Last Ragged Breath (31 page)

Bell spent the rest of the day presenting the physical evidence. She called to the stand Wallace Barr, a forensic specialist from the state police crime lab in Charleston. He testified that the blood on the shovel found in Dillard's barn had been Hackel's, and that, after matching the shovel edge to the shape of the victim's wounds, they could say with a high degree of certainty that the shovel was the murder weapon. Barr then explained the hair and fiber evidence found inside Dillard's wagon, following that up with the soil analysis proving that the mud clinging to the wheels had most likely emanated from the bank of Old Man's Creek. Dirt and debris on the bottom of Hackel's shoes, he added, had come from the area in front of Dillard's barn. The preponderance of the evidence indicated that Hackel had been struck and killed in or near the barn early Thursday evening, then placed in the wagon and hauled to the creek for disposal, like an oversized sack of trash.

 

Chapter Twenty-eight

The next morning Bell called Deputy Jake Oakes to the stand. He left his hat on his seat and ambled slowly up to the front of the courtroom. After taking the oath, he sat down and made himself comfortable in the witness box. And then he winked at her.

“Your full name,” Bell asked him, her voice formal and cold, even though he was her witness.

“Jake Oakes.”

“I said
full
name, please. Including middle.”

“That's it. Jake Oakes. Don't have a middle name.”

“Really.”

“Nope. Neither did Harry Truman.” He grinned at her.

“So—is it Jacob Oakes?”

“Just Jake. My folks didn't have very high ambitions for me, I guess. Figured plain old Jake would do me fine.”

She heard Judge Barbour clear his throat, a sure sign that he, too, was now officially perturbed.

“What is your profession?” she asked him.

“I'm a deputy in the Raythune County Sheriff's Department.”

“And how did you come to be involved in the investigation of the death of Edward Hackel?”

Oakes sat up straighter now, the smile gone. “On Saturday, February twenty-first, at 11:07
A.M
.,” he said, “the 911 operator received a call from a man who identified himself as Andy Stegner. Caller reported finding a body in Old Man's Creek. Said the property belonged to his neighbor, Royce Dillard. Deputy Mathers and I were assigned to go check it out.”

“What did you find?”

“We hiked about a mile or so from the hard road until we reached the creek. After moving along the bank for a while, we came across a dead body. It was covered with a brown tweed overcoat. Later identification proved it to be the body of Edward Hackel.”

“What did you do next?”

“We called the state crime lab from the scene and waited for their arrival, to make sure it was undisturbed. Once they got there, we went up to Dillard's cabin to ask him some questions. He already knew about the body. Mr. Stegner had filled him in on what he'd found.”

“Did you and your colleague consider Mr. Dillard a suspect at this time?”

“No.”

“But you read him his rights.”

“We did. As a precaution.”

“What was his reaction?”

“Well, he said he didn't know how the body had gotten there or who it might be. At that point we requested his presence at the courthouse, to give us more details, but he was under no obligation to comply. He came voluntarily. Rode in with Deputy Mathers and me.”

“Very well,” she said. “Later that day you were able to obtain a search warrant for Mr. Dillard's property, were you not?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“Can you tell the court what you found during the execution of that lawful search?”

“I found a shovel. Appeared to be covered with blood.”

“Where did you find it?”

“In the defendant's barn. I set aside several objects that were in plain view and then I saw the shovel, leaning against the back wall of the barn. I bagged it for analysis. Arranged for its transport to the state crime lab. Chain of custody was observed throughout. The shovel was later determined to be the weapon that killed Edward Hackel.”

“Did you see anything else in the barn relevant to this case?”

The puckish side of Jake Oakes returned, if only for a moment. “Well, ma'am, there were three big dogs. One of them—according to what Andy Stegner told us—was the one that actually found the body. But she refused comment. I can only assume she was following the advice of counsel.”

A stir of chuckles swept across the jury box. They liked Jake Oakes. Bell could see that. This was a grim business, and the deputy was a good leavening agent, his personality a nice way to temporarily balance out the darkness.

“Anything other than the shovel and the dogs?” she said. “Perhaps later. During a second search.”

“Yes, ma'am,” Oakes said. The levity left him. He was deadly serious now. “Upon your instruction, I went back to the barn three days ago and searched again. The premises have been sealed off since the victim's body was recovered and the defendant removed to our custody. The only people who've been in there after my initial search are you and assistant Raythune County prosecutor Rhonda Lovejoy.”

“Go on.”

“Like I said, I scoured the place all over again. Top to bottom. And underneath a panel in the rafters I found—”

He hesitated.

“What, Deputy?” Bell pressed him. “What did you find?”

“I found twenty-four small plastic bags, each containing what appeared to be illegal prescription narcotics. The state lab tested the contents. Found a combination of oxycodone, Dilaudid and fentanyl.”

“Your conclusion, based on your experience as a deputy sheriff?”

“Royce Dillard is either a drug dealer himself or he knowingly aided and abetted drug dealers by allowing his barn to be used as a distribution point.”

 

Chapter Twenty-nine

Royce Dillard. A drug dealer.

From her position alongside the witness box, Bell took a quick look over at Rhonda. She knew the assistant prosecutor would be shocked at the information that had just been unleashed, information that caused a strong gust of whispers to rustle across the courtroom like a hundred pages being turned simultaneously in a hundred different books. Bell wished she could have tipped off Rhonda, preparing her in advance for the revelation. But there hadn't been time. The state lab had not delivered its verdict until minutes before Oakes arrived in court. His wink at Bell had been a signal that, yes, the test results had come back. The pills were narcotics. Until Bell knew for sure, she couldn't bring it up in court, couldn't risk the embarrassment of the contents of those bags turning out to be, say, Flintstones Chewables.

Rhonda's face looked washed of all of its color. She sat behind the prosecution table just as she'd been sitting a few seconds ago, leaning forward, ready to grasp a legal pad from the stack in front of her should Bell request it. But her round chin trembled, and a shudder seemed to run through her big body. For a moment Bell was afraid Rhonda was going to cry—but she underestimated her. There were no tears. Rhonda quickly got hold of herself, shaking off her astonishment.

On the other side of the aisle, an incensed Serena Crumpler had leaped to her feet so quickly that she startled Jessica Muth, the bailiff, causing Muth to flinch and knock her laptop onto the wooden floor, producing a solid smack. Serena barged up to the bench, demanding that Judge Barbour require Bell to produce the official analysis of the contents of the plastic bags found in Dillard's barn—and demanding, further, to know why Bell had kept the results of Deputy Oakes's second search a secret until Oakes took the stand today.

“Your Honor,” Bell said, having joined Serena in front of the bench. “I didn't know what—if anything—the search would produce. And the results of the analysis were only made available to me a few minutes before the court convened today. Otherwise I would've shared all of this with Ms. Crumpler.”

“Sure you would've,” Serena muttered, acid in her tone. “Anyway, it's totally prejudicial, Your Honor,” she said, quickly switching her attention back to the judge.

“Mrs. Elkins?” he said.

“Judge, it goes directly to motive. We believe that Edward Hackel discovered that the defendant was using his barn as a storage site for illegal drugs. And he employed that information to try to blackmail Mr. Dillard into selling his land. The murder, we believe, occurred in response to the blackmail threat.”

Barbour turned to Serena. “You'll have your chance to explain the drugs found on Mr. Dillard's property,” he said. “Let's proceed.”

Bell watched her opponent march away. Serena's steps were quick, and stiff with umbrage. Bell's gaze also took in Royce Dillard, stone-faced as usual in his seat at the defense table, head tilted down, and then it swept over to Rhonda. The assistant prosecutor's eyes were impossible to read, but Bell could sense her disillusionment. Rhonda had believed in Royce Dillard. Believed in his essential goodness. The new piece of information put that assessment in serious jeopardy.

“Hey—remember me?” Deputy Oakes said. Still in the witness box, he raised his right hand and fluttered his fingers. Two female jurors smiled at that.

Bell dismissed Oakes and called her next witness: Artie Munson. He was nineteen years old, overfed, with gel-spiked brown hair, droopy eyes, and a zipper-like scar that ran from his cheek to his chin. His dark suit looked as if it had just been pulled out of a box in the basement, and would go right back into it again once this ordeal was over.

“Please state your name, address, and occupation,” Bell said, after his swearing in.

“Artie Munson. Trailer park over in Swanville. Ain't got no job.”

“Very well, then, Mr. Munson.”

“Artie's fine. Everybody calls me Artie.”

She didn't react to that. “How do you support yourself?”

“Odd jobs. Helping folks out. Whatever.”

“Are you acquainted with the defendant, Royce Dillard?”

“Sure. I seen him around.”

“And how about the victim? Did you ever meet Edward Hackel?”

“Yeah. Didn't know his name. But when I seen the picture, I knew it was him.”

“How did you come to be acquainted with Mr. Hackel?”

Munson waited. He looked apprehensive. He tugged at the bottom of his suit coat.

“Mr. Munson,” Bell said. “You've been granted immunity from prosecution. You won't face charges for anything you tell us today.”

Relief made Munson smile. He knew the terms of the deal he'd made, but wanted to make sure he had it right before continuing. “Okay. Yeah, well, I got a buddy who works on the cleanup crew out at Mountain Magic, and he told me there was somebody there who was looking to—well, to party. Get high.”

“To obtain illegal narcotics, you mean?”

“Yeah. So I met up with the guy. It was Hackel. Told him where to find what he was looking for.” He pointed at Dillard. “His place. A barn on his property.”

A stir raced around the courtroom like a tiny car on a circular track. Judge Barbour frowned. The stir ceased.

“How did Mr. Hackel react to this information?” Bell asked.

“He just grinned. Grinned real big.”

Bet he did,
Bell thought distastefully. She could imagine Hackel's glee at the news that finally, at long last, he had something to hold over Royce Dillard's head. He had leverage. Blackmail bait. He had in his possession a fact that Dillard would be desperate to keep under wraps.

But was it enough? Would it explain to the jurors' satisfaction why quiet, self-effacing Royce Dillard had taken a sharp-edged shovel to the back of a man's neck, after which he'd dumped the corpse in an icy creek?

*   *   *

“Tell them, Royce. Tell them what you told me.”

Serena stood behind Dillard's chair. The prosecuting attorney's office in the late afternoon was dim and chilly. As the sun went down, it snatched back the light and warmth offered up throughout the short day; not even the three lamps were enough to counteract the gloom.

The trial was in recess until tomorrow. Serena had asked for a meeting in the prosecutor's office. Bell sat behind her desk; Rhonda had chosen the couch. Dillard was hunched over in the wooden armchair, his face pale and stricken as he stared at the tops of his knees.

“It was for money,” Dillard said. His voice was slow, as if the words themselves, and not just the shameful truths they signified, were burdensome. “That's why I did it. But it was a big mistake. I knew right away. See, I needed cash. For my dogs. Two of 'em got to have surgery. Utley's hip is a mess. Pains him something awful. And PeeWee's got a real bad eye infection. So I said they could use my barn. State police wouldn't think to look for nothin' way out there. That's what they told me.”

Bell looked up at Serena, and then back down at Dillard. Clearly he was deeply troubled by what he'd just revealed, filled with embarrassment and regret.

“I never sold no drugs,” Dillard said, the pace of his words quickening. “Never. I'd already told them to come and get that shit out of my barn. Didn't want it there. No matter what they were gonna pay me. Not enough money in all the world.”

“Did Hackel threaten to expose you? To reveal the fact that you were storing illegal drugs?” Bell asked.

“Yeah.”

“So that's why you killed him.”

Dillard studied the floor. “I didn't kill him. Told you that already.”

Serena put a hand on Dillard's shoulder. He flinched, but she didn't remove it. “Bell,” Serena said, “I'm asking for a little forbearance here. I hope you don't intend to add drug possession with intent to distribute to the charges against my client.”

“No. I think first-degree murder is enough for now. We'll be presenting it as motive for the crime, of course, but no additional charges will be filed.”