Catch As Cat Can

                There was one and Sheila brought it in. Rick pulled extra pins out of the corkboard, opened and straightened out the map. He put it up as Coop, anticipating his next request, brought him a state map of Virginia. Once up they both stared at it.

                "Here's what I don't get." Cynthia stuck her finger on Newport News."Over a million people. A huge naval base. Wouldn't there be a big drug market there? Has to be. Why fool around with Lexington?"

                "Organized crime owns Newport News. A small-fry could survive for a time but they'd be squeezed out eventually. Maybe mid-South cities are more open." He touched each of the pinheads representing the murder sites."I'm not convinced this is about drugs, even legal ones as you've suggested."

                "Whatever they're doing, it has to be easy to transport."

                "No. Whatever they're doing simply must not call attention to itself. It doesn't have to be easy. They could be transporting stolen cars."

                "Yeah, but we'd know if the cars were stolen around here. Besides, would Don have five hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars in his safe from stolen cars? These guys would have to be running one of the biggest rackets in America for that kind of money-and just for one guy. He probably wasn't even the head of it."

                "I know. I know. That doesn't quite fit either. When we went to Roger's garage I was looking for a chop shop. Not a sign. Hauling in a car, stripping and selling off the parts, hell, there'd have been junk everywhere. That place of Roger's was immaculate."

                Coop said, "His garage was cleaner than some people's houses."

                "Scratch chop shop. I've even thought about counterfeit money. Unless there's a buried bunker or another place hidden, that's not going to work either. I know that drugs are the one logical piece in what is illogical right now but, Coop, I don't think it's drugs. I don't know if Don Clatterbuck and Roger could deal without dipping and that always shows."

                "Roger liked to drink but remember Diana Robb says he did coke, too. I remember going over there to check on Mrs. Hogendobber's hubcaps and there was a line of beer cans to his shop. Never found a trace of drugs though." Cooper crossed her arms over her chest.

                Rick paced in front of the maps."It's difficult, hey, almost impossible to imagine Don or Roger organizing some kind of criminal business. Neither one struck me as that smart. Someone has to be on top, someone much more intelligent."

                "Most murders occur within families or between people well known to one another. And most of those murders involve alcohol, drugs, or are crimes of passion. These murders are dispassionate, cool. The murder of Dwayne was opportunistic but not a crime of passion. The body wasn't mutilated, he'd been hit over the head; for whatever reason the killer couldn't finish him off with a blunt instrument so he strung him up."

                "Maybe the weapon wasn't heavy enough or the killer wasn't strong enough. That points to a woman."

                "Hoisting Dwayne over a tree couldn't have been light work."

                "Push him on the back of a truck, throw the rope over the tree, and drive off. It rained so hard nothing was left. There could have been a truck in there or even a car, slide him over the trunk. It's messy but not all that hard."

                "And Dwayne wanted more money. After Din Marks's talk with you that would appear motivation enough. If he wanted more now, he'd want more later. Or maybe he wanted promotion inside the company." Rick shook his head."Greed leaches out every other emotion, doesn't it?"

                "Yes, it certainly seems to do that. People become bloodless."

                "I'm going to wait for the lab reports on Roger. If he was murdered then I must consider my first suspect Sean O'Bannon. He had the most to gain by his brother's murder, separate from whatever scam Roger was into. Sean inherits all of a lucrative business. Maybe he even inherits a lucrative illegal business."

                "Maybe the safe full of money will lure the killer to put his foot right into the trap."

                "A poster about selling off Don's goods might help. I spoke to his parents. They agreed and we won't put their phone number on there. Just an auction date, location, and time. Ought to light a fire under his ass." Rick's one eyebrow arched upward. He could be clever.

                46

                The daily sun and wind reduced the size of the puddles, the depth of the mud. Still not trusting the ground, Harry didn't drive her tractor to the creek. Large tree limbs were wedged along the banks; a few weak trees had crashed into the creek, their uprooted trunks looking like paralyzed squid tentacles. She needed to chain-saw the trunks into smaller portions, wrap heavy chains around them to drag them out. Once the wood dried she'd cut it for firewood, stacking it neatly on the porch. She'd also built a weather-tight woodshed next to the shavings shed. As spring and summer progressed she'd slowly fill the woodshed until full. That would hold throughout the next winter.