1 A Small Case of Murder (19 page)

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!”

“We’ll get it.” Tad pushed down on her head, thrust her into the back seat, and slammed the door on her.

He heard another shot fired. Tad couldn’t tell where it came from or where it hit until Joshua answered with two more shots from the rise above them. Tad jumped in the front seat and fumbled with the keys to start the car.

After the engine turned over, Tad lifted his head to look over the dashboard. He saw Joshua shoot towards their assailant before diving down the hill. Once he hit the ground, he went into a roll and landed next to the trunk.

Unaccustomed to Jan’s car, Tad punched the gas pedal to the floor. The car responded by leaping forward like a jack-rabbit and landing with a jolt between the shooter and Joshua.

Three shots were fired at them while Jan helped him to dump the trunk into the back seat. He leaped in behind it.

“Move! Move! Move!” Joshua roared.

Tad hit the gas without waiting for them to close the door.

They heard a series of shots over the pitter-patter of the engine while the car fishtailed down the road.

The phone was ringing when Joshua carried the trunk into his study. Tad and Jan hurried in ahead of him to find something to use to break into it.

“There’s the phone,” Jan stated the obvious.

Joshua’s hands were full with the trunk.

“Where are your bolt cutters?” While ignoring the ringing phone inches from his hands, Tad searched the desk.

Admiral came into the study from where he had been sneaking a nap on Sarah’s bed. While he watched them scurry about to open the trunk and answer the phone, the dog sat and uttered a long, low grunt.

Meanwhile, the phone kept ringing.

Joshua dropped the trunk in the middle of the floor. “Answer that, will you?” he ordered while lunging for the phone. “Hello.”

“Commander Thornton!” the admiral barked at him.

After years of conditioning, Joshua stood at attention.

“What have you been doing?” Admiral Andrew Zimmerman, a Navy Seal from the Vietnam War, continued, “Inactive duty bores you, so you decided to go to the local graveyard to dig up dead bodies?”

“Where are your bolt cutters?” Tad repeated his inquiry.

Jan was yanking on the lock in a vain effort to break it off with her bare hands.

“I’m only trying to identify a body, sir.” Realizing what the admiral had said, Joshua asked, “How did you know a body was found in a cemetery here in Chester?”

“Where’s your toolbox?” Tad asked Joshua, who tried to ignore him.

Joshua put his hand over the phone’s mouthpiece and whispered, “Check the garage.” 

“What is it with you, Thornton?” Admiral Zimmerman asked. “Wherever you go, bodies keep dropping out of no-where. Now, they’re popping out of crypts.”

“Who is that?” Tad wanted to know.

“Shut up,” Joshua snapped at him while trying to piece together what the admiral was reporting.

“What did you say, commander?” the admiral shouted.

“I was talking to my cousin, sir. I apologize if you think I directed that at you. Excuse me.” Covering the mouthpiece, Joshua hissed, “Go check the garage and take Jan with you.”

Shooting him a glare, they slipped out of the study.

Returning his attention to his commanding officer on the other end of the line, Joshua grabbed his notepad and pen, and sat at his desk. “I’m sorry, sir, but how did you know about the crypt?”

“We got a report from the VA that the body of a former inmate at Leavenworth had been found in a crypt that didn’t belong to him in Chester, West Virginia. Of course, I knew instantly that you were connected to the case somehow.”

“They identified him by his fingerprints,” Joshua muttered more to himself than the admiral.

“That’s right. He was Army, but I was given his file and asked to give you any assistance you need.” The admiral asked, “What are you up to, Thornton?”

“Losing my mind, sir,” Joshua answered. “Who was this inmate?”

He was relieved to hear a smile come into Admiral Zimmerman’s voice. “Your John Doe was Private Kevin Rice. He had been convicted of stealing government property to sell on the black market while stationed in Seoul, Korea. He had been caught red-handed delivering the goods to a fence. It was also believed that he had fragged his platoon sergeant, but the prosecutor couldn’t get enough evidence to charge him with murder.”

“Did you say he killed his sergeant?” Joshua asked.

“Yes,” the admiral said. “The investigators had questioned Rice about the series of thefts, but had let him go because they felt he wasn’t smart enough to run the operation so smoothly. They had hoped Rice would roll over on his boss. That was Master Sergeant Caleb Penn. He ran the supply depot. Rice confronted him, and they got into a big fight. Penn beat the shit out of him. Before the investigators had enough on Penn to arrest him, he got blown up.”

“How did it happen?”

“Ignition bomb. He got into his jeep to drive across the base and boom.” The admiral went on. “They convicted Rice of stealing, but they couldn’t connect him to the bomb. They gave him seven years in Leavenworth for theft of government property and a dishonorable discharge.”

“What was Rice’s defense?”

“He said he was only following his sergeant’s orders and made no profit from the thefts. He knew something fishy was going on, but he felt he was in no position to make waves. The prosecution found evidence that he did take money for his part. Therefore, he had to know that whatever he was doing was illegal.” Zimmerman added, “But the prosecution did believe Penn had been the mastermind behind the operation.”

“But you can’t lock up a dead man,” Joshua pointed out. “If his sergeant was still alive, Rice could have rolled over on him and would have gotten a lighter sentence. Was he smart enough to realize that?”

“From the tone of the statements in this file, I don’t think so.” The admiral continued reporting from the case file, “Sergeant Penn seemed to be a smart guy. When he got him-self blown up, the Korean police wanted him for questioning about the death of a Korean civilian.”

“What civilian?” Joshua asked.

“The fence,” the admiral answered. “He was shot in the head as soon as he got released by the military police.”

“And the prosecution didn’t try to pin it on Rice?”

“He had an alibi. He was still being held in the stockade.”

Joshua wanted to know, “What time period was this?”

“Beginning of 1952,” the admiral told him. “Rice was picked up on suspicion of killing his sergeant one week after he got caught with the truckload of goods.” Joshua could hear the reports being shuffled. “February 1952.”

“And the Korean?” Joshua asked.

Admiral Zimmerman replied, “What about him?”

“Did the Korean police ever find out who killed him?”

“Since Rice had an alibi, they decided it had to be one of his other suppliers. This guy dealt in everything.”

“Maybe Penn did it,” Joshua suggested. “You said they wanted to question him about it.”

He listened to the admiral hum on the other end of the line while he read the reports in the file. “Penn had an alibi. He was in a meeting with another sergeant.”

Joshua tapped the end of his pencil on the notepad while he thought. “First, the fence gets shot, and then the suspected mastermind is blown to bits.”

Admiral Zimmerman told him, “The prosecutor’s case was that Rice wasn’t the innocent stooge he pretended to be for the investigator. The extra money in his bank account proved that. He got caught with his hand in the cookie jar, and the guy who put him up to it was putting all the blame on him, so he got mad and decided to blow him up.”

“Why and how did Rice end up in West Virginia?” Joshua wondered out loud.

“I have no idea,” the admiral answered. “He was released from Leavenworth in 1959. That’s the last the military knew of him.” He asked, “Since when have you gone to work for the DEA, Thornton? I thought you requested inactive duty so that you could run for president of the PTA.”

“I’m not working for the DEA, sir. The state attorney general appointed me special prosecutor in a double homicide.”

Realizing the significance of the admiral’s inquiry, Joshua fired off a question that flashed in his mind, “How did the feds know about this John Doe?”

“Your state medical examiner ran his fingerprints through the federal database to ID him. The Penn case had been flagged because it was considered a cold case. Since Rice had been in Leavenworth, his records belong to the military. The Army sent his file to me, since, officially, I’m still your commanding officer, even though you are on inactive status. I need to know what’s going on.”

Joshua rubbed his forehead while he recounted for the admiral the adventures of his move back home, and Lulu’s news that Rice and Rawlings had served together in Korea.

“Well,” Admiral Zimmerman told him, “from what our records indicate, Rawlings had no reason to know any of them. He had served as a chaplain in a military hospital in Hong Kong. Rice and his friends were in Seoul.”

“Speaking of Rice’s friends, I wonder if he knew Charles Delaney?” Joshua mumbled. “He’d served in Seoul. Maybe Rice came to Chester to see him.”

Joshua recalled that it had been Sheriff Delaney who had warned his accomplice to hide Rice’s body after his parents had found it in the barn.

How can we prove the call was to Rawlings if the reverend didn’t serve with Rice in Korea? What possible threat could Rice be to a chaplain who’d served in Hong Kong? Could Delaney have made the phone call to another war buddy mixed up with Rice and his illegal dealings? There’s no telling what else Rice could have gotten himself into after his release from Leavenworth in 1959. But then, if Reverend Rawlings hadn’t been involved, why did Rice have that article about him in his pocket?

“Thornton, are you still there?” Admiral Zimmerman’s voice snapped.

Joshua started out of his thoughts. Apologizing, he asked the admiral to repeat what he was saying.

“I was telling you that Rogers told me to tell you that there was one enlisted man, a Corporal Milton Black was AWOL from Sergeant Delaney’s command.”

Forgetting his request for the lieutenant to find out who in Sheriff Delaney’s unit had been reported missing in his quest to identify the missing body, Joshua asked why Rogers wished for the Admiral to report that information to him.

“Because you told him to,” the admiral reminded him.

Joshua cleared his throat and asked for the rest of Rogers’s report. As long as his assistant had done the work, the least he could do was to listen to the report, even though he now didn’t consider the information relevant to the case. “When was this corporal reported AWOL?”

“February 5, 1952.”

Joshua squinted at the date he had scribbled on his note pad that Rice’s commanding officer was killed: February 1952.

Admiral Zimmerman went on, “According to the report that Rogers got from his file, Black had been a disciplinary problem from the get go. Didn’t fit in. His CO finally gave him a three-day pass. He took off to Hong Kong and never came back. I don’t think he has anything to do with any of this. He had no connection with Rice or supply. He was military police.”

Joshua wrote down the dates and made a timeline on the notepad. “Under Delaney?”

“Delaney was his CO. He was the one who signed off on the three-day pass. Got a reprimand for that. Command wanted to know why he gave a three-day pass to a man with disciplinary problems. He said he thought a break would do him some good. Anything else, commander?”

“Yes, sir,” Joshua answered. “Were any American John Does ever found in Hong Kong during that time period?”

“Now, why do you want to know that, Thornton?”

“I’m looking for all the pieces of a puzzle, sir. You did say that Black went to Hong Kong. What became of him? Did they check to see if maybe he didn’t come back because he was dead?”

“He most likely came back to the states and went into hiding.”

“In Chester, West Virginia.” Joshua asked, “Can you have Rogers check on American John Does found in Hong Kong about that time period for me, sir?”

An exasperated sigh came from the other end of the line. “Okay. Can I do anything else for you, commander?” the admiral asked in a sarcastic tone. “Would you like me to send Rogers to rotate the tires on that Corvette of yours?”

Joshua heard Lieutenant Rogers laugh in the background until he abruptly stopped. He could imagine the commanding glare the admiral fired off at him to halt the laughter. “Could I please have copies of all those files?”

Despite the order to cooperate with his subordinate, Joshua was still surprised when Admiral Zimmerman responded that he would have the files sent overnight via courier to the recruiting office in East Liverpool.