Murder Mountain (27 page)

The deputy was tall and broad-shouldered, wearing his hat, a thousand ribbons and pins as if he were a four-star general, and, most importantly, captain’s bars.

“It’s VanScoy,” I said, furiously snapping pictures.

“How do you know?”

“That man is a captain. I don’t think they have more than one, and my instincts tell me that’s him.” I put the camera down and watched.

Captain John VanScoy had a very commanding appearance. He stood tall. His polished brass and ribbons were neatly in place, a gray Stetson hat sat square on his head, his black boots and leather belt shone, and his pants sported a starched crease, bringing me to the conclusion that he had once been in the military. He was the kind of officer that, if I were pulled over for speeding, would bring me to tears at the sight of him, even now. He was exactly what I’d expected.

I don’t know who the woman was, maybe the dispatcher, but he seemed to be protective of her, walking her to her car and opening the door.
This man may be a lot of things,
I thought,
but at the very least, he’s a gentleman.
How nice.

We watched him walk across the parking lot towards the building until he stopped, halfway, and turned to look directly at us. I froze, praying he was thinking about buying one of the new cars surrounding us, but instead he smiled, tipped his hat at us, and continued into the department.

“What the hell was
that
about?” Michael almost shouted after VanScoy had disappeared into the building.

“I don’t have a clue,” I said, quietly. “I don’t know how he knew we were over here, but he just showed us he is still running the show. That guy scares the piss out of me.”

“I wonder if they have cameras on the outside, and he just happened to be watching them when we pulled in. Man, did you see his uniform? He looked like a four-star general.”

“I thought the exact same thing. He has obviously been in the military, which does nothing to put my mind at ease. And, Michael, as far as cameras on the outside go, do you see any? Because I sure don’t.”

Michael turned his attention back to the department to try to prove me wrong, and unless they had microscopic hidden cameras, there wasn’t any outside surveillance, which is unusual for a law enforcement agency.
But again,
I reminded myself,
we’re not dealing with the average police department here.
Michael shook his head and drove out onto the street, leaving the area, and making loops and turns to make certain we weren’t being tailed.

Now that I had actually seen Captain John VanScoy with my own eyes, I was concerned. If he wasn’t the head honcho, I hated to imagine what the real boss looked like. I’d been raised to respect the uniform, and seeing a man dressed like him made me cower down in fear—something I clearly had to shake off. His entire demeanor exuded confidence; he’d smiled and tipped his hat at the detective and FBI agent who were here to bring him down. He wasn’t scared in the least, and that truly concerned me. Maybe we were in over our heads, but how could that have been? The FBI was involved; it doesn’t get better than that, but this guy wanted to play psychological football that day, and he’d just scored the first touchdown.

“Why do you think he’s so cocky?” I asked Michael as we were driving away. “I mean, he just saw a federal agent and a detective doing surveillance on him. Most cops would be changing their underwear as we speak. Michael, don’t take this the wrong way, but it’s not possible he has connections in the FBI, is it?”

“Absolutely not,” he shot back. “I think you’re reading too much into it. He is scared; don’t let him fool you about that. He’s playing games and you’re falling right into it. Guys like that want to keep their pride.”

Feeling somewhat foolish, I knew Michael was right, and as we drove towards Murder Mountain I kept thinking about Gina Reynolds and wondering if VanScoy’s smile wasn’t about her. I wished we could have gotten Big Al’s name out of Gina before she flew out of the room.

We were still waiting on a call from the FBI regarding Laurie Kaylor’s information as we made our way up the mountainside, observing how different the area looked in daylight. Michael went past the clearing where we’d sat the night before, and basically just drove into the woods to park. We hadn’t been parked for more than fifteen minutes when we saw the Cadillac back out of the driveway and start down the hill. I couldn’t see the house from where we were, but I could see a man driving the car. I told Michael to follow it.

Maintaining a safe distance, we followed the Cadillac down the mountain and through a series of dirt roads that seemed to lead us deeper into the wilderness. I was trying to write down the roads we turned on, but half of them didn’t even have names, so I resorted to documenting any landmarks I could see on each road. There weren’t many, but it was better than leaving a trail of breadcrumbs, which was next on my list. I tried to call Coop and give him the best location I could, but there probably wasn’t a cell phone signal for thirty miles.

Not that Coop would’ve answered his phone anyway, because he was on his way to Chatham County with Kincaid and Eric. Coop had been relaying all of our messages to Eric, who’d finally had enough and had gone to Kincaid, demanding the file and telling her he was coming to our aid. Kincaid, never one to pass up a trip with two attractive males, gave Eric the go-ahead on the condition that she would accompany him and Coop, an arrangement, which, of course, Sheriff Stephens readily cleared. Their intention was to help us finish up what we needed to finish and get us back to Mansfield safely.

After we’d been following the Cadillac for a long time, it started speeding up and widening the gap between us, with Michael doing his best to keep up.

“He knows we’re behind him,” Michael observed aloud.

“Who cares? Just keep on him, and we’ll screw with him for a little bit.”

“CeeCee, I don’t know that I can find our way back out of here.” His voice was concerned.

“Don’t worry, I’m keeping track and leaving breadcrumbs,” I said, laughing a little. Michael did not.

Our speed continued to climb while we tailed the Cadillac, and Michael started to express concern because of the winding dirt roads that seemed to be bordering on more cliffs with each turn we took. If we overshot our turns, we would be a rolling fireball down the side of whatever mountain we were on.

Suddenly, we slowed down almost to a crawl, raising a red flag that I could either choose to ignore and continue, or recognize and back off. It didn’t matter, because we came around a turn and found the Cadillac parked with two other vehicles, including the blue pick-up truck, blocking the road. I realized then that we had been set up; I hoped it wasn’t too late to react.

“Michael! Turn around! It’s a set-up! Go! Go!” I yelled.

As Michael was doing his best to turn the car around on the narrow dirt road, the blockade of vehicles started heading for us from about a quarter of a mile away. As we started driving in the direction we came from, we were faced, head-on, with a dark-blue SUV with tinted windows trying to block us in.

“Damn!” Michael yelled as hit the gas and drove towards the woods to veer around the SUV. He barely made it, but the SUV rammed the back end of our rental car, almost knocking us off the road. Somehow, we stayed on course and Michael really gassed it this time as the other cars stayed right behind us.

We sped up, making twists and turns, going uphill and going downhill, until we were confident that they couldn’t keep up and we’d lost them. Problem was, we were lost, too. We’d been only concerned with getting away from the other cars, not with looking at my makeshift map. Michael pulled off to the side of the road so we could both catch our breath and get our bearings.

“Where are we?” he asked.

“I have no idea.” I turned and looked behind us. “Do you think we lost them?”

“Jesus, I hope so. Do you know how we’re going to get out of here?”

I grabbed the West Virginia map I’d taken from Lizzie Johnston’s car and started scanning it, unaware of what to look for, since I didn’t know where we were to start from. I told Michael he’d have to drive around until I could find one of my familiar landmarks that I’d written down.

It took us an hour to find our way out of the woods. By then it was almost dark. We were supposed to meet the state police in a half an hour at the rest area on State Route 33, just outside of Spencer, West Virginia. We weren’t going to make it; we had at least an hour’s drive ahead of us. When we finally got into an area where we had phone service, Michael pulled over and called them, telling them that we were running late and that we would meet them at a rest area on State Route 27 just outside of Tariff.

We were just leaving Ovapa when Michael got a call from the FBI. He pulled over, grabbed a pen and paper, and wrote something (I couldn’t see what) down. After he hung up, he stared for a moment at the piece of paper.

“What is it?” I demanded.

“They found Laurie Kaylor’s information and ...” He cut himself off.

“Michael, would you please just spit it out!” I was getting annoyed and I was tired.

“They found Big Al’s information. His name isn’t Allen Davidson, it’s Allen Davis, and he shares the same address as Laurie Kaylor,” he said.

I smiled for the first time all day. This was the break I’d been looking for!

I looked at Big Al’s address for a long time before I grabbed Lizzie’s map and tried to find where his road was.

“He lives way, way out in the sticks,” I told Michael, showing him Big Al’s road, which was a small line through two inches of green area.

“It doesn’t matter,” he spat out. “We’re not going there anyway.” He began driving again.

“Excuse me, Michael! This is what we’ve needed. This could break the case!” I yelled, astonished that he wanted to pass this opportunity up.

“I don’t care. We are leaving West Virginia right now.”

“Michael, let’s just drive by so I can take some pictures, please? Andrea might be there. How would you feel if that were your daughter? Would you just drive away then? Please?” I pleaded.

“I swear, if I’m alive by tomorrow morning it will be a fucking miracle.” He turned the car around, his face dark.

“Thank you.”

Michael called Coop with the directions to our next destination at precisely the time they stopped to eat, about two hours from Ovapa. Since Coop had left his cell phone in the car, Michael left another message.

Night had closed in by this point, making it extremely difficult to follow the map to Big Al Davis’s house in the dark, driving on still more roads that were poorly marked, if at all. For the last five miles, we were going uphill on another winding dirt road, and we didn’t pass one house, cabin, trailer, or shit-house. Seeing lights in the woods ahead of us, Michael turned his headlights off and slowed down before stopping about 100 feet away, giving me a clear view of the house.

Allen ‘Big Al’ Davis’s home was a two-story A-frame house with peeled, dirty-white aluminum siding and a front porch covered with a light-colored awning. Large, white, rusted barrels were all over the yard, along with an old bathtub and toilet, torn-apart bicycles, and several car tires. All the bottom-floor windows were covered with dark-colored drapes or blankets, and a cluttered array of junk covered the front porch.

I looked for any cars parked out front, but I didn’t see any. It didn’t look like there were many, if any, lights on inside the house, except for a dim light coming from the second floor side window. I took my video camera and filmed the residence, taking close-ups of the barrels and the windows, using the bright floodlights that were erected outside of the house to my advantage.

I then took still photos with my digital camera and documented the time, date, and location of where I took them. While I was stuffing everything back in my briefcase, and putting the cameras away, Michael started the car.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Leaving. You wanted pictures. You got them. We’re leaving.”

“Wait. I just want to look around. I’ll make it quick. It doesn’t look like anyone’s there,” I said, opening the car door.

“I knew it! Damn it, CeeCee, could you for once be honest with me! You said all you wanted to do was take pictures, which is why I agreed to come up here in the first place, and now you pull this? Not that I’m surprised, but we need to leave,” he said, angrily.

“It’ll only take a few minutes,” I said, getting out of the car with my gun in hand.

I heard Michael mumble something (it’s probably good that I didn’t hear what) before he got out of the car and followed me. I walked to the left of our car into the woods to make a zigzag pattern, as I’d done on Murder Mountain, so I could come out behind the house and find a dark area to cover myself.

As I walked slowly and carefully through the woods towards the house, a feeling overwhelmed me; it was like red flags were flying and bells were ringing. Trust your instincts, my head screamed, but for the first time in my career I ignored them and kept walking, knowing I was making a big mistake.

The back yard was pitch black except for a dim lantern hanging over the back door, so I wasn’t too paranoid about taking cover when I walked into it. I noticed a dirty white trellis, some of its framework broken, against the house and directly below the window with the dim light on. With all the bottom floor windows covered, I wanted to climb the trellis and take a look in the window on the slight chance there was something of importance in that particular room.

I was tiptoeing towards the trellis when I heard a familiar noise to my left that made me stop dead in my tracks. Michael heard it too, and stopped. It dawned on me that I’d forgotten to check off my “normal things to look for at a house in West Virginia” list as I turned and faced the 150-pound, brown-and-white pit bull that was walking towards us, its collar clanking.

When I’d worked uniform, I’d always hated dealing with dogs at calls because you can reason with a man, but you can’t reason with a dog, and some of them scared me to death.