Murder Mountain (3 page)

I took a quick shower, put my uniform on with my bulletproof vest underneath, and grabbed my gun belt. I decided at that point that the heat would probably make me miserable all night long. Sometimes I forgot the way my vest restricts my breathing when I’m wearing it. I don’t think it’s the same for guys. Top that off with about twenty pounds of gear on the gun belt, and, yes, I was definitely going to be miserable.

I was already sweating when I walked into the kitchen and saw that Eric had made me a light supper of a grilled cheese sandwich and tomato soup. I didn’t realize until then how hungry I was, and I shoveled the food down, drinking the tomato soup as if it were water out of my favorite big mug. It had a surfboard design and Selina had given it to me one summer at the beach in North Carolina.

I went upstairs and kissed Selina and Isabelle goodbye, then did the same for Eric, telling him I would see him later. He works night shift at his department, meaning he goes in at ten o’clock. Then I headed back to work.

As I made the drive to the station, it dawned on me that I hadn’t made so much as one phone call on the Samantha Johnston case. Kincaid had ordered me to start it today, and I had done zilch. I made a mental note to run up to my office when I got to the station and grab the case file. I figured I could make at least one call about it on my cell phone during the night, in between service calls, that is. As I pulled away, a marked cruiser pulled up alongside of me, so I stopped. It was my Uncle Max. Like my Dad and my Uncle Mike, Uncle Max was a day-shift dinosaur. This was an affectionate term for cops who have been with the department for over twenty-five years, and, of course, who worked day shift.

“Whatcha doin,’ CeeCee?” said Max, leaning his head out his window.

I told him I was working overtime, and asked him the same question. Max was a lieutenant and loved doing overtime. He told me he was filling in for the regular second-shift lieutenant.

Then he asked me,” What time you working to, kid?”

“Midnight.”

“Well, let’s get together later for some coffee, whaddya say?”

“Sure, Max. Have a good one.”

I found a parking spot, pulled into it, then jumped out. I realized I was running late. Remembering the mental note I’d made, I took the elevator up to the third floor, ran down to my office, and grabbed the Johnston file.

Next, I took the stairs down to the second floor where the road patrol unit was, signed out a Taser, and grabbed the keys for the cruiser I wanted. Then I strode down another flight of stairs and out the door to the compound to start my shift.

I could hear all kinds of domestic disputes, fight calls, and disturbance calls being put out on the radio, and as I was pulling onto the street, dispatch called me, “Seven-hundred to seven-two-seven.”

I perked right up, thinking I was getting a decent call, but to my horror, they sent me on what’s called an “assist person call” clear down at the bottom of the county. I was to make contact with a guy and tell him to call a neighboring county sheriff’s department about his dog because the neighboring sheriff’s department could not reach the individual by telephone.

You have got to be kidding, I thought to myself. I was only working four hours, and my first hour would be blown driving down to God’s country for this bullshit? I cleared on the call (told dispatch I was on my way), and continued spewing obscenities. All this excitement going on out here on the street, and I have to deal with this crap. I told myself it was just part of the job and everyone had to do it, but I was still angry. I called Eric on my way down and checked on the girls.

“Hello, Mr. Schroeder,” I purred into my mobile.

“Hello, Mrs. Schroeder, or Gallagher, whichever you prefer.”

I think it bothered Eric that I still went by my maiden name, but I think my first marriage had convinced me that changing it was bad luck.

“What’s the matter?” Eric asked, immediately knowing something was wrong.

“I’m going to see a man about a dog,” I said sarcastically, and then told Eric about the call I was going on.

As usual, Eric cheered me up and I talked to Selina and Isabelle briefly before hanging up. They were excited because Grandma was babysitting for a half an hour tonight.

I was still in somewhat of a good mood when I pulled into the driveway of the house where the guy I was to contact lived. The house looked nice enough. It was a red brick number, two stories with white shutters, a breezeway to the garage, and a beautiful view overlooking the valley. I noticed there were two cars parked in the driveway. One was a broken-down old blue Toyota pickup truck with the back wheels up on cement blocks. The other was a beat-up old gray Honda Accord covered in rust.

The Honda had a West Virginia license plate on it. I thought it was a little odd to see two old beaters in the driveway of a nice house like this, but in my line of work, you can never be surprised by anything.

At least someone’s home
, I thought as I got out of my car. I figured I could be in and out of there and headed back towards the city in less than five minutes. The guy I was to give the message to was named Jack Delphy. I’d repeated the name a few times on the ride in so I wouldn’t forget.

I went to the side door that was under the breezeway, which seemed like the door everyone used. I knocked a couple of times, and then rang the doorbell, getting no response either time.

I knocked one more time, waited, and was just getting ready to leave when I sensed someone behind me. It wasn’t that I heard anything. It was the smell. I was overcome by the stink of what I call the
hillbilly funk.
It’s hard to put into words, but it can best be described as the smell of extremely dirty hair and pungent body odor mixed in with the tang of sour feet and bad breath. It’s a smell that permeates half of Roseland, but Roseland was a long way from this house. I turned around and found myself face-to-face with source of the stinky odor.

He stood about six feet tall, had brown hair that was matted in some parts and sticking up in others, and brown eyes that were so red and glassed-over that it took me a second to see that they were actually brown. Dried spit, or maybe drool, extended from the left side of his mouth, spreading across his cheek almost to his ear.

He was wearing a red flannel shirt that looked like the neighborhood dog had gotten a hold of it. Wearing that in this heat, it’s no wonder he smelled so bad. His blue jeans had enough grease on them to lube an entire engine. Under the jeans, I observed ratty brown sandals with toenails sticking out that looked like they had a form of gangrene or some alien virus that we have yet to identify.

And he was white. Not white like us normal white folk, but an absolutely pale, deathly white. “Honky white,” is what a friend of mine calls people like that, but even that term did not do this guy justice.

I blinked a couple of times to make sure I was seeing him. It was hot. I was also trying to figure out where he’d come from, because I knew he wasn’t anywhere around when I pulled up. My eyes veered to the direction of the cars parked in the driveway, and I saw the driver’s-side rear door of the Honda standing open. He’d clearly been sleeping in the back seat.

“What the fuck do
you
want?” the man snarled, his alcohol-laced breath assaulting me with every word.

I stepped down off the breezeway, still facing him, and immediately knew I was in trouble. Regardless of shows on television or movies, no normal, everyday, law-abiding citizen would ever consider speaking to a deputy sheriff or police officer in that manner. When people do, they usually are crazy, drunk, on drugs, have warrants, or all of the above. My heart was pounding so loud it felt like someone was banging a drum in my ears. I started to shake, a habit of mine that I hated but had no control over. Whether I was happy excited or bad excited, any time my adrenalin kicked in, I shook. The bad part of this is that I can’t let a perp see me do that or let them see any type of fear on my face. I took a couple more steps backward and said, “Are you Jack Delphy?”

“No, I’m his son, and wh-what fucking business is it of yours!” he stuttered, undeniably drunk.

I knew I had to get other patrol cars started this way, because God only knew how far away they were, and I couldn’t set this guy off.

Calmly, I keyed the shoulder mic that was attached to my lapel, and said, “Seven-twenty-seven to seven-hundred, 10-23.”

That was the code for, “Send me a backup, my shit’s getting weak.”

The only problem about this was that once an officer called 10-23 on the radio, it started blaring with other officers asking for the location and what the problem was. Knowing this ahead of time, I slid my hand to the volume knob on my portable radio, and turned it all the way down as soon as I requested back-up. It could possibly have set this mental case in front of me off if he heard officers on the radio saying they were coming down to Garber Road.

Raising my chin up in the usual stoic manner, I told the guy in my official voice that I needed to see some identification.

“What the fuck for? This is my fucking property and you’re trespassing! Get the fuck out of here, bitch!” He took a step towards me as he finished saying this. Right on the word, bitch.

My hand immediately went to my Taser, resting on it. Seeing that, he stopped, then smiled with teeth so rotten it made me physically sick to look at them.

“Okay bitch, here’s your fucking ID,” he snarled. He reached around to his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. He took his driver’s license from the sleeve and proceeded to throw it at me, but it landed on the ground to my right. We were standing in the front yard with about eight feet between us, with my cruiser to my right also. For a split, and I mean a split second, I thought about something an instructor in the police academy had told us, “Listen to your warning bells and your red flags. Trust your instincts.”

Right now, I had bells ringing and flags flying from here to Canada, and a really bad feeling on how this was going to play out. Telling the smelly mental to stay put, I kept my left hand on my Taser and bent sideways to pick up the license with my right hand. I straightened up and held it up in front of my face so I could look at the license and still see what the man was doing.

The license said his name was Robert Delphy, thirty years old. I called his social security number into Dispatch to see if he had any arrest warrants or was a wanted serial killer—which would be just my luck. I read his name out after reading his number so Dispatch wouldn’t make a mistake.

As soon as I took my hand off the mic, another officer screamed across the radio, “Seven-thirty-nine to seven-twenty-seven, did you advise you have Bobby Delphy there?”

“Affirmative,” I answered, thinking, oh shit, here we go.

“Seven-twenty-seven, use extreme caution with that subject. He’s usually high on meth. I’m on my way down.” Then I could hear his sirens going off, which meant he was breaking the sound barrier to get down here.

Meth is methamphetamine, a very powerful and addictive drug. That would explain Bobby Delphy’s appearance and demeanor, but I hadn’t heard of meth being this far south in the county yet. Now I knew I was in deep shit. Other than my backup being at least ten to fifteen minutes away, even running lights and with a siren, Bobby Delphy had just heard all the radio traffic. He took a step towards me and I jerked my Taser out of the holster, flipping the switch, and putting the little red dot of the laser right on his forehead. I was not going to mess around with this guy for one more second.

“Don’t move. Stay right where you are,” I said quite calmly, considering the circumstances, which included sweat literally pouring into my eyes.

I began backing, or more precisely, sidestepping, towards my car. As I did this, another beautiful piece of information came over the radio for me.

“Seven-hundred to seven-twenty-seven, be advised subject has an active warrant out of this department for felonious assault, entered with a caution.”

Well, my day was getting better and better. First, the dispatcher was supposed to ask me if I am “signal 58,” which means out of earshot of the suspect, before they give me information like that. Obviously, this time they didn’t. The signal 58 was meant to prevent incidents like the one that was about to happen from happening.

I didn’t even get a chance to respond, because as soon as that useful tidbit was announced for Bobby to hear, he started a dead run right at me. I immediately pulled the trigger of my Taser, anticipating the “pop” sound that occurs once the darts are deployed, but instead heard nothing. The back of the Taser was flashing two letter Es. E as in error.

Oh no!,
I thought, and that was all I had time to think before Bobby got to me. He engulfed me in his arms, still running, slamming me against the side of the cruiser so hard that I almost blacked out right then and there. Unfortunately, I wasn’t that lucky. He went from slamming me against the car to slamming me on the ground. All I could think of at that point was reaching my mic.

Once he’d slammed me onto the ground, he fell on top of me (he felt like he weighed three hundred pounds) and started punching me. The first blow hit just below my left ear and it felt like my eardrum exploded. The second punch went into my jaw. I was fighting hard, scratching and punching back, but I knew I wasn’t doing any damage. I couldn’t believe this was happening. Where was my backup?

I was thinking all of these things when I took a brief opportunity to grab my mic and scream, “Ten-three,” an officer-down code that would bring cops from my department, and probably even other counties, to my location.

I didn’t care. This guy was going to kill me and I knew it. The last blow I took was driven right into my left eye socket, and I was positive that my eyeball had just exploded.

I had a ringing in my head and my ears, I couldn’t breathe, and I felt tingles all over my body. I knew I was going to pass out any second. And just when I thought things couldn’t get any worse, Bobby grabbed my gun.

Luckily, our weapons are in security holsters that make them difficult to pull out, just for this reason. He was jerking and pulling so hard on the butt of my gun, that he lifted me off the ground. His left hand was pulling on my gun and his right hand was still throwing punches at me.