondering. She’s pretty aloof Mel. In fact, she’s borderline unfriendly. She doesn’t talk to anyone but Shane and my impression is that she only talks to him about police business, period.”
“That’s just it. I don’t see that she’s involved in much ‘police business’.” I showed her what I found. Holly was as puzzled as I was.
“She reports every day right?”
“As far as I know, yes.” Holly was the primary scheduler for patrol but the two detectives worked as their cases required with the expectation that if nothing else was going on they would report Monday through Friday and stagger their hours a little.
“How’s she staying out of the mix and why?”
“Maybe patrol just isn’t calling her?” Holly shrugged.
“Can’t be. They go through dispatch for investigative support or, at least, they’re supposed to.”
“Maybe they aren’t when she’s on duty.”
“The whole department?”
“I don’t know boss. Your guess is as good as mine.”
“I just gave her an assignment that I’m really worried she might botch or blow off. I don’t know what to do.”
“What did you ask her to do?”
I sketched a quick overview for Holly.
“Mel, you’re the Sheriff. Just go down there to interrogation and listen in like you did this morning.”
“That was intentional this morning. It was part of a plan. If I do it now, she’ll think I’m checking up on her and I don’t want to tip her to that if something really is going on.”
“Well, what other options do you have?”
“Not many. I can go and arrest Levi Jones at his home on hearsay evidence and hope he’s cooperative.”
Holly shook her head.
“No? Okay, then I can tromp willy nilly through the low western Appalachian foothills looking for Ryan McClarnan’s cabin, still site and drug operation.” I raised my eyebrows.
Holly made a sound like a timeout buzzer going off.
“Or, I can go and visit a federal prisoner in Inez Kentucky and see if he’ll tell me anything.”
“Honestly Mel, if you’re not going to go down there and listen in on any interrogation she’s doing, visiting Billy Bob in the pen is probably your best bet.”
Chapter 28 – Home Locked Home
Wednesday afternoon, June 4th, 2014
After my conversation with Holly, I decided to call it a day. She was going to work on getting me on the Big Sandy visitors list. Meanwhile, I had a lot to think about. I headed home where I’d get at least an hour of peace before the kids got home from their last day of school.
Once I was out of the lot, I called Dana. I didn’t know if she’d be able to talk; I just wanted to hear her voice. She answered on the second ring.
“Hey Mel, this is a surprise. What’s going on?”
“Let’s just say that I’ve already had quite a day and I decided to cut out early. It sounds like you’re driving. Where are you?”
“I’m probably not far behind you, actually. I forgot I had a therapy appointment today. I spent a few hours in Columbus and then I drove back to Zanesville for it. I pulled out of the medical center a couple of minutes ago.”
“How’d your therapy go?”
“Okay, I guess. They had me do a lot of flexibility stuff with my leg as a whole that seemed to go all right but they still won’t let me do much weight bearing exercise. They said that I’ll get to do more of that at the next session. I’ve scheduled that appointment for Tuesday, early. No more forgetting and no more having to leave work in the middle of the day.”
“So you’re headed home now?”
“Well yeah, now that you’re going there. I don’t have a key but since it’s nice so I was just going to hang out somewhere until the kids got
home.”
“We’ll get one of their keys from them when they get home. They won’t be needing them anymore now that school is ending. I’ll see you at the house in just a bit babe.”
“It’s a date!”
“A date? I like the sound of that!”
I stopped at the station to fuel up and say hi to Kris. I’d completely forgotten that Tyler St. John had dropped off a petition off for her to get signatures on. As I pumped gas, two different people came up to me and said they supported my candidacy. I smiled and nodded and thanked them in a daze that word had traveled so fast.
On my way in to pay another woman that I barely knew grasped my hand and said, “I’m with you Sheriff. You have my support.”
Once the door had closed behind her and it was just me and my sister in the little station I asked her what was going on.
“That Tyler guy dropped your petition off at the house before I was scheduled to come in here. Nice guy. Anyway, I brought it with me and talked to my manager about it. She signed it herself and then said I could keep it here and ask people that we know personally if they would like to sign it but that I couldn’t just keep it on the counter. So far, counting me and her, I’ve gotten 21 people.”
“Wow! That was fast! We’re almost half way there then but are they all registered voters?”
“Of course they are! I’ve been making sure to ask. Tyler also gave me a stack of voter registration cards for anyone who isn’t actually registered. They can’t sign the petition but they can register so they can vote for you when the time comes.”
That worried me. “Kris don’t put your job in jeopardy by doing this for me. You shouldn’t be campaigning for me here.”
“Relax. I’m really not doing any such thing. Look at these names so far and you’ll see what I mean.” She handed me the petition form.
I scanned the names. Every person that had signed so far was someone I’d known most of my life or they were close friends of my parents. I was touched by the names already gathered. If only I had as much support in the rest of the county as I have in this little village...
I handed the petition back to Kris and said my goodbyes. Dana would be almost home by now and I didn’t want her to have to wait for me.