Three Degrees of Death Read online

  “If it’s him, I would think he would have said something about the brother, even if he’s trying to let us know they’re in trouble,” I suggested. “And if it’s not from him, whoever sent it might have seen the brother thing as just what it was—a trap.”

  “Yes. And Erin is in a panic. I’m getting pretty close. Some people riding bicycles found Miriam’s phone beside the road about forty miles south of here on the way to Aberdeen. The Scottish police have a witness who saw the kids in town, but a long time before they were supposed to be back at the hotel. No one saw them after the return time and so far, no leads other than the phone and the texts as to what happened to them. I don’t dare call my parents or Mr. Haddad. I really don’t have anything good to tell them.”

  “Have you met with the police yourself?”

  “No. I just got to the hotel thirty minutes ago and have been talking to Erin.”

  “So, it’s what? Four-thirty in the afternoon there? By the time you can reach them, you probably won’t find any of the officers working the case still on duty. Try to get some sleep, and check in with them in the morning. See what they’ll let you do to help, and get the latest from them. I’ll text Yusef and your mother, tell them you arrived safely, but can’t meet with the police until morning.”

  “I’m not sure how I’ll sleep. I hate to admit it, Tate, but I got on the train, had a window seat like you suggested, but it was like someone drugged me. I’ve never felt so tired. I slept all the way up here. Now I feel wide awake.”

  I was tempted to laugh but knew this wasn’t a laughing moment. “Jetlag,” I offered. “You’ll probably feel like staying up until about 4:00 a.m., and then it will hit you hard again.”

  “I’m worried sick, Tate. What if something terrible has happened to them and I can’t help?”

  I hesitated, then passed along one of the thoughts that had occurred to me during my pre-dawn pondering about possibilities.

  “Grace, did the kids have their passports with them?”

  “As far as I know. I’ll check with Erin.”

  “Those passports are valuable things. If the kids were taken to get their passports, the police there might want to watch for them being used.”

  “Oh, Tate,” she said in what was almost a whimper. “I’m so unprepared for all of this. Something bad has happened to them. I can feel it. I just hope I can help figure out what, or this is going to be a huge expense for the Haddads with nothing but bad news to show for it.”

  “You’re a good cop, Grace,” I assured her. “And Scotland has good ones, as well. You’re in a country that’s known for being safe whether you live there or are just a tourist. It’s going to work out. Call me tomorrow after you’ve talked to the police.”

  “I will,” she promised.

  “I’m thinking about you and the kids every minute,” I confessed.

  “Hmm. Thanks,” she murmured. “I know you are, and I really need that right now.”

  12

  I met Able for lunch at Bruno’s in downtown Springfield, a narrow strip of a place with a bar stretched along one wall and a full-length mural of the Italian countryside covering the other. The mural had a “Thomas Hart Benton does Tuscany” look to it—fluid, rounded lines and vivid colors. Able wasn’t really interested in discussing the case before the meeting, but wanted Bruno’s steamed mussels in white wine and didn’t feel like eating alone. I ordered the shrimp in a Dijon mustard sauce.

  “Other than what you’ve already told me, I want to hear your account at the same time the state’s attorney hears it—and when Officer Joseph is there to contribute,” he said, forking a bite of pale meat out of a black shell. “We’ll video the session so we can refer back to it later. I think it will be best if it’s our first detailed review of the facts.”

  We talked instead about his surprise that I had ended up where I am and about his earliest legal encounters with the Tates.

  “There are none of you left up there on Huckleberry Ridge now, are there?” he asked matter-of-factly. “You know I went to school with your dad and his brothers—at least as long as they stayed in school. I think your father was the only one who made it past eighth grade, and that was because he’d fallen for your mother, and school was the best place to see her. She pretty well kept him out of my office once I was practicing law. But I saw a lot of Charlie and Gerald. Those two boys were always in some kind of trouble. I don’t think many of us were too surprised when neither of them made it out of their forties.”

  It was a story I’d heard all too often, especially from people who were amused to find a Tate as sheriff. Uncle Charlie, my dad’s youngest brother, had drowned over on Elk River when he and a canoe full of Budweiser overturned against a logjam, trapping him and the beer underneath. He and some of his deer-poaching buddies had decided to steal boats from one of the float outfitters along the river for a late-night paddle down to the Highway 47 bridge. Fortunately, Charlie was between marriages and didn’t have any kids, which softened the loss a little for the family.

  Gerald’s death cut a deeper and wider swath through Crayton. He had a wife and three little ones and had a chop shop tucked away in the woods down below Huckleberry Ridge. Before Charlie drowned, the two of them and some of the same poaching associates ran a racket stealing luxury sedans and sports cars from students at the university in Springfield. They cut them down in their old metal barn and trucked the components to a black market dealer in high-end parts up in Kansas City.

  One evening Gordy Lewiston, a younger guy who was their main driver, came home early from a delivery and found his wife and Uncle Gerald exercising the springs on Gordy’s mattress. In a jealous rage, the trucker committed coitus interruptus on the pair with a Browning A-5 he carried in his truck and had modified to look like the one made famous by Clyde Barrow. Uncle Gerald had a reputation for having a wandering eye, and it seems Gordy had been suspicious for months, but hadn’t hit the timing just right.

  Able Pendergraft defended young Gordy on the double homicide. In true Crayton fashion, the attorney was able to get a jury of twelve of Lewiston’s peers to agree that he had done what any other red-blooded American man would do under the circumstances.

  More to get away from the pity than the shame, Aunt Sally and my cousins moved to Lamar, Colorado where she had a sister. When my father died in the mill accident, there were no Tates left in Crayton for her to keep in touch with even if she had wanted to—which I suspect she didn’t. I hadn’t heard much about her since I left to join the Marines.

  Able took a long sip of the wine he had chosen to go with his mussels. “So—how did you escape getting caught up in that chop shop operation with the others, Tate?” he asked in his ponderous Atticus Finch voice. “I’m sure you were given the opportunity.”

  I grinned wryly over at the attorney. “Are you trying to figure out if you have a client who might have wanted to shoot LJ Greaves?”

  Able tilted his head back and studied me through the bottom of his bifocals. “Nobody in town was sorry to see him go,” he said.

  I pushed back from my plate of shrimp. “I thought you knew me better than that, Able.”

  “I do. But the court doesn’t. If I were Verl’s attorney, I’d make sure the Tate legacy came out in court somehow.”

  “Well, you can bring Mom’s brother Jack in to tell them I was always a complete disappointment to the Tate name. He and my mother made sure I stayed clear of my Tate uncles and cousins. As soon as I was out of high school, I was gone.”

  Able nodded solemnly. “But your Durbin cousins don’t have such a great history either. Packy’s in jail in Oklahoma.”

  “It was rough, growing up out on the ridge,” I admitted. “I just got into different things.”

  Able chuckled. “Like studying languages. No one in town could figure that one out.”

  “A stray gene from some wayward ancestor,” I suggested.

  “Well, it has stood you in good stead with the immigrant families. You�
�ve done a good job as sheriff, and we need to get you out of this mess. I just didn’t want you to be too surprised if your family history finds a way to surface if we go to trial.”

  “And what are the chances of that?”

  Able finished his wine with a slow, appreciative sip. “Let’s go meet with your pretty little patrol friend, and I think we’ll have a better idea.”

  We met in a back room of the Troop D headquarters on Kearney Street. It was set up as a briefing room but had a side table large enough to seat the four of us. Joseph’s counsel from the attorney general’s office was a recent graduate of the Missouri University Law School, a serious young woman named Allyson Penn who greeted Able with a nervous curiosity that suggested she wasn’t certain what she would find in a small-town country lawyer.

  “Officer Joseph tells me you were very helpful on a previous case,” she said to him as soon as we were seated. “She was pleased to hear you would be representing the sheriff.” Joseph was seated opposite me and gave me an eye roll to say, “I don’t know why these people think they have to speak for us.” I grinned back and let the attorneys talk.

  “I assume you have filed a motion to dismiss for your client on the basis of qualified immunity,” Able said.

  “I did immediately,” Penn replied. “I feel certain it will be denied.”

  Able nodded, but asked anyway. “On what basis?”

  “The courts have become very cautious about cases that suggest any kind of overreach by law enforcement. The judge will at least want to review all the facts.”

  Able continued to agree. “After we have heard from our clients, we need to discuss whether we present a joint defense, or defend separately. But we are fortunate in this case that the complaint was very short on facts. Just a barebones claim that the accused caused a wrongful death and deprived the plaintiff’s father of his constitutional right to life through an unlawful intrusion onto posted property—and after a legal request to leave.”

  Allyson Penn was a sturdy young woman, short-cropped blond hair framing a long face with a prominent nose and wide mouth. She wore large glasses with dark blue rims through which she peered at Able. “Why do you see that as fortunate?” she asked.

  “Unless the judge dismisses based on immunity, if there is disputation of fact the case will have to go to trial—unless we reach some monetary settlement with Verl. I think we will find from our discussion today that there is no disputation of the few facts cited in the complaint. Our clients went onto the Greaves property. It was posted. The sheriff was asked to leave. LJ Greaves was shot by your client and later died.”

  “Those are not facts that are helpful to us,” Penn said grimly.

  “No. But I believe other facts will come out today that are, and nothing in the complaint can be said to dispute them. We can use them as the basis for a request for a summary judgement by the court in favor of our clients and save both the expense and grinding delays of a trial.”

  Penn cast Mara a professional smile. “Officer Joseph and I barely had time to get acquainted before you arrived. Why don’t we have your client describe the events of the day. Mine can add and clarify as we go. Then we can see where the facts take us.” She pulled a digital recorder from a brown leather case on the floor beside her and placed it in the middle of the table. Able gave me a nod.

  I briefly described being called to the trailer home of Nettie Suskey, who owned three hundred acres along Mill Creek that adjoined the Greaves property. Nettie was found dead from apparent strangulation during a home invasion. At my request, Officer Joseph was sent down by the state patrol to assist with the investigation.

  “This was my first murder as a new sheriff,” I explained to Penn. “I didn’t feel like I had the forensic background to do justice to the investigation without help.” The attorney had copies of Joseph’s incident report and the patrol’s shooting investigation open in front of her. She nodded, indicating that what I was telling her agreed with the reports.

  “A man who lives up on the ridge above the two properties told us he thought he had heard someone cutting timber on the back of Nettie’s land where it butts up against the Greaves’. There is no way into that stand of trees other than through the Greaves’ property.” I paused, then asked, “Where are you from, Ms. Penn?”

  She looked up from her reading. “Saint Charles.”

  “Then you may not be aware that taking timber off someone else’s property is serious business down our way. The kind of thing Nettie might have confronted the men about and been killed for as a result. The Greaves have always had reputations as people with no respect for the law and a violent streak as long as the stripe on a skunk. Since we were close by, Officer Joseph and I decided to drop on down into the hollow and ask them about the logging.”

  Allyson Penn nodded her understanding and returned to following my story in Joseph’s reports.

  “The Greaves live in an old metal building that you can’t see from the road. As we were winding our way down their drive, a shot shattered a tree trunk a few yards from the patrol car on my side.”

  Penn looked up again from the papers in front of her. “They shot at you when you were coming down their drive?”

  “Yup. I suspect it’s in Joseph’s report there.”

  Joseph nodded from her side of the table.

  “The complaint states that their property was posted. Is that accurate?” Penn asked.

  “Yes. There was a ‘No Trespassing” sign at the top of the drive. But we couldn’t very well tell them we needed to come down and talk to them without going down there.”

  “You couldn’t call?”

  “The Greaves didn’t have listed numbers—and there’s no phone reception down there anyway.” A smile flickered across Able’s lips, but the woman missed it.

  “Okay. Continue,” she said. “Did they know it was you?”

  I looked over at Joseph who thought for a moment, then shrugged.

  “The car was still out of sight,” I admitted. “I jumped out and shouted down that it was me, and I needed to talk to them. If I remember right, Verl said he knew who it was and that I wasn’t welcome down there.”

  Penn looked up again in disbelief. “You got out and called to them? I would think you would have hightailed it back up the hill, called for backup, and taken an army down there after them.” This time she did see Able’s smile. “What?” she snapped over at him.

  “The sheriff grew up with those guys,” he explained. “And he knew an army would just make things worse. Explain what you did, Tate.”

  “I told them just that,” I said. “That I could come down peaceably then or come back with all kinds of backup. Verl finally agreed that I could come talk to them.”

  “Did you tell him you had someone with you?”

  I grinned over at Joseph. “I didn’t know if I did. Officer Joseph bailed from the car when the shot was fired and disappeared into the woods. I didn’t know where she went.”

  “I didn’t bail,” she objected testily. “I threw myself into a ditch, then skirted through the woods to the back of the old building where I could provide some cover when I heard the sheriff continue on down the hill.”

  “It says that in your report here,” Penn agreed. “But it doesn’t say exactly what you did, Sheriff. Please go on.”

  “When I got to the building, they were both standing outside with long guns. Verl had the Marlin three thirty-six he keeps on a rack in his pickup. LJ had a twelve-gauge.”

  “A twelve-gauge?”

  “Yes. A shotgun.”

  “Pointed at you?”

  “Not to begin with. Just down at the ground. I told them someone had killed Nettie. They acted surprised at that. But when I said we’d been told someone had heard people logging on the back of Nettie’s property, they got pretty testy. Both raised their weapons and told me to get off their land. Verl made it clear that folks had disappeared for accusing people of less than that. I told them I was just trying to find ou
t what had happened to the old lady, and LJ chambered a shell in his twelve-gauge. That’s when Mara showed up behind them at the corner of their building.”

  “Do you want to tell us what happened from there?” Penn asked, turning to Joseph.

  “I came around the corner to try to establish a defensive position and found the men pointing their weapons at Tate and threatening him. I ordered them to put their weapons down and said if they as much as turned, I’d have to shoot them. Tate told them I had my weapon centered on them, and they’d better do what I asked.”

  “But the older man turned?”

  “Yes. Verl lowered his rifle, but the old man swung around toward me with that shotgun. I had to shoot.”

  “Were you aiming to kill him?”

  “I was aiming to stop him. That was all I had time to think about.”

  “And you hit him in the left side.”

  “Yes. That knocked him to the ground. We disarmed them both, called for an ambulance, and got LJ to the hospital.”

  Allyson Penn turned her attention back to me. “And this was nearly a year ago? He must have shown signs of recovery to have been released from the hospital.”

  Able finally entered the discussion. “This is one area where I think we can petition for a summary judgment,” he said. “My guess is that Verl checked him out as soon as the man could be wheeled to his pickup truck. They wouldn’t have insurance, and neither of them likes institutions much.”

  I gave Attorney Penn a confirming nod. Able continued with his explanation.

  “Tate and one of his deputies visited their home a number of months later on another case and found LJ in pretty bad shape. The sheriff asked Verl to get him some medical attention then, but the son refused. Said he could take care of LJ himself.”