1 A Small Case of Murder Page 21

  Tad answered, “It was an article written forty years ago about Reverend Orville Rawlings. Need I say more?”

  “Newspaper article?”

  “Looked liked a magazine article to me,” the doctor told her. “It was about Orville Rawlings and that church he built back in 1963. It even had his picture of him standing in front of the new building looking holier than all get out. What a joke.”

  Tad held his coffee mug out to his cousin and gave a silent order for him to refill it as payment for keeping his promise. Getting the message, Joshua refilled their mugs from the fresh pot.

  “Where’s the article now?” Jan was writing as fast as her hand could go.

  Joshua plopped back down into his chair. “It’s evidence. Sheriff Curtis Sawyer has it.” He leaned his chair back against the wall and put his feet up on the table.

  Jan stopped writing and looked at the two cousins like they were stupid. “Well, we can kiss that evidence good-bye.”

  Tad defended himself. “I had to turn it over to Sawyer because he’s the sheriff.”

  “Tad’s right,” Joshua said. “If he hadn’t given it to Sheriff Sawyer, then he could have been charged with withholding evidence.”

  “Sawyer works for Rawlings,” Jan asserted.

  Joshua changed the subject by asking Tad, “How did this John Doe die?”

  “Shot in the chest. Once and only once. There were no powder burns on the clothes or speckling on the wound.”

  “What does that mean?” Jan paused in her writing.

  Tad shot Joshua an annoyed glance, which caused the lawyer to chuckle while he answered, “That means he was shot from a distance. A contact wound is when the muzzle of the gun is pressed against the skin when the trigger is pulled. Since there’s no distance for the gunshot residue that comes from the muzzle to scatter outside the wound, they are propelled into the victim. In that case, you will find no speckling around the outside of the wound. The wound will fan out inside the victim.

  “If the victim is shot from close up, but it’s not a contact wound, then there will be speckling of gunshot residue around the wound. How much there is will tell forensics how close the shooter was to the victim. If there is none outside or inside the wound, then the shot was from a distance.”

  Tad concluded the explanation. “That appears to be the case here.” He illustrated on his own bare chest. “The slug hit its target in the chest and went right through the heart. It bounced off a rib in the back, and then was lodged in the ster-num. The pathologist wants to do more tests before she opens him up. It isn’t every day you get a body that well preserved, and she’s hesitant to damage the goods, so to speak.”

  “Can you tell me what kind of slug it was that killed him?” Joshua asked.

  “Forty-five caliber.” Tad said, “It looked like that on the x-ray. We’ll know more when they open him up. I can’t tell you any more than that.” He smiled over the edge of his coffee mug and cocked his head in Joshua’s direction. “What have you got for the lady?”

  Joshua responded with exaggerated casualness, “I figured out what the key goes to.”

  Tad fought to keep from spitting his coffee upon hearing the news. “You did? What does it go to?”

  “Do you remember that I told you that Doc Wilson was talking to me after I landed on my head at the end of the Weirton game?”

  “You had a concussion.” Tad reminded him.

  “Doc told me that he had a hunting cabin in Raccoon.”

  “Doc wasn’t a hunter.” Jan frowned.

  “No, he wasn’t. But he would go up there in November to put his feet up and drink.”

  “Doc would get drunk?” Tad smirked.

  “He told me not to tell you. Anyway, I remember the conversation now. I was trying not to pass out and he was ranting about Faust—”

  “Faust?” Jan repeated the name.

  “Remember the old story about the man who sold his soul to the devil in exchange for everything he wanted?”

  She asked, “What does that have to do with this?”

  “Doc told me that he knew a man who did that, only he didn’t regret their deal because he was evil. I’m thinking he was talking about Rawlings.”

  “Wait a minute,” Tad said, “That doesn’t make sense.”

  “What are you talking about?” Jan asked.

  “What Wilson told Josh about Rawlings doesn’t make sense. That football game was over twenty years ago. Wally killed Cindy only nine years ago. Doc couldn’t have had any-thing on Wally back then because he was still in high school and hadn’t married Cindy yet.”

  Jan said, “Then Doc Wilson must have gotten something on the reverend.”

  Ever since he had children, Joshua craved quiet.

  Then, his wife died.

  In the days following her death, he thought the silence in his home was going to drive him nuts.

  When Joshua returned to his house after meeting with Tad and Jan, he thought his head was going to burst from the silent treatment his children inflicted upon him. When he announced in a good-natured tone, “I’m home!” the silence seemed to retort, “Drop dead!”

  Even, Admiral remained stretched out on the study sofa with his head on the cushion and one eye on him as if to dare Joshua shoo him off. He had broken the stay-off-the-furniture rule in an act of rebellion for his master sending his family away.

  “They’ll get over it,” Joshua was grateful when the phone’s ringing broke the silence.

  “Bet you thought I forgot about you,” Lieutenant Bruce Rogers said by way of a greeting.

  “No, I knew I’d hear from you.” Joshua grabbed a note-pad to write down the report from his military contact.

  “The Korean War was a long time ago. What you wanted wasn’t easy to get. I had to work overtime to put it together.”

  “But you got it.”

  “Have I ever failed you, Commander?”

  After Joshua assured him he hadn’t, the lieutenant went on with his report. “Captain Orville Alexander Rawlings—”

  “He was a captain?” Joshua was surprised.

  Bruce assured him the reverend was. “I got a copy of his file right here. What made it hard was that you told me he was in Korea. He wasn’t.”

  Joshua said, “It won’t be the first time a veteran lied about his service to make it sound more impressive, especially for someone like Orville Rawlings.”

  “He did go overseas, but he never got further than Hong Kong. He served in a military hospital. Most of those he served with were other officers, and most died after the war of natural causes, a couple of car accidents—”

  “Any who were reported missing after the war?”

  “That’s very interesting,” Bruce replied. “If I hadn’t gotten his file from the VA, I wouldn’t have this information, because it’s not part of our records. Captain Orville Alexander Rawlings was discharged from the U. S. Army on April 5, 1952. He left Hong Kong on April 6, 1952, to return stateside. Everything in here is in order. But a few days later, the police, and we have a copy of a report in his file, questioned the base commander and others because Rawlings’ family reported him missing. They say he never arrived home. I have a stack of letters here. The family claims the military is covering up his disappearance. The military’s position was that he was discharged, checked out, came back to the states on a military transport, and decided not to go home. So, it’s not our problem.”

  “Did the military ever investigate his disappearance?” Joshua’s voice took on an official tone.

  “I have a copy of a report from the Army,” the lieutenant told him. “The Oregon state representative, that’s where Rawlings’ family is from, requested that the Army check into the case. It was the basic report. The Army investigator talked to everyone who was involved
in the captain’s discharge and found nothing out of the ordinary.”

  Joshua asked, “Can you send me a copy of that report?”

  “It’s confidential, sir. It deals with Army personnel.”

  “Send it to the Navy recruiting office in East Liverpool to my attention,” Joshua directed.

  Bruce hesitated. “I’ll have to check with the chief on that, sir.”

  “Do that on Monday and give me a call.”

  “Yes, sir. Anything else, sir?”

  Joshua was about to answer no, but then thought of another question. “Can you tell me if the investigator questioned Charles Delaney?”

  “Who’s Charles Delaney?” was Bruce’s response.

  “He served with Orville Rawlings. He should be on your list.”

  Bruce rechecked his list, and then checked it again. “I don’t have any Delaneys on my list.”

  “Are you in the military database now?” Joshua heard an exasperated sigh from the other end of the line while the lieutenant struggled to get into the database while at the same time talking on the phone.

  “What’s that name again?” Bruce’s voice echoed after he switched to speakerphone.

  “Charles Delaney. He served in Korea. I was told that he and Rawlings had served together in Korea.” Joshua heard grunts and moans from the other end of the line, which told him that Bruce was studying his findings. “He died like seven years or so ago of lung cancer,” he added in hopes that would help his former assistant, “so he should be listed as deceased.”

  “Found him,” Bruce said. “Died in Pittsburgh? January 11, 1997?”

  “That’s him.”

  “This doesn’t make sense.”

  “What doesn’t make sense?” Joshua asked.

  “You said he served with Captain Rawlings?”

  “That’s what I heard.”

  “Charles Lee Delaney, army sergeant. He was military police stationed in Seoul.”

  “Delaney did go to Korea?”

  “That’s where Seoul is,” Bruce said. “But he wasn’t in Rawlings’ unit. Rawlings was an army chaplain at a hospital in Hong Kong. Delaney was an MP in Korea. We’re talking about a whole other animal here, sir.”

  “Okay, I have another job for you.”

  “You must hate my guts, commander.”

  “This will be easier. I want to know who in Sergeant Delaney’s unit was reported missing.”

  “During or after the war?” Bruce’s voice was deadpan.

  “Let’s make it both. Maybe he was AWOL.”

  “You’re not asking for much, are you, sir?” Bruce responded with sarcasm.

  “I still outrank you, lieutenant. And find out who in Rawlings’ family we can contact. I want to talk to them.”

  “Are you taking over the Army’s case, sir? They don’t like it when we do that.”

  “Then let’s not tell them.”

  “Sir, may I advise that you run it through the admiral?”

  “I’ll call him first thing on Monday. In the meantime, get that information for me and I’ll buy you a drink my next trip to Washington.”

  “I’d rather you invite me to your place for some peace and quiet in West-By-God-Virginia.”

  “May I remind you that I have five kids?”

  “Yeah, right,” Bruce said. “I’ll buy you a drink.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  “Left. No!” Tad corrected himself. “Right!”

  “Make up your mind.” Jan wrestled the steering wheel of her red Honda that was hurtling down the dirt road through the overgrown Pennsylvania woods.

  In the back seat, Tad was yelling directions from those drawn on a yellow post-it by a patient he tended at the nursing home. She swore she was familiar with Dr. Russell Wilson’s cabin.

  Squeezed into the front passenger seat, Joshua searched for any sign of civilization.

  The day after sending his children off to the safety of the Outer Banks, Joshua, Tad, and Jan began searching for Dr. Wilson’s cabin. After an hour and a half of maneuvering the maze of century-old roads forged through woods not yet discovered by developers, the group wondered if they would ever find their way back, let alone find Dr. Wilson’s cabin.

  “Wait!” Joshua called out when they whizzed pass a boulder that stuck out into the road.

  A swamp littered with dead trees rested across the road from the rock. The road was so narrow that any miscalculation threatened the driver with either a dent or a bath in the swamp.

  Joshua said, “That looks familiar.”

  “Everything looks familiar.” Jan didn’t slow down. “We’re going in circles.”

  “Stop!” he ordered.

  She screeched to a halt. The sudden stop propelled Tad into the back of her seat. Joshua jumped out and raced over a rise behind the boulder. Tad and Jan climbed out of the car to stretch their cramped muscles when Joshua reappeared at the top of the rise and waved his arms. “I found it.”

  It was on the other side of the trees at the top of the rise. Leaning sideways like a house sloppily built of popsicle sticks, Dr. Russell Wilson’s cabin was a wooden one-story structure in the center of a grassy clearing. A bell tower that had fallen into itself was at one end across from a brick chimney teetering away in the other direction. An overturned outhouse occupied a corner of the clearing.

  “That’s the one-room schoolhouse Grandmomma’s mom used to go to.” Tad slid down the hill to the clearing.

  Jan took pictures with the camera she had brought to cover her exclusive story.

  “And Doc Wilson went to school with her.” Joshua slid down on his rump. “Grandmomma brought me out here when I was a little kid. Doc bought it after it had been abandoned. I remember them talking about it.”

  “It’s not a cabin,” Jan told them while she snapped a pic-ture from in front of the schoolhouse. The door rested ajar in the doorway. “And I don’t see any lock that that key can go to.”

  Tad peered through a dirt-covered window. “Don’t be so sure.” The window was so dirty he couldn’t see through it.

  Joshua was forcing the door open. Tad joined him, and together they cleared the doorway. Joshua went in first.

  “There’s an old cot in here,” he called out.

  The cabin consisted of one large room containing a brick fireplace and a series of windows along both sides of the class-room. A black chalkboard hung at one end of the room. The flag that used to hang in the rusted remnants of the bracket on the corner of the blackboard had disappeared along with the desks and chairs.

  Two of the three pictures that had once hung on the walls were propped up against the decaying wall. One was of George Washington, and the other was of Abraham Lincoln.

  The third picture, which contained the image of Jesus Christ, rested at the foot of the cot covered with a thin, weather-decayed mattress. At the same time, they all saw the footlocker that the picture had been propped up against.

  Joshua gasped before diving for it and turning the locker around to reveal the padlock sealing it shut. “Tad, give me the key.”

  While his cousin studied the lock, Tad dropped to his knees next to him and fished the key out of his pocket.

  Joshua groaned when he discovered their next obstacle.

  The lock was rusted.

  “Maybe it will still work,” Jan suggested.

  Tad slipped the key into the hole. It fit but wouldn’t move. Joshua grabbed it out of his hand and tried with all his might, but the rusted mechanism refused to budge.

  Defeated, they groaned and plopped down onto the floor.

  “It’s simple. We’ll take the trunk back home and break the lock.” With a grunt, Joshua hoisted the trunk up onto one of his shoulders.

  Tad kicked the cot. “I want to
see what was in it now.”

  “Well, you can’t always get what you want,” Joshua said in his most paternal tone while he led the way out of the old schoolhouse. “But if you try sometimes, you’ll find you get what you need.”

  “Mick Jagger sang it better.” Tad followed him.

  “Mick Jagger sang what better?” Jan slipped the cover onto her camera lens.

  “You need to get out more,” Tad told her.

  The first shot was fired when they appeared over the top of the rise.

  The bullet kicked up dirt in front of Joshua, who dropped the trunk and hit the ground at the same time. The trunk rolled end over end down the hill and landed next to the boulder.

  “He’s hiding in the trees across the road up at the top of that hill,” Joshua warned his cohorts.

  Stunned, Tad and Jan searched the trees for the shooter without moving for cover until Joshua bellowed like the military officer he was. “Hit the dirt!”

  Tad followed the order. Jan stood motionless.

  The next shot snapped off a tree branch near her head.

  “Jan!” Joshua yelled. “Get down! That’s an order!”

  When Tad tackled her, the two of them rolled together down the hill to the road. After covering both his head and hers while two more shots were fired, Tad realized that the shots were return fire.

  Joshua shouted, “Get in the car! I’ll cover you!” Taking cover in the thick brush, he waved his gun in the direction of the car.

  “Get in the car!” Tad screamed at Jan.

  Motionless, she gazed up at him with wide, frightened eyes.

  He pulled her to her feet and dragged her to the car.

  When a shot kicked up dirt between them and the car, Tad changed direction and yanked her to hide behind the boulder.

  At the next round of shots from Joshua, Tad once again darted for the car and shoved her into the back seat.

  “What about Josh?” Suddenly mobile, Jan fought him as if she could single-handedly save their leader.

  “He’s coming!” Tad yelled.

  “The trunk!”