Murder at the Lake_a small town murder Page 2

  “I need some info on the guy the EMTs brought in this morning, the one in room 210. Why has the THP put handcuffs on him?”

  “It seems they’ve been trying to find this guy for some time now. When his name came across the wire, they high footed it here and slapped the cuffs on him. Makes it twice as hard on us to take care for him, but that’s how it goes sometimes.”

  “Well, I’m going to have a little chat with Mr. Henderson, and also there was a gunshot guy from out at the lake—what do you know about him?—and then I’ll get out of your way.”

  She laughed. “Honey, you would never be in my way. I’ll let you know on your gunshot in a minute. How’s your daddy, anyway?”

  “Pops is fine. He likes gardening, would you believe? He has the prettiest roses in the neighborhood. I’ll tell him you asked after him; he’ll get a kick out of that. What brought you back to nursing here at the hospital? I thought you liked the Doctor’s office work.”

  “I missed taking care of people. People who really need care and sometimes don’t get it. I’m happy here, should have never left.”

  We said our goodbyes with a hug and I walked on down to room 210.

  ******

  I found Jake Henderson trying to get out of his handcuffs. He was working away at getting his hand out and never looked up to see me standing in the doorway. He was spitting on his hand and wiggling it back and forth. I stood and watched this for maybe two or three minutes before he must have felt my presence and looked up.

  “Bitch, what do you want?” He yelled out at me.

  “Well, with a greeting like that, I’m not sure I want to give you what I’ve brought from your truck.” I held up a clear plastic bag to let him see what I had in the bag.

  “Give me my cellphone, you bitch. I wouldn’t be in here if it wasn’t for you.” He was yanking and pulling on the cuff, and I do believe if he could have got to me, he would have at the very least hit me!

  “I’ll tell you what, I’m going to leave this with the nurses at their station and if they see fit to let you have it, that will be on them. When someone does you a favor and you call them a bitch, in my book, you can go straight to hell. And by the way, I have your pot and your pipe, and when the THP is through with you, my sheriff will have a little word with you.” And with that I turned and left while hearing him bellow from his room.

  I walked back to the nurse’s station and found Cathy still dishing out meds in little cups. “Cathy, I was taking some personal items to room 210, but he got a bit nasty about his situation, so I told him I was leaving all this good stuff up here and if you guys wanted to let him have it, it was on you.”

  “He is one nasty customer, for sure. Always with the bad mouth, he didn’t have a good up-bringing. I’ll keep it here. It will be like a bribe to keep him quiet. Well, I have rounds to make. Your guy with the bullet wound is still in recovery, so check back in maybe an hour.” She gave me hug and moved off, pushing her cart of meds.

  What to do for an hour without driving back to the office? Not much I guess, so I headed to the sheriff’s office to sit with Cindy for a while.

  ******

  Cindy had her head in a book as I walked through the door. She looked up and smiled, putting a bookmark inside her book. I’d given her an e-reader for Christmas, but she liked the feel of the paper pages on her fingers. She’d put some cookbooks on the e-reader which were big heavy volumes and the e-reader made that a bit lighter.

  “Hey, girl, what’s up?” I asked her as I cleared the newspapers off the sofa so I could sit down.

  “Not a whole lot happening right now. Understand you guys can’t even take a break at the lake without catching a homicide. And what’s with the guy and the truck this morning, anyway?”

  “I don’t even want to talk about it. He’s a rude son of a bitch, that much I can tell you.” I told her about me trying to return his stuff and him calling me a bitch, also about him spitting on his hand to get the cuffs off.

  She laughed and told me, “You should have made the cuffs tighter.”

  “No way was I getting near that idiot. He would have clocked me a good one,” I told her. “Hey, maybe you could run him in the system and tell me a little about him. I have to wait for my gunshot victim to get out of recovery before I can talk to him.”

  “Sure, give me his name and if you have his address that would help.”

  I gave her what I could on him and she set to work on it. While she was doing that, I went into the conference room to set up my murder board and to get my book on this one going. I plugged my phone into the system and downloaded the pictures that had been taken at the lake. I printed off the picture of the dead girl and my gunshot victim for the murder board. There was a picture or two of the debris on the lake so I added them to the board also. I began to write in the book when the screen lit up and info on Jake Henderson filled it. I hit the intercom and said, “Thank you, that was fast.”

  She replied, “Well, he’s been in and out of trouble in Coffee County since he was a teenager. His record is long and goes back quite a few years. I see the THP has first dibs on him. What do we have him on?”

  “I have his pot and his pipe, plus I believe there’s enough pot here for re-sale. I need to log this stuff in and get it out of my Jeep. I have a witness name: Tommy Roberts. He lives out on Cotton Mill Road. Before I go any further, let me log all this in with you.” I left for the Jeep and ran into Max coming in.

  “Hey, I need to get something out of the Jeep, be right back,” I told him.

  Cindy and I logged everything in as evidence and it was stored in a nice little lockbox for later with the courts.

  I turned to Max and said, “Sorry, this has been one hell of a day. Are your boys still working the lake?”

  “Yeah and we brought in some of the Coffee County guys to help. Part of the evidence has drifted into their county. I stopped by to see if you would like to later get a bite to eat?”

  “Hey, that sounds nice. I have to get to Doc Simpson’s on the girl, unless Bo or Bubba have been there.”

  “When I left the lake maybe thirty minutes ago, they were still there, all of them.”

  “Well, that leaves Doc up to me then. What time you want to meet?”

  “Hey, I don’t meet, I pick up, and let’s say seven. Will that give you plenty of time?”

  “More than enough. You know where I live? That was a stupid question; you were there when I had a break in. See you at seven.” The break in happened last year and they destroyed most of my furniture.

  The phone rang and Cindy answered it while I said goodbye to Max.

  “I’m going to Doc Simpson’s and then I’ll be back and finish what you pulled up on Henderson. Can I get you anything while I’m out?”

  She patted her cooler and said, “I have everything I need right here, but thanks for asking.”

  ******

  Doc’s hair was gray and beginning to thin a bit on top. He might have been all of five foot eight and his passion was jazz. He was a ME in a big city and just got tired of all the shootings and murders he encountered, so he moved out here to the country to retire, but then got pulled back to work a few years ago. Not so much as a ME, but as a need for a Doctor in a small town. The ME part came out of necessity later on.

  I walked into his morgue, a space in the basement of the hospital they put together to keep from having to send the bodies to Nashville for autopsy. It was clean and cool and he had jazz playing while he worked. There were three coolers—that’s what I called them—and I knew two had bodies in them, so this girl would fill up the last. He looked up and smiled as I came closer to the table. It used to bother me down here, but not anymore. I know I have to be the voice for the dead person.

  “What have you got for me, Doc?”

  “Death was from the explosion. I’m surprised she’s in such good shape. She must have been in the front, away from the engine when it blew. Billy has gone to the lab with her blood work, that will tell
us a bit more when that comes back. You know they are never in a hurry so don’t expect anything on a Sunday.”

  “Have you been able to ID her?”

  “No, but I’ve sent her prints off to the FBI and the TBI, again its Sunday so maybe tomorrow.”

  “The Flex Cuffs she had on her hands, any idea where they came from?”

  “All Flex Cuffs have an ID number on them. FBI is going to handle that, again, maybe Monday. A case of hurry up and wait.”

  “Okay, Doc, I need to go see if this guy that got shot on the houseboat is out of recovery and find out why she was tied up on his boat. Think I’ll carry my own Flex Cuffs when I go see him.”

  “Okay Jenny, maybe tomorrow things will pop on this. If I hear anything, I have your cell number and I’ll give you a call.”

  “Thanks, Doc, appreciate it.”

  Chapter Four

  I hit the admit girl up for my gunshot victim room number and also his name. Carl Harris was his name and he was just down the hall from Henderson in room 220. As I arrived on the floor, there was a lot of commotion going on and I wandered down to see what it was all about. I got to room 210 and found food had been thrown not just on the floor, but all over the nurse who had served it. Henderson was yelling about the lousy food and the service in the hospital and making demands about his cuffs being removed. As I walked into the room I sent the nurse out and I told him, “If it had been me you threw food on, I would have picked up your food and slung it right back at you. You need to apologize to her when she comes back, if she comes back. And as far as the cuffs go, she has no key, so get off her back. This is between you and THP and no one else.” He started yanking on the cuffs and the side rails were not going to last long if he kept it up. I walked back out to the nurse’s station and asked Cathy if she had the name of the THP that had cuffed him to the bed.

  “Let me check the files and see what we’ve got. I’m sure he left his name here somewhere. It’s been one hell of a day and Sunday’s are normally peaceful. Here we go. His name was Henry Miller and he left his cellphone number here also. Would you like it?”

  “You bet. Let’s see if he can quiet down Mr. Henderson. No sense in you guys taking that kind of abuse.”

  I walked down the hall to a quiet spot and called his cell number. It rang a few time and went to voicemail so I left him a message to call me back, this had to do with his prisoner at the hospital.

  From there I went into room 220 to find Carl Harris asleep, not just asleep, but snoring his head off. While he slept I hand cuffed him to his bed rails till I could get some answers to what had happened at the lake. At that moment, one of the nurses walked in to check his vitals and was shocked to see the cuffs.

  “Sorry, there are a lot of unanswered question as to what took place at the lake this morning and we have a dead young lady that I need to ask him about.”

  She nodded and prepared to get his blood pressure and temp. When she was finished, she left without a word one way or the other. I wandered back to Cathy and asked her, “How long is he going to be out of it?”

  “I don’t know, everybody is different. My guess would be maybe a couple of hours. Let me have your cellphone number and I’ll give you a call when he’s more coherent.”

  I gave my cell number and left the hospital. Decided I need nourishment and headed to Table Number Nine, lovingly called The Table around town.

  *****

  Ralph, my chief chef and partner, was getting ready to serve the dinner crowd, and Sophie, my bookkeeper and bartender, was warming up the bar. The bar that sounded mighty good about this time. I slid upon the barstool and put my elbows on the counter. Sophie glanced in my direction and poured me a glass of red wine. Sophie had been with me now for over a year and a half. She was good at her job and people like her. That’s what I cared about. She did the books on top of bartending and ordering the booze. She was also Loraine sister.

  As she handed me the wine, she said, “You look like you really need this today. What’s up with the tired look? I thought you were going to the lake for Bubba’s big housewarming party.”

  “To make a long story short, gun fire, exploding houseboat, dead girl. That’s all I got and yes the wine is just what I need for now. I have to get back to the hospital and question my gunshot victim as soon as he wakes up from surgery.”

  “How about something to eat to go with that wine? Ralph has fried chicken, as if you can’t smell it the minute you walk in the door. Sammy’s been making some new kind of mashed potatoes with garlic and Trena has some fresh green beans from her garden. She said the frost hadn’t killed them yet so we’re in luck.”

  “That all sounds great.” I told her as she left to get me a plate. Sammy was Ralph’s helper who has gone to cooking school. He discovered a body last year up on the square and decided to turn his life around and do something he liked, like cooking with Ralph. He was a little slow to learn some things, but when it came to the kitchen, he was a wiz. Trena was Ralph’s wife and she was here more than me anymore.

  Sophie came back and said, “Betty will bring you a plate in a minute. The biscuits aren’t out of the oven yet.”

  Betty had been with me as long as Ralph. The Thirsty Turtle was where we all met back when Leo was alive and I was the barkeep. Now it belongs to the three of us under the name of Table Number Nine. There was a long story behind the name, so I’ll leave it for later.

  Dinner came and it was the best thing to happen to me today. Sophie and I chatted about things of the bar and the bookkeeping stuff when my cell rang out Sweet Georgia Brown. That’s the sheriff’s ring. I guess he finally heard about what happened at the lake.

  “Jordan here,” I answered his ring.

  “Just when were you going to tell me about all the stuff that went on out at the lake? I had to hear it from the sheriff of Coffee County.” He was mad I could tell.

  “I thought Bo or Bubba had informed you. I was busy at the hospital with another case, plus the gunshot victim in this case. I still haven’t been able to talk to him since his surgery.”

  “Where are Bubba and Bo and, for that matter, where is Roy?” He asked.

  “All at the lake still, I’m guessing. I haven’t talked to any of them since I left.”

  “Yeah it’s everybody’s day off. Who’s holding down the fort?”

  “Lyle and Dean are there and Roy is on call this weekend. The rest of us are off.” I explained to him. I’m sure he knows that, he’s just dotting his i’s and crossing his t’s.

  “Max and his men are on scene along with Coffee County’s CSI’s. They are processing the scene as we speak.” I told him.

  “Good, both good teams. We need to get to the bottom of this fast. Clear this up before the feds get wind of it and take it away.”

  “Yes sir, I’m on it. I’m headed back to the hospital in about five minutes.”

  I finished my meal and told Ralph how good it was and left Betty a tip in her jar.

  ******

  As I left the diner, the sun was setting in the west and what a sun set it was. The kind when you know it’s going to get cold soon. It had all the reds, yellows, and oranges with a touch of purple. The hospital was a beehive of activity as visiting hour was just starting.

  I found Carl Harris awake and watching the TV. He had a sling on his arm and bandages on his shoulder. A dinner tray was on his table about half-eaten and he was sipping on a hot cup of coffee as I walked into the room.

  I pulled out my badge and said, “I’m detective Jordan and I need to talk to you about what happened at the lake this morning.”

  “Are you the one who put the cuffs on me?” He asked.

  “That would be me, yes.” I told him.

  “Why would you do that? I was the one shot.”

  “Because there was an explosion that turned up the body of a young woman. What do you know about that, Mr. Harris?”

  “I don’t understand. What body?

  “First tell me about the houseb
oat. There are pieces of it from here to Alabama. Why was your houseboat blown up and who would want to do that to you?”

  “First off, that’s not my houseboat. I got a call that I had won a free week of fun on this houseboat. Something to do with me entering a contest I have no idea about. I got here this morning from the Boro—that’s where I work. When I got here, the boat was ready to go. I used to captain one on Lake Michigan some years ago, so I was excited about getting it out on the lake today. I took my vacation so I could be on it all week.” He told me.

  “After we got you out of the water, do you remember the explosion?”

  “Yeah, it was loud and the dock shook and the boats moved from the wake it made. Then I passed out and I don’t remember anything till the hospital.”

  “When the debris floated up, the body of a young woman who had been bound and gagged floated up also. She had Flex Cuffs on her wrist. What can you tell me about her?” I asked him.

  “I don’t know anything about a girl being on the boat. All I wanted to do was get her in the water—the boat that is—and some of my friends were coming this evening to hang out.”

  “I have a picture of the young lady here. Would you take a look at her and see if you recognize her?”

  “Sure, anything to help,” he said.

  I felt like he was telling the truth, so I took the cuffs off him and pulled her picture out of my bag.

  “This is the young lady we found floating after the explosion.” I handed him the picture. “We still don’t know her name.”

  Carl Harris went pale and yelled “No!”

  “Mr. Harris, are you okay?” He began to sob as he held the picture in front of him.

  “This, this is my sister,” he said.

  “Are you sure about that?”

  “Yes, see that birth mark on her forehead? She wore bangs to hide it. My God, why was she on the boat and who put her there? Where is her husband, Diego?”