Run Billy Boy Run, Book Four: Billy Boy

By Neil Ackerman

Book Four: Billy Boy of the Run Billy Boy Run series details the life of fugitive William (Billy) Boy Burk, and his high-profile run from the law. Included is the original crime which began Billy's run from justice, his eventual arrest, and his subsequent escape. While on the lam, Billy holds up Honest Melvin's Jewelry and Pawn where we meet mild-mannered Melvin Zimmerman and Honest Melvin's not-so-dainty bride. In the aftermath Billy turns stowaway and ends up in Grand Canyon National Park. In the Canyon our fugitive experiences both failure and success while masquerading as an Irish priest and later as a park ranger.
Also, twenty years into the future a riddle is solved when a son opens his deceased father's safe deposit box -- a riddle that began in the Grand Canyon of the Colorado River.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Neil Ackerman
• Release date: Sep 22, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301303694

Neil Ackerman

A former geology instructor, Neil Ackerman has been writing fiction centered on the Grand Canyon since 2002. An avid hiker, runner, and artist, he splits his time between Centralia, Illinois, and Big Bear Lake, California.Neil is married to Pam, and they have one son Hunter who is front man for the blues/rock band Hunter and the Dirty Jacks which is based in Los Angeles.You can e-mail Neil at: [e-mail]

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Run Billy Boy Run

Book Four: Billy Boy

By Neil Ackerman

SMASHWORDS EDITION

Copyright 2013

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Adult Reading Material

Author’s Note

Run Billy Boy Run is divided into four books:

Book One: A Job for a Specialist.

Book Two: Flying High.

Book Three: The Confluence of Disorder.

Book Four: Billy Boy.

Book Four details the life of fugitive William (Billy) Boy Burk and his high profile run from the law including the original crime which began Billy’s run from justice, his eventual arrest, subsequent escape, and the holdup of Honest Melvin’s Jewelry and Pawn. Also, twenty years into the future a riddle is solved when a son opens his deceased father’s safe deposit box, a riddle which began in the Grand Canyon of the Colorado River.

CHAPTER 1: THE EARLY YEARS

The traffic outside of 900 North Tucker on the edge of St. Louis’ downtown had slowed due to construction. Crews preparing a nearby building for demolition had temporarily eliminated a lane of the busy street, and cabbies honked at cars whose drivers gawked at the goings on. Noises drifting up from Tucker entered Mark Ruston’s third floor window, but he did not notice. With brow furrowed, chair scooted forward, and fingertips on keyboard, he asked himself, Where to start? The intern for the Post Dispatch began typing, then stopped. Next, he picked up his note pad and, leafing through it, reflected on some of the entries:

Walter Worthington (Fredericktown Chamber of Commerce): "Rightly or wrongly Burk has put this town on the map—three news crews were here last week alone! AND, this is between you and me, it’s rumored that the Today Show might be in town next week. Do the weather right here on Courthouse Square! You listen to me boy; you can’t buy publicity like that. This is the real stuff."

Mark recalled how Worthington reminded him of a carnival pitchman, and how the cigar-smoker in the ill-fitting suit saw Billy Boy Burk as Fredericktown’s newest industry poised to bring in much needed currency.

Mildred Stilton (Neighbor two farms over): I always knew he’d end up behind bars. We never let our son Percy play with him!

Ruston thought of a line from the old TV show, Kids in the Hall, Well, Mildred, did you turn him gay yet? And he wondered how things had worked out for Percy Stilton.

Thomas Duckworth (Fredericktown High School, former math teacher turned assistant principal): "Billy was a smart kid and talkative. I liked him. But he always seemed to be pointed in the wrong direction.

"He didn’t have the best family, you know.

Some people have a couple of wires crossed, and Billy was one of those. To tell you the truth, I wasn’t sure if he’d become a convict or become a preacher. Fifty-fifty, he could have fallen on either side of the fence. I just wish I could have nudged him in the right direction.

Duckworth did seem truly sorry, then again the man was an administrator, and Ruston’s experience with administrators taught him that they were capable of changing colors at the drop of a hat.

Reverend Cordell Bumpus (New Life Missionary Baptist Church): The DEVIL had a-holt a’ that BOY from the MINUTE he was borned! Ain’t NO DOUBT about it!

With an edge to his voice Bumpus had spoken to Mark Ruston like the minister stood behind a pulpit facing a congregation of unrepentant sinners, and he had seemed ready to personally carryout Billy Boy Burk’s death sentence if it came to that, or at least oversee it. Ruston could envision the man turning the situation to his advantage. In the future he could use the threat of execution to keep Fredericktown’s youth on the straight and narrow. The young reporter was sure that the story of Billy Boy, in the hands of Cordell Bumpus, would become a lesson not soon forgotten.

Jimmy (Three-J) Joe Justice (Burk’s best friend growing up): "Billy Boy, he was okay! Always knew what to say. Girls loved him. His dad was, well, normal, ‘til he got drunk, which was just too damned often. Drove his mom crazy actually—the beatings. She wasn’t right in the head. Finally, she ran off. Left her boy behind. And an aunt moved into the house at the farm; took care of Billy from then on.

We were a wild pair, him and me. I’m ashamed to say it, but Lordy, we were a handful!

The newspaper’s intern could not help but notice the Christian cross Billy’s high school friend wore around his neck, and Ruston supposed that Three-J got that nudge in the right direction that had somehow skipped over his former best friend.

Judith Duffie (Niece of Burk’s alleged victim): That sum-bitch is gonna spend the rest of his life in jail for what he done to Uncle Cyrus!

Mark felt he made the woman’s day when, later, he mentioned that Missouri was a death penalty state.

Deputy Roy Pope (Madison County Sheriff’s Office, Retired, Discovered body of Cyrus Duffie after receiving anonymous tip): Mischievous, but basically all right. Just made a bad choice—a real bad choice.

The retired deputy seemed reluctant to say much, and when he did, Rusty Ruston got the impression that Pope liked the man, even though, surely, Billy Boy Burk had been one of Deputy Pope’s better customers in the late seventies and early eighties. Ruston wondered what it was about Burk that could cause a cop to like an accused killer.

Rupert Willow (Rural neighbor): Billy was THE BEST coon hunter in Madison County and GOOD with dogs! You should have seen Tiger, Spike, and Ginger! They was some hounds he had.

The Willow fellow had a pen full of dogs himself, and Rusty remembered them erupting in a storm of barking and bawling when he had stepped on the Willow’s front porch. For a terrible moment Ruston had wished he had conducted the interview by telephone.

* * *

Mark Rusty Ruston had been on the job one week when he’d been asked by his editor to call around and build a bio on Billy Boy Burk, the Missouri fugitive who’d been hiding in Arizona and who was now giving the authorities out west a run for their money. May was almost over, and Burk had been on the loose since March.

The latest wire service article stated that a man reputed to be Burk had shot holes in rafts in the Grand Canyon, wounded a minister in the process, and then had virtually disappeared. Ruston had been keeping up on the wire service articles; it was probably the sixth time that Burk had disappeared since his escape.

Billy Boy’s lucky streak was bound to end, and Ruston’s editor’s idea was to run a feature on Burk, the elusive convict, once the man was caught and brought back to Missouri to stand trial for a murder and robbery that had taken place over twenty years before. Along with his interviews, Ruston’s notebook contained the following:

William (Billy) Boy Burk.

Born May 7, 1964. Madison Medical Center, Fredericktown, Missouri.

Father: Rudy Wayne Burk.

Mother: Mary Catherine (Boy) Burk.

Attended school in Fredericktown. Did not graduate. Dropped out at age 17.

Home Life: Bleak!

Father’s police record: Convicted of armed robbery, 1967. Served four years. Violated parole, 1972. Returned to prison. Released 1973. Convicted for receiving stolen property, 1976. Sentenced to three years. Released, 1978. Domestic disturbance calls, 1971, 1972, 1974, 1976 and 1979. No charges pressed. Deceased, 1995.

Mother: Treated for nervous disorder. Moved to St. Louis 1979. Today—whereabouts unknown.

W. B. Burk becomes ward of Julia D. Burk, an aunt, 1979.

Juvenile record: Sealed.

Religion: Protestant (Attended New Life Missionary Baptist Church sporadically).

Organized sports: Boxing—Golden Gloves runner-up, 1980.

Interests: Outdoors—hunting, fishing, camping, coon dogs. Drama Club—starred in school play.

Traits: Outgoing, popular, talkative, loud, and into trouble.

Crime: (Some information provided by anonymous caller the day after the murder) Burk allegedly broke into farmhouse owned by Cyrus Duffie, August 28, 1982. In struggle with Duffie, Duffie was shot and killed with handgun registered in Duffie’s name. Forensics and autopsy reports reveal one shot was fired pointblank. Slug penetrated the heart. Gunpowder residue found on deceased’s right hand. Fingerprints found on the Smith and Wesson belong to both Burk and Duffie. Gun discharged once.

* * *

Ruston had made two trips to Fredericktown in preparing to write Billy Boy’s biography. The bio, when pieced together, would include a picture of a fifteen-year old Burk scanned from a high school yearbook, and another picture of Billy taken twenty-five years later—his mug shot snapped after his arrest in Winslow, Arizona for peace disturbance. The same picture had been circulating on a wanted poster (Ruston bought a copy on the Internet for eighteen dollars), and finally there was a shot of the Burk homestead, which consisted of a rundown house, vacant for thirteen years. The house partially hid two shabby outbuildings. The structures, a barn and a tool shed, leaned so precariously that they gave the impression that they were purposely peering around the side of Burk’s boyhood home spying on the road out front. A weedy pasture lapped up to the road and surrounded the buildings. The weed patch bristled with twelve-foot high hawthorns. The intern for the St. Louis paper took the picture himself. It was a rainy weekend, and he had time to spare.

From the road Rusty looked at the empty house—a ghost of itself. He asked himself: How many generations of people had called it home? He thought, also, of the holidays that the old house had hosted.

After taking the picture, and despite the sign that warned in faded orange letters, TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED Rusty Ruston left the road and stepped through the tall weeds, stopping now and then to pull stick-tights from his trousers.

The intern walked around the weathered remains of Billy Boy’s boyhood home. Paint had peeled from the small house’s wood siding; the windows were broken out. Inside he could see empty rooms. Between the tool shed and the barn, he discovered what appeared to have been a dog pen and next to the pen, all but lost in the tall weeds, Ruston found three small, wooden crosses standing upright. He knelt in front of the nearest cross, pulled back the wet grass, and looked closely at the letters carved deep with a knife, GINGER.

Pet graves. Ruston thought to himself, Three of them where Billy Boy Burk had buried the three things that meant the most to him. It was almost as if he had come face-to-face with the fugitive himself, and Mark Ruston felt a chill like a spirit blowing through his soul. He stood quickly to leave but felt faint after rising. Waiting until the sensation passed, he looked around the grounds feeling as if someone or something was watching.

The young trees filling in the pasture and surrounding the house, the buildings crumbling where they stood—he could see the future. In time all would be lost. All vestiges of Billy Boy Burk, his mom, his dad, all testaments to their being would vanish as they had for countless others, and as they would someday for him.

The Burk property butted up against the Mark Twain National Forest, and