The Morelville Mysteries Collection

by Anne Hagan

  “Is this Dana?”

  “Yes, may I ask who’s calling?”

  “It’s Angel. Listen, I only have a minute; can we meet?”

  “Um, sure. Where?”

  “Jo-Ann Fabric at the Colony Square Mall as soon as you can get here. ”

  “On my way.”

  “Thanks for meeting with me.”

  They were standing by the fabric cutting counter where a store associate was measuring and cutting yards of material from a stack of multi-colored bolts. Dana looked around, “You’re welcome. I’m a little confused though.” She waved her hand in the air, “why here and why me? You made it pretty clear you didn’t want to talk to me the last time we met.”

  Priscilla addressed the salesperson, “I’ll be just over there picking patterns,” she pointed at a bank of light wood cabinets. Turning back to Dana she said, “Come on. You can help.” They moved toward the pattern bank. “I’m helping a friend with some matching outfits for her twin three year olds.”

  Once they were out of the clerk’s earshot, Priscilla continued, “I’m off school today since it’s Labor Day. I’m sorry to drag you all the way up here but I really did need to come and do this and I wanted to be as far away from home as possible to tell you what I’m going to tell you.”

  “It’s okay,” Dana held her voice steady, “go on.”

  Priscilla faced the file and flipped through patterns as she spoke. “Did you talk to Mel about me?”

  “Yes. We’ve, uh put two and two together and figured out that you work for your brother.”

  A look of surprise crossed Priscilla’s face, “I really figured Mel already knew that. She seems pretty sharp.” Dana didn’t respond.

  “Look, my brother did order up a lesson for JD but the intent was to scare him. I overheard him and one of his enforcers talking about that Moon guy. He ordered a scare for him too but the crew got carried away again; nearly killed him. Stan was mad; said they went ‘rogue’ is how he put it.”

  Dana put a hand on Priscilla’s arm, “What about the shooting?”

  Priscilla looked Dana in the eye, “Nothing there. That didn’t come from...from us.”

  “You’re sure?” The younger woman nodded and went back to searching through patterns. “So, why did you call me?”

  Under her breath, Priscilla pushed out, “Because I just know there’s going to be another beating and I’m afraid it’s going to go too far. These guys seem to be getting off on the violence.”

  “How do you know? Is there another victim?”

  “Yeah, I think so. See, another regular bettor has been borrowing money chasing after his own bad bets. He’s into Stan for ten grand now and he tried to give me only a grand of it over the weekend to cover some of his debt until he won some more back. That won’t fly. I’ve been avoiding Stan because I know when I go to him he’s going to order his men to do a hit.”

  “Dana, I just want these beatings and deaths to stop. I feel like the blood is on my own hands. I’m just trying to fake it until I make it here. My brother doesn’t need the money. I think the asshole gets off on the sport of it all.”

  “Why tell me? Why not Mel?”

  “I’m afraid of getting caught talking to Mel. It seems like he has creepy crawly people everywhere these days. I feel like I can trust you and I’m hoping you’ll go back to Mel and she can figure out a way to shut the whole mess down but keep me out of it.”

  “There’s been a death!” Dana growled through gritted teeth. “Are you telling me you won’t testify?”

  Fear was written all over Priscilla’s face, “I can’t Dana. Too much shit has already gone down with the family and my brother is into this way too deep. He doesn’t care about me! It’s all just a big game to him. If I live long enough to make it to the stand, someone’s going to see to it that I die a painful death in prison.”

  “Without your testimony, we don’t have anything Priscilla.”

  “You have Moon.”

  “Sterling Moon swears he didn’t have anything to do with anything besides hustling pool and being an accessory to JD in his last grand scheme.”

  Priscilla blew out a hard breath and whispered, “Moon is lying Dana. I didn’t say anything before because I didn’t know for sure, but I know now. That’s the other part of what I overheard. He’s been betting and collecting money for bets too. JD was a drinker. He couldn’t stay sober long enough to put a scam together like they did. That was all Moon. It had to be.”

  Dana was silent for a minute. When she spoke again, she asked, “What will you do then, if we can set it up to keep you out of it, that is?”

  “I’ve only got to the term break for this semester and I’m done. I’ll finish by late October then I have a guaranteed position in another state when I pass my boards. I’ve put back what I need to hold me over for several months while I finish up and get ready for boards.”

  ###

  Monday Afternoon, September 1st, 2014

  “Priscilla said the mark’s name is William Craycraft. He lives somewhere on the east side of Zanesville.”

  “I know who he is,” I shuddered. “He’s a fifth grade teacher at the elementary school that serves the village and a couple of the other little burgs around here.”

  Dana eyeballed me, “Where does an elementary school teacher get enough money to start betting anyway and who lets him run up a ten thousand dollar tab?”

  “I don’t have a clue what he was thinking originally but remember, from Stan Jr’s perspective, it’s not real money until it’s paid out. He wasn’t actually handing Will cash to bet. If the guy had been winning against his borrowing, Junior would be taking off his vig and his debt service and only paying Craycraft what was left. That would be the only money changing hands.”

  “You’re right, of course. Now how do we nail them before they nail Will?”

  “We have to get to Will, on the sly of course, and set up surveillance to trap them when they go for him. We’ll have to watch Stan Jr. too which brings me to the big question: when’s Priscilla going back to her brother?”

  “She said she’s supposed to dump the weekend book by this afternoon but, since its Labor Day, she told her brother she had plans and finagled it so that she doesn’t have to do turn in until after collections tomorrow night. She’ll go to him as late as she can then.”

  “That means that come Wednesday the leg breakers will probably be out.”

  “Probably. And Mel, Priscilla asked to be left out of it all in exchange for the information...”

  “I can’t make that kind of promise Dana; you know that.”

  “I do, but I had to put it out there.” She paused and scratched her head, “So, got any ideas? We...I mean you...don’t have a lot of time.”

  Chapter 25 – The Setup

  Genesis Hospital, Late Monday Afternoon, September 1st, 2014

  Sterling Moon was going to spill his guts to me come hell or high water. He’d been playing his innocent victim role long enough.

  I strode in the front door at Genesis and almost ran smack into him as he was trying to work his way outside in a wheelchair, wearing nothing but a hospital gown and his leg casts. With his legs straight out in front of him, he was unable to turn far enough sideways to get close enough to the wall switch to activate the automatic doors. No officer from his guard detail was anywhere in sight.

  “Where are you supposed to be?”

  “Sheriff?”

  “Yes. Answer the question.”

  “Whoa! Why so hostile?”

  “Why are you out of your room Mr. Moon and where’s the deputy that’s supposed to be watching you?”

  “They uh, they was bringing me down to x-ray, see, and they’re backed up. They said I could go smoke.”

  “Is that right? There’s no smoking on the hospital campus Mr. Moon. Just where were you really thinking you were going to go like that?” I swept my hand in front of him to indicate his attire and his condition.

  A transpor
t orderly came down the hallway. “There you are! How did you get into that chair and what are you doing out here? You’re up; let’s go.” The orderly took hold of the wheelchair handles and propelled Moon back toward x-ray. I followed.

  While I waited, I watched as the young deputy assigned to keep an eye on Moon strolled down the hall toward me, oblivious to my presence as he chatted with a pretty nurse tech. I started toward him moving past the entry to x-ray and stopping in the middle of the hallway. When he stopped short to avoid running into me, realization dawned and the look on his face went from smiling to crestfallen.

  “I would say that you have some explaining to do but I can see what you’ve been up to.”

  The aide hurried away while my deputy backpedaled quickly, “The orderly had him Sheriff. I was just taking a quick break to get a little coffee, is all. It’s pretty quiet around here with it being a holiday and...”

  “When you’re done making excuses for your dereliction of duty, maybe you can help me when Moon comes out of x-ray to place him under arrest and arrange to get him into guarded custody either here or at the jail infirmary if his doctors deem him well enough.”

  “Affirmative Sheriff...I mean, yes; of course I’ll help Sheriff. “What are we charging him with?”

  “Promoting gambling, bookmaking and transmitting wagering information”

  Moon’s doctors, after reviewing his x-rays, determined another couple of day in ICU were in order. Given his escape attempt and the charges I intended to level on him, I wanted him under lock and key.

  To say Moon wasn’t happy when I read him his rights while he was laying strapped to a hospital bed in the far reaches of the ICU area would be an understatement. But, After ranting about being a poor victim caught in the system for a few minutes, he abruptly changed tune, demanded a lawyer and refused to say anything else.

  Because he didn’t have a personal lawyer, I arranged to have a public defender present for him the next morning. I also arranged to have the deputy DA on hand but I kept that fact to myself. I’d be willing to let the powers that be cut Moon a deal if it meant I could nail a killer and close down the bookmaking operation all in one fell swoop.

  My calls made, I popped back into Moon’s new digs. “We’re all set for interrogation in the morning right here, at the crack of dawn. Rest well Mr. Moon and make sure to order up your breakfast plenty early!”

  I posted a guard right at his door. “He’s not to be unrestrained for any reason and nobody that’s not medical staff here goes in or out of there.”

  “Yes Sheriff.”

  “Nobody. You take his food trays in.”

  “Yes Sheriff.”

  “Don’t screw this up like the last guy almost did.”

  “Not a chance!”

  Genesis Hospital, Tuesday Morning, September 2nd, 2014

  By 7:30 AM, the day after a federal holiday and much to my surprise, everyone was in place around his hospital bed for Sterling Moon’s interrogation but he wasn’t budging. He wanted a plea agreement that brought any felony charges down to misdemeanors or dropped them completely and he wanted a free ride out of town. The Deputy DA, on orders from his boss, didn’t want to cut a deal until we knew what Moon was giving up but, after a couple of rounds of calls, Moon got most of what he wanted stipulated to and we got underway.

  I turned on the recorder. “Fire away Mr. Moon.”

  “First, can we remove my arm restraints, for this?”

  “Yes, for now.” I bent to undo the one on my side while the guy from the public defender’s office took care of the other one.

  Moon flexed his wrists. Man, they took one off for breakfast but then put it right back on. This is crazy. I ain’t goin’ nowhere.”

  “You help us out and we’ll see what we can do for you, okay?”

  “Where should I start? What do you want to know?”

  “Start at the beginning. We need to know everything you know that happened and we need to know about the whole bookmaking operation.”

  “Okay.” He took as deep of breath as he dared take given the hole in the middle of his chest, “JD and I hustled pool. You know that.” He looked to me for confirmation. I just nodded. “JD liked to play the ponies once in a while and he loved to bet on football action. He was a better pool player than a bettor though. He lost his bets more than he won.”

  “He used to deal with some bookie out of Columbus but, when he’d actually win, he’d always struggle to get his money from the guy. Bookie, wouldn’t mail it, ya know?” I didn’t respond.

  “Anyway, to make a long story short, he asks around and finds a local guy to get hooked up with.”

  “Who’s the guy Mr. Moon?”

  “Don’t know.” His lawyer nodded at him to answer the question. “No really, I honestly don’t know. I never dealt with him in person or even knew his name. Everything with him was just a call over the phone.” I watched as the Deputy DA shook his head and scribbled madly on his pad.

  “We’re going to have to do a little better than that,” I told him. “Who’d you pay and get paid by?”

  “At first, a guy that goes by Echo, lives in North Zanesville.”

  I made a note to myself. “Go on.”

  “Echo got in a little trouble; went down for a sentence. No one was comin’ to Ray’s and collecting or doing payouts. The bookie tried to hook us up with another runner, a woman, temporary like, but she wouldn’t come to Ray’s, we had to go to her and she worked a different area. His trade from folks that hung at Ray’s when Echo was running from there started to dry up. He asked me, probably since I didn’t bet very often, if I would collect at Ray’s.”

  “Just collect? What about the pays?”

  “Said he wanted to keep that separate at first; build trust.”

  I get that...those two losers were already bettors...you don’t hire people to push for you that are going to do your own drugs.

  “So I started collecting and meeting up with a runner a couple of times a week on the south end to pass the money off for a little cut of the action.”

  “The girl?”

  “No, actually, another guy.”

  “He got a name?”

  “Called himself ‘Shorty’”

  I knew Shorty well. He was a small time hood all the way around. I also knew where to find him but I asked anyway, “Where would you meet with Shorty?”

  “Dude would have me meet him at the bar below his apartment over on 10th. He lived upstairs.”

  “When did JD get involved in collecting?”

  “Not till a few months ago. I was picking up a lot of overtime on the road project in the spring; I can do heavy equipment, JD couldn’t and he’d just started with Stiers. He got low man jobs. I couldn’t always be where I needed to be when I needed to be there to collect. Shorty didn’t care who brought him the dough as long as it all got there.”

  “So, whose idea was it to run the betting scam?”

  Moon rolled his head to the side to look at the public defender again. The guy just raised a hand to him as if to signal, ‘go ahead’. From a criminal charges perspective, he’d already dug himself a pretty deep hole. He needed to give us what we needed to nail everyone.

  “I told you all about it before...about JD borrowing to bet and throwing good money after bad. The bookies goon squad put a scare into him before and that’s when we knew we needed to do something.”

  “Put a scare into him how?”

  “Roughed him up, one day.”

  “You saw it?”

  He shook his head no. “I wasn’t there. All I know is what he told me. He had a nice shiner though, if that tells you anything. They gave him two weeks to come up with the cash or the next time they said it would be a lot worse.”

  “I see. So, what did you two cook up?”

  “It was all to help JD see. I’m the one who thought about the three high rollers we’d sharked before. I knew how big they really bet since I was collecting from them when they lost. I’m
the one who saw them lose a ton over the Triple Crown races and I figured we could get at least a couple of them worked up about something else. All the little crap that goes on surrounding the All Star game was a good opportunity.”

  “It was my idea but JD sold it to ‘em...sold it like his life depended on it.”

  Because it did...

  “He was going to take their money, have me run enough money to Shorty to cover his debt then we were both going to get out of town on the rest.”

  “You too huh?”

  He shrugged, “Well, yeah. I’d of been toast around here.” His eyes drifted down his chest and to his currently useless legs. “When I’m up and about, I can work anywhere. My half of the take would have got me set up to start all over far from here. Once JD was out of his debt mess, he was on his own. He’d of probably sunk his half right in with another bookie.”

  The Deputy DA spoke up, “Mr. Moon, I’m afraid most of this isn’t new information other than the ID of the runner. There’s no deal unless you can give us more.” The Public Defender started to speak but Moon waved him off.

  Glaring at the ADA, he declared, “I ain’t finished yet. Give me a minute.”

  I signaled him to continue.

  “Mick, Roger and the other guy, they aren’t the goons. Mick’s the one that shot me but he wasn’t one of the leg breakers. Those are guys I don’t know but I’ll tell you this, I think Mick and Roger and their pal got wise to the scheme not because of anything we did or that JD might have said but because the more I think about it, the more I think they’re somehow in cahoots with the bookie. Something just ain’t right there but I can’t put my finger on it.”

  “That’s useless to me,” the ADA hissed. “I can’t go off this guys gut...”

  “Hang on,” I said. “He may have something there. Hear me out. Sterling,” I was trying to be familiar now, “when you won bets, who paid you?”

  “The runner; first Echo and then Shorty.”

  “When those three won bets, who paid them?”

  He shrugged, “I dunno. I assumed Echo did but after he was gone, I don’t know.”