The Morelville Mysteries Collection

by Anne Hagan

  “Evening, Mel.”

  “Kevin,” I nodded again in greeting.

  “What brings you in this time?”

  “Had a death last night in Morelville. Guy looked like hamburger. He’d been in a hell of a fight somewhere. I have a witness that says he was here last night and saw the victim here.”

  “Long way between here and Morelville.”

  “I know but I’m trying to figure out who he tangled with between the time he left work and the time he died.”

  “Who’s the victim?”

  “JD Roberts.”

  “Got a picture? You know I remember faces better than names. There’s just too many what come in and out of here to remember all the names.”

  I produced a copy of JD’s recent driver’s license photo and an old booking shot from a DUI arrest. Neither were flattering to the man but they were all I could come up with quickly that had been taken in the last couple of years.

  Kevin barely glanced at them. “Yep. He was in here last night. He sat right there,” he pointed a couple of bar stools down from me, “from about 5:30 to just after 7:00 or so drinking beer, then he left.”

  “He left? He didn’t play pool or anything?”

  “Naw, not last night. It was real slow until later when it cooled off some, like tonight.”

  “Did you see him talk to anybody at all?” I was puzzled.

  “No. He kept looking around like he was waiting for someone but no one showed that he had any interest in. He left out of here like an angry freight train, when he left.”

  So Moon lied, but why? “Do you remember another guy – I don’t have pictures – but my guess is he’d be about six feet tall, construction worker tan, crew cut brown hair, seems to know the victim...” I let my words trail off because I didn’t know how else to describe Moon.

  “Are you talking about Sterling Moon?”

  “I thought you weren’t any good with names?” I grinned.

  “A name like that, how could I forget it? Reminds me of that racer, Sterling Marlin.”

  “Was Moon here last night?”

  “No. Not last night.”

  “Does he come in here pretty often?”

  Kevin nodded. “A couple times a week, maybe. Lotta’ the time it’s on or right after mill paydays.”

  “Why is that?”

  He leaned toward me and whispered even though the place was nearly empty, “Those two have been known to hustle a little pool from time to time.”

  “Moon and my vic?”

  Kevin nodded.

  Chapter 4 – It’s all About the Fair

  Friday Morning, August 8th, 2014

  I woke up at 5:30 AM to a house on the brink of complete chaos. The kids were home and, for the time being, nestled in their beds upstairs. Soon, they’d be flitting about packing this and that and loading it all in my camper as Kris cracked a figurative whip over them and did more than a little yelling. Fair move in day is upon us!

  I poked my head into my den to look in on Dana. She’d finally been given the okay by her orthopedic doctor to start bearing weight on her injured left leg but stairs were still out for her. Given our current living arrangements, with my sister and her kids, it was probably best that she had a room of her own, downstairs, anyway.

  Touching her shoulder as she lay half reclined on a pile of pillows on her bed produced an instant eye opening effect. I jumped back, startled. “You were playing possum!”

  “Naw. Just relaxing.” She smiled, “You and Kris told me today would be a busy day.”

  “It’s going to be a busy week, period.”

  “It’s a shame that you have to work and run back and forth all week.”

  “I’d have to work anyway. The Sheriff always works the fair. Just about everyone in the county comes through at some point. It just stinks that I also have a case to work besides.”

  Dana raised an eyebrow in question.

  “The coroner reported late yesterday afternoon that JD took several blows to the head that contributed to his death. Someone out there is guilty of manslaughter, at a minimum.”

  “Are you going to tell the kids?”

  “Not yet; probably not till after the fair. I haven’t told Kris either.”

  “Someday you’re going to have to fill me in on the whole Kris/JD story.”

  “It’s a long one so it will have to wait.”

  “That’s okay.” She sat up and ran a hand through her long hair. “For now, what can I do to help out...to help them get ready today?”

  “Seriously? Dana, right now, while you’re still healing, your best bet is to stay out of the way. Let Kris and the kids handle it. Mom and dad have their camper loaded and all of the barn stuff and show stuff got loaded Saturday. Mom will come down and help Kris with this camper today and I’ll be back here to head up the haul to the fairgrounds before you know it.

  “Aye, aye boss!”

  “Very cute...not!” I looked behind me to the door I’d left standing open. No one was around and there wasn’t a sound to be heard in the house yet. I leaned over my fiancé and hovered face to face there, our lips not quite touching. Her eyes sparkled. “I love you Dana Marie Rossi!” I dipped my head and claimed her lips in a semi-searing kiss before she could respond.

  When her eyes fluttered closed, I pulled back quickly, exited the room and, laughing as she yelled “Hey!” and tossed a pillow at the den door, I hightailed it out of the house.

  ###

  I-70 Road Repaving Site, 8:05 AM

  I proceeded down the right berm of I-70, lights flashing, alongside the single lane of slow moving eastbound traffic. The Stiers crew was working in the same area as yesterday but on the left lane today instead of the right.

  I was in search of Sterling Moon. He and I were going to have a ‘come to Jesus’ meeting as soon as I ran him down.

  When I saw the foreman standing next to a pavement stripping truck up ahead in the median I signaled, hit my siren a couple of times and then crossed the traffic in the right lane and weaved through the cones into the not yet touched left lane. I pulled off onto the left berm and then backed up about 80 yards to be even with the stripping truck.

  Recognition lit the foreman’s face and he stepped right over to me. “Something wrong Sheriff?”

  “I talked to one of your men, Sterling Moon yesterday. I need to speak with him again.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t help you there. He’s a no call, no show today. I don’t know where he is.”

  My stomach dropped and a feeling of foreboding overcame me. I knew I should have gone after him last night!

  I nodded at the foreman and thanked him then drove on until I could turn and head back toward Zanesville on the westbound side. After pulling my notebook out of my shirt pocket, I flipped to the page I’d written Moon’s address and contact info on. If he’d given me the correct address, then he really did live in an apartment near Ray’s bar but that was a good half hour or more from where I was.

  I radioed dispatch to run the address for me. It came back as Moon’s. I had them send a unit his way to roust him and hold him there until I got there.

  Less than 30 minutes later I joined two of my deputies at Moon’s residence in a single story apartment complex but there was no Moon. My men had arrived to find his door ajar and, on inspection, most of his clothing and personal items missing. He was on the run.

  Friday Afternoon, August 8th, 2014

  The thing that I dread most about the annual county fair is the effort to get everyone, every animal and everything that everyone and every animal requires for the week there in one piece. That’s typically coupled with a very hot August sun that makes everything that much more of a strain.

  I led our little parade in my pick-up, towing my camper behind me. It would be home to me, Dana and the kids – when they didn’t choose to stay in the barns with their animals – for the next week. Dad was behind me in his truck pulling his camper. My mom and Kris would stay in that camper fo
r the week. Dad had the farm to run so he rarely stayed overnight on the grounds. He’d appear early, after finishing his own morning chores most days, and leave before lunch. He’d only stay or come back to the fair if Beth and Cole had afternoon or evening competitions. Dana followed us in her car and Kris in hers. It was nice to have the cars when we needed to run about quickly since parking on the fairgrounds was always tight. It’s also nice to have them when we just wanted to get off the fairgrounds for a couple of hours...

  I’d convinced dad to bring his John Deere Gator two-seater this year by telling him it was for Dana. The fairgrounds are flat and easy to walk but I’m concerned about his health. On show day and sale day he’ll be back and forth on the grounds all day, if my observations over multiple years of Kris and I showing animals and now her kids showing them hold true.

  The Gator was loaded in the bed of dad’s truck. He grumbled a little bit about the room it took up but I let Dana in on my little act of deception and she exaggerated her pain a little bit to appease him even though she’s been doing much better since taking a bullet in her left leg on her last major assignment with the Customs Service.

  Getting onto the grounds, getting campers in place and setting up camp took up the better part of two hours. Dana sank into a bag chair, clearly exhausted from what little she was able to help with. I’d assigned her mostly outside tasks like helping to set up canopies because I’d completely forgotten that she’d have to navigate stairs each time she wanted in and out of the camper. It was only two but I didn’t want her to do any at all. My plan was to rig her up a little ramp to take care of that problem.

  She looked at me and smiled. “I’m glad we’re done. I’m whipped. I thought I was doing great but this heat...”

  “Done? Who says we’re done,” my mother Faye inquired as she stepped out of her camper.

  Dana tilted her head and looked up at me, “We’re not done?”

  Before mom could answer herself, I shook my head no. “We have to set up the barns. Animal move in is tomorrow morning. We can’t move them into a stall with no straw, no feed, no nothing now, can we?”

  “I suppose not. I guess I assumed that the animal stuff got done by the people who run the fair.”

  Mom guffawed loudly and proclaimed, “That’s what you get for assuming!”

  I shot a hard look at her and then turned to Dana, “It’s all part of the learning experience for the kids who participate. The problem is, our kids are a little young yet to do it all on their own.” Or, what I can’t say out loud in front of my mother, a little immature to, in Cole’s case.

  We spent another hour and a half moving stuff into the barn assigned to the 4H club Beth and Cole were in and then setting up stall walls to separate their steers from those of other kids in their 4H club, hanging fans to cool their animals, getting all of their bedding and feed in place for them and in reserve where they couldn’t get in it and then finally dragging the heavier than it needed to be show box in with all of the kids other supplies.

  About a half hour into all of that, Dana again fell into a chair.

  “Tired?”

  “Very!”

  “We’re done now. We can take the Gator and go back over to the campers to eat and relax. Because this is done, tomorrow won’t be so bad. The real fun doesn’t start till Sunday when the fair opens to the public.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “We’ll rotate it and the kids will do most of it, but someone should be in here with the animals all the time that the fair is open. They can’t be covered in their own dung and urine for one thing and the other thing is that we need to keep an eye on the fairgoers that wander through. They can’t touch an animal unless the owner is there and says they can.”

  Dana nodded, “Oh joy!”

  We were eating burgers and dogs from the grill and relaxing in a light breeze that started after the sun dropped lower when we were approached by Karen and Larry, our next door neighbors in Morelville.

  “Hey Cranes! What’s going on?” Karen was always jovial and friendly.

  “Just chilling out after a rough day.” Kris answered her.

  “Kris, I’m so sorry about JD,” Karen looked at Larry and he nodded then she continued, “We’re so sorry about JD. How are the kids taking it?”

  “Kris shook her head. “It really hasn’t hit them yet. He hasn’t been very involved with them much these past few years.”

  I gritted my teeth and then attempted to change the subject, “So, what has you two wandering around here on a Friday night, anyway?”

  Larry answered, “The grandkids are showing chickens their first time out,” he said referring to their twin ten year old granddaughters, Sierra and Sasha.” Their mom can’t afford to take the whole week off work but we wanted them to get a taste of the full experience. We’ve got our camper down about five slots from yours.”

  “Where are the girls?” mom asked him.

  “Cindy is here tonight. She’s trying to orient them a little bit and show them the lay of the land. She’s off for the weekend and she managed to get time off for their show day and for the sale.”

  “Yeah, Beth and Cole are off and running too. They have lots of friends who are already here.” I indicated a couple of vacant chairs, “why don’t you join us?”

  Karen smiled, “Don’t mind if we do.”

  Kris piped up again, “So how’s that new house of yours coming along?”

  “Almost done, thank heaven!” Karen said, throwing up her hands. Larry just laughed. “We hope to move in by the end of the month. Since we’ve got the girls a lot, we just need more room and more space for animals if they’re going to keep at this. The little barn we have now isn’t going to work for us if Sasha gets her way. She wants horses.”

  “That’s expensive.” Mom had to get her two cents in.

  Kris shook her head, “And very time consuming. Beth did it her first year with mom’s horse. All the practice and grooming did her in but some kids love it. I can have Beth talk to her a bit this week, if you like.”

  They both nodded.

  “So, what are you going to do with the place you have now?” I asked them more out of curiosity than anything.

  Larry leaned into the circle, “Just among all of us, we want to sell it but we don’t want to put it on the open market. We don’t want the Chappell’s, or what’s left of them anyway, to try and snatch it up for nothing and then turn it into another one of their rentals that they never take care of.”

  “I, for one, would appreciate that,” Kris said. “I really don’t want one Stanley’s slumlord houses next to Grandma and Grandpa’s house. It seems like everything he buys and rents back out turns into that sooner rather than later.”

  He studied Kris, “You and Lance are getting pretty serious. Any thoughts of shacking up together?”

  Kris actually blushed. Turning her face away from our mother she said, “Not shacking up per se but, down the road, we’ve talked about getting married and moving in together.” She looked at me pointedly while mom beamed on her other side.

  I looked at Dana with an unspoken question in my eyes. She nodded almost imperceptibly. “Larry, Karen, I uh...I might be interested.” I looked at Dana, “We might be interested.” She nodded her assent.

  “Really? That’s great!” Karen started to jump up and come toward me. I held up a hand to slow her.

  “Now wait. Hear me out. While it would be great to be that close to my sister and the kids and it solves a potential living arrangements problem for her, you have a two story house that could be a problem for Dana here.” I tipped my head toward my fiancé. “We’d have to really weigh the pros and cons of that.”

  “We completely understand,” Larry said. “Really though, I think it could work for you. It’s laid out similar to your grandparents house but where you have a small den, we have a ground floor master bedroom now. We remodeled and changed things up quite a bit when Cindy and Roger parted and her and the girls st
ayed with us for a while.” He pointed at me, “You missy, haven’t come over and visited in a while!”

  I held up both hands in mock surrender, “In my defense, I’ve been a little busy!” Everyone laughed.

  Mom looked at me and then at Dana, “So you two are pretty serious too?”

  I nodded, “Yes, we are. I’ve asked Dana to marry me.”

  “I won’t even pretend to understand how you can do that!” mom responded. She was quiet for a minute, lost in thought. Finally she said, “I just want you to be happy and if she makes you happy well then, so be it.” Her face told a different story but her expression was lost on Karen.

  She gushed, “That’s the spirit Faye!” This time, she came all the way to me and pulled me into a hug. “I’m happy for you!” She turned and touched Dana’s hand, “And I’m looking forward to getting to know you. After we get all of this fair business out of the way, you two will just have to come over and look at the house.”

  Chapter 5 - Carnival of Animals

  Saturday, August 9th, 2014

  We were back at the farm before sunrise. Moving show animals was stressful on them when they were used to being coddled for months. They tended to lose weight in the transfer. None of the kids animals were close to their minimums but it was always better to be safe than sorry and move them in the relative coolness of the early morning.

  My dad backed the stock trailer up to the barn while Beth and Cole stood at the ready with lead ropes. Lance waited just behind the kids. He was off from his new driving job on weekends and had volunteered to lend a hand.

  Dad jumped out of his pickup and nodded to Cole, “Bring Big Boy first. He’s the heaviest.” Cole went into the barn and, as Dana, mom, Kris and I watched from several yards away, he led his steer out of the barn and up to the trailer. Big Boy stopped cold about 5 feet from the trailer and wouldn’t budge.

  Dana’s eyes grew wide, “What the hell is that?”

  I gave her a quizzical look, “It’s a Holstein Steer...”