A Welcome Murder Read online

  Richard Goins was a dump-truck driver in his mid-fifties who was a mean drunk and a regular guest of the Jefferson County Jail. Deputies had made countless trips to his house after getting calls that he was beating his wife, but she was so terrified of him that she never wanted to press charges. When we got to the house that night, the emergency squad had already left. There was nothing they could do for Richard, who was on the floor in the living room with a deer slug in his chest. His little wife, Mildred, a pinch-faced woman with big ears pushing through stringy, dishwater hair, was sitting at a kitchen chair, puffing on a cigarette and sipping a cup of coffee. She was wearing a dirty, flowered housecoat and red slippers with holes in the toes.

  “Mildred, why didn’t you call us right away?” Fran asked.

  “I was afraid that if you got here too quick, you might be able to save him.”

  Fran frowned and looked at the corpse. “He has a deer slug where his heart used to be, Mildred. Did you think he would survive that?”

  “I just wanted to make sure, was all.”

  “Was he beating on you again?”

  She shook her head. “No. But he would have, and I didn’t want beat no more.”

  “Had he been drinking?”

  “You knowed him, Sheriff, he was always drinkin’. He’d drink and beat on me, and I didn’t want no more of it.”

  “Was he coming after you or threatening you when you shot him?” Fran asked, giving her every opportunity to claim self-defense.

  But, again, she shook her head. “Nope. I didn’t give him that chance.”

  Fran looked at me and then at Toots, who besides being Fran’s chief deputy also was his most trusted friend. “Did you take a statement from her?” he asked Toots.

  “No. I only got here a few minutes before you.”

  Fran nodded, rubbed the stubble of his chin for a moment, and said, “Mildred, I want to explain something to you. If you shot your husband because you were afraid for your life—say, he was threatening to kill you or even coming at you—then the prosecutor might look at this as self-defense. But if the shooting was unprovoked, if you killed him because you thought he might beat you, that’s murder and you will go to prison for a very long time. Do you understand?”

  She looked up, at last a faint hint of understanding in her eyes, and said, “Maybe I better talk to a lawyer.”

  “I think that would be a fine idea,” Fran said.

  Fran thought this was a noble move, but it made me extremely nervous. Richard Goins was a pathetic and despicable human being. But little Mildred was known to drink and run her mouth, too, and it seemed like a big chance to take. In the end, the case was taken to the grand jury; the shooting was ruled self-defense, and they refused to indict her.

  Fran, Toots, and Deputy Phillip Gearhard worked the shooting at Jefferson Lake State Park. It was just after five when Fran left the park. The crime scene search unit from the Stark County Sheriff’s Department in Canton was processing the scene, looking for latent clues. The body had been loaded into a commercial ambulance and was heading to the Franklin County Morgue in Columbus for an autopsy. Deputy Gearhard stayed at the scene to assist the crime scene search unit. Fran and Toots were back in the office by five thirty.

  I was in the radio room with Bella when Fran and Toots stopped by. Without preamble, he said, “Rayce Daubner.”

  “Oh my God,” Bella said. “Rayce Daubner? I can’t believe it. He used to be in my nursery school class at church.”

  “Church?” Toots snorted, reaching for the coffeepot. “That must have been a hell of a long time ago.”

  “I just can’t believe it,” she said. “Rayce Daubner. I’m shocked. Just shocked.”

  “Why on God’s green earth would you be shocked?” Toots asked. “He was a drug dealer, a thug, and a snitch. As potential murder victims go, he’d be a prime candidate. There’ve got to be a hundred people out there who would like to see him dead.”

  “It’s just a shame. He was such a cute little thing in nursery school.”

  “That was thirty-some years ago, Bella,” Fran said. “He may have been a cute kid, but he turned out to be a miserable adult.”

  “So what’s the plan?” I asked.

  “There’s no short list of candidates, and we’ll need to start talking to some of them tonight,” Fran said.

  “I’m going to run down to the Star Bar and grab a couple of fried bologna sandwiches,” Toots announced. “You want anything, boss?”

  “No thanks,” Fran said, disappearing into his office.

  I pulled a five-dollar bill from my purse and handed it to Toots. “Get him a cheeseburger—mustard, pickles, and onions—and an order of fries.” I followed Fran into his office. “You’re not hungry. That’s a first.”

  “I’m starving, but my stomach is in such a knot that I don’t think I could get anything down.” He looked up from his desk, his face not unlike that of a child who has been wrongly accused but has no viable defense. “Rayce was shot with a thirty-eight.”

  “How do you know?”

  “We pulled a slug out of the ground. It was a thirty-eight. He was shot four times—once in the knee, once in the shoulder, once in the chest, and once right in the middle of his forehead.”

  “Did you find the gun?”

  Fran shook his head. “It was not a professional job—I can tell you that much. There was blood everywhere.”

  “Do you think he was shot with your gun?” I finally asked.

  “No way to know. Could have been. Jesus only knows.”

  Earlier this year, Fran had lost his service revolver. Actually, it was stolen out of his office, and the last person whom he knew to be in the office was none other than Rayce Daubner. Fran wears his revolver in a holster that fits inside the waist of his slacks. He takes it out when he’s in the office because it digs into his side when he’s working at his desk, which has been more of a problem since he put on twenty pounds. The gun had been in its usual spot on top of the filing cabinet when Daubner came in to talk to Fran—again offering some totally worthless piece of “undercover” information. Fran had to run out of the office after one of his deputies used pepper spray on an unruly juvenile prisoner in the lobby. The boy was writhing on the floor of the lobby, crying and vomiting. His mother and stepfather got into a screaming match with the deputy, who then doused the stepfather with the pepper spray. It was a mess. By the time Fran got everything straightened up and went back to his office a half hour later, Rayce and the revolver were gone.

  Daubner had started showing up and hanging around the office about a year before the revolver disappeared. After becoming sheriff, Fran had made it a point to stay away from his old buddies and teammates, particularly Rayce Daubner. The big scandal when we first moved to Jefferson County was that Daubner had set up Johnny Earl to take a fall for cocaine dealing. Then, the scumbag was suddenly spending a lot of time in Fran’s office, hanging around, drinking coffee, acting like he owned the damn place.

  “That guy is trouble. Why’s he hanging around here?” I had asked.

  “I’m using him for information.”

  “What kind of information? He has nothing to offer, and he creeps me out. Keep him out of your office.”

  But he didn’t. Daubner kept coming around, leering and drinking our coffee. When the revolver was stolen, Fran had to report the loss to the State Bureau of Criminal Investigation, and it was a point of personal embarrassment. I had said to Fran, “You know he took it. Why don’t you go squeeze his balls?” But he just shrugged and said there was no proof that he stole it. “The gun was in your office. Rayce was in your office. No one else was in your office. Rayce disappeared. Your revolver disappeared. I don’t think it’s going to take Sherlock Holmes to figure this one out.” But he was not going to confront Rayce Daubner, and I dropped the subject.

  Fran continued, “Daubner was a snitch for the feds. As soon as they find out that he was killed, they’re going to be all over Jefferson County. A
nd all over my ass. They sort of frown on people killing their informants. It’s just another opportunity for them to come snooping around. Ever since Bonecutter screwed up, the federal prosecutor has had a hard-on for Jefferson County. He thinks everyone elected here is on the take or dirty.”

  “Fran, it’s just a coincidence that he was shot with a thirty-eight.”

  “A coincidence is all the feds need to make my life a living hell.” He took a breath and sat back in his chair. “There’s another fly in the ointment. Daubner had been having an affair with Dena Marie Xenakis.”

  I nodded and said, “Well, isn’t that interesting. She certainly makes the rounds, doesn’t she?”

  He got up and walked past me. “Don’t wait up. I’ll be late.” Just before he left the room, Fran stopped, turned, and said, “And I will be working.”

  Things now were much more complicated. The feds would certainly investigate the death of one of their informants. Then they would make a potential link between the caliber of bullet used to kill Daubner and Fran’s missing service revolver, which wouldn’t be all that damning until they discovered that Fran and Daubner had both been sleeping with Dena Marie. God, what an incestuous little town this was. The papers would have a field day with this.

  My plan had been going so well when suddenly there was a dead possum, bloated and ready to explode, right in the middle of my road to the governor’s mansion.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  SHERIFF FRANCIS ROBERSON

  As my chief deputy, Toots is head of the detective bureau, which consists of him, Stan Borkowski, and Phillip Gearhard. When I became sheriff, I was experienced in investigating white-collar crimes, but I had virtually no experience in investigating burglaries, robberies, sex crimes, or murders. So Toots took me on dozens of investigations, patiently walking me through each step and repeating his mantra: “No one is immune from a moment of anger or a moment of stupidity.” He repeated it over and over so that I would never overlook a potential suspect. If I ever make it to the governor’s mansion, I’m going to appoint Toots as my chief of staff. I have never met anyone who is more meticulous and conscientious about his work.

  A few hours after we had found Daubner dead, I was at my desk when Toots entered my office. I set my pen on the blotter and stretched. “Everything clear on the search warrant for Daubner’s house?” I asked.

  He gave me a barely perceptible nod. “Yup. It’s good to go.” He pushed the warrant across my desk.

  Toots wasn’t one to rattle easily, but he had been acting distracted the entire afternoon while we investigated Daubner’s murder. “Toots, have you got something on your mind?” I asked.

  “No.”

  “Really? Looks to me like maybe you do.”

  He shrugged. “Maybe a little something.”

  “Well, spit it out.”

  “Daubner was hanging around here an awful lot. When I asked you about it, you said you were using him as a source. Remember?”

  I nodded. “I remember.”

  “Sheriff, that worthless excuse for a human being was hanging around here all the time, and I never saw one lick of information come across my desk. If he was giving us anything of value, wouldn’t your chief of detectives know about it? So I’ve got to believe there was more to it than him supplying us with information, if that’s what was really going on. Now, Sheriff, if I was a betting man, which I’m not—”

  “One of the few vices you’ve managed to avoid,” I interjected.

  A tiny grin surfaced from beneath his salt-and-pepper moustache. “Right. But if I was a betting man, I’d bet he wasn’t here giving you information. I’d bet that he was here squeezing your balls over that little fling you had with Dena Marie Xenakis.”

  He paused a moment to let the words settle in. I asked, “That’s what you’d bet, huh?”

  “Yep. That’s my bet.”

  “How do you know that wasn’t just a vicious rumor?”

  “Because I’m the chief of your detective bureau, for one. I get paid to separate the bullshit from the facts. I’ve seen the way you look at her. Let’s just assume I’m right. Up until you and Dena Marie started fooling around, she and Daubner were having a pretty torrid affair. She’d get off her shift at the grocery, then swing out to his place for a quick romp before the kids got home from school. I heard she cut him off about the same time she took up with you. I heard that Dena Marie was just looking for some action, but Daubner really liked her. If she dumped him for you, that couldn’t have set well with him, and he wasn’t the kind of guy to take an insult like that lying down. So, like I said, if I was a betting man, I’d bet he was threatening to drop the dime on you.”

  “How so?”

  “Maybe he had pictures of you and her together. Maybe he was going to give them to the guy who ultimately runs against you for Congress.”

  “You’ve been giving this some thought, huh, Toots?”

  “Look, boss, I’m not about to accuse you of killing Daubner; I like my job too much for that. But what I’m saying is this: If I was one of those federal investigators who are no doubt going to be in here looking at this mess, you’d be at the top of my list of suspects. You know people are going to tell them about you and Dena Marie—she was blabbing it all over town, and they’re also going to find out that Daubner had been banging her. You say that your revolver was stolen and he was shot with a thirty-eight. Even those numb-nuts at the FBI can put two and two together. All one of those clowns has to do is tell some reporter that you’re being questioned in connection with Daubner’s murder and you’re screwed, blued, and tattooed. Doesn’t matter if it’s true or not; your credibility will be in the toilet. Everyone will assume you killed him to shut him up, and before you know it you’ll be down in Florida playing bingo with Beaumont T. Bonecutter.”

  Of course, I knew all this, though it sounded infinitely worse hearing it from Toots. “Toots, just so you know, I did screw Dena Marie, but I didn’t kill Rayce Daubner.”

  “Good. I’ll eliminate you from my suspect list. But just out of curiosity, if you don’t mind me asking: if you had killed him, would you tell me?”

  “I doubt I would offer it up without first consulting my attorney.”

  Toots smiled, just a bit, and said, “Okay, so who does that leave us with?”

  “I’ve got to consider Johnny Earl a suspect.”

  “Uh-huh. A couple weeks ago, I was driving into the lot of the Town & Country Market on the other side of Wintersville and happened upon what appeared to be the tail end of an ass-whippin’ that Johnny Earl was putting on Daubner.”

  “You’re just telling me about this now?”

  “It didn’t seem like a big deal until Daubner got his ticket punched. I didn’t actually see anything. I pulled into the lot, and Daubner was picking himself up off the asphalt. Johnny was standing there; he said Daubner fell, and Daubner didn’t offer anything to the contrary. I told Johnny to mind his manners, and that was that.”

  “Christ Almighty,” I groaned.

  “Okay, so we round up Mr. Touchdown for questioning. Anyone else?”

  “Did you hear anything about Daubner beating the tar out of Smoochie Xenakis a couple months ago?”

  Toots nodded. “I heard Rayce had been harassing Dena Marie—making phone calls to the house and running his mouth to her at the A&P—calling her a slut and a whore. Smoochie supposedly confronted him, and Daubner broke his arm and nose.”

  “That part ought to be easy enough to check out. Even so, I don’t think Smoochie Xenakis would have the heart to squash a bug, let alone shoot someone—even someone who was screwing his wife. However,” I said, grinning, “a lawman whom I respect an awful lot told me on several occasions, ‘No one is immune from a moment of anger or a moment of stupidity.’”

  “Touché. I didn’t think you were paying attention.”

  “I’ll take Borkowski and go search Daubner’s house. You take Gearhard and round up Johnny and Smoochie. Given the circumstances, I�
�d say that we better get Johnny under wraps. If it was him, he’s the one most likely to bolt.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  JOHNNY EARL

  I’d hidden my drug money in Pittsburgh, on Mount Washington. On a bright Friday, I cruised the area and checked on the location. I needed to formulate a plan to get it and then get clear of Pittsburgh. On my way home, I stopped at the O.K. Carryout in Brilliant and bought a six-pack of Iron City, then picked up a couple of cheeseburgers and an order of French fries and gravy at Paddy’s Diner in Mingo Junction.

  I turned off Ohio Route 7 onto Washington Street for the drive to Pleasant Heights. I pulled my ball cap low on my brow in hopes of not being noticed. I stopped at the light at Fourth Street and looked around at the sad remains of my hometown.

  Steubenville was once the steel center of the Ohio River Valley. We were home to a sprawling Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel plant that was the linchpin of the local economy. The Steubenville of my youth—known to most as, simply, “the ’ville”—was a bustling city with a vibrant downtown of theaters, bakeries, shops, and five-and-dimes. The mob controlled the whorehouses on Water Street and two full-fledged casinos. Steelworkers loved vice of any kind, and that made the Ohio River Valley a very profitable area for the mob.

  Steubenville has three favorite sons: Edwin Stanton, who was Abraham Lincoln’s secretary of war; famed odds-maker Jimmy “The Greek” Snyder; and, of course, the greatest entertainer the world has ever known, Dean Martin. There is a statue of Stanton on the courthouse lawn, and there are probably a smattering of historians who could identify Steubenville as his hometown. And, there might be a few gamblers or bookies who remember Snyder. However, as soon as word got around the penitentiary that I was from Steubenville, Ohio, every mafioso from New York and Chicago tracked me down, pointed at me, and said, “Hey, Steubenville, Dean Martin.” They all wanted to know if I’d ever seen his boyhood home.