Murder! Too Close To Home (11 page)

As we were finishing up, I heard the far off sound of the door closing down the hall, followed by a series of beeps as Allen worked the security system. Meeting Allen at the door of our suite, I took him back and introduced him to Zeke.

Plopping down in the chair next to our witness, Allen proffered his hand while looking Zeke in the eye, a technique always used by our prosecutor to gauge the cut of a man. Satisfied, he asked the witness to go over his testimony one more time.

At the conclusion of the account, Allen thanked him and got out of the chair, asking me to follow him to his office.

“Close the door,” he said distractedly as we entered the room. He sat in his chair and put the palms of his hands to his eyes, trying to rub the exhaustion out of his body as I took the seat opposite his desk and waited.

Finally looking up, his eyes red from rubbing, he leaned back in his chair, interlocking his fingers together and resting his hands on his chest.

“This is a disaster,” he started gloomily. “Between the gun and the uniform sighting there is overwhelming evidence of possible involvement by someone in the sheriff’s department. The whole unit has effectively been compromised by these revelations, at the very least in perception, if not in actual fact.”

Leaning forward again, he looked me in the eye. “I see no other option than to call in the State Police to take over the sheriff’s operations and investigate the whole department. This is unprecedented, beyond anything in my wildest nightmares.”

I was forced by the overwhelming facts to agree with his decision, and would not relish the role he would have to play as his decision played itself out. Public outcry when this got out would be loud and long, truly a nightmare for any publicly elected official.

Allen was seeing his whole career potentially melt away before his eyes, not to mention that of Lean McHenry’s.

He picked up the phone and made the call both of us saw as the only real option. Allen apologized to the commander for waking him up from a sound sleep, but quickly got to the point of the call, the commander coming full awake as the facts were revealed to him. The State Police would mobilize and be there en-force by nine o’clock. They would meet Allen in the parking lot, entering the sheriff’s department together in a blitzkrieg, the need for surprise paramount.

Ticking off the main points of the plan to me when he got off of the phone, I was somewhat surprised at the swiftness of it all. Knowing that it was what needed done however, I asked Allen what we should do with Zeke in the mean time. If there was actual sheriff’s department involvement, there could be a danger to him if someone found out what he had seen.

“I don’t want to do anything official until this plays out in the morning,” Allen stated, deep in thought as to a solution. “Is there any place we can stash him for a few hours, keep him out of sight but safe until after the shit hits the fan?”

I thought but for a few seconds, my lips curling in a smile as I realized the perfect solution for our dilemma.

“I’ll take care of it right away,” I told my boss as I turned to leave the room.

“Make sure the Task Force is in place at the parking lot at nine, minus the sheriff’s contingent of course,” Allen called after me as I left the room. I waved my acknowledgement as I made my way to the conference room.

Questioning eyes followed me in the room as I made my way to the table, taking the seat next to Zeke.

“Zeke, we need to take you somewhere for awhile, we just want to make sure you are safe for a few more hours.”

A surprised look crossed every face in the room, Ezekiel asking “Am I in danger?”

“We don’t think so, but we don’t want to take any chances,” I tried to reassure him.

I felt Betty’s hand on my thigh, squeezing it as if to ask ‘
what was going on?’

I glanced at her and squeezed her hand with mine, conveying with a look that I would fill her in soon.  Having been together for years, she understood me like no one ever had, her abilities to read my mind always amazing me.

I asked Frank if we could take his car so that we could all ride together. He agreed and started digging the keys out of his pocket while also giving me a questioning look. I told Zeke that his truck would be safe here, and that he would get it back later that day.

We all filed out of the room, exiting the courthouse and piling into Frank’s sedan. I gave Frank the address when he started the car, the trip taking only about ten minutes through the deserted streets.

Arriving at our destination, I asked everyone to wait until I could awaken someone awake in the house. Exiting the car, I was hoping that he would be in a good mood after I knocked on his door in the middle of the night.

Really, really hoping.

Chapter 23

March 10, 1997

I walked up the three steps onto the very dark front porch, and then advanced to the front door. Holding my breath, I knocked loudly on the door and waited for a response.

I could hear nothing from inside the house and was getting ready to knock again, when I detected the telltale metallic click of a gun being cocked from the other side of the door.

“I already been saved,” the gravely voice coming from inside the house started, “and my vacuum sweeper is a peach, so you better have a damn good reason for being on my porch in the middle of the night.”

I stepped to the side of the door, just in case, before replying to his challenge.

“Doc, it’s me, Gabe Celtic, open the door, will ya?”

Soon the clink of the dead bolt reached my ears, the door opening a crack; the barrel of a twelve gauge peeking out through the slit. The door then swung open the rest of the way, Doc Elliot pocketing the large gun in the crook of his arm as he looked upon me from his dark entry.

“Didn’t your dear sweet departed mother ever teach you not to go around waking up old men in the middle of the night?”

I smiled in spite of myself, and then got down to describing the reason for my transgression. Telling him as much as I could, I finished with the request to stash Zeke here for a few hours.

Doc listened intently, then insisted on getting Ezekiel into the house ASAP. I went back to the car, helping Zeke out of the back seat and following him up the sidewalk.

“What are you doing up this time of night you old fart?” Zeke started in on Doc,

“You look like you might need a few more hours of beauty sleep. If I’d known I was coming here, I would have brought my checkerboard so I could whip your ass as usual.”

“I got a checkerboard you cantankerous old fool, and an unopened bottle of scotch to boot. We’ll see how you make out on my home turf, without all that damn smoke at the legion blocking my vision.”

I turned to go, but Doc grabbed my shoulder and I turned back to face the old practitioner.

“I don’t really know what this is all about, but you got nothing to worry about on this end, you go take care of your stuff, I’ll take care of old Zeke here.”

I thanked him, saying I would call when I had anything I could reveal. Leaving the house, I headed back to the car, finally able to tell my partners about the impending storm coming at us from over the horizon. It had already been a long day, and it was only just beginning.

Chapter 24

March 10, 1997

Sheriff McHenry’s day had already been one of his worst ever, and it was only eight thirty in the morning. Pulling the cigarette out from behind his ear and throwing it into his mouth, he started searching for a lighter, stopping not because of his vow to quit, but because he remembered he had stopped carrying it a week ago.

Throwing the now half chewed cigarette into the waste can with a string of profanity; he then pulled out another from his pack and stuck it into his mouth, vowing to obtain a lighter before the hour was out.

The forensic guys had finished the second murder scene and had found scant evidence, further testing might yet reveal something more but he was not hopeful. His men had gone over the grounds and also found nothing, the task force having had sole authority of the actual crime scene and of going over the interior of the home.

Tucker came in and had told him first thing this morning that the Task Force had actually starting to develop a couple of workable theories when Gabriel, Betty and Frank Luther had disappeared from the crime scene.

Pissed off at the lack of professionalism and professional courtesy, the sheriff had tried to put a call in to Allen Vanguard to give him a piece of his mind. Trying all of the numbers that he had for the man, he soon discovered that the prosecutor was also missing.

What the hell was going on in this county? The whole place was going to hell in a hand basket.

He yelled out the door for someone to bring him a cup of coffee, pronto. Three deputies scrambled out of their seats to fulfill the request, but were waved off by Jane as she filled a cup and headed into the lion’s den.

“You need to take a few deep breaths, Sheriff,” she stated sternly as she entered his office. “You strutting around and yelling at the top of your lungs is not going to solve anything, much less these murders.”

She set the cup down on his desk and took a seat opposite him. He looked like hell, he had let his blood pressure get out of hand, his face redder than usual. He was probably not taking his pills with any regularity.

“I’m sure the evidence will give us a direction soon, you just need to calm down and trust the forensics, and your men. Getting mad is just a reaction, an emotion; it doesn’t do anything to move the investigation forward.”

The sheriff seemed to relax slightly, tentatively leaning back in his chair and planting the cigarette back behind his ear.

“I know you’re right, JJ, but Vanguard and his people are off to who knows where doing who knows what without a word to me or the men. How the hell are we supposed to run an investigation when half the players are missing or going in a different direction?

For all I know they all got thirsty and traipsed off to Starbucks for a God damned latte.”

Jane smiled at the sheriff’s visualization of the prosecutor; knowing her dad had never thought too much of Allen Vanguard and the way he ran his department. It was however a little disturbing the way that they had disappeared from the crime scene like that, like they had found something they couldn’t or wouldn’t share; odd.

The sheriff seemed less stressed now, so she rose to get back to her duties.

“Anything else you need before I go?” she asked before turning to leave the room.

“No, thanks,” Sheriff McHenry said as he leaned forward and started going through the reports from the murder.

“Yes,” he said suddenly, looking up and catching Jane just before she was out of sight. “Get me a lighter, pronto,” he said before looking back down at the papers.

Jane just shook her head as she continued on to her desk.

***

Lean McHenry’s concentration on his reports was interrupted by a commotion in the outer office. Getting up out of his chair, he quickly went to the door, the scene before him bringing a fire to his eyes as anger welled in his heart.

“What the hell is going on here?” he shouted as he watched first the prosecutor, then a progression of other men enter his office wearing the uniform of the state highway patrol.

The uniformed men surrounded the perimeter of the office as Allen Vanguard and a vaguely familiar gray-haired man strode directly toward the sheriff.

“Lean, I’m sure you know Commander Wilson of the ISP,” the prosecutor intoned in a low voice when he got closer to the sheriff.

“I’m sorry to say that he is here with his men because of a potentially serious situation that was discovered involving the murder last night. Please order your men to stop what they are doing and to sit tight. No phone calls or other communications are to be permitted. Your deputies are also required to carefully unload their weapons and give them up to the troopers in a professional manner. After that is accomplished, we need to see you in your office.”

Sheriff McHenry’s face was a mask of invulnerability as he stood stiffly in place for a moment, trying to make sense of what was happening in front of him. As his mind worked quickly to determine whether or not to make a stand against this uncalled-for invasion, he was simultaneously calculating the odds of a successful counter-attack. 

Finally relenting to the overwhelming odds before him however, the sheriff gave the orders as instructed, then stood aside as the two men entered his office ahead of him.

Closing the door behind him with his left hand, he let the right come to rest on the butt of his service piece as he turned around. He was primed to tear into the two men now standing in his office, but what he faced instead was the head of the state police with his weapon leveled, the barrel of a Glock 22 pointing at his chest.

“What the hell is going on here?” the sheriff literally screamed, “What the hell is this all about?”

Allen Vanguard put his hand on the commander’s weapon, saying “That won’t be necessary commander, the sheriff is a professional.”

Moving his eyes back to Lean, “Sheriff, we need you to relinquish your weapon.”

As the head trooper holstered his gun, Lean McHenry considered again drawing his own in retaliation, but eventually thought better of it. Unsnapping his revolver and removing it from the holster, he then handed it butt first to the commander.  

The sheriff felt naked, confused, and powerless. He had never felt this way before and his heart dropped in his chest at the realization.

“Lean, sit down please,” Allen said as he and the commander took the seats on the far side of the desk, leaving the sheriff his own seat.

This seemed to comfort him slightly, enough that he let loose with “What the blazes is this all about?”

Allen sat back and started his explanation. “Last night we found a witness that saw someone in a sheriff deputy’s uniform go into the house right before the murder.”

The sheriff’s jaw dropped at the news, a dread filling his soul as he realized the implications of the revelation.

“Add to that the murder weapon from the original murders coming from the sheriff’s lockup and you have a pretty telling tale that, at the very least, your department has been compromised, at worst it is one of your own people doing the killing.”

“You can see where we are going with this; where we
have
to go,” Allen continued then. “We need to isolate everyone in the department, from each other as well as from anyone on the outside. We also need to interview everyone, as well as run them through a lie detector test. The state guys will conduct the interviews as well as cover the duties of your department until this gets straightened out. Now that you know the problem we’re confronted with, I think you will understand the need to comply with what we’ve discussed here this morning.”

The sheriff reluctantly shook his head in the affirmative.

“We will need someone from your department to call in all of your off-duties, without letting them know what is going on. One of the commander’s men will be monitoring these calls also.”

Staring straight ahead as if in a trance, Lean McHenry snapped out of it and quickly rose from his chair.

“Let’s get this crap over with,” he mumbled as he headed toward the door and called in Jane. Commander Wilson also called one of his guys in over the radio Both the trooper and a confused looking Jane arrived at the same time.

“Jane, I guess this is your escort. Call in all of the guys that are off, tell them we have a bit of an emergency. If they ask, just tell them it came straight from me and you don’t know any of the particulars.”

She nodded and turned to leave, her tail man following close behind.

“We’ll get everyone back to status as soon as we can clear them Lean,” Allen tried reassuringly, “but everyone will have to go through the process, even you,” he finished with finality.

Remembering the cigarette behind his ear, the sheriff pulled it down and stuck it in his mouth, chewing the end in aggravation. This was definitely his worst day ever, and where the hell was that lighter?

Chapter 25

March 10, 2007

Allen had us wait outside until it was over; the total castration of the sheriff’s department. After about ten minutes, our boss reappeared in the parking lot and came over to our location, a look I can only describe as distaste showing on his face.

“Ok, the process is started. I promised Lean it would be as quick as possible. Gabe, can you go on in and get everything that Tucker and Larry have on the case and get it over to our office. Please assure them that they are supposed to be among the first to go through the process to be cleared. As soon as that happens, have them come over to work on the case from there for now.”