Status: Single
City: RALEIGH
State: North Carolina
Country: US
Signup Date: 6/3/2006
|
|
|
|
Sunday, November 08, 2009
|
........
Episode
3
“Slip
away? Did he take the treasure?”
“No
time. Bonnet was making preparations to leave for Bath with some of
his crew, Blackbeard was trying to look nonchalant while making
preparations to sail off, cheating Bonnet out of a great deal of
plunder. It was a window of opportunity for a random small-fry to get
misplaced. Bonnet would think he was with Blackbeard and visa-versa.”
“Where’d
he go?”
“He
slipped overboard, between the devil and the deep blue sea, so to
speak, and onto the mainland. The area got rather hot for pirates
after that and he did what many sailors did.”
“What
was that?”
“He
picked up an oar and began to walk inland, determined to keep the
water to his back and to walk until someone asked, ‘What’s that
you got there?’ – then he would choose that place to live. In his
case it wasn’t too far before he met his Sarah, settled down, and
started a family. He never went back for the treasure.”
My
jaw went slack and my eyes were like pie-pans. I could see Grampa was
amused by my surprise.
“Who
got the treasure?” I demanded.
“Stede
Bonnet sailed to the Virgin Islands having changed his name to
Edwards and renaming his sloop the Royal James. He returned to Cape
Fear in September of 1718 where he met his end. His crew was hanged
in November 1718 and Captain Bonnet followed on December 10.”
“All
but Thomas Donny…”
“Yes,
all but Powder Monkey Thomas Donny. He changed his name to Donnally,
married Sarah Ann Baker; and raised a family in the Smokey
Mountains.”
“So
what became of the treasure?” I screeched.
“The
map’s still among his personals,” Grampa said calmly, pulling out
another pipe from the circular holder on the side table.
Blood
rushed to my face, then drained from my head; leaving me dizzy. I
steadied myself on the counter. The possibilities overwhelmed me.
“Where?”
“In
the bedroom…” He pointed with his pipe into the darkened room.
I
turned, moving too quickly for the small house, reaching the bedroom
sooner than I anticipated. My foot hit something hard and I fell
forward onto the hardwood floor.
“…soon
as you go in. Young people today, always in a rush.” Grampa got up,
walked to the fridge. “You want a beer now?”
I
rolled over, trying to see where I’d tripped up, as it were. It was
a suitcase, not what I expected at all, a brown leather suitcase with
metal snaps. It was worn and old, but not three hundred years old.
“This
doesn’t look like a pirate chest.”
“What
do you think a pirate chest looks like? Ever seen one?”
I
sat up and turned the suitcase around. ‘TAD’ it said on the
engraved plate.
“T.A.D.
– what’s that?”
“Theodore
Andrew Donnallson, my father. That’s what he handed it to me in.
The parcel has changed hands a few times. During the Revolution, Able
Christian Donnelly put it in a courier sack and buried it under the
church. In the Great War, the churchyard was expanded to bury
returning soldiers, so Thomas Wilfred Donnellton moved the courier
sack into a tobacco box and put it in the attic. The family name
changed through a mistake in voter registration during Prohibition
and he just let it go like that. My father put it in that suitcase
and now I give it to you.”
My
palms were sweating and I was short of breath. I looked up imploring.
“What
do I do?”
“If
I were you, I’d put it in a nylon knapsack and give it to your
son.”
I
stared at the suitcase, not daring to imagine its contents. Could
this be a map of Treasure Island, with pirates and swag and doubloons
and all?
“Shouldn’t
we go get it?” I sat on the floor barely touching the suitcase, not
yet daring to reach for the metal snaps.
“Thomas
didn’t. Nor did his son, or his, nor any of the Donnys, Donnellys,
Donnelltons, or Donnallsons since. I’ve gotten along just fine
without it. Why spoil a good thing?”
I
couldn’t believe my ears! Here was a possible fortune within his
grasp and this old man did nothing. I looked at him in wonder,
motionless.
“You’re
gonna hatch that thing if you sit on it like that!”
“I
just, I never, I mean, I don’t know... I never had a treasure map
before.”
“Might
not be a map, might be directions in old 1700’s English, all with
extra “e’s” on the end and so on. Might be just a diary, I
don’t know. I never really opened it up.”
“What!
Never opened it! How could you know this story and never open it up?
I’ve known about it for less than an hour and it’s burning a hole
through me!”
“I
guess I just never considered it important enough to go and see,”
said Grampa calmly. “Your father never cared for family legends, so
I thought I’d let you be the keeper of the family secret. But if
you’re not up to it…” he leaned forward.
“No!
I mean, I’m fine. I’ll keep it. I’m OK. It’s good.” I tried
to sound convincing but I had a death grip on the suitcase.
“Have
it your way.” Grampa lit up the pipe. “But I’ve found that the
best security is the knowledge that no matter what happens, you can
handle it. The only one you can really count on is you. You can trust
in your family and hope your friends will be there, but you can only
speak for yourself.
“Maybe
there’s treasure, maybe not. Maybe someone’s already turned the
ground and some modern-day Ben Gunn has spent it. Or it might be
sittin’ there waiting for the next Thomas Wilfred in line.”
I
sat transfixed as the possibilities were handed to me one at a time.
“If
it’s a thousand dollars, you’ll spend it in a couple of months
and the family treasure will be a memory. If it’s a hundred
thousand it’ll get noticed and there’ll be a line of people
insisting it’s really theirs and another line wanting their slice.
Or have you forgotten the IRS?”
The
furrowed eyebrows danced up and down, as if delivering a message of
their own.
“or…”
he puffed the pipe and the swirl of white smoke enveloped his head.
“you could put it in a vault of its own, in the ground, in the
attic, in a safety-deposit box, and one of these fine days you can
hand it off to your son, or if he doesn’t want it…” Grampa cast
a glance at the stern picture of my father on the wall beside him,
“than to your grandson.”
My
jaw closed and I gulped hard.
“Imagine,
handing that to your grandson and saying, ‘You know what’s in
here, boy? Pirate treasure!’ Can you imagine the look on his face?”
“That
would be something!” I had to admit.
“Yup!
That’s be worth… well, it’d be worth a chest full of gold.”
“Yes,
it would.” I agreed.
I
put the suitcase aside. There would be time to move the contents to
another container and place it in a safe place. Grampa looked at me
with contented eyes and a warm smile. He had chosen well, he’d
passed on the family legacy and the Donnalson secret had a new
protector.
“Now,”
said Grampa, “how about that beer?”
The End
Powered by  | | English | | Albanian | | Arabic | | Bulgarian | | Catalan | | Chinese | | Croatian | | Czech | | Danish | | Dutch | | Estonian | | Filipino | | Finnish | | French | | Galician | | German | | Greek | | Hebrew | | Hindi | | Hungarian | | Indonesian | | Italian | | Japanese | | Korean | | Latvian | | Lithuanian | | Maltese | | Norwegian | | Polish | | Portuguese | | Romanian | | Russian | | Serbian | | Slovak | | Slovenian | | Spanish | | Swedish | | Thai | | Turkish | | Ukrainian | | Vietnamese |
|
|
|
|
Saturday, October 31, 2009
|
........
Episode
2
Grampa
lit up his pipe and I watched a swirl of white smoke circle his head
like a Christmas wreath.
“There’s
beer in the ice box. You want one?”
“Uh,
no, Grampa.”
“I
do. Get me one. There’s a good fellow.”
Outside
a cricket started up, kicking a cricket symphony into high gear. A
dog passed by the road at the far end, stopped, sniffed, and
continued on. I opened a beer, poured it into a tall glass from the
freezer, and handed it to Grampa. He took a drink and set the glass
on the side table. I sat back down, leaning forward, waiting for the
punchline or the explanation, whichever was to come next.
“Giovanni
da Verrazzano visited the south tip of the North Carolina coast in
1524 and called the place Promontorium Tremendum.”
I
looked at him, dipping my head slightly. He glanced at me.
“Cape
Fear,” he said as if I should have known. “And it’s been that
ever since. Dangerous place! Fierce weather, treacherous shoals and
currents, all add up to bad news for sailors.”
Grampa
sat back, puffed the pipe, then leaned forward again.
“Your
great-great-great-great… grandfather Thomas Wilfred Donny was a
sailor. He sailed from Bristol with the British Navy as a young man
assigned the lowest and most dangerous task on board a ship –
Powder Monkey – Gunner’s Assistant. The young assistants were
treated badly, rarely paid, and had little chance of advancement –
in fact, it was most likely they’d be the first killed in any sort
of fight.”
“Why’d
he take the job? I would have turned it down.” I had him there.
“Couldn’t,”
was Grampa’s reply. “It was go to sea or starve in Bristol, and
once aboard, you did what you were told. He was a Powder Monkey or he
would be hanged – that was all there was to it. Life at sea was
hard.”
Grampa
sat back, reflecting on how hard the British Navy must have been.
Outside, I saw the afternoon light begin to fade. It had taken me
most of the day to drive. I looked around for a light. As I did,
Grampa twisted in his chair, picked up a dimmer switch from the floor
beside him and a light in the corner behind him came alive. He sucked
a full breath and continued.
“That
was before the light at Bald Head Island. It was tricky working a
sailing vessel through those waters, but that is one of the things
that made it a haven for pirates. Topsail Island got its name from
the pirate ships that moored there; you couldn’t see anything but
their topsails.
“It
was in 1717 that young Thomas Donny became reassigned at random to
the crew of a coastal merchant ship. He leaped at he chance, though
he didn’t dare show it. Though it was a smaller vessel under
dubious leadership, anything would be better then the life of a
Powder Monkey.
“The
merchantman was soon captured by one of the most famous pirates there
was, one Stede Bonnet, the ‘Gentleman Pirate.’ The crew was taken
hostage and informed that they could sail...” Grampa raised his
head with the words, “...or swing.” He dropped his head and
looked at me through bushy furrowed eyebrows.
“Bald
Head Island was their favorite stopping point to get food. Blackbeard
himself used the place quite a lot. In fact, it was there that
Captain Bonnet met Captain Teach and fate took a turn for your
great-great-great… er, grandfather.”
Grampa
sat back again, puffed his pipe, turned it over, and tapped it on his
palm over a metal trashcan at his feet. The ashes dumped out and he
set the pipe on a circular pipe stand on the shelf to his right.
“Grampa,
go on – you can’t stop there!” I broke in.
“How
‘bout some food? You hungry?”
“No!
Please, go on.”
“Just
trying to be sociable is all. Bald Head Island wasn’t just used for
a watering hole. No, it was sometimes used as a bank vault. A lot of
times a pirate’s loot was more supply than gold: food and water,
powder and shot, or tools and lumber. But sometimes there were
treasure chests and when they got worrisome, the pirates would put
them someplace safe.
“It
was just after Bonnet and Blackbeard joined up that Blackbeard set
one of his officers to run Bonnet’s ship. Bonnet agreed, though he
had little choice in the matter; he wasn’t much of a seaman. Young
Thomas Donny was off the ship getting water when a short-crew passed
him up with a chest. He had learned that the way to survive, be it
British Navy, merchantman or pirate vessel, is to keep your head
down. He was busy keepin’ his head down when the short-crew came
back the other way only without the chest.
“Once
they were gone, he followed the footprints to a place where the
ground was just turned. A whistle sounded 'return to ship', so he
noted the spot. That night, according to his letters, a squall came
up and it rained to beat all, removing any track or trace of the
previous day’s adventures.
“It
was pretty soon after the siege of Charles Town of that year when
they returned to these waters. Blackbeard convinced Bonnet that it
would be best if they were to get pardons and Bonnet set out with
some of the pirates to see Governor Eden at Bath Town. It was then
that Thomas Donny saw a chance to slip away.”
Powered by | | English | | Albanian | | Arabic | | Bulgarian | | Catalan | | Chinese | | Croatian | | Czech | | Danish | | Dutch | | Estonian | | Filipino | | Finnish | | French | | Galician | | German | | Greek | | Hebrew | | Hindi | | Hungarian | | Indonesian | | Italian | | Japanese | | Korean | | Latvian | | Lithuanian | | Maltese | | Norwegian | | Polish | | Portuguese | | Romanian | | Russian | | Serbian | | Slovak | | Slovenian | | Spanish | | Swedish | | Thai | | Turkish | | Ukrainian | | Vietnamese |
|
|
|
|
Saturday, October 24, 2009
|
........
Episode
1
I
suppose you could say I stumbled over my inheritance. After all, I
stumbled over everything else in life. I stumbled over my college
grant and wound up majoring in horticulture instead of theater. I
stumbled over my job making television commercials when a favor to a
friend turned into a career. Planning was obviously wasted on me.
Let’s
go back. It was not too long ago that I received a call from my
grandfather Thomas, age 89, saying that he would like to see me
before he “moved along in the great scheme of things”.
Grandfather
Thomas Wilfred Donnalson was the colorful old man of the family who
was always fond of saying things like that, or “It’s Earth,
y’know – no one’s gettin’ out alive.”
I
was named for my eloquent grandfather, as he was named for his
grandfather and he was named for his. The last name, however, seemed
to change with every voter registration. Grandfather Thomas’s
grandfather was Thomas Wilfred Donnallton and his grandfather was
Thomas Wilfred Donnally, and before him the enigma of the family,
Thomas Wilfred Donny, 1698-1763.
The
finer points of a cloudy family history, missing certain parts and
shrouded in mystery, had been pretty boring to me even as a child.
Now at twenty-six I had other things on my mind; but being a dutiful
grandson, I made some time and headed down to Grampa Tom’s place in
Wilmington.
As
I pulled my Jeep off Oleander, the familiar off-white sand and
long-needle pine trees reminded me of earlier days visiting Grampa.
The house had since become his ‘Hermitage’ and was sorely in need
of repair.
“You
gotta be kiddin’ me!” I said aloud, noticing the overgrown yard
and neglected porch. Grampa’s boat sat in the yard, not looking
very seaworthy.
“Don’t
sell ‘er short,” said a scratchy voice from within. “She’s
withstood everything Ol’ Lady Nature could throw. Come in, Tom.”
“Grampa
Tom?” I said, pulling open the storm door.
“Come
in and sit down. There’s a few things to go over and I feel
something powerful pulling at me.”
“How
are you doing?” I tried to sound like I could do something about it
if the answer was bad.
“Oh!
Me? I’m doing great! I just can’t stay long. Got places to go and
I’m packin’ light. No one takes a knapsack into heaven.”
I
smiled – I was in the right place. Gramps was his old enigmatic
self.
“What’s
up, Grampa?”
“Sit
down. There’s history to impart.”
I
pulled up a straight-backed chair, the only one in sight, and sat
down to await the ramblings of the colorful old dodger with a patient
smile.
“Don’t
gimme that smile; that’s your father’s smile, I’d know it
anywhere. It’s that ‘Go on, rattle away’ smile I always get
from him. Listen up, this is important.”
“OK,
OK, sorry,” I said, pulling my chair a half-inch closer and trying
not to do my father’s cynical smile.
“Why
do you think you’re a Donnalson?” He flashed an elfish twinkle.
“Never
thought about it.” It was true. I hadn’t.
“Why
not a Donnallton or a Donnally or” he paused to be sure he had my
attention, then said with great import, “a Donny.”
The
old man sat back, smiling, waiting for the light bulb to go off in my
head. When it didn’t, the luster faded from his face.
“Alright,
boy, I can see I’m in for it. It was easy for me to change it to
Donnalson. It was wartime, records were slippery – Giuseppe Verde
became Joe Green due to anti-Italian sentiment, Viktor Schmidt became
Vic Smith, and so on. Lots of people changed their names, but I
changed it because Donnallton was getting a bit familiar in these
parts.”
“Why?”
“For
the same reason that my grandfather changed it from Donnally and his
grandfather changed it from Donny – Blackbeard’s treasure.”
My
eyebrows went up.
“I
see I have your attention.” He sat back with a satisfied smile.
Powered by | | English | | Albanian | | Arabic | | Bulgarian | | Catalan | | Chinese | | Croatian | | Czech | | Danish | | Dutch | | Estonian | | Filipino | | Finnish | | French | | Galician | | German | | Greek | | Hebrew | | Hindi | | Hungarian | | Indonesian | | Italian | | Japanese | | Korean | | Latvian | | Lithuanian | | Maltese | | Norwegian | | Polish | | Portuguese | | Romanian | | Russian | | Serbian | | Slovak | | Slovenian | | Spanish | | Swedish | | Thai | | Turkish | | Ukrainian | | Vietnamese |
|
|
|
|
Friday, October 16, 2009
|
........
Episode
6
Sophie
Keaton opened her eyes. She sat up, listening. Was it a dream? Or
did she hear a shotgun?
It
could have been a dream; the memory of waking up to that very sound
when she was six, going out to find her mother lying in the front
yard. Her father, drunk and barely able to stand, leaning on his
shotgun, was cussing her. “You'll never question me again, you
shrew!” he screamed. After that she stayed with her aunt in
Thaxter country until she was old enough to run away from home
without anyone coming after her.
It
could have been a dream. But it didn't seem like a dream, it sounded
different, not so close up. Sophie put on her robe and went to the
back door.
Out
through the trees lay Thompson Bog, a place to stay away from, day or
night. Lights shone in the distance and she felt a chill that was
not from the growing cold of the night. She walked in her bare feet
down through the yard to the edge of the trees, when she stopped
suddenly. There was a voice. It was the voice of the man who had
just left her, Chief McLean.
“Somebody
call for an ambulance! Can anybody hear me?” screamed McLean. As
Al Gaither came upon him, McLean sat holding Martha Sawyer in his
arms, her eyes were glazed over and blood poured from her side. On
the bog, a dark figure stood up in a small boat. The man lost his
footing and steadied himself with his shotgun.
“Dare
we move her?” yelled Al, trying to assess the situation.
“I
don't know. She's been shot.”
“I'll
go for help. The hospital is not far,” Al yelled over his shoulder
as he turned and headed for his car.
McLean
called after him, “Sophie Keaton's house is on the way, up Turner's
Trace, she's got a phone, that'll save time.”
Al
ran as fast as he could, then stopped short at the chief's Chrysler;
the keys were still in it. He jumped inside and sped down the road,
the last instruction still ringing in his ears.
As
he pulled out of the dirt lane onto the two-lane blacktop, he
narrowly missed hitting Harlen Eldridge's car. Eldridge recognized
the face of his hired detective in the chief's car and followed for
news. He spun around and drove after the big Chrysler toward
Sophie's place.
Sophie
was just opening the front door when the Chief's Chrysler pulled into
her driveway. But it was not the chief who got out, it was a
stranger.
“I
need to use your phone. Chief McLean says you've got one.”
“In
here,” said Sophie and she threw the door open. She had heard her
name yelled across the swamp by the man who had left her less than an
hour before. Now came a stranger in his car to use the phone.
“Hospital?
I need an ambulance right away, it's an emergency, someone's been
shot. Down Old New Hope Church Road to Thompson Bog.”
As
he followed his hired private eye in the chief's car, Harlen Eldridge
saw a familiar Ford tearing down the two-lane at breakneck speed; it
was his son-in-law, the detective. Harlen slowed a little, letting
the Ford get some distance, then made a u-turn and sped up to keep
pace. One thing was for sure, thought Harlen, Frank knew the way.
They were heading for the Miller place.
Chief
McLean sat on the ground holding Martha Sawyer's head on his lap. He
smoothed her forehead with his left hand as he held his handkerchief
to the wound at her side with his right.
“Don't
you worry, Martha. Ambulance is comin', then they'll get you to the
hospital and fix you up proper.”
Out
on the bog, the dim lantern bobbed gently, set in motion by Collin
Miller trying to steady himself in the unstable boat. He had shot at
a prowler, someone who came to take his Clara. Now he was standing
in water and his boat was sinking.
Off
to one side of the pier, a figure was rising as if out of the swamp.
The strange, formless shape limped across the few feet of swampland
that separated them and into the beam of Chief McLean's flashlight,
lying on the ground next to him. It was Ed Riggs.
Before
either could speak, the roar of a car engine caught them. The black
Ford pulled up to the trailer and skidded to a stop. Without turning
the lights or engine off, Frank Morton got out, his gun was drawn.
Behind
the Ford, another pair of lights appeared. The large Chrysler slid
to a stop behind Morton's car and the door flew open.
Frank
Morton saw the figure, dark and formless behind the bright beams.
The man raised what looked like a rifle and yelled, “Morton!”
Morton
fired. The man faltered. He fired again. The man staggered against
the car, slumping into the light from the dome through the open door.
Frank fired a third shot before he realized that his target was
Harlen Eldridge. What he thought was a rifle had been his
father-in-law's walking cane.
Frank
felt the pistol taken from his hand, his arms pulled behind him and
handcuffs closed on his wrists. He slowly turned his head to see
Chief McLean's unmistakable scowl directed at him. Beyond the chief
lay Martha Sawyer, her head on the muddy lap of Ed Riggs. The
sinking feeling that he felt a moment before continued as he realized
that he had all but confessed to Ed Riggs, the man still alive and
sitting on the ground next to Thompson Bog.
Ed
Riggs sat on the front stoop of the Miller trailer in the glow of the
single bare bulb from inside and the headlights from three police
cars. The doctor was dressing his leg. Chief McLean came up and
rested a foot on the stoop.
“You
gonna be OK?” he asked his Detective Sergeant.
“Yeah,
Jethro, now I am. The Miller girl is in the swamp, weighed down - I
think by the cinder-block anchor from old man Miller's boat.”
“Yeah,
we figured. Miller's devastated, but he's also under arrest for
shooting Martha.”
“She
gonna pull through?”
Chief
McLean looked at the disappearing taillights, the waning siren as the
ambulance jostled up the dirt road back to the county highway. “I
don't know. She was hit pretty bad. She came out here looking for
you, you know.”
“She's
a good girl. And Frank?” asked Ed.
Chief
McLean sucked in a hard breath.
“In
cuffs. He shot Harlen Eldridge in cold blood. My guess is he killed
the Miller girl too.”
“Yeah,
that's my guess too. I think she might have put the screws to him,
wanted him to leave his wife or she'd tell, something like that.
There's a mark on her head could have been a pistol butt.”
“You
saw her up close?” Chief McLean turned back to look at the
detective's face in the glow of the car lights.
“Yeah.
It's a picture that I won't get out of my head soon.”
Martha
Sawyer died from her wounds before she reached the hospital. She was
never aware that they had found Ed Riggs in the swamp.
Collin
Miller was charged with murder. He died in jail of a heart attack
while awaiting trial.
Ed
Riggs filled out his report and went home for a much needed rest.
Chief
McLean went back to Sophie's place where he poured himself a stiff
drink and fell asleep on her lap.
Edna
Morton eventually divorced her husband, liquidated her holdings and
moved out of state, returning to her maiden name of Eldridge.
Frank
Morton was charged with the murder of his father-in-law and that of
Clara Miller. The Miller girl was found to have been pregnant at the
time of her death. Frank received consecutive life sentences.
Al
Gaither returned home to find his wife waiting up for him. She
looked up from her book. “Rough night?” she asked. “No, about
usual,” he replied.
To
this day, no one has moved into the trailer at Thompson Bog.
Powered by | | English | | Albanian | | Arabic | | Bulgarian | | Catalan | | Chinese | | Croatian | | Czech | | Danish | | Dutch | | Estonian | | Filipino | | Finnish | | French | | Galician | | German | | Greek | | Hebrew | | Hindi | | Hungarian | | Indonesian | | Italian | | Japanese | | Korean | | Latvian | | Lithuanian | | Maltese | | Norwegian | | Polish | | Portuguese | | Romanian | | Russian | | Serbian | | Slovak | | Slovenian | | Spanish | | Swedish | | Thai | | Turkish | | Ukrainian | | Vietnamese |
|
|
|
|
Friday, October 09, 2009
|
........
Episode
5
Ed
Riggs groaned as he pulled himself into a sitting position. He was
sitting on cold, damp ground, but it was solid. He reached into the
water and brought a handful up, pouring it over his calf where the
sharp pain fixed his attention. The water felt good on his leg. He
touched his pants and found them torn. On his calf was an open
wound, a gash. It wasn't deep, but it hurt like the blazes.
He
looked around, but couldn't see anything near that would give him a
hand up. The trees were smooth with no low-hanging branches. The
pier was too far to reach; he had drifted, as did the body of Clara
Miller, away from the old pier. There was nothing to do but to sit
there and gather his strength. He certainly wasn't going to walk
through the swamp with one shoe and an open wound.
He
wondered if Clara was pregnant. Did that spark an argument? Frank
was easy enough to argue with. There wasn't much you could say to
him that didn't illicit a negative response. If she announced she
had become pregnant, that could have sealed her fate. Frank didn't
want kids. That's just one of the many things that Harlan had
against him, that he would never be a grandfather while Frank was
wielding the baby-maker.
Ed
lay back on the cold, hard ground. His hand fell to his side and
into the water, letting him know that he was just inches away from
the swamp.
Inches.
His life was just spared by inches. Clara had died by inches. The
fear in her eyes, the mouth frozen in a silent scream, showed that
she probably was still alive when she went under. The coroner would
probably find for murder-by-drowning rather than blunt-force-trauma,
the mark of the gun butt notwithstanding.
He
strained his ears for sounds of engines, of shouting, of someone
coming to search for him. If he wanted to, Frank could summon up to
six officers to join in the search without even trying. If he roused
the town's folk, he could get 30 or more out. But he had just sat
there, squatting on the pier, talking to him in his soft voice, the
voice that told Ed Riggs everything he needed to know.
“Sorry,”
he had said. But Frank Morton wasn't sorry. The soft voice held a
sneer that told a different story. Ed Riggs had to face facts, Frank
Morton wanted him dead and only left without further violence because
he thought that was already the case.
Out
on the dirt road, through the trees, came the sound of a car engine,
then another. Lights came through the trees and down the dirt road.
They drove up to the trailer and stopped. First one light, then
another, shown through the complete darkness. Help was on the way.
Al
Gaither pulled his car around the far end of the property to a place
where he could see the Miller trailer. He was driving without
headlights, hoping he wouldn't run into anything, or anyone. He cut
the engine a distance from the trailer. He had long since removed
the inside bulb, so no light went on when he opened the door. He
left the door open, partly so it wouldn't be heard closing and partly
to facilitate a fast getaway if needed.
The
Miller trailer was dark. It could be he was too early and the lovers
were still entwined, or that he was too late and the man had already
left. He settled in for a long night in case it was the former.
There
was a light that caught his eye, but it wasn't in the trailer, it was
off in the swamp. An oil lamp shown through the trees from the bog,
slightly moving. Someone had a light going in a small boat.
Al
stood up and moved quietly forward. As he moved around the trailer,
he noticed that the black Ford was not there. Perhaps he was too
late and the visitor was already gone. The Miller girl was probably
in her bed fast asleep, looking innocent for when her father came
home from his shift in a few hours.
Two
headlights came into view down the dirt road from the county highway,
headlights moving toward the swamp, toward him as well. It wasn't
the Ford that was usually there, the lover; it was a Chevy wagon.
Soon
another joined it, a big car, with one dim headlight.
He
went around the trailer to see who had arrived. There was still dust
settling where the cars had driven up the road. They stopped at the
trailer and doors were opened and closed. A flashlight beam broke
the darkness. In the beam a man could be seen. There was a short
exchange, then the man went to his trunk and brought out a second
flashlight.
Together,
both beams moved toward the small pier jutting out into the swamp.
Al moved closer to find out who took interest in the pier at this
late hour. He moved past the trailer, past the two cars toward the
pair of flashlight beams. He was about to call out, when he heard
the blast of a shotgun.
From
the mound where he lay, Ed Riggs looked across the patch of swamp and
the Miller yard beyond to where the two cars had stopped. Two
flashlight beams were walking toward the pier where he had fallen.
They were not that far away, he could yell to them, he thought. But
he couldn't get the strength or breath to yell. He tried, but made a
weak squeal instead.
He
had figured out who killed Clara Miller and felt a renewed sense of
purpose. He had to get back to the station, to call the coroner, to
call the chief, to find his partner – the one who left him to die.
But his body was fighting him, too weak and injured to comply. He
looked around, trying to find a way to begin his new quest, to cry
out to the searchers, to be rescued and take command of the situation
once more. Then he heard the sound of a shotgun blast too close for
comfort.
Collin
Miller sat in his boat lulled to sleep by the crystal-clear brew the
Belter boys had sold him and the gentle lapping of the water against
his flat-bottomed boat. He snored himself awake, jerking a bit and
having to recover his balance.
He
noticed that the caulking had come loose again and the boat was
slowly filling up, his boots were in an inch-and-a-half of water. He
decided it might be time to go back in. He took the shotgun from his
lap and began to lean it against the the seat so he could work the
oars.
That's
when he noticed the lights in his yard. They couldn't have spotted
his truck, which he left in the woods behind his place. They must be
coming for something, maybe his boat, which they couldn't see was
missing from the pier. Maybe it was Clara's lover, and he's brought
a friend. Maybe they were gonna have a party. He would fix 'em!
Collin
Miller raised the shotgun and aimed it at the lights just coming onto
the pier. He pulled the trigger and the gun went off, knocking him
back into the boat, into the inch-and-a-half of water.
The
sound shook Harlen Eldridge from his half-sleep. The empty glass
fell from his hand and the sound as it hit the wooden porch made him
wonder if he had really heard a shotgun report. Perhaps he just
imagined it.
No,
he was sure, it had been a shotgun. He grasped his ivory-handled
walking stick and struggled up to his feet. The sound had come from
the other side of the bog that bordered his land. There were some
shacks over there, who-knows-what-all lived in them. Some trailers
too, poor white trash or worse.
Harlen
looked at the pictures still in his left hand and looked up across
the yard to the trees that hid the swampland beyond from view. Could
it be that old man Miller had found a solution, right or wrong, and
had set it into play? Surely Gaither would have been there to record
it all on film. Surely the police would come soon and see what the
ruckus was. But what if it was something else? What else? He
didn't know, but he had to be sure.
He
opened the screen door and picked up the keys lying inside on the
side table, turned back and hobbled down the stairs to the new
Chrysler sedan sitting in front of the house at the near loop of the
circular drive. He climbed into the driver's seat, turned on the
lights and started it up. He headed toward the highway that would
lead to the dirt road leading to the place where the pictures were
taken, to where his son-in-law besmirched the family name with an
underage trailer whore.
Frank
Morton jerked awake. Did he forget to turn the television off?
There was a noise that sounded like a shot. He rolled over to look
at the clock and fell off of the couch onto the floor, hitting his
head on the coffee table in the process. He struggled up from the
floor. The television was still on, but there was a test pattern,
not a show. The western was over, as was all programing for the day.
Frank got up and switched the television off, then went to the front
door. Outside a few neighborhood dogs were barking at the sudden
noise that woke them as well as him, but all was still otherwise.
Then
Frank Morton got a flash of an idea that made his eyes go wide. Had
Miller gotten home and found some evidence of him? Had someone found
the Miller girl's body, or Ed Riggs? Had the shotgun report been at
someone mistaken for the crimes? Or at shadows in the swamp? In
either case, he knew he had to somehow insert himself into the middle
of the investigation to turn suspicion in other directions.
Frank
grabbed his coat from the door, ran down the three steps to his car
and started it up. In the side mirror he could see his wife's face
appear at the window to see where he was off to at this hour. He saw
her face diminish in the mirror as he sped down the gravel path to
the two-lane that would lead him to Thompson Bog.
Powered by | | English | | Albanian | | Arabic | | Bulgarian | | Catalan | | Chinese | | Croatian | | Czech | | Danish | | Dutch | | Estonian | | Filipino | | Finnish | | French | | Galician | | German | | Greek | | Hebrew | | Hindi | | Hungarian | | Indonesian | | Italian | | Japanese | | Korean | | Latvian | | Lithuanian | | Maltese | | Norwegian | | Polish | | Portuguese | | Romanian | | Russian | | Serbian | | Slovak | | Slovenian | | Spanish | | Swedish | | Thai | | Turkish | | Ukrainian | | Vietnamese |
|
|
|
|
Thursday, September 24, 2009
|
........
Episode
4
Police
Chief Jethro McLean took a few bills out of his wallet and laid them
on the dresser. He took one look back at the naked body in the bed.
“Good night, Sophie.”
“'Night,
Jethro,” came a sleepy voice from the bed.
Chief
McLean walked out into the night, around the line of small cabins to
the parking lot and climbed into his car, a four-year-old Chrysler.
As the Chief, he drove a newer car, but newer cars got noticed and he
didn't feel like being noticed tonight; he drove the older one.
As
he pulled out onto the main road, he thought to himself that he had
things pretty well covered. After all, his wife knew about his
mistress and didn't care, his mistress knew he wasn't going to leave
his wife and didn't care, and his best detective was busy solving all
the outstanding cases. He didn't have a care in the world.
As
police chief, he could have pulled the car over that passed him going
so fast, but he had just come from Sophie's and he didn't really feel
like it. But as the car went by, easily twenty miles over the limit,
it was not that it was speeding that distracted him, but that it was
familiar; he knew that car. It was Martha Sawyer's car. Now where
was she going in such a hurry?
Chief
McLean stepped on the pedal and followed the tail lights of the
disappearing Chevy wagon. Martha had worked for him 13 years and he
had never known her to break a law, even a speed limit. There had to
be an emergency.
Ed
Riggs let go of the rope that held Clara Miller close to him. He
watched her drift away, slowly sinking into the black water of the
bog. Her eyes showed no protest as they slipped beneath the surface,
disappearing into the thick, slimy water. He drew a deep, musky
breath and tried to focus on the task at hand. Clara Miller's life
was gone, but his was still intact.
Ed
Riggs pulled himself up through the giant roots, completely out of
the water. His overcoat was gone. His gun was gone and the holster
was torn. One of his shoes was gone, sucked down in the mud. He
fell back on the dry mound that met his hand and gave thanks for
being alive. He decided to rest before considering any next steps.
The
darkness that surrounded him, the overcast day that was now turning
into night, brought no light to shine on the mystery of Clara Miller.
She had been murdered, that much was clear. Old man Miller was
nowhere to be found. His partner had all but confessed to the deed.
But why? If he killed her, why blurt out words that could be
construed as a confession? Unless he was sure that the Detective
Sergeant would soon be dead. Then why not put a bullet through him
and be sure? Was Detective Morton as big an idiot as was generally
thought?
The
sight of the Miller girl came back into his head. He wanted to force
it out, but it wouldn't go. There was something about it that didn't
look right; something just as she sank into the bog. Yes, it was her
forehead, there was a mark on it, an indentation. It looked just
like a gun butt.
Then
Ed remembered Frank, his partner, his junior detective, looking at
him and not lifting a finger to pull him from the bog as he sank
deeper. He remembers what he said, about meeting the Miller girl.
Frank knew the Miller girl was down there. Frank could have taken
the oar from Miller's boat and reached him, but he didn't. He could
have jumped in the shallow part and saved his boss's life, but he
didn't.
“Sorry”,
Frank had said with a shallow laugh. Ed remembered how Frank had
laughed. It filled him with conflicting thoughts and feelings. He
remembered the years in uniform, when they came up through the ranks
together, how when Ed was made detective, how he brought Frank along
and vouched for him. He had mentored the man out of friendship, made
him his partner. When Ed made sergeant he kept Frank with him,
covering for his mistakes, thinking of his wife's family, who would
hold it over him forever if he didn't succeed.
Frank
had married up, Edna's folks were not stinking rich, as it were, but
they were well off. If they hadn't been, Frank wouldn't have been
able to afford that lovely house and new car. He pictured the new
'54 Fairlane, Edna getting out of it with her short stole as Frank
held the door. Edna was a fashion statement but all their friends
knew that it was daddy's money, not Frank's. He had made detective,
with Ed's help, but couldn't seem to advance further. Edna's family
never let Frank forget that he was lucky to have her; he was, after
all a mere Morton, not an Eldridge like them. Ed guessed the disdain
of his family drove Frank to the arms of the easily impressed girl
from the poor side of town.
Clara
Miller was trailer trash of the first order. She was all curves and
short-shorts, bursting out of her top and completely out of control.
Old man Miller had no rein on her. She was a hopeless flirt.
Frank
wouldn't have left his wife to marry Clara, no matter what. To leave
his wife would be to leave the family money. Clara was young and
pretty but still poor white trash and he was not about to leave the
crest of the hill for the edge of the bog. There was little doubt
that Frank had slipped off with the Miller girl, or that he was
probably the one who killed her. Her hair and blood might still be
on the butt of his pistol.
“He's
probably telling them right now that his partner is dead, slipped
beneath the swamp never to be seen again,” Ed thought. There might
be a search, but Frank would convince them it would be fruitless. He
would point them in a different direction.
Still,
a search could happen. It was better to believe a search could be in
the works than not. If they came this way, they'd find him and he
would be saved. Of course, he'd have to arrest Frank at the earliest
opportunity and take that gun away from him.
Martha
Sawyer had locked up the police station and pushed her green
Chevrolet station wagon as hard as she dared out the old dirt road to
Thompson Bog, the muddy depression that was the only swamp land in
Landon County. She had taken the strongest light she could find and
her winter boots. She was not going to give up without a search. Ed
Riggs was too good a man to just let die in the swamp; someone had to
at least try to find him. She didn't notice that the car she passed
on the two-lane blacktop was her boss; she only knew that the
headlights were not fading away behind her fast enough. Whoever it
was she had passed was now chasing her.
Martha
reached into the glove box and took out the .38 revolver. If this
was someone who was a danger, he would not find her a willing victim.
The
lights picked up behind her and Martha stepped harder on the gas,
nearly going off the road at Turner's Trace. The wheels hit dirt and
spun as a flume of dirt and mud flew up behind the wagon. Back on
pavement again, the wagon shot forward with a jerk, then lurched as
she spun the wheel, pulling onto Old New Hope Church Road and down
toward the wetlands where the Miller trailer stood.
At
the wide spot in the road, the broken-down trailer and the ratty
remains of a small pier were the only sign that man had ever put a
foot here. The clouds hid the moon and stars, leaving only a few
remaining lightning bugs to give any natural light.
Martha
pulled the car up, spraying the cat tails with light. Small animals
scurried for cover as Martha got out of the car and turned on her
flashlight. She started toward the pier.
Behind
her a second pair of headlights pulled up and the chief's Chrysler
came to a stop next to the station wagon. Martha turned ready for
battle, then stopped and lowered her pistol when she saw it was
Chief McLean.
“Martha,
what the hell are you up to?” yelled McLean.
“Chief,
don't come up on me like that, I nearly shot you for a poacher.”
“Well,
who did you expect? Why aren't you at the office or home? What are
you up to out here at this hour?”
“You
haven't heard? The swamp took Ed Riggs. He was out here looking for
the Miller girl with Frank and fell in. Frank came back saying he
was a goner for sure but wasn't going to look for him. I just
figured I wasn't going to let it go at that; someone's go to at least
try, for Pete's sake!”
“Ed
gone? When did this happen?”
“Within
the hour. I left as soon as Frank was gone.”
“So
where's Frank? Is he out here?” said the chief, looking around,
half expecting to see his only remaining detective.
“No,”
said Martha, sharply. “He went home to get a good rest so he can
start fresh in the morning, he said. He's already moved into Ed's
desk. I'm out here alone.”
“And
with a gun, I see.” said the chief, looking at Martha's pistol. “Is
that standard issue?”
“I'm
not coming out here unarmed. You can site me in the morning, but
tonight, I'm going looking for Ed Riggs and not coming home without
him or his body.” Martha turned sharply and began walking toward
the pier.
“Wait
up a minute,” said McLean. He went to his trunk, opened it and
came out with a flashlight and a pump-action shotgun. “As long as
you're going to do something crazy, you may as well have company.”
Powered by | | English | | Albanian | | Arabic | | Bulgarian | | Catalan | | Chinese | | Croatian | | Czech | | Danish | | Dutch | | Estonian | | Filipino | | Finnish | | French | | Galician | | German | | Greek | | Hebrew | | Hindi | | Hungarian | | Indonesian | | Italian | | Japanese | | Korean | | Latvian | | Lithuanian | | Maltese | | Norwegian | | Polish | | Portuguese | | Romanian | | Russian | | Serbian | | Slovak | | Slovenian | | Spanish | | Swedish | | Thai | | Turkish | | Ukrainian | | Vietnamese |
|
|
|
|
Saturday, September 19, 2009
|
........
Episode
3
Harlen
Eldridge sat on the front porch of his lavish estate smoking a cigar.
That the cigar was expensive didn't matter to his wife; she would
not let him smoke it in the house. “Just as well,” he thought,
“I've got things to do that are best done in the dark.”
The
senior Eldridge thought about his darling daughter, Edna Maye, and
unwrapped the string from the folder that sat on his lap. On the
table close by sat a short glass of cut crystal with a heavy bottom
and a dramatic pattern. He dropped two cubes of ice into the glass,
covering them with whiskey from a matching decanter and adding a
splash of water from a matching water pitcher. The folder had a
stamp on the front, “A. Gaither Detective Agency.” Inside were
typed reports and several black-and-white glossies taken from a
distance.
The
photos were of a man in a two-year-old black Ford sedan driving up to
a trailer, the man walking up to the trailer and the man leaving the
trailer after dark, kissing the girl in the glow of the yellow light
coming through the door.
Harlen
closed the folder. He would have to take action, but what? He could
have the man fired from the force. But then he would just have to
provide his out-of-work son-in-law with a job. He could expose him
and get them divorced. But that would have his daughter back in the
house and it had cost him a small fortune to have her married off;
not many were willing to put up with his darling daughter. He could
buy the Miller girl off easily enough, but there would be another in
the next trailer down the road. Another thought flitted through his
head, making him smile, but he soon shook it off.
“No.
He is, after all, a detective of police, his disappearance is bound
to bring up questions. That'll never do.” Harlen went back to his
drink.
Al
Gaither sat up with the ringing of the alarm clock. He slapped a
large, flat hand on the button and the ringing stopped. He looked
around. He was in his apartment on the outskirts of Landon County.
“Thank God!” he said, turning to sit sideways on the bed. “Not
another crumby motel room. It's good to be home if only for a
while.”
It
was midnight and he had to be going, there were people to follow,
pictures to take, reports to make. Tonight, he would get to his
hiding spot just in time to see his latest case leaving his
girlfriend's place, kissing under the bare light bulb. It was all so
romantic. Al smiled.
“You
going already, babe?” said his wife, Claire.
“Yeah,
gotta get the latest chapter of a story that is fast coming to a
close. I'll be back in a couple of hours. We can have breakfast
together later.”
Claire
Gaither smiled and touched her husband's back as he got up to put on
his shirt. She had married him when she was his secretary and he was
just starting the agency. He had been a cop until a scandal had
sullied him. He swore to the authorities and to her that he had been
innocent. The charges were dropped for lack of evidence, but he had
lost the trust of his superiors and took early retirement. She was
much younger, but had no prospects and she respected him, so when he
asked, she answered to the affirmative. Al knew he was lucky to have
her and showed it whenever he could. Every night that he spent
watching others cheat on their wives made him happier to see her when
he got home.
Al
got dressed in the same clothes he had on earlier that day when he
took the folder out to the Eldridge place. “See what else you can
get.” old man Eldridge had said. “You're the boss.” Al had
replied. Now he was once again getting into the aging Chevy and
backing down the driveway in the middle of the night.
Collin
Miller sat in his boat, his shotgun across his lap and a lantern on
the front board, drinking kerosene. Well, it tasted like kerosene,
anyway. Whatever it was the Belter boys were making up there, it had
a kick and got him numb and that's all he cared about. They took his
$2.00 and gave him a couple of Mason jars of it. He was already into
the second.
A
sound to the right caused him to turn the flashlight on and look
over, but he couldn't see what it was. “It sure ain't Clara,” he
said to himself. He turned the flashlight off, content to sit by the
dim light of the lantern.
He
had named his daughter after his wife. Mrs. Miller had died in
childbirth. To help raise Clara, he had remarried quickly, but she
left before too long. Living with Collin Miller proved to be a chore
not worth the trouble. A third woman stayed a while, then left when
the subject of marriage came up; he was still married to the missing
second Mrs. Miller. After that, a string of increasingly desperate
single women came and went from his life until finally there was only
him and young Clara.
But
Clara was growing into a woman and her womanhood was firing on all
cylinders. Keeping the boys away was a full-time job and more than
once the dogs had given chase through the woods followed by a blast
from Miller's shot gun. The police had come out twice to remind him
that murder is a crime, teenage daughter or no teenage daughter.
It
wasn't until his shift was changed to grave-yard that she stopped
taunting the local young studs. Collin thought it might be she was
finally growing up, but coming home early to find a grown man leaving
the trailer changed his way of thinking. He had passed the man on
the road. A black Ford sedan with a grown man at the wheel, in a tie
and a hat and coming from his trailer. “Who was that?” he had
asked Clara, but she just swore up and down that no one had been
there. That's when he knew that the man who had been there was there
for her and not for some other business. He had recently demanded
another shift and had been laid off for his trouble.
Now
he sat and waited for the man to come back. Instead of the man
coming back, Clara was gone. When he came home that night, there was
no sign of her. The police had come out and asked some questions,
but they didn't seem very interested. The police had the same kind
of black sedan as the man, but then next to Collin's old truck, they
all looked alike.
He
pictured the black Ford sedan, riding down the road, the man
laughing, Clara in the passenger seat, laughing right along with him,
and figured he was better to be shut of her. Still, he hadn't come
up like a man and asked for her, he just took her – and nobody took
anything from Collin Miller and got away with it. If the police
found him, he would go to jail, but if Collin found him first, the
man would be picking buck shot out of his butt-cheeks until the next
winter. Miller took another drink of the second jar of the Belter
brothers' home-made and listened for the sound of someone who might
be coming through the swamp to steal from him.
Powered by | | English | | Albanian | | Arabic | | Bulgarian | | Catalan | | Chinese | | Croatian | | Czech | | Danish | | Dutch | | Estonian | | Filipino | | Finnish | | French | | Galician | | German | | Greek | | Hebrew | | Hindi | | Hungarian | | Indonesian | | Italian | | Japanese | | Korean | | Latvian | | Lithuanian | | Maltese | | Norwegian | | Polish | | Portuguese | | Romanian | | Russian | | Serbian | | Slovak | | Slovenian | | Spanish | | Swedish | | Thai | | Turkish | | Ukrainian | | Vietnamese |
|
|
|
|
Friday, September 11, 2009
|
........
Episode
2
Beneath
the dark, slimy water, Ed Riggs struggled to free himself of the
bog's grasp. He was pulled down by his own weight, by his own
weakness, by his age. He was no longer a young man, like Frank
Morton, thin and strong. No, he was overweight and over the hill.
Perhaps it was fitting that he die this way, Ed thought, it would be
a good lesson that one should keep in shape.
He
was held down by his overcoat, by his suit jacket, by his gun that
caught on the twining roots of the Cypress and kept him from escaping
to the air above. He kicked his feet, but his pants seemed to fight
against his legs and his shoes stuck in the muddy bottom.
A
million thoughts raced through the Detective Sergeant's mind: “Damn
Frank Morton! I made him! This can't be how it ends for me! I have
to find a way out! There's so many things I still have to do!”
Lifting
his leg through great effort, he felt his shoe come off. His leg
brushed something sharp and the pain shot through his calf. He put
his leg down hoping to gain some leverage. His lungs felt like they
would burst.
He
touched something solid with his foot, kicked against it and felt his
overcoat slip away. He thought he was rising toward the surface,
freed of the overcoat. He kicked with his feet a second time. He
felt a tearing at his belt and kicked again.
“Air!
Air!” screamed the voice inside his head as he broke through the
surface and spat out a mouth full of gunk, gasping for enough air to
keep a grip on life.
Ed
Riggs held on to a Cypress root, chest deep in Thompson Bog,
struggling for his breath. Through the Cypress roots, across the
muddy Miller yard, tail lights were disappearing down the dirt road.
“It's
black as pitch out there,” said Detective Frank Morton. “All I
saw by the glow of his flashlight was his hand sinking below the mud.
I'm afraid he's gone.”
“We
should call in the uniformed officers, maybe get out the Fire
Department and some of the fellas and go search for him, maybe
there's still hope.”
Martha
Sawyer was pale and shaking. The station had been her first job out
of school and after 13 years she could not see herself working
anywhere else. Ed was a fixture there; she admired him. What would
it be like without him? What would they do without him? What would
she do?
“Martha,
I'm tellin' ya, it ain't no use. The man's gone,” Frank yelled.
“He's slipped into that bog out there and there's no way to find
him and if we do, he can't breathe under mud and water. He's dead.
The best we can hope for is to pull his body out when it gets light,
if we can find it.”
Martha
sank with despair. She looked sadly at Ed's desk, the Miller file
still open. Who would solve that case now? What did it matter when
Landon County's best detective was dead in the attempt?
Frank
walked over to the desk, turned the file to him, then turned it back,
sat down at Ed's desk and began to look at the file.
“I'll
take up the case. I worked with him, I know how he operated. I can
pick up where he left off.” Frank said, and began by taking over
the larger desk of the dead detective.
“A
little early to start dividing up his property, isn't it?” Martha
said with narrowed eyes. “The man's not even pronounced and you
are sitting in his chair. Why don't you show a little respect?”
Frank
leaped from the chair, pulling his suit-coat around behind him,
letting his gun holster show, “Because there's a murderer out there
and I'm the only one left to stop him, that's why. Because I'm the
detective and you're the damned secretary, that's why.”
Martha
turned back to her desk. There was no arguing with him when he was
like this. Only Ed could calm him and put him back on the track of
rational thought, and Ed was not here. No, Ed was in Thompson Bog,
suffocated to death. Martha shook with the thought, then hung her
head and cried for Ed.
At
Ed's desk, Frank thumbed through a short stack of folders. “Soon
as it's light, I'll start again. But there's more here than just
that missing girl to deal with. For a man who was so well thought
of,” Frank said with a familiar attitude, “he had a lot of
unsolved cases.”
Martha
looked up with a new distaste for the man with no respect for his
partner. Ed had reduced the stack of unsolved crimes from more than
two hundred to an impressive twelve. The dozen that were left were
dead ends that no one could figure out, but he hadn't stopped trying.
Martha wanted to shout the man down, but knew that it would mean her
job, the job that suddenly didn't seem all that desirable.
She
began to formulate a response, one that would surely get her fired,
but might also get her physically hurt. Frank could be mean and
violent. She wanted to say something, but then Frank stood up.
“I'll
get a fresh start in the morning,” Frank said. “I'll call the
coroner and get him to pronounce on Ed and then we'll figure out what
to do for a funeral. See you in the morning, Martha.”
Frank
sauntered out a bit too jauntily for Martha's taste, but there was no
one to tell about it. She knew that the Landon County hierarchy was
too busy with their own amusements to bother about her suspicions.
To them it would be an open-and-shut case; a detective goes out to
investigate a missing girl, falls into the swamp and gets pulled
down. He drowns and his partner takes over the case. It was the
natural order of things, so why bother them about it?
Martha
sighed heavily and looked at her desk. The papers that seemed so
important minutes ago looked blank to her. There was nothing on them
that had the least significance. Martha felt helpless and lost.
Outside the station, the road was dark and empty; the night was
still; the world had stopped turning.
“No
sense in rushing this,” Ed Riggs thought as he began to take stock.
There was a sharp pain in his left leg. There were other aches, but
they were minor. He was breathing! He was alive! That was
something! That was the main thing!
He
pulled himself up out of the water enough to grab onto one of the
large Cypress legs. He was able to hang on to the root system enough
to keep him from sinking again into the murky water. The hollow
beneath the tree smelled of musk and decaying leaves.
Something
touched his right leg; something moving. Ed pulled his leg up
sharply, still clinging to the giant roots. Whatever it was had
wrapped itself around his right foot. He lifted his foot up and
reached down with his hand, grabbed and pulled up. He half expected
to find a snake, one he would have to beat to death with one hand
while holding on to the root with the other. What he held was a
rope.
Ed
pulled on the rope and felt it give on the other end. There had to
be another end entangled in something, but not the tree. Slowly, the
rope gave out more length. What came up was hard to see in the
darkness, but Ed's eyes were growing accustomed to the dark. Two
eyes, open and lifeless, looked at nothing. The mouth hung limp. It
was the Miller girl.
Edna
Eldridge Morton sat in front of the television, glancing out of the
window of her ranch style home as the lights of the black Ford pulled
into the drive. She sighed, putting out her cigarette. She hated
being alone, but now that Frank was home, she hated even more being
alone with him. The shine had worn off her marriage; the thrill she
had felt when she married a policeman was gone.
“You're
home early,” she said as Frank walked into the door, “it's not
after midnight yet.”
Frank
stopped, sneering at the woman he had been so proud to call his wife
a few years before, who now openly berated him at every opportunity.
“It's too dark to do anything tonight.” Frank took off is hat
and coat, hanging the coat on the end of the hall closet door to dry.
“I
thought you did your best work in the dark.” Edna took another
cigarette from the pack of Chesterfields and lit it with a small,
gold lighter.
Frank
turned to regard her, wishing that it had been her that he had hit
with the butt of his pistol and dragged into the swamp. He wished he
could come home instead to the Miller girl from the trailer park and
live here with her. She would appreciate him. She would like living
in a nice house with a new car in the driveway and a new television
set in the corner. She would meet him at the door with a cold beer
and a warm kiss instead of a snide remark and a hateful stare.
“We
lost Ed Riggs tonight; he got stuck in the swamp and went down.”
Frank went to the sideboard and poured a whiskey into a
heavy-bottomed glass.
“Ed?
Lost in the swamp?” Edna seemed suddenly concerned. “Did you
send in a search party? Have they given up already?”
“I
saw him go under. He hit a quick place, it took him before I could
get to him. No use searching, he's dead.” Frank drank down the
whiskey, winced and poured another.
“What
are you going to do now?” Edna had a vacant look, the blood had
drained from her face.
“What
do you mean, what am I going to do now? The same thing I have been
doing, only maybe now I can make it to sergeant without him holding
me back.”
Edna
was up out of her chair now, her back to the television, ignoring the
pop western that was boring her minutes earlier. “Ed Riggs was all
that was keeping you in that job,” she flared. “With him gone
you might just find yourself replaced with a hat rack. Does the
chief know?”
“The
chief has other things on his mind than the case we were working on.”
“A
murdered girl?” she folder her arms, challenging him.
“A
missing girl, there's no evidence she's been murdered. She probably
ran off with some traveling salesman.” Frank finished another drink
and turned around, reaching for the bottle.
“You
think she'd do that, run off in the middle of the night?”
“Riggs
said he found blood, but it could be the blood isn't human. There
were drag marks, but it could be from some old washing machine she
drug off into the bog to get rid of. Ed went looking and see where
it got him.”
A
thick silence hung in the air between them as she pondered the
possibilities. With Ed Riggs gone, her husband had no protector at
the station, no one to follow behind. He could be promoted, but then
he would fall on his face and that would be an embarrassment. He
might be demoted and that would be as bad or worse. He might quit or
be fired, but then he would want her father to find him a job. Where
would he put her inept husband where he couldn't do any damage?
“I'm
going to take a bath and go to bed.” Edna turned and walked down
the hall without shutting the television off.
On
the screen, a gunfight was brewing outside the saloon. The good guy
was clean and well groomed in a new shirt. The bad guy was dressed
in black, dirty and with a scar. It was clear who would win. Frank
wondered why people watched these things. Then he sat down, pulled a
Chesterfield from the pack and lit it with Edna's gold lighter. He
took a long, slow sip of his drink and watched as the good guy shot
the gun out of the hand of the bad guy without drawing a drop of
blood. “Pretty good,” he thought.
Powered by | | English | | Albanian | | Arabic | | Bulgarian | | Catalan | | Chinese | | Croatian | | Czech | | Danish | | Dutch | | Estonian | | Filipino | | Finnish | | French | | Galician | | German | | Greek | | Hebrew | | Hindi | | Hungarian | | Indonesian | | Italian | | Japanese | | Korean | | Latvian | | Lithuanian | | Maltese | | Norwegian | | Polish | | Portuguese | | Romanian | | Russian | | Serbian | | Slovak | | Slovenian | | Spanish | | Swedish | | Thai | | Turkish | | Ukrainian | | Vietnamese |
|
|
|
|
Thursday, September 03, 2009
|
........
Episode
1
The
first chill was settling on the fields around the sparse woods by
Thompson Bog. The shallow, muddy water that dominated Thompson Wood
in Landon County was a dangerous place for anyone. Local legend was
filled with stories of people who went in and never came out.
On
this night in the autumn of 1954, voices were raised in a trailer
house at the end of the swamp. The shrill tones of a young girl were
heard, screaming at the top of her voice, “I won't! I'll tell and
you can't stop me.”
The
door flung open, spraying scant light from the bare bulb across the
muddy yard. The girl ran out of the trailer door in Capri pants,
dirty, white blouse and bare feet. She was crying.
The
girl jumped to the bottom of the crude wooden steps as the door
banged on the side of the trailer and slammed shut, closing off the
light and leaving the yard once again in total blackness. In the
dark of the new moon, clouds hung over the swamp, shutting out the
stars.
The
door banged opened a second time and the girl turned, half defiant,
half fearful. She never heard the sound of the blow. Her body fell
to the ground and didn't move. In the dim, eerie glow of the single
bulb, a man leaned over the girl, took one wrist and dragged her body
across the muddy yard down to the edge of the swamp.
The
light from the trailer's bulb seemed to stop at the edge of the bog,
making it hard to make out the broken wooden pier and flat-bottomed
boat tied there. The man loosened the cinder block that passed for
an anchor and tied it to the girl's waist. He took two steps into
the bog and dropped the girl in. The cinder block sank below the
surface, pulling the girl's body in after. The man stood knee-deep,
watching her body sink slowly into the thick, black water.
As
the dirty, white blouse disappeared beneath the water, the girl
regained consciousness. She opened her mouth to cry out, but the
dark, murky water stifled her cry and she slipped below the water
line. There were ripples along the surface; cat-tails swayed as she
struggled beneath the murky sludge. Then the agitation stopped. All
was still again.
The
man who had dragged the girl so roughly to her grave stepped back
onto the solid ground next to the broken pier. He went to the
trailer, turned off the light and closed the door behind him. He
went around to a car behind the trailer, got in and, without turning
on the lights, sped down the road toward the two-lane blacktop.
A
half-hour later, an aging truck came up the road making a racket and
bouncing beams of light across sparse trees at the edge of the bog.
The loose tools in the back coupled with the age and the poor driving
of the inebriated driver made for a noisy ride. Collin Miller
stepped out of the truck and opened the door to the trailer, “Clara!
Where are ya, girl?” There was no response. The old man stumbled
to the back of the trailer and fell onto the bed, unconscious.
The
following morning Collin Miller walked into the police station. “My
Clara never come home last night,” he told the clerk. “I think
she had a man in there whilst I was gone. The place is a mess.
T'ain't like her.”
Martha
Sawyer took the statement. “We'll look into it,” she said.
It
was overcast all day, so mid-afternoon looked near dark when the two
detectives made it over to the Miller place to look for signs of the
girl.
“She's
not here,” said Frank Morton, a detective for the Landon County
Police Department. He rocked his hat back on his head, unbuttoned
his overcoat and looked around the trailer.
“Nope.
But I've got blood out here,” said Detective Sergeant Ed Riggs.
He knelt down to get a closer look at the blood, noticing something
in the dirt. “Got drag marks, too.”
Detective
Morton stood at the door looking down at the dirt. “I don't see
'em.” He pushed his black-framed glasses tighter on his nose and
took a flashlight from the pocket of his overcoat. The dim beam of
light found the marks in question. “Could have been anything, some
piece of trash or old box – anything.”
Ed
Riggs stood up, his flashlight in his hand and looked at his partner.
How could he not see that the marks were plainly someone being
dragged? Ed pulled his overcoat closed against the growing chill and
turned his flashlight on. He began walking along side of the drag
marks, talking as he went. He was talking; whether his inexperienced
partner was listening was his own affair.
“There
are two marks here, I'd say something about 80 or 90 pounds, like the
Miller girl. There's other footprints but the ground's too hard and
uneven, I can't make 'em out. Could be a man in city shoes.
Miller's footprints are all over; you can see that he has these farm
boots and they're all worn out.” He stopped at the edge of the
wood. It was not smart to go into a swamp at night; all manner of
things awaited the unwary, things living and things not living.
After
a brief discussion with himself, Ed Riggs turned to his partner.
Frank Morton's tall, thin body was still silhouetted by the harsh
light of the trailer's bare bulb. “You comin'?”
Frank
Morton stepped out of the trailer, down the wood step and across the
yard to the swamp, careful not to step in the blood.
“Watch
it, man, those footprints are evidence. See? They go down to the
old boat dock there.”
Both
men shined their lights into the dark wood. A small wooden dock,
ungainly and broken from years of use with no upkeep, jutted out over
the shallow bog. Tied to it was Miller's rowboat. The drag marks
went right to the dock and scrapes in the ancient wood continued out
to where the boat was tied. Ed Riggs walked toward the dock,
followed hesitantly by his partner.
“He
dragged her here, but didn't take the boat. Why would he take her
this far and not take the boat?” Ed Riggs aimed his flashlight
into the boat to see that it held an inch of water. “Oh,” said
the Detective Sergeant, and began scanning the swamp with his light.
Large
Cypress trees seemed to hold the swamp in place with giant fingers,
keeping it from sinking down to where everything ever dropped into
the water had gone. The bog was shades of black, creating a barrier
against the meager flashlight.
“There's
something here, looks like someone stepped in, making a hole in the
vegetation. There's something there, too. It seems darker over
there, if that's possible.”
The
younger detective stood on the pier, not wanting to sully his shoes,
as the older detective stepped off into the swamp. He took two
steps, then a cautious third.
“This
could be solid under here, but there's quick places all over.”
The
third step proved him right as Ed Riggs slipped, sinking right up to
his neck. He tried to raise a hand, but doing so only pulled him
down further, his chin and mouth dipping below the surface. When he
pulled his head up, his chin and mouth were covered with gray-brown
mud.
“Quick
place, Frank! Help me out!”
Frank
Morton squatted down on his feet, close to the water. He put his
arms on his knees, his hands dangling inward.
“Are
ya goin' under, Ed?”
“Yes,
you fool, can't you see I'm going under? Pull me out of this crap!”
Frank
Morton turned his flashlight off, took a deep breath and looked
around. Then he looked back at his partner.
“Well,
I would, Ed, but then you wouldn't have the pleasure of meeting Clara
Miller while you're down there. Sorry!” Frank chuckled, just
enough to let his partner know that he was not sorry. He was not
sorry at all.
The
thin man watched his partner sink slowly down into the muck. He
continued to watch the water churn as Ed Riggs struggled. He watched
until the water is still.
“Say
'Hi' to Clara,” he said to the surface of the bog.
Frank
Morton stood up, turned on his flashlight and made his way back to
the black '52 Ford parked on the dirt road at the edge of the bog.
He got in and started the car. Taking the microphone from the cradle
he called in.
“This
is Frank Morton. Ed Riggs and I came up here to see about the
missing Miller girl. Ed fell into the bog and got sucked under
before I could get to him. I'm afraid he's gone.” Frank ended the
conversation before there could be another side to it. He returned
the mic to the holder on the dash and gave the dark woods one final
glance, smiling.
“That
worked out well,” thought Frank Morton, as he put the car in gear
and released the clutch.
Powered by | | English | | Albanian | | Arabic | | Bulgarian | | Catalan | | Chinese | | Croatian | | Czech | | Danish | | Dutch | | Estonian | | Filipino | | Finnish | | French | | Galician | | German | | Greek | | Hebrew | | Hindi | | Hungarian | | Indonesian | | Italian | | Japanese | | Korean | | Latvian | | Lithuanian | | Maltese | | Norwegian | | Polish | | Portuguese | | Romanian | | Russian | | Serbian | | Slovak | | Slovenian | | Spanish | | Swedish | | Thai | | Turkish | | Ukrainian | | Vietnamese |
|
|
|
|
Friday, August 28, 2009
|
........
Scandal
at Shady Point
From
the collection: Murder at Thompson Bog
Episode
5
By
the light of the full moon, Mike Emerson climbed over the fence of
the house next to Randy Turner's sisters' house and crossed the lawn
to the greenhouse. There was no lock on the greenhouse. It was
simply a matter of opening the door quietly, though that in itself
was a challenge.
Mike
climbed a ladder, put a terracotta pot on the rafter, a thin string
around the base of it, a loop of string that went in two strands
along the rafter and out one of the broken windows. Beneath it,
another terracotta pot sat, as if waiting to be the victim of a
prank.
Mike
returned to the adjoining yard, gathered the two strings and waited.
He waited all day, until nearly dusk. He was fast growing impatient
and in danger of being discovered should the neighbor come home from
work and find Mike hiding in his yard.
Randy
Turner looked both ways before stepping out into his sister's back
yard. He was taking no chances. He ran from the back door to the
greenhouse, feeling safe once surrounded by his plants. Randy Turner
felt that glass and plants could protect him from bullets.
When
Mike Emerson pulled the string, the red flower pot fell from the
rafter onto its brother below, making a crash that sent Randy Turner
to the floor. Mike pulled the string all the way out of the
greenhouse, across the yard and over the fence, wadded it up and put
it in his pocket. He snuck out of the yard and down the alley to
where the ugly rent-a-car was waiting. Randy Turner was sprinting to
his sister's back door to call the police.
The
following day, Mike returned the green Plymouth, checked out of his
motel and bought a beat-up pickup truck cheap. It was on its last
legs, but it got him to a town a few miles away where he could lay
low and plan his next move.
It
was a year of living on edge, waiting for the other shoe to drop. No
events took me out of Shady Point to gather news, no reports of
anyone shooting at Randy Turner or anyone else, nothing of interest
or alarm. And yet....
Dana
moved out to a home for battered women where she lived and worked.
She wanted to help women whose lives had also been destroyed. That
Mike never once hit her was a moot point.
Randy
gave up the greenhouse and stayed in his sisters house full time. He
became a hermit. Children made up stories about him.
Mike
Emerson had vanished.
So
when, on a chilly September evening, I was called by my editor to see
what was up at the house where Turner was cloistered, it was like an
old friend showing up, one I didn't really want to see again.
The
police cars were parked at odd angles, their lights turning the night
into a kaleidoscope of red and blue. There was crime scene tape and
the police were not chuckling. It was time to take something
seriously. It was up to me to determine what that was. Sergeant
Gillespie was being surprisingly helpful.
“Turner
has become a real piece of work since you saw him last.” Sergeant
Gillespie indicated the pale figure in khaki pants and bathrobe
ensemble standing at the door of the house. Turner was emaciated and
looked sick. “He won't wear blue-jeans, won't own a wallet or
keys. He stays in the house twenty-four-seven. His sister says she
that since his savings ran out, she supports him completely. She
doesn't know what else to do.”
We
stood there together, watching the broken man talk to the officers at
the door, looking around as if he had never seen outside before. He
didn't look toward the police car with Dana Emerson getting out. She
didn't look at him either. The lovers who had started this string of
events couldn't face each other.
Dana
was taken to the side of the house across the street from Turner's
sister's house. Gillespie didn't even try to stop me from going
over. Still, I held a respectful distance. On the ground was the
body of Mike Emerson. He was dead. A .22 rifle lay beside him.
Dana looked at the body, nodded her head and turned around to walk
back to the squad car. She had identified the body and now could be
taken home. She had no tears left.
“Our
guess is that he was on the roof, working on getting an angle with
his rifle, waiting for Turner to pass by a window or poke his head
out. This house is empty, for sale. It looks like he's been here
for quite a while, waiting for his shot.”
Gillespie
closed his notebook and looked across the street to the squad car as
Dana Emerson got in. She didn't look up at Turner.
Twenty
feet away, Randy Turner took one more look at the outside and
retreated into the house.
“Emerson
didn't know it, but he already killed Turner – and Dana. They're
both dead to the world.”
“I
guess he wanted to complete the picture,” I said, closing my
notebook as well. “Now they're all dead.”
Gillespie
just nodded, turning back to his crime scene. I walked back to my
car, reviewing the story from the not-so-innocent start. “He'll
never find out,” she must have said to herself. And now here we
are, in the dark of night at a crime scene, all because Randy Turner
grabbed the wrong pair of jeans.
Powered by | | English | | Albanian | | Arabic | | Bulgarian | | Catalan | | Chinese | | Croatian | | Czech | | Danish | | Dutch | | Estonian | | Filipino | | Finnish | | French | | Galician | | German | | Greek | | Hebrew | | Hindi | | Hungarian | | Indonesian | | Italian | | Japanese | | Korean | | Latvian | | Lithuanian | | Maltese | | Norwegian | | Polish | | Portuguese | | Romanian | | Russian | | Serbian | | Slovak | | Slovenian | | Spanish | | Swedish | | Thai | | Turkish | | Ukrainian | | Vietnamese |
|
|
|
|