The Fiercest Enemy

by Rick Reed

  “I’m kind of hanging out here on my own. I’ll be honest with you. We don’t have the budget or resources or manpower to run an investigation this big. Not if we want to solve it in my lifetime. I got the coroner to do the post on my son by twisting the City Council’s arm. Sullivan County has their own coroner, such as he is. I just told them about Brandon Dillingham before you got here. They gave me one week to finish this or the cost comes out of my budget. They said if the Feds were taking over you guys should take over the cost too.”

  Jack was on to Jerrell’s game now. Jerrell had played Toomey. Had used the “I’m starting a task force” to justify asking for Angelina’s services. If she was working for the Feds Jerrell wouldn’t have to go to the Linton city council begging for the funds to pay her. This was all about Troy Junior’s murder. Solving the other cases was gravy. Jack admired the man for his cunning. Toomey was right. On the other hand, he’d have to keep a close eye on him.

  Jerrell finished his fourth scone, licked his fingers, patted his belly and belched. He’d gotten exactly what he wanted and was content as a tick on a hound dog. Tina cleared the table of plates and brought fresh coffee.

  Jack said, “We should get on the same page with the old murders—” he handed a manila folder to Sergeant Crocker—“before we start a new investigation. I know that sounds counterintuitive but these cases are all connected somehow. Before we get started we need several copies of the file I just gave the sergeant.”

  Jerrell nodded at Crocker who hurried away.

  “Do you mind if I use your whiteboards?” Jack asked Chief Jerrell.

  “Knock yourself out.”

  Jack found a marker and wrote on one whiteboard:

  Greene and Sullivan Counties—2012 to Present

  Missing persons 43

  Murders 17

  Unsolved Murders 8

  Drownings 27

  Jack said, “These are the numbers our computer analyst pulled from police and other sources. Eight unsolved murders. Twenty-seven drownings. I guess that’s not unusual since this area’s crisscrossed with ponds and stripper pit lakes. Let’s go through the murders first. Of the eight that are unsolved, there are five with the same characteristics.

  On the second whiteboard, Jack wrote:

  Found in lake

  naked, (or underwear on head)

  head wound, drugs,

  male, 30 to 40 years old

  accidental?

  “If we put Brandon in this group,” Jerrell said, “that makes six. He was found in almost the same spot as my son and had the head wound and underwear over his head.”

  “We haven’t run Brandon by Angelina yet,” Jack said. “Let’s not jump to conclusions.”

  “Trust me,” Jerrell said. “That boy was born to be on some killer’s radar.”

  Sergeant Crocker brought five folders back, each containing a copy of Angelina’s file. He handed them around with a yellow legal pad and a pencil. Also, Crocker had made blowups of the victim’s pictures for each file.

  Jerrell briefly paged through his folder and said, “This came from your little girl, Angel?”

  “Angelina, yes. She wouldn’t like to hear you call her a girl, or Angel for that matter,” Jack said.

  Jerrell made a dismissive motion with his hand. “How did she get copies of all my reports? Some of this isn’t even in the file cabinet yet. She never asked me for any of this.”

  Crocker said, “Sorry Chief. I’m to blame for that. When she called I faxed and emailed her what we had. I thought it was okay since you’d talked to her.”

  Jack was losing patience with Jerrell. “Chief Jerrell, you know the area and all the good guys and bad. You said you needed our resources, but I think you need us too. We’ve worked more homicides in a year than you have in your career. You need to decide right now if you’re going to be completely open with us because, frankly, I’m a little tired of the jurisdiction battles.”

  “Well, you’re here and the computer girl I asked for isn’t.” Jerrell smiled at Jack. It was the kind of smile that said ‘bite me’. “However, you have my departments full cooperation and our records are open to you Agent Murphy, or Detective Murphy, or whatever.”

  “Chief Jerrell or Troy or whatever, I know I do,” Jack said.

  The muscles in Jerrell’s jaw tensed. Jack had a feeling the man wasn’t used to being talked back to. The tension in the room was palpable.

  Jerrell relaxed. “You’re a hard man, Jack. I respect that. But let me make one thing clear up front. I’m going to be the one to arrest my boy’s killer. No one else touches him. If you agree to that I’ll give you everything I’ve got—or get.”

  Toomey hadn’t been kidding about Jerrell being a handful. He hoped the man was on his meds. He was too big to fight and Jack didn’t want to have to shoot him.

  “You have our promise,” Jack lied. If he had to shoot the killer he’d do it without hesitation.

  Jack stood beside the whiteboard. “Seventeen murders in six years is a low number if you consider statewide statistics. There are that many murders in Gary each day before breakfast.”

  Crocker chuckled but stopped when Jerrell glared at him.

  Jack continued. “Five murders over a seven-year period, with the most recent being your son a week ago, wouldn’t set off any alarms normally. You have our condolences, Chief.”

  Jerrell strummed his fingers on top of the table.

  “Do you have some tape?” Jack asked and Crocker brought some.

  “To narrow the investigation, we’ve eliminated three of the unsolved murders to concentrate our efforts on the remaining five.” He completely erased the first whiteboard. He taped the photos of the five victims on it in the order they had been killed. He wrote their names and dates of death under the photos.

  Tina Crocker came up behind her husband and rested her hands on his shoulders. “I went to high school with Troy at Linton-Stockton High. He grew up here but I heard he moved to Dugger. I know most of the others, too, except the one at the top, Clint Baker. The face is familiar though.”

  She looked at the photos and said, “Lamont Washington, Daniel Winters and Troy all went to Stockton-Linton High. DiLegge went to Union High in Dugger. I’m not real familiar with him, but I recognize him as one of the baseball players on their team. Lamont, Daniel and Troy all played for Stockton-Linton High.”

  As there was no photo, Jack wrote Brandon Dillingham’s name at the bottom of the board with today’s date. “Clint Baker lived in Hutsonville, Illinois. Does that name ring a bell, Tina?”

  She cocked her head and thought. “I’m sorry. I just thought his face was familiar. The name doesn’t mean anything.”

  Jack asked Crocker, “Sergeant, do you want your wife to hear all of this?”

  Crocker said, “Maybe she’ll have some insight that could help. She doesn’t mind. Do you, hon?”

  Jack said, “I won’t be going into gory details. If you can stay maybe you’ll remember something about them.”

  “I’ll try,” she said. “That one at the top, Clint Baker. He’s older than the rest of them isn’t he?”

  “He would be about forty-one years old if he was alive,” Jack said. “The others would all be around your age.”

  “I was a year behind them,” Tina said. “Was Baker a teacher, or a coach maybe?”

  “We’ll find out” Jack said and Liddell jotted it down. “What can you tell us about the others?”

  “I heard you say that Shaunda was coming,” Tina said. “Should I wait until she gets here?”

  “We’ll catch her up,” Jerrell said.

  “Have a seat, hon,” Crocker said and pulled out a chair for his wife.

  She sat and scanned the pictures on the whiteboard. “Winters, Washington and Troy played for the Miners.”

  “That’s the
baseball team for Stockton-Linton,” Jerrell explained to Jack and Liddell.

  “If I remember correctly, DiLegge was with the baseball team at Union High. The Bulldogs. They played against each other, but they were all friends. At least they were back then. I didn’t keep track of them after high school. I mean I’d see one of them here or there but we never spoke. I wasn’t in their circle in high school.” She took a breath and let it out. “Sorry. This makes me nervous.”

  Crocker said, “You’re doing just fine. If you don’t want to do this you don’t have to.”

  Tina pushed the errant strand of hair out of her face. “I remember Lamont Washington was a big deal ball player. He could have had done something with his life but I guess he stayed messed up on drugs or at least that’s what I heard. I don’t know it for a fact and I don’t remember who told me that.”

  “Lamont was into drugs?” Jack asked.

  “He had the reputation of being the guy you went to if you wanted something,” she said. “I didn’t hang around with any of them. I’d see them at parties. Hanging around together after games. Troy was always with them. Sorry, Chief.”

  Jack asked Jerrell, “Was Troy involved with drugs?”

  Jerrell didn’t answer but his big hands gripped the arms of his chair until his knuckles turned white.

  “Was Troy Junior involved Tina?” Jack asked.

  She was uncomfortable. Her husband took her hand and said, “It’s okay to say what you know, hon.”

  “I don’t think he was doing hard drugs, Troy. Not that I ever saw, anyway. It was more because of the people he was hanging out with after games. A couple of parties were…well, they had a reputation for smoking pot and doing other things.”

  “Smoking pot?” Jerrell asked. “You saw my boy smoking pot in high school?”

  Tina quickly said, “Lamont seemed to be the one that brought whatever they were doing.”

  “You’re saying my boy didn’t bring the drugs,” Jerrell said. “But he was involved.”

  Jack thought back to his high school days. He’d gone to a Catholic high school and people that smoked pot were rare. Doing hard drugs was even more rare back in the day. Now, it was probably an extracurricular school program.

  “Troy. I’m really sorry. I didn’t hang around with that group. I’m just telling you what I remember.”

  “Who was in ‘that group’, Tina?” Troy asked.

  “There were a couple of others besides the four you have there. Mostly baseball players and some groupies. I don’t remember the names. I’ve got a yearbook at home. I could try to see if I can recall any of the others if you want me to? I don’t remember much else.”

  “If you remember anything at all later, I want you to tell us,” Jerrell said. “Don’t worry about my feelings. Okay?”

  “Okay. I have to go run some errands.” She kissed her husband on the cheek and hurried out of the room.

  “I’d better go check on her,” Crocker said.

  Jerrell said, “I need you back here.”

  “Be right back Chief,” Crocker said.

  “Actually, Chief,” Jack said, “we need yearbooks from both high schools for those years. Do you have any here at the station?”

  “Not any from that far back,” Jerrell said, sounding embarrassed.

  “Can you get them?”

  Jerrell said, “I never made it to any of Troy’s games. He was an amazing baseball player. He was getting a baseball scholarship to Notre Dame. The Fighting Irish took Atlantic Conference Championship in what would have been his freshman year at Notre Dame if he had kept with it.”

  “What happened?” Jack asked.

  “His grades slipped his senior year in high school. Any chance at a scholarship just blew away.” Jerrell seemed lost in thought until Crocker came back into the room.

  “Chief, I called the vice-principal at Linton-Stockton and at Union. They’re going to donate some yearbooks. I told them what years we’re interested in. They offered to bring them to the station.”

  “Go pick them up.”

  “I’m on my way.” Crocker left.

  “Don’t you think we need Crocker here while we discuss the cases?” Liddell asked.

  “Crocker’s been here about four years. He’s still a newcomer. He won’t know much that I can’t tell you,” Jerrell answered.

  “When is the autopsy scheduled for the Dillingham kid?” Jack asked.

  “Lacy Daniels is the Greene County Coroner. She’ll call me when she’s ready.”

  “Do we want to continue with this now or wait?” Jack asked.

  Jerrell said, “We’d better wait for Shaunda. You think she was testy earlier in Dugger, she’ll be plain nasty if we do much without her. This morning was her happy face.”

  Jack asked Jerrell, “Do you recognize any of these victims as friends of your son?”

  Jerrell said, “I was gone. Army, active duty and deployed most of the time while Troy was in high school. We kept in touch by phone and computer, but I rarely got home.”

  “Would Troy’s mother have known the other victims? Can we show her the pictures?”

  “If you can find her?” Jerrell said.

  Jack was about to ask what Jerrell meant by that when Crocker came rushing back into the room. “Come quick! It’s Chief Lynch. She’s hurt.”

  Chapter 10

  Chief Lynch sat slump shouldered at the desk in the front lobby with a blanket pulled around her. Crime Scene Officer Barr was trying to put an ice pack on the side of her face but she kept batting his hand away.

  “I told you I’m fine,” she said. “Give me my keys.” She tried to stand and the blanket fell to the floor. Jack could see she was obviously not fine. Her uniform shirt was ripped down the front. Her face was bloody, left cheek was scraped, her upper lip was split and bleeding, a bluish circle was surrounding her left eye. Her shirt collar was soaked with blood, her uniform pants were damp as if she’d been swimming and her boots were coated with black grit. There was a rip in her shirt where the badge should be.

  Jerrell asked Officer Barr, “What happened to her?”

  “She’s right here,” Shaunda said angrily and took the ice pack from Barr’s hand and held it against the back of her head. “You can ask me.”

  Jack saw the bruising on her face was worse than he’d first thought. She would end up with black bruising around both eyes—raccoon eyes.

  Barr said, “We were just finishing up with the scene, Chief. Me and Rudy were putting gear in the wagon when she came crashing out of the path. She said she was ambushed. Rudy stayed with her while I searched for the guy. Sergeant Ditterline and Rudy are still out there.”

  “Then why are you still here? Why isn’t she in the hospital?” Jerrell asked.

  Shaunda looked up. “Because I don’t need to go to the hospital.”

  Barr wilted under Jerrell’s stare. “She refused an ambulance, Chief. I tried. She was getting in her own vehicle so I told her I’d drive her. She insisted I bring her here. She wouldn’t let me call you or call an ambulance. She said she had to see you.”

  “Damn right,” she said. “I think I should be here to see what you’re all deciding about my investigations.”

  Jerrell’s hands clenched and unclenched. Still ignoring her he said, “The bastard was out there waiting for her. I thought we searched that area. How the hell could he surprise her?”

  “We covered the scene, Chief. Me and Rudy…”

  “Sergeant Ditterline was supposed to be sweeping the area for the Jeep or any cars that were out of place or even a damn bicycle. What kind of crap operation are we running, Barr? If I’d have known…” Jerrell clamped his mouth shut, his jaw muscles working. “Well, screw me nine ways from Sunday!”

  He paced around the room until he got his anger under control.

  “It
wasn’t your people’s fault,” she said. “I should’ve been more alert. I was still down there poking around the scene. The body was gone, your techs were done and I told Joey he could go home and check on his wife. A couple of minutes after Joey left I got waylaid. I thought I saw something on the ground and bam.”

  Jack said, “Your knuckles are scraped. You fought him?”

  Shaunda spat on the back of her hand and rubbed some of the grit off. “I guess I must have. One minute I’m bent over to see something and then its lights out. My head hurts like a category five hangover.”

  “I’m calling an ambulance,” Jerrell said and took his cell phone from its belt holder. “You need to get checked out at the hospital. I’ll ride in the back with her. You can come along if you want,” he said to Jack and Liddell.

  “I told you no ambulance,” Shaunda said in a tone that brooked no argument. “Just let me catch my breath and we’ll get to work.” She attempted to rise and collapsed back in the chair.

  Jerrell motioned for Crocker to call an ambulance. “You just take it easy, Shauny,” Jerrell said and patted her shoulder. She winced and he took his hand away.

  Shaunda asked, “Have you at least found Brandon’s Jeep? This asshole couldn’t have gone too far. Have you done anything, fellas?”

  “We’re doing everything we can. I’ve got guys patrolling around Dugger for you. I’ve notified Sullivan County and the State Police. I’ve called damn near everyone but Joey. Hell, Shauny, this is a homicide. You don’t take vacation days off from something like this even if you just had a baby. You need to get that boy back to work.”

  “First of all, Troy, you know I hate that name. Secondly, Joey works for me. If anyone’s going to call him back to work it will be me. For God’s sake, Troy. I got beat up. It comes with the job.”

  “Just sit there until you get checked out by a medic. You’re here. You’re safe. We got this covered.” To Crocker he said, “Where’s that ambulance, Sergeant?”

  “We’re all over this Shaunda. Just you let us handle it,” Crocker said and got on his cell phone again.

  Jerrell pounded his fist into his palm. “Nobody hurts one of ours.”