by Ben Rehder
A woman answered, “Sheriff’s department.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really,” the woman said. “Are you Buddy Miles?”
“Uhhh, yes and no,” Rick mumbled as he crossed to where his cigar box was, shoving it under the Barcalounger with his foot.
“What?” The woman banged on the door again. “Sir? Open the door now.”
“Could you maybe come back during regular business hours?” It was feeble but it was all Rick could come up with.
“Sir, I’ve been out here eight times already,” the woman said. “You ain’t here a lot during regular business hours. We’re gonna talk now.”
“Okay, hang on.” Rick opened the door and found himself looking at a solidly built black woman in her forties with a nightstick in her hands. “What’s this all about, Officer?” He looked at his watch. “It’s one in the morning.” He smiled, trying to charm. “Not that I mind attractive women with big sticks dropping by at this time of night.”
She glanced professionally at Rick’s pupils then, without entering the premises, she looked inside, checking for others. “I got a call from a Lieutenant Smith with the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation, said a man identifying himself as Buddy Miles had called to report a dead body. Did you make that call?”
Rick didn’t think she’d be here if she didn’t already know the answer to the question. He figured she was just giving him the opportunity to produce enough rope to hang himself with. Rick poked his lower lip out, tilted his head, and otherwise tried to look as confused as he could. “A dead body?” He scratched at the back of his head.
The woman wasn’t buying it. “Sir?” She shook her head. “Would you rather tell me about the body or the distinct smell of marijuana coming from your trailer?”
Rick gave a resigned nod. “I see your point,” he said. “Okay, c’mon in.” He turned and walked into the kitchen as the woman entered behind him. As she moved, her leather and chrome accoutrements creaked and clacked.
Rick was pretty sure that possession of a small amount of pot in Mississippi was a misdemeanor so he wasn’t in a black panic about being busted but, on the other hand, it was always a good idea to avoid that first offense whenever possible. “Out of curiosity,” he said. “Does Lieutenant Smith trace all his incoming phone calls?”
The woman looked like she felt sorry for people as dim as Rick. “Caller I.D.,” she said. “And a reverse phone directory. Now, about this body?”
“Right,” he said. “Well, officer. Is it Officer or Deputy?”
“It’s Sheriff,” she said. “Sheriff Terry Jackson.” Rick’s expression led her to say, “That’s right, a black woman elected sheriff in rural Mississippi. What’s this world coming to?”
Rick shook his head. “Actually that’s not what I was thinking. I’m just surprised you’re working the overnight shift if you’re the boss.”
“It rotates,” she said. “Now if you can try to focus on–”
“But since you brought it up,” Rick said. “How many black women have been elected sheriff in Mississippi counties?”
“You’re looking at her.”
“So you see? My surprise wasn’t–”
“Sir? I can still smell the marijuana.”
“Right, the body.” Rick leaned against the kitchen counter. “Before I tell you about that, I have to ask, didn’t you used to work for the McRae Police Department?”
Sheriff Jackson nodded. “Lieutenant Smith told me about your concerns,” she said.
“Yeah? What’d you tell him?”
“I told him I’d worked for Chief Dinkins and that based on my experience with his department, your concerns were well-founded.”
“No kidding.”
“Sir, I was in the U.S. Army for four years as an MP,” she said. “I came back here and earned a degree in criminal justice. I went to work for the McRae Police Department. Didn’t take long to figure out they’d hired me for window dressing and weren’t about to let me advance. Well, I worked too damn hard to let a bunch of wool-hatted hillbillies tell me what I couldn’t do with my life. So I left the department and ran for sheriff. And damned if I didn’t win.” Sheriff Jackson turned and walked into the living room. She pointed at the Barcalounger. “Now, you wanna sit down and tell me about what you found?”
Rick looked at the Barcalounger, then he looked over at the record collection and said, “Have you ever heard Chicago’s fourth album?”
71.
“You’re probably familiar with the laws on intercepted wire communications,” Rick said as he threaded the tape onto the reel-to-reel.
“Generally,” Sheriff Jackson said, looking at the tape. She was dying to hear it.
“I don’t think I can be arrested on the illegal taping felony since Captain Jack made the tape,” Rick said as he powered the amp. “But the other part of the law is about revealing the contents. That’s also a felony, except in certain circumstances, if you get my drift.” He gestured weakly toward Sheriff Jackson with his hands as if to suggest he needed some help.
Sheriff Jackson eyed the reel-to-reel for a moment. She was in its sway. She wanted to hear what was on the tape. She thought about the statute for a moment then stood up and motioned for Rick to do the same. When they were standing face-to-face, Sheriff Jackson looked at him with that level expression they must teach in cop school and said, “Raise your right hand and repeat after me.” She held up her own hand thinking it looked more official. Rick followed suit. “I do solemnly swear,” the sheriff said.
“I do solemnly swear.”
“That the testimony given here today is. . . true and accurate and . . . given without coercion of any sort.” Rick managed a solemn expression as he repeated the words, after which Sheriff Jackson said, “You can put your hand down now. That concludes the swearing in for the official testimony in a government proceeding.” She sat down on the sofa, pointed at the tape, and said, “You may proceed.”
Assuming that got him off the hook, Rick pushed the Play button. The reels began to turn and a moment later Clay said, “And you know that bitch wanted me to come back to her motel room and piss on her?” Proud as a peacock.
Sheriff Jackson’s reaction was priceless. Her flat expression vanished, replaced by one of pure guilty pleasure. But she regained her professional demeanor quickly and listened to the rest of the tape, all the while making notes and stifling giggles.
When it was over, Rick explained his theory. “I ended up with lots of parts of the story,” he said. “But it was only after I talked to Lori Stubblefield that things started coming into focus. Now I’m not sure about the time frame of this, but it all probably took place within the span of a month or two. And it started with Donna Moore and Clay Stubblefield having an affair.”
“Wait,” Sheriff Jackson said, glancing at her notes. “Is this before or after Moore Furniture burned down?”
“Before. Their affair was before the store burned down.”
“Okay, so Donna and Clay were having an affair.”
“And Holly Creel told Donna that she needed a big loan to pay off her gambling debts and that if Donna knew anybody who could help her, she’d do anything. Donna mentioned it to Clay, who mentioned it to Bernie Dribbling at Universal Financial Services. Bernie said he’d loan her the money in exchange for sex,” Rick said. “But I think she was still obliged to repay the loan. So that got me wondering how Bernie Dribbling planned to get away with making such a conspicuously bad loan.”
Sheriff Jackson glanced up at Rick. “Some of that fancy WorldCom accounting?”
Rick shook his head. “I don’t think so. From what Clay says on the tape, Universal Financial Services is a partnership, the partners being Buddy Alford, Dicky Crumly, Wally Thigpen, and Dribbling. Apparently the board of directors made the strategic error of putting Bernie in charge of the money and he made this loan,” Rick said. “For all I know, he’s made a bunch of them. At any rate, Holly eventually told Donna Moore that the ap
pointments with Dribbling were getting weird and violent and that she, Holly, planned to tell Dribbling that she wasn’t going to do it anymore and she wasn’t paying the loan back and if he said anything, she’d go to the press and the cops and tell ‘em about the deal.”
“So you think he killed her and that’s the body you found?”
“No. I don’t think Dribbling actually killed anybody. I assumed he hired someone. But I wasn’t sure until I talked to Lori Stubblefield. She said that one night, a month or so before Captain Jack disappeared, Bernie Dribbling showed up at their house all agitated and needing to talk with Clay. Lori heard him tell Clay that he had a big problem and that he needed help with it. More specifically she heard him say, The little bitch is going to ruin me. Clay calmed Bernie down with a few drinks and told him he could take care of the matter but it wouldn’t be cheap if he wanted it done right.”
“So he hired somebody?”
“A guy named DeWayne Ragsdale.”
Sheriff Jackson nodded knowingly. “Good old DeWayne. At least he got out of the meth making business.”
“After Dribbling left that night, Clay made a call. About an hour later, DeWayne was in their kitchen talking to Clay. According to Lori, they talked for about half an hour before going to Clay’s gun closet. After DeWayne left and Clay went to bed, Lori looked in the closet and saw that one of the guns was missing.”
Sheriff Jackson looked up from making notes. “Did she know which one, what kind it was? Caliber, anything?”
“She said she wouldn’t know a four-ten from a two-by-four,” Rick said. “But all is not lost.” He went to the wall of albums and pulled Roy Buchanan’s That’s What I Am Here For which includes the song Hey Joe, as in where you goin’ with that gun in your hand? Rick reached into the sleeve and pulled out the yellow duplicate page from the police report Lori had given him. “The next day,” Rick said, “Clay called his friends at McRae PD and reported his gun stolen.”
“In case DeWayne got caught by someone like me?” Sheriff Jackson took the report and looked at it. “A forty-five,” she said. “That’ll kill ya, all right.”
“Of course DeWayne doesn’t work for free,” Rick said. “And, dumb as Clay is, at least he tried to hide the payoff. My guess is that Clay got Bernie to put up thousand dollars that the station would give away in a contest that DeWayne would win for killing Holly Creel. I assume he collected the prize under the name Ken Stigler for tax evasion purposes.” Rick told Sheriff Jackson about Joni Lang’s evidence and the W-9 and how Clay had threatened him not to look into the matter.
“What did Stubblefield get out of the deal?”
“He sold Dribbling an advertising schedule that would curl the hair in your nose. And I can’t prove it yet, but I bet Clay commissioned it at around ninety percent.”
“Good work if you can get it,” Sheriff Jackson said. “So DeWayne killed Holly Creel for a thousand bucks and Clay got paid with the commissions. You ever figure out how Dribbling planned to get this past his partners?”
Rick made a waffling gesture. “I’m guessing,” he said. “But I suspect that at the next Universal Financial Services board meeting, when his partners asked about the defaulted ten thousand dollar loan, Bernie was going to be sad to report that this young woman had disappeared. Just stopped showing up at work one day according to the police, he’ll say. He’ll report that the car title or whatever she gave for collateral turned out to be bogus. Of course there never was any collateral but he’ll have to tell them something. He’ll probably say it looks like she was a con artist and the local cops don’t have high hopes on finding her. But the good news is they can chalk it up to errors and omissions and cash in the insurance policy.”
After a moment Sheriff Jackson said, “I guess that’s plausible.”
“Okay, so a few weeks pass,” Rick said. “And one day Captain Jack is walking down the hall at the radio station when he hears Clay on the phone talking about Bernie Dribbling and his strap on manhood extension.” Rick gestured at the stereo. “That’s when he made the tape. Then, after trying to extort Lisa Ramey and Donna Moore, he showed up on Dribbling’s doorstep. Now, based on what Lori Stubblefield told me, it was probably later that night that Dribbling came over to their house again. She said he was furious and that it was clear that Clay had fucked up royally and it was causing Bernie bad trouble. He kept screaming, You dumb sonofabitch, what’re you doin’ tellin’ people my business? This is yer damn fault and you damn well better fix it fast!
“Clay said he’d take care of it and, according to Lori Stubblefield, the minute Dribbling left, Clay made a phone call. Thirty minutes later DeWayne showed up.”
“What did DeWayne get for killing Carter?”
“A torch red ‘96 Corvette which I found sitting on DeWayne’s property, painted black.”
“What about Stubblefield,” the sheriff asked. “Did Carter try to blackmail him?”
“I don’t know,” Rick said. “But I doubt it. He probably figured that was too dangerous since Clay knew him.”
Sheriff Jackson flipped her note pad shut. “So what we need to do now is to dig up this body and get some forensics,” she said as she stood. “So let’s go have a look.”
Rick looked up at her from the Barcalounger and said, “What, now?”
72.
As they made their way through the woods, Rick was thinking that one of the good things about cops was that they always had great flashlights. Sheriff Jackson had two. Rick led her into the pine trees following the path he’d been on before. He found the old fence line and followed it to the clearing. They scooted on their haunches down into the shallow ravine created by the flash flood. “It’s down here,” he said. It took them a few minutes to find where he’d put the mud patch. Then, using a stick, they pried and scraped until they exposed the parietal bones.
Sheriff Jackson shined her light on the spot and leaned in for a close look. “Well,” she said. “That ain’t no possum.” She stepped back and shined her light around, trying to get a wider view of the area. “You know whose property this is?”
“No idea,” Rick said. “I think the trailer’s on station-owned property. Clay told me they bought it as a potential site for a new antennae. There’s that old fence back there but I don’t know if it still a property line.”
Sheriff Jackson shined her light around the clearing some more. “I don’t suspect there’s going to be any evidence left above ground after all that wind and water came through here,” she said. “I’ll get the crime lab down here first thing and see what they dig up.”
73.
Around seven the next morning there was a loud knock on Rick’s door. He rolled over in his bed and peered out the window. Sheriff Jackson was there with half a dozen employees from the state crime lab. He watched her step to the door and knock again. Rick grudgingly put on his sweats and some cheap sunglasses and went to the door. He stepped outside and Sheriff Jackson handed him a large Styrofoam cup of coffee. “Thought you might want this.”
“Thanks,” Rick said. “Did you call Donna Moore?”
The sheriff gave a nod. “Yep. Back hoe’s on the way.”
Sheriff Jackson introduced everybody then left Rick to lead the expedition into the trees. The parade of technicians in identical jump suits tromping through the trees in single file toting chrome equipment cases made Rick think of a Devo video. They reached the fence and then followed it to the edge of the clearing where they stopped. Rick pointed to the spot and said, “Thar she blows.”
The lead investigator turned around and said something that set his team in motion. Rick sat on a log, sipping his coffee, and watched.
After a consultation with his boss that included lots of finger pointing around the area, the first guy set out to mark a wide perimeter, looping the yellow crime scene tape around one tree trunk after another. Two others quickly set up an aluminum framed canopy for the command post, under which they installed an array of computer and communications e
quipment. Rick was impressed. It looked like a well-coordinated military operation. A woman took photographs while a man took video, recording the scene from every possible angle. The photographer even shinnied up a tree for some aerial views. By the time Rick finished his coffee they were all standing around waiting for the back hoe to arrive.
Rick went back to the trailer, had breakfast, and get ready for work. Later, he went back to see if the tractor had arrived. He knew the answer before he got to the site. He could hear the diesel engine growling as it pulled something human from the earth.
74.
Traci was on the phone when Rick walked into the station that afternoon. She hung up the phone and flashed Rick a smile. “Oh, hey,” she said. “I’ve got a surprise for you.”
Rick held out his hands and said, “What is it?”
Traci made a face. “Now if I told you, what would it be?”
“Not a surprise?”
“Not so much. So that’ll come later when you least expect it.”
“Okay,” Rick said. “I’m glad you brought it up.”
“So. Did you miss me last night?”
“Not so much,” Rick said, glancing at his fingernails. “I had a lady visitor, kept me kinda preoccupied.”
Traci stiffened. “You better hurry up and tell me it was your sister and ha-ha-ha wasn’t that funny?”
“Sorry.” Rick shook his head. He sat on the edge of Traci’s desk. “I don’t have a sister.”
“And you’re not gonna have a date tonight if you don’t hurry up and tell me who it was instead of who it wasn’t.” The phone rang. She snatched it. “Dubya-ay-oh-ahhr. Mmm. Hold please.” She transferred the call then looked back at Rick. “Your time and my patience are runnin’ out, buster.”